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Frederick Boon

Background Born to working class parents in pre-war Liverpool in 1932, Frederick's earliest memories are of the terrible bombing of Liverpool during the Second World War. He had an older sister, who resented having to take responsibility for him when their parents were at work. Always fiercely independant, Frederick rebelled, first against his family and then against wider society. He became a poet, scaping a living on the fringes of society.

As well as poerty, Frederick had another talent, but one he prefered to keep secret. Even as a child, he had 'known things': mostly things he wasn't suposed to and couldn't have found out. In July 1942, he had woken up one night in hysterics, screaming with terror. He couldn't be calmed or comforted, insisting that the family must leave the house at once. Going to the bomb shelter didn't satisfy Frederick. He had to get as far away as he could. Reluctantly, but unable to think of any other way of quieting the child, the whole family got up and began walking down the street. As they reached the far end, the air raid sirens began to sound. Frederick's father, tiring of 'spoiling the brat', insisted on a return to the shelter at once. Clinging to a fence, Frederick had to be dragged away, wasting valuable time as the bombers began to drone overhead, flares starting to light the sky.

Before the family could make more than a few yards back toward the house, there was a tremendous explosion. Debris rained down and bright flames began to blossom down the street in front of the terrified family. The Boon family house had been destroyed, the shelter taking the brunt of the bomb and being blasted to splinters. There was some talk about Frederick's hysterics in the family afterwards. Strangely, there was little surprise. 'The gift' was well known in Fredierick's mother's family, although it was commonly believed to show itself only in the women. His grandmother's grandmother had saved her family by forseeing the flood of 1810, when a reservoiur above Marsden broke it's banks. It was special, but not unusual.

Outside his family, Frederick was wary of showing his gift. It sometimes showed him things he would rather not know. The young man was almost frightened of it and wary of others reactions. However, he couldn't resist dabbling in the occult. He took up tarot card, becoming enmeshed in the growing sub-culture and moving further away from his family. Frederick stood out amongst his drop-out peers by your genuine occult talent and it was this which attracted the attention of the Tremere.

The two years after Frederick's Embrace were spent in Vienna. The Tremere were inrigued by his talent. However, they could discover little more than the young Kindred had learned from his mother. His second sight was as unpredictable as ever. The Tremere in Vienna eventually decided to let time mature their recruit's skills and posted him to the Chantry in Amsterdam.

At this time, Amsterdam was one of the most important fiefs in Europe. The Ventrue of the modern era felt that their Clan Elders were too caught up in their Feudal past. Unless the Ventrue Princes of Europe could come to term with the rapid changes of the past decades, Europe risked losing influence to the upstart Kindred of the New World. Although these European Ancilla were of the same age as the American Elders they despised, they were pround of the ancient role of Europe and sought to modernise rather than overthrow. However, to the ancient Princes of Europe, there was little to choose between the reforming Ancilla of the twentieth century and the rabble of the Anarch War.

Amsterdam, cosmopolitan and, in Kindred terms, free-thinking, became the center of the modernising movement in Europe. In the late sixties, it became the political heart of the European Camarilla. Frederick fitted right into the city. The early drugs culture of Liverpool where the neonate had met his Sire was flourishing in Amsterdam and after the stifling formality of Vienna it was like coming home. 'The Tremere poet' became quite a celebrity in the fief and he made many acquaintances and one ot two close friends.

At first, the Tremere Clan valued Frederick's contacts in Amsterdam. He knew that they had sent him there because they thought he would be able to blend in. From the questions of his Chantry head, Frederick realised that the Tremere feared another Anarch revolt might be stirring. Frederick felt able to reassure them that the Ventrue of Amsterdam couldn't be further from Anarchs hoping that once the Tremere's fears of revolt were allied, they would feel able to back the modernisers.

Unfortunately, once Frederic'sr masters had determined that the modernisers posed no threat to the Camarilla, they also seemed to think that hisr talents were better put to use elsewhere. Perhaps they were worried that the inexperienced Tremere would be contaminated by the egalitarian ideals of the Ancilla there, and from 1968 to 1976, he was sent by Vienna to the fief of York. Not as vibrant and exciting as Amsterdam, it was a peaceful and stable fief; a good place for Kindred who wished to live a long unlife. The Ventrue Prince, Ilbert de Lascy, had ruled the fief since the Norman invasion. The Primogen formed the Council of York, who advised the Prince and managed most of the affairs of the fief. As far as a neonate could tell, there was none of the backstabbing and politicking which permeated other fiefs. All in all, there was little to do, except learn more about the Clan and Kindred society.

Unusually in Britian, the Tremere Clan was both openly established and respected in the fief. The Chantry head, Sir Nicholas Gilbert, had lived in the fief since the 17th century. A member of the Council, he was a friend of the Prince and other Ventrue Elders and the fanatically anti-Tremere Ventrue of London had little influence in this northern fief. Appart from Chantry duties, Frederick had a great deal of time available and often visited his old haunts across the Pennines in Liverpool.

