The Curse of Sangrook Manor

by Steve Thomas

  Darvik had no such luxury. He bundled himself in the blanket, hoping it would filter out the malodor seeping from every inch of the mansion. He tried to sleep, but unease enveloped him. He heard the rats squeaking and scratching. He imagined spiders vaulting from surface to surface, trailing their webs over his head. He felt the chill wind drifting through loose window-panes. Even the sounds from the outdoors disturbed him. The crickets chirped a little too low, sounding like saws cutting through bone. Vermin shrieked from within the clutches of owls, and the wolves had found no more sleep than Darvik.

  Sleep was impossible. There was no choice but to leave the room, and there was no point in waiting for Erenkirk to wake up before he started the search. Darvik gathered up his belongings and wandered the halls amid the eldritch chorus of mansion discord. He opened each door he passed and followed every downward flight of stairs. Down he climbed, down and down and deeper than the mansion was tall. The deeper he descended, the quieter and better preserved the mansion became.

  In the dungeons, he came across the corpse of some mangled and tortured prisoner, or perhaps a mangled and tortured victim of dark experiments. Not even the Sangrooks were bold enough to practice their evil magic on the upper floors, where a stray servant might see something not meant for mortal eyes. Darvik knew he was getting closer to where the extractor might have been hidden away, and where it would have been used.

  He peered inside each cell as his walked past. Most were empty. Some held corpses sprawled on the stone floor. At the end of the hall was a cell with an open door. A dead woman leaned against the wall, and Darvik recoiled at the sight of her. She wore no clothing, and her skin was still soft and white, with no signs that the rats had fed upon her. From her appearance, she could have died that morning. Deep gashes bit her sides and breasts, as if she had been savaged by some gargantuan cat. As he stared, Darvik’s weary mind saw blood still dripping. She had but one finger still attached to her hand, and a manacle held it in the air, pointing at a discolored brick. Was she pointing to some hidden door? Was this a not-so-subtle clue meant to entrap interlopers? Or was Darvik asleep in the dusty, musty bed seven floors above and suffering this mansion’s nightmares?

  If this were a dream, he would follow where it led. If it were not, well, he was here to explore this mansion’s secrets. There was no choice. He stepped into the cell, half expecting the iron door to swing shut and the corpse to spring to life and lunge at him. Neither came to pass. He was alone in the silence with nothing but a mutilated dead woman for company. He wasn’t sure if that was any relief.

  He spared no time in examining the brick. He brushed his finger against the mortar, only to find that it was not mortar at all. When he tapped at it, a chunk broke away to reveal wood beneath. This was just a frame, which meant this brick was loose.

  He could still find his way upstairs, reunite with his master, and tell him about these lower chambers. They could return in the morning, rested and prepared to excavate the dungeon and what lay beyond. Surely Habrien Sangrook’s secret laboratory was in the vicinity. They could find it together. But he knew all too well how that would play out. Erenkirk would unbuckle his belt and use it to mark his apprentice as lazy, disobedient, cowardly, and foolish. Then Darvik would spend the night tending to his scabs and return here in the morning. He’d still be alone, but also sore and bloody. No, he had disobeyed his master by leaving his bedroom. His only hope was to find the artifacts before morning.

  He pushed at the loose brick and was rewarded by a click as some underlying mechanism unlatched. The wall slid away to reveal narrow tunnel and let free the surging rush of an underground river. He braced his arms against the outer rim of the tunnel and leaned for a better look.

  A chain rattled.

  Darvik spun just in time to see the prisoner, the pitiful denizen of this cell, lurch forward at him. Her every joint was floppy, her jaw hung open, and her dead eyes were locked upon his face. The fingerless hand swiped at him as she tumbled to the ground.

  Darvik startled and stumbled back. His footing failed him and he tumbled into the secret passage. For a brief moment, he slid down a smooth cement chute. He stretched out his arms, hoping to find some purchase and stop his descent, but his fingers slipped along the slick walls. His head slammed against the floor and his goggles cracked and fell away.

