The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale

by Reggie Oliver

  “It must contain a djinn,” said someone beside me craning forward. A djinn, I knew, was their word for a familiar spirit. Holding it lightly in one hand Zushad asked the strongest man in the room to step forward. After some debate a great ox of a man, a captain of Janissaries, approached the wizard. Zushad asked him to hold the crystal, which the man did. It was comical to see the man’s expression change as Zushad handed the object to him. Evidently to him it was heavier than a cannon ball. The Janissary held it for no more than a few moments, every muscle in his body red and bulging with strain, then he dropped it. The crystal bounced on the tessellated floor and sparks flew where it fell.

  Zushad stooped down and easily picked it up. There was a storm of applause and excitement from all but the Sultan who sat astonished, but dismayed. He evidently did not care to see his strongest protectors mocked in this way. But Zushad, at once noticing his discomfiture, came up to the Sultan and, kneeling before him, presented him with the crystal, begging him to take it from him. His look bore every sign of the most profound reverence, but many of us must have suspected a masterly piece of acting concealing absolute contempt.

  Murad, not noted for his boldness, looked doubtfully at the offering. Then, with a trembling hand, he took the sphere from the wizard. The delight on his face was plain for all to see when he found that he too could hold the object in one hand. The applause was even greater than before as the Sultan held the crystal triumphantly aloft.

  This went on for some time and it was clear that Zushad found the display irritating. We saw his eyes turn upwards to the crystal which began to glow faintly in the Sultan’s hand. At this the applause increased, but unease showed on Murad’s face. He quickly handed the sphere back to Zushad who took it with a deep bow. From the way the Sultan dipped his hands in a bowl of rose water I guessed that he found it had grown too hot to handle.

  Then, with dazzling, almost contemptuous swiftness, Zushad showed us the wonders of his crystal. Faster than one could speak the names of these colours he turned the sphere red, green, blue, yellow, black, gold... He had the lights extinguished in the room and showed us pictures in its depths — green dragons, maidens on soft divans with legs like coiled snakes, men with bulls’ heads running fast through purple forests, and once I thought I saw, in an image of distant mountains, the minute outline of Castle Dracula. All this was quite unaccompanied by the histrionics which lesser conjurers use to enhance their paltry demonstrations. His wonders were sufficiently wonderful in themselves and required no advertisement.

  I will not attempt to list all the wonders that he showed us that night. Suffice it to say that they were indeed wonderful. He filled cups with glittering rubies and emptied them again; he turned a pomegranate into a silver butterfly; he pulled a porcupine out of the mouth of a Nubian eunuch. But I could not escape the feeling that we were despised by Zushad for loving these wonders. Clearly Murad, who, for all his debauchery, had some vestiges of shrewdness, felt the same since, as wonder succeeded wonder, he seemed to grow restive. Just as Zushad was making a parsley plant grow out of the navel of one of the fattest of the Sultan’s chamberlains Murad raised his hand to call a halt to these proceedings. He spoke to the wizard with respect, but like a man who knows nonetheless that his authority is absolute.

  “Mighty sorcerer, we have seen wonders tonight such as even I, Murad, have never beheld till now. Truly, you must be possessed of a most mighty djinn to be able to perform such feats — No, sir, let the parsley continue to grow on the belly of my chamberlain as a reminder to him that he would be well advised in the future to serve me rather than his own greed first — But, you and I know, Zushad, that what you have shown us are mere baubles to please a multitude. You can do greater things than these. Why must you insult my dignity with such trifles?”

  The word “trifles” was spat out with great contempt, the rebuke it carried being almost tangible in its power. I saw Zushad take a step backward. He was evidently unused to being addressed in this way, but in an instant he had recovered his authority and composure.

  “O Commander of the Faithful,” he replied, “the words you have spoken are severe, but, as always, just. What you are pleased to call ‘trifles’ are indeed, as you have so perceptively observed, but a small indication of the extent of my powers. Nevertheless, it ill befits a man such as myself to boast before your eminence, or to show to a crowd—” Here he swept his hand round to indicate the rest of us — “things that are worthy to be seen only by mighty and discerning potentates such as yourself.”

