Wilchin (Willem Antonin)

Begins as a minor character amongst the Conduit boys of late 17th-century Strelsau, a younger street urchin with a speciality in water-carrying and occasional begging at the door of the Salvatorskirche. He assumes a much more central role in the story arc in **GP** when his older friends Karl Wollherz and Andreas Wittig take him on an day out horseback trip into the Wenzlerwald. There they track down Jonas Niemand's 'house' and jump into it, pulling Wilchin in with them. Wilchin is an instant hit with the elf, who he'd previously met during the winter, when he offered the Conduit children a refuge from the deadly cold and storms in an abandoned kiln. Jonas takes Wilchin with him to Eden and seems to notice something special about him. He kept him there and they had great adventures in the supernatural realm.

He next encounters his friends at the barracks of Luchau, where he is a drummer boy marching in a Mittenheim regiment. He explains that Jonas had brought him back to Strelsau where Jonas had punished the friars of the Reformatory for their abuse and rape of the boys incarcerated there. Then Wilchin staged a stunt at the Fenizenkirche of the New City in which he engineered a miracle by which St Fenice apparently appeared and explained the reason the friars had been stripped and flogged. At that point Jonas had informed Wilchin his true name, which he had forgotten, was Willem Antonin. He'd need it as he was to enlist in the campaign of the Catholic League.

Wilchin was involved in the battle of Sebenico, being a key player in the Ruritanian victory, after which Jonas came for him and invited him for a longer stay in the World Beyond. It later became clear this was to further enhance the magic Wilchin had absorbed, as Jonas's experiment to produce advanced magical humans as 'half-elves'. With Karl's input this was a complete success, when Wilchin sprouted wings.

In the last chapter of **GP**, when the boys were adults and Andreas Wittig was general in the Ruritanian army and governor of the Fenizenhaus, Wilchin told his friends he had been sent by Jonas to reconcile King Henry to his estranged friend and adviser, Serge von Tarlenheim, so as to prevent a new Rothenian War breaking out. He does this in the guise of an adventurer called the Count of St-Germain. St-Germain was a genuine 18th-century historical character, a supposed magician, charlatan and adventurer, though the Arramverse dates his activities earlier than [1]the real one.

In **ISP** Wilchin appears again, when he would have been around 110 years old, but still had the appearance of a 40-year old. Willem Antonin had long died supposedly, leaving behind a prolific family of 16 boys. Two of his descendants were the twins Sebastian and Sebastienne Wollherz, grandchildren of his son William Fenicius, who had taken the surname Wollherz on succeeding to Karl's business. In fact Wilchin had staged his death in Wallachia, and carried on his life as Jonas Niemand's mortal agent, often in the guise of the Count of St-Germain. It later transpired that Wilchin had however devised a scheme of his own by which he would transfer his powers to Sebastienne. It went spectacularly wrong and Jonas was hard put to reverse it. He later gloomily thought that the Dead had put Wilchin up to it. as he had been much favoured by St Fenice.

Wilchin met Freddie Winslow at the Fenizenhaus in 1772 on his first visit to Strelsau, and fascinated him. He later picked up hints that the count was connected to the Wollherzes. But in 1773 Wilchin truly died and Freddie got to view his tombstone in the cloistered Friedhof of the Marienkirche in the Altstadt of Strelsau, which alluded to Wilchin's mysterious origins and depicted the Isles of the Blessed in Eden. He never reappears in the stories, but Karl Wollherz told Freddie to tell Jonas that Wilchin had carried out the mission he charged him with beyond the Final Sea.