Tenebrae Manor (7 page)

The moon thrust its beams like swords through the demented conifer canopy, a grin of unsettling satisfaction was illuminated on the face of Comets the jester. Deadsol and Bordeaux would be most pleased. His coin was warm, clutched tightly in his sweating palm; the manor loomed ahead with its shadowy outline blotting out part of the lunar orb behind it.

But when Comets climbed to the summit, he found that the balcony was empty, devoid of the demon duo. The butt of recently extinguished cigarillo still released its smoky wisps from the tip but all else was still. His gratified countenance was replaced with one of feeble frustration, for there were none to share in his victory over the Wood Golem.

Sighing deeply, the imp took one last look at the totem of his battle, before flinging the head over the balcony. It struck against the jagged cliff face below and tumbled earthward with a dull thump.

"It won't close, my lady."

"It fits," snapped Libra. "Try harder, you stupid!"

Madlyn's clumsy digits trembled with exertion, feebly attempting to close the laces of Libra's corset. The fitted material squealed in protest, struggling to maintain her girth. Flesh bulged from wherever it could find escape in swathes protruding from betwixt fraying seams. Try as she might, Madlyn was unable to properly assist the short-tempered Lady Libra, who resolutely ignored the simple fact that the corset in question no longer fit.

"Oh forget it!" huffed Libra. "I'll wear the dress instead. Fetch my belt."

"Belt, miss?"

"Don't
'belt miss'
me! You know the one I speak of! The ivy leaf!"

Madlyn entered Libra's spacious wardrobe and was met with mountains of cloth and fabric. There had been a stage in Libra's life when she had been in possession of much less excess, a stage when her clothing was hung neatly upon racks and pressed finely until the wrinkles were naught. As her lust for life increased evermore, conversely her enthuse towards keeping her belongings in order declined. She had once demanded that Madlyn were to tidy things up but the simple servant girl had not the ability to match the lady's expectations and, as such, disarray ensued.

A flurry of panic descended onto Madlyn's hummingbird heart; there were dozens of belts before her! Strewn across threaded rock and hillock like serpents lounging in the heat. There were buckles of many shapes and these emblems of antiquity confirmed that Libra had certainly gathered many fine things in years gone by. Belts like snakes with heads of bone, of silver sun, of minuscule bas-relief.

It was through what some call good fortune that Madlyn found the belt in question, a scaly strap of interwoven leather, like the host vines of the brilliant emerald ivy leaf that served as adorning buckle. She snatched it up and returned to the bedroom where Libra had struggled back into her form fitting dress of dusky charcoal.

"You
are
slow but just in time, I suppose..."

Libra took the belt and wrapped it about the spherical orbit of her waist, clasping the two halves of the ivy leaf that would lock together to become whole. There was a struggle, the leaf halves reached for each other's grasp in vain, as Libra sighed and tugged harder. The leather strap of the belt dug into her soft sides until it was all but hidden beneath fleshy bulge. Still the belt would not close.

She inhaled deeply, holding in her paunch back as far as possible, her face turning a flushed fuchsia from both exertion and held breath. The buckles came close, so close, quivering in her strained fingers until finally, they met and interlocked. Libra's breath was short but her face showed an expression of triumph.

"There!" she gasped. "I did it."

Madlyn stared expectantly at the quivering Lady, who was holding herself as still as possible. She looked perfectly ridiculous, as though the belt would slice her soft body in half, squeezing her like a vice grip. Soon her face contorted to a grimace, a wince and what followed was a relieving sigh, an exhale that expanded Libra's belly to its original dimensions.

In a blink, the belt burst open again, detonating like a barrel of gunpowder and flying to a far corner of the room, relieved of the pressure of the ballooning stomach it was subjected to contain. Libra blushed redder still, as Madlyn's accusingly stupid eyes continued to stare.

"What are
you
looking at?" huffed Libra.

It was a look of vague vapidity, although the combination of Madlyn's globular eyes and the small mouth with its upturned corners would have her perceived as a girl of smug intellect to any who didn't know her personally. Her gaze was broken in an instant response to her superior; her eyes cast downward and gawky feet scraping at the ground like a mule.

