“No, I take that back. You’re not stupid, so there has to be another explanation for this bad decision. Perhaps age is catching up with you. Either that or your stubbornness has gone to new heights. I can understand your bad decisions when it came to our chess games; after all, they were only games. But, even with them, can you ever remember winning one of them? Were you ever able to lay my king down? Yes, I thought you would agree with me there.
“Well, how about real life? Can you ever think of a time when anyone was able to beat me, to force my king to lay down? No, I didn’t think so. While still a child, I started learning how to win, with a cold-hearted mother as my tutor. Did she beat me down? A resounding no! I learned from her and got better and stronger at what I did.
“When I was only nine, did the boy who was much bigger and stronger than me beat me down? No! He might have beat me up, but not down, and, when the dust settled, it was he who was struggling for breath and fearing for his life. And if it hadn’t been for a kind-hearted man, his life would have ended that day.
“Did a full grown man, with a cage and whip at his service, beat me down? Again, he might have beat me up, but not down, and he paid with his life for that error in misjudging me. We’ll forget about the dozens of other men who thought I was a weak target and who never lived to know the truth. They mean nothing to me, nothing more than the dust under my feet.
“No, my friend. After each conquest, I learn and get better. So your frail attempt to outsmart me, to have me surrender my king, is a mere practice in futility.
“No one, and I repeat, no one will ever take me down. Now, I, on the other hand, have full control over my destiny. Well, almost. If this seductive temptress here with me chooses that ignorant fool beside you instead of me, well, then that will be the end of us all. I’ll end this game I’ve played my entire life and lay down my king willingly.
“But, since my life is so much more valuable than all of yours, it will come at a very high price. I dare say, hmmm,” I said as I looked at the ceiling and pictured the ones that would be filling the auditorium, “hundreds? Thousands? Yes, I believe thousands will go down with me.
“So you see, since there’s no way you can win this battle you’ve entered into, I believe it’s in your best interest to keep your mouth shut. If you don’t, I just might get a tad angry, and you know what can happen when I get angry. You know what happened to those men at the campfire site in Persia when they angered me. It wasn’t a pretty sight—was it? They didn’t fare nearly as well as those generals fared. At least the generals’ bodies were intact when they were buried.”
“Erik, I came here to help Christine, not to do battle with you. You should know by now that I don’t fear you. All those times when you say you could have killed me, you didn’t, and I don’t believe you will now.”
“Well, you see, Mon Ami, that’s where you and I differ. With each flirtation with death, I learn and become better at what I do. But you, you crazy fool, each time you encounter me, you dig your grave deeper. And I believe this time it’s much too deep for anyone to raise you up out of it.”
“Erik, listen to him,” Christine tried again. “This isn’t you. I know that. I know this is one of those times in your life that you’ll regret later. This isn’t what you really want to do. I know that. Please, stop this insanity before someone gets hurt.”
“Oh, how sweetly you plead. How sincere you sound. How comely you appear. But you’re forgetting who taught you this skill you’re trying to use on me. Like Oded, you test me and my limits. Oh, yes, if I wanted, I could stop this. I could simply turn around and walk out of my invisible door and leave all of you here to try to figure out my brilliance and free yourselves on your own.
“I could go to the stable and pick my favorite horse, and I could leave this stinking structure and this disgusting city. I could leave it all, and I could start all over again, with a new script, and a new cast, and a new venue. I could do it all over again—if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. I’m bored with the same old and tattered script that always ends the same, with me surviving and leaving turmoil in my wake.
“You’re all fools! Fools I tell you! The whole world is nothing more than a stage cast with a company of ignorant fools. I tire of you all. I want to try something different. I want to see if I can outsmart—outmaneuver—the angel of death. I want to take him on and see who wins. Doesn’t that sound absolutely thrilling?”
Undeterred, Christine demanded, “Erik, please! Look at me! Look in my eyes and see if I’m not telling you the truth. Look at me!”
“Oh, we’re demanding now? How terribly brave of you to demand anything from this monster.”
“Look at me, Erik!”
“Very well, my dear,” I said coldly.
I slowly moved next to her, narrowed my eyes, and glared down at her. Considering the circumstances, she was showing an abnormal amount of courage when she tried again to reason with the unreasonable madman before her.
“We all know what you’re capable of, both the good and the bad. You have nothing to prove, at least not to me. I’ve always told you the truth.”
“What!” I screamed and grabbed her shoulders. “You little deceiver! You’re now lying about lying?”
