Transylvania ©2009
Chapter 8: The Enigma of Dracula
Late into that evening, when the banquet chamber orchestra had retired for the night, Dracula’s butler escorted them down to the main floor to their sleeping quarters, only to greet a new orchestra at the gate in the courtyard.
A radiant October moon lit the premises bright blue.
“My apologies, we were just finishing a royal banquet,” he said to the freezing musicians. “Follow me.”
The group shuffled through a small door, following the butler down a long torch lit hall. At the end they turned a long corner and moved up a steep narrow staircase. At the top they crossed a wall-walk that overlooked the courtyard, and at the end of the walkway the butler stopped them.
“We are about to enter the prince’s nighttime music chamber. It is important that none of you talk during the time you are inside. If you need to use the latrine, it is located down this walk way to your right. It is recommended that you use it now so that you don’t have an emergency during your all-night performance. I say, will the conductor say here?”
“Da, sir. I am here.” A small Hungarian man with a pointy beard raised his hand.
“Ah, yes. I have a few important instructions that may save your life…”
“Uh?” said the man, “Save my life?”
“Of course…I meant, make your life easier.”
“Ah!”
“If I could meet with you privately for a moment I can explain some last minute preparations. Before we separate, are there any sick among you?”
“Da.” said one man, “A bit of a cough.”
“I’m sorry, but you won’t be allowed to perform tonight. Any interruptions would only upset his majesty. This way conductor.” And the two men entered a small room next to the music chamber to work out the arrangements.
The music room was designed and equipped with all the necessary paraphernalia to keep a chamber orchestra playing perpetually. It was a cylindrical venue with a low ceiling. The walls were insulated and soundproofed with Persian rugs, the ceiling and the floor also. There was a decent fireplace installed to keep the musicians comfortable. On the opposite side of the fireplace a giant brass funnel was imbedded into the stone. Connected to the brass funnel there was a pipe that ran its way through the castle intricately, until it reached the private chamber of Dracula. Here it projected from the wall above the headboard of the prince’s bed. From this, a small tube snaked down among his black silk pillows, and connected to that was a tiny wooden reed that he placed in his left ear. His right ear had one also, and was connected to a tube that was connected to a pipe above the headboard next to the other- a pair of dark-age headphones. The pipe on the right led to another chamber, far beneath the foundation of the castle. It was a dreadful room operated by several men in black robes and black hoods. Strewn about the chamber were prisoners, all connected to barbaric and inhumane torturing devices. One set of chains held a man over a large cauldron of boiling water. A rack next to that locked a man’s head in a board. The victim’s hands were bound together and placed in a small empty cage where hungry rats would soon be placed. Another man was laid up in an iron casket vice, where he would be slowly and systematically crushed over the next six-hours. It was a chamber where all the worst possible wailing and howling of pain could be emitted.
At midnight, a large bell in the north tower rang and could be heard all through-out Transylvania. When it stopped ringing, Dracula’s nighttime chamber music began, as well as the sounds of torture. It put the prince into a deep trance almost instantly. Tonight, however, there was much rumination going on in the prince’s head. He went into a dream that had many sour revelations in store.
The Dream: It began with a long spiraling tunnel of fire. Dracula hovered into the core of the inferno in his night robe. He immediately began to fly ahead, curving and looping and traveling into the mysterious hall of flames with great speed. It seemed as though it was taking him into an unknown corner of his mind, but the flight through fire was not enough to shirk his emotions until he came to the end, where he stood in front of three powerful men on three daunting thrones. Behind the thrones there was a wall of black smoke rising constantly.
Sitting on the throne to the right was a man that Dracula had recently put on trial. It was a monk who was quite popular, and his name was Vicini Patrocelli. He had fine white hair and an icy white beard, but his eyes were not normal as the prince knew them in the real world. Here they were white as an albino, and they looked upon Dracula with much vendetta, and even more astounding to the prince was the expression of the face that beamed a distraught phantom glare seeking justice for his injustice.
On the left throne sat Ivan III the Great, who was the czar of Russia. This was a man who had great interest in Vladimir’s accomplishments. Someone he looked up to, and trusted, and often sought council for in his plight against the Sultan of Turkey, but also all other foreign policies. Ivan the Great sat in a dark burgundy robe with a thick beard and headdress comparable to Zeus. He gazed down on Dracula with much disappointment.
And finally, sitting on the center throne the Pope himself, Pope Paul II of Rome, someone Dracula had confided in a number of times. The small man sat in a dark purple cape with shining gold trim. The cuffs were bright and illuminated gold, and his hands were glowing white. He had a small brown beard, and his head bore the ovoid tiara crown that all popes’ received upon coronation.