"It must be the heat. Yes, that's it. It must have shrunken my clothing somehow."

Madlyn smirked and was, no doubt, fortunate that Libra didn't notice. The Lady of Tenebrae Manor had become rather flustered after her episode of wardrobe malfunction and was, as such, further startled when Deadsol cascaded into the room.

"Damn it all. It's you," hissed Libra.

"A prominent man should always make a prominent entry!" replied Deadsol gallantly.

"You should have knocked. What do you want?"

"But a moment, Lady Libra. A tête-à-tête, it would seem!"

"Ugh, be quick. I'm very busy." Libra made no attempt to hide her contempt towards the demon.

****

"She has requested a three tiered cake," said Bordeaux. "She took the liberty of procuring a sketch."

The mute chef accepted the crumpled sheet and examined it, squinting through his weakening eyes. His countenance bore a weight of responsibility, seasoned with a dash of revolt. The picture was crude, as though penned by a child but its message was coherent enough. The chef nodded astutely.

"You have my thanks, good sir."

Bordeaux patted him on the back and winced at the touch of greasy kitchen attire, that of sweat and food spillage. The crimson demon held his hand away from his person as though it were some foreign article he wished to dispose of, before eyeing an apron hung upon a nearby rack with which he proceeded to wipe his hand clean.

"This is, to me, only worsening her situation," said Edweena.

Bordeaux allowed himself a smirk. Leaving the chef to his work, demon and vampiress trudged through the dank corridors of Tenebrae's lower ground floor, where no ventilation gave fresh breath to its sweating walls. The floor, black as coal with the grime of insects, coated in dust moistened by perspiration and footsteps numbering in their thousands; seemed to absorb all colour, as though it were ready to swallow up careless travelers into a doomed quicksand.

Withdrawing further from the kitchen, Bordeaux and Edweena began to discern certain echoes flitting in the sombre melancholy; the echoes of their sedated voices, their shambled footfall.

"You mustn’t overdo it," said Edweena.

"It is my duty."

"Be that or no, you must give yourself rest at some point."

They entered the wine cellar and Bordeaux took up in his hand a torch that hung at the entrance. The roars of the kitchen gave way to a bellowing silence, in pitch as inky as the ocean floor. Shelves of bottled antiquity faded into a sickening black. None argued that the chilling macabre in Tenebrae's cellars was without peer; its foreboding horror lay sick with feverish darkness, as though the gates to the very underworld itself stood rusting nearby.

The solitary torch shone meekly, of such dull orange that no comfort could be taken from its light. Bottles shone with its reflection, sidling silently past as the two friends plunged further into the cavern. Their eyes stood out in the gloom, ruby and sapphire, both in their respective pairs.

Bordeaux stopped before a portion of shelf no different to the rest and retrieved a certain vintage. "This is the one," he mused. Then, as though remembering Edweena's recent statement, replied, "It is but once a year I must endure such stress. I will rest after."

Edweena's eyes shone, intense with the blue fire of her discord.

"I simply could not handle it if Libra were to fly off into another juvenile rage," he added. "Regardless of the injustice arisen each year from her birthday, I find answer to her every whim at this time of year much less taxing than rebellion. Wouldn't you agree?"

Bordeaux stared intently at Edweena, whose internal fury was churning with each thought of the unjust mistress of Tenebrae Manor.

"But it isn't fair," she implored. "Why should you have to do all this work? We stand in this darkled cellar, searching for some wine long lost to the ages, while she is upstairs, no doubt, lounging in luxury as we speak."

Bordeaux thought a moment, a moment where the silence became deafening, a torrential ocean crashing shoreward in booming waves.

"One must do something to pass time here."

****

Libra sat upon the edge of the chaise lounge with a slow elegance met with the groan of chair beneath weight. Madlyn obediently filled the gorgon's coffee cup and timidly placed a pair of sugar cubes towards the beverage with little tongs.

"Give that here, Madlyn. I'll do it. Deadsol and I will speak alone."

Madlyn stared blankly.

"That means you leave."

Upon realisation, the girl started for the door, her kneecaps clashing against one another below her greasy smock.

