A/N: Hello! Just back from a very lovely holiday in Scotland. I am completely in love with it and I want to live there...I stayed in Edinburgh but I still got to take a little train ride to Glasgow to have a look around at the town where Gerry Butler was born...

Right...I know this little tale isn't entirely historically accurate in some parts, because most of the interesting stuff in Tonkin happened later in the 19th century...some things even after our Phantom's death! And I'm also pretty certain that 19th-century indigenous Vietnamese villagers did not chuck their dead into a big pit in the ground - that was actually what some Medieval Middle-Eastern people did (I think). Never mind, this is fiction, so I can take some liberties! :D Thank you very much for reviewing, Chapucera!

I must have slept, or fainted, or lapsed into a despondent reverie, for I woke several hours later with my mouth dry from sleep, and feeling rather groggy. I had slumped over to one side, my neck uncomfortably wedged against the damp, spongy wall. I winced, rubbing the sore muscles, then realised with great annoyance that my right eye would not open. This was probably because I had been resting the right half of my face against the wall, diverting the steady spread of blood through my makeshift compress. The blood seemed to have also clotted in the wound, creating a black mess that covered the entire side of my face, including my eye, which was now consequently sealed shut with dried blood. Irritably, I spat onto my hand, for lack of a better method, and used the moisture to dislodge the blood from my eye. Inelegant as this was, I did happen to be at the bottom of a pit with no other medical alternatives. My eyelid gradually became unstuck, and my entire peripheral vision, though currently smothered in darkness, was effectively restored. Grimacing, I then gathered the courage to untie the makeshift mask and ease away the compress to examine what had happened to my injury after my hours of unconsciousness. It no longer bled, which was a good sign, for the compress was wet through already - but on the other hand, the blood had clotted and congealed into a vile black substance on the side of my face. I delicately prodded at it experimentally; the black stuff was obscenely soft, almost fleshy in its texture. I shuddered, revolted. As much as I was loath to touch it, I would need to clean this wound. Although I could still see nothing, I could clearly imagine the reddish-blackness of the clotting, as I had seen and experienced it countless times before in my life. However, I could do little more than attempt to pull away the sickening clotted stuff away from the wound. Yet as it was so vile and gummy and slippery, I decided not to risk opening the wound again and bleeding to death. I gave a sigh, gingerly reapplying the compress and tying the "mask" over it again. Did it matter, though, whether I bled to death? Was I not going to die anyway? In dejection, I slumped backwards, lying listless on the floor of the pit, waiting for death to come.

The cold, clammy darkness of the pit had not alleviated in the slightest since my arrival. It was really rather inhospitable, and, by and by, I found myself seized once more by a mad desperation to escape, even though I could see nothing.

Stumbling over carcasses and cracking rib cages underfoot, I frenziedly groped my way to the nearest wall. My skin was suddenly crawling with disgust, and the only thought in my mind was to leave the pit. I splayed my long hands on the moist, earthy wall, brushing away the hard bodies of various insects as I ran my fingers over the uneven surface. There were many, many handholds here, but I would never succeed in prying the lid from this well I was buried in. I was like a spider trapped in a jar - helpless, desperate! Nothing I carried upon my person was of any use at all here, and this stinking darkness seemed to leech away my calm intelligence and logic, gradually turning me into a shivering wreck incapable of formulating any strategy of escape. I cursed the fact that I had even come into this country, but it was done now...

I sagged against the wall, passing my right hand shakily over my maskless face, still covered by the cloth. What use was that cloth here? I might as well have taken it off, as I was going to die whatever I -

A rustling nearby stilled my movements. A large creature - perhaps a lizard or other scavenger - was passing close to me. I stood frozen. Perhaps the meat of this creature - whatever it was - could sustain me for a few days, and help me to get my wits back?

