The Diary of Drakula
volume one
1436-1485
by
Kelly Jacobs
The Diary of Drakula
or
A study into the quasi-life of the walking dead
The personal diary of
Count Wladislaus Dragwlya III
Viovode of Wallachia
Baron of Transylvania
as translated from the original text, with forward and notes by
Dr. Abraham VanHelsing
D. Ph., D. Litt, M.D.
Volume One
circa 1431- 1485
First edition
1901
Shriek & Lee Printing
Acme co. binders
Forward
The creature that has spread so much havoc and terror upon the world is finally dead, praise be to God.
From Transylvania to London, from the sea and back again to his wretched homeland, we have tracked the monster and we have vanquished him back to hell.
Upon the death of the notorious fiend, his castle, or what seems otherwise to be his permanent dwelling, rank with filth and rats, both living and dead, and the smell of rot, was examined for anything of use to help us in the curing of the innocents which he has corrupted.
Our party found a good deal of relics and antiquities from ages long passed in the civilized world. Our progress was slow in the beginning, for the other members of the party were surely not used to the sight of human bone and dry blood.
Dead white roses covered the internals of the liar. Thousands upon thousands of blooms. Their sickenly sweet smell drenched anything in the area. Even now I smell the fructose and nectar in my coat.
How curious should it be that such a monster would have roses. How curious...
Our examination quickly turned into a trophy hunting session. Each member of our party taking as much treasure as they wished for themselves.
Weapons, coins, and finery were taken as the party wished, but my eyes gazed upon none of it.
I saw the real treasure deeper within the winding halls and dark shadows of the arched labyrinth, wherein I traveled unescorted by any in the party.
I could not help as if to feel that I was being watch over by unseen eyes. It was quite unnerving and now I as I look back I think that accompaniment would have been a good idea.
Into the crypt of the monastery I found the coffins of the abominations. Inside the most prestigious coffin, carved of wood as light as balsa but as dense and black as ebony, was a layer of red silken lining and a small pillow, upon which rested a book.
The small, thick book, very ragged and yellowed with age, with pages falling out and stuck back in wherever they may, appealed to me, so I took it, its owner being now truly dead and with no further use for it.
Though the book is in a strange dialect, I will surely do my utmost to recreate its passages into the English language.
Upon sitting and examining the odd book, I have deduced that it can be thought of as a diary of sort, some style of record from the dark ages through the renaissance and into the modern age. I will do my utmost to translate the verses as time permits.
God help us find a cure for those infected by the toxin.
From the history I have gathered at the library of Koln, and from the local populous of simple peasantry whom the creature once had under his control, the story of his existence as a human being has begun to reveal itself.
Nothing is hidden for all time.
From the gathering of information by way of locals, county records kept by the church and the folklore of the region which must contain at least a kernel of truth, I have compiled a history of the Count and his origins, which shall be placed before the records kept by the monster himself.
As the reader should progress through this work, please do bear in mind that many of the passages might be too strongly worded for the constitution to handle.
Having endeavored to keep the direct meaning of the original language, modern niceties had to be spared.
Well, I’ve warned you.
Perhaps... perhaps I was not entirely honest earlier in my recollection.
Indeed I did give in to temptation and did acquire some things for myself. But it was not a greedy looting.
I did take some artifacts of historic importance. Such as a few rose hips laden with seeds, an old dented candlestick, iron and rusted with time.
I managed to pocket a silvery king from the carcass of the monster. It has no carving upon it, only a plain ring, not a trace of tarnish.
Chapter 1
Innocence of youth
In the year of our Lord, 1431, either in the later part of November or in the earlier part of December, Vladislav Drakula III of the house of Basarab was born into this world to the parents Vladislav Drakul II and Princess Cneaja of Moldova in a small one story building made of straw and mud, not much more than a stable or a shed by modern standards.
This building stands to this day, albeit changed over the centuries from its original form.
As with all children born in the winter during the later part of the dark ages, he was not truly expected to survive by the barber-surgeons of the day and he was baptized quickly, but he was made of stronger stuff than most and lived through the winter to see the spring.
Vladislav, who shall henceforth be known in this writing as Vlad, came from a long line of turbulent ruler and would-be rulers who traded his homeland to and fro as if it were a chess game.
His grandfather, Micrea the Elder, had been a much beloved Viovode, a sort of upper ranking Baron, of Wallachia, bringing stability to a region fraught with warring Boyars, land owning aristocrats such as Earls and Dukes, each more than ready to kill anyone in the way of profit or family affairs.
Mircea put down Boyar after Boyar, killing many, making allies were he could, appointing new heads to offices, each one he thought he could trust.
Only the King of Hungary could order the Viovode of Wallachia to do a bidding and the King could only be persuaded by the pope himself.
To be the Viovode of Wallachia, the final border state of all of glorious Christendom, was a heady task, indeed.
What had once been a war-zone, thrown into chaos and fear, was organized into smaller administrative regions. For the first time in the lives of many of the people, law, not force, ruled over the land.
