I wonder if you realize how much your words inspire me to include things I had not thought of before. It's so awesome.

Disclaimer: See chapters one through nine. Cousin: "I hate it when people do that. Who, seriously, goes looking back for reference? Just rewrite it! It doesn't even take any more effort." "Quiet, or I will shatter you like a banana!" (physics joke… playing with liquid nitrogen… mmm)

Of Knights and Dragons

Chapter X: To Hold an Empire of the World

"What one thinks, what one feels, the agony, the suffering, the ambition, the envy, the extraordinary confusion one is in, that is the world."

(J. Krishnamurti)

"All men must die." He laughed softly and shook his head. "Yes, they must, but when? I often wonder."

In the glory days of the Opera Populaire, he had been the most iconic figure to stroll its halls, other than the Phantom himself. Chorus girls and ballet rats would notice him long enough to quickly make the sign to ward off evil; the managers would see him and look away in disgruntlement; the regular attendees had become used to his common presence, daily, even if none of them could reason out why the Persian was such an avid supporter of the Opera Populaire.

Four days after the fire, he had returned. It was a longer absence than he was used to making, the Persian admitted, and yet the tales of that night were brief and shadowed in mystery and gossip. Truth and lie lay side by side, and news was their progeny, both absolute and uncertain. It had taken him four days merely to ascertain that the Rue Scribe entrance was still intact, and indeed ran all the way down to the root of the Phantom's lair.

It had taken him twenty seconds to realize it was the ghost's lair still.

Closing his eyes now he could remember it all perfectly…

He stood on the edge of the lake, or rather the little intertwining labyrinth of channels that led to the lake, arms folded in his sleeves, looking at his reflection in the water. An experimental test had revealed it to be freezing cold; the holocaust above did little to change anything down here. For some reason that thought chilled him far more than the creeping corpselike fingers of the air. This place was untouched; the monster had created it, and only he could destroy it. Oh, the Persian had heard the tales of the mob; but the still silent waters promised him nothing had changed, nothing had changed, as they whispered in their course along the stony 'shore'.

It was so cold, and so silent, that he fancied he could hear that faint and far-off tinkling, the little bell in the lair that warned the monster of visitors. He stood there for a long, long while, perhaps an hour, before turning to go, shaking his head.

Another sound—the sound of wood gliding through water, the steady shift of metal on stone, halted him, and he turned for one last glance across the lake. Red light gleamed from about hidden corners, candlelight, growing even as he watched. Then a small dark shape swung into view, a lantern suspended off the prow. The Persian paused, turned, walked back to the shore of the lake, as the boat glided towards him.

The black-hooded figure guiding it looked up, the white gleam of the mask clearly visible on that face; but it was the eyes that gave him away, gold and brighter than the lantern hung on the prow.

"So it is you, Daroga. I thought so. Only you would linger on a doorstep for an hour when not wanted." So the monster spoke.

"I make a point to visit the graves of friends," the Persian replied.

"Why, Daroga, you must have taken a wrong turning! Let Erik redirect you. The cemetery is out of the city to the north, on the hill. You remember the way, do you not? Or must Erik send you there himself?"

"If I went, it would be in following you, not leading," the Persian inserted swiftly. "As it would have been, had I not saved your life."

The monster leaned on the long polished pole. "Do you come here looking for thanks, then? Turn about and retreat the way you came if it is so. Erik cannot give you thanks for that, Daroga; he made the score even, remember?"

"I remember very little of that night, for which I am thankful," the Persian said icily. "I trust it is not the same with you?"

The golden eyes blinked out. "If only I could forget," he said, whispered, in a hoarse tone. Slowly the Persian's head lifted and he looked, somewhat awed, at the man on the lake, at this sudden and strange tone. "I would give half my life to forget everything." Then the eyes opened again, cold and gold and dead. "Erik finds such things difficult to accomplish. Even ghosts are limited in their power, it seems."

He was back to what he had been. Yet for a moment he had transcended himself, become something else, something more than a monster… Christine, is this the end of what you have done to him? What have you done? "A fortunate thing, else the world would be crowded with ghosts, and find no room for men," the Persian said.

The monster pulled back his hood. "Erik tires of this, Daroga, and desires to return to his reading. A fascinating tale, about a kingdom which finds eternal bliss. You might enjoy it, Daroga."

"And what would this fairy-tale be called?"

"Ah, Daroga, it is no fairy tale, but truth! I believe it goes of the name Morte d'Arthur, or something similar." The monster laughed. "But come, why are you here? The book calls, and time, Erik finds, is precious. He has much of it, and little to spend it on, but certainly there are better pastimes than speaking with ghosts of the past!"

"I came because I thought you were dead, and that you ought to be seen to in death with at least more care than you have had in life," the Persian admitted frankly.

"How idyllic! Why, Daroga, Erik would have been deeply touched." It was there that the Persian first began to realize something was wrong, deeply wrong, with this situation. The monster continued blithely on. "But, the news must be broken… Erik is dead, Daroga. He no longer resides here. Though," the monster added, "I do believe he has in the past."

"But… you are Erik?" the Daroga said, confused.

"Yes," and then suddenly, "No." And the word was quiet. "He I am not!" If the air could be said to scream in agony… if a portal to the deepest pits of hell opened beneath his feet… the Persian raised his hands to his ears, but it was too late, for the agonized cry had already been loosed. "I am Uriel, dear Daroga," the man said with quiet power. And it was the man, now, and not the monster. There was more to it than the first-person pronoun replacing the third. There was another voice, another sense, almost another mind behind it all. "I am the Angel of Death. I came and found Erik mortally wounded that night, wounded in the soul, with no help of recovery. Erik exists no longer, and leaves nothing behind."

"Not even a broken soul?" the Persian said harshly.

Those cold golden eyes never wavered. "She has the Vicomte, Daroga. I am nothing but a shade of dreams to her now. And she… she is my ghost." He laughed, and the cavern rang with it, each curve and chip of stone and water catching the sound and snarling it back on itself, a great cacophony to rival the most discordant symphony. "Ghosts ought to keep company together, do you not agree? Begone then, before I decide you should join us. It would be a pity to have you follow so closely on Erik's footsteps!"

"He is there, isn't he, in your mind?" the Persian said softly, and read the confirmation in the still, golden, eyes.

Behind the mask the monster smiled. "Erik is here," the voice agreed. The Persian could not tell if it were Erik or Uriel who answered him. Then, he paused on reflection, the two were one.

Weren't they?

He opened his eyes again, coming out of that memory, shaking his head as he looked up at the tall iron-wrought fence of the d'Halier estate. The Vicomte de Chagny was within, he had discovered, but though he had come all this way he did not enter. His warning had failed, and there was no more that he could do… at this time.

The line between life and death, he was discovering, was every bit as thin as the line between saving and obeying. A hair thin division into a void of nothingness. "I have not come this far to let you die."

Christophé, who was at that very moment walking out of the gate of the d'Halier mansion, caught the words, and thought them ironically fitting for the Vicomte he had only just left. The police captain donned his hat, swung up onto the saddle of his horse, and kneed the animal on down the street, back towards Station 24. The Persian's almond eyes followed him for a moment, standing out above the crowd in Parisian blue. Then another horseman came out of the manor, and the gates clanged shut; with nary a pause the messenger boy leaned forward over the saddle, heeling his mount on, the letter tucked safely in its belt.

It read, Dearest Christine…