Tenebrae Manor (28 page)

31: More
Rascalities Of Deadsol & Comets

A rather strange turning of events occurred at Tenebrae Manor and readily threw its residents into further anxiety. Indeed, it seemed to toy with inevitability to a certain extent; the wood golems persistent attacks at the Manor's facade led to a wall collapsing at one particular point, leaving a long abandoned bedroom on the ground floor victim to the outside elements. And further compounding its need for a savior, the branches that strangled the house had caused a section of roof to collapse in on itself, crunched under the bruising blow of tendrils. Vines had readily cracked many of the windows and the halls begun to echo with the ghostly winds that found ingress into them.

             
The watch employed by Crow and Edweena had bought but minimal time and as the hours wore on, it appeared that they were losing ground at an increasingly rapid rate.

             
It was from a stretch of parapet lined with a few meager torches that the triptych of Crow, Deadsol and Comets observed the dire happenings on the ground several stories below them. The wind carried with it a bite that cut through the fleecy pelt of Crow's coat, so that he sat huddled with a pipe in his mouth, eyes invariably scanning the forest. It was an almost canine obedience with which he had pursued his station of sentry, which had taken its toll on his weary body; the mortal sat nodding and fighting off the sleep that beckoned him. Beside him, the glistening steel of his sword reflected brilliantly the green of his ivy leaf shield.

             
Deadsol stood absently nearby, his endless polishing of a rather sharp saber providing a release of energy for the wildly rambunctious demon. And of rambunctiousness - Comets, the very definition of the word, balanced precariously on his toes and tottered along the castle wall, teasing the gaping maw of darkness that lurked below. In his hands, two pikes on which the heads of slain wood golems stared from deadpan eyes served as a means of balance for the sickening trapeze act undertaken by the jester.

The wind blew again in a silvery gust, startling Crow from his doze and very nearly dropping his pipe from his mouth.

He sat up groggily, grabbing both his sword and the attention of his two henchmen.

"Best be patrolling. I suppose I can trust you two to keep watch up here?"

Deadsol stopped polishing his saber and fashioned a rather devious grin. "Trust? Why, how could you doubt us now? We have proven worth, surely."

"Thinks we'll mess up, he does," mumbled Comets.

"You two, really... It was a passing comment," said Crow. "Trifle use it is to have all three of us up here; I'll go circumvent the place. No doubt I can pick off a few golems while I'm at it."

"But you are so fatigued, dear sir!" replied Deadsol. "Consider Comets and I going in your stead."

Crow rubbed his eyes, darkened about the rims with exhaustion. The moral dilemma nagged at him; he wondered whether he could trust the harlequins to perform astutely.

"I... I could not allow it. You boys have been splendid thus far but I believe I am more suited to slaying these beasts."

"Told you," said Comets. "Didn't I? Thinks we'll singlehandedly doom the place."

Deadsol produced a magnificent pout that seemed curiously out of place on his masculine jaw line, while Crow scratched thoughtfully at his chestnut curls.

"Three hours," said Crow. "That's all I require. Let me doze a while."

Deadsol thrust his sword skyward. "There's a fellow! Fear not, Crow! Comets and I care for this manor as much as you do."

"Besides, we'll be here a bit longer than you..." sneered Comets.

Crow grimaced at such a comment and remained in a state of cautiousness. Yet when he directed his glance towards the jester and saw the merciless lack of emotion emitted by Comets as he clapped the two golem heads together, he felt somewhat at ease.

"Keep close watch on that front door," said Crow. "And where that wall collapsed. Fail me at your own peril."

Comets held the two pikes either side of his head, so that he looked like a ghastly cousin of Cerberus. From betwixt the frowning deadpan of the perished golems he peeled a chilling grin across his face. "Wouldn't dream of failing you, dear."

Deadsol had already left their side. As Comets chased after him, Crow stood silent in the wind with his cape blustering in the gale and wondered whether he had just made a clinical error.

