Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom, Corpse Bride, or any bits of mythology used therein this chapter.

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This chapter is quite short, I think, but it is important. Because from here on it's not nearly so lovey dovey, and much more traumatic – if you can take it, after all the angst.

So, read, and enjoy.

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It is almost impossible for us to comprehend the state of mind of the captor and the captive in these Aztec campaigns. The captive had a resigned and fatalistic attitude towards what awaited him that was even more marked, if that is conceivable, than the fatalism of the modern Mexican Indian when confronting the prospect of death. Sahagún records that: 'When a man took a prisoner, he said: "Here is my well-beloved son"; and the captive said: "Here is my revered father."' It was all formal and predestined.

Cortes and the downfall of the Aztec Empire, by Jon Manchip White

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The storm builds

Ayesha fed Fatima another crumb of cake, but Fatima wasn't hungry. Fatima had become rather lonely since Erik had left, which always happened after one of his visits, but Fatima and she missed the lovely lady as well, who had had such a lovely voice, and was so kind, and who read such beautiful stories. She wished she could see the lovely lady again; but Erik hadn't said when they would come back.

"Ayesha!"

At once she forgot her wistfulness – Nadir was calling her! Quickly she leapt up and ran from her room, trailing Fatima behind her. Nadir was in the study, as he often was recently, which had made her sad because he didn't play with her, but maybe he would play with her now! He smiled down at her, but somehow his smile seemed odd, wrong, weak, like the watered down tea he sometimes let her drink.

"Ayesha, dear, I've just spoken to Erik. He'll be coming to talk about something very important, so I need you not to disturb us, please."

All the joy was gone at once. Not disturb them? When she wanted to see Erik again so badly? She could not help moaning, "Oh, but-"

"No 'buts', I am afraid," Nadir said, kneeling down, as he often did, so he did not tower over her. "But-" he checked at this, chuckled, and allowed Ayesha to ceremoniously hit him on the nose for being so silly, before going on. "You remember Christine?"

The lovely lady! Ayesha nodded frantically, until Nadir put a finger to her chin to get her to stop.

"Erik may well be bringing her as well; so you two can play together while we talk. Is that fair?"

Ayesha nodded again, making her plaits shake. She would see Erik! She would play with the lovely lady! Everything was all right again.

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It seemed only a little while until Erik had steered the boat into the harbour that they had docked at before, and helped her out, and then only a little while more until they came to the white washed house with the quietly ornate door, after walking along various streets, like any ordinary couple on a trip out. Erik said little or nothing as he walked stolidly along at her side, but Christine found she didn't really care – it was pleasing to simply be in his presence without speaking, and it was unearthly at the same time. She didn't know whether it was more comforting or frightening. At least she was glad that her arm was linked into his whole one – the feel of bone was still slightly odious to her, though the horror had certainly decreased in time.

In some ways it was a relief when the door opened, and Nadir's relatively reassuring face appeared.

"Thank Allah you are here."

"You should thank Christine that I had the patience to come, Nadir," Erik cut in brusquely. "Now, suppose that you tell us what your new grievance is."

"I will tell you, Erik," Nadir said coolly, as he bowed them in. "I highly doubt Mademoiselle Daaé will wish to hear what you will undoubtedly have to say in reply. Come, into the study with you." He made as if to take Erik's arm, but was brushed off as Erik turned to stare at her with his golden eyes, his lips pressed together, one eyebrow raised as if in inquiry.

Is he still so suspicious?

"I'm not going to run away while you talk, Erik," she retorted, as good naturedly as she could manage. "I'll be waiting right here when you get back, I promise you."

Erik nodded, allowing a small smile to creep onto his face, even as Nadir bundled him into the book lined study and shut the door behind them with a very definite sound, cutting off all possible noise from inside the room.

What am I going to do now? she wondered, as she looked around the beautiful, echoing marble entrance hall, her hands pulling at the material of her dress. They may be a good while. I wished to see Ayesha, but where…?

As if in answer she felt a tug on her skirts, and looked around and down into a familiar little face, peeping up at her.

"Nadir said I could play with you while they talked!"

Christine irresistibly smiled. Ayesha was just too sweet! She looked prettier than ever, in a new tunic and trousers of turquoise silk, and with her throat obscured by a lovingly embroidered silk scarf, and her hair plaited with according green ribbons. Sinking to one knee so as to be on level with the adorable child, she said sincerely, "I would love to play with you. What did you have in mind?"

Ayesha's dark brown eyes gleamed. "Chase!" And at once she darted away, her little feet tapping on the marble floor, leaving Christine to leap to her own feet and run after her in a rustle of skirts and girlish giggles.

Through a door at the end of the hall, down a passage or two – Ayesha can certainly run fast! – Christine only caught up with and threw her arms around the little girl at the beginning of a colonnade, just after the child had turned her head back to cry something, probably along the lines of how she'd never be able to catch her, and so slowed down enough for her to do just that.

"Got you!" she whispered in Ayesha's perfect little ear, and was rewarded with a giggle. She was just about to let her get up when she heard a voice from the other end of the colonnade, from beyond a barely open door – a voice she knew very well indeed.

