"One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged." - Oscar Wilde

*Sitting in a red leather wing back chair sits a man, the illusion of youth draped over his aged and frail frame like a dust jacket, arcane mysteries protecting him from the sands of time. The window is barred from the cold blustery night outside.

"Good evening," he says as he reaches for a thick tome on the coffee table beside him. The fire blazes in the fireplace, yet the man clings to a wool sweater as if bare in the depths of the savage north. "I know why you are here, it is simple to deduce, you wish to learn my secrets. You will find it saddening perhaps when I tell you I have none." The tome's bindings creak as he opens to the first page. It is a diary, old, like his eyes. He thumbs the pages with a loving grace as he trails off. "I have no secrets apprentice, because everything I am is quite easy to uncover. Never once have I made any attempt to hide anything from you. I am nothing more than an open book, my past nothing more than an amusing anecdote in the prologue of my life."

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts." - William Shakespeare

"Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves--and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either." - Helen Keller

I was born in Loughrea, Erie in 1843 to Brianna and Iain Wyn. An elderly midwife attended to my entry into this world, proclaiming me to be a child of great wisdom and long life. (Sometimes curses can sound like gifts when taken in the wrong context.) My early childhood is a faint shadow of a memory now, but I remember it being full of adventure and mystery, despite the misery. The Erie countryside still provokes a choking feeling of nostalgia whenever I visit. But I digress, as I said, my childhood was fairly uneventful, I grew up in the squalor common to the times and only through my cunning and shear drive did I win the chance at a scholarship. With said scholarship I was able to break free of one set of chains, and exchange them for another. Using my knack for languages to sponsor my continued education, I traveled to Dublin. After three years, my expertise grew beyond the capabilities of Dublin and I petitioned Oxford University for a scholarship. I was dismayed at their initial refusal and grew bitter. Finding solace only in the arms of a woman, as many men do.

"Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Heav'n has no Rage like Love to Hatred turn'd, and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." - William Congreve

In Accailia I found a source of sharp wit and natural beauty. A woman I loved without measure. We paraded around the countryside, absorbed in the Victorian mysteries of the time. She the charlatan and I the straight man or rather, the dupe. For fifteen years we traveled the Isles and Western Europe, keeping the mystery and innocence of magic alive in those who would come to see our performances. A regular troupe grew about me, and I found myself acting the part of their informal leader. Which is why, upon Accailia's betrayal in France, around 1875, I was forced to set them upon her. Fueled by my raw emotions turned sour, they beset upon her, using their various arcane talents to rip her to pieces. I will not apologize for my actions; my sweet morning lily is lost to me. She betrayed an eternal trust and as such, soured the well of hope, desire and adventure in my breast. I have rationalized my guilt in the realization that it is not for her life that I mourn, but for my loss of innocence in giving the order for her demise. At the very least, I console my feelings of loss with the thought that the seed of our love lives on in my children and my children's children.

"A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows." - George Gurdjieff

Damn fate for its accursed role in my life. Too soon after my little band of marauders and I returned to Erie to escape persecution, did an English Fellow by the name of Landswell Emerson II arrive at my doorstep. A self-professed magician and psychic, he spoke of dreaming of our exploits in France. I found myself frozen in the fear of imminent discovery, for we had used vile witchcraft to dispose of Accailia. He asked to talk with us, with me, to clear the fog of his memory. With a presence such as his, I found myself obliging. From my lips poured every detail of her demise. As I neared the end of my grisly tale, he shared with me a secret. Accailia was his daughter, and I saw a great rage roiling behind his eyes. I found myself searching for the fastest exit from the room as he spoke. A curse fell from his cold lips, one day I would feel the pain of a loss such as his, and he would make sure I lived to savor the torture. I tried to explain to him that my heart had been ripped from my chest the night Accailia had betrayed me. Nothing could phase my intellectual demeanor, and I shared as much. He laughed. He laughed as he bore down the arcane upon my Troupe, murdering them all and feasting upon their blood, forcing me to witness and even partake in such vile acts. Rather than strike the match of loss or hatred or disgust. I found myself fascinated with the magical arts he wielded and said as much. In retrospect, as hindsight grants me the wisdom to perceive such things, I see the hand of Emerson in my life so much sooner than I did at the time. I soon found myself a guest of Emerson's in Manchester, a pawn to his every whim, unable to resist the urge to uncover more vile secrets. Damn him for enticing the joy of discovery in me. I found myself in the company of gods while learning at Manchester, Emerson saw to it that I discovered a great many occult secrets while there and made privy to a few arcane examples of the one true magic. I soon found myself begging him for more to satiate my wanton appetite for the mystical, and in a ceremony of blood, he obliged…

