* * *

The history department turned out to be a remarkable place. Previously Siroslav imagined the work of a historian or archivist filled with a quiet, library-peaceful monotonous routine, but after joining a friendly student group and looking around, he changed his mind. It turns out that among the masters, immersed in the dust of the ages, there were great passions.

In addition to the Department of General History and others, ordinary and boring, there was the Department of the History of Nonhuman Races. It successfully supplied specialists to special units of the police, the army, the diplomatic corps, antiquities dealers, and other organizations that came into contact with the same vampires or the Sandpeople. Logically, a separate department should have been created long ago to study the traditions, rituals, and legends of the nonhumans, but both the church ministers and their eternal adversary, the College of Mages, successfully opposed it. For different reasons, though.

The joint efforts of the eternal rivals yielded results; the Xenoethnologists did not even speak of their own faculty or, still less, of a separate educational institution. Thus, there were three ways for the young men and women who wanted to know more about the inhabitants of the night: to become a monk in one of the temples specializing in the extermination of undead; to establish contacts with wizards by purchasing a certificate on a topic of interest from them or by taking a specialized course; and, finally, to enroll in the History Department. The other ways were not so safe, because they involved personal contact with the object of interest.

It's the right place to find out something about the issue he's interested in.

"Professor Rocha! Professor!" Syroslav even ran a little, catching up with the professor.

"Hello... Gaetzky?" The older, but younger-looking man stretched out a little tentatively.

"Siroslav Gaetzky, second year," the young man nodded. "You were our teacher last week, filling in for master Rimini."

"Oh, yes, yes, I remember. Well, what is it? Did you have a question?"

"Yes."

Choose your expressions carefully, the student reminded himself. He mustn't guess at anything.

"You see, master, I didn't quite understand one point in the lecture. About the "Child-Sir" connection. You said that the Child always senses its Sir and is able to find him in any crowd, right?"

"That's right," Master Rocha nodded. "It's an extremely difficult bond to break or hide. That's what some monks of militant orders take advantage of when they hunt old, experienced vampires."

"What if the Sir doesn't want to be known?"

"Well, in special cases, if a Child's life doesn't seem valuable, why not?" The historian shrugged philosophically. "A young child without a sir's nourishment fades in a matter of hours."

"Always?"

"Depending on age. The older a vampire is, the easier he experiences separation from his parents and is more independent in his actions and thinking. Say, about ten years after conversion, the dependence on daily touches disappears, after thirty the Сhild begins to share his interests and those of his Sir, he gets selfish motives..."

"I'm more interested in the initial period," said Syroslav nervously. The information was too unexpected and did not coincide with personal observations. "Let's say a month or two."

"In the first three months, the Child is very slow-witted and needs the presence of a Sirat all times," Rocha smiled. "He shouldn't be left alone. Abandoned Child at this stage, even with constant energy boosts, go instantly insane if they don't feel the care of the Sir."

The professor was silent, looked around, then, with a sigh, took off his glasses and carefully began to wipe them with thin suede cloth.

"Is there anything you want to tell me, young man?"

"No," answered Siroslav hastily, "No. Thank you for the consultation."

A big plus of living in new buildings was complete anonymity. The neighbors did not pry into your life, preferring to mind their own business, no one was interested in who you were and what you were doing in that particular place. The only exceptions were the ubiquitous grannies on the benches near the porches, but with them it was enough to say hello regularly and exchanged a few words about the weather, to be reputed as a "decent young man". That was all it took.

For the past month, Siroslav had been coming home late, not until midnight. The schedule was unpleasant, having to sleep in on Saturday afternoons, but his brother had asked very hard. Gavil had tried to leave altogether, not wanting to put the younger man in danger, and only a promise to abide by the rules he had worked out convinced him to stay home. One of those rules was not to be in the apartment just after sunset.

"Hi," Siroslav looked at his brother staring at the monitor in surprise. "You're early today."

"I was lucky. I ran into an alcoholic asleep near the house."

Gavil looked away from the text, looked at the younger man with his usual wary, guilty eyes. He'd often had that look lately - not so much directed at his interlocutor, but inward. It sounded paradoxical, but there was no other way to put it. The older man was trying to figure out if he was a danger to others if he could talk to people who smelled like sweet blood, or if it was better to get away from them.

Whether the demon living in it is calm or will demand food again.

