Tenebrae Manor (30 page)

34: The Black Rose Tree

Stricken with a feverish energy, an unbridled chaos, the forest quivered with discomfort. As though it were trying to shake off a coat that does not fit properly, it shuddered with the increase of commotion under its canopy. Fog shrouded all. Through the haze, the boles of ageless conifers rose ominously like the undead, thrusting jet black from the opaque grey of fog.

             
As the horses charged on, the trees gave off the impression of marching. A poorly formed assemblage, for the trees sprouted wherever they pleased, yet they carried the same cold indifference pertaining to a ruthless army. Above the sound of hooves that stamped out a war-drum percussion, the cries of the forest monsters resonated. Their throaty bellows rocked the branches and caused the pine needles to shiver with a whispering rustle.

             
Even with the tumultuous uncertainty seeded in his heart, Bordeaux still breathed deep the air of his darkled home. The sickly sweet permeations of pine invigorated him and he found himself feeling more alive than he had in some time. Not deterring from the urgency of his mission, this euphoria he felt was not shared by his companions.

             
As he held the reins tightly, Bordeaux felt a similar gripping on his shaggy clothes, as Deadsol, who was sitting behind him, clung in fear to his friend's shoulders. Ahead of them, Crow rode at a furious pace with Edweena as his passenger.

The wood hermit cut through the trees one-way and then another in a desperate attempt to find the black rose tree. Part of him prayed he was heading in the correct direction.

The terrain rose and fell in no particular pattern and eventually the ground beneath them began to slope steadily downhill. The pounding of drums took on a clearer sound, so that soon the clacking of sticks could be discerned above the din. The horses tore on down the slope, until a clearing spread out before them.

The tree grew immense from the pit, overshadowing the ground that lay littered with roots and thorny tendrils.

"There is no mistaking," called Crow. "This must be the place."

It needn't be said, for each of them regaled some instance of recognition at the sight of the tree. Bordeaux instantly remembered the drawings he had seen in Rune's book. Edweena and Deadsol were certain they had seen similar tree-like shapes about Tenebrae Manor - on sigils and tapestry, jewelry and ornament.

There was an evident commotion at the foot of the tree. For while most of the wood golems circled the tree in some tribalistic ritual, several hovered around a certain part of the trunk, swinging their clubbed arms.

"There he is!" cried Deadsol.

The four of them dismounted and looked towards the chaos where Comets was thrashing about like a feral dog. His eyes were glassed over with a frighteningly absent shade of red; he gnashed and scratched at the golems like a creature threatened. The wood heart remained firmly in his grasp and in plain sight of the monsters, so that he was clutching the thing under one arm and throwing a flurry of punches with the other.

"We can't get to him. He is utterly surrounded!" cried Edweena.

"All they want is the wood heart," said Bordeaux. "We just need him to give it up and get out of there."

"They seem uninterested in all else. We don't have much time," added Crow.

"There must be a simple way of going about this," Bordeaux began but before he could continue, he felt a push in his back.

From behind him, Deadsol had raced forward into the mess of monsters.

"Deadsol!"

"No time for this! I must help him!" blurted Deadsol.

The copper demon threw himself into the arena and began wading through the crowd of golems. They rose in waves all around him and he found himself wrestling away a few who tried to take him down.

"The idiot!" said Edweena. "Crow and I will get Deadsol. Bordeaux; get to Comets!"

Crow leapt into the fight with sword blows, while Edweena flew at the beasts with her claw-like hands, though it was immediately apparent that the golems grossly outnumbered them. So great were their numbers that not a segment of ground could be discerned amongst the tide of stitched face and knuckled wooden limbs. The glisten of steel from Crow's sword cut through the dull darkness and the sound of blows bellowed with each beast that was struck down.

Bordeaux, weaponless bar his fists (which in turn were rarely called upon for such hostilities), threw aside his usual pedantry for the sake of his friends and furiously charged towards Comets. The strength of his adrenalin startled him, as he scooped up and threw several of the golems surrounding Comets. He was closing in on the imp jester, who was still flailing like a cornered canine, utterly devoid of his own higher consciousness.

