Jabberwocky


Gabriel Knight, Shadow-Hunter

Gabriel's grandfather, Heinz Ritter, immigrated to New Orleans from Germany at the age of 21 to escape his "crazy" family, changing his name to Harrison Knight. A bookkeeper by trade but a painter at heart, he struggled all his life to make ends meet. He met Rebecca Wright, the daughter of a gentleman farmer, at a tent revival, and later married her. At the age of 22, she gave birth to their only child, Philip Knight--Gabriel's father. Harrison died tragically at the age of 36, in a streetcar accident--Philip was only 8 at the time.

Philip Knight, who loved to paint but could never sell his haunted images, married Margaret Templeton, the daughter of a wealthy Creole family. Her family disinherited her, except for one aunt who left her a little money in a fund. Their only child, Gabriel, was orphaned at the age of 8, when his parents were killed in a car accident.

Raised by his grandmother, Gabriel Knight inherited his mother's trust fund and used what was left of it to open St. Gerorge's Rare Books. Like his father and grandfather before him, Gabriel was plagued by horrible nightmares until he accepted the Ritter family's sacred duty and recovered the Schattenjäger Talisman, thereby inheriting the title of Schattenjäger from his great-uncle Wolfgang.


I dreamt of blood upon the shore,
Of eyes that spoke of sin,
The lake was smooth and deep and black
As was her scented skin.

A mask I wore as I approached
I was what I am not
And though the pattern was unclear
Its meaning could be bought

Drawn to Bacchus' abode
I sought there to conspire
But it was in the city of the dead
That I found my heart's desire

I spoke to one who smelled of death
He gave to me his ears
And crosses that were marked were
Made into a veil of tears

The road was blocked, the truth was shunned,
A white flag had been waved.
Reversal cost me all I had,
And everything I'd braved.

And then the night became as day.
I glimpsed nature's reddest claw!
The face of fear looked back at me
As I gazed into the maw.

My last ally laid to waste,
I ran towards the light.
I prayed for one to change my path
To give me strength to fight.

Inside a hidden chamber, where
I had no right to be
I found the wheel at last, or could
It be the wheel found me?

And then the wheel went round and round,
I could not find my way.
'Twelve and three and turn the key!'
I heard the madman say

Deep in the earth I faced a fight
That I could never win,
The blameless and the base destroyed,
And all that could have been.

Gabriel Knight

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