by Rhys Ermire
Perhaps as a result of a lethargic day, sleep did not call to me with any sort of urgency. I sat at the desk admiring the nearly ink-like void outside the window. I could hear rain and witnessed dashes of lightning skirting the sky on occasion, but I was otherwise unprivileged to the state of the outside world.
It was within the hour that things took a turn for the unexpected. I was somewhere in the first quarter of my loaned Dickens tale when a scurry of footsteps on the stairs caused me to turn toward the door. The steps had been few, leading me to believe whoever was making their way upstairs was doing so in a hurry, skipping two and three stairs at a time.
The visitor tested the doorknob—it had been locked, as I had taken the habit of doing since the night before. “Edwin,” my host said from the other side, “please open the door.”
I confess to some hesitance in leaving the desk and going to the door at such a late hour. The storm persisted with violent fury outside, yet what waited on the other side brought an air of malevolence foreign even to such relentless weather.
“My friend, you must do me one courtesy,” Baron Lechner von Savanberg had begun speaking as I turned the doorknob but before the door itself had rasped open. “You must stay in this room until I return.”
Any opportunity to protest was preemptively answered by the Baron closing the door. I managed only a nod to acknowledge having heard his request. Locking the door behind him, I inspected the bolt only to find it delicate and unlikely to withstand any test of its integrity.
The room had grown cold. Whatever the temperature before, a noticeable chill had settled over my assigned chambers following the Baron’s visit and request. Perhaps, I had thought, it was a demand. The change may well have ultimately been psychological but it was disconcerting all the same.
I returned to the desk across from the door and peered into the glass only to see darkness. Rain had clouded what little visibility remained. I spoke to myself softly, repeating the Baron’s words to myself in a manner that, to the casual observer, may have seemed mad. There was something in his voice and his demeanor that had me questioning once more.
No matter my apprehension, it was the middle of the night. I resolved, calmly, that there was little to do but act as instructed. After all, waiting in my room seemed to be the most judicious course of action.
I write this with such confidence now, as you may see, but I only wish that I held such resolve in retrospect. It would be that lack of resolve that led me further into my own undoing.
I cannot speak for my mindset at the time other than to say it was in an endlessly curious space. I had, without much consideration, turned the chair that once faced into the desk around so that it faced the door. I waited, seated and lurching forward, watching the still door by the lamp across the room.
It felt as if my body reacted first, and then my ears. An incidence of some sort of destruction forced me to brace myself on the wall by the desk. The unexpected sound that interrupted my thoughts came loud, with a shatter. Shattering glass, elsewhere on the property—that was my immediate perception.
In such instances, we are compelled to listen quietly afterward. Adrenaline races, your heart whirring to compensate. I braced the wall, listening for any sound to confirm what I had heard. Nothing came.
The incident of the Baron in the night, the warnings, his asking me to stay within the confines of my room: all such thoughts swarmed with propinquity. I knew not what to do nor did I know if this or another reason was the motivation for his placing me in the room for the night.
If the Baron were in need of aid, it would be my obligation to support him in any manner possible.
Additional concern came in the form of offending my host, who had known, by whatever means, that I had intruded—innocently as it was—into his chambers earlier in the day. He had directly instructed me to stay in my room, which may have meant, I thought, he had been in the process of some labor that night and my interruption could come as distrust. Naturally, such feeble apprehensions were given little thought, as safety took priority.
I lay out my thoughts for you as simply as they came to me, with no amendments. I do not wish to cast myself in a light more favorable than I deserve. This is my motivation for showcasing behaviors that, while human, defy the norms of acceptable behavior, such as my intruding on the Baron’s quarters and taking free roam of his estate without implicit invitation.
The source and target of the destructive sound I had heard were a mystery to me as I undid the lock on the door as discreetly as one ever could. The rugs covering the ground made a silent approach in the quarters more possible, whereas other portions of the castle retained stone and wooden flooring where appropriate.
Nightfall had made navigating the castle difficult, as most corridors now meshed static darkness with dim candlelight. Numerous candles had been lit along core passageways, and thankfully so, as the candlestick I bore would have proven scarcely useful on its own accord.
The chandelier in the main hall remained unlit as it had on my arrival. Candlewax had solidified at the base of the large structure overhead, creating an unsettling sight that, to some, would certainly evoke feelings of unrest. While my eyes continued to wander, my mind had been fixated on the disturbing sound from elsewhere on the grounds.
I initially found nothing amiss in the main hall as I made my silent approach. My first glances around the dimly lit doorways gave way to no suspicions of any changes or dangers within the estate. The floor itself still remained blanketed in a thin darkness.
