During homeroom, I was talking to a friend in chorus; we are going to sing "Into the West" for graduation. I wasn't really listening until she said, "…and we have to send the music to Erik to play on piano." A different Erik… but that woke me up.
Martian Aries, my respect for your "Masquerade" has increased tenfold… I am now in absolute awe of your Persian / Erik conversations. How did you do it!
Disclaimer: My cousin so advised me: "If you want the copyright, you gotta learn to sing like the Phantom. You know, 'let your soul take you where you long to be… only then can you belong to me.' Hey, it worked for him, right?" "Uh-huh, up until Don Juan blew up in his face. I don't have enough money to pay for a chandelier." "Oh, yeah, right…"
Of Knights and Dragons
Chapter VIII: In a Foreign Tongue
"The other day I heard about a little boy who was spending the night at his aunt's and complained about the fact that she had turned out the light. 'What is the matter with you, Tommy?' asked the aunt. 'You sleep in the dark at home, don't you?' 'Yes Auntie,' replied the boy, "But it is my own dark.'"
(TheodorReik)
When Raoul opened his eyes, it was to an abrupt feeling of disorientation. The first thing he noticed in his private confusion was that the stone behind him was cold; not a particularly astute observation, but something he could grasp onto. He lifted his head blearily, trying to remember where he was and how he had gotten there. The flickering flame of a wall-lamp greeted him, something tangible, sputtering low as the oil reserve petered down to a thin film.
"Ah, Vicomte. So you are returned to the world," said a thick, heavily accented voice. Raoul, still on the fringe of sleep and unused to the peculiar inflections, shook his head to clear his mind, unable to process the oddly pronounced words.
"Excuse… what?" he mumbled, wincing at lingering aches; the floor, especially when it was stone, was not the best resting place.
"I said, it is good that you have awoken at last, Vicomte," the foreign voice said, taking care to speak more slowly, and at last Raoul located the source. The man who had spoken was only slightly taller than he (or would have been, had both been standing). Raoul knew before he looked that it would not be Erik; the voice was wrong. Now the confirmation was accurate, though it was a long moment before the Vicomte remembered back enough to recall the gleam from almond-shaped brown eyes and the astrakhan cap perched on his head. The Persian's smile at Raoul's recognition flashed white in the glow of the dying lamp.
"Wait, I…" Raoul pushed himself all the way to his feet, his eyes sliding past the man to the shore of the lake which lay placidly only a few feet away. "What are you doing here?" he said instead, gathering his thoughts.
"That was to be my question," the Persian remarked. "I admit I was surprised to find you sleeping practically on the ghost's doorstep; I was rather under the impression that I was the only one to return to this place, on occasion."
"I wasn't planning on falling asleep," Raoul said apologetically.
The Persian lifted an inquiring eyebrow. "Really. I did not realize this. Personally I find the cold stone beside this dreary lake quite the ideal place to rest," he said, and despite the heavy middle-eastern accent Raoul heard the sarcasm in his voice. At last coming fully awake, the Vicomte de Chagny shook his head, trying to quiet a laugh.
"I fail to see what amuses you so," the Persian remarked.
Raoul caught his breath. "Of all places to have a reunion, you and I, here on the doorstep of an archenemy…"
"Archenemy?" the Persian repeated. "Really, the ghost would most likely be annoyed, if anything, with the thought of having to bother with your return. He had rather given up on the entire situation after you last left, you realize."
"Well, neither or Christine nor I turned up missing or dead, so we kind of took the hint," Raoul said bitterly.
The Persian gave him a curious look. "Such resentment… indeed. The ghost was much… preoccupied… in those days, if memory serves."
"What with?" Raoul asked suspiciously.
"Why, life itself, dear Vicomte, as novel as it may sound when one considers of whom we speak," the Persian said, spreading his hands wide. "It seemed he had found one at last, for a moment there. A pity, really, that he was born as he was."
"Why do you refer to him in the past tense, as if he no longer existed—had found, would have been, had given up?" Raoul asked accusingly. "What of him now? Does he live here still?"
"Not at all, not at all. You know that, surely? Ah, but I had forgotten, you were bound for England, and would not know." Raoul found the Persian's speech was rich and quick, difficult to understand on occasion but simpler to comprehend as he became accustomed to the lilting words. "There cannot be a Phantom without his Opera. Nor more than there can be a dragon without a lair, yes?" The Persian said, fixing Raoul with an odd stare. "The end of one is the end of the other, as is Allah's will I suppose. Else the world would be full of such masked specters, would it not? Or is it anyways? I often wonder."
