"Baron of Sanwick: The Spirit at Fergus Castle" by Dan Shevock

Baron of Sanwick: The Spirit at Fergus Castle

By Dan Shevock

            My own father and grandfather told me about it. Supposedly, there are still Fergus’s who lived near the castle in Orkney. Father said they lived about a mile outside of town, and were a little backwards… His words, not mine. According to grandfather, our castle remains empty, barren and abandoned. I never asked why our cousins didn’t live in the castle, or why we didn’t for that matter. I just assumed it was because America was better. I didn’t care for titles and castles. Those things didn’t interest me at all, and father never wanted to talk about it. What I did know is the castle was in a small town, Sanwick, which had a population of about 300.

Before retirement, I was a salesman for a small business in Pittsburgh in the US. I’m a simple man, and I enjoy reading military history and war poetry. That was enough for me. I didn’t need excitement in my own life. Excitement was for other people. However, my son Logan was always a bit of an explorer. When he told me a few months ago he was going to traverse the sea to examine our castle in Orkney I didn’t think twice about it. He spent last summer, after all, in California trying to “find himself.” His mother always said to let him mature at his own pace, and since she’s been gone, I’ve been a little lax on disciplining him.

You could probably guess I’m not particularly good at storytelling, so I’ll just share his correspondence with you. Perhaps you have some suggestions on what I can do. I’m at a loss.

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Letter 1

Dad,

            I arrived in Aberdeen, Scotland today. The American Airlines flight was uncomfortable, and the food abhorrent, but still it was a decent flight, for what can be expected with transoceanic travel. At least it wasn’t as bad as that time I went to Berlin.

I rented a car and will be driving out tomorrow. I just spent the day sightseeing. It’s beautiful here, very clean for an oil town. Not as big as Pittsburgh, and the Mercat Cross reminded me of our rail station. I also got to see the Maritime Museum. Nothin’ special.

Tonight, I’m going to go to His Majesty’s Theatre to see “Aspects of Love.” There’s nothing like seeing Andrew Lloyd Weber done by Brits. They never get it quite right in Toronto.

Your son,

Logan

Letter 2

Dad,

            You wouldn’t believe how small Sanwick is. There’s not even a hotel. I should have planned this better. I guess I’ll be pitching a tent tonight. Oh, well. I don’t want to worry you, of course. I can always spend the night in the car, but I think I’d prefer camping. You know how I am.

            It’s cloudy, and wet, but it’s been drizzling since I arrived in Scotland. I guess it’s to be expected here. The homes are all made of old stone, and the castle itself, which I didn’t feel at liberty to let myself into, is ugly, with a capital UG. There is a large iron fence that surrounds it, which has a sulfurous smelling moat, with water somewhere between brown and black with some sort of neon green algae living there. Though why anything, even algae would tolerate the odor, I’ll never know.

            The building itself is dilapidated beyond any hope for repair. It is huge, but looks like a hodgepodge of buildings. The lower section is some dark stone, while some sections are built of a lighter stone, and still others look like rough marble. It is misshapen and unsightly. It has spires that may be made of iron, and many places where there might have once been windows. Now it is hollow, and I’m sure less comfortable than a tent.

            Tomorrow, I hope to find our cousins. When I mentioned them to a local lady, she did the sign of the cross, cursed and spit at me. I assume she was crazy, but it still made me angry. She hurried away when she saw the look in my eye. I actually considered striking her. Do you believe that? What got into me? I’ve never even been in a fight. What strange folk live in small towns, even here in Europe. Que sara sara.

Your son,

Logan

Letter 3

Dad,

            First of all, I met a girl. Her name is Nessa and she lives here in town. She’s a hairstylist and quite cute, a real blonde bombshell. Her accent is really cute too. “Can a gie ye a haund,” she said to me when she saw me sleeping in my tent outside the castle gates. I explained to her, and she said she didn’t know anything about the castle, except all the kids think it’s haunted and egg it with a regularity that would befit an alarm clock.

I suppose the lady who assaulted me that first day is the town loony. Nessa called her Old-Claire, and explained she was harmless, except that she talks to herself all the time. She was surprised when she heard about the spitting incident. The old hag isn’t 100% harmless. Perhaps, she just isn’t used to strangers in town.