  “Master Wizard,” said the Sultan, “I will decide what is to be seen or not seen by my subjects. I command that you show us here and now the deepest of your magic.”

  There was silence in the chamber as the two men faced each other. Clearly a battle of wills was in progress, and each man was calculating how far his power would extend. I thought that Murad would be no match for the sorcerer, but it would seem that I was mistaken, for Zushad bowed low to the earth.

  “It shall be, even as you desire, mighty king,” he replied. “What is your pleasure that I should do?”

  Murad paused. He seemed not altogether satisfied by Zushad’s submission. As if suspicious of a trap he spoke slowly, choosing his words with care.

  “I command that you show us the djinn that serves you — or that you serve — and that we see his true face.”

  Once more silence. I saw shock and anger pass across the face of the sorcerer.

  “You ask a great and terrible thing, O auspicious Commander of the Faithful,” he said. “Few people can behold the true face of the djinn and live.”

  “Nevertheless I will see it,” said Murad without hesitation. Nothing in his previous conduct had prepared me for this steely determination. It inspired respect. Looking across at Vizier Sokolly, I saw that he too was astonished.

  Zushad merely nodded, as if this display of boldness were routine. “In that case, I require an assistant who will be my acolyte. A young person, pure and strong of will, who has not yet known a woman.”

  A murmur went up and some laughter was heard. Zushad scanned the company. I was dreadfully afraid that he would choose me for his experiment. I blushed deeply, thinking that I must very shortly be the target for all eyes. Zushad’s gaze continued to sweep the room. When it reached me it stopped. A pulse was banging in my temple and I must surely have looked as red as the rose. As his glance rested on me I saw him smile faintly, and for the first time I saw something akin to kindness in his look. Then it passed on, eventually coming to Prince Vlad where it stopped. He pointed.

  “There is my acolyte,” he said. Vlad rose almost instantly, as if he had expected the call. With a graceful movement he stepped over the table at which he had been sitting and jumped lightly into the centre of the room.

  I will not trouble you with the details of the ceremony. Zushad followed the procedure that is to be found in most reputable (and disreputable) grimoires and is known as Invocatio Primordialis. A virgin kid crowned with vervain, which, thanks to the resourceful Master of Ceremonies, had been ready and waiting in an antechamber, was beheaded and its blood was poured into a chafing dish. There it was mixed with laurel and salts of vinegar. This potent mixture having been drunk by the sorcerer and his apprentice for protection, the circle and pentacle were drawn on the floor, the angels of the elements being represented by four candles at four corners outside the circle.

  Further ceremonies followed of a most solemn kind. Not one spectator moved or even spoke during these offices. We were all of us, I think, filled with dread and an expectation of something momentous.

  Then Zushad began the Great Conjuration in a slow, almost soporific voice...

  “I adjure thee, O Spirit! by the power of the great Adonay, to appear out of the Haunted Deep and the forest of the Greater Deep, and by Elohim, by Ariel, by Jehovam, by Agla, Tagla, Mathon, Oarios, Almouzin, Membrot, Pythona, Magots, Salphae, Salamandra, Godens...”

  The list of the greater and lesser demon
s seemed to go on for ever, and was repeated. Then in the centre of the circle a brazier of charcoal and sandalwood was lit which was the sacred flame. The sandalwood gave off the most pungent and delightful odour and over this Vlad and Zushad held the ebony blasting-rod which is the magician’s final protection against attack by demons. Once consecrated, the rod was raised and then brought down sharply in the centre of the circle. The sound of this blow was like a cannon shot. Then Zushad intoned the Great Conjuration for the third time in a ringing voice that echoed about the dome of the Sultan’s hall. Even now the sound of that voice brings a shiver to me and raises the few grey hairs I have left from my scalp.

