Powers of Darkness

by Hans De Roos

  The room with the iron chains in the gate tower gives access to another staircase, which Harker describes as a “deep well.” Here he is attacked and finally lands in the basement: Through a tunnel and a domed space he reaches the room with the rotting bones and then the crypt with the stone coffins. After the crypt, Harker climbs up again, to a balcony overlooking an old chapel (that is, the floor above the crypt with the stone coffins), and from the balcony up to the hall with the oaken floors—from where he gets into the treasure room and the Count’s private rooms—and finally back to the dining room.

  Harker’s tour of 10 May thus leads him to the highest and to the lowest floors of the castle, making a full circle through all four wings—but on different levels.

  C) DOWN THE SECRET STAIRS

  When Harker goes down the secret stairs for the first time, he arrives at a second balcony, which overlooks the sacrificial temple with the altar and the burning torches.

  Later, he will use this staircase again and find a vestibule, with tunnels leading to the east and to the west. Following the latter, he arrives in the same staircase where he has been before, coming up from the crypt with the stone coffins, and then from the balcony overlooking the chapel. Harker uses this path to take another look in the crypt, where he discovers the transport boxes; the Count is lying in one of them.

  These are all the places mentioned in the Transylvanian part of the story: The floors between the entrance hall and the fourth floor are never described, nor are the floors between the fourth floor and the top floor.

  The novel contains enough hints, however, to make a rough plan of the parts Harker has seen—but we still need a more precise orientation.

  4. THE FOUR TOWERS

  The towers are ideal clues for improving this orientation, because they mark the corners of the castle and connect the four wings with each other.

  The southwest tower: When Harker comes up from the crypt and the chapel-balcony, he notes that he is in the southwest corner of the castle. The Count’s treasure room is a rounded tower room, evidently in the southwest tower, which we can now pinpoint on a provisory map of the fourth floor.

  The gate tower: Similarly, when Harker arrives in the gate tower, he notes that he has through countless detours arrived at the north part of the castle.

  The southeast tower: Again, we have a clear hint, because the Count calls the tower where the Countess was locked in “that little tower room in the southeast.” We may assume that this was the highest room in this tower, so that to drop from the window meant a sure death. Harker notices that this room is rounded, like the treasure room in the southwest tower.

  A fourth tower: There are no further towers mentioned, but the underground room where Harker finds the rotting bones and the skulls is round, so that we may suspect that it forms the base of a fourth tower.

  5. THE FOUR WINGS

  The south wing: Like the fourth floor, the portrait gallery plays a vital role in the story. Before Harker discovers the secret staircase, the gallery is his only way to access the rest of the castle. We may assume that it is on the highest floor, as it connects the highest tower room on the southwest corner (where Harker watches the sunset) with the highest tower room on the southeast corner (the room of the Countess): Harker can reach both tower rooms starting from the gallery without climbing further stairs.

  The gallery itself must thus be part of the south wing. When Harker goes in there during the day, the paintings are bathed in sunlight.

  The west wing: When Harker enters the gallery on 10 May, he sees two doors at its far end, where the large portrait hangs. One leads to the southwest tower, one to a series of rooms which Harker calls the west wing.

  The east wing: Because the west wing turns out to be a dead end, Harker returns to the gallery (the south wing) and at the side where he first entered finds a door to a room with a rhombic floor pattern and high windows. He runs through them and a series of other rooms, feeling half-sick, before he arrives at the gate tower, that is, the north side. We can also conclude that he has passed through the east wing.

  The north wing: The description of this wing mostly concerns its underground part. In the room where the iron chains are, Harker finds a low door and then goes down the “deep well,” walks through a tunnel and a space with a domed roof, then arrives in the round room with the foul-odored skeletons. If we assume that this round room is part of a tower (the northwest tower), then the north wing ends here and Harker continues—still underground—in the southward direction through the crypt, until he arrives at the staircase in the southwest corner.

  Both the crypt and the chapel above are thus part of the west wing, but are located much lower than the deserted rooms Harker reached from the gallery.

  6. A PLAN OF THE FOURTH FLOOR

  Now we can try to fill in the floor plan of the fourth floor, where Harker lives. Again, the easiest way is to start with the corners.

  We already know that the treasure room with the gold is in the southwest corner. When Harker looks out from the window of the southwest tower (on 10 May), he notes: “I saw that I was in the southwest corner of the castle, and from there I could see its east side, where my room was. I also saw the windows which I had left open there.” Since Harker cannot look around corners or through walls, the only logical possibility is that his bedroom is in the southeast corner. The room of the Countess is in the same corner, but much higher up: The Count mentions that Harker can view the same ravine as the young lover did, but that the drop from the room of the Countess is much more dramatic.

  The next corner, counter-clockwise, would be occupied by the gate tower. This fortification must be quite a massive structure; Harker can see it both from his own bedroom, and from the dining room, which has windows to the courtyard.

  In the northwest corner, finally, must be the library: When Harker first enters it (around 5 p.m.), he notes it is a large corner room, where the sun shines in. After his long trip of 10 May, he sits there and watches the sunset, before he decides to go up to the highest room in the southwest tower, to have an even better view. The library thus must have windows to the west.