Dracula had made several large donations to the Vatican, hoping to solidify a bond with the Patrimony and receive support for his protection of Wallachia. Alas, he was never given what he needed to protect himself against the Turkish military.
“Why have you failed Prince Vladimir?” the voice of Ivan the Great thundered.
“I have not failed, czar. I am only delayed.”
“Da?” said the czar.
“I’m awaiting an answer from his holiness.” Dracula nodded to the pope.
The pope shook his head and looked to Monk Patrocelli on his left.
“Tut, tut, tut, Prince Dracula,” the monk said. “Why did you incarcerate me? When I came to Wallachia, I was seeking a message for the pope? And what did you do to my three assistants?”
“Speak up.” The pope said waiting for Dracula’s answer.
The prince was silent, and looked down.
“When they knelt before you, they took off their hats in honor,” said the monk.
“Was this a problem for the prince?” the pope asked.
“Na,” said the monk, “but when he saw that they were still wearing their traditional zucchettos he became offended.”
“Da?” said Ivan the Great.
“Da, and when he was told that it was their tradition to wear them always, he became offended.” The monk’s voice echoed over the rumbling wall of smoke.
“What then?” asked the pope, “An answer prince?”
Dracula looked away.
“He had their caps nailed to their skulls saying- Now you can keep your traditions forever.”
“Vladimir Dracula, look me in the eye!” said the pope.
When Dracula looked up he was immediately vacuumed into a bright light that sprayed out of the pope’s eyes. He was taken into a celestial vortex screaming and kicking but when he landed he was suddenly in a cold swamp outside the Transylvania castle. It was frosty, dark, and serene. At first there was only the sound of crickets, but then came a subtle growling sound behind him.
When he turned he was staring into the face of Monk Patrocelli who had now mutated into a nine-foot werewolf.
“Mercy, your holiness!” Dracula said putting his hands up.
Patrocelli locked his jaws onto Dracula’s torso and began to eat the prince.
“Na, na, na!” cried Dracula screaming in horror and resisting.
He was chewed up and swallowed only to be regurgitated on the ground into a bat.
Dracula beat his wings until the saliva of the werewolf was shaken off. He then set flight into the night air above Transylvania. When he was high above the terrain he saw the villages of Wallachia burning in the distance. He swooped down quickly into a hillside of oaks that led through an orchard that led to the cave beneath the spire of Transylvania castle. He flapped his way into the dark chasm where he found Patrocelli again. This time the monk was back in his human form standing near Dracula’s secret holding cell, where dozens of prisoners moaned and blahed in agony.
The monk was staggering in pain with only one hand. The other was spurting blood. The monk had bitten it off at the wrist.
Dracula gazed down at his bat-clawed feet and noticed that they were transforming back into his human legs. The souls of his bare feet touched the floor of the cave, and now he was standing bare naked in front of the cage.
The monk’s face mutated into a spider’s and long wooly legs burst out of his torso.
Dracula was terrified.
“No, your holiness. Please!” he shielded his face from the vision.
The spider moved toward the prince.
Dracula ran deeper into the cave until he came across the cavern lake at the end. There he fell in, gasping for air. The black water was infested with eels that began to sliver all about his bare body. The spider entered the room, and its ten eyes gazed down at the prince- all of them, the white lifeless eyes of the monk.
“Please, your holiness,” cried Dracula. “Spare me! Please!” He looked up and noticed a family of five climbing a mighty scaffolding built into the wall.
The Spider, or Monk Patrocelli, lifted one of his long spider legs to the top of the tower, and created a bridge for the family to climb onto. When they were on his leg, they crawled across and exited the cave through a small doorway at the top.
“Who’s this?” Dracula asked, watching the family escape.
Underneath the giant spider’s abdomen came running hundreds of dead prisoners, the victim’s of Dracula. Some missing limbs, others missing eyes, and noses, and tongues, and ears, and chins. Some were burnt to a crisp, and others crawled across the ground with no legs, charging Dracula for his life.
When they reached the pool, the eels began biting Dracula and peeling off his skin. When his muscles were revealed, the prisoners ripped them apart along with his bones and organs. He awoke screaming in his bed aloud. “Your holiness, your holiness! Spare me! Spare me!” he shrieked.
The baron was standing at the foot of his bed.
“Aye, sire? Were you having a bad dream?” Razvan asked.
Dracula’s face was drenched in sweat. “Razvan?” he panted heavily taking the reeds out of his ears, “Is that you?”