  Presently a mist began to form in the circle which resolved itself into a column of dense saffron coloured smoke. A smell began to pervade the room, slight as yet, but foul, like diseased corpses rotting in a charnel-house. Vlad and the sorcerer alone seemed oblivious of it. I noticed that my prince was performing his tasks with exemplary skill, requiring only the slightest prompting from Zushad. It would appear that they were communicating by thought rather than word.

  The smoke changed in colour to a mottled, rusty brown. Several times I thought I saw a shape form within it, but I was deceived. The stench was becoming heavier and more pervasive. Several of the weaker members of the party fainted, but no-one made a move to assist them. It seemed as if the whole of the Sultan’s hall were shuddering, quivering in sympathy with the protective flame in the sacred brazier.

  I saw Zushad still intoning, but could not hear his voice. There was a look almost of fear on his face and I felt sure that he was not entirely in command of what was happening. Twice I thought that the cloud of smoke was about to form itself into something; twice Zushad raised his blasting rod to “command the formations”, as the grimoires say, but seemed to be forced back by a hidden and abstract power.

  Then a curious thing happened. Vlad, who all this while had seemed the most composed of all of us, took a laurel leaf and the sacred knife from the table of elements, cut his thumb with the knife and bled upon the leaves which he then crushed and threw upon the brazier. Immediately the protective flame surged up and the smoke in the circle quailed before it.

  Seizing his opportunity Zushad swung his blasting rod over the smoke to command the formation. The hall was as silent as the Hall of the Dead in that moment.

  Then, out of the silence, came a sound, as faint and distant at first as a whisper on a mountain top, then slowly increasing in volume. It was the sound of a thousand slithering creatures. I have seen eels sold by the pint in market places still living. They are kept in buckets and crawl over each other in a ceaseless effort to find water and escape. In doing so they release the slime of panic and all their wrigglings are vain. The sound they make as they do this was like the sound I heard that night only infinitely slighter: the sound of imbecility and damnation.

  The sound crept over us like a curse and tainted us like the thought of incest. Then I saw that something at last was truly forming itself in the smoke. At first I could only see curls and ribbons of colour. Then these seemed to solidify into a hundred headless snakes, glistening and wriggling, sharp and lividly defined, like a landscape under lightning.

  The colours came and went, glowing in the dim hall, but dully like the embers of a fading fire, umber and liver red and mottled purple. The snake forms gathered into a knot and suddenly with a glutinous snapping sound a head emerged, savage and reptilian, a head with a hundred serpentine bodies all feeding it with malign and febrile energy. The head spoke in a hiss.

  “Speak to me. Speak to me. Speak to me...” The words were repeated over and over again. There was something almost pathetic in the tone of the appeal. The words seemed to come out of an ancient and ineradicable loneliness.

  “This is not the true djinn,” said the Sultan. “Let it depart.” Then Zushad struck the serpent creature with his blasting rod and with a shriek it vanished.

  Then the smoke formed itself into the semblance of a naked woman with one breast and a tail of spun glass. She was fair to look at except that her lips were black and she laughed ceaselessly. The Sultan also rejected this apparition as not being the true djinn and without demurring Zushad banished this as well.

  “How is it, O auspicious Commander of the Faithful,” he asked having completed the banishment, “that you can discern true spirits from false like a deep sorcerer of the tenth grade?”

  “Do not be amazed,” said Murad, happily aware that notwithstanding Zushad was amazed. “In my youth there was at court for a time a man named Issachar. I see that you recognize the name. He had forgotten more than you will ever know, Zushad, and a little of his boundless knowledge he shared with me.”

  Few people, I think, recognized the name Issachar, but I did. It was the Wandering Jew whom I had met on my journey into Transylvania.

  “So let us have no more illusions,” said the Sultan. “Show us the true djinn.”

  Zushad muttered a few words while Vlad sprinkled laurel on the brazier. The smoke began to diminish until it was a small white cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand. Slowly the cloud shaped itself into a recognisable human form, but still no taller than half a foot. The whiteness of the smoke took on a smooth, palpable consistency. It was naked flesh pale and glistening. It walked and squeaked and the tiny slap of its bare feet on the marble echoed through the hall.