Stealthily, I followed it, creeping nearer and nearer until I was sure that -

I froze a second time as I suddenly perceived a distinct lightness pervading from behind a small pile of heaped bones...when I caught the sweet scent of a lighter, clearer air, I jerked my body into motion and scrambled towards the dim lightness. It was not even a glow, but rather a patch of darkness that merely seemed...less dark. The scavenger had disappeared around that area, and when I felt the wall I collapsed to the ground in an ungainly heap of limbs, ignoring the twinges in my left wrist and scrabbling at the earth. When I found a small opening in the wall, my heart leapt in my chest. A hole? No, better yet - a tunnel! I felt its contours ecstatically, then lost no time in crawling into it, not caring where it led. This, I presumed, was a tunnel dug by the scavengers of the fields, eager to get at the carrion buried deep inside the ground. The walls of the passage were smooth and relatively firm, making the ceiling less likely to cave in over my head. I hastened my pace, shuddering at the thought of being buried alive in this tunnel. Briefly, as I broke through spiderwebs, I wondered whether I was heading towards the underground burrow of some creature, but as I progressed, it became certain that I was not. For I could now sense a most pleasing zephyr of scented morning wind blowing through the tunnel - a light gust of air that effaced the pungent odour of rot and putrefaction. My breaths became deeper as I savoured this, my speed increasing until I was blissfully blinded by the oh-so-welcome rays of the glorious sun, which was rising in a broad, majestic disc above the glittering sea.

I had emerged into a cove near a deserted beach strewn with pebbles, washed gently by the sea. Almost weeping with my gratitude, I staggered away from the tunnel's mouth and collapsed onto my knees, silently thanking fate for letting the scavenger enter that tunnel before my eyes. For a few minutes I lay weak and ragged on the ground, staring up at the pink-azure sky I thought I would never see again. When my strength was at last recovered, I sat up, shaking sand from my hair and shrugging the funeral shroud from my shoulders -

Something within the shroud clinked. Curious, I rummaged through its rough dark folds, and found, to my surprise, a rather fine jewelled bracelet, caught in the frayed threads of the burial shroud. Obviously I had come upon the jewels buried with the corpse I had taken the shroud from...

The sharp, refreshing sea air was beginning to heighten my senses once more, and I began to contemplate how many priceless jewels the other cadavers might yield was I ready to plunge back into that darkness again...

A few hours later, I emerged back into the blessed sunshine again with several handfuls of gems, diamonds and gold and silver chains, as well as quite a selection of rings. Of course, I did not feel the slightest twinge of remorse at my own actions; after all, what use were these jewels to the corpses that wore them so vainly? It had taken me quite a while to find those goods in the dark, and besides, I knew I would be able to sell these for a small fortune with the next merchant I met, thus guaranteeing me something to eat and drink for approximately the next twenty years, judging by the promising appearance of some of these gems. My pragmatic side had always dominated my compassionate side during such times.

From an early age I had exercised care over battering guilt out of my heart, and I prided myself in being quite immune to most of the other unnecessary, weakening human emotions. What good had guilt or compassion ever done me, whenever I had shown them? None, that is the answer. Besides, all my pity was largely directed at my own sorry self, more often than not...

In the safety of the tucked-away cove, I spilled the contents of my pockets, calmly counting each little treasure I had taken and estimating its worth. I had such weakness for beauty, and I took a detached pleasure in holding each brilliant gem up to the sun to see its colourful glimmer. Money and wealth did not especially grip my fancy, though I loved to live in reasonable luxury. There is little shine, really, to gold, but these eastern jewels I held were quite pretty indeed.

My sharp, calculating gaze helped me separate the false precious stones from the genuine ones without difficulty, and soon I had wrapped up my new total worldly wealth in a small square of cloth. It was all I had; doubtlessly the gold hidden in my house had been discovered and stolen by now. Still, it did not matter, as I was once more wealthy. Who would have thought those corpses could provide anything other than a truly horrendous stench?

