Faustus: How comes it, then, that thou art out of Hell?

Mephistopheles: Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it:

~The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus

I watched from the shadows as the courtiers fluttered about the throne room like butterflies, colourful and aimless. Above it all, a lone figure watched the swarm with black bird-like eyes, squatting upon an ebony throne like a fattened crow deciding on its next meal. He was Matthias Corvinus, Defender of the Faith, King of Hungary and my jailer.

"Prince Dracula," a guttural voice spoke amiably.

I turned to be greeted by a hulking, grey-maned giant incongruously clothed in court finery; as though a bear had been clad in the robes of a Boyar.

"Lord Bathory," I bowed my head in respect.

"Wretched fops," he spat as he surveyed the assembled courtiers. "Not one man of ten in this room would last five minutes against a charge of Janissaries."

I could not help but smile. Despite his rough aspect, Istavan was the closest thing I had to a friend in the Hungarian court.

He was the last of a dying breed, in this age where cannons and arbalests were rapidly rendering the knights of old obsolete. He was a warrior who understood the savage joy that comes only in the full rush of battle and slaughter, when one is close enough to taste the enemy's blood on the wind.

"The King wants you up by the throne," Istavan whispered. "There's a Turkish envoy due."

My mood darkened considerably. "I do not care for being paraded about like some exotic beast."

"I know," he shrugged. "But it's not as though you have much choice if you want to stay in Corvinus' good graces."

He was right of course. After my faithless brother, Radu had usurped my throne and sold my people to the Turks, I eventually made my way to Hungary hoping to sway Corvinus to my cause. Instead, I had been imprisoned on ridiculously exaggerated charges of treason and sorcery.

I was still alive only because I was useful to Corvinus, and in that utility lay my last hope of reclaiming what was rightfully mine.

I took my place in the shadow of the ebony throne, far enough not to draw overdue attention yet close enough that I would not be overlooked. Corvinus acknowledged me with a silent nod.

A clarion call echoed through the chambers, followed by a herald's shrill cry. "Presenting Turac Pasha, Emissary of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror; Lord of the Two Lands and the Two Seas!"

At the head of the gaudy procession of slaves and attendants that entered the throne room strode a pot-bellied Turk, his girth barely contained by the gold sash about his waist. He was a pasha of mid-ranking, judging by the two horsetails that dangled from his sceptre. A calculated insult towards Corvinus perhaps?

"Your majesty," he spoke.

I would never have thought one could bow arrogantly, but the Turk gesticulated in such an exaggerated fashion that a peacock could scare have shown less humility in the court of a Christian King.

"In the name of His Excellency, Emissary of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror; Lord of the Two Lands and the Two Seas, I extend his warmest greetings to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and…"

His eyes met mine and I saw it, that instant of recognition, that barely suppressed shudder of fear. It was intoxicating. I wanted to strut and bellow. Yes, dog! Look upon the devil prince who sent over forty thousand of your kin to their deaths screaming, writhing in their own blood upon stakes of ash, mewling worthless prayers to your false and impotent god! Look upon me, Turk! Look upon the face of Death!

But I restrained myself. It was a subtle yet masterful piece of political theatre. A reminder to the Turks that Corvinus might let slip my leash at any time if it suited him, and a reminder to me that I still had one.

The welcome banquet for the Turkish delegation was a lavish affair. Corvinus had arranged for me to be seated at Turac Pasha's side, who in turn sat at the king's right hand as befitted the guest of honour.

Another gesture no doubt calculated to unnerve the Pasha. Though whatever initial trepidation he may have felt had been clearly washed away by his third goblet of wine. Apparently, the Muslim did not consider himself bound by his Prophet's proscriptions while on Christian soil.

I sat quietly, trying to ignore his disjointed ramblings as I carved through a leg of lamb with my knife. The meat was entirely overcooked for my tastes, dry and charred.

"My lord?" a voice spoke.

I looked up into the dark green eyes of one of the servant girls. There was something hauntingly familiar about those eyes, like the black still surface of a mountain lake.

