Author's note: **PLEASE READ** Very dark material ahead! While there are no graphic descriptions, this chapter does contain murder, torture, and a whole lot of nasty stuff. If you are sensitive, please be warned.
If you go by Leroux's novel for Erik's backstory, Erik's got a very serious dark side and a whole mess of murder under his belt. I'm going to flash back to some of it here.
Eriach (pronounced "air-eck") - Old Irish law dictating that a murderer provides compensation to the family of the murdered person
Erik's sleep was peaceful. Dreamless. But peace didn't keep good company with Erik, and spirits stir in the hour of the wolf. Dreams came in the end, muddying the clear waters of his sleep, dredging up old memories, old lives. So many old deaths. Death, when it was new to him... those cold, cloudy days in Europe... Erik twitched in his sleep and shied away from that dream. There were other memories he didn't mind so much – warm, rosy hours... his years in the sun. Warm, like Christine in his arms, in his bed. Warm and full of industry...
.
The lasso was a comforting rasp in his hands. It was like part of his arm. The Rope that Chokes, they whispered in the palace at Mazanderan. Yes, it was as much a part of him as his own hand. An external twist of muscle. The Master of Traps. Let him pass, let him pass. Don't look at his face, or he will put you in the room with the hanging tree. He will catch you with his lasso. Let him pass.
.
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Eriach... Eriach... the threat of rain at the edges of his mind...
.
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He was known by almost everyone in Mazanderan as the Master of Traps. But the Sultana had her own pet name for him. To her, he was Sedoyeh – her Beautiful Voice.
"How long can you keep his face blue?" asked the little Sultana. "Such a pretty shade of blue! Practice, Sedoyeh. It's dull when they go pale and fade away. Bring me another, and keep him blue, as long as you can!"
When he walked through the palace, they parted for him like he was death itself. He was a favorite of the little Sultana. He had a place and a purpose. All their eyes slid away. No one looked. No one dared. ...Except the Daroga... But Erik didn't mind. He was protected by the Shah. Everything he did was by command of the Shah himself, or his bored little wife, the Sultana.
.
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Eriach... Thunder rumbling in the distance... A baby crying out in the icy cold...
.
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She summoned him in the rosy hour between afternoon and evening. That was her favorite time to play. Sometimes Erik was working when she called for him, buried in his love of beauty and artifice. Sometimes he had to hide his frustration at being pulled away. But even in those times, she usually made it up to him. She gave him power, and she gave him praise. And better than all of that, she gave him endless opportunity to take revenge on the cruel race of man.
"Three more criminals today, Sedoyeh. Use them to teach me how to throw the lasso!"
"Do not break his neck, Sedoyeh, I want to see him dance! Sing a song for him to dance to!"
"I overheard a man, at last night's banquet, boasting of seeing your face... He said so many unkind things, I knew he could not have really met you! So I had him brought here to be your guest today. Show him your lasso, Sedoyeh! I know he will find it as interesting as we all do."
.
.
Eriach...
Eriach...!
ERIACH!
The shock of cold rain poured over him, down his face, down his arm, down the rope clutched in his fist.
"Eriach!"
There was a dead man at his feet. A dead man. A fully grown man, who had been living, until he himself had squeezed the life out of him. Him. With his own hands, and a rope. Just a brief struggle, and he had stopped the man from jeering. Stopped it forever. One less man who would stare, and laugh, and curse him. One less, and he'd done it. It was easy. How long had he been strong enough to do that? How long had he gone without knowing how easy it could be to make them all stop?
"Eriach!"
The dead man lay face up in the mud, unblinking in the pouring rain. His face was the perfect shade of blue...
"Did you do this?"
The rough Romani voice of his keeper made him jerk his gaze away from the dead man. The voice put the smell of straw in his nose, the cut of leather on his back. It put cold fear in his belly.
"Diavol, you kill a man?"
"Yes, Baba," he said. Cold fear that made his stomach sick. There would be pain now. That's what the voice promised.
"Eriach!"