Within that absence of light, I sensed feint movement. It had been a single misplaced step in an otherwise silent approach but it was all that was needed to capture my attention. With a wince, I extinguished the candle with my forefinger and thumb as a precautionary measure.
I leaned over the railing and squinted, seeking any change in the dark below. What I expected to do upon discovering a disturbance I wasn’t sure. I was not armed save for the now unlit candlestick and had no access to any offensive objects.
Instead, caution suggested itself as the soundest defense.
My breathing had been reduced to a minimum. I could nearly see the dispersed air as it left my lungs due to the inherent cold of such an old, stone structure.
I had left the room despite the Baron’s insistence to the contrary. I was unsure of how I would explain my presence wandering his home in the dead of night, lest I appear a thief, or worse.
I stared into the void from atop the staircase, confident only the faintest silhouette would be made out even should attention come my way. The perpetual darkness began to blur my vision without an object on which to focus when, at the most opportune moment, across the floor came a scamper. It had been light, trotting with the same caution I had afforded myself if not more. I made out the path from my position and moved further forward to get a better view.
The movement came quick, swift, and with no apprehension. Confidence or determination had been fueling the approach. My first thought was that this was the Baron, moving with no hesitance as one would expect in their own home. Yet, the muffled shattering I had heard before cautioned me against assumptions.
Their approach continued unabated. It appeared they had emerged from the back of the castle, from one of the doors that led to the outside and on one side of the illustrious garden. No time was wasted in surveying the area as whomever it was that had entered from there found their way to the left-most hall that contained the gallery and various rooms I had visited earlier in the day.
Recalling creaks in my steps on the stairs from my few times ascending and descending them already, I kept my steps to a minimum, on the outer edges of the wood-reinforced stairwell. Try as I did, there was no silencing at least partial auditory evidence of my trek.
No one re-emerged from the doorway to the gallery—at least, from what I could tell in the dimly lit corridor that shared light only at each end as if to denote corners. I felt compelled to continue, if only for the Baron’s sake.
Upon reaching the hall door that had swung more open than closed after the aforementioned entrance, I put only marginal weight into opening it only to hear it groan at decibels familiar to a steel yard. At least, the loud screech in the dead silence made it seem as such.
I stopped in the doorway, extinguished candleholder in hand, surveying the passage ahead of me. The trio of candles atop an oak shelf at the end of the hall revealed little. The only information apparent to me at the time was the doors to many of the rooms being open, including to the gallery, and that no one appeared in sight.
It was here that I considered calling out to the Baron. Should it have been an intruder, I posited, we would be better prepared to scare them away with two bodies in place of one. Even now, I do not know if this would have been the prime course of action, but nonetheless it was one I did not take.
As I drew closer to the turn in the corridor, I began to see rays of light cast along the outer wall. Their brilliance far outshone that of the paltry candles at the bend, and yet their source did not appear obvious to me in my recollection at the time.
The doors to the various rooms along the way had been left in varying states similar if not identical to how I had left them earlier in the day. Some were ajar, others were open. Those that were fully open, I paused before passing on instinct. I peered inside, saw nothing move in the dark, and moved forward. The gallery itself was afforded similar treatment, with no indications anyone had entered since my own visit.
I could not be sure of what did or did not wait in that continuous void. In darkness, that which we are most drawn toward is the slightest hint of light. It represents many things to the human mind, the least of which being safety, shelter, and awareness of our surroundings.
As I turned the corner, I saw a room illuminated to the fullest at the end of the hall. Numerous gas lamps must be in use, I thought, similar to the apparatus in the library. The light penetrating my eyes did so with such brightness that I squinted and winced at first sight. Spending the last several hours in varying states of low light had not prepared me for a room illuminated as if by daylight.
Marching forward, I shielded my eyes with my forearm, waiting for them to adjust. As they did, I peered more and more into the room at the end of the hall—one that had, just hours earlier, been protected by a large, vault-like door made of ironed and impenetrable steel.
That door was opened outward and facing the left-most wall. It was not so thick as to rival a warship but the concentration of its design and reliance on hinges that were protected inside the structure itself left little doubt as to its resilience. I had expected a treasure akin to those so commonly sought in adventure novels, but what I found was something no one should have ever happened upon.
Drawing closer to the entryway, the contents of the room became clearer. It was much larger than one would expect from the outside and housed two levels, the second being accessible via a spiral stairwell running along the outside of the rounded room. Gas-lit lamps had been affixed in such a way that no corner of the room went unseen by light. From the lower level, I could see only that the area atop the staircase appeared to be locked in place with a heavy overhead door that likely swung outward onto the next level.
As opposed to the rest of the estate, this area appeared to see a great deal of use: papers had been strewn about, well-read books stacked in haphazard fashion, and various objects of which I had no immediate point of comparison could be found throughout.