"May I refresh you?" she asked, brandishing the wine jug.

I nodded silently before lifting my goblet to oblige her. Her task complete, she made her way a few seats down, where Istavan sat gnawing industriously upon a lamb bone. My eyes could not help but follow her as she went.

The soles of her unseen feet, concealed beneath her long skirt, made a slight clopping sound as they struck the stone floor. My concentration was abruptly drawn back to the rambling Turac Pasha.

"I have to give you credit, Corvinus, you've tamed the Dragon well and truly," the Turk slurred. "Why… he's almost as submissive as his brother." He leered before breaking into a drunken giggle.

I truly and sincerely do not remember precisely what happened next. A red haze seemed to fill my mind, driving out all conscious thought.

The only distinct image I can recall is the Pasha's face contorted in terror and agony. My dinner knife was jabbed into the bloody mess that had been his left eye and my hands wrapped tight about his soft yielding throat. I vaguely remember the sounds of voices screaming, not the Turk's, of course, try as he might, and Corvinus bellowing Istavan's name.

I remember the sensations perfectly though. I remember the righteous fury surging through my limbs as the Turkish pig fell before me. I remember the old savage lust that stirred within my hunter's heart as I felt his life begin to ebb, knowing it would only be a few moments more.

And I remember the blinding pain that cracked across my temple, robbing me of my rightful prey and sending me falling into darkness.

Colours danced before my eyes, amorphous blotches slowly congealed into a grey stone cell. Moonlight filtered in through a thin slit.

I staggered to my feet, hoisting myself up by the still of the narrow window. Far below, surged the dark blue waters of the mighty Danube. I was once more back within my prison cell at 'Solomon's Tower', named for the sorcerous wards built into its very foundations by Corvinus' court magicians and alchemists.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as pain echoed through my skull like the clapper of a church bell.

"Sorry about that," a voice growled from the shadows.

Across the cell, Istavan leaned against the cold stone walls, grim merriment in his eyes.

"If it had been up to me, I would have let you keep going. Most entertainment I've had all night. But…" He shrugged by way of explanation.

"Corvinus insisted you intervene," I deduced. "The Turk?"

"Alive," the Hungarian shrugged. "Though poorer by an eye. The King will have to pay a small fortune in reparations to soothe the Sultan's fury."

"You believe that will be enough?"

"I hope so for your sake, Vlad," he grunted. "It's either that or your head." He turned, lumbering out the cell before the heavy iron door slammed behind him.

One night bled into another and another and another, until the passage of time became an alien abstract conception. My only human contact was the guard who wordlessly brought my daily meal and replaced my chamber pot.

I kept my mind and instincts whetted by using the remaining crumbs to lure and trap the rats that often scurried about my cell in the dead of night. I would wait for hours in the depth of darkness, lying as still and silent as the dead. I waited patiently for the bold creatures to draw close in their curiosity and hunger, then struck with the speed of a serpent.

After a time, I managed to accumulate an impressive collection of rodents, impaled upon splinters chipped from my cot. If I was to spend the rest of my day in this miserable cell, then it would be my kingdom and my subjects would fear me.

After a time, my prey refused to trespass upon my hunting grounds at all, no matter what treats I tempted them with. Only the flies that buzzed about my previous trophies dared to intrude upon me.

It was during one such night, as I lay still in the darkness upon my cot, that my nostrils were suddenly filled with an unplaceable yet oddly familiar stench.

I had become inured the too many unpleasant odors during my stay in Solomon's Tower but this was something different, almost like the scent of water gone long stagnant.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

Above me loomed a woman clad in a sea green dress that shimmered like fish-scales in the moonlight. Her dark raven-hair clung damply to her shoulders, and her lips curled upwards as she watched me with green eyes so dark as to be almost black.

"I know you…" I whispered. "You were at the banquet?"

"Oh, little dragon…" she whispered in turn. "You've known me far longer than that."