"I was talking to a professor today," Siroslav went into the kitchen and began to prepare a late dinner, giving out the information he had obtained. He didn't raise his voice, knowing that he would be heard anyway. "Well, he says that in the first few months a child can't go anywhere without a sir. And he always knows where the one who transformed him is."

"I don't feel any of that."

"Master said that child go crazy very quickly without a sir. Literally within days." The student returned to the room, put a plate on the table with a couple of sandwiches. "Anyway, we still have to look."

The older brother's lips parted in a dry grin, revealing needle fangs.

"Are you so sure of my adequacy?"

"When you're... satiated," Siroslav chose a definition, "you think clearly."

Gavil only hummed, kicking the big box he spent his days in with his foot.

Two weeks ago the eldest of the brothers had gone missing, disappeared into the tangled maze of the streets of the big city. It had happened before, at twenty-five, it was normal not to spend the night at home, so Siroslav didn't start looking until the third day. Already he was beginning to worry when Gavil returned himself. Tattered, in someone else's blood, with his heart not beating.

The only explanation was that the boy had been turned into his kind by a vampire. But why, why go to such trouble? According to the Pharean covenant, undead people had the right to take nestlings, as long as they consented. And they tried to abide by that rule. Especially since it coincided with their Code. Sure, there were the "unaligned," who continued to hide their identities the old-fashioned way, and some said there were ten times as many vampires as the official count, but even the traditionalists wouldn't stun a candidate, hide him in the basement of a house under construction, wait three days and watch from afar to see if he survived on his own or not. This is a strange kind of treatment. It was as if the sir was trying to conceal his identity or was conducting some kind of experiment.

If Gavil really was the victim of internal vampire intrigue, he'd better stay away from the city master's servants. No one knows about him now, so don't let them know about him later.

The silence was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.

"I'll get it" Gavil came out into the hallway. "Who's there?"

"Professor Ignatius Rocha and Valery Medea of the Guild of Arts. We would like to speak with you, Mr. Gavil."

Gavil backed away, looking at the door as if it had turned into something horrible. Syroslav jumped to his feet, took a step forward, but immediately stopped. His brother's appearance startled him. The undead's eyes poured dark, his skin lost color and turned white, his hands twisted, his fingers seemingly transformed into curved blades.

"Mr. Gavil. There is no cause for alarm."

The second voice was mesmerizing. Soothing. Slept. His source wanted to believe and obey as if it promised to solve all problems, to relieve all hardships. Even aware of the witchcraft's effect, the brothers relaxed involuntarily and stopped frantically searching for ways to escape.

"We just want to talk," Rocha said again. "There's no need to be afraid of us."

"What do you want?" Siroslav was surprised at how deaf and muffled his words sounded.

"To understand the situation."

The brothers looked at each other, silently consulting each other. The younger one shrugged his shoulders awkwardly, It's up to you. There was no point in hiding now. Gavil licked his parched lips and, as if afraid of changing his mind, quickened the locks.

The undead who entered the apartment after the professor looked impressive. Tall, handsome, with graceful manners, dressed in a conservative suit and carefully chosen hair, he exactly fit the refined image of the "Prince of Night", so beloved by directors and scriptwriters of TV shows. For vampires of the Arts Guild, however, stunning looks were normal. The Arts and Financiers have long been the face of the undead community, so to speak, its front facade, successfully hiding their less attractive brethren with their bright brilliance. Little was known of the Sword, Darkness, Paths, Ghosts, and other lesser Guilds.

Valery Medea knew how to put people at ease. And, as a consequence, he could listen to their stories.

"...about that," the young vampire finished telling his story. "I have no idea who turned me. By the way, why are you here in the first place?"

Valery smiled. He was generally very good with facial expressions, almost indistinguishable from the people sitting next to him.

"Mr. Siroslav asked questions too unusual for a student, and the esteemed Master Rocha is, shall we say, quite good at navigating the nocturnal world. You shouldn't have been hiding. Any vampire who spots a Child in distress is sure to help. So you've been asking questions all this time for nothing."

"Yes?" Gavil asked incredulously. "And what do you mean by help?"

"Well, first you have to go to Taleya. All risen are first presented to the Council, which decides their fate."

Master Rocha broke away from the vase of candy and placed the teacup on the table with a sigh.