"Are you saying that Erik is dead?" Raoul asked, incredulous.
"And would it surprise you, if I said he was?" the Persian was quick to counter. "He has been counted dead for most his life; it is no new novelty, even though he breathed. You and I understand the power of such illusions, Chagny. Is there all that much difference between living death and dead death?" The Persian seemed amused by his own reasoning, but Raoul was not.
"I cannot believe him dead," Raoul remarked flatly. "Not him."
"Monster or man—or ghost—everyone dies at one time or another, whether they believe it appointed or not. A farmboy, a phantom; a simpleton, a genius; Uriel reaches for us eventually, you and I, and he as well. And yet, I must ask, why this sudden interest, Chagny? You hardly parted on the best of terms."
"She wanted me to," he said harshly.
"The games men play," the Persian said. "Names, yes, they can be dangerous, can they not? We step lightly, saying she and he, though we know precisely who is meant. The ghost found that amusing, when he still lived. He always played games with names, he did. 'Daroga,' he would tell me, 'there was once a girl whose name was Amaranth. Her father had named her after the legendary flower that never dies, in hopes that he would not lose her as he had her mother. She was two when Erik took his life for the princess; isn't that ironic, daroga? Sometimes Erik wonders about those rosy hours, if it wasn't true there was a sort of magic in them. A very cruel magic, for Erik to steal from the father and give to his child, but a magic nonetheless. What do you think, daroga? Is there a magic in words?' I don't remember how I answered him. He would laugh now, I don't doubt, if he could hear us. Poor Erik!"
"Who killed him?" Raoul said evenly.
"And if I told you, would you be more like to slay or to reward the death-giver? Or to reward by slaying?" the Persian commented astutely.
Raoul ground the question through his teeth. "Who?"
"Why, I already told you. I will never understand Europeans. Even the ghost was foreign to me sometimes, but I doubt that had anything to do with where he was from. No, I told you; I said the Angel of Death had come and visited him. At least I believe so; it is dreadfully difficult to be certain of anything with him, but that is the way with ghosts. I was uncertain what to expect of him after what you did to him, but I need not have worried. Erik was no more."
What I did to him? What I did to him? What of what he did to me Raoul wanted to protest, but wisely said nothing. Christine was right, he acknowledged, but her dream had come too late. Three years too late. "Uriel, then, was it?" Nodding at the confirmation, Raoul turned to go, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
"I would advise caution, Chagny, had I thought you would listen," the Persian said. "Be very cautious around the Angel. He is a vindictive character, have no doubt, and despite what you may come to discover or believe he will not hesitate to kill you."
"I did not expect he would," the Vicomte said, brushing the Persian aside and starting back up the corridors, lit by lamps now slowly dying into darkness.
The Persian stared after him and shook his head. "I did not think you would listen. You did not when I told you to keep your hand at the level of your eyes, and Allah knows how that almost ended." But Raoul was long gone.
Had Raoul not been so preoccupied at that moment over what he would tell Christine, he would have seen that his prints were the only ones in the heavy dust. He would have remembered that there had been no boat at the edge of the lake when he had awoken, and questioned exactly how the Persian had gotten to be standing at the edge of the shore, and what he had been doing there in the first place. He might have doubted the claims that Erik was indeed dead.
As it was, he emerged into the atrium just as the first glancing rays of the new day came skittering into the space through the shattered doors, leaping playfully across the floor. He walked out, blinking, into the sunlight, his mind still reeling from tiredness and his midnight escapade.
He vaguely remembered hiring a coach and directing it to the Manor d'Halier, Paris coming awake about him, stirring like a behemoth from a long slow sleep. He might have dozed off; when the carriage ground to a halt his head lifted. Yawning he stepped down from the carriage, trying to sort through what he would write to Christine, what he would say to the d'Halier brothers.
Focused inward, he had taken a dozen paces before he stopped in shock, hat to hand, at the sight of countless blue-uniformed Parisian police swarming the grounds. One, with a bit of gold pinned to his lapel, saw him and walked up to him.
"Would you be the Vicomte de Chagny?" the officer queried. Unable to properly respond, Raoul only nodded numbly. "Please, this way, Monsieur d'Halier is waiting for you."
Raoul's mind, scrambling for a reason for the surfeit of police, managed one word: "Which?"
The officer gave him a sympathetic look, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I'm afraid there's only one d'Halier brother now. Monsieur, if you would kindly follow me…"