In an instant, I remembered where I had first known that stagnant scent. I remembered the shores of a still black lake hidden in the mountains south of Hermannstadt.

"Back, demon!" I barked, leaping to my feet. "You were paid your price at the Scholomance! You have no claim upon me!"

My eyes darted about the room, seeking a weapon. Only cold iron could harm such a fiend. Unfortunately, the only iron to hand was the heavy metal cell door on the opposite side of the room.

"Peace, Son of Dracul. I have not come for the withered offal you call your soul," she spoke in a melodic voice.

During my time in the Scholomance, the School Master had often delighted in assuming forms male, female, both and neither as the mood took them. I suppose to a being capable of reshaping their material form as easily as men change their boots, sex must seem a rather arbitrary distinction.

"Then what is your business here?" I inquired guardedly.

"Your… salvation," she chuckled darkly, turning toward the narrow slit in the stone wall. As she walked, I caught a glimpse of furred cloven hooves moving beneath the hem of her gown. "Coming?"

"The Tower is warded against sorcery."

"Your sorcery, perhaps," she extended a slender feminine hand. "Not mine."

I weighed my options for a moment before cautiously taking the School Master's hand. The instant our fingers touched, we were both enveloped in a clammy green mist.

The mist dispersed almost as swiftly as it had come, leaving myself and my 'companion' standing in a dark and mostly deserted city street. A few wayfarers shuffled along while a half-naked beggar coiled pitifully in a shadowed doorway. Despite our foreign garb, none seemed to give either the School Master or myself the slightest acknowledgement.

"Where are we, demon?"

The she-demon pointed north, where a crescent moon hung over the spires of what had once been the crowning jewel of Christendom.

"Hagia Sophia…" I gaped in awe at the desecrated cathedral. "We are in Constantinople then? I visited the city in my youth once… before the Fall."

"I believe the Turks call it 'Istanbul' now," the School Master added casually, as though she were not describing the violation of perhaps the second holiest city on Earth after Jerusalem itself.

It had been here that the Emperor Constantine the Great had founded a New Rome for the New Faith over a millennium ago. It had been here that Saint Justinian had built the Hagia Sophia, an eternal monument to the Divine Wisdom.

My sombre reflections were shattered by the sound of a pack of exuberant Turkish street-rats rushing past us. I could barely make out a word of what they were yelping at each other in their excited babble, but one phrase stood out like a blaze in the night…

Kazikli Bey

Impaler Prince.

An anxious rabble gathered outside the gates of Topkapi Palace, home of the sultan's court. Rich and poor, old and young swarmed about in anticipation, speaking among themselves in hushed whispers.

At least a dozen Janissaries patrolled the square, keeping the agitated crowd in order. One passed within a hand's breath of the School Master and myself without giving us so much as a glance.

"Why does no one see us, a glamour?" I asked.

"Because we are not truly here, in the strictest sense," she responded. "These are the shadows of things yet to be."

"What do you-" My words were quickly drowned out by a cacophony of cheers and exaltations from the crowd.

Above the palace gates, two Janissaries were raising a pike. Impaled upon the pike was a half-rotted skull. Enough flesh still clung to the grisly trophy for me to recognize its aquiline features even in the pale moonlight.

"Christ's wounds…" I whispered. "It is me."

A crow landed upon the thing's scalp and began pecking at the empty sockets. I recalled Istavan's warning.

"Corvinus," I hissed, clenching my fists.

Old women embraced each other, men shed tears of joy and songs of thanksgiving unto God could be heard drifting on the night air.

"They really don't like you, do they?" the School Master drawled.

"The Turks have always hated and feared me," I responded. "Frankly, I would be insulted if they did not."

"What if I told you, this need not be the end for you?"

"The future can be rewritten?"

"Time is like a river," she spoke. "Forever correcting its course, but the river can be… navigated."

"You speak in riddles," I snapped.

Her lips curled up in an angelic smile, behind which lurked the mirthless heart of a fiend. "It is my nature. But come…"

The cold mist enveloped us once more. As it dispersed, I found the School Master and myself standing within the waiting chambers of some lady of high station.