“My apologies, sire. We have a bit of a problem,” the baron said.
Late into that evening, when the banquet chamber orchestra had retired for the night, Dracula’s butler escorted them down to the main floor to their sleeping quarters, only to greet a new orchestra at the gate in the courtyard.
A radiant October moon lit the premises bright blue.
“My apologies, we were just finishing a royal banquet,” he said to the freezing musicians. “Follow me.”
The group shuffled through a small door, following the butler down a long torch lit hall. At the end they turned a long corner and moved up a steep narrow staircase. At the top they crossed a wall-walk that overlooked the courtyard, and at the end of the walkway the butler stopped them.
“We are about to enter the prince’s nighttime music chamber. It is important that none of you talk during the time you are inside. If you need to use the latrine, it is located down this walk way to your right. It is recommended that you use it now so that you don’t have an emergency during your all-night performance. I say, will the conductor say here?”
“Da, sir. I am here.” A small Hungarian man with a pointy beard raised his hand.
“Ah, yes. I have a few important instructions that may save your life…”
“Uh?” said the man, “Save my life?”
“Of course…I meant, make your life easier.”
“Ah!”
“If I could meet with you privately for a moment I can explain some last minute preparations. Before we separate, are there any sick among you?”
“Da.” said one man, “A bit of a cough.”
“I’m sorry, but you won’t be allowed to perform tonight. Any interruptions would only upset his majesty. This way conductor.” And the two men entered a small room next to the music chamber to work out the arrangements.
The music room was designed and equipped with all the necessary paraphernalia to keep a chamber orchestra playing perpetually. It was a cylindrical venue with a low ceiling. The walls were insulated and soundproofed with Persian rugs, the ceiling and the floor also. There was a decent fireplace installed to keep the musicians comfortable. On the opposite side of the fireplace a giant brass funnel was imbedded into the stone. Connected to the brass funnel there was a pipe that ran its way through the castle intricately, until it reached the private chamber of Dracula. Here it projected from the wall above the headboard of the prince’s bed. From this, a small tube snaked down among his black silk pillows, and connected to that was a tiny wooden reed that he placed in his left ear. His right ear had one also, and was connected to a tube that was connected to a pipe above the headboard next to the other- a pair of dark-age headphones. The pipe on the right led to another chamber, far beneath the foundation of the castle. It was a dreadful room operated by several men in black robes and black hoods. Strewn about the chamber were prisoners, all connected to barbaric and inhumane torturing devices. One set of chains held a man over a large cauldron of boiling water. A rack next to that locked a man’s head in a board. The victim’s hands were bound together and placed in a small empty cage where hungry rats would soon be placed. Another man was laid up in an iron casket vice, where he would be slowly and systematically crushed over the next six-hours. It was a chamber where all the worst possible wailing and howling of pain could be emitted.
At midnight, a large bell in the north tower rang and could be heard all through-out Transylvania. When it stopped ringing, Dracula’s nighttime chamber music began, as well as the sounds of torture. It put the prince into a deep trance almost instantly. Tonight, however, there was much rumination going on in the prince’s head. He went into a dream that had many sour revelations in store.
The Dream: It began with a long spiraling tunnel of fire. Dracula hovered into the core of the inferno in his night robe. He immediately began to fly ahead, curving and looping and traveling into the mysterious hall of flames with great speed. It seemed as though it was taking him into an unknown corner of his mind, but the flight through fire was not enough to shirk his emotions until he came to the end, where he stood in front of three powerful men on three daunting thrones. Behind the thrones there was a wall of black smoke rising constantly.
Sitting on the throne to the right was a man that Dracula had recently put on trial. It was a monk who was quite popular, and his name was Vicini Patrocelli. He had fine white hair and an icy white beard, but his eyes were not normal as the prince knew them in the real world. Here they were white as an albino, and they looked upon Dracula with much vendetta, and even more astounding to the prince was the expression of the face that beamed a distraught phantom glare seeking justice for his injustice.
On the left throne sat Ivan III the Great, who was the czar of Russia. This was a man who had great interest in Vladimir’s accomplishments. Someone he looked up to, and trusted, and often sought council for in his plight against the Sultan of Turkey, but also all other foreign policies. Ivan the Great sat in a dark burgundy robe with a thick beard and headdress comparable to Zeus. He gazed down on Dracula with much disappointment.
And finally, sitting on the center throne the Pope himself, Pope Paul II of Rome, someone Dracula had confided in a number of times. The small man sat in a dark purple cape with shining gold trim. The cuffs were bright and illuminated gold, and his hands were glowing white. He had a small brown beard, and his head bore the ovoid tiara crown that all popes’ received upon coronation.
