T E N E B R A E
On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells
and in my heart: all Hells
Veneror is a looming shadow upon his back. The black eyes of its crags feel sharp as claws along Tenebrae’s skin but he does not shiver at the sensation. He should have gone a different way, this path does not lead back to the mountain pass above Denocte. No, Tenebrae is far from home, his pilgrimage to Veneror had not eased his soul. Rather it has left him restless and wanting.
Since when has his soul become so ill at ease? Since when did wants of the flesh go to war with religion so violently in his heart? There is no peace for him, he has begun to fear. Maybe that is why he steps down from the thick brush of Eleutheria Plain and out onto the beach right at the edge of Novus. The cheek of the land gleams with golden sands. It is idyllic and the sea stretches out far, far as his eyes can see.
His mood is as bleak as the weather, the wind blows in rough with salt. It is sandpaper against his skin, it turns his mane into the thongs of whips. They strike and bite like serpents at the muscles of his neck. He blinks through their dance, where tendrils tangle with his eyelashes and fixes his sights upon the steel-grey sea.
The monk moves, out, out into the ocean until the waters reach up to his abdomen. The waves rise against his throat and breast. They hiss soft, soft as they roll back and tug him out, out until the next wave pushes forward. Swiftly the incoming tide pushes the sea up his breast and to his throat. Only then does Tenebrae turn away from the sea and its creatures that drift in its deep. Kelpies Her.
And just the like that he knows why he has come. Tenebrae turns from the ocean and her wild ways. He looks to see the beach to his left and to his right is gone. Only the beach that rises up into the cliff still remains. How long had he stood in the sea and looked out? Long enough, Tenebrae realises, for the sun to sink and the water rise. The gloaming casts shadows deep and terrible. Yet the monk is born of shadows and he ignores them as he gathers driftwood from the higher reaches of the cut-off beach. He lights the wood upon the beach and the flames reach up to summon the stars out of the sky.
“Come and join me if you wish.” He says to the horse that is but shadow now. Tenebrae had noticed them as he gathered the last of the wood from the cliff edge. “I think the night will be a long one.” Tenebrae looks up, “And we stand a better chance of defending ourselves from kelpies if we are together, maybe.” He gives a small laugh at the irony of his words.
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