I carefully laid the bundle of jewels and rings behind a rock, and then proceeded to divest myself of my clothing. The smell of rot still clung most unpleasantly to my skin, and I was eager to be rid of that horrendous odour as quickly as possible. Once my ragged garments had been placed close at hand, I waded into the salty water that lay pooled around the mouth of the cove, between the large rocks that separated it from view of the sea. Silt rose in clouds around my bony toes, obscuring my feet as I immersed myself in the pleasantly warm water. I began to scrub vigorously at my pale, skeletal arms, distantly recalling a place where the seawater was usually freezing cold and a deep, murky green. I remembered a small beach that I had walked along, as a very little boy - a cold, stony beach blown by the biting winds and washed by the glacial waters of la Manche - the English Channel. It was the beach that was only a short way away from my mother's house, near Rouen in France. It was the beach I had haunted as a child, whenever I could escape unnoticed from that awful prison of a house...oh, how I had despised that house, when I had grown old enough to know that my life was not a normal one! My mother had hated me so profoundly, not only for my cadaverous appearance but for my inhuman voice and mental capacities. She detested and feared my earliest attempts at magic tricks and illusions, and was terrified by my talents. As for my father, I never saw him , nor did he see me...and I suppose it is quite fortunate for him that he did not. Family always mattered little to me, all my life - they were the ones who must have hated me most, for they, unlike others, could not be rid of me because of the blood ties. Ah, if my mother could see her only son now; plundering corpses, ending lives, but rising to heights that she could not possibly imagine! My life had been purely adventure and travel, brought on by the sheer, torturing monotony of my infancy. I was always running from my past, from myself, and neither would ever catch up with me...

I plunged my head beneath the surface of the warm, clear blue water after tossing away the cloth tied about my face. Once I was completely clean and the odour of rot was gone, I left the water, running my fingers through my hair to wring the moisture from it. Looking up at the sun, I decided that I would dry quite quickly, as it promised to be a hot day. With an involuntary smile of contentment twisting my thin lips, I stretched langorously like a cat as I contemplated my new state of freedom. Now that I had escaped, all I would need to do would be to leave this place far behind and journey towards a new town, where my notoriety was not known...

The entire day I spent on foot, continuously walking, never halting my pace as I trudged beneath the hot sun, keeping to the cliffsides as much as I could to avoid being sighted. My face was covered by a long piece of the funeral shroud - thoroughly washed in the sea - which was wrapped about my head to serve both as protection from the blistering sunlight and concealment from those whom I could chance to meet. I imagined that I looked distinctly Middle-Eastern with my face swathed in dark cloth that only revealed my eyes. But for my starkly pale skin, I could easily have passed as a desert-dweller...

As my bare feet carried me across the sand and further and further from the village I could no longer call my place of residence, I remembered the sand dunes I had travelled up only a few years ago...I recalled the searing heat of the sand beneath me, the coolness of the grains below the surface, the stinging bite of airborne sand against exposed skin and the frustration of slipping backwards with every step uphill...

But here, I was on flat ground, with the sea to my right. When I reached a hill, the sand gave way to grass, and then rocky earth. Ignoring the stones that pricked the soles of my feet, I made my way away from the beach.

My sharp yellow eyes assessed the landscape before me: dry, with short grass, rocks, and many trees. Good...I would not be lacking a place to hide if discretion on my part was necessary.

I marched at a quicker pace that I could easily keep up for hours on end, which would help me to cover as much distance as possible. I only lamented the lack of a good horse to take me even faster away from this heathen area...

North, I decided I would travel. North from here, following the coastline, which should take me to a larger and more civilised town. The benefit of a larger town was that I could easily lose myself, and I would not have much to fear. Haiphong, the town was called, by what I had distantly heard about it...

I reached the top of a small hill, and faced the terrain before me. A great wasteland of countryside lay before me, its greenery, undisturbed by the presence of houses, only disrupted by the ebb and swell of rolling hills. Perfect. In this thick expanse of trees and shrubbery I could make my way completely unseen, invisible among the deep shadows cast by the clustered trunks. I would stay clear of the yellow-brown dirt paths, in this way eschewing any traveller happening to be making his way along them.