Mircea expanded economic development through trade contracts, bringing new life to Wallachia. He minted a silver coin called the ducat, something unheard of outside of the great cities of the west, such as Paris, London and Rome.
With the new found wealth of Wallachia he built up fortresses and a standing army, one that could hold back even the Ottoman empire. His accomplishments were unimaginable in his own day.
But all was not perfect in Wallachia. Social order, the power of the ruling class and the way of getting things done stubbornly stayed the same.
He had to negotiate deals and perfect relations with powers that threatened his own and might unite against him to take the wealth and resources he had gathered. He worked with neighboring nations to solidify the independence of the land.
From the kings of Poland and Hungary he agreed to have support in case the Ottoman Turks might wish to expand into Christendom and attack.
A wise man, he wished to avoid war and death at any cost, but he had made political promises to the Bulgarians of the south that he would aid them if they should ever make war against the Ottomans.
In 1394, already an old man for the time at thirty-nine, he crossed the southern most border of the church’s dominion, the Danube.
The Bulgarian forces were forty thousand strong, but Mercia had only ten thousand men to help him. He had no chance of holding back the massive Ottoman force of fifty thousand men armed with the finest steel weaponry in the world.
Mircea could see the writing on the wall and did what any smart man wold do in such times- he cheated.
He attacked at night, retreating often and launching surprise attacks against the Turks when their defenses were down. At the Battle of Rovine, he clashed with the weakened Ottomans led by the Sultan himself.
For over a week they fought over the same patch of swampy forest, the Ottomans breaking every time under the well aimed fire of Wallachian archers who had hunted with their bows for their entire lives.
The Turks were in disarray and broke ranks, and after the Janissary, the personal guards of the Sultan, were beaten, the Turks retreated into their own territories.
After the battle Mircea and his men were taken back into war by the King of Hungary, who launched the last great crusade of the dark ages at the Battle of Nicopolis.
The church had broken into two camps, one with the true pope, the bishop of Rome, and one with the pope of Avignon.
A great rift had broken the church and unsettled much of the old order or Europe.
The days when a single pope held the political authority to call for a crusade were long past.
Their feuding was over politics and money rather than God and his divine will.
There was no unity among the forces of Christendom and when encountered with a greater force of well organized and better armed Turks, they broke and fell back.
The Turks put forth more forces over the years into Wallachia, but they all fell. Due to political strife there was a point of near anarchy in the Muhammadite empire, of which Mircea took advance and regained his land to the south that had been lost in the failed crusade.
As he grew old and less able to defend his kingdom, Mircea eventually struck a deal with his old enemies and agreed to pay tribute in exchange for the promise of peace.
Upon his death, the throne of Wallachia was taken over by by a line of various aristocratic Boyars, each holding it for the sake of holding it, none with any vision of the future. All the work that Mircea the Elder had done was destroyed in under a decade.
The economy fell to collapse under the broken feudal system and progress was at a standstill.
The throne was traded to and fro until Alexandru I Aldea, the son of Mircea the Elder took the throne from Dan II.
Upon the death of Alexandru, his brother, Vlad II of the Order of the Dragon, takes the throne of Wallachia.
Upon the death of Alexandru, we join Vlad III, son of Vlad II, in 1436 at five years of age.
His young eyes, new to the sorrows of the world, were puzzled as he look at the corpse that lay of the table. Part of him wanted to run in fear, most of him wanted to simply cry for the loss of a life he never knew.
Done in the traditional manner, the hands of the corpse were folded across his chest, holy candles lit to ward off evil spirits that might enter the body and corrupt it. Incense and flowers carried away most of the smell of rot and the faint hint of purge that bubbled up from the gut.
In a low hum, the priest prayed to the absent Nazarene carpenter as the mourners wailed out their grief and sorrow, each trying to outdo the last.
Afraid, young Vlad edged closer to the corpse of his estranged uncle and looked at a dead man for the first time in his life. It would not be the last. His red turned red and tear trickled down his chubby cheeks, crying no so much for the lost an uncle he never knew, but out of sympathy that others were crying.
Dressed in a white linen rode, a rosary done in his hands and with silver ducats on his eyes to hold the lids closed, his skin was sagging and the under layer was gradually slipping. A long and wide patch of purple and reddish black from gravity collected blood could already be seen just under the neck.
The hard fingers were drying quickly and the nail was seemingly long as the flesh peeled close to and back from the tip of the bone.
The wake was oddly named, as it was clear to all that unlike the odd case of a waking sick person or someone not yet dead on their death bed, this former human would never rise again.
As a half-hearted gesture of fatherly guidance, but mostly derived from a rush to get moving, Vlad’s father’s hand pressed his shoulder and guided him away from the spectacle. He had only come to see that Alexandru was indeed dead, clearing his own path to wealth and power.
In the simple palace, large and cold, strong and unfeeling, the candles were the only light. Damp air and mildew hung with the bevy of thick scents already in the air.
They were only a step over the peasants they ruled in terms of luxury, eating the same food as them, bearing with the same torments of the dark ages, but the people in that small room help the sway of life and death of thousands at their whim.
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