Son of the Dragon

The Topkapi Palace was alight with the celebratory shouts of the governors, generals, and janissaries though none was heard so loudly as Sultan Mehmed II for his great Ottoman Empire had finally felled their greatest Christian enemy, that terrible heir to the Order of the Dragon, Vlad III. The expansive banquet hall was thick with the succulent smell of roasted meats, the sweetness of baklava and honey and fruit, the complex aromas of saffron and spices from distant lands. Guests enjoyed the traditional Ardah sword dancing of the Saudis and the beating of their mighty war drums. However, soon, a new sensation entered the hall. The smell of honey increased and wafted through the halls and it was preceded by a grand procession of the humblest servants of the Sultan and followed by a rhythmic dripping against the vibrant mosaic tiles. The servants presented to Mehmed the head of Vlad III impaled on a spike and preserved in a slathering of honey. So hilarious was the irony of impaling the Impaler that Mehmed laughed so long and so hard, everyone feared his soul may fly to heaven to stand before Allah long before his chortles expired. After the festivities finally ended, the servants removed the head from the sardonic spike and placed it in an ornate iron box sealed with wax and left to rest in the Sultan’s trophy room.

In the following days, the servants were called often to attend to the cleaning of that box because a mixture of blood and honey leaked from it. They cleaned it daily yet no one dared break the seal to determine the cause for fear of the Sultan’s wrath. The servants who cleaned it reported amongst themselves of strange dreams in the following nights. Some were chased by swarms of bats until they were driven off cliffs. Some were pursued by packs of wolves until they could run no longer and the dogs mangled them to shreds. Some were pounced on by a dark figure and killed. These were merely dreams until they became reality. The servant who dreamed of the bats could swear he heard their horrid screeching and flapping wings all day without end yet no one believed him. It was more believable once he tossed himself out the palace window to end the madness. A palace guard who had dreamed of the wolves shopped for spices in the bazaar until he was accosted by a wild pack of dogs and torn to shreds in seconds. A handmaiden who had seen the figure in her dreams was found dead in the trophy room in front of the cursed box, she was pale as a ghost and the physician determined she died of a terrible fright. The wax seal was broken.

Mehmed ordered from that day that no one should go near the box or enter the room and called a fast across the province and fervent prayer so that Allah may save him and his people from this evil. It was not long before Mehmed himself suffered night terrors, nightmares of the same lot, bats and wolves and dark, pouncing figures.

In one instance he relived the traumatic day he marched into an empty Wallachia and encountered the Forest of the Impaled, only this time, the twenty thousand dead turned on their spikes to face him, their exposed bones cracking as they turned, and declared, “Allah cannot save you”.

Mehmed awoke in a terrible sweat on that night in a hopeless bid to escape the nightmare. Only… he awoke to a new one. There on his nightstand was the very box that plagued his palace, stinking of sweet honey and metallic blood. The box’s walls came undone, falling off one by one, and revealed the head of Vlad III, his hair and beard still wet and sticky with honey. Vlad’s eyelids opened and revealed his eyes glowed as amber and his mouth snarled to reveal his elongated canines, the fangs resembling those of the wolves of the prince’s homeland.

Vlad snarled and said with disgust, “Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed the Conqueror. How does it feel to face something greater than thou?”

Mehmed leaped back and said feverishly, “Another nightmare! Simply a nightmare!”

Vlad said “Yes but this one is very real. Do not doubt your senses. Or do. It is more pleasing to watch you squirm.”

Mehmed trembled and he barely kept his voice steady as he asked, “Is this the work of your Christian God?!”

Vlad laughed and spoke with disdain, “Are the disciples of Mohammed so ignorant they believe Christ capable of such abominations? Nay, Sultan, this abomination is of your doing.”

“What do you speak of? None in my court practice such darkness!”

“When I and my traitorous brother were but whelps captive in your father’s court, when we were tossed into prison because of Mircea’s actions, I encountered an obur.”

Mehmed gasped, “A demon that feasts on blood.”

“It shifted into the form of a bat and snuck into my cell. It feasted while I slept. I awoke to its teeth in my throat and smashed its head with a stone. It still got up. I grabbed the leg of the nearest chair and penetrated its heart. This finally killed it. Your father had left me in that cell to starve yet I hungered no longer as I now had plenty of meat.”