Valery, young people don't know who the risen are. They do not write about the phenomenon of "rise" in a university course.

"Is that so? And how do you explain to students where our kind came from?"

"We refer them to specialized literature, which they tend not to look at," the professor snorted. "Young people prefer to settle for fairy tales and legends. To be fair, some legends are quite true, but not all, by no means all."

"Amazing!" The vampire clapped his hands lightly in the image of applause. "Well, I'll take it upon myself to educate the youth. Gentlemen! Where do you think vampires come from?"

"Uh, you came after the Plague" Syroslav began "according to the Order of Light and other organizations, you were created by the Dark One to deceive his brother and continue to interfere in the affairs of the real world. The scientific theory holds that vampirism is a mutation of the necrotic type, originally caused by the influence of ..."

Valery raised his hand in a gesture begging him not to continue.

"Enough, spare me the new-fangled theories. Better the old-fashioned way. So, our origins," He leaned back as if he were in a deep chair and stared out the window. "Every vampire living in this city can clearly trace their lineage. We all belong to families descended from one or another of the Lords of the Night. A Sir, converting another candidate, rebuilds his energy and psyche according to his own pattern, and the closer the initial moral attitudes of the future Child and his Sir, the higher the probability of successful rebirth. In a sense, all of us are copies of our forebears, because our personality and abilities are a reflection of their personality and abilities."

"Lady Medea created the School of the Voice and loves art - and as a consequence, we, who carry her blood, easily enchant with singing and love theater, dance, patronize artists and poets... Similarly, the descendants of Saarimat are originally predisposed to study the element of fire, and the Uzani family easily gets involved in dubious ventures."

"There are two ways to become a Lord of the Night, the founders of new families, tribes, and clans. The first is well known: one has to reset the original settings. That is, through long and difficult exercises, one might say, ascesis, to completely rebuild one's energy. Few people are capable of it. Only an extraordinary person possessing an iron will is able thoroughly examine his body, consciousness, and magic to create something new on their basis. Something, that is more reflective of its essence. And when a warrior's Child becomes a philosopher, and the first spell of a water master's offspring becomes reading other people's thoughts - that's when one speaks of the emergence of another Lord."

"But there is another way, less known. Sometimes the Lords do not become, but are born at once. They rise up."

"The last occurrence of a rise was recorded about two hundred years ago. I think the dead return to non-life more often, but the psyche of most cannot withstand the journey from the realm of Morvan and a ghoul is born. Such cases, you understand, are not mentioned. If the risen shows no signs of insanity and is quite able to think, then... then we have a feast!"

"Why so sudden," said the professor quietly. "The boys are shocked enough as it is."

"I only told the truth."

"Wait," Gavil said. "So you think I'm the risen?"

"Absolutely," Valery nodded. "No doubt the Council will conduct a full inspection, but you show all the signs of an independent rebellion. Believe me, you don't look like a convert, like someone's child."

"What will become of me now?"

The old vampire thought about it.

"To begin with, you should be reported to the master of the city. He will most likely order you to be transported to him... No, and don't mind! The risen are too valuable to be left unguarded, especially since the priest-hunters have been active again. You will be transported to Taleya, where, after the ritual of inspection, you will be placed in your rightful place. Naturally, your brother will be able to visit you or move in with you, later."

"No one will separate you," Rocha added. "Don't worry."

Siroslav stood near the ramp of the private plane, thinking how quickly life changes. Yesterday his brother was a frightened renegade with no idea of his future, and now he was flying out to meet his new family in the company of bodyguards and a personal servant. The change is too steep.

"Maybe I should go with you after all."

" No," the older refused for the umpteenth time. "I'll get the hang of it first, figure out what's what. Then we'll see."

They were silent, speculating on what had not been said. Indeed, somehow it will turn out. Valery didn't seem to be lying, to treat Gavil with respect, one might say, reverence, but... The expression "vampire truth" didn't come out of nowhere.

"My lord, it is time to depart."

"I'll be right there," Gavil nodded. He turned to his brother. "That's it, come on. I'll write as soon as I get a chance."

Five minutes later, the silvery steel bird took off, carrying away Siroslav's only relative. The young man sighed. There was nothing he could do about the situation. His brother had flown away, and now there was nothing he could do to help him. He had to manage on his own.

The young mortal turned around and walked away from the airfield.

* * *