The shape of the room had me determine this had been the tower I had seen from outside the window earlier in the day. The actual purpose of the room bordered on a study yet featured ornaments not common to many such quarters. Just inside the entrance, on the bordering wall, was a display of what I could only determine was ancient weaponry. They appeared more ornamental than practical, though the wide variety was difficult to take in with only a glance. Some were bladed weapons, ranging from small to large, while others were of a blunt nature, but none seemed out of place. Each had been assigned a spot on the wall and was left there.
I saw as I moved further into the room that one desk featured a strange tool, forged of metal and sharp to the touch. It resembled a protractor but featured an uncharacteristic hand of a scissor on one side. A dark color had settled over the sharpest point, but that was far from the most unsettling and puzzling sight.
Immediately to the right, likewise on the desk, were small cages, stacked three to a column and totaling six in all. Scurries could be heard as I leaned closer, soft pattering inside between the fenced mesh to keep whatever it was inside.
A family of mice struck their cages, either in excitement or fear. They were large, abnormally so—perhaps members of a species unknown to me. While the roughly half-dozen occupants rummaged about in cages, some paired in a single space, I noticed the hinge on one door unlocked. Pulling it open, the combination of sight and smell was too much to bear at such proximity.
Inside had been what was left of one of the mice. A deadened look had settled over its facial features unlike any animal I had ever seen. I could only presume it was content to have gone in the end.
While the head and legs remained untouched, a nauseating spectacle awaited the rest. The body had been sliced open with no regard for repair. Small nails had been used to pin the coat of fur in place, ultimately leaving nothing to the imagination. What I could only imagine were kidneys or a spleen or a bladder was on bloody display. Unusually, the organs that appeared to have been harvested had been carefully sewn back inside with precision and mindfulness.
Another of the sizable vermin raised itself against the cage and exposed their under torso. Lacerations had been evident, leaving a large scar visible on its abdomen. His neighbor in the cage adjacent was none so lucky.
The pelt had turned to near ash, having readily congealed to the rodent’s thin corpse. The state and condition gave the appearance of having been burned alive. I could only assume its demise was the result of something sadistic and torturous.
As unsettling a sight as it was, I did not have long with which to ponder the rat's mortality. Instead, I was soon faced with the question of my own longevity.
A violent, unstable expulsion of air chilled the room at my back. Turning, I was confronted with a scene for which my mind had never been prepared. That rhythmic and determined breathing pattern continued audibly, drowning out even the storm outside.
I looked forward, ahead, beyond in the darkness. A silhouette was emerging into the light, slowly but at a steady pace. The void began to be filled with the sight of a human figure as it merged from dark to light with revealing subtlety.
I first took note of the long coat, leather in make and dark in color, clinging to a sizable frame. It had been a male, his hair unkempt and long and down to his shoulders. Those long tangles obscured much of his face and eyes, but it was evident he had not taken to shaving in some time.
The more I saw in those early seconds, the more I assumed this to be a vagrant. His head had been bowed downward, only looking to me with a forward stare at an unusual angle. I soon noticed the whites of his eyes had been drowned by wide but dilated pupils. I saw nothing in them that indicated humanity.
His unusual appearance, from the leather coat that reached his knees to his uncharacteristically dark complexion had me questioning whether any communication was possible.
“Can I help you?” I gestured an open hand, moving slightly toward him but halting in place as his posture tightened as if to take a defensive position.
I decided to speak more slowly in the event English was not his first language. “Can you hear me?” I was not sure of his age nor his ethnicity and not even his reason for standing in that doorway. What became evident, however, was that he had no intention of moving unassisted.
As I took a step closer, I cleared my throat to get his attention. He braced himself, hand behind him at his back, with his head still facing forward as it had been.
No matter the action on my pa
rt, he still uttered no sound save for his heavy breathing. Belted breaths escaped him with full exertion, allowing his lungs to expel all air at their disposal. These were followed by deep inhalations, with the pattern shortly thereafter repeating itself.
Some utterances escaped me, asking for his name and reason for being in the castle. “Why are you here?” and “Is there something you want?” were among them. I began surveying my surroundings and quickly realized the only way out was through the doorway in which he stood.
For the first time, his head raised, but not to make eye contact. His teeth came down on the bottom of his mouth, causing a noticeable impression in the skin. Elsewhere on the body, it may have drawn blood.
The air of aggression was disturbing. I backed away slowly, glancing to the table behind me. “What is it you want?” I asked the man as I rummaged lightly on the desk, searching for anything metallic to take up in defense. The wall of ornamental weapons were in his reach, not my own.
