An Apprentice's Travel Diary

Czere Ubireg

Quote

Shall we begin like David Copperfield? 'I am born...I grew up.' Or shall we begin when I was born to darkness, as I call it? That's really where we should start, don't you think?... -- Interview with the Vampire (1976)

The Prelude Arcana

Given the quote from above, clearly I won't be elaborating upon my mortal past. And why should I? I was a mundane enough specimen of humanity, and trust me, you should take my word for that. So where will my story begin? I think we can both agree that Louis de Pointe du Lac was right and that I should begin the narrative with my introduction to darkness. The year was 2012 and I was 43 years old. I awoke a few minutes past midnight on December 22nd in a snow bound alley close to downtown Denver.

...

My first conscious thought was: "it must be Capital Hill, because it smells like alcohol and piss and something undefinable like despair and or desperation..." My clothes were soaked through and I was chilled to the bone. Having grown up in Colorado, I knew the danger inherent in hypothermia and got to my feet. I felt groggy and disoriented with no recollection of how I might have come to be in this particular alley. Despite the dim lighting and my fuzziness of mind, I recognized the building as the Scottish Rite Temple. I have no idea how many times I walked past the place and never once walked inside, but its a memorable building.

The alley lay on the east side of the building and had once separated a particularly dingy apartment building from the temple. To my surprise, the nasty old apartment building was simply gone, in its place was a mostly empty, snow covered parking lot. There were signs of bums having recently been here, empty bottles of cheap malt liquor or bottles of inexpensive hair-spray for the truly desperate wino, broken light-bulbs and blackened copper scrub-pads for the crack addicted, single occupancy housing units otherwise known as cardboard boxes serving as the sleeping place of Denver's lowest caste.

I stumbled out of the alley towards 14th. The traffic was heavy for this time of night as I turned towards downtown. A few yards away, one of the main doors of the temple opened and disgorged a bulky looking man in his middle fifties. His gray hair was slicked back and he wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a expensive dark gray three-piece-suit, a black overcoat of heavy wool and an old fashioned walking stick. For a moment I debated walking the other way, there was just something about the man that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up - he exuded a cold menace. But then, barely formed words tumbled past my numb unwilling lips and I said: "Excuse me, do you have the time?" Thereafter, for a solid ten seconds he just stared at me and I stared back. Then he looked down and produced from under his voluminous greatcoat an antique gold pocket-watch and replied the time, precisely. I started to turn in the direction of my old apartment at the intersection of Washington and fourteenth, when he introduced himself as Professor Charles Cypher. Automatically, I returned my name and offered my hand. It was then that I realized just how grubby I really looked as I saw the filthy glove with the fingers cut out covering my hand. I have no doubt the professor noticed, but he didn't even hesitate in shaking my hand. To my utter surprise he then offered me a ride home. Normally, I would have politely refused, but when you realize that you just woke up half-frozen in a filthy alley and a total stranger shows not only good manners, but also kindness, good sense dictates not looking too deeply in the gift-horse's mouth. Had I looked, really looked, I would have seen the flash of fangs, but obviously I didn't.

The professor gestured with a hand gloved in black leather to join him at the curbside and not wanting to seem rude, I joined him. It was about this time that my body began to try to compensate for the loss of heat, the onset of hypothermia, and I began to shake uncontrollably. Despite the cold and disorientation, there was a suddenly sense of being in the right time and place, perhaps of belonging, as I stood with the professor on that snowbound corner waiting for who knows what in the midnight dark. Then that perfect memory, which will be with me always, came to an abrupt end when a 1935 Buick slide up to the curb like a black shark coming in for the kill, as it did so every little detail stood out. In a detached way, I understood that I was slipping into shock, but in another way, my senses were heightened or so it seemed at the time. Because just before the professor opened the right rear door, he called my name and as I looked towards him, I could see his lips moving as he spoke, but in the obviously freezing temperatures his breath never formed even the slightest vapor. But as our eyes connected, I felt something through the shock and his words reached me as if they came from a absurdly great distance. "Get in the horseless carriage". Without thought or hesitations, I did as I was told. I did not become conscious of my surroundings again for some minutes and when I did so, I found someone, probably the professor had draped a wool blanket around me. It was not warm inside the vehicle, but seemed so because I was slipping into a kind of comforting lassitude that washed away my cares and offered the sweet serenity of oblivion. I might have died there, had the professor not slapped me across both sides of my face with his expensive leather gloves. As I opened my eyes, the professor was gesturing over a set of antique silver tea service. It was ridiculous that such a thing might be present in the backseat of a vintage 1930s four door, but then I could see the steam rise from the glittering teapot and smelled my favorite aroma - Bergamot - in Earl Gray tea. As the professor placed a steaming cup in my numb hands, he had to help me drink the sweet hot tea laced with brandy, that went down with a hint of saltiness. Warmth spread through my body bringing life and pain, for one can never have one without the other.

When my chattering slowed enough for me to speak, I asked where we were going? The professor replied that he was taking me back to his 'rooms'. As the black Buick four-door pulled up to the curb in front of the three story brownstone off of east Richthofen Parkway, I thought I knew how Edmund must have felt as he rode with Jadis the White Witch of Narnia in her sleigh towards a castle made of ice. Stupidly, I asked the professor if this was his house. As he dragged me out into the cold night, he replied that no, the house belonged to some people he had known, but they were not due to return anytime soon. It wasn't until then that I caught a glimpse of the the driver as he exited the vehicle, a Australian aboriginal man wearing a black chauffeur's uniform and greatcoat. The professor led our trio up the snow-dusted steps to the house's medievally arched entry and produced a ring of keys from one of his great-coat pockets. As we entered a large, night darkened antechamber, the only illumination came from the verdant glow of the security console as the professor deactivated it. Then the massive wooden door seem to just swing shut and lock all by itself. Clearly neither the professor, nor the chauffeur thought anything of such a strange event, but then through the chill and weariness, I began to instinctively add up the odd events and something like fear began to seep into my mind at last.

Then the professor vanished into the dark interior of the house without another word to me. When we were alone, the aboriginal manservant introduced himself as: Dural Howell. But, before I could say anything, he went on to inform me that he preferred to be called by his aboriginal name: Dural. Naturally, for me, the first question that came to mind was to question what Dural meant in the aboriginal tongue. Dural explained that it meant: a hollow tree that is on fire. Thereafter, he asked if I would come upstairs and let him draw me a bath, while he found clothing suitable for a man my size. Numbly, I agreed as he turned without another word and went up the dark stairs without even bothering to turn on the lights. Somehow, recovering from hypothermia, hunger and what felt like the aftereffects of a serious drinking binge, I managed to follow him upstairs and as he activated a standalone heater, I took off the filthy, half-rotting rags that had been my clothes. There was a tremendous shock as I stepped into the steaming water, but as I lowered myself into the hot, sudsy water - I felt an intense lassitude come over me, as I drifted off to sleep. Later, I awakened when Dural entered with a cup of tea, sweetened with honey and demanded that I drink. I did so and with the infusion of caffeine, I began to feel a little bit more like myself. The next step of course, was to wash myself and I did so. Once clean, I rose from the filthy water and rinsed off in the shower and then dried off with a thick towel. Wrapped in the very same towel, Dural sat me down in a hard wooden chair and cut my hair with barber's tools, and then he shaved me by hand with a strait razor. These are luxuries forgotten or unknown to the masses of modern people virtually everywhere, but I felt certain it was something I could become accustomed to with a bit of effort. Thereafter, I was provided a variety of men's toiletries and when I emerged from the bathroom, a seemingly new suit awaited me. I no longer questioned whether it would fit me, such mundane questions obviously meant nothing in the house of the professor.