Bordeaux reached for him and wrested him up, where he thrashed like a disobedient child in his arms. The wood heart glowed ominously in his grasp, as wood golems began to attack Bordeaux more fiercely.

"Comets! Give up the shiny thing," he pleaded.

Comets growled deeply and kicked in primal fury, he clearly had no recognition of the man holding him. He scratched at Bordeaux's chest, before issuing a sharp bite on his arm.

Bordeaux cried in pain and dropped Comets, who, in turn, dropped the wood heart to the ground, where it tumbled in amongst the thorny tendrils.

Quickly recovering, Bordeaux scrambled for the heart, though he was beaten to the goal by Comets and several wood golems.

"Bordeaux!" cried Edweena from afar.

The crimson demon turned to see animated corpses now being lowered from the branches of the black rose tree. These horrifying spectres, hung by their necks, joined the squabble from above, like spiders descended from a thread. The twisted animations of their awkward punches and grasps chilled Bordeaux's blood. These fallen souls were trespassers who had tried to steal the wood heart in times past. Edweena writhed about in the clutches of a corpse, while Deadsol hopelessly beat at the thing with his fists.

Bordeaux was torn; he turned back to see that Comets had been upended by another of these corpses and thrashed hopelessly in its grasp several feet above the ground. Beneath him, the wood golems leapt angrily for the wood heart. Bordeaux turned back to Edweena and was about to run to her when Crow entered the scene and cut the strangling corpse from its noose. They fell to the ground in a heap, with Edweena having enough time to escape.

"Forget us, Bordeaux!" said Crow. "Get to Comets!"

Bordeaux wasted no time in rushing to the aid of the jester, leaping at the feet of the corpse and clabbering up its legs. The cadaver had Comets in a crushing stranglehold; the jester’s face turning a despairing shade of purple as his life was choked from him. He seemed to be trying to drop the wood heart to the ground but from his position he could not shift the thing from under his arm.

Bordeaux struggled in vain to dislodge the iron grip of the corpse arm from around Comets’ neck but the fiend held with such deathly tightness. The trio grappled at one another in midair, held by the tendril about the neck of the corpse.

Bordeaux felt his arms weaken and feared he could not hang on for much longer. He pulled desperately at the strangling arm, bringing himself up level with the face of the villain. And when their eyes locked, Bordeaux felt his heart lurch with disbelief. There was something in those sunken oculi - a terrifying ascendancy that Bordeaux recognised instantly.
              He was staring into the very face of Malistorm, Tenebrae Manor’s lost leader.

Yes, that shock of white hair; now thinned and decaying; that purple cloak, torn and frayed from exposure to the elements. It was the very same Malistorm he had once submitted to.

Upon this revelation, Bordeaux became limp of limb and plummeted to the ground, where he could only gape in despair at the unfettered hatred displayed by the former baron.

The wood golems had begun clambering up the trunk of the tree in an attempt to reach the struggling pair, while Edweena rushed to Bordeaux’s side. Behind them, Crow dragged a hysterical Deadsol away from the madness.

“Bordeaux, we have to leave,” said Edweena. “They’ll get their relic back.”

Bordeaux gritted his teeth. “Is there nothing we can do for Comets?”

Edweena tugged at his arm gently, before starting on a sudden. Above all the noise and ruckus, she had not noticed a change in the sky. It was a subtle alteration, the edges of the sky above the trees glowed with a foreign brightness that she struggled to comprehend.

“Bordeaux - look.”

The palette of the forest was transforming – the monochromatic darkness slowly being overcome with a wash of colours. The fog lifted, the trees became greener, the deepest violet of the skies diluting into an array of pink and orange; and at the furthest corners -
the sky blue of the early dawn.

“Day!” gasped Bordeaux.

Were Edweena’s pale pallor capable of further whiteness, it no doubt would have turned as such. The night grew weaker by the second, like a veil pulled, a lid lifted, a coffin unearthed. The trees yawned with the morning light, squinting with a quiver of branches, as the sun appeared from the horizon in a blinding dazzle.

Edweena ran for the coverage of a nearby tree, kicking fitfully at the creeping shadows that shortened all around her. As the day broke over Tenebrae forest, Bordeaux threw himself over Edweena as a shield as, above her screams of agony, another phenomenon occurred.

