VIII. How you've repaid me
The closer they came, the clearer Christine could feel the Phantom, muffled though her awareness of him had become. What had happened she did not know, and she feared that Créon was already taking over his mind, but he had not yet done so, not until now; she was sure she would have felt it otherwise, the sudden change of feeling in her head, the images flashing up before her own eyes as he lost control, the swirling clouds of mist… No, he was still free, though there was a strangely subdued quality to his mind. But he was free. Créon had not yet been able to harm him.
By now Raoul had let go of her hand, but only to be able to hold his drawn sabre and his revolver both at once. Otherwise, he still kept very close to her side, his expression one of concentration and of grim determination, made even grimmer by the firelight from Gaston's torch flashing over his features.
When she turned, she could see Serge immediately behind them, clutching the axe, and his surprisingly green eyes were alight with a dark fire she had not seen in them before. Maybe she was just imagining things; her mind was certainly quite capable of it, in a situation like this. Maybe she wasn't. Who could tell anymore where reality ended and where the dream began, down here in the Phantom's realm of shadows?
Once they encountered a man, a tall, swarthy outpost of Créon's, armed with what suspiciously looked like a scythe blade. Leering like a skull, thereby exposing a set of blackened teeth, he came towards Christine, his odd curved blade raised, but Raoul's sabre entered his body and pierced his heart with a dull, sickening sound before he came too close, and they continued on their way, Christine with a knot of nausea gathering in her stomach. How she wished for a breath of fresh air! Maybe that would help making her forget that sound of a man stabbed to death, however much he may have deserved it. She was wary; they all were; but they encountered none until they had reached the corridor leading to the hall Créon had taken up residence in, until they glimpsed the eerie red light spilling out from under the archway like the blood of a slain man.
Christine came to a halt, and so did the others behind her. There was a muttered apology from somebody who had probably jostled somebody else, but apart from that, the silence was complete now. Ahead there was the Phantom; her awareness of him was very strong already, though it still seemed oddly dimmed, yet even as she thought so, it suddenly increased and intensified, and then it was back to normal again, and still Créon had not taken over his mind. Letting go of a breath she had not been aware she was holding, Christine felt a glorious wave of relief flood her insides. They were not too late yet.
As they advanced further cautiously, she thought she could hear voices, and she strained her ears while she and her companions sneaked towards the red-lit entrance carefully, step by step, yet they were not clear enough. Once it seemed to her that it was the Phantom speaking, and her awareness of him was filled with seething, burning hatred, but most of the time it was another voice, deeper than the Phantom's, and strangely cold, a voice she recognized from her nightmares.
Créon. It must be him.
Christine exchanged a glance with Raoul, and he met her gaze, then nodded, and from then on, he had taken over again. He motioned for Gaston and Serge to come forward, and together they took the lead, but Christine remained close behind. When they came to her Erik's aid, she would be there, and she would not be hiding.
At last, after what felt like the best part of eternity, they were there, at the entrance, and Raoul stopped, with a raised hand motioning the others to do the same. Holding her breath, Christine listened for the sound of men speaking, and now she heard it clearly, Créon's dreaded voice. "You make one mistake there, young Erik," he was saying, and a note of triumph had entered his otherwise emotionless tone. "Because a change of weapons means a change for me, as well. Time for a weapon I did not find any use for until now, then."
Christine saw how Raoul's brow knitted into a frown. What weapon was that, what did Créon mean? Be steadfast, Erik, please be steadfast! We're here to help you.
Signing to the others to remain where they were, Raoul took a step forward and leaned against the wall with his back, his revolver and sabre both at the ready, carefully peering into the hall. Christine thought to see his knuckles whiten on his sabre hilt. All eyes were on him, and they all watched him with baited breath, but at first he did not move. There was the clanging of metal on metal suddenly, making Christine's heart race, then a brief, muffled scream, then there was silence again for a moment, but still Raoul did not move. The Phantom's mind was swirling with hatred still, making her almost dizzy by her mere awareness of him, but there was a definite hint of triumph now, of a twisted, evil kind of joy. And then the noises were repeated, and they were increasing now.
Christine could not suppress her curiosity any longer. "Raoul?" she whispered, so softly that she herself barely heard it. "What's happening?"
She was not quite sure whether he had understood at all what exactly she was saying, but he turned his head towards her, and to her surprise, he was grinning. "It seems," he whispered back, "that your masked friend is very much in control of things."
Still there was the sound of weapons, and of men dying, as it seemed – Christine shuddered at the thought – but it was diminishing, fading down to what sounded like two blades meeting repeatedly.