As I was still a touch unsteady on my feet, Dural graciously aided me in dressing. Never in my life had anyone helped me dress before, save for my parents, but its truly amazing how quickly we can adjust to the quiet assistance of a well trained household servant. I was struck by the strange sense of being out of time, except for the fabulously wealthy, house servants and their careful ministrations or their quiet presence like a beloved piece of furniture are an unknown experience. Clearly, I was becoming used to Dural and his quiet commands well obscured to seem like polite requests, when in reality they were not. His next suggestion, that I join the professor for a meal, was suddenly and more clearly a command as he held the door to the landing open for me. For the first time, I was alert enough to size up Dural, an aboriginal man in his early sixties, I would guess, he stood tall without a hint of weakness and beneath his starched white shirt I could see considerable muscle straining against the fine fabric. I nodded my assent and went down the stairs with a nonchalance that I certainly did not feel.

I found the professor in a large dinning room off a antiquated kitchen. The table was already set for one, as I seated myself. As a first course, Dural ladled out a fabulous soup, followed by a tasty salad, and fresh baked bread. The meal consisted of seven courses and I managed to eat each and all of them without seeming effort, I must have been starving. Through the whole meal, the professor just watched me eat, which is an unnerving experience. As I ate, I looked about the dining room, it was well appointed with a number of sideboards and china hutches, and an antique grandfather clock in the corner. It was nearly four in the morning and I was dressed for and having dinner, my body clock was having trouble keeping up. Its not that I haven't had a nocturnal schedule before, there were plenty of times in my life when I went to sleep with the dawn and rose in the late afternoon and I had worked nights before at the store. But this was somehow different, as if day and night had been reversed and this was all perfectly normal. I won't describe dessert, but it was delicious. The professor then led me into a kind of study, where we sat in fine chairs of soft leather and watched Dural as he poured out more coffee and a brandy for me, and then tended the cheerfully flickering hearth. It might have been my imagination, but the professor chose to sit farthest from the fire-light, while I gravitated towards it. I had begun to notice the pattern, that the professor would watch me while I ate or drank, while he himself had nothing to consume. I briefly remember him mentioning that he had already dined while I was 'freshening up', but somehow that sounded dishonest or hollow, but I had yet to pin down why I believed that. Yet, I had long ago learned to trust my instincts when my rational mind had less information than necessary to come to a calculated strategy.

Save for the crackle of the flames, silence held sway, as the professor and I both waited for the other to speak first. Then, considering all that I owed the professor, I set aside my innate obstinate competitiveness and offer my sincerest thanks for the professor's generous hospitality. He casually dismissed this gratitude with wave of his thick fingered hands, it was then that I noticed that he had calluses on his muscular hands. How had such an obviously wealthy man come to have callused hands? Its not completely unheard of, but it is rare and I sensed that whatever work the professor did, it did not involve physical labor and yet he was clearly quite athletic for a man his age. While pondering these things, I suggested that I should take my leave and try to reach my friends and family. The professor quietly considered this while looking at the complicated face of his antique pocket-watch. Then he simply offered that I was obviously tired and that a day's worth of sleep would do me good and that my friends and family weren't going anywhere in only a few hours. As I nursed my coffee and brandy, I realized that he was right, it made sense that a few hours of sleep wouldn't cost me anything. And that when I woke up, I would be prepared to resolve the mystery of why I had been sleeping in a filthy alley in late December. How such a thing had come pass was beyond me, I had known people whose vices put them in those sorts of positions, but it had never happened to me before. So without further discussion it was decided and the professor informed Dural that I would be staying in the guest bedroom that it should be made ready, at which Dural nodded and seemed to vanish into the depths of the house once more. While we waited, the professor suggested we play a game of chess and as there was board already on the table between us, I accepted. While we played and the professor trounced me, we discussed a number of subjects including history, science and oddly, the occult. It was this final subject that the professor seemed to be quizzing me upon, so rather than be rude, I played along and surprised myself along the way with my own knowledge of such an obscure subject. By way of congratulations for knowing so much about an unusual subject, the professor offered me cigar from a beautiful box. I felt a sudden urge to accept, as if I were a smoker and needed a cigarette, then my natural revulsion for smoking kicked in and I politely declined. The professor explained what a treat I was missing, they were Cuban cigars and quite expensive, I countered that I wasn't a smoker, but I understood the compliment. His apparent indifference surprised me and we spent the next few hours playing chess. I proved myself just good enough to keep him from until near the end of the mid-game and I learned a lot about him from his style of play which was very unconventional. Then near the end of another game, Dural made himself know and explained that the guest quarters were ready and that I should accompany him. Once again, I offered the professor my thanks and wished him a good day's rest, which provoked a genuine smile. The guest room turned out to be an entire suite and better appointed than any hotel I had ever stayed in, not that I had time to appreciate it, I was almost asleep before I undressed.

I have no recollection of any dreams from that first night, but when I awoke only a weak cindery light came through the small window high up upon the western wall. I slowly roused myself from beneath the fine sheets and down comforters and realized how quiet the house was, it seemed abandoned. I quickly showered, shaved and dressed, making my way downstairs, I found Dural in the kitchen making a late afternoon meal. I greeted him and he seemed surprised to see me, but he quickly pulled out a chair for me and prepared another plate. When he started to take it into the dinning room, I declined, preferring to eat in the warmth of the kitchen. There was of course another reason entirely, I didn't want to eat alone and Dural's company was preferable, but it also gave me the excuse to strike up a conversation. While it was a novice approach to finding out more about my host, I was surprised by how successful it was, perhaps no one offered to converse with Dural as an equal very often or he too was lonely. The meal was pleasant, and informative, I learned that the professor and Dural were from Australia, specifically the city of Melbourne and that the professor was someone of great importance to one of the city's universities. Dural explained that the professor was extremely well educated and a expert on numerous subjects, a true polymath. While he would extol professor's many virtues and successes in the field of science, he actually revealed precious little of importance at the time. We were, in fact, still discussing the professor and Melbourne history when the great man himself made his entrance. I hadn't noticed the passage of time as Dural and I talked, but it was quite dark outside the kitchen windows when the professor made a coughing noise to announce his approach. The old boy wasn't just fit, he was positively stealthy, for I had not heard even a floor board creak, nor the opening and closing of doors upstairs to herald his arrival.