  Harker does not state that the library would have a round corner; it seems that the northwest corner is only round at its base. Harker’s bedroom is not round either; the round tower room of the Countess may be part of a bowfront tower that projects from the façade, only higher up.

  From all of the above, we can conclude that the dining room should be in the east wing of the fourth floor. It borders both the library in the north wing and the Count’s private rooms, which must be in the south wing. It also gives access to the corridor and its staircase (leading downwards to the entrance hall and upwards to the gallery). Finally, via the octagonal cabin, it links to Harker’s bedroom in the southeast corner. All these criteria define its shape and location.

  The secret corridor leading to the secret stairs starts directly opposite Harker’s bedroom door. It receives some light through two windows, thus it must run along a wall.

  The following sketch matches all this information in the most simple way I could conceive of; in fact, I did not find another logical solution.

  7. THE LEDGE ALONG THE SOUTH WALL

  Looking out from his bedroom window, Harker can see two different persons crawl or walk on a ledge along an outer wall. Harker describes how these human shapes move between the “west tower” and the “east tower,” meaning the tower on the southwest corner and the one on the southeast corner, where his own bedroom is. Just like in Dracula, the ledge thus runs along the south façade, which Harker calls the rear side of the castle. The front side is the north façade, where we find the gate tower and the drawbridge across the waterfall—the regular entrance to the castle.

  The ledge can be accessed through a window in the southwest tower. Apparently, this is not the window Harker looks out from on 10 May, when he watches the peasant family: After this event, he is still searching for the right window. He only finds it when h
e goes down the secret stairs, follows a tunnel to the west and then arrives in the same staircase—but at a point underneath the balcony overlooking the chapel.

  8. THE CHAPEL AND THE CRYPT

  I assume that the chapel (in the west wing) is on the same level as the entrance hall (in the east wing): an elevated ground level. Underneath is the crypt with the stone coffins, that receives light through high-set windows; its floor is below ground level. The chapel itself could be quite high, so that the balcony overlooking it could be on the third floor; from there, Harker follows the staircase to the fourth floor, arriving at the hall with the oaken floors. The window opening to the ledge could thus be between the second and the third floor, so that Harker missed it when he scaled the stairs from the balcony to the fourth floor.

  9. FILLING IN THE DETAILS

  Now we can fill in the remaining details. For example, Harker suspects that the blonde girl slips out through a secret door in the library; I created an extra secret exit for her, that is hidden from Harker’s sight when the Count opens the door to the library.

  The corridor next to the dining room runs across the east wing, while the portrait gallery runs along the south façade. Because there are several floors in between, we have a myriad of possibilities to imagine a route between the two spaces.

  The sacrificial temple is underground; I imagine it to be in the south wing, still leaving places for tunnels to the west and the east starting from a vestibule connected to the secret stairs. But if we assume more than just one underground level, the possibilities multiply.

  10. LEFT OR RIGHT?

  So far, it seems possible to create floor plans of the basement, the elevated ground level, the fourth floor and the top floor without getting caught in logical contradictions. Therefore, I suspect that the author(s) of Makt Myrkranna had a consistent model of the castle in mind while the novel was written; maybe, there even were map sketches, like the ones I deducted from the text of the story just now.

  A single point kept marring me: When Harker looks out from his bedroom, on 10 May in the morning, he notes that he sees towers to the left and the right; the tower to his left would be the tower where the mysterious shape came from, crawling along the ledge like a cat. We already know that this must be the southwest tower; if Harker looks out from his bedroom window, this southwest tower must be on his right-hand, while the gate tower is at his left hand.

  This could be a simple slip of the pen—but there may be a more elegant solution: Harker writes his diary of 10 May while he sits in the library in the north wing, watching the sunset, before he goes up to the top room of the southwest tower. Sitting in this position, the southwest tower is indeed on his left hand, while the gate tower is on his right hand: Harker’s description is logical and consistent from the perspective he had while taking down his notes.

  11. TAKE A LOOK AT THE FLOOR PLANS AT OUR WEBSITE!

  Whatever the case, the Transylvanian part of the novel is much more enjoyable when we can follow Harker’s adventures in our imagination, through the three dimensions of space. Even with the help of this essay, though, the reader may have difficulties building such a virtual model in his mind. For this reason, I have worked out the floor plans for the four levels discussed here. Pienette Coetzee, a young Munich artist who studied Graphic Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, has re-created them in a style that would fit the dilapidated, medieval structure Harker describes. They can be viewed online on my project website www.powersofdarkness.com.

  Enjoy.

  POWERS OF DARKNESS

  Fjallkonan #1 | 13 January 19001

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE2

  WHILE READING THIS STORY, THE READER CAN SEE for himself how these papers have been combined to make a logical whole. I had to do no more than to remove some minor events that do not matter to the story, and so let the people involved3 report their experiences in the same plain manner in which these pages were originally written. For obvious reasons, I have changed the names of people and places.4 But otherwise I leave the manuscript unchanged, in accordance with the wish of those who have considered it their solemn5 duty to present it to the eyes of the public.

