AUTHOR'S NOTE: My great-uncle found an old photograph of Hermann Lando among his stuff, taken 1878 or later. I can scan it for you if you like, once Lando has appeared, though he'll look a bit different here.

Alisendre: I do enjoy the occasional cliffhanger… And I hope you'll like the bit about purring in the chapter after this one, too. ;)

Bea: Still, you have an interesting relationship towards Christian Bale. g Wouldn't we all be good boys (or, in most of your cases, girls) for a piece of cake? ;) Oh, and I do like my Harry Potter video games. I'm Quidditch Cup winner and Duelling champion! And a basilisk slayer, don't forget that. )

Ashley: Correct spelling, yes. Shall I send my Phantom to reanimate you? ;-)

TheQueenSarah: Lovely long review. drools happily I always find those very useful. :D As for the beginning with the legend and all that, I wanted to offer you all some information about what's going on outside, so to say, how the public reacts, something I've been definitely neglecting in the first part. No, there's no special reason for Chateaupers's first name, I just used a French name that was common at that time, as far as I know. And the accent is no in-joke, it belongs to it (or else all the touchy Frenchmen get sulky, trust me g). Hmm, line-listing… It's very useful to know which lines were good. Yes, you've got the chocolate picture just right. ;-) The bit about the stormy ocean outside is a nice thing since it carries some foreboding, which is the reason why I used it. Nothing said… whistles innocently

Nugrey: Since I had introduced Serge in The King of the Catacombs already, I knew him well enough to know I couldn't just re-introduce him like any other, because I assume your expectations were higher. This way, I had him stay in character while I could introduce him with a very characteristic feat of his to all the new readers.

The Musician of the Night: Wait and see… :D

Lady Baelish: I wondered whether you are to be taken seriously, then decided you aren't, since the vocabulary you use is just too odd. I doubt you got any further than the cast list. Nice to know that there are people who can be entertained so easily, though.

…

…

…

III. Deep down below

Sprinting along a dark passage leading deep down into his lonely dungeons, the Phantom knew exactly who awaited him. Clearing a barrier of fallen debris easily, he slipped through a well-hidden trapdoor, grasped a metal bar sticking out of the wall at an odd angle, then let himself drop down to the ground below lightly. He knew this place as well as nobody else did, having spent many years down here in the darkness, and he could see clearly where others would have had some difficulty with recognizing their surroundings. But he could just as well have found his way with his eyes closed. After all, he was at home here.

After a few strides, there was a wall barring his way, but a few quick touches of his skilled fingers made what seemed like an insurmountable barrier shift aside with a low, grinding sound, and he slipped through without waiting for it to fully open, activating the mechanism to close it as soon as he was through. It was all a simple trick of using the right amount of counterweights in the right places – or maybe not so simple, for when he had tried to explain it to Serge, who knew something about counterweights from his work in the flies, after all, it had taken the man a rather long time to understand, even though he certainly was not stupid. Yet to the Phantom, it was so easy, so very obvious. He did not quite see where the difficulty lay. Just like it had taken him some time to understand that there were very few, if any at all, who could listen to an orchestra passage they had never heard before and then write the score down from their memory.

He was different. He was special.

But he had paid dearly for those gifts.

As he came into his lair through the side entrance, he forced himself to walk slowly, even though he felt more like racing all the way. Yes, he had indeed been right. The feeling was unmistakable now; the knowledge of who had come to visit him was just as certain as if he stood opposite the intruder and looked him in the face.

How did he feel about it? He really couldn't say.

Frowning, he ascended the steps leading up to his bedchamber, careful to take them at a lazy saunter. No need to hurry. No reason to hurry. None at all.

And there he was, the intruder who deserved to be thrown into the cold water outside for his impertinence of occupying the Phantom's bed. Well, at least he had taken his boots off. Wearing his boots in bed was the Phantom's very own prerogative, and no one else's. And he was actually grinning at him, detestable little slimy creature that he was. The cold water was too good for him. Slow torture, that was a fitting reaction. The Phantom smirked. "Good morning, kid."

"Call that morning?" Raoul de Chagny's grin even broadened. "It must be going on midday. Of course, someone like you probably starts his day shortly after lunch usually and stays up until others take their breakfast." Picking himself up, he swung his legs, still clad in white uniform trousers, out of bed. "Erik, old villain! So good to see you again!"

"Cut the chatter," the Phantom grumbled, trying hard to keep a straight face. Hell devour him, and that silly boy as well! He was truly going soft inside. "How am I supposed to put up with you when you get on my nerves straight away?"

The boy flashed him a bright grin, which made him look younger than he was – and he was only just twenty-one, the Phantom knew – and climbed out of bed at last. "Just for once admit you're pleased to see me."

"No," the Phantom replied stubbornly. "Not in my bed. Christine will be pleased, though." And just as always, saying so gave him a slight twinge of pain, like a stab with a needle.

In the flickering candlelight, the boy's eyes seemed to shine. "Where is she?"

"Upstairs. Attending the rehearsal." And with a bit of cruel satisfaction, he added, "You can't see her now."

"Ah." Clearly Raoul was disappointed. "I'll wait for her here, then."

"I never said you could."

"No?" Raoul flashed him another grin. "Oh, c'mon, don't pretend to be a grumpy old dragon. Besides," and here the grin swiftly faded again, leaving a serious expression which suddenly made Raoul look a lot more mature than the Phantom remembered him, "Maurice said you'd take me in."

"Did he?" Grumpy old dragon? The cheek of him!

"Erik… What's really going on here?"

Regarding the youth, it truly seemed to the Phantom that he now looked a lot more mature than when he had last seen him. Maybe this came from having cut his hair shorter, so that now the boy's ears were still covered, but it was no way as long as it had been before, yet this was not all. Wasn't it said that everybody looked older when he returned from war? The Phantom was not quite sure where he had heard that, but it seemed right. What the boy must have seen on the battlefield certainly had been worse than what he had seen in his company, when they had been hunting gypsies together. Not that their adventures had been harmless, precisely – the Phantom particularly remembered how Raoul had ended up decorated with smears originating from one of those filthy intruders' splattered brains, it always made him chuckle to think of it – yet he knew the chaos and horror of true battle.

Did he, now? How should he? Of course he had a vivid imagination, but he had never been on a battlefield before.

Except in a past life, perhaps… At once the images from his recurring nightmare became frighteningly clear before his inner eye.

No. He would not believe it. He would not believe any of it.

"Erik?"

The Phantom returned to reality with a start. "What?"

"Erik, please. I'm not too young to understand. I'm not a child anymore." There was a note of urgency in his voice, together with a flicker of fear. "And I need to know. What has been going on here? Where are my parents?"

Better the boy misinterpreted his silence than he found out about it all. It was bad enough already that he had not been able to hide his nightmares from Christine. "Fine," the Phantom said, "I'll tell you. If you don't do anything stupid, that is." As he sat down on the edge of his bed, Raoul followed his example without asking for leave, yet the Phantom was too lazy to truly teach him some manners. "At the moment, they're with Chateaupers."

"Why would they?" Raoul's face was screwed up with irritation.

Did he truly not know that? "Who was it that caught you? Did you know his name?"

"Maurice himself, and he picked me up behind the gate, practically." Raoul shrugged uncomfortably. "He didn't say much, except that my parents were on some kind of black list and had to fear for their lives when found. And when I asked him whether that was because of those stories about Republicans taking over the city, he merely grumbled that I had no idea. And then he sent us here."

"Easy enough to guess why he grumbled," the Phantom muttered. "He's a Republican himself."

"What? Not Maurice de Bracy?"

"Do you know any other Maurice?" The Phantom waved the question away impatiently. There was something else that demanded his attention. "You just said us. Who is us?"

"Just me and Roger. We were the last ones to get in, I think, before the siege ring closed behind us. I had no idea it was that serious. I mean, I heard about Sedan, which is bad enough, and I know about the siege of Metz yet unbroken, but Paris… I had no idea they had come that far."

Looking at the boy sideways, the Phantom noticed how thin his lips had gone as he stared at the stone floor, laid out with animal skins around the bed, fixedly. It must be a major stroke to him to realize how grave the situation really was. And he did not yet know half of it! "They probably let you in at all, without any closer inspection, because you were the last. But say, is that Roger de Castelot-Barbezac you're talking about? The one too stupid to find his own behind with both hands?"

It was surprising to see how suddenly Raoul's features lightened up as he smiled. "Only when he's drunk. And then he needs a map." But then, slowly yet steadily, they shifted back to their serious expression once more. "We had orders to come back here, but my entire regiment was scattered on the way. Most of it was destroyed, I'm afraid. Then, when passing a village, we received word of the imminent siege, and we rode as hard as we could. We made it, but it was close. Roger was wounded in the course. Behind us, all gates closed." Raoul shuddered slightly. "Roger said it was better being inside than outside, but I'm not sure. From what I know, that Republican, Gambetta, is mustering in the west, but I have no idea how long it will take him to come here with an army."

"Maybe he won't come at all," the Phantom muttered darkly, observing the pattern the shadows from the hair on the animal skins, dancing with the candlelight, drew on the rough stone floor.

Raoul sat up straight, grasping his shoulder. "What d'you mean?"

"Those are evil times, kid." Shaking his hand off, the Phantom continued to watch the shadows. "You think the city is in Republican hands? You don't know half of it. It was, but they have lost it, though they are still fighting. It's the Communards who rule the city now."

"My God," Raoul whispered. "Then the worst rumours are true."

"I'm afraid they are. The death toll is mounting fast. People are dying out there with every passing day, women and children, too. There's war outside, but the city has turned on itself, destroying itself before the war from outside reaches it."

"My God," Raoul repeated, and the Phantom wrinkled his nose at it. Why did people always have to appeal to that God, that foolish illusion of a creator watching over them? Why were they so blind? Did they not know that Heaven was nothing but an empty sky?

Ah, but you know Heaven, a nasty little voice whispered inside his head. You were once a prince of Paradise…

"I'm no angel," the Phantom murmured stubbornly. "I'm no damn angel."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Raoul shot him a sideways glance. "I thought you – what's this? A ponytail?"

The Phantom sighed. Had the young fool really noticed it only now? "Do you think I want my hair hanging over my eyes?"

"A ponytail? You?"

"Yes, it's me, obviously. If you don't have anything more intelligent to say, then shut up."

"That you'd grow your hair that long at all… And you used to poke fun at me all the time when I still had long hair!"

"Because you looked like a sissy," the Phantom said coldly. "Now, if you want to hide with me, for hide you must, for your own damn sake, there are certain rules. First, you'll be given a certain contingent of words you're allowed to say in my presence. Let's make it hundred a day. Once you've used them up, you shut up for the rest of the day. Is that understood?"

Raoul snorted. "Is that what you call weird humour?"

With one quick thrust of his elbow, the Phantom sent him sprawling on the bed. "I'm serious. And I'll be counting, mind you. Plus you don't sleep in this bed here. I've still got my old coffin somewhere."

Lying back on the bed in just the position he had landed in, Raoul grinned up at him. "Are you going to bury me?"

"I wish."

For a moment they held each other's gaze, then, simultaneously, they both laughed. "As much as I hate to say it," the Phantom growled, trying hard to regain his most vindictive expression, "welcome home."

The only good thing about this was that he did not have to go looking for that silly fop now.

And Christine would be so happy once she found out…

"Thanks, old friend."

The Phantom suppressed a sigh. If he was not careful now, he might actually start liking that idiot.

Sitting back up, Raoul straightened his dark blue jacket, though rather unenthusiastically. "So for the Opera House the season has begun as always?"

"It has begun, at least."

"And people are still coming?" Raoul looked doubtful.

"Distraction. Besides, the managers have been forced to go down a lot with the ticket prices, so everybody can afford it."

"And, do they? Has your audience changed?"

"Not exactly. The only result is that some who would have come from time to time anyway are coming more often now, if Firmin's surveys can be trusted. Those who can't afford it often would not come, anyway."

"Firmin's surveys?" Raoul sounded surprised. "He does surveys?"

"Of course he does. You know Firmin. If he can sell something well, he'll always wonder if there isn't a way to sell it even better." The Phantom tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, secretly agreeing with Raoul that he needed a haircut. But now the boy had mentioned it, he certainly wouldn't have his hair cut for some time! "He says the prices are ruining us, though, but that's just what he says. I think we're doing fine."

Raoul sighed, passing a hand over his eyes. "I'm glad to hear it, but I'm still afraid this won't last."

"Do you really think I need you to tell me so?" the Phantom growled.

"I suppose not," Raoul answered dryly. "Say, how about… our favourite little bar, you know?"

"Your favourite little bar," the Phantom corrected him automatically. To Hell with it, they had had this discussion often enough!

"Whatever." Maybe the boy had grown up during those two months at war, but still he had the ability of simply laughing away what did not quite fit into his concept of the world. And as he laughed, his bright eyes sparkled. In Raoul's world, there was no eternal darkness, no shadow so deep it could not be touched by the rays of the sun.

Oh, the foolish boy. When would he ever learn?

And no, I do not want the sun. You see… starlight is so much better.

The Phantom almost smiled. Yes, a little starlight perhaps, just to make his night more beautiful.

The boy did not understand. But perhaps one day he would learn.

"Ah, I take it it's still open, then." Raoul practically beamed. "Listen, if there's any place to find out what's going on in the world outside, it's this."

"Yes, that's what Maurice says." Barely back home, and being a little idiot again? "He controls his web of spies from there. And what do you do?"

Raoul flashed him a lopsided grin. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Oh, shut it, kid, I'm not in the mood."

"Just good old Erik as we know and love him." Now the lad truly beamed. He must be pretending; nobody could really be so stupid. "Look, I brought you something."

"You –" Now what was that about?

Reaching into his jacket packet, Raoul produced a small, paper-wrapped package. "Thought you might like it."

Frowning, the Phantom took it from him, aware that the boy was watching him while he unwrapped it. A small metal pendant on a thin leather cord fell into his hand, a silver gleam in the candlelight. An amulet in the shape of a skull.

"Thought of you when I saw it," Raoul explained. "Thought it might go with your seal and your sabre and all the sick little drawings lying around this place…" Snickering merrily, he dodged a half-hearted blow from the Phantom. "There you are, a morbid little present for the most morbid among my friends."

"You know," the Phantom said gently, in the soft, purring tone he employed when uttering a particularly nasty, but subtle threat, "the only thing that keeps me from planting your head on a spike above my bed is that Christine would be very upset about it."

Raoul nodded, grinning as if at a good joke. "I know."

"Fine. Then don't say that I didn't warn you." The Phantom tied the cord into a knot and stuffed the loose ends down his collar at the back of his neck, then made sure the pendant rested on his upper chest properly. The metal felt cool against his skin. "What do you say?"

"Well, what should I say? Just like I imagined it."

Looking down himself, the Phantom decided that a bit of metal in a slightly morbid shape on his bare chest suited him, but until Christine had had a look at it, the last word was not yet spoken.

"Right," said the boy. "I'm going out tonight, though not for long. And you're coming with me."

Raising his eyebrows at him, the Phantom shot him a scathing look. "Why me? Go alone."

"Oh, I expect you went to a certain place even while I was gone."

Yes, he had accompanied Maurice, but that was none of the lad's concern. "Let's say I've been sneaking around after dark in general. But that's not a good time to be out in the street."

"How good then that I've got you with me, eh?" The boy grinned smugly. "And if Christine doesn't turn up soon, I'll go looking for her. I haven't seen her for ages, and I don't want to wait any longer."

"You shouldn't be seen, kid," the Phantom reminded him, and as Raoul still got up from the edge of the bed and made move to pick up his sabre, he added, in a soft growl, "I mean it."

At least the boy was not as stupid as he had expected him to be, for when he saw his look, he hesitated, then apparently decided that patience was for his own best. Excellent. The Phantom hated being disobeyed.

"I only hope she comes soon," the boy sighed. "I missed her so."

So softly that it was not audible anymore, the Phantom echoed his sigh. Just like he was going to miss Christine's attention from now on, once she found out her fiancé was back…