The woman's cry made it through to him this time, made him jerk his head back again. He'd forgotten about her. But there she was, hunched over the dead man. Mud oozing into her skirt. A wailing baby slung in one arm. She sheltered it from the rain as best she could.
"Eriach!" She screamed again.
"What's she saying?" he asked the Romani. His voice was so strangely flat in his own ears.
"You kill a man, Diavol, and you put us all in trouble."
"What's she saying," he asked again. Another day, he wouldn't have dared ask a question twice. But there was already pain coming. Nothing he could do to stop it now.
Spit flew from the Romani's mouth and a spatter of words followed it – one unfamiliar tongue, then another. Then German. Then English. Ah –
"They come over the sea, to make new life," the Romani said as the woman babbled English at them. "Man driven out of their country. She has nothing. Can't feed baby. Her man, you kill him, and she has nothing for baby. She is sorry that he laugh at you. Very cruel. But she asks for... What is? Ereek? ...She say a murderer owes family in her country. It is law. She say you take her man, then you give her money, so she and baby can live without him. Ha!"
The rough hand slapped his shoulder hard enough to make him stagger.
"Next time, kill man who has money in his pockets, yes? What good is dead man who has no money."
Next time...?
"But, is good you pick a stranger to kill, Diavol. Easy to clean up, and no one will miss them. Good practice. I whip you good for making danger to our Family, but still... You do better than I think you can, huh? Big man, but you handle him. Good arm with the rope. Maybe I teach you more than voice tricks."
"Eriach...!" the girl cried again. When he flicked his eyes over her, she was staring at his face.
"Here, Diavol – you clean up your mess."
Rough hands pulled the baby out of girl's arms. It bawled at the shock of cold rain on its face. With a wrench, the Romani pulled the girl up by her hair and shoved her towards him. Her scream of pain rang in his ears. It could be heard years and miles away in Persia, where the little Sultana laughed and clapped her hands. He stumbled back a step, afraid of her touch, and she fell at his feet in the mud.
"Eriach," she sobbed.
"Ereek! Ereek!" the Romani laughed. "Murderer's debt. Ha! Give her what is owed, Diavol. Clean up, like good boy, and maybe I don't beat you, eh?"
He didn't think. He moved to do what he was told, and to avoid the pain. Like the monkey that the Romani kept who was trained to play the cymbals and dance and pick pockets. He paid his debts to the girl with the rope in his hands. It didn't feel good, not like it did when he'd strangled the man who had laughed at him. The girl had never laughed. Not once. Not even when she'd seen him in the cage at the Romani camp. She barely struggled at all. He let her slump back to the mud when he realized he'd broken her neck. The rain on his face was so cold. It trickled under his mask.
The Romani whipped him that night anyway.
His keeper laughed for many days about that day in the rain. A murderer's debt! It tickled the Romani to his toes how stupid the Europeans were. Ereek became his name in the Romani camp. Lessons in the skill of murder became part of his daily routine. He learned to pick a mark, to avoid a struggle, to keep it quiet, to wait for just the right opportunity...
It wasn't long before he found the opportunity – and courage – to use the rope on his keeper.
He fled the cold rains of Europe and chased the warmth. Through a mixture of theft, murder, begging, and earning, he made it all the way to India. There he found a weapon that suited him perfectly, and he made himself a master of it. He stopped wandering for long enough to find honest work, apprenticing with an architect and surpassing him within a year.
Far away, in Persia, the Shah heard rumors of a man of many talents. A human oddity, as strange to look at as he was beautiful to hear. A singer, an artist, an architect, a magician. Hands as clever as a Romani fiddler and voice as soft as the finest silk. The Shah detested wondrous things that he could not own, and desired a new palace at Mazanderan. To that end, Erik was invited to Persia.
.
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"I am giving you a gift, Sedoyeh. She's for you. Just for you! Ahh, isn't she pretty? Kiss her! Kiss her!"
The little Sultana laughed at the idea of beauty kissing Death's face.