And then Raoul waved them forward. Quietly, noiselessly they moved, towards the entrance and through it, into the red light of the lantern.
And then Christine saw the Phantom, tall and upright and with his sabre drawn, a ring of fallen men around him. Only two were left standing, yet fighting not him, but each other, and even as she watched, one stabbed the other through the throat. And before the loser's limp body lay still at his feet, the winner had already used his long, broad-bladed dagger to pierce his own heart. He too fell, twitching on the ground for a few moments with the Phantom quietly watching, standing over him in his Red Death costume like death himself would, in the calm knowledge of being the ultimate triumphant. The sabre blade gleamed in the dancing firelight of the lines of braziers; there was no blood on it. As at last all thrashing had ceased, he spoke, and his voice echoed through the hall. "Is there no-one else?"
There were more servants left, Christine perceived, most of them cowering behind the lines of braziers, but some of them also fingering weapons and watching the Phantom warily. Would he be able to take over all those minds and turn them against each other? For that this was what he had been doing, Christine had no doubt.
"You lost me many a servant, boy," Créon said, his cold voice making Christine shiver despite the heat caused by all the burning braziers. "Even Bertrand, one of our own kind, has apparently fled in terror of you and your powers, and I doubt he will ever return." Had he not yet noticed their arrival? His back was turned on them, but all the same, Christine suspected that he knew, just as the Phantom probably did, who was not facing them fully, either. "Indeed you have grown strong. Yet if you think you have already won, then you are very much mistaken. Some battles you cannot win. Some battles are lost before they even began. So it was with the War of the Shadow, and so it will be again in all our confrontations yet to come. Some things never change."
"Some things do." The Phantom's voice did not fill the hall anymore this time, but it still rang out clearly, and several of the crouching servants flinched as if touched by a whip's cruel lashes. Fire seemed to fill his awareness, the fire of wrath and vengeance, and Christine's heart beat in tune with the rising and falling flames. "My fate is mine to change, and mine alone."
Next to her, Raoul cleared his throat, not heeding the warning look she shot him. "Besides, this party is over, Créon."
The servants' heads swivelled towards them, and Créon turned, his black cloak and robes flowing around him. "Ah, the young vicomte. I had rather hoped you would join us."
And then Christine realized what had caused her to feel so deadly cold: Créon was not wearing a bandage over his right eye anymore, and what had lain hidden under it, she could not bear to behold, but still her gaze was drawn towards it irresistibly. From the gasps she heard from behind her, she knew that it was the same for the others. Blackness, emptiness, a hole of night in Créon's head, and in its midst there burned a fire, a sparkling storm of shining yellow flame. Raoul had aimed his revolver at him, but now his usually so steady hand trembled and sank back down to his side. Frozen to the spot, all they could do was watch how Créon came towards them.
"So much like your companions of old, young Erik. Some women, too, I see, and all armed. Yes, you always liked those women best who knew how to wield a sword. And another foolish boy leading them into battle, like Tricur once did before your treason killed him and he fell victim to your own blade." A thin, cruel smile twisted his narrow lips. "Raoul de Chagny, Aeternus tells me. Very well, let me take a closer look at you, bothersome insect."
But the Phantom stepped to intercept him, blocking his way with his sabre. "Try to poke around in their heads just once," he announced quietly, his eyes blue flame among the deep, painted shadows in the eyeholes of the mask, "and you die."
"So you think it is as easy as that, do you?" Créon's gaze never left Raoul, who was trying to stand up straight defiantly, even though his knees seemed to want to buckle any minute.
But someone was behind him, holding him upright, Christine suddenly realized. Serge. The curly-haired stagehand stood his ground behind her fiancé, straight and tall, like a rock amid the unceasing beat of an ocean's wild waves. "He is just what you will believe he is," he said quietly, in barely more than a whisper, but in the silence which had ensued, his soft voice was clearly audible.
"Hear, hear," Créon mocked him, but Christine had not missed the brief evidence of fury passing over his sharp features. "Have you found yourself a wise man among the rabble, young Erik?"
"He sees through what others have built up," the Phantom said softly. "He looks deeper. He sees the truth."
Serge nodded, as if he had just received the answer to a question long pondered. "That time I met you," he murmured, "up in the flies."
And equally softly, the Phantom replied, "You saw the man, then. Not the monster." Even if it had not been for the gentle moment of warmth passing through his awareness, Christine would have known how much that must have meant to him.
"Buying yourself time is useless," Créon reminded him coldly.
"You are right." The Phantom had not lowered his weapon yet. "Raoul, give him your sabre. It is past time to end this for good."
"No," Créon said. "That was then. This is now."
Though it was hard to see if the Phantom's features shifted much above his lips when he wore his skull mask, Christine was positively sure that he grimaced. "What do you mean? Are you not ready to confront me, then? Has my little display earlier on scared you so?"
Créon laughed derisively. "Indeed not, young Erik, indeed not! It rather failed to impress me. For I suggest you put your sabre aside; you won't be needing it when we are matching mind against mind." He smiled then, and it was the ugliest smile Christine could possibly imagine, so cold, so cruel. "You always possessed a certain skill with a sword, but I wonder whether you have yet mastered a more subtle art of battle."
Christine's heart sank as she heard this. My God, is he ready for it? Can he do it at all? How can we know whether he knows how to fight Créon or not? How can he know? Yes, she had practiced with him occasionally, far too rarely it seemed to her now, but was he able at all to truly fight Créon in this way?
Obviously the Phantom had his doubts, too, because he hesitated for a moment. "The battleground is mine," he then said. "I'm making the rules."
Upon hearing this, Créon merely sneered. "You have ceased making them the moment I entered your little kingdom, boy. Do not underestimate the powers of the King of the Catacombs." His thin, elegant eyebrows rose a fraction, making his high brow furrow. "And I could force you, you know." His tone was conversational, as if discussing an issue of polite small-talk. "If I now took over one of those minds – say, the young vicomte's for instance, or perhaps the lovely young girl's you can't quite hide your feelings for – what would you do? What could you do?"
"Kill you," the Phantom said simply. "Listen, I have an offer to make. Withdraw your servants to the other end of the hall, and my friends will remain by the door. Then it will be just the two of us. Otherwise, you might be losing some more of your men, apart from wasting time."
"Ah, so you are very confident, are you?" Créon's expression could be best considered a smirk, Christine thought. "Very well then." He gestured to the gypsies, and they all regrouped behind him, most of them scowling at the Phantom and his men and waving their cudgels and knifes threateningly. But there were not too many left now. Christine counted nine. Only nine. Of course, there might be some more hiding somewhere else, but their number was much diminished now.
"Same formation behind me," the Phantom said curtly, throwing his red cloak to Raoul, who caught it and threw it over his own shoulder for lack of anything else to do with it. "Gaston, Leclair, watch the door. Stay where you are, and only get involved if they do." Then he turned to face Créon once more, and Christine knew that he would play by his enemy's rules now.
They should not have come, she realized. Their presence was only making him vulnerable.
Standing about ten feet apart, the two opponents were watching each other warily, one figure in black, one figure in red, and the tension in the air was practically tangible now, causing a knot to form in Christine's stomach. Reaching out to the Phantom mentally, she lightly touched his awareness, imagining to gently run her forefinger down his spine. It would give him not only courage, but strength, she knew. I love you, my Angel, she whispered to him, though she knew he did not want to be called an angel anymore. But would hearing it from her not give him confidence?
Maybe she was just imagining it, but it seemed to her that he stood even straighter now, even taller, and in her mind she could feel how he suddenly radiated a power she had not felt before.
She would remain connected to him, she decided, touching the boundaries of his mind, though perhaps it was a risk for herself. But she would know what Créon was doing if she did, and if he harmed him in any way… then they would get involved, no matter what the Phantom wanted them to do. Créon was not hurting her Angel of Music, not if she could help it!
Glancing sideways at Meg, who had taken the place at her other side now, she saw that her best friend's expression was grim, no, fierce even, and that she looked very much as if she were about to launch herself at Créon's throat any moment and tear it out. No, Christine was not alone, indeed not. That Raoul would fight she knew, and so would Gaston, and most probably Serge. Even if Xavier, Marie and Leclair should choose not to get involved when need arose, there would be five of them Créon would have to answer to.
Strangely, she did not feel very brave as she thought so. Only very furious. And very fond of her Erik.
"You ought to be afraid, young Erik," Créon rumbled.
The Phantom's clear voice, dripping with disdain, filled the hall easily. "You wish."
And then a battle began of which Christine had never seen the like. Créon attacked, she could feel him do it, a tentacle of darkness lashing out for the Phantom, but before it reached him, it caught fire and burned to ashes in a moment, destroyed by the screaming furnaces of hatred inside the Phantom's head. Fire, oceans of fire. Like a flood they were coming towards Créon, about to consume him, but suddenly there was a dam holding them, and the waves broke and seemed to crumble into dust. More tentacles came, more floods of fire, but again and again they were blocked before they even reached their target.
No doubt, they both had found their match at last.