  The djinn had taken the shape of a baby with fiery red hair and little red-hot coals for eyes. As it stamped up and down in the circle it squealed and gurgled with pleasure, and even as it did so it grew. I cannot describe the horror that this vision induced in each one of us, so innocent at first sight was its object. Yet it was perhaps the apparent innocence which lent it a vileness quite surpassing all previous visions conjured by Zushad. This was no creature of nightmare like the snakes, or perverse fantasy like the woman, it was a true embodiment of an abstract force. Its name, called out several times by Zushad, was Nybbas, sometimes called the Babe of the Abyss, and in Pseudo-Honorius it is called the Unholy Child and the Mocker of Christ’s Infancy. It represented all the hellish characteristics of youth: selfishness, mischief, unreason and gleeful torture.

  Now it was as tall as Zushad, but barely could one see him or any other person in the hall, for, besides exuding a sweaty leprous glow of its own, it seemed to absorb all the light in the room to itself. And all the while its awful childish gurgles and snickerings grew louder and louder. Its smile was wide, revealing a fresh red mouth and little white teeth as sharp as daggers.

  When it was seven feet tall it stopped growing. This great, fat white cherub, glittering with obscene health, occupied almost the entire magic circle leaving little room for Vlad and the sorcerer within it. It put its head back and let out a string of obscene gibberish while drops of white foam dribbled from the side of its mouth. Then suddenly it launched itself forward to escape the confines of the circle. Everyone recoiled in horror, but Zushad was too quick. He extended his blasting rod and restrained the creature. It recoiled as if on an invisible rein.

  “Now you have seen the djinn,” said Zushad, visibly exhausted, “are you satisfied?”

  “Tell the djinn to prophesy,” said the Sultan. I could not see Murad but I heard the tremor in his voice, a mixture of excitement and barely restrained terror.

  Now I heard fear in the voice of Zushad as well. “You cannot ask this!” he said. “Nybbas is not to be commanded in such a way.”

  “Prophesy, Nybbas! Prophesy!” yelled the Sultan.

  Nybbas let out a belch, like that of a sick man with an empty and exhausted gut. And from his mouth came a limp white thing which slopped onto the floor with a wet sound. We saw that it was the naked corpse of an old man, bloated with indulgence and riddled with disease. The next instant we recognized the features of the face. It was the Sultan, the aspect of his death foretold.

  We heard the scream of the living Murad and the next moment the whole room was filled with choking black fumes. For a long moment there wa
s nothing but blackness and the terrible screams of the Sultan.

  When the smoke dissipated both Zushad and his djinn were gone. Sitting in the circle alone and with his knees drawn up to his chin was Vlad, shivering a little but otherwise calm. In his eyes was a faraway look as if he had just woken from a dream.

  I looked around to see the Sultan and was in time to catch him scuttling from the room followed by a retinue of eunuchs who seemed equally eager to be on their way. Vlad remained in the circle, apparently oblivious of the surrounding chaos. Sokolly was the first to approach him. He broke the circle, being careful to remove his shoes before he did so, and crouched down beside the Prince. He seemed to ask him a number of questions all of which Vlad answered with a simple shake of the head.

  At the end of this interview Razendoringer and I were allowed to lead Vlad away. Immediately we got back to our apartments Vlad went to bed and slept continuously for two nights and a day. Apart from this he seemed to have suffered no ill effects.

  In the next few days we saw no-one except Haroun. He brought us news that the Sultan was drowning his shock in a sea of unparalleled debauchery, but that Sokolly was busier than ever. He was, apparently, searching for the mysteriously vanished Zushad; indeed his questions to Vlad on the night of his performance related to the whereabouts of this dangerous man. I was surprised that Sokolly wanted anything to do with him, but the Vizier was a man who lived only for conquest and intrigue; everything else he valued in so far as it could serve his purpose and in no other way. If demons could help consolidate his power, then demons he would use.

  The rumour was that Zushad was still somewhere in the city. I did not care where he was so long as he was out of our lives, but this proved not to be the case.