  To the best of my belief, there is no doubt whatsoever that the events related here really took place,6 however unbelievable and incomprehensible they may appear in light of common experience. And I am further convinced that they must always remain to some extent unknowable, although it’s not inconceivable that continuing research in psychology and the natural sciences may all of a sudden7 provide logical explanations for these and other such strange happenings, which neither scientists nor the secret police8 have yet been able to understand.

  I emphasize again that the mysterious tragedy described here is completely true as far as the events as such are concerned, although in certain points, of course, I have reached a different conclusion than the people who are recounting it here.9 But the events as such are irrefutable, and so many people are aware of them that they will not be denied. This series of crimes has not yet passed from the public’s memory—crimes which seem incomprehensible, but appear to stem from the same root and have created in their time10 as much horror within the public as the infamous murders by Jack the Ripper, which occurred a short time later.11 Some will still recall the remarkable foreigners12 who for many seasons on end13 played a dazzling role in the life of the aristocratic circles here in London, and people will probably remember that at least one of them14 suddenly disappeared inexplicably, and that no trace of him was ever seen again.15

  All the people who are said16 to have played a part in this remarkable story—willingly or unwillingly—are widely known and well respected. Both Thomas Harker and his wife—who is an extraordinary woman—and Dr. Seward are my friends,17 and have been so for many years, and I have never doubted that they would tell the truth; and the highly regarded scientist, who appears under a pseudonym here, may18 likewise be too famous throughout the educated world for his real name—which I prefer not to mention19—to remain hidden from the public,20 especially from those people who have learned firsthand21 to appreciate and respect his brilliant mind22 and masterly skill, though they no more adhere to his views on life than I do. But in our times it should be clear to all serious-thinking men that

  “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”23

  London, —Street, August 189824

  B. S.

  PART I

  The Castle in the Carpathians25

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thomas Harker’s Journal26

  (written in shorthand)

  BISTRITZ, 3 MAY

  FINALLY I ARRIVED HERE AFTER A SPEEDY JOURNEY ACROSS Europe by express train. Left Munich at 8:30 p.m. on the 1st of May, arrived in Vienna the next morning. From there to Budapest, a strange city, although I only saw a little of it. There it felt as though I were saying goodbye to the West and Western civilization, as Eastern culture came to the fore. I spent the night in Klausenburg; got there yesterday evening after dark and continued with the mail coach to the Borgo Pass this morning.27 Today I have gone over hilly country, very different from the plains of Hungary. Here and there I could see a village or a castle on the hilltops, and, occasionally, the road crossed gushing rivers. At the coach stops I saw many rural people gathering, clad in all sorts of attire—I wish that I could have drawn some sketches of life here around me. Oddest of all do the Slovaks seem to me. They wear wide trousers with shirts overtop, and belts around the middle. Their hair falls to the shoulders and their eyes are black and fiery, which makes them look like bandits. Other than that, however, they seem harmless.

  Fjallkonan #2 | 20 January 1900

  WHILE I WAITED IN LONDON FOR ORDERS FROM MY employer, I did not forget to visit the British Museum to gain some knowledge about Transylvania from books and maps, as up to this point I knew next to nothing about it. I learned that my destination was in the eastern part of the country, somewhere up in the Carpathian Mountains, c
lose to the borders between Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina28—in other words, in one of the wildest, least-known corners of Europe. As the maps they make in Transylvania cannot be compared to those created for the War Office29 back home in England, I could not locate Castle Dracula on any of them. The post town is called Bistritz,30 and the castle is close to the Borgo Pass.31Transylvania’s population is a colorful mixture of varied nations, just like in Hungary—at least according to the experts at the British Museum. They say that the country is a melting pot of Germans, Vlachs, Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Gypsies, Slovenes, and God knows how many other diverse peoples.32 Religions are nearly as numerous as ethnicities, and apart from that, the semicircle33 of the Carpathians, so to speak, harbors all the superstitions and backwoods beliefs34 of this world, along with plenty of obscure tales, archaic myths, and customs passed down over centuries.35 Here the tribes met in ancient times, when they were still moving from place to place, and today, Western culture and the occultism of the East still intersect here, like two rivers meeting, forming a vortex where much of what has elsewhere long ago sunk deep into oblivion still swirls near the surface—emerging when we least expect it. This is all very interesting, but unfortunately I am too much the lawyer,36 and thus engaging in such studies—whether national or historical—is not my innate strength. Who knows, perhaps the Count could enlighten me on this subject?

  The Count had sent me detailed instructions about how to organize my trip, recommending the Golden Crown guesthouse to me, which he believes to be the best place to stay in this area.37 I followed his directions and soon found that they had been expecting me, for at the very entrance I was met by an old woman with a kind face, wearing an ordinary peasant dress. She bowed low and asked in more or less understandable German if I was “Mr. Englishman.” I said that I was and told her my name. She looked at me closely and then said something to a man in the next room. He came at once with a letter in his hand, and I immediately recognized the Count’s handwriting, which is very queer. It was written in English, just as were his letters to the lawyer’s office in London where I work, and it read as follows: