Bram Stoker's Dracula

by Fred Saberhagen

  One item of equipment now very often out of the young traveler's pocket and in his hands was the neat notebook in which Harker had determined to keep a day-to-day, and sometimes hour-by-hour, journal of this interesting trip. He looked forward with keen anticipation to being able to share it all with Mina.

  His latest entry read:

  The region which is my destination lies on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains—to an ordinary Englishman like myself one of the wildest and least-known portions of Europe.

  The railroad could carry Harker no closer to his goal than a town called Bistritz, of some twelve thousand inhabitants, and upon his arrival there in late afternoon he left the train. The place was certainly picturesque enough to suit him, surrounded as it was by the ruins of antique fortifications; and Harker was pleased to find that in accordance with Count Dracula's meticulous instructions, a room had been reserved for him at the Golden Krone Hotel.

  When he registered at the Golden Krone, the young solicitor was immediately handed a letter from his client, written in a neat English script:

  My friend—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you on to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

  Your friend,

  Dracula

  Harker lay fitfully in his bed at the Golden Krone, but he had dined well, and if his food came more heavily seasoned with pepper and paprika than he was accustomed to, he was ready to accept this and other peculiarities of the place in a spirit of adventure.

  For breakfast on the next day he had more paprika, as seasoning in a sort of porridge of maize flour, with eggplant. After breakfast he passed the time agreeably enough in making and noting observations of things that interested him.

  When, in midafternoon, it came time to board the coach, the traveler was interested to discover that his only companions were a taciturn local merchant and two Gypsy women, the latter apparently mother and daughter. As far as Harker could make out, none of the three spoke English, or any other language with which he had the least familiarity.

  All three of these natives, when they learned that the young foreigner's destination was the Borgo Pass, gazed at him with odd expressions, compounded of what he took to be pity and alarm. This attitude Harker found somewhat unsettling—as he did the proximity of the voluptuous young Gypsy woman, who happened to be seated across from him, and whose knee touched his from time to time in the close confines of the coach.

  The ride began uneventfully enough, though the driver kept the horses at a swifter pace than Harker had expected. At intervals during the journey his fellow passengers conversed among themselves in a language he could not begin to understand, exchanging some remarks that Harker was convinced referred to him.

  The four had been confined together for several hours in the vehicle, swaying and bouncing over gradually deteriorating roads, and Harker was using the last of the fading daylight to yearn over a small metal-framed photograph of Mina, when suddenly the young Gypsy woman, who had been studying the foreigner intently for some time, appeared to come to a decision.

  Leaning forward boldly, and smiling as if in reassurance, she seized Harker's right hand. He hastily used his free hand to stuff Mina's picture into one of his pockets, and was about to attempt to convey to the Gypsy that he had no wish to have his fortune told, when he realized that the young woman's object had rather been to give him something.

  Looking down, totally at a loss to understand, he observed the object the girl had pressed into his hand—it was a small crucifix, attached to a fine chain that appeared to be of silver.

  The two women, with energetic signs and coaxings, were making plain to Harker their urgent desire that he should put the silver chain around his neck. When Harker looked helplessly to the merchant, that gentleman, chewing his heavy mustache, only frowned and nodded thoughtfully, as if he thought that on the whole what the women were suggesting was a good idea.

  Willing to make an effort to humor his traveling companions, Harker took off his hat and slipped the thin chain over his head. Immediately the two women were all smiles and satisfaction—yes, there was no doubt that was really what they had wanted him to do. He put on his hat again and sat back.

  The vague mental discomfort that Harker would ordinarily have expected to experience upon submitting to this popish and vaguely idolatrous custom for some reason failed to materialize. Instead he found the touch of the silver image—well, rather comforting.

  He decided he would note it in those words, at the next opportunity he had of writing in his journal.

  "Thank you," he said, bobbing his head rather formally to each of the women in turn. "Thank you."

  And he thought that perhaps, though they could understand no English, his smile and gestures managed to convey his meaning. The women, as he thought, gave every sign of satisfaction with his behavior, but none that (as Harker had more than half expected) any form of payment was required from him.

  Presently the sun was gone, its last rays turning pink the snowy eastern mountaintops; and at its disappearance the driver stopped, briefly, to light the coach's lanterns against the fall of night. Then he resumed his high seat, and his whip again cracked sharply in the briskly chilling air, urging on the horses to maintain their speed despite the evident poorness and increasing steepness of the road.

  The next stop, according to the instructions Harker had received from his client, should be the Borgo Pass.

  In the darkness the road was no longer visible to the passengers, but the jolting of the coach testified that it must have deteriorated further. To the English traveler, the hours of the night seemed endless. The lanterns burning on the outside of the coach gave only feeble light. The moon remained for long minutes at a time behind scudding clouds, emerging rarely to hint at mountainous terrain, partially wooded and partly desolate, without, as far as Harker could discern, the light of a single farm or village for many miles.

  Then suddenly, and quite unexpectedly as far as Harker was concerned, the driver was pulling his hard-worked horses to a stop. Peering from the window of the coach, Harker could dimly perceive that they had arrived at a clearing of some kind, a widening of the road as if at a fork or resting place, though no alternate track was readily discernible. Some kind of roadside shrine, as he thought it, was visible; vaguely in the silent darkness he could perceive what looked like a giant crucifix.

  Harker was reasonably sure that the driver spoke at least a little English. Clearing his throat, he called out the window: "Is this—I say, is this the place? I…"

  Harker received no answer, but evidently it was the place where he was to be met, or at least the driver had determined that it was, for the man had scrambled from his seat atop the coach and was hurriedly unstrapping Harker's trunk. In another moment his entire baggage had been rudely, crudely thrown to the ground.

  This brought a cry of outrage from the owner. "You there! You ought to be careful…"

  But to protest seemed completely useless. And now the driver, his face grim, moving as if moments for some reason counted, was holding the door open for Harker, urgently beckoning him out.

  On alighting from the coach, Harker looked around, hoping to catch sight of the conveyance which was to take him to the count. Each moment he expected to see the glaze of approaching lamps through the blackness, but nothing of the kind appeared. The only light was the flickering rays of the lamps of the vehicle in which he had been riding. In that illumination the steam from the hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. He could now see the white sandy road lying ahead, but on it was no sign of a vehicle.

  Getting out of doors at least made it possible for him to stretch his cramped legs, and to read his watch, by bringing it n
ear one of the flaring coach lanterns.

  "We are early!" Harker protested, staring, blinking at the dial, then holding the instrument to his ear. If his watch was correct—and the timepiece seemed to be ticking along as evenly as ever—the steaming horses had brought him to Borgo Pass a full hour ahead of schedule.

  Again he endeavored to register a protest with the driver: "Even if this is the right place, we are an hour early, and no one is here to meet me. No…"

  But it was futile. The merchant and the women were staring at their erstwhile companion with pity—and with relief, as if rejoicing to be rid of him. Then the door of the coach banged shut; and the driver, when Harker looked for him again, was already back on his high seat, picking up his whip.

  A few moments after that, and as far as the young traveler from England could tell, he seemed to have the night and the high Carpathians all to himself. There was only the fading rumble of coach wheels, diminishing hoofbeats, the snap of a whip. Even running an hour ahead of schedule as they were, obviously neither driver nor passengers had been minded to dally in these parts a minute longer than was absolutely necessary—

  And what was that? Harker asked himself, turning his head suddenly to listen.

  Had it really been a wolf's howl? In a country so wild, a world away from suburban London, he could well believe it.

  The faint faraway wailing noise was repeated, then answered from somewhere rather uncomfortably near at hand. Unconsciously the solicitor found himself moving away from his dumped heavy baggage, moving toward the vaguely visible shrine or signpost, as if by so doing he might somehow cling to the nearest vestige of civilization, a sign that humanity indeed retained some foothold in this world.

  Then it occurred to Harker that possibly a signpost might be helpful in some practical way, if he had been let out in the wrong place after all, and with the coming of daylight would have to find his own way back to civilization. Of course, in this darkness any letters or numbers would be difficult to read, even if the language should be familiar, which seemed unlikely.

  And in fact the thing itself, when Harker came close enough to see it at all clearly, was very strange. At all events, it was certainly no signpost.

  His first impression had evidently been correct. A great cross, but oddly enough the man-sized carven figure crucified upon it was not human—or not entirely.

  Tentatively he reached up and touched the legs. The wooden body was a man's, but the head appeared to be that of a wolf.

  To Harker the strangest thing about the figure was that in this setting, it seemed somehow—appropriate.

  Turning away from the shrine—if such it was—Harker spent a long and rather uncomfortable few minutes strolling back and forth over the same few yards of road, now and then whistling or humming to himself. He did his best to distract himself from thoughts of danger and difficulty by mentally reviewing the business he had come here to conclude. This was a fairly complex affair, involving the purchase of a number of properties.

  At last, with some relief, he caught the sound of horses and a rumble of wheels approaching, this time from a direction at right angles to the road he had already traveled. By now his eyes had made a good adjustment to the darkness, and he could manage to make out the faint track of the side road. Jolting along it at a good pace came the sparks of the new vehicle's lamps.

  Soon it was close enough for Harker to obtain a better look. Coal-black and splendid animals were pulling a calèche, a half-open carriage with a high coachman's seat in front.

  The driver who crouched upon that seat was clad in a peculiar livery indeed, dark short cape and high collar under a black hat or helmet suggesting the head of a predatory bird. Only a portion of a pale face was left exposed.

  Stopping the calèche in a position that brought his elevated perch exactly opposite the waiting passenger, the driver called down to him in guttural German: "My master the count bade me take all good care of you, mein Herr!"

  A moment later Harker, to his vast astonishment, found himself caught by hand and shoulder, and literally lifted, swung into the half-open body of the carriage. Stunned, he could only sit for a long moment where he had been placed while the nimble coachman, giving further evidence of prodigious strength, hoisted his heavy trunk and other baggage aboard.

  The young solicitor sat there, physically comfortable enough, while a heavy robe was draped efficiently around him. A flask, which by the smell of it contained slivovitz, the local plum brandy, was pressed into his hand. Then, with a crack of the whip, the final leg of his journey was under way.

  And still, continually, out of the darkness surrounding the moving calèche, there sounded the hungry, mournful voices of the wolves as if the pack were following… Harker barely tasted the slivovitz.

  The next two hours passed in journeying even swifter than before—though this driver's whip cracked much less frequently—and eventually it seemed to Harker that even wolves had probably have been left behind. The road, even narrower now and rougher than that the coach from Bistritz had brought him on, wound and switchbacked endlessly on and up among the mountains, sometimes skirting the edge of a precipice, sometimes plunging for long minutes into a tunnel of pines. Still the darkness on every side remained utterly unrelieved by any dot of illumination from farm or Gypsy camp.

  And then, without warning, the edifice that Harker knew must be his destination came into view, already startlingly close on its high promontory; it was a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows issued no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.

  A scant minute later, the calèche was rumbling under a long, low roof of stone and emerging into an open courtyard of the ancient building, half fortress and half palace.

  Only moments after having entered the courtyard, Harker and his baggage were being deposited at the foot of a flight of crumbling stairs leading up to a massive door, the lintel above which had been carved into a great stone dragon arch.

  Scarcely had Harker's trunk thudded down upon the moonlit pavement then the calèche was pulling away, the dark, mysteriously costumed driver snapping his whip as briskly as ever over the backs of still-energetic horses. The visiting Englishman found himself completely alone, and as bewildered as he had been at any time since leaving Paris.

  Long moments passed in silence. Half-silvered by moonlight as it was, the courtyard looked to be of considerable size, and several dark ways led from it under great round arches. The door confronting the visitor showed no sign of bell or knocker, and Harker thought it unlikely that his voice would be able to penetrate through these frowning walls and dark window openings.

  The time the visitor was forced to wait seemed endless, and vague doubts and fears came crowding in upon him. What sort of grim adventure, he demanded of himself, was this on which he had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of London property to a foreigner?

  Then, with a mental effort, Harker corrected himself. Solicitor's clerk indeed! Mina would not like that unconscious reversion to his former humble status. He was a solicitor now, and would be a partner soon, if all went well and this business could be successfully concluded—

  Harker's head jerked around, as from somewhere in the ruined portion of the great castle there had reached his ears a sound as of a small rock falling. This clatter was followed by smaller noises, suggesting to the visitor that the stone might have been dislodged by the feet of a scurrying rat.

  Enough of passive waiting.

  The young solicitor had just, with some difficulty, gathered up his heavy baggage into his own hands, squared his shoulders, and set foot on the lowest stair, when, after a preliminary noise of rattling chains, and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back, the door at the top was suddenly opened, revealing a single figure, the shadow of a man outlined against faint interior illumination.

  In a moment the man in the high doorway had raised in his righ
t hand an antique silver lamp, whose flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draft through the open door.

  The figure now fully revealed was clad from neck to foot in a crimson robe. A mass of white hair was swept and combed back above a high forehead and an aged, clean-shaven face of deathly pallor. There was not a single speck of color about the head or face—except for the man's eyes, which were a cold vivid blue.

  "Welcome to my house!" the old man's voice resounded. His English was excellent, though to Harker's ears the intonation was somewhat strange. "Come freely, go safely, and leave some of the happiness you bring!"

  With a grunt of relief, Harker set his heavy trunk down on the stair. "Count… Dracula?"

  With a nimbleness that belied the wrinkled pallor of his face, the man in the red robe came down the steps to meet the arriving guest, offered him a courtly bow, and in the same movement snatched up the heavy trunk with incredible ease.

  "I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest."

  Harker climbed the steps. Then, drawing a deep breath, he stepped in across the threshold.

  3

  Immediately upon entering Dracula's house, Harker attempted to regain custody of his baggage.

  But his forceful host would not permit it. "Nay, sir! You are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself."