The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 109

Chapter 109: Crazy Eye of the Pyre

As the group prepared to leave the room, there was a loud, grinding noise as Ibis finished writing.

“Looks like your poem is done,” Fahiz said to Crucis, before walking over to Ibis to pick up a stack of paper.

Crucis stayed behind in the room, to check on what Ibis had managed to write.

“Well, I did tell you that Ibis’ poetry was crazy,” Fahiz said, looking up from the page. “Now you can see for yourself.”

As Crucis took the papers, he scanned them quickly. “You have a point. This seems to also veer into prose and a play. Also WASP lyrics. And it includes a ‘Duke of Anjou,’ wasn’t that in France?”

“It does diverge from Stoker,” Fahiz said. “But that’s not unexpected, it’s Ibis. I’m surprised that its Dracula didn’t end up travelling to another planet by the end.”

“Well, if you ask an Englishman, he’ll tell you that France is another planet. Anyway. Its Dracula is still an interesting fellow, to be frank.”

“Yes, he reminds me of the Count who is West of Kruxol, and who might have partially inspired it.”

“Excellent.”

As Crucis flipped through the pages, Fahiz noticed some Italian words and sighed.

“Looks like it started writing in Italian again,” Fahiz said. “It does that sometimes, but rarely accurately. It’s not that familiar with the language.”

“It’s fine. Maybe it’s just fashion-conscious.”

“If wearing a bill counts as fashion nowadays.”

“It is, and high art as well. For who can tell a great painting now from a spill of paint, except that the first is sold for a greater price?”

THE GENESIS OF COUNT DRACULA*

“A cry from the crypt! a cry from the tomb!

A cry from the plague years, alas!

And from the days of cholera and fever,

A cry from the cancer-stricken sea!

O, see now the gharial!”

He is the leper, the one with a demon sealed in him. Ever since his birth, the prosperous village has fallen into plague and ruin. He is regarded with fear and revulsion, no longer with pity. All shrink from him, for it is said that when he gets angry, the earth begins to quake, and the trees to strangle the object of his ire, and the wind to choke them. O, witness the Prince of the World, born into this world to be reviled! He knows not what he does.

This is

a tale

of Heaven

AUTHOR: Listen to my uplifting monomythic story, my characters’ virtues greater than my own!

We now return to our hero, he is

“The wailing wall of sighs

Hanging heaven black,

And you’ll know what it’s like

When paradise is blind,

When heaven’s hung in black.”

The funeral of a young girl has just taken place,

And they are placing the corpse in the coffin.

And the priest is saying, “Hail, Mary, mother of god,

Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.”

Ah, does the priest vaunt at the grave’s stare?

No: for I see, though can perceive it not,

That they, who were before me, were lamenting

For the nature of the world, and in deep thought

Cry for pity upon its prison-bars, and therefore

Spirits of low estate, as me, should not accuse.

Their tears flow like the world’s mournful reflection,

As oft along the still-ranging Nile,

Along the Egyptian water the night-owl thronged,

Beneath the veils of dark mist that rise by night,

And with her breath had lent song to the rivers,

Thus each along the grave’s shore, in company

With the fair consort of the dead lady, breathed a sigh

Whereon all love was painted, and “O Lord!”

The priestly singer, as he finished singing, struck

On Styx’s sea-shore at left and right below,

Stay’d his steps, and thus in accents clear bore witness:

“Behold a wonder! behold a thing

Which, racing whoso with mortal’s crimes is weighted,

Hastes before him, dark and terrible –

See on her face, Satan’s eternal weal! and this accursed

Foul thing, which you once complacently dared

To call feeble, I have set before you all,

Who must to the Lord’s protection turn. But list: resound

With my words thy patience, and so thy pity move.”

As he sees me,

The priest sings no more – is he not a singer?

O, why do singers not sing? What else are they good for?

No, he flees! They flee!

“He is here! O, the vile devil is here!”

Shall wretched mortals, for a certainty

Of safety, from e’en their secret places

Take flight, and turn in panic to our painting’s vanishing point*?—

So that their compasses may not abstain

From ‘GOD,’ He who in the sky grows colour’d there.

* and turn in view the point, staring askance,

From which pose they contemplate, on any object bent,

So that the mirror may not abstain

To ‘GOD,’ as in the sky grows colour’d there.

Ah, but the priest did not complete his song…

He did not tell you of the girl’s father, and his mourning,

As he discovered her and wisely discerned that she was dead,

So I shall sing of it out-of-tune (like bats sing birdsong of night)

On the priest’s behalf – ‘He wept, and to his bosom lifted her

Upward… all the while distill’d my blood

Into a processional river, and I thence

Shelter’d and still, saw he lifted up his eyes

Toward the sun upon the matin light,

And looking, ever taking it in view,

Again beheld it tow’rds the other bank,

And e’en those eternal glaciers where first it was.’—

As sometimes Indian women have beheld,

Saw in their dreams the latter realms of Hell.

As sometimes a man on verge of death sees Heaven

Filled with alabaster air,

Sunning the voice of the rain,

And the mighty, white-winged angels standing there,

Flying like eagles, but as meek as lambs!—

(O, Lord! before you all your followers are humbled!

For none have seen you, and all the worship they may give

Is to kneel, to bow and scrape, to abase themselves!)

Beneath, witness Heaven’s expanse—

And the white statues of the vine-clad hill,

And the long perspective of Eden’s woods.

Listen to my song, though it is only the music of the night.

The children of the night sing, but it is not in tune –

Why! they should not sing at all!

What possesses them, these wicked bats and wolves, to sing?

Perhaps it is that they are singers.

The children of the night sing, listen:

“Dravaistaya, why do you weep at mankind’s folly?

Have we forgotten thine high wisdom to seek?

Or dost thou hold such contempt for man

As to deem him nothing but a beast?

Even thou had incarnated, by far the greatest mind

That e’er propounded truth from out the mist,

The world would ne’er have seen thy glorious light,

And man would still have been as he is today.”

FAKIR: I accuse you. Wilt thou not speak in defence?

“No, no! I cannot speak. I cannot teach:

I know not even what I think myself.

I am as one whom pain and sleep would rend,

And thou wilt exile me as a lunatic,

Because I cannot speak.”

PERCY: O, I hear the accursed voices sing,

Even when all is silent! Wicked illusion,

Set me free of your amphitheatre, Delusion!

And now I see a woman — alas, she is the echo of the voices.

In gallant, soft footsteps, she walks slowly away.

Her hair is black and her eyes are blue.

She too sings — or is it my heart? —

and lulls me to follow.

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‘The egret lifts into the air tonight

over the great lake.’

Non c’è nulla, neppure la piú semplice anima umana, che non sia una fantasmagoria.

‘The Moon is my soul’s desire,

With her white feathers and her shimmering horn;

I dream of her each night and I awake

With a throbbing in my temples like a wild beast —

O, moon, a silver arrow for my heart!

‘She sings to me:

‘‘Come away, O away!

By the Western wind,

The scent of the pine trees,

And the red leaves of the maples,

Come away, O away!’’

PERCY: Where does she lead?— her eyes embrace me like death!

‘Still the moon sings:

Winter erases the fields,

the flowers,

that we have gazed on for so long,

as my embrace would hide the violet of your scars

in my pale skin.’

‘The wan swan in night’s occult fog

does not cease to illume

the pond.

It is like love for a flighty woman.’

‘Hear me, a frail echo…

I shiver in fear at these things

which I hear in the night!

O, Heavens, protect me!’

