*
We were all but dead on our feet when Kovacs at last led us over a ridge – an exhausting climb and descent – and into a small, deep valley. There were tall spruces, through which I glimpsed a snow-covered lake, and around us a circle of jagged white peaks. Immediately I was aware of a brooding consciousness. Icy winds howled. We were not welcome, I was certain of that. Drifts of snow came whipping at us off the ridge, and we heard the rumbling of an avalanche beginning high above.
Dr Seward gave a warning shout. Van Helsing gripped my arm, just as I saw the bears running away and vanishing between the trees. (I can only hope they escaped and were not buried). Calling us to follow, Kovacs began to run. We ran after him, gaining the mouth of a cave just as a huge weight of snow broke and slithered down to block the entrance.
In the light of Dr Seward’s lamp, we stood in astonished silence. All changed in a few seconds from wild wind and snow to enclosed darkness; and our panic, which at least contained the healthy will to survive, turned to a creeping horror; not unlike that, I imagine, of being buried alive.
Van Helsing was almost purple with exertion, but gruffly dismissed my expressions of concern. The cave in which we stood was musty, and I sensed a soft rustling in the darkness above our heads. “Now we are trapped,” I said, with a great effort to contain my dread. “We shall have to dig our way out.”
“No,” said Kovacs. “This is our destination; the way into the Scholomance.”
I did not want to go. I felt such foreboding I would rather have braved snow, bears, any danger of nature than this. But I swallowed my fear and made no protest.
We turned; we took a few steps deeper into the cave; then it seemed that my very dread surged into a blaze of light, golden and yet soul-sickening, like the fires of Hell. Through it I glimpsed a figure, tall and bright-haired, almost beautiful except that this was a corrupt beauty, florid, all red-dabbled and caked with blood. Grinning horribly, the figure reached for me. The light vanished, Dr Seward’s lamp was extinguished. I heard Dr Van Helsing cry out. Then, in pitch blackness, I felt hands close on my shoulders, and I fell, and knew no more.
Chapter Seventeen
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL (Continued)
When I came back to consciousness, I found myself lying on a couch in a dimly lit room. My head ached; my first thought was of Quincey. I tried to sit up, and then I saw two shadowy figures looking down at me, and my heart throbbed in painful fear.
The room was plain and sparely furnished, with mosaic walls that put me in mind of a Roman villa. I had a profound sense of being underground, buried. The window had no glass, rather a sort of honeycomb grille, through which a bluish glow silhouetted the two tall figures who gazed down upon me.
One was Professor Kovacs. He looked white and grizzled with ice, like the corpse of a man who had expired in the snowstorm yet still walked. A smell of damp rose from his clothes, and from my own, for the air here was warm.
The other man, the stranger: it was he who struck the deepest dread into my soul. He might have stepped from a portrait of an Elizabethan alchemist, dressed in a long blood-red robe that hung heavy with embroidery and dull jewels. His hair was golden, his face pure and luminous – reminding me, painfully, of Quincey – yet no one could have perceived him as angelic! His beauty contained all the corruption, laughing cruelty and foul appetites of the damned. I felt coldness, the certainty of death, the unbearable knowledge that I might die without ever knowing what became of Quincey! My soul failed, and I cursed the folly that had led me to discard all holy defences against his kind.
His kind? Or mine, also?
I rose to a sitting position, much as it pained me, and he spoke, bowing with apparent courtesy. “Madam Mina, I bid you welcome to the Scholomance. Do not be afraid; you are safe. I am Beherit. Your journey has been long and arduous, and you deserve all the hospitality I may provide. You will wish to rest and eat...”
Now I stood, despite my dizziness. “Where are my companions?”
“Safe, as are you, Madam Mina. You may see them, in time.”
He seemed to know everything. The next question I could hardly bear to ask, but I must. “Is my son here? A fair boy, with a dark-haired Hungarian woman?”
Beherit paused, a smile playing on his red lips. “He may be here. You may be allowed to see him, if your conduct pleases me.”