The professor inquired after my day's rest and I replied that I was quite refreshed and once again I thanked him. If it pleased or irritated him that I continued to thank him, he did not reveal it, if anything, he seemed entirely uninterested in my gratitude. When Dural offered to prepare a plate for him, he declined saying that we had much to accomplish tonight and he simply did not have time to eat. Although, he seemed willing enough to await and watch me, as I finished eating. Tonight he was dressed all in black, which made him look more serious and something like an undertaker, or perhaps my imagination was running away with me. At the professor's direction, Dural when to warm up the car and within minutes we were ensconced in the leather bucket seats of the 1930s black Buick. The professor said he had business downtown, and that once he was dropped off there, Dural would drive me wherever I needed to go. Before long, we were parked in front of a shabby little nightclub called: 'The Broadstreet'. I had never seen it before or even heard of it and there was a time when I had found most of Denver's many dive bars. Nevertheless, the professor wished me good luck in finding my loved ones and without further politeness he walked away. Dural loitered on the street until the professor entered the club, and then he asked me where I wanted to go. My first stop was a house I shared with three friends at the intersection of 14th and Newport street. I was lost in thought and more than a little nervous, and I didn't pay much attention to the drive from downtown to my house. But from the moment the car came to a stop, I noticed things weren't right. None of the cars that my friends drove were present in the driveway, but there were unfamiliar vehicles in their place. Uncharacteristically, I ask Dural to wait for me, as I exited the Buick. The snow crunched beneath my fine leather shoes, which come to think of it, I had no idea where they were from. As I approached the house, I began to notice a number of little differences about the exterior of the house. My heart was beating fast as I knocked upon the door and when it finally opened I was confronted with an angry biker who didn't appreciate how hard I had been beating on the door. I tried to explain that I was looking for a group of people who lived there, but he wasn't interested in my questions and threatened me. As I started to back up, fear and rage mixed deep down in my gut in an unfamiliar way and before I knew what was happening I was on top of the biker, beating him senseless as I frothed at the mouth like an animal. If it hadn't been for Dural, who pulled me off the bloody biker, I might well have killed him. As I struggled to gain control of myself, Dural restrained me like a child. When the fit had passed, I noticed several of the biker's friends had emerged from the house, they looked like a rough lot, but they didn't seem eager to avenge their friend so much as try to get us to leave. I remember a somewhat attractive blond biker woman, crying and screaming that she had called the police. Honestly, I had no idea what to say or do and Dural led me away to the car and once I was locked in back, he drove us away. Shortly thereafter, he handed me a cloth for my hands which were covered in the biker's blood. I was in shock again, or so it seemed, I had no explanation for such a loss of control. Dural pacified me very effectively, blaming the situation on the biker and his crude language, which despite the faulty logic, made me feel much better. As I washed the blood off, I noticed that I hadn't even bruised or scraped my knuckles, which didn't seem right somehow. Despite these wild thoughts, Dural kept me calm by asking what the next destination would be. Just then, I had the strangest feeling that it simply didn't matter and I gave him the next address, but the result was similar if not the same.

Address after address revealed that my friends and acquaintances had all moved on, even all the phone numbers that I had memorized were wrong-numbers or didn't even exist anymore. I am ashamed to admit it, but it took me all of these experiences to convince me to really think and pay attention. Around midnight, I asked Dural to take me back to the 'Broadstreet', ostensibly to pick up the professor, but in truth, I needed a drink. Once again we parked on the sidewalk, and I entered the club. It was smoky and dark inside, there was this sense of walking into room filled with wild animals, more a smell than anything else, beneath the fog of cigarette smoke and the raw odor of hard liquor, I smelled something else, something familiar, but out of place, like a slaughterhouse. I approached the bar, but hesitated to sit or lean against the worn wood which was filthy with spilled booze. I caught the bartender's eye and asked for tequila, he didn't even blink as he handed me the bottle and a shot glass. As I was turning away looking for someplace clean or at least cleaner to sit and drink, I noticed a newspaper on the bar. The guy closest to it was obviously passed-out and wouldn't miss it, so I took it with me. A couple of goth-wannabees looked me over pretty hard, and at my approach, they vacated their little table, so I sat down. The kaleidoscope of lights from the stage should have made it hard to read, but the opposite was true, I could read the fine print as if I were in a brightly lit library. The headlines meant little to me, the names were unfamiliar and the subjects uninteresting, but the date reached out and really hit me. It was December 23rd...2012! For a very long moment, perhaps minutes for all I know, I just stared at the numbers as if they lied, but as I was soon to learn, the numbers never lie. By my last recollection, and it seemed like yesterday, it had been sometime in the second week of December in 1997. In an inexplicable Rip van Winkle way, I had lost fifteen years of my life. I had no memory of those lost years, not a glimmer. Was I suffering from retrograde amnesia? It might explain why I was in that filthy alley, but if so, why couldn't I remember the intervening years? It wasn't as if I remembered living a totally different life as a bum in Capital Hill.

The first shot was to collect myself, the next fifteen were for each of the years I had lost. I didn't lose consciousness so much as I lost my sense of time and place. It was a stupid thing to do and by the time I realized that, it was far too late. Someone, more than one someone was dragging me from my chair and 'helping' me to the men's room. As I was surrounded by the sudden smell of raw urine, someone, a woman I think laughed wickedly and then there was pain and pleasure mixed together like chocolate and peanut-butter. It felt so good, like the best drug, I was floating and then as the slurping noises began to fade, so too did the light. My mind must have been starved of oxygen, because I think I giggled when the screaming started. Then once again, I was floating, and there was shouting in a foreign language, I think, that or I was dreaming. Sometime later, even the shouting faded or I passed-out, which is far more likely considering the trouble I had gotten myself into, but it would be almost a day before I would begin to realize just how seriously I had bungled things.

Lost somewhere in a sea of surreal dreams, I remember seeing familiar faces in strange places, of a juxtaposition of actual memory and what could or must be a tequila fueled fantasy. Years later, as I look back, I am not so sure anymore. But, then there was a perfect moment of crystalline pain as someone forced acid down my throat. At the time, I thought it must be acid for it burned like nothing else I had even ingested including stomach acid as it tastes at the moment you vomit. No, it was so much worse, because, once it burned its way down my esophagus, it ignited my stomach and began to fan its way outwards into the rest of my body. Terrifyingly, I couldn't move enough to even scream and how I wished I could scream. I had been lucky in my life, when it came to personal injury, there hadn't been many, nor had they been serious for the most part. There were only a couple of times that I had cried from pain and I had never screamed from injury. In a sane world, I would have been flopping around like a fish or like a fool who has grabbed a live-wire. But I had entered a world that was far from sane and in my dream, I languished like Odin on the World Tree, for what seemed like days. Eventually, for reasons I wouldn't understand until later, the nightmare ended.

One Drink Too Many

During my college days, I had drunk to excess many times, so much so that I probably did some permanent damage. Had I lived a lengthy human life, those problems would eventually have revealed themselves because cause and effect are always in play and what you do always has consequences that eventually come home to you. But, somewhere along the line, someone had made a crucial decision for me and while I did indeed die, I did not die completely. Not that I would be conscious of that momentous circumstance until the following nightfall.