In the summer of 1976, Frederick began to dream about the sun. The whole of Europe was gripped by drought and the obsession of the nation began to invade hisr sleep. Every day, when he closed his eyes in his coffin and felt conciousness slip away with the rising sun, Frederick would see the same sun rise in his dreams. In his mind, the sun beat down over a wide expanse of dry cracked mud. The hills around seemed a hundred miles away, shimmering in the heat. Water retreated from the rim of scum and algae, visibly evapourating as the searing heat withered the grass around the edge of the lake. Boats lay on the bone-hard clay, creaking as the dry heat warped their timbers. Fish died, stranded in small pools which vanished as you watched and all the time the sun grew hotter and brighter. By the nineth day of the dream, broken walls began to appear in the center of the drying lake. A village, once drowned by deep water came slowly, eerily back to life. Mud dried and cracked away from the broken stone roofs and the sightless windows and open doorways gaped onto the deserted streets.

Wandering the empty village in the heat and dust of his dreams, Frederick occasionally felt the whispering of old ghosts. But these were the faded presence of the village's life long ago, before the water. He walked the streets in his dreams each day, waiting for the glimpse of the future which he knew would show itself here.

On the thirteenth day of the dream, the lake had retreated to the center of the drowned village. Only a shallow pool remained, covering what had once been the village green. This last time, as Frederick walked the streets, the sun had not yet risen. The cool of night was a relief after the days of endless heat, but in the darkness the old ghosts of the village drew closer, whispering on the edge of hearing, laughing, reaching out zephyr fingers to not quite touch him.

The hills around the dried lake were hidden, shrouded this time by darkness rather than heat haze. But at last, the eastern hills were outlined by the coming dawn and Frederick watched the sunrise with facination. This was the first sunrise he had seen since his Embrace and it seemed to hold a dark resonance, as if it symbolised an end rather than a beginning. As the edge of the sun crested the hills, his eyes were drawn to a movement in the shallow pool in front of him.

Caught in the thick mud in the center of the pond was an animal, a large dog perhaps, or even a wolf out of the village's long ago past. There was a flash of sharp fangs as the beast tried to pull free, only to be sucked back down. The shape was indistinct, shadowed by the broken church tower outlined by the dawn. Desparate with thirst, the creature must have wandered into the treacherous water and been caught. Thick with the sticky clay, it floundered, sinking deeper, struggling to escape the suffocating mud.

Although barely above the horizon, the sun was already hot. As Frederick watched, the water-that-was-mud continued to shrink, the edges crazing into parched earth. Suddenly, it was clear to him that the creature stuck in the mud wasn't trying to escape the water. It was struggling vainly to flee the rising sun. The shadow of the church tower shortened, the light growing brighter to match the already searing heat. The shape of the creature resolved itself. Not into a dog, or a wolf, but a man, burrowing frantically into the too shallow mud as the last shadows slipped away and the sun reached gently round toward him.

The figure looked up abruptly, directly towrd Frederick. Even as his hair began to smoulder from the touch of the sun, the Tremere looked into his own eyes and heard the trapped man begin to scream with Fredreick's own voice. As the fingers of the ghosts, melting with the dawn, reached forwards to hold him, Frederick felt himself evapourate with the last of the lake's water. Drawn forwards by the heat of his own body burning in front of him, Fredreick merged with the struggling shape in the mud. Then the dream ended and there was only pain. Agony too real to be a dream or vision, nothing but the pain, and the buring sun, and his own screams echoing down into darkness.

When Frederick awoke, there was a coolness and a stillness which almost shocked him. Calm voices murmed just out of hearing, reminding him of the ghosts in the village. Frderick briefly wondered if he were dead, before he recognised one of the voices; his Sire.

When he recovered somewhat, there were endless questions. At first, the Tremere seemed much more keen to ask than answer. However, they eventually told Frederick that he had been discovered in Rome, in a long abandoned crypt. The year was now 1986. Since then Frederick has been unable to discover what happened to him in those missing ten years. Whenever he tried to think back to his last days in York, he can only remember the dream: what Frederick did in the nights between the dreams he doesn't know.

Frederick spent the next three years in Vienna. However, the Tremere in Vienna were unable to bring his memory back, or explain his missing years, or unravel the dream which had preceeded it. Finally, they allowed him to leave the Chantry there. For the next seven years, from 1989 to 1996, he travelled from Chantry to Chantry in Europe. Frederick suspected that the Tremere were testing his loyalty. Knowing how cautious the Clan is, he realised this might go on for many years. However, in 1996, there was an emergency which forced Frederick into a more active role.

The Sabbat invaded Britain, a move totally unthinkable to the Camarilla of Europe. Even worse, they succeeded in capturing two fiefs. An assualt was made on the fief of York whch claimed the life of the Prince, most of the Council and the majority of Tremere. Needing to boost the power of the Clan and knowng that he was familier with the fief, the Clan has ordered Frederick to return there.