Even as Christine began to believe that this all would last for hours and hours, their tactics suddenly changed, or at least she was seeing something different now. While they fought for control over each other's mind, locked in deadly combat even though they were standing a good distance apart, images began to flash up and disappear again, some only very brief, some nothing but momentary flashes of light, but some very clear, and equally strange. A pair of white towers, gleaming in the sun. A gathering storm. Ravens circling a burning turret. The Phantom himself, as it seemed, apparently seen through the eyes of another, unmasked and unscarred and with rather longer hair than he really had, but still he was easy enough to recognize, even when launching into a ferocious attack wielding a sword. Again the towers, though now burning. Her own face. And then what seemed to be a bright, ornate torch of gold.
And for some reason, the Phantom winced at that, and Créon laughed. "Do you remember what dying feels like, then?" he jeered. "But if you don't, it doesn't matter, for you will soon be repeating the experience."
At first the Phantom made no answer, but then the flood of images suddenly ceased. "Keep you damn eye's viewings to yourself," he snarled.
So those pictures came from that hideous, yellow-centred hole of darkness? Christine had no idea what exactly the Phantom had done, and she suspected he did not quite know himself, but at least he had made them stop.
Though only at first. They returned, flashing up and winking out again, but this time, Christine did her best to ignore them, as she was sure the Phantom did. Créon was only trying to distract his opponent.
Was he tiring then, perhaps? Christine wondered, and hoped very much that this was the answer. Yet still Créon's attacks were not growing weaker. Once he seemed to try to throw a net of material darkness over the Phantom, yet the Phantom slashed at it with what looked like the image of a sword, and fragments of Créon's cunning device were showering to the floor, dissolving into nothingness before they touched the ground. No, she had to admit to herself, Créon was not growing weaker, quite the contrary. It rather seemed to her that he was growing stronger. Even as she watched, the tendrils of shadow were pushing the tongues of flame back, coming towards the Phantom, closer, ever closer…
But still he was confident. Still he was calm. Under strain, yes, but calm, just as calm as they said the heart of the storm was, whatever that was supposed to mean. Christine had wondered about it before, and never had she found a satisfying explanation, but now it just came to her mind, and it fit. Her Erik was the heart of the storm.
And he would rip Créon to a thousand shreds, she was sure he would, if Créon made just one little mistake...
Don't give up, Erik. Don't give up.
And still the tendrils were approaching him… Why didn't he do something? She knew he could! Did he really have to make it that dramatic? He just let them come towards him, it seemed, watching, waiting… And still he was so calm, tense but calm. Good God, Erik, what are you doing there?
And then they touched him, enshrouded him… and slid into his mind. Still connected with him, Christine could feel them, and she froze with shock, while a sudden wave of nausea took her. The tendrils were there, inside his head, and they were beginning to spread out –
And then, very suddenly, they were somehow trapped where they were, how she did not understand, and he was inside Créon's head just as well, at the edge of the outlying regions, and Créon was trying to push him out while at the same time fighting to maintain what control he already had, but the Phantom held on while pushing at Créon himself – just like a pair of dogs bitten into each other who would not let go.
Still they stood apart, facing each other, but at the same time it seemed to Christine that they were rolling around on the floor together, scratching and biting. There were flashes of light now and rolls of thunder only she could hear, apart from them, and still images were flashing up, their frequency heightening rapidly now, so that they became indistinguishable. The feeling of nausea wavered and was gone, then returned again, and she realized that it came from Créon. What did the Phantom give him in return? She could not tell, though she was certain he was fighting back.
Both had established a more or less firm hold on each other now, and the firmer it grew, the steadier the images became. More and more they were substituting reality for a fleeting moment, changing the way she perceived her surroundings suddenly and just as suddenly changing back. At once Créon was wearing flowing robes of white instead of black, embroidered and belted in gold, and a magnificent purple cloak lined in gold as well, then her vision sprang back to reality, but before it had reasserted itself, he was already wearing white again, and the vast, brazier-lit underground hall faded to make way for a magnificent hall of blue-veined marble, the walls set with mirrors and ornamented in gold. And there was the Phantom, wearing simple black and with his hair down a little over his collar, facing him. Then the background changed to a stone hall lit by a crackling fire in a wide chimney behind Créon, but the two combatants stayed the same, only that a sword had appeared on the Phantom's hip now, and that he was resting his left hand on the hilt lazily.