It took Deadsol several minutes to make his way from the top of the manor to the ground floor and when he eventually burst out the front door, he stood with arms akimbo and breathed in the dark forest air. He bounced on his feet gaily and tapped his hand upon the hilt of his sword as though it were a trusty guard dog. A clattering was heard in the foyer behind him and presently Comets slammed the front door behind him and pulled up alongside. The jester carried a small mace in one hand and held a stuffed cloth sack over his shoulder. Crowning – or rather encompassing his bulbous head was a knight helmet with a red feathery plume jutting from the apex. The rabbit ears of his motley cap had been pressed down so as to accommodate his head within the mask, yet the bells still rang loudly as they dangled like earrings under his chin.

“Well my boy,” said Deadsol. “When man must face up to his enemy, aggression is paramount and carnage – the key. I say, Comets! Where did you get all this?”

“What do you care?” replied Comets, flicking the visor of the helmet up.

“I see the benefits in such a helmet, young man. But can you see?”

“Of course! Watch this.”

Comets closed the visor and swung the mace over his head, Deadsol having to step aside to avoid being clobbered. The jester ran in a straight line and lashed out at the first tree in his path. He threw lumbering shots at the trunk with his mace, which seemed a little on the heavy side for such a small wielder.

Deadsol laughed triumphantly, clutching his belly with mirth.

“Well done, son! We shall win back the mansion yet!”

“Then what?” asked Comets. “Libra hates us, Bordeaux is dead. Will we remain here with that gourmand above us?”

“Then we will wander as vagabonds in the perennial gloom! Until then, these beasties are threatening our home. Will
you
allow it?”

Comets shook his fist in the air with inhumane determination.

They began to patrol in a wide circle around the house.

We are the vagabond,

We wander place to place

With derelict aplomb

And apogee of grace.

We are the vagabond,

We are what we are.

But soon again we drift along

And chase our endless star.

We are the vagabond,

And who are you to judge

Our hate of higher echelon -

The venom of our grudge!

Inattentive to the dangers that surrounded them, Deadsol and Comets sang their song and ruthlessly destroyed anything that crossed their path. Though they made such a racket and drew the attention of the wood golems with ease, the monsters were strangely impotent in their retaliation.

Comets was particularly aggressive, as though he stood possessed by some unknown force, endowed with a brute strength that brutally punished his opponents. His mace splintered the heads of unwary golems with bruising obliteration, while Deadsol’s razor sharp saber easily severed the vines that clung to Tenebrae Manor.

Their confidence increased with every kill; soon the boys had circled the manor several times. Deadsol grew fatigued and hoped that their three hours was soon coming to an end. Meanwhile, Comets, with boundless energy, continued to wreck a path of destruction through the forest.

“Hold fast, Comets!” called Deadsol, pulling up beside a small sapling whose branches had already begun to reach for Tenebrae Manor like a baby reaching for its mother.

“Slaying these creatures is a cake-walk, wouldn’t you say?” said Comets.

“Exactly, my lad. It comes down to simple logic,” replied Deadsol.

Comets tilted his head, perplexed.

“Consider this,” said Deadsol, pointing his saber at the sapling. “What is this?”

“A tree,” replied Comets.

“Precisely. But really, what is a tree?”

“A big stick with leaves on it.”

“Brilliant,” said Deadsol. “Absolutely brilliant.”

For a moment, Deadsol stood admiring his own analogy to the extent that Comets flung his hands in the air and pleaded for his friend to get to the point.

“Ah, yes. As I was saying – a big stick is merely wood, yes? Now consider this saber.”

“Steel,” said Comets.

“Exactly. And what do they say of wood and steel – which would yield?”

“Enough perorating, Deadsol! The wood bows to the steel!”

“Ha!” cried Deadsol, swinging his saber at the sapling and slicing it in twain.

Comets clapped his hands in delight and laughed like a maniac at the moon.

Deadsol sheathed his saber, “So long as we have the intelligence and the menace, Tenebrae Manor will not be lost!”

Comets rummaged through his cloth sack and hurled several golem heads into the shrubbery before pulling out something of a similar size and cradling it in his arms.

“So long as I have this…” he murmured.

“Comets, what is that?” gaped Deadsol.

Comets stared cautiously at his friend, a certain emptiness in his eyes suddenly frightened Deadsol. The jester held forth the object – a glowing
heart-shaped amulet.