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"Now, Nadir, the niceties have been observed – will you tell me what this is about!"

Erik was irritated beyond belief by the way that Nadir looked at him in such a pitying fashion, as he pulled out a book from the veritable stash of tomes he seemed to possess.

"Erik, ever since I found out about your little abduction-"

"It was not an abduction!" How many times must I try to get this into his head?

"Erik, you may act like a child at times, but now is not the time to do so. I repeat, your abduction of Christine – I have been doing research." He hefted the book in one hand. "It may surprise you to know that this sort of thing is generally frowned upon in most circles."

"Somehow, it doesn't." His irritation was growing more and more as a result of Nadir's ridiculous attitude. "Your decision to repeat this yet again is because…?"

"Because there is a reason why it is frowned upon, and many others have found that out to their own cost. Ever heard of Izanagi and Izanami?"

What?

"Nadir, it might be galling to say this, but you have lost me."

Nadir sighed, in that infuriating way of his. "They were creator gods in ancient Japan. Izanami died in childbirth, and when her husband went down to the underworld to find her, she had become a vengeful deity. Needless to say he was less eager to bring her back, and he fled-"

"Yes, this is all very thrilling, Nadir, but I don't see what it has to do with me."

"It has everything to do with you, Erik."

"It's just a myth!" You prat.

Nadir shook his head. Oh, stop pitying me, you dolt. "Even myths are founded on truth, Erik. You would do well to learn that."

Get on with it.

"Your point is? Assuming you have a point?"

He was taken aback by the uncharacteristic frown on Nadir's face. "Oh, I have a point, Erik." He slammed the book down on a clear part of the table, casting aside the usual reverence he had for his tomes, opening it at a certain page. "Read it," he commanded, jabbing with his finger.

Nobody orders me!

"Not until you explain to me what you mean by all this babble, Nadir," he said flatly, crossing his arms.

He did his best not to be startled by Nadir's hands crashing down onto the table. "Allah give me patience Erik, will you for once listen to me? Not simply hear, but listen? You say you and Christine are married. But marriage, at least in your culture, is 'until death do you part'. Do you not see? Death has already parted you!" He stabbed his finger at the page – a picture of a human woman, and an obviously dead man, hands once joined in the symbol of matrimony but broken by the dark void that ripped down the page like a crack in the earth.

It was Christine's face that stared up at him from the page, in place of the woman's, and his own half rotting countenance.

He could hardly think for a moment.

Why…why did I not see…?

"But-"

"Do not protest, Erik! It is a rule that cannot be broken, as time has told! Do not think that you are the first!" Nadir counted off on his fingers. "Izanagi and Izanami! Orpheus and Eurydice! Isis and Osiris! They may be myths, but they are based on the truth, the truth that thousands have learnt over the years! And the truth is that the living cannot marry the dead, or stay married to them!"

"Prove it. Prove your little theory isn't just something you have concocted," he managed, trying to quell the shrieking inside him. If this was real, if this was true…then she wouldn't stay. Why would she?

Why would she stay with a dead man?

"Haven't you been paying attention at all, Erik? Have you not seen her change in the time you have kept her locked under the earth?" Nadir thumped his hands down on the table, again and again, the drumming beating a pulse inside his skull. "Can you not see how the colour is being drained from her very skin? How she is quieter, more withdrawn? When you claim to love her so dearly, so deeply? No dead person can remain in the Land of the Living, and no mortal can stay in the Land of the Dead without being warped beyond help."

Oh, no. No. Oh no.

"What…what will happen to her?" he asked slowly, fearing yet desperately wanting the answer. Nadir shook his head slowly, languorously it seemed, as if far away and deep under water.

"I truly do not know, Erik, but it will not be good. At the very least she probably will be slowly drained of her life, until there is nothing left in her except the barest amount. She will be catatonic, unconscious until…unless…"

What? What?

"Until what, Nadir?" His own voice sounded far away, half-strangled, as he were choking – as if he could still choke!

Nadir's expression sent cold into his body. "Erik, hear me. If you truly wish to marry Christine-"

"I do, Nadir! I do! But…I don't see how!"

"It would require the ultimate sacrifice on her part." Nadir looked down at his hands, then back up at him, holding his gaze. "She would have to give up her life above the earth, to come down here – forever. Do you hear me, Erik? Christine's heart would stop forever – only then would she be free to give it to you."

This…this, is my punishment. This is what I must truly endure, to atone for my sins.

It was too good to be true…far too good to be true. A beautiful dream…

"Nadir…" His voice was so weak. "Nadir, I…I love her."

"I know you do, Erik." Nadir put his hand on his sleeve, but there was no comfort in the action – it was caustic to him. "But do you love her enough to stop her breath in her chest? Do you love her enough to ask her to die, for you?"

To never feel her in my arms again. To hold her, but never wake her. To never touch her skin and feel its warmth.

To never hear her sweet voice break into song. To talk to her, but never have her reply. To never feel her heat beat in her chest.