PERCY: Behold her, more precious than jewels! — her beautiful eyes — her expressive countenance— her features ennobled and softened by distress! Yes, she comes! she nears!—I see her now. Heaven be praised!—she’s not changed. But stay! look again. Is it she? No!—that pale, rigid, marble-like face. What is it like?—that livid phantom! No!— it is not she. Alas! how changed! how dreadfully changed!—

DRACULA: Alas, this fool shall be Lucy’s prey. But the rest of the village is mine. Lucy is the white shadow of a shadow, only a frail, dying passion. Orbiting her frivolous light, he shall be embraced into the grave… And so justice for all.

The old battlements stand, only bats massed

across them, creatures like myself…

no longer does the morning chorus rise

on the Eastern battlement.

This castle is an image of the grave —

still Ganféan’s ambition sings,

‘O, my soul is as a castle spire

that vaults to the sky!’

And still I wait, within the dungeons…

AUTHOR: This premise was almost ingenious, but I see now that it misses by a hair. I am scrapping this whole work, because I see no way that it can impress readers and be profitable. By a hair! Is it possible that I can be wrong? A hair! I say again, a hair! And yet I may be wrong. A hair! I say it once more. I am not. I shall not be. And yet I may be. “The 25 talers are mine!” I said. The 25 talers are mine! “The 25 talers are mine!” I said again. And I, standing there, I, who am so small, I, who so humbly acknowledge my own nothingness, looked at the sun through the window and said, “I have them, they are mine!” And my soul was as if intoxicated, and the earth rocked beneath my feet, and I was no longer a worm, I was a god! “Hallelujah!” I cried. Truly we walk on fields of gold! Hallelujah!

And still I wait, within the dungeons…

Snow encroaches across the once-lively fields

like the sight of Lucifer.

I wish I could fly, just once, from this earthly prison,

And see the blessed Spirits in their spheres

And hear the celestial music…

I wish I could be free!

I see the world with eyes undarkened

By the dim vision of mankind… A poet’s

And a king’s eyes do not outshine mine…

In the end, devil or angel, there is one thing

We wish, to be free.

To be free!

Parole, parole che si frantumaniscono nell’allegoria, parole che si fanno strada nel linguaggio, parole che si spostano nella mente, come nella terra.

But where the desert’s wrinkled skin o’erlap

The ruins of the village, nothing is left,

Even in that pyre, where, in a far-off fire,

I saw my shadow still waving in the wind.

Vivo in queste parole come nella terra, e mi sforzo di fare della mia vita una allegoria della loro esistenza.

The DUKE OF ANJOU enters, travelling the desert. He stops when he sees DRACULA, who is carrying an empty book (with its pages torn out) and walking a short distance away.

ANJOU. [To self] Alas, this is the murderer, a very fiend!—

but I have worn the name of ‘fiend’ before, and perhaps

can lighten him of the burden. I shall see if it be

possible to impart unto him the lessons that

painstakingly I have taught to myself, through the painful

struggle of embracing man – and woman as well, for I know

that this murderer chuckles on overhearing me.

[To DRACULA] Oh, murderer, how dare you befoul this place?

You have desecrated its hallowed land. I would

raise my arm in anger, but something holds me back.

Are you the one they call accursed?—

then I shall give you sympathetic ear.

What do you here?

DRACULA. Oh, you know, ‘the study of revenge, immortal hate’…

For Blake has taught all of us so well to learn from Milton

whatever Milton did not intend, that to me

it is second nature.

Well, swot, will you study along me, or are you truant?

ANJOU. We must always seek to bring righteousness,

We must never give up and embrace hate, just because

others show neglect, and we are saddened by it.

DRACULA. Well, I can entertain that point. If you hate –

indeed even if you kill – it does not make someone neglect you less.

So then why do you accuse me of such motive?

ANJOU. I know you well, for we are much alike!

DRACULA. Oh?

ANJOU. I, too, was born with a demon

sealed inside – too, too perjured by all,

feared and ridiculed, cast aside and hated

like a vagabond – but I have risen above it,

I have risen in spite of it, and embraced peace

and love of all, from which roots have sprung

peace with my power and the capability to

sew holiness onto these lands. O, we are like brethren!