"A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position." - Jean de La Bruyère

A loyal servant I became, tied to Emerson and the House and Clan Tremere by my oath and the mystical strength of the blood. A slave to the hierarchy and privy to little more than the rumors of great mystical power. Thus began my indoctrination into the truth of the pyramid, a world of darkness, secrets and despair. In my now ageless state, I found my appetite for knowledge subsumed by my tireless want to serve my regnant, Emerson. I refuse to speak of those intermittent decades, as they are rife with boring servitude. Only at the desire of Emerson, was I willing to continue my studies, as such, the century through which I survived found my time largely wasted on trivial matters. The first few decades were spent diligently cataloguing all of the tomes and secrets of the Manchester chantry. Though forbidden to read them, I found a scarce few moments here and there to skim the passages, satiating my appetite in small morsels of information under the very noses of my superiors. As is hard not to protect against, Emerson eventually learned of my clandestine actions and set about my transfer from the library.

"One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it." - Gaston Bachelard.

However, as is often true, history got in the way. With the beginning of the Great War, I was more interested in my studies and the recent threats of dismissal or reassignment from Emerson. When I received word that my great grandson had been taken in by the propaganda of war and joined the forces. My most immediate thought was of Emerson's curse, and frantically begged him for a leave of absence. I thought I could convince my lineage the error of his ways, there were more important things than honor and glory. One speaks of selling ones soul to the foul devil in learning the true art, I found myself in such a situation. Offering Olsen everything I could think of, eventually he allowed me to leave. Unfortunately, by this time, my Great Grandchild, Bryan Wyn was stationed in France. I was loath to return to that country, but Ironically, the guilt over Accailia drove me to protect our lineage from harm. I joined the rank and file, quickly rising through the ranks until I bore the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. With the responsibility over countless men's lives. The only one I cared to concern myself with was Bryan's. Throughout the War, I saw a great many signs of "Other" influences. Like pawns on a chessboard we were maneuvered with precision. I seemed to be the only one to know who directed my actions... A pity, a lot of people were wasted in petty bids for power and position. but I digress yet again. I forced Bryan to see the horrors of war first hand, to ensure the safety of my lineage in the future. I returned later to Manchester, only to find that I had been reassigned to Oxford University under the auspice of a fellow Paranormal Researcher to Matias Wyndymere, apprentice of the third circle. Within the clan, it matters not from whom you get the blood of life, just that you remain loyal. I believe Emerson felt dejected by my absence. Perhaps silently approving of my actions, for my children were his as well, but publicly he made sure that Matias knew of my perchance for single-minded quests.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation." - Hermann Hesse.

"There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his." - Eric Hoffer.

I found it strange mind you, when decades later Emerson had me transferred yet again to his side, as training for my eventual embrace. I know now that it was merely his way of holding yet another thing above me, to feel as if I had not outsmarted him. His choice to provide the blood for my embrace two years ago shocked me. Perhaps I had not mistaken the feeling of friendship and family that seemed to grow between us. However, with my embrace I quickly moved to distance myself from Emerson, despite what professional admiration I had for the man. I had to give myself some time to recover from the shear loss of the bond. I could not afford a reversal of emotion, which was sometimes the case with ghouls turned kindred. A vile and limitless hatred would only serve as proof for Emerson's claim that I wasn't ready, and thus more of a liability to the clan. I found myself requesting a transfer away from his machinations...

"We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter." - Mark Twain.

"...Ending up here." Christopher finished as he held the book open in his lap, caressing its yellowing pages absently. " And Emerson actually spoke highly of me in his letters to the regent. I would have thought he would fight heaven and earth rather than see me removed from under his boot. Yet my transfer was granted without question. I wonder if he still harbors feelings in that cold sagging chest of his, perhaps his blood still boils at the loss of Accailia, or he feels a kinship to me as his childer. No matter, I've finally found a way out, forcing him to give me up as his prize possession." Christopher places the book back on the table and struggles to pull himself from the chair, making to leave the room. The fire seems to visibly dim with his absence and the wind howls outside the window.

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." - Albert Einstein.