Empire V 2022

A young man named Rama (formerly Roman Aleksandrovich Shtorkin) becomes a vampire after a fateful encounter with Brama, who has decided to end his life following a vampire duel. Before he goes, Brama must pass on his “tongue”—the essence that lets a vampire read the mind of a human or another vampire by tasting their blood; as vampires say, > tasting.

To belong among the undead, Rama changes his name in line with vampire tradition and embarks on a formal education in the two core vampire sciences: glamour and discourse. This socialization is paradoxical: Rama was human, yet he now lives inside a culture where power comes from mastery of appearance, persuasion, and hidden influence rather than raw force. The new life forces him to balance his lingering humanity with the demands of the vampire world, where control over others is the ultimate currency and feeding is a quiet, practiced art.

Rama quickly slips into vampire society, noticing that many of his peers and even himself bear the names of gods, that the word “blood” is often spoken in hushed tones, and that he is no longer simply human. Vampire society barely overlaps with human society and is built on values that have little in common with humanity. Permeating humanity are Chaldean agents, a clique that helps steer cultural and social directions for the vampires. Within this world, love and romance can flourish only among vampires, leading Rama into a complicated relationship with a new vampire named Hera.

As Rama learns, vampires are not the solitary legends of popular fiction. They are a symbiotic race whose vampiric essence—the tongue—passes from host to host over time. The power to read minds enables vampires to influence individuals, while control over glamour and discourse allows them to shape entire societies. The ultimate goal, according to vampire thinking, is to guide and govern humanity, with the tasting of the “red liquid” as a fundamental, primal mechanism.

Rama’s life after his conversion is about more than study. He wrestles with enduring existential questions—“Where did the world come from?” “What happens after death?” “What is truth?” “What is God?”—and he actively keeps notes that grow into a book. Older vampires dismiss such introspection as a fleeting thrill for the young, but Rama presses on, guided at times by Osiris, an atypical vampire-Tolstoyan who lends him support and perspective.

In the end, it’s revealed that Rama was left undertrained on purpose, a deliberate choice that paradoxically helps him stay more human than vampire.