Nessa showed me the town library, which is actually quite impressive for how small Sanwick is. The librarian, a boisterous middle-aged new age type, showed me some old tomes that are written about the castle, and said I might want to look into them. She told me the castle’s library was moved when the Fergus family left the area, and I’m more than welcome to read them, as they are pertaining to my family.

Apparently, Fergus Castle was an ancient Pictish site, where strange, old rituals were held, including human sacrifice to appease some old long forgotten deity. At least that’s what the librarian said, but she seemed a little “over the top,” if you know what I mean.

All in all, I’m feeling better about my trip to Scotland. It started off on the left foot, but things are looking up. I started delving into the old books, and I’ll write you if I find anything. There is an energy about this place. I’m not at all certain it’s a benevolent one, but I definitely feel like I have something important to do here. I can sense something deep in the marrow of my bones, almost like a coppery smell, but more of a tactile thing. Maybe it’s just the excitement of my new relationship with Nessa. Or that combined with the thrill of delving into ancient texts to discover more about our ancestry. I feel invigorated.

Finally, I’ve been having vile night-terrors, in which I commit the most appalling atrocities, while some kind of tentacled demon climbs out of the castle mote to peer over my shoulder, approvingly.

Your son,

Logan

Letter 4

Dad,

            I have some exciting, and some strange news. I know it’s been a few weeks since I last wrote, and I apologize. A lot has happened since my last letter. I found two books I find quite interesting. One is titled “The life of Cameron Fergus, Baron of Sanwick,” and the second a book that is apparently written by Baron Cameron himself. There is no title on the second book, but it appears to be some sort of ceremonial grimoire based on magic. This Baron Cameron seems like a truly interesting fellow. The families who ruled the Barony before our ancestors are mostly lost to time, except in one reference, Cameron mentions them living in Edinburgh, where an old, thin  and broken man divulged to him the location and a bit of information about the abandoned manor.

            First of all, Cameron was hated by his subjects. King William the Lion granted him the territory in 1190, after what appeared to be quite a bit of political cajoling on Cameron’s part. Cameron’s previous title was “Court Magician.” From what I can gather from the ancient writings, he was having an affair with a relative of the king, a girl named Isabella. At the same time, Cameron was looking for a remote location to perform some spell he called “Knowledge and Conversation.” King William seemed more than happy to be rid of the politically conniving Cameron and granted him the Barony of Sanwick, which was distant enough from William’s court. It was in fact, Cameron who suggested Fergus Castle, claiming it was an old Roman temple to the god Mithras. Cameron later wrote he believed the Mithras shrine to have been constructed over and older, demonic temple. The Romans feared whatever demon the place was originally dedicated to, and went through measures to suppress the cult.

            Right from the start, Baron Cameron and the residents of the village had conflicts. When he first came to town, the people of Sanwick tried to have the Baron executed, but some key “witnesses” in the trial turned up dead. They stormed the castle with torches, but were turned away by Cameron’s foot-soldiers. The bodies of the slain were desecrated and thrown into the mote surrounding the castle. According to Cameron, he spent some time in battle, but he references different battles for the same experiences, so I think it’s possible he was just exaggerating. I’m sure it didn’t take particularly skilled soldiers to turn back simple villagers, and I’m sure it wasn’t the glorious event he depicted.

“The life of Cameron Fergus” talks about how hard Cameron worked his subjects in adding on to Fergus Castle. The people called him “Satan’s own Baron,” and many deaths, illnesses, and accidents were blamed on the Baron. It doesn’t help matters that in Cameron’s grimoire, he claims responsibility for these acts and more. They seem to have been a part of his big spell. He was definitely a focused, if maniacal man. He wanted the energy of people’s misfortune to empower his spell.

Cameron talks about the castle as if it were a living thing. He seems to have believed this castle was once the seat of the King of the Picts, a people who populated much of Scotland before the Romans. He wrote long sections of his book under the inscription, Fergus Castle told me, or the mote whispered in my ear such and such. In one of these he names the Pictish monarchs and high wizards in great and unbelievable detail. I personally believe the Baron was more than a bit crazy. Probably because of that, he was quite an interesting character.