And it would be decades before I would finally heard the story second hand from Natalia after she had fed a little too heavily from a group of Australian coeds at a party aboard a houseboat in Melbourne harbor. I had accompanied her, in part because it allowed me to avoid Seth who would have found some difficult and demeaning chore for me to fail at so he could deride me without incurring the professor's anger, and because I was in love with Natalia. The occasion was a summertime Christmas party, in the southern hemisphere, the Yule season is a hot one and there were scantily clad teens and twenty-somethings all around us as she told me what the professor had told her in confidence. I had gotten completely trashed in the most dangerous bar in Denver, the Broadstreet was a bar where Kindred congregated largely to hunt for their next meal and to socialize without enduring the stuffiness of most Elysium gatherings. The club was owned and managed by Edward Williamson, the thousand year old Toreador prince of Denver and it served as one of the Rack's best venues for feeding. Those mortals, so unlucky as to look for an alcoholic escape from their lives or searching for a few hours of companionship usually paid a high cover charge, always in blood and sometimes with their lives. I paid with both when I became the object of attention for a group of rebellious and thirsty neonates who saw an easy mark, unaware that I might be accompanied by a ghouled chaperon whose Kindred master was even then searching the bar for me.

Of course, the professor found those same neonates draining me dry on the filthy floor of the mens-room. Apparently, he was more than fair when he commanded then to drop their prey and flee, they being the rebellious youth of Denver's night-society offered sneering derision in return and were rewarded with thaumaturgically conjured fire. Had it been Elysium, the professor might have joined me in death, but the club was not and as the screaming neonates fled the scene, the professor made a fateful decision. Under normal circumstances the professor has a seemingly endless array of sorcerous tricks up his sleeve and might have saved me with a number of them, that is if I hadn't already died. While the professor and the neonates squared off, my heart had stopped and I had been dead for several seconds before he could inject me with his blood. That decision would have profound consequences for both of us.

For the professor that would mean negotiating with the ancient and angry Toreador prince of Denver at a significant political disadvantage for having Embraced a neonate without permission in the prince's own club. Luckily, for the Professor, the local regent, a man named Gideon Londoner was in attendance at the club as the Professor's liaison to the court of Denver. Between the two Tremere regents they were able to purchase permission for the Embrace at a steep price, part of which was that the neither the professor nor I could ever return to Denver. While Natalia did not specifically know the cost of the Professor's rash act, she shared her suspicion that our sire owed two life boons to Edward Williamson. After her drunken confession, Natalia swore me to secrecy and if the Professor ever suspected I knew the story of my Embrace, he has never shown an awareness of my lack of ignorance.

Like so many things in my life, I had foolishly chosen a course of action that favored me, without ever knowing what the outcome would be. As my first day as a vampire passed, I missed out on the experience of the transformation from mortal to Kindred. As I slept the day away somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, Dural cleaned my torpid body of its final filth, for mortal's defecate themselves upon physical death. Luckily for him, I had not had anything to eat since dinner and my Kindred attackers had relieved me of most of my bodily fluids. Still, formerly useful organs were shriveling into vestigial inconsequence while I was growing a shiny new set of canines and my body was aging. Yes, I said aging. You see, when I had awakened in that filthy alley in Denver, I had been twenty-eight years old in body and mind. But for reasons that seem to defy rational explanation, upon receiving the Embrace, my youthful countenance began to age until I seemed as old or older than the Professor. Of course, the appearance of being physically older was a shock, but one that I came to accept relatively quickly. Banishment from my home, friends and family, that created a profound sense of isolation that would never really fade until I left Melbourne for the last time.

The idea that vampires are sleeping during the day, is an entirely human notion, a mortal description for something they have never experienced and cannot understand without having been Embraced. The closest human concept to the day triggered quiescence that vampires suffer, would be hibernation, a complete paralysis of both body and mind. Only in very rare or stressful circumstances can a vampire dream, although there are techniques for triggering the dreaming state, its an entirely conscious process that requires years of practice to successfully initiate. And when Kindred do dream, it is their supernatural minds throwing off the effects of the sun while still being trapped in a completely paralyzed body deprived of even sensory input. Mortals do occasionally suffer a similar kind of experience, but its a aberration of their normal sleep state called: Parasomnia. Since parasomnia is the default condition of vampires during the day, all vampiric dreams begin as nightmares. This circumstance is likely bound up with the Curse of Caine, and while it would be superstitious to attribute this circumstance to a vengeful deity, the specific mechanism and the rules that govern it remain nebulous.

So as the sun began to be eclipsed by the curvature of the Earth, my newly mutated vampiric mind became fully active, but my undead body was still subject to what is called: recurrent isolated sleep paralysis. The fear generated by this kind of temporary paralysis is similar but less traumatic than that engendered by being staked through the heart. Still, for the uninitiated or weak-willed, it can be extremely unpleasant and for fledglings like me, it is a kind of waking hell. As I reflect back upon that first night, I am sure it was the turbulence that jolted the balance related centers of my mind and initiated a full blown day-terror. The nightmare, for lack of a better word, began when I found myself on an ancient battlefield, it was obviously night, and I was a soldier in the legendary lost 9th Roman legion. As I said, I was fully awake and aware of the screaming of men and horses, the snarling of the war-dogs and the howls of the pack of lupines descending upon the square Roman encampment. I could smell the sweat of the men on either side of me and the smoke of the campfires. The werewolves easily leaped over the wall of wooden stakes and the man deep trench that encircled the Roman campsite. They were terrifying beasts with pale fur that burned like silver in the light of a full moon. A trio of them landed only a few dozen feet from my squad and being battle hardened Roman legionaries we attacked even this supernatural threat with cries of 'Roma Invicta'! I was splattered in the face with the blood of the men in the first rank, but rather than react with terror, I reached deep down inside of myself and shaped a terrible fire of Oblivion with my will and the fast evaporating life-force of the men dying just in front of me. When the eldritch emerald fire exploded in their ranks the creatures reacted with an animal terror that they must have forgotten they could experience and my squad took full advantage by moving forward in formation and spearing those three werewolves with plenty of Roman iron. Despite the surprise of my necromantic attack, two of the creatures managed to escape into the Caledonian night, while the third was hacked by my brothers in arms into small chunks of gristle and hair.

As the scene began to evaporate, I became aware that I was laying prone on what felt like a bed, and I was fully dressed. As I opened my eyes, I felt the last tingling numbness flee my extremities and I nearly frenzied. For several seconds, I truly thought I was still in the midst of a battle between a legendary Roman Legion and a band of werewolves, all of whom had been dead for nearly two-thousand years. Luckily, it was the Professor who was sitting there awaiting my awakening rather than Dural. The Professor easily restrained me by animating the bedspread which cocooned me until his calm voice could pacify my beast-ridden mind. When the terror finally subsided, he waved a hand casually and the bed linens released me, allowing me to sit up and look around. I was indeed in a bedroom, but it was cabin shaped without any windows, but there were two doors, a desk with a bookcase and table with two chairs. My senses seemed to become very sharp as I looked around the room seeing intricate little details that I would have been incapable of seeing yesterday. It was as if someone had focused my eyesight down to a narrow beam that swept the room and its sole other occupant like a laser beam scanning for motion. There were other sensations as well. I could feel the sharp new canines in their recently extended position, that would have allowed me to bite like a canine or some other predator. There was a taste of human blood in my mouth. My hearing picked up the chatter of the pilots in the cockpit and the electronic chatter of the communications gear over the scream of the wind outside the plane's hull as it traveled at great speed. And I could smell the numerous cleaning agents used to sanitize all the surfaces of this cabin, the Professor's expensive cologne and the anticoagulant saturated blood contained in a plastic bag sitting in an ice bucket normally reserved for champagne.

The Professor's voice cut through the sensory overload to focus my attention on one question: "What do you remember of your dream of Roman Britain?" My first thought was, how could the man have known I had been dreaming about that? But, uncharacteristically, I replied as if I had been trained since birth to respond to his questions or commands. "I remember a battle between the lost Roman 9th Legion and a group of pale werewolves in Caledonia, ...I mean Scotland." This time, his smile was genuine and he said "Good! Now, describe the dream to me in complete detail and leave nothing out, no matter how insignificant it might seem."

I talked and the Professor listened for most of the night. Near dawn, our plane, a custom built Dassault Falcon 7X long range trijet dubbed the Hermes Falcon began its descent over the Island of Fiji. Apparently, we were running low on fuel and with over 2000 miles left to go before reaching our final destination of Melbourne, Australia - we need to land. And Fiji's capital city, Suva was the only place within thousands of miles of open water where we could rest and refuel. It was a thrilling experience as our plane landed at Nausori International Airport, a grandiose name for what could best be described as little more than a small city airport. Of course, as the capital of Fiji was less than 100,000 people this made sense.

My newly heightened senses picked up countless things that I had no name for, the speed of the plane, air turbulence and that sudden dropping sensation you get in fast descending elevator or when your custom built corporate jet carries out a high speed landing at a runway too short for said maneuver. The pilots must have been first rate because despite the sensation that we were going to crash, the landing was picture perfect. Its naive notion that if your aren't an expert at something, that you cannot really gauge a given endeavors success, this is because that innate faculty called intelligence allows you to imagine what success or failure looks like and our flight team knew their business. All this I observed from the only cabin with windows, the observation lounge the Professor called it, set directly behind the cockpit. The remainder of the Falcon's interior had been divided into small conference room with all the amenities, the bedroom in which I had originally awakened and small detention room at the rear of the plane for transporting unwilling passengers.

Once on the ground, the Falcon taxied towards a series of hangars where it was refueled and serviced. No one including the pilots exited the plane and strangely, no representatives of Fiji tried to board the plane or inspect its contents. I mentioned this to the Professor and without looking up from the book he was studying, that the plane had diplomatic immunity and the officials of Nausori International Airport could glean that from the Falcon's registry. I nodded my assent and the Professor seemed to sense this as he further explained that the Island of Fiji was a dangerous stop for us, over the last couple centuries numerous Kindred, the preferred term for vampires among their own kind, had gone missing on the island and while it was sometimes necessary to stop here for fuel, no intelligent or informed vampire would stray beyond their ship or airplane. We spent the remainder of the our time on Fiji discussing the mythology of Fiji's Polynesian background and what could possibly be behind all those missing Kindred. While I happen to enjoy intellectual exploration of speculation, I was to learn that the Professor did not, in fact guesswork and speculation were two of his pet peeves. To the Professor's mind, that speculation led to preconceived ideas, which in turn could lead to a costly or fatal error and he began right there and then to intellectually correct that illogical habit of presumption.

Near dawn, the Professor escorted me back to the bedroom cabin, where he strapped me into one of the two chairs and took the other one for himself. I nervously asked if we would be able to sleep in this position, to which the Professor gave a genuine chuckle. Even in the minutes before the sun would rise he lectured me on the Kindred condition, explaining that once the sun had crossed the horizon it would not matter what position our bodies were in, we would be utterly unconscious until the sun sank in the west. In this only, the Professor was wrong, for I dreamed often of things I had never personally seen, of conversations with strangers who yet seemed familiar but without an identifiable point of reference. These dreams would eventually begin to diminish over the coming decades and the Professor encouraged to keep a dream diary and once a week we would have a session wherein I would recount what I had dreamed and he would act as a kind of guide. There were two consistent things about these sessions that always bothered me, one - that neither Seth nor Natasha were ever present or even in the building and that the Professor always knew what the dreams were about and if I ever left anything out, he would point out the discrepancy.

Apprentice of the First Circle

More than anything, I would have liked to have seen Melbourne from the air, but as we arrived during the day, I missed out on that experience. When next I regained consciousness, I lay on a old fashioned four-poster bed in a well appointed Victorian room measuring about thirty foot square. There was a strong, but momentary sense of disorientation as my mind jump-started into full wakefulness and as my heightened senses fed my consciousness all sorts of unorganized data: several smells - of dust suggesting the room had not been in use for some time, the recent use of some kind of citrus furniture polish, the familiar odor of camphor from the mothballs in the closet and beneath it all, the reek of old blood sunk deep into the floor boards from long ago feedings.

As I sat up, I took in the room, and found I was completely alone. The room had three doors, two based on their size had to be interior doors, and the third might exit outside or into another part of the building. Close to hand, I could sense movement in another part of the building, although I couldn't tell exactly what manner of activity it might entail. Further out, I could hear numerous conversations, but they came to me only in pieces as the wind would shift first this way and then that. There was also music and more distant still, the roar of early evening traffic so familiar and reassuring in its normalcy. The bed was covered in a traditional quilt and the pillows smelled like goose down. As I rose and explored the room, I found I was right about the two interior doors, one led to a walk-in closet filled with clothing decades out of date, the other door led to a lavatory outfitted in 19th century tile and brass.

It was then that I stopped before an antique mirror and looked at the new 'old' me. In just 24 hours, I had aged over forty years. I guessed that I would pass for my late sixties, a grandfatherly face with white whiskers looked back at me through blurry lenses. I took off my glasses and the distortion vanished immediately. In stunned realization, I understood that I would never need glasses again, one of the pluses of my new condition for which I was imminently grateful. But it did raise certain questions: what other surprises lay in store for me? Would they all be good? Common sense suggested that all circumstances had negatives to go with the positive points, I would have to be wary of those as I became aware of them.

I do not know for how long I lingered there gazing into the mirror like Narcissus, but the sound of a skeleton key in the exterior door lock snapped me out of my fugue. I found Dural waiting for me with a clean cloth and a shaving kit. Once again we went through the ritual of shaving. Dural said nothing, so I prompted him with basic questions, yes we had arrived in Melbourne around noon or so. Yes, we were 'home', whatever that meant. Home was a old dormitory of Queen's College called "Old Wyvern Hall," itself a lesser school of the University of Melbourne.