"Kiss her, Sedoyeh!"
He didn't want to. He knew what would happen, as well as the little Sultana did. But it was the rosy hour, and he was hers to command. So he puckered the gruesome snarl of his lip in a way that would please her. And oh, how she laughed. The girl who was his gift laughed too, and pulled away. He pushed his face towards her again. She flapped her hands with a shriek and a smile and dodged the other way to avoid him.
"Oh no," cried the little Sultana through her laughter. "How cruel she is! Hold her still, Sedoyeh! Give her a pretty necklace, that will tame her. Yes. Gently, now, gently... it takes a soft touch to woo a lady. Oh yes, that's better, isn't it. Kiss, now, Sedoyeh. Kiss her. ...Oh? Why do you hesitate? Isn't she pretty after all? Are you shy? It is only the Daroga and I who are looking. Come, Sedoyeh. Show me your gratitude for your gift. I will see you have your kiss. I demand it."
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He strangled six other men that day. But he took no pleasure in it. The lasso could never fly far enough to reach the Sultana's little neck. And the comforting twist of the rope in his hands did nothing to erase the memory of his first kiss.
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Don't look at his face. He'll strike you dead with his eyes.
The Master of Traps has made something new.
There is a metal bull that roasts a person alive and turns their screams into singing.
There is a bed that stretches a person like taffy if they try to get even a moment of sleep.
What will the Shah command him to make next?
What new entertainment does the Sultana demand?
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"Sing, Sedoyeh. Fill the palace of Mazanderan with your voice. How lovely is the voice of my carrion crow! No one in the world has a bird who sings so well."
His voice carried beautifully in the palace at Mazanderan. It did so because the Shah had wanted the screams of his prisoners to be heard from one end to the other. He was very proud of that palace he built for the Shah. Such beautiful arches, such graceful domes. Cream and gold and beautiful blue to please the Sultana. He filled it with music and he filled it with screams, depending on her mood.
"Now make him sing, Sedoyeh!"
And she would ask her lady's maids which singing they preferred. They never knew which was the right answer. Answer wrong, and Erik would get another kiss.
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His rope sang out in longing for the Sultana's pretty neck. He twisted it in his hands to quiet it. He distracted it with a hundred other necks instead.
.
"Erik."
He turned to see the Daroga striding towards him. The look on his face reminded him of rain. The crack of whips and the smell of straw.
"The Shah commands me to say to you that he is pleased with the new torture chamber you built for him. It is the jewel of his palace, and he thanks you for it. He will put it to the most excellent uses."
The Daroga was looking at him in a funny way. He didn't like it. It made his stomach cold.
"The Shah also commands me to express his regret. For he will not require your services any longer."
He was thrown into the cells from which so many of his victims had come. Erik wondered which of his machines they would use. Perhaps he would take the long journey in the Shah's new torture chamber. He wondered if he would get lost in his own illusion. He would wish for those cold European rains by the end. But no - it should be the rope. That was the way it must be. The rope would weep for him, for none had thrown it so well. He could take comfort in that.
"Erik..."
How miserable the Daroga looked. It might have been him in the cell, sentenced to die.
"Erik, you are a cursed thing. You have been given the hands of an artist, the voice of an angel, and the face of a devil. I have seen everything that you do. And I have seen you hate it, and love it in turns. You could be a great man, Erik. It is in you. But you could be a demon, too, and live your life forever in the rosy hours of the Mazanderan."
"I can't do either if I am put to death."
"I will save you," the Daroga said. "I will give you a new chance to be the man I believe you were meant to be. But there is a price."
"What price?"
"You will promise to me, most solemnly promise, never to kill another soul again."
"All men deserve to die," said Erik. "Every one. I only pick a time and a place for some."
"No more!" the Daroga said sternly. "Your hate will be tamed, or I will not be your friend, and I will not save you from execution. Your solemn promise, Erik."
"And if I break my promise?"