“Stole it from Libra’s room,” he uttered quietly. “It’s
mine
now.”

“Allow me to see that, boy! What beauty!”

Deadsol reached out his hand but retracted it instantly as Comets savagely bit down on his fingers. The demon was startled, clutching his fingers in pain and when he looked again at Comets, the jester’s eyes glowed blood red.

“Comets? Come now, let’s give the pretty thing back to Libra.”

“Never!” the jester barked. “Libra thinks she can hoard this for herself? It’s mine,
mine!”

Deadsol was now genuinely concerned for his friend, who was undeniably possessed by the power of the wood heart.

From the forest, the grueling moans of the wood golems seemed to increase. Comets perked up at the sound and stared from reddened eyes into the trees.

Before Deadsol was able to restrain him, the jester had run off, leaving his friend apprehensive for the first time in a long while.

32: L’Unica Strada

The road could not be called as such anymore. Hitherto it had transitioned through stages of varying widths - at times broad as a great highway and at others, little more than a narrow lane way. Yet now it seemed to have funnelled in on itself, its sides had crept inward until they almost met and the dusty trail was barely distinguishable through the overhanging ferns. Perhaps it was merely the scratching of branches that proved irritating but in any account, Bordeaux's horse protested the journey along the tightrope of path. The beast had endured greater challenges thus far; whisked away from a seaside existence, she had carried Bordeaux through forests and rocky mountains, across grassy steppes and sleet-struck plateaux. But this wood had been the tipping point, the moment when the horse could tolerate no more.

              Bordeaux attempted to calm her and allowed her to slow to a crawling pace. The demon’s own back was burdened by a heavy satchel, filled with various objects - the hat and coat he had stolen, a few scraps of food.

             
As he turned his head to the canopy, where sunlight filtered in swathes through the green, he reminisced the days that had gone by and tried to remember how long he had been in this forest. It had been several days since the trees had closed around him and although the road had led him well so far, Bordeaux now doubted its integrity. The wind rushing between the trunks carried no other sound but the rustling of leaves and Bordeaux shivered in the silent isolation.

There was a thread of logic in Bordeaux's persistence of avoiding towns and settlements; he undoubtedly knew Tenebrae Manor stood in a far corner of the forgotten trails of the world and to remain close to major roads or populated countryside was to render his searching nearly ineffectual. In practice it was far bleaker. A certain sense, a feeling of whim kept him on his course, though it was appearing less than likely that he would ever find his way home. The cold indifference of the wind racing through the conifers galvanized his doubt.

Bordeaux dismounted his horse and walked beside her. The path he had followed had all but completely vanished; he now found himself knee deep in ferns and wading devoid of direction. The sun was beginning to set, its fading twilight igniting the forest to a brilliant hue of autumnal fire - of orange and gold.

With thoughts eyed towards retiring for the night at any appropriate spot, Bordeaux was inattentive to the foreign object in his path; that is until his foot struck it and sent a clattering noise through the trees. His horse started, whinnying nervously as the crimson demon scanned the ground for that which he had kicked. The sharp clash of some metal object seemed most likely and he very soon found a cheap tin pail laying discarded amongst the ferns.

Bordeaux picked the thing up by the handle; it was rusted and dented and he wondered how it had gotten there and for how long it had been lost. Naught but trees surrounded him entirely, yet further steps through the forest eventually widened the trail again, until it unveiled an impossibly small village at its end.

Its revealing proved more bemusing than elating; to Bordeaux, it was the least likely settlement he could have imagined. Yet it was certainly populated, for several signs of civilized life gave way. It consisted of a single street, dividing perhaps a dozen buildings, the largest of which boasted a second storey. Each establishment - wooden and dark with grime.
              Somewhere nearby, Bordeaux could discern the lowing of cows and several hens strutted down the dirty street in erratic directions. Laundry hung from windows and flapped like wet flags in the wind. And all around the town, the trees loomed and threatened to swallow it whole.