I must have brightened visibly, because Dural asked if that pleased me and I realized that it did indeed make me feel better. I explained that I had spent a handful of years at a small American college, and living on campus would be return to the familiar in an altogether unfamiliar world. He nodded, and began to cut my hair with a old pair of scissors. When he was done, he bade me bathe and he would return with new clothing and he left. There was no shower, just a porcelain bathtub and a oval curtain ring hanging from the ceiling, but I made do. When Dural returned, he came lugging in a half-dozen trunks, as I was standing around in a terrycloth robe, I helped him and found lifting the trunks no effort at all. To my surprise they were completely full of clothing in my size, obviously not new, rather used and discarded apparel - hand-me-downs. I knew this shtick all too well, but I knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. And I disrobed right there and dressed in whatever he handed me. When I was done, he removed all the old clothing from the closet and repacked it into the empty trunks, save for a few items I saw and asked about like an old silver headed walking stick and antique gold pocket watch with a jeweled fob. I asked who had stayed in this room last, Dural shrugged and said that numerous apprentices had stayed in this room, though none recently. Despite his native stoicism, he seemed pleased by it having a new occupant.

While Dural and I were talking, a woman entered the room on silent feet, it was her perfume that gave her away, a scent of sea-salt and hyacinth, she stood there in skin-tight black athletic apparel, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And then she spoke,welcoming me to "Old Wyvern Hall" and introducing herself as Natasha. Just as I was about to reply, the Professor's voice carried from the doorway making an official introduction between Natasha and myself. But, the Professor named me Czere Ubireg, a Turkish national emigrated to the United States when I was very young. Caught in momentary hesitation, I was speechless and then the moment passed and I was Czere Ubireg. Natasha just nodded in blithe acceptance, clearly whatever the Professor said was as good as gospel. Then as she turned to go, her eyes became misty and seemed to lose focus, and to me, she said: "Tonight you are Seven, lesser and incomplete, but as you are winnowed away, all the stronger you will become until only one remains. The question is - what face will you wear?" Without another word, she turned upon her heel and pushed past the Professor as if he weren't even there. Dural, myself and the Professor were all struck silent, each of us looking from one to another, trying to make some sense of such a strange pronouncement. Finally, the Professor cleared his throat and asked me to come downstairs and meet Seth, the other apprentice I would be working with. He turned without waiting for my acquiescence, as if my assent were already a foregone conclusion and as I fell into step behind him, I understood that of course, it had been.

We found Seth in the laboratory located approximately a hundred feet below "Old Wyvern Hall". The Professor had led me down to the ground floor and then into the basement where the Professor approached a plain wall of red brick mortared together with slowly crumbling concrete. As he stood before the wall, the Professor waved his hands in some sort of arcane pattern and mouthed some words that might have been Latin. Then he stepped into the wall as if it were insubstantial. Faintly, from the other side, I could hear the Professor calling me to hurry through. While I was hesitant, I knew the Professor must be obeyed, so I stepped forward into the wall. As my face entered the wall first, as if I were trying to look where I was going, I could feel myself passing through what should have been solid brick, but which felt closer to cool, dry dust suspended in a layer a few inches thick. When I opened my eyes, I could see into a old stairwell constructed of that same red brick and concrete spiraling down into the dark earth. The impassive face of the Professor was illuminated by a cold sphere of light that floated just above his head. The landing upon which he stood was just large enough for the two of us and as I stepped through slowly, he turned away without further fanfare as if this were an everyday occurrence, and as I was soon to learn, it was just that.

Several turnings later, we stood before a closed set of double wooden doors. Half inscribed upon each door and forming a whole only when the doors were closed as they were now, was a strange geometric symbol painted in gold. The figure was a perfect hollow circle containing a hollow square that touched it with its corners and a solid right triangle mounted at about fifteen degrees pointing north-east, or so it seemed to me. The Professor said: "Behold, the sigil of the Clan and House Tremere." For a couple of moments, we both just stood there gazing at its perfection as it glittered in cold metallic hues from the Professor's conjured ball of light. Then my sire, pointed out the line of glyphs that ran all the way around the doors, its rust colored paint was matted, seemingly incapable of reflecting the light. But as I looked harder at it, there was a sense of something familiar about it, as if I should know what it meant. I stepped closer and it felt like a faint breeze had picked up in that small threshold and was blowing faintly in my face. The scent that the inscription gave off was one of dust, death and slaughtered beasts. A shiver passed through me, both of fear and anticipation as I turned to the Professor and voiced the obvious question: "Is this blood painted around the frame of the door?" Professor Cipher nodded and proffered: "Blood is all to the Kindred, sustenance, an intoxicant, and a source of power. For most Kindred, that power translates into fuel for their Disciplines, the powers that the curse grants them based on their clan or lineage. But for those of Clan Tremere, your clan, blood can be channeled like other natural forces, such as electrical current to fuel ritual workings and path magic."

Follow me, Seth is within and the night is wasting. Then he uttered another string of Latin phrases and pushed the double doors inward. The scream of rusting hinges in need of oil, greeted us as we entered the laboratory. We stepped into a domed room approximately twenty-five feet in radius, with seven walls and in each wall an arched doorway. Seven Roman arches held up the dome a good fifty feet above us and on the floor were inscribed seven concentric circles forming a round labyrinth. Cold white light, steady enough to be electricity, illuminated the chamber and emanated from seven magical orbs similar to the one conjured by the Professor, but far larger as they floated equidistantly about the room just before their respective archways. The Professor pointed out the labyrinth of concentric circles on the floor: "These are the seven circles of initiation, as you circumnavigate each, you must find passage from the outermost circle to the one it enshrines. Do you understand?" For the space of several human heartbeats, I just looked at the labyrinth trying to puzzle it out like a maze. Then I realized it was a symbolic matter and obviously Clan Tremere was like a cult; the word cult, has taken on a negative connotation in the modern world, but in the ancient past it simply denoted a small group of adherents who shared the same faith. So the circles were steps of initiation, gained through sacred knowledge passed from teacher to student like the Mithraic mysteries. Unlike Christianity and other monotheistic faiths, which required the acceptance of the unprovable as a necessary truth - in other words faith, gnostic religions brought their members into progressively deeper truths through experience. The Greeks had a special word for such knowledge: Gnosis. I explained my supposition to Professor Cipher, who smiled, nodded and offered a small compliment: "Most Excellent!"

Then the Professor pointed to a spot, gesturing for me to walk to the space, and I quickly complied. When I turned to face him, he said: "You have passed through the first of seven gates, the gate of blood and immortality, primordial and elemental, without passage through the first gate, you could not hope to be able to understand or control the mystical energies that bind our world together. You must now prepare yourself to walk the first and outermost circle of mystery. With my help, as your sire and you regent, you will learn to master those lessons and techniques that we call the discipline of Thaumaturgy. At the moment, you are nothing to the Clan and House of Tremere, just a rude vessel that demands to be filled with sacred knowledge and the wisdom of the ancients."

Somewhere along the way to meet the more senior apprentice Seth, I had entered into a ritual of initiation for a vampiric mystery cult. I stood there dumbfounded, uncertain of how to act and what I should be saying, doing, or thinking. As the unnatural florescence began to dim all around the exterior of the room, a single large orb above us, enshrined in the dome, began to glow brighter casting illumination over the Professor who stood at the center most point. From the archway directly behind the Professor a sinister figure swathed in black approached my unsuspecting teacher. I tried to alert him to its presence, but he ignored my warnings and stood patiently with his back turned to the figure. Then the figure stood directly behind the Professor, holding a black cloak out for him to pull over his western style business suit. Once my sire had donned the black robe, another black cloaked figure emerged from a different archway and brought a bejeweled golden chalice to the Professor. Then the same figure came towards me, holding forth another black robe, this one meant for me and its outstretched hands guided me into the velvet cassock. My attendant's touch was feather light, but the scent of sea-salt and hyacinth gave Natasha's identity away, and that meant the attendant who aided the Professor must be Seth. Natasha drifted away to stand slightly off to one side and behind the Professor, opposite Seth.

Then as one, they approached me. When the Professor stood directly before me, he commanded me to kneel and I did so. The cold stone floor should have hurt my knees, but didn't. As I waited patiently, the Professor held the glittering chalice at the height of my head between us and chanted again in Latin, this time, it seemed I could almost understand what he was saying. He held the cup with his left hand and gestured in strange ways over it with his right hand. I felt a growing buildup of energy in the air, as if lightning were about to strike, then the Professor grew silent. Then in a grand and formal voice, an exaggeration of his normal deep baritone, he commanded me to repeat after him, a sacred litany. In truth, the "Oath of Tremere" as it was called, seemed more like a courtroom document chanted in archaic English than what I had imagined as a sacred oath. But, despite the dry and dusty pronouncements voiced by the Professor, I understood the grave character of the oath I was being administered. The initiation ended with my paraphrasing the final part of the oath: "I, Czere Ubireg, swear this oath on this night of December 25th, in the year of 2012. Woe to they who try to tempt me to break this oath, and woe to me, if I succumb to such temptation."

Once more the Professor spoke in that grand, but dread voice: "Czere Ubireg, you have sworn the Oath of Tremere, now you belong to the Pyramid forever more until your final death. Within this chalice is the commingled essence of those who lead the Pyramid and take guidance only from great Tremere, the Seven Councilors." In order, he named them each with all their titles: Abetorius, Elaine de Calinot, Etrius, Grimgroth, Meerlinda, Thomas Wyncham, and Xavier de Cincao. I know that I heard and registered the names of the final two councilors, but with the utterance of the name Meerlinda, the room seemed to disappear and I could see her face, so beautiful and so cold. Somehow, impossible as it might seem, I knew her, the sound of her voice, the scent of each of her carefully calculated perfumes, her long luxurious dark chestnut hair and eyes like emeralds frozen or fiery as suited her mood. I knew then, somehow, that it was my sacred duty to kill this woman who was one of a kind, ancient and powerful. She had broken one of the highest laws, but which one and those who had given me this impossible mission, were just shadowy figures out of distant memory. This sudden purpose changed everything, my focus snapped into being like a sword crisply drawn from its sheath to glisten coldly in the light.

Of course, in just a few nights word would come telling us that Meerlinda's chantry in Dallas had fallen to the vile forces of the Sabbat and the great lady was dead at the hands of the traitorous former councilor Goratrix. Instinctively, I knew it for the lie it was, because deep inside me, I could feel that she still existed out there somewhere and she was waiting for me. I was fully cognizant of the necessity of absolute secrecy, I dared not even think about this except when I was totally alone and somehow I must never, ever dream about it. Then time resumed with a sudden stutter and the Professor said: "Drink of this cup and become one with all Tremere everywhere." And with his cold left hand, he forced my lower jaw open and with his right hand, he poured the essence of light and fire past my lips, igniting my body and opening my mind to mysteries undreamed of...

I must have lost consciousness...for when I did wake, hours had passed. By the antique clock on the mantle over my bedroom's small and immaculately clean fireplace, it was near to three in the morning. While I heard nothing unusual, I knew that I wasn't alone in the room. When I opened my eyes and sat up, I saw the Professor sitting in one of the bedroom's two antique brown leather clad wingback arm chairs. I expected him to be reading, but he was watching me over his steepled fingers. With just a small gesture he caused mystical flames to fill the grate, throwing flickering illumination across the room, but I didn't like the way the flames seemed to reflect in the lenses of his tortoise shell horn-rimmed glasses.

"Czere, please take a seat and join me." With this utterance the Professor gestured towards the other wingback chair. The note of command in his voice suggested I hurry and a quick mental calculation on my part made me realize that it was only few days after the Summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. In other words, very short nights, and a very limited activity cycle for the undead, including myself. I immediately slid off the bed and took the proffered seat as the Professor began to speak. "Czere, I have been called to Vienna to attend to some necessary administrative details that must be handled in person. Do you understand?" I nodded my understanding and I took his immediate silence as a opportunity to ask questions. The moment he spoke of Vienna, my anxiety spiked, I wasn't certain why, but the name evoked images of nineteenth century intrigues carried out from elegant cafes to the opera and personal palaces befitting royalty. "how long will you be gone?"

The Professor studied me for several long moments, long enough for me to become distinctly uncomfortable under that cold gaze. "Of that I cannot be sure Czere, likely a week or two at most. I should be back shortly after the start of the new year." I hesitated and then pressed forward. "What am I to do with myself while you are gone Sire?" The Professor smiled at the previously unused title and gently corrected me. "My title is Regent, and from this point forward you will address me as Regent Cipher or just Regent." I quickly nodded. "Among the other clans, the title of Sire is common parlance, although, it has been falling out of fashion for the last century. Despite that, Clan Tremere uses that term far less often and usually only under informal circumstances. You will follow suit." Once again, I nodded.

"While I am gone, senior apprentice Natasha is in charge. I have given her instructions on what your duties are to be and I have drawn up a syllabus of subjects I would like you to study." The folder he handed me was as thick as the Denver phone-book. As I scanned through the extensive body of scholastic material the Professor had drawn up for me, I noticed several of the primary works were in languages I did not know, primarily Greek and Latin. "Um-mm, Regent, I don't have any background in ancient languages. How should I proceed?" He looked at me as if I had just sprouted two heads and replied. "Czere, you will need to adapt quickly to your new existence and if you find that there are circumstances wherein you are short of proficiency, then you will need to make greater your efforts and expend as much time and effort as may be required to complete the scholarly regimen I have assigned you. Clan Tremere has no room for lallygagging or laziness, the course of study I have given you is meant to bring you up to snuff with your peers and is far from advanced course work. Am I understood." I replied in the affirmative.

"Excellent. Then I need to make ready for my journey. I would like you to exercise special caution with Seth, he has been the least senior apprentice of the chantry for many years and he might try to take advantage of you in this regard. While I am absent you can turn to Natasha for advice and aid in dealing with him. However, he is your senior in the pyramid and thus you are bound by your oath and laws of the pyramid with obeying his orders, unless they violate the Code of Tremere. Do I make myself understood?" I stood for a moment processing that one, then offered a slight nod, which he took for assent. "One more admonition, the chantry is filled with mystical items and texts that have been enchanted or curse to protect them, most of the dangerous items are set aside in the restricted section of the library or are under lock and key in the repository below, but this chantry has been active for over one hundred and thirty years, so there are likely to be a few lost items that might make it into your possession. Not all my apprentices have taken the correct attitude in dealing with certain kinds of knowledge that I would deem dangerous for anyone short of a true master of Thaumaturgy. As this chantry has had dozens of apprentices in its thirteen decades, some prohibited works or items are likely hidden away in the building somewhere. You have received fair warning from me, something I only provide once. If harm should befall you in your explorations of the chantry, the results are of your own making. Any unidentified items are to be brought to my attention or handed over to the most senior apprentice, in this case, Natasha. That is all the instruction I have for you tonight. See Natasha tomorrow evening about your duties to the chantry and advice on your course work."

As he was about to walk out the door, he turned back and locked gazes with me and said. "Czere, I want you to make a special effort to learn Turkish, to further the deception surrounding your past." And then his eyes seemed to draw me in, as if they were infinitely deep pools reflecting me. "You are forbidden to leave Old Wyvern Hall under any circumstances, until I deem you worthy to explore the campus." I momentarily lost awareness and when it resumed, the door was shut and I was alone in the Dark.

Old Wyvern Hall

The Professor did indeed return after the turn of the new year, although it was near the end of January. Unfortunately, he was spot on about Seth and how he would respond to my presence in the chantry. It was almost classical sibling rivalry, except that by the time I was Embraced he was eighty-two years old and had been a vampire for fifty-seven of them. Still, the month the Professor was gone to Vienna was easily the worst month of my unlife. The moment the Professor and Dural left for the airport, he came to my room and demanded I accompany him, which I did. We went directly to the sanctum below "Old Wyvern Hall", there we passed through the Vault of Sevens as I called it, through another archway into a hall I had yet to visit. The hall was about fifty feet long and only illuminated at the end, before the thick metallic double doors which were thickly inscribed with arcane symbols that I wasn't prepared to decipher. Seth stood before the doors with purpose and began to chant in Latin while gesturing in strange ways with his hands. "This is the laboratory where the Professor, Natsha and I do our research. Watch what I am doing carefully, its called a passport, as in a mystical phrase, gesture or both that will allow you to bypass mystical effects like wards or curses. You need to learn how to utilize the passport if you are going to get started on your chores...'boy'." If his terminology hadn't been enough, his tone of superiority said it all. There would be no physical hazing, the Professor would never permit that, but Seth was allowed to use me as menial labor to his heart's content and no one would interfere provided it was something legitimate. And over the next month, he found a backlog of legitimate 'chores' that he needed completed, including a complete scouring of his personal chambers, which were far larger and more lavish than my own.

At first, I thought it was just a form of hazing, but nights of unremunerated drudgery turned into benighted months of the same, then years of it. The best way to describe those long, dark, monotonous years is for you to image an endless, light-less, groundhog day. I was an indentured servant in all but name. Over the next five years, my time was taken up with either study or apprentice-work, a delicate phrase for any disgusting, menial or mind-numbing chore the Professor, Natasha or Seth needed doing. For five years, I never stepped outside the walls of "Old Wyvern Hall", long after the Professor's mental command had faded, I was forbidden to go outside for any reason on pain of more drudgery. Learning the mystical secrets of the universe was to come at the price of heavy labor. I numerous books, I had read that in many chantries there were creatures called gargoyles who did all the heavy lifting, if not, sometimes there were other types of animations like the Golem which came in a variety of forms for the same purpose. But I was to learn that it was a tried and true tradition handed down through the hallowed centuries from before House Tremere had become a clan of vampires, that apprentices paid for their education with menial labor. This fact in itself wasn't so bad, after all, it made a kind of sense. It was tangible proof that the initiate was serious about staying the course and dedicated to whatever tasks were set before him or her by those who held the sacred knowledge to dispense as they saw fit.

What bothered me most was that Seth took such pleasure in using me as his personal serf, for him I cleaned beakers, scrubbed the scorch marks off the marble of the casting chamber, disposed of dead animals and mortals, you name it. If he could have learned to defecate again, he would have done so just to force me to empty his chamber pot for him. I cannot lie, after a month, I hated him. After a year, I considered suicide by sunlight, but it was the Professor and Natasha who convinced me otherwise. She showed me compassion, which was in rare supply in "Old Wyvern Hall." And, in the Professor's case he was just too cold and intellectual to offer anything like emotional comfort, but where his humanity failed, he understood the concept of risk and reward. So every so often I was given a free night, I still couldn't leave the chantry, but my time became my own and Seth would have to wait until the following night to punish me with more labor. On those rare, free nights, I would watch television, read newspapers or surf the web, for while I was an ageless servant of nocturnal blood magicians, time was passing and the world outside was changing.

My adjustment to unlife went smoother than most, for I did not seem inclined to make all the little mistakes that fledglings do, like trying to eat food, testing the effects of sunlight/fire and or binging on blood. The last was perhaps the most difficult, for as a mortal, I had definitely enjoyed eating a little too much. However, for the first five years I fed exclusively from blood-bags, the taste of cold blood saturated with anticoagulants made over-feeding highly unappetizing. But I was pleased to discover a new-found slimness, likely do to the atrophy of my vestigial internal organs. And all the extra physical labor was bringing out the definition in my musculature, ironically, it was Seth who unwittingly helped me in this department.

On one of my free nights, I was chatting with Natasha and she was complimenting my physique. He must have been passing her room, randomly of course, when he heard her comment. A moment later, he leaned against the door-frame, as an apprentice of lower station he needed to ask permission to enter he chambers, while he could enter my chambers at will. Since the door was open and he was not about to ask Natasha's permission for anything, he leaned there and derided every compliment she had just offered. As he did so, he pulled off his wife-beater and barred his magnificent chest for both of us to admire. While I did indeed hate Seth to the core of my being, it did not stop me from admitting he had a nearly perfect body.

Its not that I find men appealing, but rather that I can appreciate the sheer hard work and effort that must have gone into developing a superb physique. As he was deriding me in a lecturing fashion, Natasha pointed out that he had not always possessed a perfect form, as a mortal he had been good looking and fit, but not perfect. For a moment he was pole-axed by her commentary, I took that moment to smile, not to further embarrass him, but just to see his expression. But he took it a entirely different way, seeing the need to prove himself, he lectured me on my foolish assumption that the vampiric body was anything like the human body, it wasn't the labor that built undead muscle, at least not labor alone, but rather the expenditure of blood into the correct muscle groups while performing said labor. He explained to me in excruciating detail how I was wasting blood by using it to accomplish heavier labors, without gaining the benefit of expending it into the specific muscle groups correctly.

Like wisdom freed from the rotting corpse of a dead Greek philosopher, or the Greco-Roman tradition of consulting ventriloquists as interrogators of the dead, I gleaned a bit of gold from the night soil of Seth's lecture. While I had not been blessed with the angular features needed to possess the face of Adonis, the long years of surfing necessary to be so tan, I could have a physique as good as Seth's with the proper study of anatomy and the micro-infusions of blood focused upon the specific muscle groups necessary to look like Hercules. Later, much later, I was to discover that this same technique could be used to infuse another set of masculine muscle groups and that constant application of this method led to a permanent increase in size as well...the phallusy of magic.

Still, it was a most valuable lesson, the realization that in unlife there are no friends or enemies, just teachers - a lesson well worth what I paid for it.

Perhaps this apprentice thing was not a complete crock. As the years progressed, the Professor steadily piled up the workload in academics, but he did not stop there