As the sun pierced its rays onto the black rose tree, it began to crystallize. The branches retracted, as do the legs of a drowned insect, the thorny roots groaning as they gripped the soil and hardened further. All the wood golems around the tree petrified at the first glimpse of light, the corpses hissing dreadfully as they disintegrated to nothingness.

Comets, true to his name, fell lifelessly earthbound with a thud, the shooting star glow of the wood heart growing faint in his limp grasp until it rolled away from him, indiscernible from any other colourless rock.

              Then, all at once, the sky reversed on itself. From the apex of the heavens, the night returned. Its creeping black billows spread towards the horizons like a dust cloud until there was no trace that change had ever disrupted the eternal night. The pines stood silent again, the moans of the last dying golems drifted off into the leaves and Bordeaux, Deadsol and Crow hurried to avail Comets and Edweena.

By the time the silence settled and the stars appeared, thousands of black rose blossoms shed their petals from the perished tree, where they fell in a shroud of dark snowflakes.

35: Raison D’être

In her heavily sedated state, Edweena suffered fits of pain foreign to anything she had felt before. In spite of her vampiric nature, she thrashed like a mortal on death road. She knew herself to be dreaming, yet it seemed she could recall no other reality and she began to fear that perhaps she wasn't asleep at all and that this pain really was her lot.

              The same vision haunted her time and again - she stood perilously close to a cliff face, where she felt herself forced closer to the brink by a wall of tendrils behind her. The formless void of the abyss, where it may otherwise be black as pitch, was instead, filled with a blinding light that stung Edweena's eyes to look upon. The bloodstained tears that fell from her despairing eyes singed her cheeks; she felt she was being punished for acknowledging the pain. When the lashing of vines became all too much, she fell into the white pit where flames would engulf her instantly and her subconscious faded to black to protect her from further torment.

All would then divulge into a myriad of patterns. Squares of uneven grey stone would dance in their chequer pattern amongst shifting shadows until they warped and contorted, only to become entwined in a windowpane that threw shafts of light across her. Edweena would feel as though tangled in cloth or perhaps the sticky web of a monstrous arachnid and despite her fitful kicks, she could not detangle herself. Soon, her weakness would overwhelm her and she would again fall to sleep. And all too soon, those tendrils would reappear in her mind's eye; the urge to cry out would envelop her, only this time she heard a voice call her name.

The tendrils before her now writhed and withered, before settling into the shape of a tree branch framed by a windowsill. The jagged square stones retracted until she realised she was gazing vacantly at the ceiling above.

"Edweena," the voice called again.

She knew the voice, the recognition of it swelling her heart with hope. All at once, she remembered what had happened and where she was.

Edweena's vision cleared until the stately form of her old friend Bordeaux took shape beside her. But could this really be him? This man cut a figure so dapper, so true to the Bordeaux she knew - but hadn’t he become more disheveled? Hadn't he returned from an exile full faced with beard, clothes shabby and hair ragged? Yet there he stood in all his streamlined charm, his maroon suit devoid of blemish down to the most minutely misplaced stitch, his gaunt jaw line clean-shaven and framed by a tidy length of groomed red curls.

He was looking down at her and Edweena now realised she was laying on a lounge in her old drawing room. Confusion settled over her, for she remembered this place to be completely overrun with vines and branches. It felt almost as if she had been hurled backwards through time.

“You’ve awoken.”

Propping herself up on her elbows, Edweena shook the cobwebs from her mind. “How is it that I am here? Was this room not ruined?”

Bordeaux paced about the room and ran his hand along the peeling wallpaper. “Tarnished? Yes. Ruined? No. The vines died along with the monsters. It was simply a matter of clearing the trimmings in preparation for your awakening. I had hoped you could awake in a familiar place.”

“That is sweet of you,” Edweena smirked, sitting up.

“I could have placed you in a coffin like some common vampire,” laughed Bordeaux. “But I am reasonably
au fait
that you despise such clichés.”

“I am not one to be locked in a box.”

“Not while blood flows hot through the hearts of your victims, eh what?”