We were not alone.

A woman in a pale white gown, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires paced fretfully back and forth across the room.

"Ilona?" I gasped breathlessly.

"You know this woman?" the School Master asked in mock bemusement.

I snorted in contempt. "As though you would have brought me here if you did not know exactly who she was."

"Indulge me."

"Ilona Szilágyi, cousin to King Corvinus. We were… intimate before the old crow tossed me in prison. I had hoped to strengthen my alliance with the Hungarian Crown through marriage to Ilona."

"Did she not already have a husband?" the fiend asked.

"A small obstacle." I waved dismissively. "One easily removed."

Someone knocked softly upon the heavy oaken door. Ilona strode swiftly to the portal, pulling back the iron bolt.

"Yes?" she inquired of the darkness beyond.

"My lady." A servant girl bowed in the doorway, bearing a brown stained letter. Its red waxen seal bore the insignia of the Order of the Dragon. "I bring word of Prince Vlad."

Ilona took the letter, breaking its seal before carefully reading and rereading its contents.

"He… he's dead…" she muttered almost inaudibly.

"I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, my Lady." The servant girl offered weakly.

"Thank you." Ilona's face was as set and unreadable as stone. "I would like to be left alone for the night. See that I'm not disturbed."

"Of course, my Lady." The servant bowed again before departing.

The moment the girl was gone, Ilona bolted the door and threw herself upon the bed and broke into a torrent of tears. She buried her face in the quilt, sobbing uncontrollably.

As I watched her torment, a strange sensation stirred deep within my breast. It took me several moments before fully recognizing the emotion, so long it has been since I last experienced it that it had become almost alien to me.

It was pity.

Uncertain, slowly, I reached out my hand to my beloved. I did not know what comfort if any, I could give in this unseen spectral form. Yet I could not call myself a man if I did not at least make the attempt.

Before my hand could reach her shoulder, her sobs melted into soft laughter as she raised her head towards Heaven.

"Thank you, Lord! Blessed Virgin forgive me but thank you!" she cried as tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.

The pity in my heart was strangled by pure burning rage. My outstretched fingers curled into hateful talons as I lunged for her throat. My hand passed through her image as though it was mist.

"Why do you show me this?!" I roared at the School Master, my lips peeled back in a wolfish snarl.

The fiend cocked her head in amusement. "To enlighten you, so you may understand how those who hate you and those who profess to love you alike truly see you."

"You think I care for the opinions of heathens and traitors. Do you really think you can lure me into Damnation with these tawdry illusions?"

The School Master was silent for several moments, before breaking into rich dark laughter. "Damn you? Is that what you think I'm trying to do? Poor fool… You damned yourself long ago!"

"Lies!" I hissed. "I have spent my life battling the enemies of Christ, doing God's Work!"

All trace of amusement evaporated from the School Master's face. Her cold, dark eyes bored into me as the room around us was subsumed in darkness.

"God's Work?" she whispered with chill fury. "You butcher men, women, children. Torture innocent and guilty alike on to death…" Her eyes blazed with an unholy fire. "And dare call it 'God's Work'?"

The green mist enveloped me once more, but this time there was no sign of the fiend by my side.

"Where are you sending me?!" I cried as the mist swirled about me, obliterating all sense of direction. Words imprinted themselves upon my mind in response, without the intermediary of sound.

To look upon 'God's Work'

The hard, polished stone floor of Ilona's chambers dissolved beneath my feet, my boots sinking gently into a shallow layer of soft mud. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I found myself standing amid a shadowed forest. Storm clouds rolled dimly in the skies above.

Yet even in the darkness of night, something felt wrong. The countless trees surrounding me seemed too regular in their placement, to uniform in shape. Lightning flashed across the sky, turning the black shadows a searing white.

All about me, as far as the eye could see, stood hundreds of wooden stakes as tall as mountain ash. Upon the apex of each was impaled a mouldering skeleton clad in the raiment of a Turkish soldier.