Invigorated by the rising breeze, I descended the hill I had been stood upon the crest of, making my way into the shrubbery. The plants grew green and tall here, nourished by the humid air that lay heavy across the land. This humidity now clung closely to my pallid skin, forming tiny droplets of moisture in my hair as I left the higher, cooler level of land. It was more or less pleasantly warm, especially after the chill of the previous night. Nevertheless, I took care to stay under the shady protection of the trees and away from the sun's penetrating glare. Sunlight never did anything to bronze my deathly pale skin to a more natural hue; it merely scorched me, mercilessly burning my sensitive epiderm to a painful red. On top of all that, I peeled like a woman. Hence the reason I always preferred to be cautious around strong sunlight...

As I walked, I turned my hidden face up to the sky. Between the leaves of the east-Asian trees, I glimpsed the treacherous light of the sun. The intense humidity dulled the fiery star's contours, making it appear hazy and larger than it really was. I continued regardless along my way, wading through shin-high grass that dampened my legs up to the knees. In no time at all I began to vehemently curse the moisture of this place - the infernal moisture that dripped steadily from the large green leaves and condensed upon my skin. It was becoming uncomfortable to even breathe, and the air felt unpleasantly stuffy. Normally none of this would be a cause of complaint for me, but I had been weakened greatly from my fall the previous night, and from my brief but hellish stay in the well of corpses. Although I had managed to clean my injury a little in the sea, the side of my face still stung, making me feel dull and light-headed. I struggled on through the shrubbery, the chirps and hisses of insects and other small creatures a painful, sharp, continous cacophany in my ears. Mosquitoes whined about my head, no matter how much I waved my arms or slapped them out of the air. I kept my pace with difficulty, but still I concentrated on merely putting one foot in front of the other, trying to ignore the humid, sweltering heaviness of the air. Soon it got too much for me and I ripped at the buttons of my already-torn shirt, pulling it open in an attempt to cool myself down at least slightly. The hot, damp stillness stuck to my bare chest, where miniscule droplets began to form in the uneven scar tissue. I could have sworn I even felt the moisture welling in between the protuding bones of my ribs, something that drove me mad with discomfort. I tried to wipe the droplets away irritably, longing for dryer air...or even just a small breeze! Oh, for the tiniest zephyr of a breeze...! Onwards I trudged, wishing I was still a young man. Of course, I did not actually know my own exact age, but I deduced myself to be somewhere in my thirties...I could sense already that the peak of my life was soon going to pass, and that my youthful vigour would go with it. If I had still been in my early twenties, I would have been in better form after that fall I took...

But it was no use dwelling on idle things like that. I needed to concentrate on the here and now. Unfortunately, neither seemed to be very pleasant for me.

It was at least three hours later that I collapsed into a motionless heap on the ground, eyes rolling back and mind dissolving into a sweat-soaked, sweltering state of unconsciousness...

A light shone before my closed eyelids. It was a bright light, that moved. Distantly, I could hear voices, gibbering in a foreign language of which only some words I could understand in my current state of mind. One of those words I could distinguish was the word "dead".

Who was dead? Was I dead? I couldn't open my eyes. My whole body felt heavy and limp with exhaustion, my skin clammy and cold from the forest's humidity. I could not move a muscle.

Presently I felt a tough hand gently tugging at the fabric covering my face. Age-old instincts stirred in me, the familiar, dreadful feeling of somebody uncovering my face causing an electric jolt to run through my entire body, making me bring up my hands to firmly grab at the fabric tied around my head.

'Non!' I cried indistinctly. 'Je vous en supplie...I beg you, no!'

My eyes finally opened in that rush of adrenalin, and I found my surroundings to be completely dark. Above me was the night sky, and I was lying sprawled on my back in the thick, damp grass. Pale yellow lamplight illuminated my long, limp, stick-thin legs curled in the grass, and shone upon my bare, scarred chest which looked so pale and emaciated it even made me nauseous. My open shirt was in tatters, my trousers fraying about my knees.