"Then hell will be owed. And it will take what a Murderer owes to it. Be warned, Erik! If you break this promise, it is not your life that you will pay with. It will be far worse. It will be paid with all that you love, instead. Hell will take everything you hold most dear."
"It cannot take what a man loves, if a man loves nothing."
"Every man loves before he dies. And hell is patient. It will wait until the price is highest. For the third and last time, Erik, give me your promise. And if you do, then I myself will risk the wrath of the Shah and show you mercy."
Cold rain pelted him in his cell. Mud squelched as he stepped forward and pushed his hand through the bars towards the Daroga.
"I give my promise to you, Nadir, Daroga of Mazanderan. Save me, and I will leave the rosy hours forever. I will build good things. Things that are meant to add to life. Beautiful things. I will devote my rescued life to that. And I will not kill again. This I swear to you, and to Hell if it is listening too."
...Eriach...
Nadir's hand clamped down on Erik's like a vice. He pulled, dragging Erik through the bars of his cell, but strangely there were no bars. There was no cell. Erik stumbled forward into the darkness of his house by the lake. He smiled, and opened his mouth to thank Nadir. But Nadir was gone. It was Joseph Buquet that held his hand.
"There, you see," Buquet said with a grin. "It didn't take so long to find something to love."
Cold. Cold horror in the pit of his stomach.
Buquet pointed, and Erik looked to see his own bed. Ubaldo Piangi stood beside it, his wide body blocking Erik's view of whoever lay there asleep. When Piangi stooped to wake the sleeper, Erik noticed shadowy figures that stirred in the darkness around the bed, faceless and menacing. Bouquet leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in Erik's ear.
"Those are the stagehands who wandered too far," he said. "The ones who fell into your traps. Do you recognize them? No? More's the pity. That one – the one in the dress – she was the casualty of the famous Chandelier Disaster! You do not keep a promise well, my friend."
Piangi straightened, stepped aside, and Erik could see Christine sitting up in his bed. She looked his way, met his eyes, and smiled radiantly at the sight of him.
Erik tried to scream, but he choked without making a sound. He lurched towards her, but Buquet held him effortlessly in his vice-like grip. Piangi threw a rope. It caught around Christine's neck. Other ropes flew, catching her hands, and arms, and legs. Still she smiled. The rope around her neck drew taught as Piangi pulled. Erik struggled as the other ropes drew tight, and her body was pulled in a dozen different directions. He kicked and pulled; he fought desperately to get away. But Buquet just pulled him close like Erik had no more strength than a child. He leaned in, near enough that Erik could smell his breath, and it was the charnel stench of the grave.
"Eriach," he whispered in Erik's ear as they both watched her face turning blue.
Erik jerked awake with a choked cry.
"Angel?"
Christine was there. She was holding his hand
"It's alright. You're safe. It was only a dream, whatever it was. It's over now, my Angel."
He pulled in gasping lungfulls of air. His hand snapped out to touch her face in the dark, to feel for ropes at her neck, but there were none. She was whole and healthy.
"I'm here," she assured him softly. "I won't go."
Erik swallowed.
He could hear the sound of rain pelting hard on the chapel roof.
Author's Notes:
Warm happy feeling is gone now D:
In the novel, Leroux provides very few details about Erik's past. One, that after running away from home, he fell in with the Romani people (or gypsies) and learned quite a lot from them, Two, that he had been to India and acquired his skill with the punjab lasso there, and Three, that he worked for the Shah in Persia. While in Persia, he designed and built an amazing palace for the Shah, and helped entertain the Sultana (the Shah's favorite wife). The Sultana liked to indulge particularly bloodthirsty delights.
Leroux states that 'Erik' is not the Phantom's birth name. It was a name he found 'by accident.' But he never explains what those circumstances were. I make an attempt here with an unfortunate family of Irish immigrants. I hope it works... And I hope, also, that I've managed to provide a convincing reason why Erik might tear himself away from Christine.
(to my dear guest reviewer - thank you again for buoying my spirits with your review, friend! You should get a account... That way I could respond directly to you! ;) )