Do you know this place?

The words were like a cold caress upon my mind.

"The road to Târgoviște…" I whispered. "Before I was forced to flee Wallachia, I had twenty thousand Turks impaled upon the road to the capital. But that was over a decade ago."

Neither Turk nor Wallachian has dared set foot here since. All consider this Unholy Ground.

I strode alone through the forest of death, surrounded by the festering remains of my enemies. A lesser man might have felt fear in such a place but I only drew confidence and certainty. I wrought this. By my own hand was this horror made, this horror that even years later brave men quailed from like sobbing children.

I knew no fear, for I was Fear Incarnate.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, something odd caught my eye. Here and there, scattered amid the impaled, a few wooden stakes appeared bare. For a moment, I assumed the bodies must have fallen from their lofty perches after so many years. Yet no bones could be seen at the bases of the empty spikes.

Sharp pain suddenly bit into my shoulder, as though suddenly gripped by the talons of some savage beast. I spun around as another lightning bolt split the sky. Staring back into my eyes, were the black empty sockets of a fleshless skull.

"Kaziklı Bey…" the thing hissed.

I tore my arm free from the corpse's grip only to have my wrist seized by the skeletal claws of yet another lumbering abomination. My fist struck the second thing, sending its hollow skull flying. Yet a third monstrosity leapt upon my back. For each atrocity I struck down, two more took its place.

"Demon!" I cried out. "Call off your revenants!"

My revenants? I did not reap these restless souls, little dragon…

I found myself bodily lifted from the ground, carried forward by the undead horde. I craned my neck to see where I was being conveyed. Before me, rising higher than any other was an empty wooden stake stained black by decade-old blood.

You did.

Storm clouds swirled above as I was carried to my doom. Countless faces seemed to form out of the grey maelstrom. Men, women, children, Turk and Christian, old and young, Boyar and beggar. All my victims, every soul I had condemned waited for me just beyond the Veil.

"Damn you, demon!" I howled against the shrieking gale. "I accept your terms! I accept!"

In an instant, all was subsumed in blackness and I found myself alone upon a cold stone floor. A dull blue rectangle seemed to float in the void before me. I clambered to my feet, staggering towards what I realized to be a doorway.

The chamber was circular, lit by thirteen torches that burned with unholy blue flames. The walls were covered by the most intricate mosaics I had ever seen. Many would have considered them beautiful if not for their subject matter.

Everywhere I turned, I gazed upon images of rapine and slaughter. Roman temples burned. The heads of men, women, and children were assembled into grisly pyramids. Above it all, loomed the figure of a mounted barbarian king, an ornate ebon blade in his hand and a wolf skin mantel upon his brow.

At the very centre of the chamber stood an immense iron sarcophagus. I stepped forward to wipe away the centuries of dust, revealing an inscription in thick Latin.

Aᴛᴛɪʟᴀ

Fʟᴀɢᴇʟᴜᴍ Dᴇɪ

"Attila," I whispered in awe. "Scourge of God."

A shadow fell across the sarcophagus and the scent of stagnant water filled my nostrils once more. I looked up into the burning eyes of the School Master.

He no longer wore the shape of human woman. Now He took the form of a gigantic winged gargoyle, horns scraping the tomb's ceiling. He stood upon two immense cloven hooves, green fish-scaled skin glistening wetly in the torchlight. Fleshy tentacle-like tendrils fell from his pointed chin, undulating grotesquely under their own power. He was once more the Master of the Scholomance,

The Devil of the Black Lake.

"Welcome, little dragon," he spoke incongruously in the same melodic voice as before.

"Why am I here, demon?"

"Tell me… what do you know of how the Hun died?"

"He drunk himself into a stupor at his own wedding feast," I recalled. "When a vessel burst in his nostrils, he was unable to rouse himself and literally drowned on his own blood. The Scourge of God brought low by a nosebleed… if the stories be true."