I gave you the exciting news, and now I’ll give you the strange. Because of my newfound intrigue, I chose to break into and visit our castle while Nessa was busy at work. I felt at home as I walked to the bridge. Unnaturally comfortable, for such an odd place. This is where things get a bit spooky.

Upon crossing the threshold of the slimy mote, I thought I heard the wind whisper what is almost my name… “Baron Logan Fergus.” It was so realistic. I jumped so high I almost fell into the odorous water! I ran back to the gate, but later gathered my courage to reenter our ancestral home.

“Baron Logan Fergus.” There it was again! I couldn’t deny hearing it a second time, so I accepted it and I entered the castle. If I am the Baron’s scion, then I have a right to my home after all. The main room was neglected and crumbling as I had expected. There were old, worn out, broken chairs and tables, and many small objects, some of which I could guess at what they are used for. Also, there were spiders. Not just normal household spiders, or the sort of large ones you find camping, but there were huge spiders, ones as big as my fist, and colorful too. There were brown and black ones, but also ones with hints of yellow, red and green. There were also snakes, some of which I believe are poisonous. It felt as if the spiders and snakes were watching me. I was spooked, but I still tread on. Fear be damned.

As I went into the next room I realized how strange our ancestors were. This next chamber was full of torture devices, some I recognized, and others I had to look up in the library afterwards. There were thumbscrews and toewedges, a foot press and a Spanish Donkey, a head crusher, a cat’s paw, a heretic fork, and the room was crowned with an obscenely large, evil looking Juda Cradle. The floor to this chamber was concaved, as if to allow liquid to flow down a small hole to a lower level.

The torture room had a set of marble stairs leading inconspicuously below. I crept softly, and cautiously down. In this underground room I found what frightened me most of all, Baron Cameron’s Arcane Sanctuary. I had read about it in his grimoire. He described it perfectly. Sigils of power, and unholy symbols were carved deep into the walls, ceiling and floor, which featured a small pond, actually connected underground to the mote surrounding the castle. It had the same slimy, decaying, fetid water. Seeing the room though, gave credence to some of the atrocities he must of committed in these very walls. Until seeing the place, I didn’t believe them, not with my head anyway. But being here, I could hear the cries of the town-folk tortured, while their blood fed the Baron’s great casting. I could feel their tears, and their pleas for mercy. I could smell their sweat and grime. But worse of all, I didn’t feel mercy for them, only unfinished business. I craved “knowledge and conversation,” even without knowing exactly what that mystical experience entailed.

My gruesome dreams haven’t stopped, but instead have become more frequent. Last night, in my dream, I heard the same voice from the mote, “In the millennia before the sun was yellow, I reigned as high god of watery Atlantis.” It was that same haunting voice; a gargled moan, like a man with a slashed throat, bubbles rising from his undead neck, his lifeblood flowing freely into the dark, wet, infinitely abyssal waters.

Nameless and eternal, the tentacled god spoke to me of a war between two gods. Mithras in the south with his countless, well-trained legions, and in the north, the tentacled sea-god. The tentacled one struck fiercely, though the masses of Mithrian warriors massacred the untrained water priests mercilessly, until the last bastion of the water-god was a temple in the center of a small pond, north of Roman Britannia. Here the full force of Mithras’ disciplined battalions tracked them down and the outnumbered priests and the faithful were finished off. After slaying them, the Roman soldiers filled the mote with their carcasses and built a fort, their bones the foundation. The tentacled God had no more prayers and no more devout worshippers. He became vengeful. Taking power from the spilt blood, and pain of his now dead peoples, he flooded and tainted the mind of the Roman commander with a polluted sludge only a god could conceive, and drove him to insanity. The now crazed commander ordered a third of his own men sacrificed. Later that year, when the pictish hoards overtook the fort, they turned it into a temple, but the priests of that temple were also driven to lunacy, giving sacrifice to the tentacled demon instead. In my dream, I could feel blade slice soft skin, and the nervous sweat of executioner and sacrificial lamb alike. Old and young, men and women, genius and dull; indiscriminately the masses died on the altar. Against their will, they fed the demon while he became fat with power. Burnt man-flesh rose to the skies black, a putrid incense for a hateful god.

