Parmenides, was the pseudonym of a Greek Assamite assassin of unknown generation.
Biography[]
The Assamite known as Parmenides was a Greek assassin in life before becoming an Assamite. Fatima al-Faqadi recounted he had been arrogant, proud, and insolent, and she opposed his Embrace – but Thetmes was the Caliph at the time and had championed the Greek, motivating Parmenides's acceptance. According to Fatima, despite his excellent performance over the years, the arrogance had remained and perhaps increased within him, lurking never far below the surface.
In the Final Nights, Parmenides was one of the Rafiq with a curriculum of at least a few centuries, as he had been trained in several scenarios, which included a mission in Venice during the renaissance. In the late 1990s, the Greek received from Caliph Elijah Ahmed the unsavory task of serving as a delegate of Alamut to the Sabbat in general and Sascha Vykos in particular. There he fell under Vykos' cruel sway and became masochistically enraptured by the Tzimisce.
"Parmenides" was a pseudonym that he assigned to himself at his first meeting with his Tzimisce patron, although other Assamite also knew him as such. He was hired by the Sabbat priscus to conduct a series of assassinations of Camarilla Tremere during a major Sabbat offensive in North America. He met Vykos personally in order to deliver the head of his first victim, Hannah, the Tremere Regent of the Atlanta chantry - who had been taken out right before the 1999 siege of that city.
In that same opportunity Parmenides slaughtered Ravenna, one of Vykos' servant ghouls, who had been "uncouth" to him. After the incident with Ravenna, Parmenides would be subdued, blood bound and fleshcrafted by Vykos into an exact copy of that same ghoul. He followed Vykos' commands and took part in the siege of some Tremere chantries, and was responsible for taking out Maria Chin in Baltimore, decapitating her with a garrote (as witnessed by Victoria Ash).
Vykos' intent in fleshcrafting her Assamite pet assassin was not merely sadistic entertainment or revenge, but an elaborate ruse to allow the Assamite to pose as ghoul in order to get close enough to take on a larger prey: Marcus Vitel, the powerful prince of Washington, D.C. while the monarch grieved over his childe's Final Death. The plan proved to be unsuccessful, however, because the prince managed to knock aside the blow aimed at his heart and throw himself from his attackers, shattering one of the large picture windows of the room to make his escape.
Following these developments, Fatima al-Faqadi was ordered by Al-Ashrad himself to reclaim Parmenides from Vykos' grasp. If possible, Parmenides was to destroy Vykos, thus securing justice for the ignominy shown the children of Haqim. If such seemed unlikely, Fatima was to order his return to Alamut. But if the Greek was, in her judgment, "damaged beyond salvage", Fatima was to take his blood for the clan.
As it turned out, Parmenides could not bring himself to destroy Vykos. Instead he fully assumed his Ravenna persona and sacrificed himself to give his mistress a chance to escape an altercation with Cardinal Polonia and his minions. The "ghoul" smiled as he was hacked to pieces by an enraged Polonia.
| “ | Tonight, there would be a small measure of vengeance, one grain of sand to add to a desert that would in time stretch across the face of the Earth. | ” |
| — From the Vengeance of Samiel VTES card | ||
Gallery[]
References[]
- VTM: Clan Novel Saga Volume 1: The Fall of Atlanta, p. 488, etc.
- VTM: Clan Novel Saga Volume 2: The Eye of Gehenna, p. 112, etc.
- VTM: Clan Novel Saga Volume 3: Bloody September, p. 269, etc.
- VTM: Clan Novel Saga Volume 4: End Games, p. 360, etc.