Edweena gasped on a sudden. “The wood heart! What happened?”

Bordeaux turned to face her. “Destroyed, deary. Along with the golems and the black rose tree. Nobody will have possession of such a relic again and I fear that nobody ever should.”

“Of course, the light,” said Edweena, clasping her head at the recollection. “Daylight…”

“Indeed. You were rather badly burnt. We had all of us feared for your recovery.”

Here, Edweena examined her arms, from which the flaking of her fragile skin peeled menacingly. To see such injuries reminded her of the intense pain she had felt, so that she shuddered involuntarily.

“All that evil, gone…”

“Perished with the sunlight,” replied Bordeaux.

“Sunlight… How?”

With a brisk gesture of his hand, Bordeaux directed her attention to the door, where the Lady Libra had recently entered and stood timidly. She seemed to be attempting to maintain a dignified composure but to see that Edweena was awake filled her with a childish joy that left her trembling with excitement.

“Ah! You’re back with us!” she beamed, before gathering her regality. “Good.”

“Miss Libra, Edweena was just inquiring of the sunlight that saved our Tenebrae Manor.”

Libra strode deeper into the room to Edweena’s side and sat herself down on a nearby chair.

“Surely you will forgive me. The day was my doing. Those monsters only thrive in darkness; I hoped that to reverse the spell of our eternal night would dispatch them but…”

“But you knew it would place me in mortal peril,” finished Edweena.

“You must have known it to be a difficult decision!” Libra pleaded earnestly. “But I had to try it. I had to take a stand. I was reminded of a certain comment, something along the lines of ‘only moving when a fire is lit beneath me’.”

Edweena stared intensely at Lady Libra for several seconds before her face softened into a smile. Libra, who had awaited her response with apprehension, sighed with relief.

“You are right, Libra. Risking one life for the sake of many others. And to save our home… It was the move of a good leader. I forgive you.”

Lady Libra only smiled and shuffled awkwardly in her chair before she was snatched up in a hug from Edweena.

“Incidentally,” said Libra, “You need not worry about my ‘leadership’ any further.”

“Oh?”

“I have been speaking with Bordeaux,” continued Libra. “And we both decided that he would be more fitting at managing the manor.”

“At your service,” smirked Bordeaux.

“And he will do a fine job,” said Libra. “Malistorm would be pleased. Now would you excuse me? Worrying about your wellbeing has positively exhausted me.”

Lady Libra, with the elegance native to her grandiose attitude, left the room with a dignified ambling, until the swishing of her dress faded away down the corridor.

Bordeaux had moved to the window, where he admired the beauty of the taiga beyond.

“That hideous creature that you fought with,” said Edweena. “I know who it was. What became of our little Comets?”

Bordeaux’s head dropped for a moment and left Edweena to fear the worst, before he spoke again. “Comets is fine.” He turned his head towards the vampiress as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

“As exuberant as ever, I am pleased to report,” he continued. “By the by, I have assigned him and Deadsol to begin repairing our rather damaged home.”

“We will all help,” said Edweena.

****

The rebuilding of Tenebrae Manor was a process both slow and difficult, yet with the abundance of time bestowed upon the lives of those who dwelt within, it was not an insurmountable task.

Comets, having recovered from the tumultuous events of recent past, was set to work on assisting the construction of broken rooms and windows, the clearing of debris and other tasks which fulfilled his lustful energy. Having zero recollection of his possession by the wood heart, he scampered about the place with his chum, Deadsol, who was pleased beyond belief that his friend had pulled through such turmoil. And in spite of the pair’s boundless yearning for destruction and mischief, they wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to help restore Tenebrae Manor to its former archaic glory. Under the fair command of Bordeaux, they found little reason to object and were only too willing to oblige.

Compelled too was the scarecrow, Sinders. Having no desire to relocate back to his dingy and burned-out shack, he too took up the task assigned to Deadsol and Comets.

Yet Tenebrae Manor was an impossibly large place and, despite their best efforts, only those more important restorations were completed. For the mansion was undeniably gothic and the rule for any gothic setting is that of a ruinous mood, a lament of a bygone era.