They dug deeper into each other's mind, all the time lashing out at each other as they did so. And now they were slowly, but steadily moving towards each other, their surroundings once again changing as they went. Storm tore at their long dark hair, and then they walked on fire, only to balance over slippery rocks in a wild river the next moment, and nothing could change their pace. Through clouds they strode, walking on thin air, and then through a star-strewn sky, like a blanket of black velvet set with myriads of brilliant diamonds. An unearthly wind came up, howling around them, and slowly a second layer of vision became stronger even as the wind increased, all drawn in black and white and many shades of grey, a world of light and shadows. Instinctively Christine felt that this must be what Créon's second eye perceived, the one usually so well covered. Had the Phantom been suppressing it earlier on? It appeared he had, but as he was boring deeper into Créon's mind, he could not keep up his grasp on it any longer.
And still her vision changed. All at once the Phantom's steps shook the ground, while he walked with his head in the clouds, crowned with fire and ice, and Créon became a figure of light and shadow ahead, a turmoil of raging storm clouds with lightning flashing and flaring all around him. They were deep inside each other's minds now, giving up all hope of defence for speed, their goal to outrace the other and reach his core of life first. By now they were a mere two feet from each other and still coming closer, and the world was blurring, fading to dancing patches and specks of light and shadow, their outlines dark, steady forms in a hail of light.
And Christine could feel the Phantom reach out for the source of life in Créon, even as Créon was lunging for the same in him, that pulsing stream of liquid light Christine remembered so well. They were lashing out at each other with ferocity still; a feeling of stabbing, searing, burning pain was flashing in and out of her awareness, making her dizzy. And then they had reached each other, grabbing hold of each other –
The darkness raged, the storm screamed with many voices –
The pain was continual now, and becoming unbearable –
She felt the world around her crumble as all that was left of it, that mad feeling of pain beyond pain, took hold of her. At once she lost all knowledge of whether she was lying or standing, where she was at all, where up was and where down. The world was shattered into a million fragments of darkness, boring into her skin, tearing it away…
And still Créon was going downwards, while it seemed that the Phantom was losing hold, drifting away and drowning in an ocean of pain…
And then at once she knew what she had to do. It was quite simple, the simplest thing in the world. Even as she thought so, her vision cleared a little, and she could feel the Phantom clearly, just as she could feel Créon through him. Reaching out, she tried to fully enter his mind… and suddenly realized that there was no way to do that.
In some way she could not understand, she had become part of him, an extension of his own mind.
The feeling of Créon was very clear now, and worse than the feeling of pain, as one of his feelers brushed against the most vulnerable place –
The image formed in her head before she truly knew what she was doing: a needle, small and thin, but sharp, very sharp. Without taking aim, she forcefully thrust it into the blotch of awareness that was Créon.
Créon faltered, distracted, and lashed out all around him, not knowing from where the new attack had come so suddenly. There was a new burning torrent of pain as his counterattack hit the Phantom, but then it faded to nothingness as the Phantom suddenly took hold of that pulsing, humming cord of liquid light inside him.
Christine's vision cleared, and again there were two figures in a star-strewn sky, though now one – Créon – was kneeling before the other. And then a voice filled her awareness, stroking it gently where the pain had burned her insides. "Maybe you were right after all," the Phantom said. "Some things never change." And then he yanked the cord out.
The stars faded as he fell, and at the same time the Phantom became a clearer shape, turning towards her, and she saw that he wore no mask. His face was flawless, unmarred by scars of any kind, framed by lightly curled dark hair hanging down to his shoulders. It seemed that he was clothed in black leather, with some kind of leather breastplate set with iron strapped over it, and again he wore a sword on his belt, while on his right side dangled a number of small objects, all held on thin leather cords… But before she could identify any of them, the image faded, finally yielding to the underground hall where this all had begun, and the Phantom was in his Red Death costume once more. Still upright, though staggering, while Créon was lying before his feet… dead.
It was over now. It all was over.
Only then she realized that Raoul had put an arm around her shoulders, and she smiled, grateful for his help to keep her on her feet. But as the Phantom came towards her, she gently loosened his grip on her. He would understand.
There were no words to express what she was feeling now. All she did was wrap her arms around him tightly, and he caught her in his embrace in turn. He was alive. Her Erik was alive. At the moment, nothing else mattered.
"Confutatis maledictis," Raoul muttered behind her, "flammis acribus addictis…"
And then a shape dispatched itself from the shadows and approached them swiftly, and both she and the Phantom let go of each other to face it. Christine did not recognize the man, though she was certain she had seen him before, but in the Phantom's mind, there was a name for him: Aeternus.
For a moment the flow of time seemed to cease as the last remaining of the Lost Ones stood facing the Phantom. Then he dropped to one knee and lowered his head. "Voca me cum benedictis," he said.