At this I almost fainted. Kovacs caught me, helped me to sit down and held a glass of water to my lips. So I am to be this demon’s puppet, as I was the Count’s!
“And Dracula?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Ah, yes, Dracula is here.” As Beherit spoke, Kovacs moved back to his side and both watched me with the same luminous, unearthly stare. “André has served me well.”
Now I was confused, and angry despite my fear. “But I understood Professor Kovacs was meant to warn Dracula against coming here! He has failed you, surely.”
Beherit answered, “But what surer way to draw Dracula here than to whet his curiosity, to rouse his war-like and defiant spirit by forbidding him to come? So far from failing me, my dear friend André has fulfilled my plan beautifully!”
Beherit’s next action I could hardly believe. He bent to Kovacs and kissed him full on the lips, just as a man would kiss a woman – and Kovacs allowed the kiss, nay, returned it! Now I know for certain that I am in the Devil’s realm, where all of nature is turned upside down!
“Will you wish also to see Dracula?” Beherit asked, still caressing Kovacs.
I was unsure how the question might be meant to trap me. “I – I don’t know.”
“Well, all shall be known in time,” he said enigmatically. With that, he and Kovacs bowed to me and left. I ran to the door after them, but found it locked; worse, there was no visible handle or keyhole. My head throbbed and spun from the exertion. Through the window I could see a courtyard, deserted and ghostly; no sign of my companions. When I called, there was no answer. Above the buildings, there was indistinct darkness; no snow, but an echoey vault like the inside of a great cave. A hollow mountain. The Scholomance.
There is an inner door – an archway concealed by a screen – which leads only to a little room, all marble, with a bath and privy. I say “only” but this is remarkable; there is running water, hot and cold! Is such sophistication, such extraordinary architecture, achieved by necromancy? My practical mind will not accept it. I would rather recall the Roman influence upon this land. Yet the mosaic frieze along the white walls – showing, as far as I can tell, scholarly scenes of teachers and students – seems a parody of Roman art. The colours are so darkly succulent as to be repellent and even the figures seem full of malign insinuation.
Understanding that I am a prisoner, I refreshed myself, then mastered my situation as I always do; by bringing my journal up to date.
Later
Professor Kovacs has paid me a visit, alone.
I slept for a while and was woken, again, by a presence in the room. I heard a voice say, “Madam Harker, do not be startled. I have brought you some food.”
For a moment I thought it was Van Helsing! But, with a weary mixture of dread and disappointment, I recognised Kovacs, who was setting a tray down on a small marble table. I asked, “Professor, is Quincey here? Have you seen him? For the sake of our friendship in life, please help me!”
“I cannot help you.”
“Where is Count Dracula? Why doesn’t he come to me?”
“Please, Madam Harker. I don’t know.” Kovacs came and sat beside me on the couch. He looked at me and then I saw all the horror of his fate in his eyes, in his hangdog white face. Such despair! He said, “I came here in terror, believing I had failed, but where I expected punishment I found joyful gratitude. Now I have all I desire. Beherit and the library. Yet how hollow it seems to go on without human love from now until Judgement Day!”
His voice was cracked and dry, as if it issued from a corpse! I wanted to show him compassion but I recoiled, unable to help myself. Then hi
s hands shot out and seized my shoulders, like winter twigs, and I felt his breath fall cold upon my neck, and I heard the churning of his tongue over his great sharp teeth.
“In God’s name!” I whispered. “Don’t!”
He flung himself away from me with a groan. I fell back onto my elbows, panting for breath. I saw Kovacs by the door, his gnarled hands dangling by his sides and his countenance suffused with shame. “I should be destroyed. But the library... for that I will survive. Nothing matters but the library!”
“Not even my son?” I cried, but the door opened and shut quickly, and I was alone. I dried my tears as swiftly as I might, for my becoming prostrate with grief will aid no-one.