I heard cries of surprise and terror beside me, presumably from the bearers of the lamplight who had thought they had just discovered a fresh corpse lying in the grass. Their horrified, rapid discourse clearly indicated their shock at seeing the aforementioned corpse come jerkily to life and cry out. Soon a face appeared in my line of vision. It looked rather worried, and faintly sick. I had no strength to run away, though...I had no power to even hide myself. I found that I was too tired to care about whether I would be recognised as Thày Phù Thuy or not. My head was still spinning, and all I could do was murmur deliriously in the language I had only just begun to learn: 'Tôi bi lac...tôi bi lac...I'm lost...'.

There was a whispered debate beside me following this, but it seemed that the people who had found me were willing to help even a lost man who already looked dead. Either that, or they had just heaved me upright to dispose of me somewhere...

Fortunately for me, though, I saw through sweat-blurred eyes that I was being carried over to a small, wooden shack from which there hung small paper lanterns around the door. Hopefully they would let me regain my strength and direct me to the nearest path that led to Haiphong...

Feeling rather relieved, I let myself sink back into unconsciousness.

My eyes blearily opened, and I found myself staring hazily at a rough wooden ceiling above me. Where was I? Was I back at the house in the tiny village? Did this mean the terrible events I had endured - the well of the dead, the hellish sojourn through dank, sweltering forest - were all part of a simple but worryingly vivid dream?

Unfamiliar smells and the feeling of the musty cloth wrapped about my head told me immediately that they were not. I was in a different house - a small shack, where I lay upon the floor, covered by a few blankets while my head was cushioned by a folded sheet. Daylight filled the room, and outside the windows (or rather, the square holes in the walls sparsely covered by cloth) I caught glimpses of the greenery shimmering with moisture. I glanced about the room, my inner architect making notes upon the solid structure of the house and the surprisingly precise walls. I found myself detachedly longing for a small weight tied to a string so that I could measure whether the roughly-cut walls truly were at exact right-angles from the floor...

From behind a woven partition there appeared a small, short man, whose weather-beaten face spoke volumes about his aptitude for survival in the forest. The wisdom ingrained within the lines upon his skin did nothing for his physical attractiveness, but his was the face of a man who had known little luxury but that of the simple happiness of thriving successfully in his own home and knowing the ways of the wilderness. His wrinkled, imperfect features automatically made me fractionally less tense, even though I could see the open wariness in his expression. He must have been around my own age, despite the lines on his face, and knew what was potentially dangerous from the fruits of experience. I was glad that the fabric concealing most of my hideous features was still in place around my head; presumably those who had found me knew it upset me if they attempted to remove it.

The indigenous Annamite man shuffled forwards and knelt at a respectable distance from where I lay, visibly disconcerted by my yellow-eyed gaze and stick-like limbs. I couldn't help but notice the discreet talismans hanging above my patch of floor, put there to ward off any evil I might have brought in with me, and to protect the inhabitants of the house if I - the nameless, sickeningly emaciated bone-white man found in the forest - turned out to be a demon or evil spirit of some description. I seem to arouse superstition quite naturally...

'Chào buôi sáng,' the man intoned quietly, giving a polite, short bow of the head. From my ponderously growing connaissances of the Vietnamese language, I recognised this to be the common greeting that was more or less the equivalent of "good morning".

I bobbed my head a little in return, then winced as I discovered too late that I was suffering from a rather stiff neck.

My host regarded me curiously. 'Ban co noi tiêng Viêt không?' he enquired slowly and clearly.

Aha, I think I understand you, I thought. He apparently wished to know whether I spoke his language, for although he could not judge my nationality or ethnicity by my face - not that uncovering it would have made the task any easier - he could still see from the extreme paleness of my skin that I had most certainly not spent my life being baked steadily under the humid Asian sun.

'Chi môt chùt,' I replied hesitantly. 'Just a little.'

He seemed satisfied with my answer, having now pinned me as a foreigner whom he could converse with to some extent. He immediately asked: 'Ban tên gi?'

'Er...Erik,' I told him.