Come, and no more live in misery.

DRACULA. You are mistaken. We are not the same.

*DRACULA exits*

‘A year has passed—and now, with antic mind, I stand

Within the churchyard, and look up toward the spot

Where lies the deep-dug grave of poor Lenore.

‘Far, far away, across the field, I see the dim mound,

Where, under the bare trees, stands the untenanted grave.

With spectral face, between me and the sombre noon,

A figure, black-draped, with hooded face, a pallid mask,

And shadowy hands, that mock my human yearning, stand.

‘Lenore! Lenore! dead, and never to return.

Bereft of hope, bereft of light, the dead girl in the shadows

Waits with silent lips for the morrow’s dawn.’

The next year, Dracula began to target the Duke of Anjou’s mother, Harumi Satake, whom he held captive for two weeks in a hotel room. After finally being released, Satake attempted to escape the blackmailer, but was forced to hide out in the bathroom. Dracula returned to the hotel where Satake was staying, but the room had been vacated. He smashed through the bathroom door with a crowbar, and began to beat Satake with the weapon. When he discovered she was attempting to sneak out of the room as he looked away, Dracula held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. He then took her to a secluded area and slit her throat. Satake died in 1996.

Dracula had amassed a fortune through blackmail, extortion, and fraud. Due to his thick European accent, he was known as the ‘Scottish Magnate,’ although he was neither Scottish nor a magnate. But by 1998, Dracula had become a wanted man. He was also desperate to cover up any evidence of his location and was paranoid that someone was onto him. In March 1998, he traveled to Tokyo and attempted to rob a taxi driver at knifepoint, but this soon escalated and he was forced to kill the driver. He dumped the body and the taxi in a seedy part of town. It soon became clear that Dracula’s escape plan had begun, and this diversion was only a part of it.

After a manhunt lasting several months, police arrested a man claimed to be Dracula in late August 1998. He was charged with four counts of premeditated homicide, and was found guilty in 1999. However, the arrested man turned out not to be Dracula, and was in fact just an American named Edward, to whom Dracula had donated some expensive clothing. The real Dracula had been a passenger in the taxi and had fled the scene after the crime, along with two other henchmen who helped him dispose of the body. He was never apprehended.

Dracula took advantage of the distraction provided by Edward’s arrest, and began to go on another killing spree. On December 14, 1999, he kidnapped Kyoko, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Anjou’s wife, and shot her dead on December 26. On January 18, 2000, he kidnapped, tortured, and murdered another woman, and on March 8 he took the life of a man at a train station in Tokyo. On April 24, 2000, he kidnapped another woman, and killed her that evening. On June 8, 2000, he kidnapped and killed a fourth victim, a mother of two. In his journal, left behind as he fled the scene of the crime, he wrote, “Killing brings such ennui. These people make murder almost a duty, by how much they deserve it. My industriousness, my self-sacrifice in order to murder, this flies over the heads of the simple-minded masses.”

On June 12, 2000, Dracula’s sixth victim was a woman who worked at a bank, and who was a friend and rumoured consort of the Duke of Anjou. That same day, he wrote to a friend, “I am a beast. I don’t have any remorse.” Two days later, he killed yet another woman associated with the Duke of Anjou. That same night, he met with one of his henchmen at a bar in Tokyo, to celebrate the henchman breaking out from a mental institute. He conversed till late with his henchman, who left at 4:30 a.m., thinking that Dracula would kill his next victim and it was wise to stay out of the way. In the morning, indeed, he found a message on his answering machine from Dracula, saying, “I had to kill her. I couldn’t help it. I killed her.” At that point, he warned Dracula that the Duke of Anjou had arrived in pursuit. The Duke called the police. When officers arrived at the apartment, they found a dead, swarthy blonde woman in a bathtub. They also found a journal, which included a photograph of the dead woman’s wounds, and a postcard from California. A large amount of blood was found on the floor and on the bed. Dracula escaped, but left a tape recording of himself laughing for the police.