Then I ate the meal, which consisted of paprika chicken, potatoes and hot spiced wine. How this was produced I don’t know, unless the Szgany serve Beherit as they serve Dracula. I was too hungry to decline the meal, and I tried not to think of the consequences, in fairy tales, of eating “goblin food”.
Now I feel restored in body, but in mind–! These monsters are all around me. How, after seeing the evil in Beherit’s eyes, the despair in Kovacs’s, can I even contemplate Quincey becoming one of them?
Or myself. When it so nearly happened to me the first time, Jonathan said he would rather come with me into that unknown country than let me journey there alone – and no more could I let Quincey enter Undeath without me! I have such fond thoughts of Jonathan now. He seems as wholesome and good as milk against these bloody, brimstone spirits that have stained me!
Yet Jonathan would disown me now, and all within his rights. My son is not his son – no, that is not the full truth. Quincey is Jonathan’s, but not wholly his, and that soul-taint, I fear, is ineradicable. But if he could forgive me, and I him, and if we could accept each other, with our faults and sins and all...
Later – 5 December?
Now all is dark, and the end surely not far off. I have time, I hope, to finish this account, if any ever discover it. I have only a few sheets of paper left and I am almost too exhausted to write, but let me record all that happened in order. The lamp will last a little while yet, I pray.
As I was writing my last entry, Beherit came to my room and to my astonishment held open the door, beckoning me to go outside with him. “Come,” he said, with a passable show of friendliness. “Walk with me. I would talk to you.”
I did not trust him, but what was the use of refusing? So I went, tucking the sheaf of paper that contains my journal inside my dress but leaving my heavy furs behind. Outside – strangely I remember little of our surroundings, as Beherit’s voice had a lulling effect upon me. I recall a dull white courtyard, tumbling ferns, and then dark caverns with an underwater glow glimmering on the walls, shining now and then on a startling mosaic of dragon or serpent. “You must not fear me,” Beherit said. “My quarrel is not with you, and my need to restrict your movements only for your own safety. The Scholomance is greater in size than a castle, with many dangers.”
“Then I am free to go?”
“Yes, but how could you go, sans friends and child, into that blizzard?”
“Of course, I can go nowhere! But I must know where my companions are.” He ignored my question. I grew outraged. “Are you a courteous man, Beherit?”
“Naturally.”
“Then do me the courtesy of telling me the truth! I have no power over you, I cannot use this knowledge to harm you. If ever you had one ounce of compassion within you, you would understand my natural feelings as a mother and a friend.”
“But try to understand me,” Beherit said. Here I recall we were walking upwards through a sinuous tunnel whose walls were decorated with fantastic and obscene images; even their visceral hues were shocking. The air became steamy and oddly lukewarm. “Someone cheated me. Someone failed to pay the Devil his due, for which omission I have been held hostage for four hundred years and more, and may be held for ever if the debt is not paid. Dracula must be made to pay.”
I understood, yet in another way felt I did not understand. “You mean he must give himself to the Devil, then you will be free to roam the world?”
“Yes, dear Madam Harker, as in the Bible; a tooth for a tooth and so on.”
And I could feel the Devil’s presence very close; a dragging down of the spirit, a heartlessness, a hollow glee that contained no joy, which sickened me to the very stomach. To think of Beherit at liberty in the world! “But you insist the Count is here!” I said. “Isn’t that enough to buy your liberty?”
“Not enough,” Beherit said quietly. “What is he to you?”
I gasped at the impudence of the question. “That is not your concern. Sir, you are most impolite.”
“And you are easily offended, madam, for a woman who demands frankness. Yet you didn’t answer as I expected, ‘He is a monster, I wish him dead’. You love him, then?”
“That is an extraordinary assumption,” I said. I felt blood rushing to my cheeks. “There is no love here, nothing but greed for knowledge and power. Dracula was unfortunate to fall among such as you.”
“Unfortunate? I beg you, don’t make him out a victim. Don’t you know how powerful, how ruthless he is?”
“But I have seen, however fleetingly, a nobler side to his nature. There is no such noble side to you!” I don’t know how I dared to provoke the vampire who had corrupted Professor Kovacs and murdered his friend Miklos. I forgot myself.
Beherit said, “But I had brothers to surpass, a father to prove wrong...” and I caught a glimpse of the human he had once been. All humanity was long since worn away by arcane knowledge and centuries of bitter imprisonment. “You feel some tenderness, at least, for Dracula.”
“Very well, yes, I do. Christian pity.”
At this he gave a smile of such sneering contempt that I blushed. “The object of your pity arrived less than a day before your party, Madam Mina. I regret to say that we fought and that Dracula fled and locked himself in a section of the library, denying me access. Unless I can persuade him to come out...”
His tone was quite soft, not dangerous, or so I thought. Then Beherit stopped suddenly and pulled me to face him. I saw fierce rage swimming in his eyes, almost madness, and I was terrified – not all for myself. I saw his sharp ivory wolf-teeth.
“Please, unhand me! There is nothing I can do!”
“You can persuade him to come out.”
“So that you can destroy him?”
Beherit released me. “I cannot and will not destroy Count Dracula,” he sighed. “Believe me. I cannot physically harm him. He is as strong as me, if not stronger. I wish only to talk to him.”
Oh, I so wanted to see Dracula, but I was sure I was being tricked! We walked in silence, and the eerie corridors began to oppress me unbearably. I was aware that if he abandoned me, I would be lost. I saw a different glow ahead, a reddish light that cast an unutterable spell of dread over me, and I felt an inrush of foul air. This miasma was not wintry, but unpleasantly warm and sulphur scented.
The passage gave into a series of ante-chambers all surfaced in mosaics the rich red of poppies, and then into a great chamber worked with such an obscenity of colour and design that I could not endure it. The bestial scenes, the intensity of the oily purples and dripping, subterraneans greens revolted me. I felt that if I looked on them for too long, I would be quite mesmerised – corrupted! Kovacs described this place. I can add nothing, for I have seen images no Christian woman should see.
Beherit took me towards a grotesque, obsidian dragon statue and between its great claws to the door Kovacs so dreaded. I felt no great fear, only fascination and anxiety. The door was translucent white with darkness behind it. Beherit opened the door and led me through.
We came out upon a long ledge of rock that ran high above a gloomy chasm. Disorientated, I clung to his arm in shock. Beyond the ledge on which we stood soared a cavern so vast I could see neither the far side nor the roof. The air was damp, and somewhat rank; draughts moved sluggishly through the darkness.
By instinct I wanted to cling back against the wall, but Beherit drew me forwards to the very edge.
I gasped. The slippery ledge on which we stood was the lip of a cliff that fell a hundred feet sheer towards an underground lake! One thing gave me the courage to remain there; that there was a tall protective fence running along the lip, like the black, spaced railings of a graveyard. To left and right the fence ran, and upwards, vanishing into darkness. Resting one hand on a railing, I looked into the void.
I saw the same faint light that shines everywhere reflected off the lake far below, and a different light coming from below, as if from an underwater fissure that looked fathomless. Deep in the abyss there was a globe of dull bronze light, like... oh, dear God, like a great baleful eye under the water!
“What is it?” I said.
As my words died, I saw a roiling under the surface, as if the glowing sphere were rippling and rising. A great bubble surged upwards. I watched in alarm, as if some hellish monster were about to unleash itself upon the world. It breached the surface in a plume of steam and spray; nothing more, but a stench of brimstone drifted up and made me cough. Little flames danced on the water for a moment, then all turned to coldest, darkest blue. But the eye was still there in the fissure. All of this filled me, not with clear terror, but with darkest unease.
“The Cauldron of the Dragon,” Beherit said with a soft laugh in his voice. “The lake in the valley passes under the roots of the mountain and surfaces again here; a dual lake, of darkness and light. The Cauldron in which all things are made and destroyed. We name it also the Gate. And then again, Yadu Drakuluj.”
Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula Page 26