As such, the trio soon grew bored and returned to their rascally ways, leaving Bordeaux to reluctantly accept their resignation.

****

Rune, Tenebrae’s archaic antiquarian, continued to go quietly about his ways in the windowless vault of the library. Always a being of inimitable wisdom wrapped in forgetfulness, he could hardly recall that his home was ever under any threat. The trials that he knew of were those faced by nameless folk in old books and in most books, there is always a hero who ties up the loose ends of any story. As such, old Rune never let himself be troubled by the happenings beyond the walls of his library, ultimately representing a recluse within a recluse. Having lived through so many years, the events of recent times – the wood golems, the slow destruction of the house around him, these were little more than a blip in his interminable existence.

****

The entry foyer had adorned the cloak of monochrome native to the current hour, known in some cultures as a witching hour of sorts. The Usher stood at his post. He had remained a statue for so long, the still subject of an artwork that nobody was painting. Certainly the scene was brilliant in its simplicity. But with the brush of a master artist, it could easily be transformed into a layered complexity.

The moon hung low in the sky where it threw long shadows across the tiled floor, like nets cast into the sea. The painter would need little more than black and white on his palette, between which a kaleidoscope of greys mixed into a nauseating haze. The clock ticked and for a moment, the big dusty shoulders of The Usher rose slowly and fell in a heavy sigh. The corner of his scarred mouth twitched, his eyes blinked slowly. Then suddenly he stepped forward and in doing so, stepped completely out of his comfort zone.

Usher opened the mighty front door of Tenebrae Manor, not because he had heard a knock, rather that he felt the impulse to do anything else but stand still. The cold night air gushed in, sending a fluttering of disturbance through the carpet and curtains; owls complained at the disruption of their warm dozing.

Usher stared out beyond the threshold of the manor. Nothing moved; no being was there to accept his invitation inside. Where another heavy sigh would have been appropriate, Usher instead gazed vacantly at the forest beyond, before closing the door and returning to his post.

****

Although the Mute Chef never quite recovered from the heavy sorrow of Madlyn’s passing, he would eventually return to his bustling ways and soon the kitchen was as alive as it ever had been. And even though few stopped to admire his culinary talent, he felt evermore comforted by the strange presence that possessed his sweating home. Peculiar occurrences dotted his progress – plates were smashed, the suds of soapy dishwater were splashed onto the floor and certain objects went missing from his larder. But these events did not upset the chef at all, across his face there even peeled a smile. For there were also hours when the pots would boil on their own accord and within the mist of steam above he could discern a ghostly shape of girl he had once known and truly cared for in his own way.

And whenever he saw this apparition, he could not help but utter a series of mirthful chuckles disguised as uncontrollable wheezes; had he a working voice box, his happiness would no doubt echo throughout the manor.

****

The auditorium had been silent for so long that it was hard to believe anyone had ever inhabited its walls at all. Mice scurried across the carpet, as the empty red seats waited on a movement, any movement at all from the darkened stage. And when the ghostly audience fell crestfallen (for an absence of art is truly the greatest tragedy) and when all hope had been given up for the coming of a hero who might inject new ideas into cultural enlightenment, the great doors of the place swung open.

The composer, the great Arpage Espirando Notturno puffed out his shallow chest, threw a slimy reed of his hair back into its place on his greasy scalp and walked forward into his domain. Sighing in purest ecstasy, he took great delight in the click of his shoes on the floor and the hush of his green cardigan tails trailing behind him. The mice fled from sight, fearing the cat had returned and that now was not the time for play. Were they capable of speech, of instilling fear into their disobedient offspring, they would have murmured, “There is the greatest musician of them all, the magnificent Arpage!”

But Arpage paid no attention to the rodents as he glided across the stage,
his stage
, where he blew kisses and thrust his arms skyward to his imaginary audience. For all his supposed pomp and grandeur, upon climbing the ladder and completing the long awaited reunion with his loft, he could not help skipping gaily on the spot.

Brushing his emaciated fingers along the keys of his organ, he struck at a single note, A for Arpage and shuddered at its crisp beauty. And when he passed the tattered couch and sat down at his note-cluttered drawing board, he whimpered blissfully, placing his face down onto its surface.