A shudder lurched down Bordeaux's spine. There was something off putting about this whole place; this apparently nameless place, for he could not discern the town name carved into the decrepit signpost hanging above him. He had assumed the dull creaking sound that filled the air to be that of the sign swinging on its post but no - it was something far more sinister. Hung in various places about the town entrance, the disfigured corpses of hanged beings swayed in the evening breeze, the ropes that bound their necks groaning under decayed dead weight.

Bordeaux stood aghast; the dead were all women, their thanatoid faces forever locked in an expression of despondent hatred. These sentinels, forever silenced by horrid gallows, seemed to issue a stern threat to outsiders - leave this place and forget you had ever seen a thing.

Yet for Bordeaux, they evoked a repressed memory in him most lamentable.

"Witches..." he muttered. "They must be a suspicious lot."

Bordeaux himself had dealt with such accusations in his past, having found no other choice but to flee from many places before he could call them home.

Such a horrid thought, to think that most of these women were probably innocent.

Although he could not feel sorrow for long, for he knew that they had obtained peace through death, while Bordeaux continued to wander the world without a grave to rest. Again he felt the twang of homesickness and realised then that Tenebrae Manor was his only home on this earth, the only place where he could live as he was - happy or no, he could still be himself. He had often confused these thoughts as a longing for his mortal past but only now was it confirmed properly in his mind.

Bordeaux cautiously advanced into the village until he saw a trough of rainwater by the roadside. Tying the reins of his horse to a nearby post, he allowed her to drink, an action undertaken most graciously by the animal. She portrayed the same unease in her composition, braying nervously as Bordeaux stroked her mane soothingly. By now the sun had well and truly set, giving way to a cold purple that would soon fade to black.

From the window of a hut, a small pair of eyes bored into him. When he turned and peered into that gaping blackness in the wooden façade, he saw the eyes belonged to a child. Her gaze gave way to very little expression; no smile curled her lips, nor did her tiny brow contort into a frown. Yet there was an obvious detachment; her eyes were cold as death, looking at Bordeaux as one might look upon an insect - an intrusive insect that must be exterminated swiftly. Bordeaux felt, all at once, completely exposed, standing interrogated in the middle of the street until he moved swiftly onwards. But the girl's eyes never left him and followed him until he was out of sight.

The double storey building would have been taken as a rather simple structure on its own, had it not been surrounded by a multitude of inferior huts. The clock, high up on the front façade of the place was dilapidated at best. Yet its hands still turned and the bell in the high tower remained silent for now.

Rummaging through his satchel, Bordeaux pressed the fedora hat over his horns and stood in the darkness before the building. The night had swallowed all else; the only lights shining in the village squirmed sinuously from its windows. Bordeaux assumed it to be both a town hall that doubled as a tavern of sorts, for he heard the voices of a ruckus within and the clinking of glasses on bar top. The voices were merry and, when he focused, Bordeaux felt his heart skip a beat - he understood what they spoke. He could not believe it! Here, of all places, after months of silence, of miscommunication, he was within earshot of people he could speak to.

In a moment, his wariness left him, yet it was not long before it crept back. Needless to say, he was still a stranger in this isolated town. Would they accept him or eye him with suspicion? Shuddering at the recollection of the hanged women, Bordeaux decided it would be the latter.

He peered through the door and eyed the crowd; it must have been everyone in the town. A plan formulated in his mind -
 he would slip into the crowd and remain scarce, perhaps he could overhear any important information and finally figure out where he was.

There was a certain haze permeating about the interior, the scent of beer and tobacco smoke adding to the soupy atmosphere. Outside, the bell sung with the coming hour and with it, a commotion scuttled through the room. People moved to find a seat wherever they could.

Bordeaux took a moment to grasp whatever activity this strange troupe of villagers were about to undertake. He watched as they gathered in a crowd around a sort of stage area, where two rather haggard men sat tuning crude musical instruments. From the darkest corner of the tavern there stood a man of such short stature that, were it not for the hint of recognition, Bordeaux may not have noticed him at all. And it seemed that this impish creature recognised him too, for he stared blankly from goggled eyes, his pockmarked mouth curling perplexedly. Then all at once the imp man looked away and instead chose to focus his attention to the stage.