Mehmed reeled in disgust and asked, “This event turned you into an obur?”

“In my people’s tongue, I would be called strigoi. Sometimes mullo. There are many names for what I am, for the undead creatures and demons of the mortal plane have lived long before language and they will exist long after.”

“I-I-I’ll destroy you! I’ll burn your body!”

Vlad laughed at the Sultan’s absurd confidence and said, “And where is my body, oh great Sultan?”

Mehmed’s face dropped, while the Impaler’s head was in front of him, his body had been left in Wallachia and rumors swirled that monks had hidden it.

Vlad said, “I will find my body, Mehmed, and I will see you impaled.”

Vlad then screeched a horrific high pitched scream that shattered Mehmed’s ears and the honey dissipated as his head transformed into a bat and flew off into the night. The guards stormed in and found Mehmed rocking back and forth, his head between his knees as he repeated over and over, as if it were the only phrase tethering the sultan to this realm, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”

In the following years, Mehmed II tightened his control over Wallachia and the surrounding provinces, raiding monasteries and towns regularly, feverishly searching for the cursed body of the undead Impaler. After no luck, Mehmed extended his efforts and took the port town of Otranto, hoping to launch an invasion into Rome for he feared the Pope himself held the body of the Christian warrior. In May of 1481, Mehmed marched with his forces from Constantinople for his campaign against Italy but soon encountered terrible swarms of bats. Mehmed feared the wrath of the blood sucking prince and ordered his men to take any and every bat and nail them to the trees with wooden stakes in the hopes that Vlad would either be killed as he took the form of a bat or that he would relent on seeing his own forces impaled. But deep in the night, a bat bit down on the sultan’s neck and while Mehmed quickly staked the bat, the damage was done. Within a day, the great Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was gravely ill, pale, sweating, thirsting greatly yet water could not satisfy him.

The physician examined him and declared with sadness, “Our Great Sultan has fallen to the sickness of the obur. He will soon turn into one himself.”

Mehmed cursed aloud and said, “Vlad Dracula! May Allah damn him and his dark forces to Jahannam!”

The physician turned to the guards and said, “If you wish to preserve our great empire and bring glory to Allah, you must penetrate the Sultan’s heart with a wooden stake. End his life honorably so he may be welcomed into Heaven.”

The guards and janissaries were solemn. They prayed and prayed that Allah would grant them mercy for this act before the Sultan’s personal guard stepped forward and performed the euthanasia. As Mehmed II gasped his final breaths, he saw the physician exiting the tent but the physician turned and revealed glowing amber eyes and he smiled devilishly to reveal his fangs. The collar of his robes dropped ever so slightly and revealed a faint scar across the circumference of his neck. The Sultan reached out but could say nothing before fading into darkness. The Impaler had fulfilled his promise.

Mehmed’s son, Bayezid II, took the throne not long after, the guards being sure to report his father died of illness so that none may know how he truly passed on. The people of Wallachia briefly rejoiced Mehmed’s passing before lamenting the fact that they would be subject to the Ottomans still. A group of peasants walked along the road beneath Poenari Castle, that shining fortress of Christendom built by that great hero of Romania, Vlad Țepeș Drăculea, but since his fall it had been raided and torn apart by the Ottomans, now a shadow of Wallachia’s former glory. The peasants lamented Dracula’s death and prayed God would send another crusader against the terrible Muslim menace. But then hooves were heard on the path. The peasants turned and observed a dark figure riding a black horse. The horse’s gait was unnatural, it was not filled with any sign of life, yet it carried itself as a royal steed. The figure atop it was dressed in crimson and black robes and seemed himself to be a regal man despite the icy aura surrounding him. Both rider and horse seemed in and of themselves to be harbingers of a deathly winter. The horse trotted along and it was observed that swarms of bats flew down from the trees and laid on the ground. Their wings and faces prostrate on the ground as the figure passed, one might even say it was a royal procession for the coronation of a new dark lordship over Wallachia.

One peasant noticed the figure intentionally rode the steps to Poenari and said, “My lord! There are none at the castle to greet you! Why do you approach the ruins of Poenari?”

The figure turned, his amber eyes glowing against the pitch black and said, “I am home.”

Credit: Joseph Kawaja