I woke up in a cold sweat and I left Sanwick for a few days to clear my head. I’m mailing this from Kirkwall, where I found a nice little hotel. I’ve continued my study of Cameron’s grimoire, and the history. Now that a few days have passed, I know I must go back. I just don’t know what will happen.

Pray for your son,

Logan

Letter 5

Dad,

            I haven’t had the guts to reenter Fergus Castle. Instead, I decided to investigate our cousins. I finally found them, a family for four. They live in a run down shack a few miles outside of town. They’re uneducated and lowly, but in no way can they be described as “common.” There’s Keith, his wife Ianna, and their two daughters. They’re very strange people.  The one daughter, Keir, speaks only in curses. Not the sort of curses used in modern society, but the kind you’d expect to hear in an old play. Things like, “the devil gnaw on your corroding soul,” and “may horned demons rend you in your sleep.” The other daughter showed me her doll collection. Each one had the head torn off, and eyes poked out. They offered me dinner, but I chose to go back to town. Freaky people.

            My research in the library has been fairly fruitful as well. I found information on many of our other ancestors, none of them as corrupt as Cameron. A few may even have been considered benevolent, if stern rulers. Still, at some point we started calling ourselves “Pictish King,” as well as Baron of Sanwick. This seems to have gotten us into trouble with the English monarchy, as more than one of our forefathers was removed from his position to be replaced by a younger sibling. None of the later Barons seemed to use the Arcane Sanctuary, though they all enjoyed using the torture chamber above it. Still, they were afraid to wall the basement room off, terrified of the idea of offending the ghost of Baron Cameron.

            I read about our expulsion from Fergus Castle. It was shortly after one of the French Revolutions. Stories of revolution were quite popular in Sanwick town. The people saw themselves performing the same righteous function when we were dislodged and banished from Sanwick. Baron Broderick Fergus fled to America, and I guess that’s how we found ourselves to be in Western PA.

            My nightmares have continued. They’re so real, I can’t discern reality from dream. In most of them, I am overseeing sacrifices offered to my tentacled lord. The smell of murder doesn’t nauseate me anymore. I can push knife into skin without recoiling. Sometimes I torture people to feed an aura, I can now see, to the nameless god. Worse of all, while I do these things, I laugh in pure joy. Nessa woke me up a few days ago to ask if I was okay. I can’t face her anymore, so I left, spending the past few days in my tent on the castle grounds.

            I’m embarrassed to admit it, but this morning when I work up, I killed a cat. It was looking at me bizarrely, which made me feel awkward at first, and then, unexplainably angry. Before I realized it, I grabbed the tabby by its throat and was asphyxiating it with all my might. I tossed it’s corpse into the mote. Something about this place is changing me. I feel crueler, and less clement than I’ve always been. I don’t know what it is, but I plan on figuring it out before something genuinely bad happens.

            I’m sending this letter today, and tomorrow I plan to reenter our castle. I will get to the bottom of this. I will send a message afterwards.

Your son,

Logan

            I never did receive another letter from my son, but instead received this missive from Logan’s one-time partner, Nessa. Still, I have no idea what I should do.

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Dear Mr. Fergus,

            Your son, Logan has gone quite insane, by all accounts. Last month he declared himself the new Baron of Sanwick, and started ordering town-folk around like he was a 19^th century master. Worse of all, most of the people follow his orders. Especially after the Lennox girl went missing. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s whispered he’s doing some vile magic in the basement. His laughter carries on the winds into town.

Two ruffians have even taken to “enforcing” Logan’s will, calling themselves the Baron’s Police. Just yesterday I saw them beating up a few young kids, and then they hauled one boy off to the castle. I tried to stop them, but they boxed me to the pavement. You can still hear the boy’s screams from the castle today, they’re shrill and terrifying.

I don’t know what I’m asking you to do, but something’s got to be done. Right? It’s your son, after all. I spoke with the town’s constable, and he threatened me with pain and death! Either he’s afraid to oppose Logan, or he’s under some sort of hexing. I don’t know, but I’m fraught and worn out with worry.

Please, I’m begging you to help if you can,

Nessa MacBain                                                         Sanwick, Orkney