Without fear, she continued, “I know I was wrong to tell Raoul I would leave with him, regardless of the circumstances. That was my weakness—my failure. I was scared and so confused. But that’s not an excuse, and I was wrong. You deserve so much more than that from me. I’ve watched you these last months, and I’ve come to know you and appreciate you for the man you are. I believe I even lo . . .”
“Don’t say it, Christine!” I bellowed. “Words are cheap!” I shoved her away from me and turned from her. “Don’t insult my intelligence with mere words twisted into lies, lies spoken with the intent of saving your lover. Oh!” I growled and turned back, facing her. “You infuriate me!”
Softly, she responded, “I’m not lying, Erik. I’m really not. I’ve been confused since you first came into my life. My life has changed so much. I still feel I’ll wake from a nightmare in my bed and all this will disappear.”
“Well, now,” I sneered, as I spread my arms out and began walking backwards away from her. “Wouldn’t that be nice for us all, my pretty little thing?”
She looked at the window. “Erik, this is between you and me, not between them and us. Let them go, and I promise I’ll stay with you again, and we’ll work through this nightmare together.”
“Are you saying you agree to marry me?” She looked down at her hands and sighed. “Just what I thought. It’s your agreement to marry me that will rescue them and the thousands of others, but we’re running out of time,” I said as I motioned to the floor clock. “Decide quickly.”
“Erik, please listen to me. Remember the day I took your mask off, and remember what you did? You were out of control, violently out of control. You could have killed me easily that day, but you didn’t. Why?”
I sarcastically laughed at her. “You were fortunate that day. Your stars weren’t aligned for your burial.”
“Erik, don’t use word games. This is serious. You didn’t hurt me because it wasn’t in you to hurt me. There was something, and not the stars, something deep in you that was protecting me. That same quality is still in you, and I don’t believe you’ll hurt any of us. It’s not who you really are or who you want to be. You’re in pain, and I’m so sorry for that. I never wanted to add to your scars, never. You’re going to let us all go eventually, because you can’t murder, not anymore. So just let them go now, and I’ll stay with you longer, I promise.”
Her reasoning almost reached me, so I again moved close to her and said softly and honestly, “I’ve been so patient, but I don’t think I can be patient any longer. You don’t understand how hard it’s been for me to have you so close and not be able to take you as my wife. It’s taken everything I have to prevent that from happening, but I don’t think I can do it any longer. I love you too much,
Christine.”
She ran her finger down my cheek. “You once told me that any decision I made had to be made for me and not for you or Raoul. Do you remember that?” I nodded. “Well, you also said I had to be 100 percent sure of my decision before I made it and not to let Raoul pressure me into a decision before I was that sure. After I left him on the roof, those words of yours about being that sure made me realize I couldn’t leave you.
“Well, I’m still not 100 percent sure about my decision. I can’t make it with this much pressure on me. You have to know and appreciate that. I could tell you, yes, I’ll marry you, just so you’ll let them go, but that would be a lie. That’s what I did with Raoul on the roof, and you know how that turned out. It didn’t come from my heart then, and it wouldn’t be coming from my heart now. I can’t do that to you. You would eventually know the truth, and I fear what that would do to your already scarred heart.”
I spread my arms around the room. “And this doesn’t frighten you?”
“No, not like that would,” she said softly.
As a hush fell over the room, I searched her eyes, and, with only the sound of the clock’s pendulum swaying, I moved her hair away from her bruised forehead. I loved her so much, and, when I took a silent moment to realize just how much, that all too familiar ache surged through my chest.
I ran my fingers down her soft cheek and under her chin, and then I followed the contours of her lips with my eyes. With the sight of them, I saw Raoul’s lips on hers, and I heard her betrayal again just as I had on the roof, so I turned abruptly and took a stride away from her. When the stabs to my heart returned and I feared crumbling again, I headed for my music room, unwilling to let her see me fall apart.
“I need to be alone,” I grumbled as I shut the door.
That time, I didn’t want the loud chords of my organ to cover over my pain. I wanted and needed the soft refrains of my violin to soothe it. So I closed my eyes and let the melodies take me to the shores of Perros with the sea mist bathing my naked face, to the green hills in Mazenderan, to the feelings of my first opera, to my games of tag with Molly, to the tranquility of that little lake in northern Italy, to the conversations with my father among the smell of fresh cut timber, to the slow lope on the back of Déchainé under the blue sky, to those precious carriage rides and laughter with Christine.