The two musicians that had ensconced on stools upon the stage did not exactly carry the same sort of eloquence associated with men of such culture. Where someone like Arpage may have dusted the seat, plucked at the ruff of his neck and ceremoniously bowed deeply to the audience, these two men sat in a vile dishevelment that left them indistinguishable from the other villagers. One of them, a bulky and well-bearded man tested a few notes on a greasy flute - stained with years of use. The other man, sombre shouldered and despondent, turned the tuning pegs of a splintered guitar with an ear inclined towards the instrument, giving the appearance of a fatigued mother cradling a baby.

The rambunctious crowd was reaching an animalistic pitch when the flautist, with a voice that doused the fever of the audience, bellowed forth.

"My pretty people!"

The intoxicated crowd roared a rousing reply. "Fiddler!"

The Fiddler smiled humbly and capped the excitement with a motion of his palm. "Listen me pretties, lend your ears to your darling Fiddler and his most passionate accomplice, Razorback."

"Razorback!" roared the crowd and the guitarist raised his hand in response.

Then, as a teacher scolds a mischievous class, the Fiddler's face contorted in malice and he shouted, "Enough!"

The crowd fell quiet and the smile curled its way back onto the Fiddler's face. Those in the audience stared with adoration, with anticipation and Bordeaux was utterly nonplussed at the control these two bards had over the strange villagers.

Fiddler adjusted the sleeve of his more than haggard brown coat and proceeded to play a series of ornaments on his flute.

"The world has forgotten us, darlings," he continued.

The crowd booed.

"They say!" cried Fiddler. "
They say
our ways are archaic to point of irrelevance! That we of this little shire are narrow-minded!"

"And worthy of neglect," added Razorback.

Again the crowd was irate and Razorback brushed his knuckled fingers over the strings of his guitar. Although the instrument was worn, it produced a beautiful tone and the minor chord he strummed again and again filled the room ominously.

"But we are not without our reasons," said Fiddler. "For we know,
we know,
this world is indeed darker than the heartless void of the devil's very chest!"

Here the crowd began to act peculiar; many of the women crossed themselves or muttered unintelligible oaths. The men, though they all appeared rugged, quivered at the knees and shook their heads.

"The forest is full of horrors," Razorback proclaimed.

"It's true!" bellowed an old man from the audience. "They took my Madeline!"

"Yes sir," said Fiddler. "The ghosts that lurk in those nightmarish trees are merciless - many have been lost."

For a moment the room was silent.

"Yet tonight we celebrate," said Fiddler. "Rejoice! For one of our own returns to us! One of us who we had given up as lost! But this is no phantom you see before you, nor some miraculous Lazarus. No! This is a man who was swallowed by the trees and lived to return; Jethro!"

As the audience cheered at a feverish level, a frail youth climbed onto the stage and smiled nervously. Even with his white and shocked hair, his hollow eyes fraught with terrors he could never forget; even with the emaciated features of his outcast face, Bordeaux instantly recognised the man. It was the very same Jethro, the man who had stumbled upon Tenebrae Manor and its ghoulish residents!

While the crowd shouted in jubilee, he could only attempt to ward away the paralysis of disbelief that constricted him. A mixture of varying emotions rushed through him; foremost being a knee-jerk thought, how had this man come to be here? And when that immediate reaction had subsided, Bordeaux realised he must indeed be very close to Tenebrae Manor, the thought filling him with glee. Yet if this were the very same Jethro, then Bordeaux was in far greater peril than he had anticipated; this man knew of the house where night covers eternal. What if he led the villagers to Tenebrae? What if they came with pitchfork and flame and drove him and his friends from their home? Furthermore; say the villagers approached common society with the matter. Tenebrae Manor would be exposed, no longer could its residents reside in exile. Such thoughts were most dreadful to Bordeaux.

Jethro stood on the stage and waved at the crowd, oblivious to the presence of Bordeaux. The effect of his sojourn under the endless night sky had aged him severely, yet now that he had escaped back to his hometown, he managed a weary smile. The once blonde hairs on his head had faded to a fear-induced white and he was visibly thin and frail. He was being bombarded with a barrage of questions.