'El-eek?'

'Erik,' I corrected him, trying less than successfully to erase the traces of my French accent. My esteemed host appeared to mull it over, then decided to accept that my identity was "Erik".

'Ban tù dâu dên?' he asked, changing tactics and deciding he wished to know where I was from.

'Oh, dear...er...tôi không biêt,' I answered, not knowing how to explain that I had no nationality and rejected my origins. I had satisfied myself with a simple "I don't know".

The man was baffled to hear that I did not know where I was from, but appeared to put it down to my being just an eccentric foreigner.

'Tên...tiêng Viêt cua tôi...xâu,' I informed him brokenly. 'My Vietnamese is rather bad.' I hoped this would excuse any linguistic blunders I made.

He chuckled at this.

'Tôi co thê giùp ban diêu gi?' he asked me slowly and clearly, wishing to know whether I had any requirements. This reminded me that I still needed to press onwards and leave this infernal forest for the sanctuary of a slightly more urbanised area. The sooner the better, I decided, so I got down to business:

'Tôi dang tim Haiphong,' I replied. 'I am looking for Haiphong.'

'Aiphongue?'

I realised I must have been "h"-dropping again, like the Frenchman I had so vehemently denied I was. 'Sorry, Haiphong.'

'Haiphong!'

My host appeared uncomfortable, and seemed at a loss about how to explain to me what worried him. Instead he tried to put it simply: 'Haiphong...xâu, ông Eleek.'

"Haiphong bad, Mr Erik?" This perplexed me almost as much as the politeness he showed me. I managed to communicate to him my confusion, and he tried valiantly to explain. In the end he began to resort to primitive miming that only served to bemuse me even further. Finally he got up and left me. At first I assumed he had come to the conclusion that I would never understand, when he returned several moments later clutching a creased, stained and crumpled piece of grey paper that had apparently been put to some practical use but had been temporarily removed to explain a point to me. He handed the piece of paper over to me, signalling that I should open it. I obliged him, and looked upon it in surprise.

I was holding an old, torn piece of newspaper, which was so crumpled and faded it was barely recognisable. But the intriguing thing was that this newspaper was written in French - my own first language! It had been a long, long while since I had held a piece of reading material I could read with such ease, and I feasted my eyes upon the words that were so painful but so familiar. To my surprise, I saw that the newspaper had been printed here, in Tonkin...but why was a French newspaper being printed here, of all places? The columns of news before me spoke of goings-on in this very country, I noticed...and yet I knew that Vietnam must be printing French newspapers for a specific reason. Further scanning of the news columns told me everything I needed to know. The natal country I had run away from and had not ventured near since my not-so-tender childhood, had expanded its rule overseas and colonised Vietnam itself! I had been in this country for almost an entire fortnight, yet I had never had any idea that it was under French control!

My host was warning me against Haiphong because he knew it to be a town where some of the French would be. He was obviously used to the old, free life, and found the more modern, Western colonial men frightening.

I burned to go there and see it all for myself.

'Where? O dâu? O dâu Haiphong?' I demanded, feeling fortunate that the poorly-educated man was not familiar enough with European accents to realise my own words had been laced with French characteristics. 'That direction? There? There? Or there?' I proceeded to point in all four directions of the compass. He seemed to understand, and pointed somewhere vaguely north-west to where I sat.

'Show me the way!' I commanded, voice full of irresistible power. My specific tone told him exactly what I meant, even if he did not understand. Helpless to resist the strength of my words, my meek host showed me hurriedly out of the shack, taking me through a partition where several more family members sat, and then out of the open doorway, the family's cries of shock still ringing in my ears. The poor man, who was perspiring slightly, said something incomprehensible and pointed to the left. A dirt track was just visible through the trees near his house, and he meant to tell me that that track would lead me to Haiphong.

'Càm on,' I thanked him curtly, and strode away vigorously, as if the weakness and fainting of the previous day had never happened. I was on my way again, and soon I was sure I would discover what the state of affairs were in this town of Haiphong...