  Now surrounded by darkness, he tumbled out the end of the chute and fell through the air. In a moment, he landed with a splash. A current grabbed him, forcing him along a narrow riverbed. The water was shallow, but the current was strong. His pant-legs snagged and tore on something, and his pack ripped free of his shoulders. He cascaded downward, blind and helpless, struggling to breathe, bouncing between the rocks as the river pushed him in all directions.

  Another drop. The riverbed fell away and Darvik spilled down a waterfall. He sucked in a deep breath, catching almost as much salty spray as air, then plunged into a lake. For a moment he was submerged, floundering in icy black water, salt stinging his eyes. A current pulled him away from the waterfall, but it was weaker now. He was too sore and bruised from his fall to swim, and yet swim he did. There was no choice. With every stroke of his arm, he knocked against some floating object churning in the lake. Something grabbed at his leg, but he kicked it off with little effort. He forced himself upward and forward until he found purchase, then hauled himself onto a rocky shore.

  Darvik vomited water and heard his dinner trickle back into the lake along with it. His lungs filled with air again, and he rolled to his back.

  How would he find his way back to the mansion? It was a sick irony that Sangrook Manor, of all places, was where he most wished he could go. But there was no returning to its cursed halls. He had no light, no tools, no stairs or rope. He was a creature of the caverns now, for however long he would survive.

  No. Not yet. He pushed himself up, coughed out another mouthful of water. Shuffling his feet and arms outstretched, he slowly sought out a wall. Perhaps there was another way up. Perhaps the tunnel was meant as a chute to dispose of spent bodies, but perhaps there was a gentler route as well. Perhaps it wasn’t just the dead who were sent down that waterfall. Darvik did not savor the thought that there could be a whole society down here, a fierce tribe of the mutated spawn of Sangrook experiments.

  His hand brushed against stone, and he put his fears aside. Carefully, he crept away from the lake, brushing the tips of his fingers against the cavern wall to keep himself from straying. The rush of the waterfall filled his ears, leaving no space for any other sound, nearly drowning out even his own thoughts. Down here, he was deaf as well as blind. He walked slowly, occasionally kicking something on the ground. After the third time, he bent down to examine what it was that covered the floor. His fingers wrapped around a stick, but the realization of the truth dawned on him slowly as he felt along its length. Each end was a knob, and the object was the length of his thigh.

  He tossed it aside and fumbled for another. This was curved and pointed. Another was a half-sphere full of holes. The next… Darvik could no longer protect himself by thinking of these objects in the abstract. Darvik was stumbling in the dark tripping over human bones. This was no mere cavern, but rather a mass grave. With no light to go by, he circled the cavern, feeling for any doors or tunnels that would lead him out. He tried to use the waterfall as a reference, but the sound was just as trapped as he, and it never seemed to grow louder or softer as he moved around the room. Further on, his fingers found a mound of corpses. He steeled his nerves and ran his hand along the nameless dead, using them as a guide just as he had used the stone wall. Later still, when he dipped his toe in the lake, he crawled along its bank until he struck a wall again, then continued the circuit.

  He circled the cavern three times before he admitted that there was no exit. He could barely guess how long he had explored. An hour, maybe two. It was not all wasted time, however. He determined that the cavern was roughly circular. The ground was steep in places, with the waterfall at the lo
west point. At its highest, the room was perhaps level with the dungeon.

  Having exhausted the perimeter, he sat down, leaning against the stone wall. His left leg rested on some human remains, but he didn’t shift around it. This was a crypt, no doubt where the Sangrooks dumped the bodies of their victims. His path had taken him through a river and down a waterfall. Any bodies from the dungeons, then, would have been washed away by the river. So how was this cavern so full of the dead? He idly picked up a skull and turned it in his hand as he pondered.

  There must be other ways in, of course, and not along the walls. Perhaps there were other chutes. Perhaps one had a rope or a ladder he could exploit to return to the manor. He stared up, hoping that he might see some spec of light that could lead him to safety. But this cavern was a starless night. He reached up with an arm to test the height of the ceiling and felt nothing. He hopped, lightly at first, then with the full force of his legs. He found nothing but air above him, and winced when his foot hit the ground and pain shot up his leg.

