AN: Ok, I know this chapter can be very confusing, so please read this background first, if you have never read Plato's Republic book I. A lot of the dialogue deals with Socrates questioning the three views of justice:

Cephalus – justice is giving men what is their due (embodied in civic religion)

Polemarchus – justice is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies

Thrasymachus – justice is the advantage of the strongest.

Really you need a philosophy course to go through this… but I want the names to make some sense. This chapter is crazy.

Literally.

Disclaimer: Thank the Powers that Be that I've Noone for philosophy; this is all your fault. And my ownership over these characters has not changed in the past two days.

Of Knights and Dragons

Chapter XXV: Logos

"Hence the result of the discussion, as far as I'm concerned, is that I know nothing, for when I don't know what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy."

(Plato, The Republic: Book I)

He began to believe that he was insane.

He had been accused of mental instability for most of his life, so the idea of contemplating his intellectual health was not altogether new to him. 'Madman' had been used to refer to him on more than one occasion, but quiet introspection had proved the fallacy to every argument. He was simply a man driven, a man willing to go farther than any others to achieve his goal, even to the exclusion of all else. That, in Erik's mind, did not constitute insanity. It meant passion, yes; possession, certainly; dominance, beyond doubt. But insanity…? No. His capacity for reason pre-empted that option.

Which is why, chained alone in a remote cell beneath Station 24, he truly questioned whether he was, in fact, crazy. Totally, irrevocably, lost in his mind.

It was the voices which gave it away first. In cheap fiction, they always were a certain sign. He had laughed at the pathetic capabilities of the authors who resorted to such devices, but now, caught in their throes, he began to wonder fearfully if there wasn't more than a bit of truth to the idea.

The voices came first, and then the images afterwards. He knew, though, that he was still holding on, as long as he recognized that they weren't real. After all, he wouldn't really be visited by Angels.

Would he?

With each breath occupying every fiber of his physical existence, it was only a matter of time before it filled his mind as well. All he could think about was air itself. The way it flowed in and out of him, lifesblood itself; the way it caught his imagination, brought his sight into and out of being. The way it invited light and darkness by successive turns. Somewhere in that, he decided hazily, he must have lost himself. He remembered little, but the first apparition had been burned into his mind as he breathed, hanging against the wall.

You're not thinking of her, it had said. How long has it been since you thought of her? Hours? Days?

"Why should I care?" he had managed to grind out, totally unaware that he was speaking to himself. His sight was dim; he couldn't see who was there. He tried to laugh, but coughed instead. The air burned instead of soothing. "I loved her, and now I'm dying, and that is the end of it. And about time, too. Life was getting rather boring."

That's a lie.

The sheer boldness of it took him aback. "No, I assure you, without music things are hardly worth living, and without purpose life ceases to be entertaining."

You mistake my meaning, Erik. I'm saying that the fact that you loved her is a lie. You never did. Christine was not that to you.

How dare! His head snapped up, the first conscious movement he had made in as long as he could remember, and his eyes glittered feverishly, searching the gloom of his prison, but there was no one there. The thought made him strangely uneasy. Perhaps just a dream.

You love her less than air.

Erik had always been very good at lying. He had learned one thing; those that lie are not easily deceived. He knew every trick of the trade. He could smell a lie, taste it on the air before it was even said.

Taste it on the air, Erik.

"Shut up," he said wearily, letting his head drop down again, letting his eyes close. To his surprise, the voice obeyed. For a little while.

When it came back, there were others with it.

You love her less than air, it taunted him.

And is there anything greater to you than breath itself, Erik? Anything you would trade your life for, for one moment?

You love her less than air.

Music.

Condemn his traitor's mind, but you cannot cut out thoughts like you can cut out a tongue. You cannot silence them like you can a mouth. His eyes opened, mere slits, and he could see them gathered around him, a circle of them… he could never count them. Three, then five, then two, then twelve. The answers never matched. "Leave me alone."

You have always been alone, Erik, they told him kindly. We're here to keep you company now.

"I don't want… your bloody company," he said through gritted teeth. "Go. Go now."

They listened. He closed his eyes with a slight sigh, and tried to sleep. Breathe in, breathe out. You love her less than air.