To never have her look at me again…

To have her eyes forever closed…

To have her look at me, and despise me…

"I…I must think, Nadir. I must. Give me time, please, give me that."

"I know." Nadir patted him on the shoulder. "Think then, Erik, but remember; you may have all the time in the world – but she most certainly does not."

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Christine wanted to run. She wanted to run somewhere, anywhere, other than here, in this place.

But there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide! Now, more than ever, she was trapped, trapped, oh god, oh God…

Erik was going to leave the room. She had to get back. She had promised she would be waiting in the entrance hall. She leapt up from where she had been crouching on the floor all that time, huddling Ayesha to her, keeping her hand over the child's mouth so that she didn't make any sound to betray them, and ran back the way they had come, holding Ayesha's trembling little body in her arms, biting her lip hard to stop herself from screaming, though heaven knew that she wanted to.

No living thing grows in the Land of the Dead.

No living thing survives in the Land of the Dead.

A nightmare of running, praying she made no noise, praying she would get there in time, What will they do if they knew I overheard, her breath, her own sweet breath sobbing in her chest – and then the two of them spilled into the entrance hall, and onto the floor. Ayesha's arms were around her neck and pulling her down onto the floor beside the little spirit, the little cold spirit, and she practically bit through her tongue not to scream out loud as she freed herself as gently as she could, so that she would not frighten the little girl more than she already had.

"Don't tell them we heard," she hissed, desperately. "Please, Ayesha, promise you won't tell."

Ayesha nodded, her brown eyes huge and wide in her heart shaped face, her lips trembling.

"Oh, Ayesha," she tried more gently. "I'm sorry, I…"

But she could not go on. She sat up, and pressed a hand to her face – her white hand, bone white, chalk white. How long before it would waste away? How long before it grew so opaque she could see through it? She felt the drain even now, after that run; her life force flowing out of her!

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!

She clapped both hands to her face, breathed in and out, trying to calm herself, though she knew it was hopeless, there was no hope, no hope at all.

Why did you bring me here, Erik? Why did you bring me to this place, where your love could so easily destroy me?

His love would be her doom. Instead of being the key to her salvation, it would mean her destruction. He would never let her wither and decay, and…

He would rather die than let me go.

No. He would rather I died, than let me go.

No!Erik wouldn't kill me! Not me! He would never do that!

Would he?

Now she knew how often he had killed, how relatively easy it had been for him once, and how easily that skill might be awakened again. But he was tormented by what he had done, and, and, and…

And what?

Oh, God, what will happen to me?

What will happen to us?

The creaking of the door alerted her; at once she threw herself back onto a startled Ayesha, forcing joy into her face as she cried out "Caught you!" Ayesha squealed, more in surprise than anything else, and then they both gazed up at Nadir and Erik, standing in the doorway. Nadir looked more solemn than ever; Erik looked just as bad as she secretly felt, though with all her soul and all the life that was left to her she made herself look adequately surprised, a not-quite child playing with a dead child, interrupted in their innocent game.

"Oh, you've finished already?" She hoped fervently that Erik, with his uncanny ability to hear her heart, would put its frantic beating down to having run so far, so fast – which was no more than the truth.

Ayesha was a proper little actress, or perhaps she simply didn't understand, as she smiled up at the two men, from under Christine.

"We've had such a chase!" she cried out.

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Yes, the real trauma is coming in here. I don't really like to make fun of this, because to me, this really is very serious. No more fun and games now – this is where it starts to get tough, much as it did in Leroux's book. I mean, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom never actually threatened to kill Christine – maybe others around her, but not her personally. Major philosophical questions – which we won't go into now.

The story about the Japanese creator gods is perhaps not so well known, but I've always liked it, in my own ghoulish way. In an odd way, it's sort of another version of Corpse Bride – only now it's a slightly annoyed, half rotting actual wife.

Isis and Osiris – yes, well, if you've read Egyptian mythology, as I have, you'd know there's a right little story there. Suffice it to say that Osiris had a rather nasty accident, and as a result Isis had to hike up and down Egypt retrieving the fourteen parts of his body and putting them back together, bringing him back to life and managing to have a son with him, despite the fact that his – erm –'package' got eaten by some fish. (Pretty darn desperate fish, I'd have thought!) I've always loved that myth – I mean, it's so romantic, because they fell in love with each other before they were even born, in their mother's womb, and went on loving each other even after he'd died (though he couldn't stay alive for long, and went back to the underworld to become its king, and Isis went with him – since she was a goddess, she wasn't technically living, so it counts in my story). Yes, there's a whole load of incest and necrophilia. Yes, it led to the Pharaohs marrying their sisters and aunts and nieces and step-mothers and just generally inbreeding for the next three thousand years or so. Yes, it meant that Cleopatra (the famous one) married both her brothers (not at the same time!). Yes, it might be read as squicky. Shuddup! It's still good mythology!

Well, I break it off there, and leave you to wonder what will happen to our poor characters – all except me. I know everything about what's going to happen! Not that that's particularly comforting, sometimes.

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