"Ah, miss! Wait! Allow me the honour," said Deadsol, showing a gentlemanly care in escorting Madlyn to the door. With a gentle push on her slight back, the girl was gone and replaced with the noisy ingress of Comets. The imp made no hesitation in advancing to Libra’s vanity and rummaging through the various trinkets there.

"That accursed little rodent," Libra hissed. "Why have you brought him?"

Deadsol feigned abashed shock.

"Comets, you capricious lout, you forget yourself!"

The imp rolled his eyes and bowed with unsettling grace, were he capable of lowering himself further, it seemed doubtless he would do so; only his legs were far too short, his feet far too long, to allow a comfortable bend of knee.

"Ditch the facade, little man. Deadsol!
He
must leave as well."

Comets needed no invitation to leave, scuttling out the way he'd come with the bells of his cap rattling. The door was slammed.

"I do not know why you tolerate that boy," said Libra, still filling her coffee with sugar cubes.

"Ah, if only you knew, miss. A couple of peas we are; Miss Libra. Peas of a pod, birds of a feather, a chip off the old..."

"That is quite enough, Deadsol."

The demon corrected his posture but was instantly on the move again, pacing about the lavish room. His eyes searched, his moustache twitched. In short, the man was rummaging and making little attempt at discretion. His exaggeration of motions was unbearably overt.

"Deadsol."

"Miss?"

"Why are you here?"

Deadsol was taken aback. "Why, she asks? One can not inquire on his ladyship's health and well being?"

"One can but that isn't why you're here. The Deadsol that I know does not simply 'inquire upon his ladyship's health.' Explain yourself."

Her coffee had morphed into a sugary pulp, thick as syrup, not that Libra had cause to object. She downed the potion swiftly before the cup was refilled with a wave of her smooth white hands.

Deadsol stood before a vanity where an assortment of perfumes and jewelry lay dormant in an aroma of scented powders. He began to dexterously assort the trinkets as though searching for something of utmost importance.

"Come now, Deadsol. Don't do that! Don't make me get up."

"This!" shouted Deadsol, facing Libra and holding a brooch in the shape of a black rose aloft.

Libra's confusion was matched only by her frustration.

Deadsol remained still as a statue, the brooch held high, eyes fixed upon her.

"Yes. That. What of it?"

"It must be this very wonderful thing that controls the eternal night!"

Here, Libra snorted a laugh of gaiety not often seen in the presence of Deadsol. She covered her mouth daintily but that did nothing to cease the spray of coffee that shot from her lips.

"Ha! I knew you had ulterior motives, is that what this is about? You think you can waltz in here, disturb my peace and march out with the secrets entrusted to me? I thought more of you, Deadsol."

The demon appeared embarrassed, his arm slowly lowering the brooch back to its place on the vanity.

"Unfortunately for you, the spell is one of knowledge, not of tangible substance," said Libra. "Perhaps you should commit more time to thanking me than interrogating me."

Deadsol remained silent.

"Truth be known, it was I who was entrusted with this archaic knowledge, a successor for Malistorm was needed and who better than I, one who had studied the happenings of Tenebrae for centuries. Power comes to those who seek it, Deadsol. But such endeavors are wasted on the ignorant. The cunning always emerge victorious."

"Oh folly! Woe to me, woe to my mind of severed tendrils!"

****

Madlyn stood at the head of the great stairwell and drifted off into a vacuous reverie. From the outside of a window came a tapping and a muffled hoot, the ghastly shape of a great owl fluttering ominously behind the pane. Madlyn’s own owl-like eyes started at a door slam from where she’d just made egress. Out of the shadows there hopped Comets, having himself been abdicated access to Libra’s bedroom.

In the blue light of the moon, which cast its shadows in the shapes of grotesque puppets across the bleak stairwell, there stood girl and boy. The servant girl. The harlequin. An alien tension held the pair in a state of caution, for neither of these two had ever laid eyes on the other hitherto. Madlyn relived memories of a younger day when she, a little girl, traversed a tent of funhouse mirrors. Such was the distorted shape of the little man before her, that these memories were relived. Madlyn raised a finger as if to prod Comets’ face. In return he did the same. She tilted her head in inquisitive inclination. He did also.