Music.

Leave me alone.

No.

That's a lie.

He couldn't rest, couldn't sleep. Dreams did not come to him. His eyes opened again, and he saw that they were there. "I thought I told you to leave," he said.

Good, then you can still think. Well, think on this, Erik. You love her less than air. But you gave air for her.

"I didn't give it for her, I." He stopped.

Oh God, he did not love her.

What did he know of love? He loved her voice… he loved the music in it… the feminine Angel… he wanted her to love him, him as the Angel of Music, as the dream-master, as the man who could write… he wanted her to sing for him…

He wanted transcendence. He wanted that which she might become, not that which she was.

And the thought that he had torn himself apart for a potentiality that could never exist… that he had torn apart all of them… he had wasted his breath on a thing less than breath was worth.

You have a gift that no one else has, and you make it less than it is.

You take music and enslave it in human form.

"And that one talent which is death to hide, brought with me useless," he quoted from Milton. "For what is music, some jealous goddess? What else is there to do with her?"

That which is most good is good for its own sake.

When the music fades, and all is stripped away, Erik, what are you left with?

"Nothing."

That's a lie.

"Stop telling me when I am lying and tell me the Truth!"

They didn't answer. His breath filled the chamber. Around then, he began a silent debate over whether he was insane, and stopped once he realized he was arguing with himself. He cursed his mind and damned himself to hell a dozen times over, and stopped when he realized he wasn't getting anywhere. "Wouldn't Socrates laugh?" he said aloud.

Maybe not, but he certainly would have a few questions.

They were back. He found the prospect enheartening. That scared him.

"Well, let us pretend that I am Socrates. If I ask the right questions, will you give me the right answers?" He smiled, slightly, playing their game.

Shall we answer as Thrasymachus, or as Polemarchus?

"Neither," he said, suddenly becoming angry. "They were both fools, and both wrong."

Perhaps as Cephalus then?

An angry retort died on his lips. Cephalus, the first of the three Greeks, and the one whose account crumbled the easiest. And yet… and yet…

"Yes…" he said. "Answer me as Cephalus, then…"

The Angels smiled. Then you know all the answers already.

His eyes closed, and his head dropped in thought. Do I? he wondered to himself. He found himself remembering reading Plato's work, an elementary bit on justice, actually, remembering the days of quiet beneath the Opera House, before she came. "And if I am uncertain," he whispered, "then which of you do I turn to for clarification?"

Then he felt it. A great, smothering darkness, all of lies written up in a single wild testament hurled at his feet. Every muscle in his body tensed, and for one wild instant he imagined that the Angels were not Angels at all, but servants of darkness—was not the meaning of the Prince of Hell's name light-bearer? The cries of serpents spat in his ears and he strained to tear himself free of the wall, to abandon this forsaken place… but his own mind held him bound, and he could not escape! Dear God, not…

And as soon as the thought formed, the image was gone, leaving him gasping and trembling and unable to reconcile his own personal revelation of hell.

You can ask her, the Angels murmured.

"…Erik?"

"Erik?"

His eyes opened, slits in the darkness, full of hate the instant before it dissolves into confusion.

"Tell me, Christine," he said in a rough voice, not even noticing how the sheer wonder and power of it made her gasp and tremble, "tell me how it is that Cephalus was right. Tell me, angel, how he could possibly be right."

She did not understand a word he said, but he did not notice, glaring out at her through gleams of gold. Looking into that flat gaze, she didn't recognize him at all. She couldn't find the Angel of Music, or the Phantom, or Uriel. There was a man there she didn't know. One she had never met, never let herself meet… one who had never showed himself to her. Because lies and masks and music ride the distance between two separate objects… she had torn away the mask, he had torn away the lies, but in the end the music stayed.

He was called Erik, once.

And, as he realized he did not love her, that he did not love air, that he did not love any of it, then the music itself faded, stripped away, and it left him in the center of the board. She did not know him.

My God, she thought, he's insane.

It seems I'm truly crazy, then, he thought.

"Raoul," he heard her say in a small, small voice. "Raoul, could you come and… hold me? I want to go back to England…"

The door clicked shut, leaving him alone again.

But not really.

So, about Cephalus…