Millbank Manor
Late-January 2014
Filicide. Verb: to murder one's child. Noun: one who murders his child.
A title I never believed I would earn, and yet now it brings me down to the same level as my grandfather. Something I did not want to believe was possible.
I knew what I was doing, and I had my reasons. However, if my enemies choose to level the charge at me, then I would have an interesting time defending myself against it. Looking back, I still believe that it was the kindest thing I could have done, so perhaps there is still something that sets me apart from Oberon. What he did for spite and power, I did for mercy, so that an enemy could die as he had lived.
Frederich Augustus von Kampe. Another grown son, like John, who I only learned about a few weeks ago. A man who, by virtue of his upbringing, was brought up to stand for much of what I hate. The Thulists. Black magic and human sacrifice. And the remains of the Nazi ideal.
We were never anything to each other but the seed of life and the plant that grew from it, and yet by the end he was calling himself of Fritz of Worcester - claiming a title to which he had no right, and for what reason? Was it any more than just trying to gain my attention? I suppose that now I will never know.
In a way it was inevitable that the time would come when one of us would kill the other, although previously I believed it was evens as to which of us defeated which. We were enemies, and I had - and still have - no intention of allowing the Thulists to gain any kind of influence either in Avon, on Terra Magica, or anywhere I care for. They are evil and they are dangerous. He was one of their important players, while I have and always will, fight for the Light against them - even if what happened in the end has tarnished the halo I had imagined I wore as their servant.
Looking back, I find I have many questions I need to answer for myself. Fate dropped him into my hands and I took the opportunity to end it quickly and cleanly, rather than in the brutal, messy conflict that I had expected. Was that really wrong?
Companion to the above question is another. Did I have the right?
I think that if anyone did, it was me, and I suspect that others may also agree with that. I know Sand does, and she was one who surprised me. I am also pretty sure that if it had been Jason who delivered the killing blow, she would not have been as understanding. Both she and my father would have been out for blood.
Without me, Fritz would not have been brought into the world, and in a way it was my responsibility to neutralise the threat he posed. I firmly believe that even if this had not come now, the final reckoning would have happened sooner or later. Having said that, I feel that Jason acted too hastily, when he sealed my son's doom, and I was angered that he did so in a manner better suited to a bad farce.
And then he asked me to repair the damage.
When I went out to the place where Fritz was lying, I had every intention of trying to help him, both physically and to see if there was anything that could be done to change him and his ways. Turn him away from the Darkness. Even when I first inspected the damage, that was still my intention. To heal and help him. I suppose my hope was that in some way he was redeemable, and I could make up for not having been there for him as a child. If I had known of him and had had the chance, I hope I would have guided him down a different path. One of Light, rather than Darkness.
Unfortunately, this is, of course, why I was never told of him. After all, the Thulists would not have wanted me interfering in the indoctrination of those of my bloodline that they wanted within their ranks and had bred for the purpose of serving them, and Fritz was not the only one who was enmeshed in their plan. Strangely enough, I cannot decide whether to be flattered or insulted at the fact that Osric and his people felt so strongly about my kin that they would go to the trouble they went to to ensure that suitable minded ones existed for them.
When I reached him he was badly hurt and in considerable pain. Had he not been of the blood of Amber, he would already have been dead - crushed limbs, crushed ribs, massive internal injuries. Even at the point I put him into magical stasis, I still wanted to heal him, and to get to know him and find out why he was the man he was.
And then I looked into his mind.
I suppose my hope was that Osric and his people had messed around with his head to make him follow them, and that underneath it all was the original Fritz. Perhaps like Andrew, perhaps like William, but certainly not a Nazi fanatic. A father looking to redeem his son - not the usual way around, true, but still an archetype in its way. However, my hopes were dashed. The Thulists had keeping of his education for too long, and they had brought him up so that he wanted to be one of them. Genuinely and utterly in his heart. The ultimate conditioning.
As I looked deeper, I realised that this also meant that he had grown up without the realisation of right and wrong that should have been natural instincts. I saw him taking part in their ceremonies, and the fact that to sacrifice another human being for personal power is wrong, is evil, just never registered with him. He was part of them to his very soul, and to change that would have taken almost as many years as it had taken them to turn them into what he was.
Again the question. Did I have the right?
Part of my upbringing has been a belief that to interfere with someone's mind by dominating their will is not an action to be taken lightly. Without checks like that, Terra Magica's Talented would have been hounded to death years ago as enemies, rather than friends, of the non-Talented, simply because they were different, and they have the mental ability to do that. To alter another person's mind. To completely change who and what a person is, is very dubious on moral grounds, and while I will not deny that I have done it on occasion in the past, I have done so as little as I can. Changing a memory, perhaps, but not changing the very being of the man or woman whose mind I was inside.
Yes, I could have left Nuevo Sangre there and then, taken my son to a fast Shadow and started work against his will, but in a way that would have been to kill him also. Fritz freed of the influences of his upbringing and his environment...would no longer have been Fritz.
That was the point at which I decided that the kindest thing was to let him die with what dignity Jason had left him, and I very gently stopped his heart. He never regained consciousness, and he died the man he had been in life, rather than lived as some kind of Frankenstein's monster of my creation.
He looked almost peaceful as he died, and at least he did not feel any more pain.
Looking back on it, I find I am disturbed at myself for having been able to do it. I have always loved my children, but I did not know Fritz except as a potential enemy. I suppose it is fair to say that in that I did not let paternal feelings get in the way of pragmatism. What a very Amberite attitude - one my elders should be proud of. However, I will freely admit that what disturbed me more was that as I knelt beside him and administered the coup de grace, I realised that Karl had been right in his original description of my son, the day I found out that he existed. An SS officer with my face. The resemblance was definitely there, even if his general physique was closer to my brother's. It was as close as I ever want to get to killing myself.
Later, Sand accused me of having "put him down", as if he was a rabid dog and perhaps, in a way, I cannot really deny the charge. However, I prefer to look at it as having given a quick and painless release to an enemy. Then again, there are a lot of things to do with Fritz's death that I prefer to look at from a different point of view to those who might accuse me.
I think that, if truth be told, a little of me died with him outside Jason's palace. The reasoned one. The one who argued against killing family. The one who felt he was better than the others for holding a higher moral ground.
Maybe I was just too naïvenot to realise that my blood is the same as that of the rest of Oberon's descendants, and it will come out in the end.