  Darvik sucked in a deep breath of steamy, rancid air. There was no choice. Deaf and blind, he’d have to comb every inch of this chamber in search of something that might help him escape. He picked a direction at random and crept forward. His feet crunched over dried bones, first only occasionally, but more and more often until the floor was carpeted in desiccated corpses.

  He walked slowly and aimlessly, hands held forward, never sure if he was even going straight, never sure what he hoped to find. With each step, he lowered his foot gingerly, trying not to trip on any bones. He zig-zagged his way through the cavern, cursing each time he heard a snap underfoot. Time passed. He knew not how long, but eventually he was climbing over a mound of the dead. Their bodies had long ago crumbled, and they packed tightly together under his step. When he reached the top, he stretched upward, testing for the ceiling again, and again he felt nothing. He bent down and dug through the mass of bodies until he found two femurs. He then ripped apart the left leg of his shredded pants into strips and, feeling his way, lashed the bones together into a pole to extend his reach. This he slowly raised, hoping to find resistance.

  The plan worked. He found the ceiling just out of reach. Encouraged, Darvik probed the top of the cavern, hoping to find another chute, one that could have created the mound he stood upon. He jabbed and scraped, and finally felt the pole slip upward. Or had the bindings failed? He pulled the pole down and checked the joint. The tool was intact, and he used it to verify the location of the chute again. It was there. It was real. It was wide enough to fit him. Letting hope fill him, Darvik jumped, hoping to grab hold of the sides of the chute.

  His fingers tapped the walls of the shaft and slipped away.

  When he landed, the mountain of corpses crumbled beneath him. He felt the bones snap and spray underfoot. One leg sunk into the dead while his torso still fell. He landed on his back and hoped that the bones he heard cracking were not his own. He tumbled down the hill, chased by limbs and ribs and skulls until his shoulder finally struck hard ground. He continued rolling, still assaulted by tumbling body parts, and as he rolled, he felt a sudden drop.

  It was only his reflexes that saved him, for his fingers managed to find a grip on the harsh edge of the cliff. He jerked to a stop, dangling, and skulls toppled past him, pelting his face and shoulders as they fell, blood dribbling from his mouth and his newly-sliced fingers. He flailed with his feet and found nothing but a rock wall. He was perhaps hanging above an empty mass grave, a mountain of the dead that had not yet formed. Darvik scrambled to solid ground and screamed his frustration. His one chance of escape, exposed as a lie.

  He flopped onto his back and waited for starvation to take him. There was no escape.

  ***

  Candle-light glimmered on the edge of his sanity like a single star in an empty sky. Darvik stood. There was no choice. Whatever the source of the light, he needed to see what fate had brought for him. Be it a way out or a swift death, he welcomed it. He stepped carefully, terrified of another pit, but he pressed forward.

  The light led him to the highest point of the cavern where bodies were stacked against the wall. But the candle was behind the bodies. This was no mere wall. Manic, he tore through the mound of the dead, tossing the bones and bodies aside until his fingers touched a metal grating, a gate. Darvik kicked yet more corpses out of his way and rattled the iron bars. For a moment, it seemed as though he had found only another false exit. He clenched a pair of bars, his hands slick with sweat, grime, and blood, and shoved.

  Suddenly, the rusty latches and hinges glowed red and offered no resistance at all. The heavy metal gate swung open like a tent flap.

  Darvik followed the light.

  He found the candle floating above a sarcophagus, suspended by some unseen force. Darvik reached for it, hoping to take this gift and use it to find a way to safety, but the candle flitted away from his hand like he was trying to swat a fly. He reached again, and his hand passed through the object of his hope.

  Weary, drained, defeated, Darvik leaned heavily upon upon the sarcophagus. His blurry eyes saw the stone lid adorned with words carved in a language he could not comprehend, some thorny, sprawling script. He coughed, and the candle-light revealed a blood-red tint in his spittle.

  Only then did he comprehend the full extent of his injuries. He had swallowed too much salt water. That was the least of it. Between his trip down the waterfall and his tumble down the bony hill, his clothing was in tatters. His arms, legs and face were webs of lacerations, his knee throbbed, half his ribs were bruised or worse, and a few fingers were cut near to the bone. What good was escape? Erenkirk was no healer, and there was no horse to carry him to a village.