He found another target at a mall. He lured the woman to his apartment, and murdered her exactly 24 hours after the woman he had killed the night before. He also left a photograph of her as a calling card. On September 9, 2000, a woman who worked at a grocery store was murdered. That same night, Dracula met another henchman at a bar. He discussed his plans in a vague manner, until 4:15 a.m., when he left. He drove to the apartment of a woman whom he had met a few times before while hiding his identity. He entered through the balcony and used a picklock to open the door. The woman – the Duke of Anjou’s wife – was there, still half-dressed in her pajamas, blushing under her short, black hair. He shot her three times in the chest. He left a message which said, “It is this woman who is the culprit. She was so dreadfully ugly. She brought it upon herself.”

On March 20, 2001, he killed a woman who was in a relationship with a man who had testified against him at the trial. On April 6, 2001, he killed a woman who worked at a hotel. The same night, he met with a nosy man at a bar in Tokyo. After a few drinks, the man went to the bathroom. When he returned, he told Dracula that he had seen the victim’s body. He said that she had been stabbed through the heart. Dracula protested that the woman was not stabbed. They decided to go to the hotel to look at the victim’s room. When they got to the hotel, they found her body with a clear gash through the chest, that on further inspection would have revealed tooth-marks. As the man triumphantly proclaimed that she must have been stabbed, Dracula raised a knife and stabbed him through the chest, killing him. The next day, Dracula wrote a message and stuck it on the mirror of the dead woman’s hotel room: “I killed her.”

On July 14, 2001, he killed a woman at a bus stop. On September 19, 2001, he killed another woman. On October 12, 2001, he killed another woman at a Tokyo subway station. This was his way of celebrating an infamous ancient massacre that took place at a similar time of the year, since he had always admired the Kruxol Bear, its perpetrator.

On November 20, 2001, he killed a woman at a shopping mall. A few days later, a man was stabbed to death at a police station. He was known to be close to the Duke of Anjou, and some rumours said that they were lovers. Dracula had written a message on the wall of the dead man’s cell: “The dead man who is in here has blood on his hands.” The police were stumped. They were falsely convinced at first that the murderer was a woman, because women were more likely to sneak around the station unnoticed than men. They were also stumped by the message, since there was no proof that the man in the cell had ever harmed anyone. As they pored through the police station to figure out how Dracula could have entered, they were shocked to find the two-day-old corpse of the Duke of Anjou in a little-used storage room, laid under a swarm of rats whom had messily eaten through his neck.

Dracula was never caught. The police knew only that he was a white male in his twenties, that he was right-handed, and that he had tattoos on his body. He was a ghost in the night.

“The Duke of Anjou was Japanese?” Crucis remarked.

“It seems so,” Fahiz replied. “How cosmopolitan.”

“This winding tale is quite interesting,” Crucis said. “I also liked the part at the end. It’s fortunate that the ‘author’ didn’t succeed at scrapping the book before then. What a miserly gentleman.”

“Well, it is fashionable nowadays. To be a miser, to be a usurer, that is the zeitgeist. But fortunately the poem trots on unmoved.”

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“What a strange era, where a poem has more spirit than a person. But I suppose that is why we need automatons to write, since otherwise people would shackle the poetry. After all, in our world, people stopped writing poetry circa 2000 AD.”

“Quite. By your standards, our collection of books must seem quite archaic.”

“It’s not a problem. Anyway, this Dracula story was off-kilter, but I found it good. I noticed that he seems to give glowing praise of the villagers in a funeral, before soon killing them. It’s quite dualistic.”

“And he’s often almost self-deprecating, though it’s sarcastic in a way. Sometimes the poem is almost sombre and church-like.”

“Indeed, quite like vampires. I also appreciate the automaton’s Lucifer-like speech about freedom. And he might be right. After all, surely nobody wants to be deformed into a hideous whale.”