Dracula had made several large donations to the Vatican, hoping to solidify a bond with the Patrimony and receive support for his protection of Wallachia. Alas, he was never given what he needed to protect himself against the Turkish military.
“Why have you failed Prince Vladimir?” the voice of Ivan the Great thundered.
“I have not failed, czar. I am only delayed.”
“Da?” said the czar.
“I’m awaiting an answer from his holiness.” Dracula nodded to the pope.
The pope shook his head and looked to Monk Patrocelli on his left.
“Tut, tut, tut, Prince Dracula,” the monk said. “Why did you incarcerate me? When I came to Wallachia, I was seeking a message for the pope? And what did you do to my three assistants?”
“Speak up.” The pope said waiting for Dracula’s answer.
The prince was silent, and looked down.
“When they knelt before you, they took off their hats in honor,” said the monk.
“Was this a problem for the prince?” the pope asked.
“Na,” said the monk, “but when he saw that they were still wearing their traditional zucchettos he became offended.”
“Da?” said Ivan the Great.
“Da, and when he was told that it was their tradition to wear them always, he became offended.” The monk’s voice echoed over the rumbling wall of smoke.
“What then?” asked the pope, “An answer prince?”
Dracula looked away.
“He had their caps nailed to their skulls saying- Now you can keep your traditions forever.”
“Vladimir Dracula, look me in the eye!” said the pope.
When Dracula looked up he was immediately vacuumed into a bright light that sprayed out of the pope’s eyes. He was taken into a celestial vortex screaming and kicking but when he landed he was suddenly in a cold swamp outside the Transylvania castle. It was frosty, dark, and serene. At first there was only the sound of crickets, but then came a subtle growling sound behind him.
When he turned he was staring into the face of Monk Patrocelli who had now mutated into a nine-foot werewolf.
“Mercy, your holiness!” Dracula said putting his hands up.
Patrocelli locked his jaws onto Dracula’s torso and began to eat the prince.
“Na, na, na!” cried Dracula screaming in horror and resisting.
He was chewed up and swallowed only to be regurgitated on the ground into a bat.
Dracula beat his wings until the saliva of the werewolf was shaken off. He then set flight into the night air above Transylvania. When he was high above the terrain he saw the villages of Wallachia burning in the distance. He swooped down quickly into a hillside of oaks that led through an orchard that led to the cave beneath the spire of Transylvania castle. He flapped his way into the dark chasm where he found Patrocelli again. This time the monk was back in his human form standing near Dracula’s secret holding cell, where dozens of prisoners moaned and blahed in agony.
The monk was staggering in pain with only one hand. The other was spurting blood. The monk had bitten it off at the wrist.
Dracula gazed down at his bat-clawed feet and noticed that they were transforming back into his human legs. The souls of his bare feet touched the floor of the cave, and now he was standing bare naked in front of the cage.
The monk’s face mutated into a spider’s and long wooly legs burst out of his torso.
Dracula was terrified.
“No, your holiness. Please!” he shielded his face from the vision.
The spider moved toward the prince.
Dracula ran deeper into the cave until he came across the cavern lake at the end. There he fell in, gasping for air. The black water was infested with eels that began to sliver all about his bare body. The spider entered the room, and its ten eyes gazed down at the prince- all of them, the white lifeless eyes of the monk.
“Please, your holiness,” cried Dracula. “Spare me! Please!” He looked up and noticed a family of five climbing a mighty scaffolding built into the wall.
The Spider, or Monk Patrocelli, lifted one of his long spider legs to the top of the tower, and created a bridge for the family to climb onto. When they were on his leg, they crawled across and exited the cave through a small doorway at the top.
“Who’s this?” Dracula asked, watching the family escape.
Underneath the giant spider’s abdomen came running hundreds of dead prisoners, the victim’s of Dracula. Some missing limbs, others missing eyes, and noses, and tongues, and ears, and chins. Some were burnt to a crisp, and others crawled across the ground with no legs, charging Dracula for his life.
When they reached the pool, the eels began biting Dracula and peeling off his skin. When his muscles were revealed, the prisoners ripped them apart along with his bones and organs. He awoke screaming in his bed aloud. “Your holiness, your holiness! Spare me! Spare me!” he shrieked.
The baron was standing at the foot of his bed.
“Aye, sire? Were you having a bad dream?” Razvan asked.
Dracula’s face was drenched in sweat. “Razvan?” he panted heavily taking the reeds out of his ears, “Is that you?”
“My apologies, sire. We have a bit of a problem,” the baron said.
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