Feeling lucky? It's a weekend. Two in one day.

Disclaimer: I claim independence as my defense! DH Lawrence said that 'it's the man who dares to take, who is independent, not he who gives'. Cousin: "Be independent and a whole lot poorer? No thanks. All credit to Those Who Come Before."

Of Knights and Dragons

Chapter XI: Thrice I Cried

"Darkness closes two eyes—but darkness opens a thousand others within us. Those unseen eyes are sometimes troublesome. Yes, night brings strange fears and longings."

(Louis Danz)

Dearest Christine:

Has it only been a day since we parted paths? It feels like eternity! But so much has happened in those few measly hours. There is so much to tell. I do now know where to begin. Maybe with a warning: sit down. You will be glad for it.

Walking slowly across the parlor, Christine did as the letter asked her to, carefully smoothing her skirts as she sat, unfolding the letter further in her hands. It was climbing towards midday now, when the messenger boy had come riding like thunder up the lane of the estate, this little letter sealed in his belt.

I suppose I will have to say this plainly. The words were dark on the page, as if he had written them slowly, thoughtfully, but then the writing became more spidery and light, sketched out rapidly with fear and distaste, as if Raoul were uncertain of the wording. I went to the Opera Populaire upon arriving in Paris. The place is much as it was when we left; burned out, teetering, a mass of stone and charred wood and dust, held up by God-knows-what. The front doors were splintered and I had little trouble getting in, though the backstage was a nightmare. Once I was through the mirror the atmosphere was different… it did not seem so like to collapse about me…

She read quickly his narrative of the journey, forcing herself not to skip lines, to read everything, to be patient, but her heart was fluttering in her chest, leaping about wildly from within. I fell asleep; I am not sure why. When I woke, the Persian was there. We spoke, and he told me here the sentence abruptly ended with a dark dot on me, then after a space started up again that Erik is dead. That Uriel killed him.

There was more, but she couldn't read it. Those three words stuck out in her mind, blazing coals across her tender thoughts, searing painfully. They refused to retreat. Her mind screamed at her to read on, read on!, but she couldn't. Her eyes rebelled, refusing to slide past those three words. Erik is dead.

"God, no, he can't be," she whispered to herself, rationalizing. "He can't be! I dreamed of him alive in England; he came and sang to me, and night closed in blissfully around us. He cannot be dead!"

Your dream was three years too late, Christine. For the Persian—I have no reason to doubt him. I slept the night at that lakeshore, and the Opera Ghost did not come to me. He isn't there. There is no disturbance in the dust that lies thick in that place, no footsteps beyond my own. He has not come or gone.

That is not all. Pierre d'Halier is also dead. The Angel of Death was hungry that night, bringing servants home to darkness. His brother is distraught, I think, though he hides it behind a façade of steel. Already he is organizing many of his and Pierre's friends, and my old acquaintances from the Opera days, to join us here tonight. He means to hunt down Uriel however he can. Do you know what he is calling this cadre of ours? The Parisian Knights.

Sometimes I want to scream at him that this isn't a fairy-tale, but I don't think he would understand as you do, Christine. I only hope that this ends before someone dies. But I think we're too far in, now. I feel like a dog chasing its tail, hunting after phantoms that don't exist. God, that line I wrote—now I'm laughing over it, but it isn't a good laughter, Christine! I miss you more than words can say. Please, stay there and stay safe. I promise I shall come as soon as I can.

Yours ever,

Raoul

Vicomte de Chagny

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tickticktickticktick…

Some say time is the fifth element, with a power more dominating even than fire, water, wind, or earth. At that moment Christine would wholly believe such philosophy. In her mind's eye she could see Father Time, standing with his arms folded imperiously, demanding her life of her, ever demanding, drawing it away, until it slid by faster and faster and she was caught in the current, nothing to hold on to, no turning back, light blazing around her as the entire world fell into him, into this great dark shadow that inexorably ticked on, regardless of her hopes or dreams…

…dreams…

But Father Time did not wear a mask, and this man did. A perfect, white, leather-wrought mask, through which eyes gleamed like the coins the Greeks laid on the eyes of the dead to ferry them across the River Styx. A man whose death-passage had been paid the moment he was born, and he had not yet decided to undertake it.

But he had—Erik was dead. Wasn't he? Didn't Raoul say so? Didn't the Persian tell him? "No!"

"He cannot be!" Why not? He is nothing but a man, remember? He is only Erik! "But I dreamed of him. I dreamed… and dreams cannot lie. They can be caged, like birds, but their wings cannot be broken… I flew, on the wind of his song… he cannot be dead."

Her head lifted, blue eyes flashing with an unknown fire that made her suddenly the most powerful force existing in the world, vibrant and beautiful and untamed. But the world is such a small thing, after all… "Erik, if I have to chase you to Hell like Orpheus after Eurydice and sing for Hades himself, I will sing to make him weep—sing like the Angels he cannot hear in his cold dark realm—sing how you taught me, dear ghost, dear Phantom."

She rose.

"If I have to walk the white road to Heaven and destroy the Pearly Gates with my bare hands, spit in Saint Peter's face and turn my back on eternal paradise, I will bring that holy place your anger, the anger of the Angel in Hell!"

She hesitated.

"And if none of these exists, and there is only emptiness… then I will sing for you, and you will hear me, and you will remember me, and you will come back to me, if only in my dreams. In such a void there is only Erik. There is only Christine."

And yet…

"And yet, know, dear ghost, that I can not love you."

If anyone had heard her in that hour—if a maid had glanced in, or a servant paused by the door, or if Raoul, returning from Paris, had walked in upon her, they would have thought her mad. Had Uriel seen her, he would have killed her. But Erik… Erik might have wept.

Within an hour, a carriage had been secured and she was well on her way, accompanied only by the driver of the coach and the twin white horses, the crumpled letter clenched tightly in her fist. She went to save Raoul; she went to avenge Erik; she went to destroy Uriel.

She would end doing all three, but none of them to the one she had determined.