"All things are true," the School Master whispered. "Few are accurate. What the stories do not recall was that the Hun's new Bride was a Goth princess of Dacia, the kingdom that once encompassed what men now call Transylvania, Moldavia and your own precious Wallachia."

I arched an eyebrow in interest.

"She was little more than a child when the Hunnic horde first ravaged her land," the School Master continued. "She watched her whole family cut down before her. It took years to plan her vengeance. She sought out the last priests of Zalmoxis, the Undying God of ancient Dacia, and made the Old Bargain; her very humanity in exchange for life everlasting."

The School Master gestured with webbed talons towards the iron sarcophagus. "It was her tainted blood the Hun choked on as he died."

"And now you would offer me the same bargain?" I asked with barely veiled suspicion.

"I could return you to Solomon's Tower… if you prefer?"

I pondered in silence for a moment. Whatever decision I made now, there would be no turning back.

"What would you have of me?" I asked finally.

The School Master placed a single webbed talon upon the iron lid of the sarcophagus. The clawed digit sizzled and smoked like fat upon the fire. After a moment, the fiend drew back, his lips twisted in a grimace of pain.

Taking his meaning, I gripped the heavy iron lid and wrenched it loose with a mighty heave. The intricately tiled mosaic floor cracked and splintered under the weight of the metal. Within, lay a coffin of pure gleaming silver. Its lid had been carved in the image of a fierce Hunnic warrior. Though where one would expect to see the face of a man, there instead snarled a grinning silver wolf-head.

The School Master placed a webbed talon upon the silver wolf's jaw, drawing it open as though it were true flesh and bone. He drew an ornate stone dagger from the shadows, holding the hilt to me.

"You must make an offering," he spoke simply.

I took the stone dagger and drew the jagged blade along my palm, allowing a crimson stream to trickle into the silver wolf's gaping maw. Instantly, the gleaming casket began shaking violently as whatever lay within trashed and howled in hunger and frustration.

"Blood for blood, flesh for flesh," the School Master chanted. "From death comes life afresh."

The thing within the casket quieted and black viscous ichor began flowing freely from the silver wolf's eyes and maw. The ebon tears made me think blasphemously of statues of the Holy Mother said to weep miraculous tears.

"Now, little dragon," spoke the School Master. "Drink."

I reached down, cupping the ebon bile in the hollow of my hand. My own face looked up from the obsidian reflection.

"Or die in ignominy." the School Master sneered.

I raised my hands to my lips, choking down the bitter brew. It burning like acid as it slid down my throat, forcing its way into my stomach and lungs as though possessed by a will of its own. My knees buckled beneath me as the chamber began to swirl about me. The last thing recall before the darkness finally claimed me was the School Master's dark and mocking laughter.

When I eventually awoke, I found myself lying upon the stone floor of my cell in Solomon's Tower. The ice-cold light of morning lanced my eyes. I lay there, wondering if any of what I saw last night was reality or the merely the phantasms of a mind addled by isolation. Yet, I could still feel the power within me. It was like a caterpillar sleeping in its cocoon, dark and still, waiting to be reborn.

Someone rapped heavily upon the iron cell door. I leapt to my feet, like a cornered wolf. The iron door drew back and two men-at-arms entered, clad in the ebon armour of the Black Army. They were followed by the corpulent form of King Corvinus.

"Prince Vlad," he nodded.

"Your Majesty," I bowed, never taking my eye from him.

The fat old crow appraised me hungrily with his black avian eyes. "Tell me, Vlad, how would you like to be Voivode of Wallachia again?"

Since that day, Istavan and I have cut a righteous path of vengeance through the Carpathians. By day we rejuvenate the holy soil with the blood of heathen and traitor alike. By night the School Master whispers in my dreams, reminding me of the debt he will come to collect in his own time.

I write this from my palace in the capital of Târgoviște. Come dawn, we march for Castle Poenari to reclaim it from those who dared betray me.

Let their deaths by my final testament.

Vladislav Dracula,

Voivode of Wallachia,

Blood of Attila.