  He was doomed. The candle wasn’t showing him the way out. It was showing him where his journey ended.

  If he were doomed to die here, he would do it with some dignity. This sarcophagus was meant for him. The sudden urge to take this coffin for himself overwhelmed his sense of decency, any lingering respect for the dead. There was no choice. The Sangrooks, or whoever had held this land before them, were forgotten and disgraced. Darvik was merely forgotten. He wouldn’t languish for all eternity as scattered pile of bones in a gods-forsaken crypt. No, he would be an honored guest.

  With a surge of strength, he shoved the coffin’s lid aside. He felt joints grind and sinews snap inside him, but fresh injuries could do nothing to stave off the madness that had overtaken him. The stone lid cracked when it slammed onto the floor.

  He ignored the fresh miasma of rotten flesh and peered into the coffin to see a leathery face with fine white hair. What remained of its features were soft and womanly. Darvik tugged at the mummy’s shirt, praying that he could lift the body out in one piece. He had no such luck. The mummy’s clothing held together no better than the mummy herself. Her shirt shredded in his grip and she came crashing down on her back, crumbling every fragile joint and bone.

  But there was one thing in this sarcophagus that remained whole and undecayed. Around her neck, the mummy wore a smooth round amethyst on a silver chain. Darvik took it without a second thought, and the chain slipped easily through a gap in the dead woman’s neck. Whatever this jewel was, it was his forever.

  Darvik coughed again, and this time his blood splattered the pendant in his grip. He could not lay himself to rest with this treasure so defiled, so desecrated. He was no monster. He pulled his left hand into his ragged sleeve and rubbed at the gemstone to wipe it clean.

  But the blood only sunk deeper into the stone, trapped inside by a greedy hunger. He watched as the pale purple amethyst became marbled with dark red. The wavy streaks of blood first congealed, then diffused, mixing with the purple into a bright red.

  What had he done? He had gone searching for a human essence extractor and found something far more horrible instead. This was dark magic. This was blood magic. This was Sangrook magic. This was why the manor was abandoned, why the name of Sangrook was spoken only in hushed tones. This was
all their sin and blasphemy in microcosm. This belonged in a crypt in a cave below the mansion, safely locked away where no one could stumble upon it.

  And Darvik had unwittingly activated it. Even as an artificer, he could not guess what evil spell he had unleashed. Gods, what had he done?

  The ethereal candle flickered away into blackness.

  Darvik was blind again. Blind and cold and pale and bleeding, so exhausted he could almost feel his body turning to stone.

  But he was not alone. First he felt the dread of malevolent eyes upon him. Next, he felt the air shifting, small ripples of wind that betrayed motion. Next came ragged breathing, swishing fabric, and heavy footfalls. As quickly as the sensations had come, they stopped.

  A thousand candles appeared in the air around him like a thousand planets orbiting a sun. The light was sudden and fierce, overpowering him after hours of darkness. In the moment before his eyes snapped themselves shut, he saw the face.

  The image was forever burned into Darvik’s mind, and it was all he saw until he gathered the will to open his eyes again. A woman, emaciated and rotting, skin hanging loose like the ratty rags she wore, both a once-beautiful covering for her bones. Blue-gray hair, tangled and matted, framed a face of rotten skin, empty eye sockets, and a dangling jaw.

  Darvik ran.

  The wraith followed.

  The candles illuminated a path forward, unwinding into a line that led into a passageway. Darvik followed. The alternative was to dive into the darkness. There was no choice. His foot snagged on a wayward bone, and he lurched forward, but did not fall. Still the wraith chased after him. A heavy fall of his foot smashed into a ribcage. The bones held tight onto his ankle and Darvik stumbled. He landed hard on his knee and let his momentum carry him into a roll. As he rolled, he caught a glance of the wraith reaching for him. Heart and head thumping in time, he shook the ribcage free and scrabbled forward on his hands and knees until he was clear of the bone-yard.