Once thoroughly soothed, I sat with my violin lying across my legs and with my eyes still closed. I thought over Christine’s words and I knew she was right. I didn’t want to kill anyone. My remorse was already great, but it would be worse if I didn’t release them now before they did themselves harm.
By the time I’d put my violin in its case, I had the plans for my future already made. I would leave everything behind and head for Southern France where I could build a home with lots of windows in a remote area close to the sea. There I could live out the remainder of my days with only music and horses as my friends.
With my hand on the doorknob, I knew I had to rewrite the last act. I had to release my captives in the mirror chamber, and I had to set the love of my life free, regardless of the emotional cost to me. I’d started that deadly game we were all a part of on that night when I first saw Christine’s eyes, so I had to end it so her eyes could smile once more.
However, when I stepped into the parlor and saw Christine leaning up against the wall with her ear to it, I knew my new ending wouldn’t have a chance to be played out, since she was right then writing an additional and unrehearsed scene with her own deceiving lips.
“Hold on just a little bit longer. Oh, Raoul, I love you too. Both of you need to be quiet. Don’t say anything. It makes him worse when he hears either of you, even if it’s only a sigh. Please, be quiet and let me handle Erik. I’ve learned how to handle him.”
My jaws clenched, my fists tightened, my breath turned hot, and I finally saw everything clearly. Christine was part of them and so was Oded, part of the world that hated me. The fact that the three of them were strategizing to outsmart me proved that in a most painful way. To have the two people I cared the most about treat me that way made my anger take me to that place I feared. I felt I no longer had a heart. So, with another protective barrier built securely around me, I stormed upon her and growled.
“Handle me?”
I grabbed her shoulder and flung her around. She hit the wall and looked up at me in total shock. Then I pressed her shoulders against the wall.
“Handle me? You mean like an animal in a circus cage? You know how to handle me? You . . .”
I shook my head slowly and breathed pure fire. She started to open her mouth, and I shoved her across the room, causing her to trip and fall.
“Handle me?”
I picked her up from the floor with one hand and shoved her down in my chair.
“Handle me?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Erik.”
“Shush! No more of your lies. No more of your deceit. Your innocent play is over. The game is back on. You almost had me, you seductive, lying little . . . Only 13 hours until the truth be told, grasshopper or scorpion, my dear? The final test. Which will it be?”
“But, Er . . .”
“Shush, I said.—Oded!” I shouted across the room. “Will you please describe to this creature what happens when I’m angered beyond control! Describe to her the fate of those men at the campfire! Tell her how inhumane their deaths were! Tell this lying temptress to stop angering me! She needs to comply with my wishes while she still can.”
My chest was heaving as I glared down at her, but she was unnaturally composed, and I was trying to understand why when she again tried to reason with me.
“Would you want me to agree to marry you even if I wasn’t 100 percent certain that I wanted to?”
“Oh, my sweet,” I sneered, “we’re way past that point in this script. I’ll take you any way I can get you. Since you’ve used up all my tolerance, your wishes are no longer a consideration. We’ll be together one way or the other—alive or dead—you’ll be by my side. However, I would prefer you alive. I would imagine it’s rather difficult to enjoy the marriage bed when it’s also your death bed.”
My harsh words still didn’t ruffle her, and she spoke ever so softly. “You once told me you would do anything for me. Well, I’m calling you on that now. I’m asking, no, I’m begging you to let them go. You don’t have to let me go, but please let them go.”
It was so silent that you would imagine all the players in that drama were holding their breaths. Christine held her sight on my eyes and mine was on hers. A part of me wanted to believe her, but her words about handling me seemed to fill the room with so much clutter that it was hard to reason with her pleas. Abruptly, I stormed across the room with my hands behind my neck and my voice growling loudly.
“Erik! Listen to her,” came Oded’s voice from the mirror chamber.
“You stay out of this, you meddling fool! You have nothing to do with this. But then, yes, you do! This is entirely your fault! Just as in Persia, you had to stick your nose into my affairs, and look what’s happened. The first woman who loved me is gone, along with the woman who loved you—all because you had to have things your way. And, here in Paris, if you had minded your own business, none of this would be happening, and many lives wouldn’t be in peril.
“Remember the day when you cautioned Christine about me, as if you couldn’t fathom the thought that there was a woman who could actually love me—without being hypnotized first, that is. You idiot! Well, it’s because of your interfering that day that we’re standing here now—on the brink of a catastrophe.
“Did you know she was on her way to tell me she wanted to be my wife? My wife, Oded! I’d given her a choice, her heart or my ring. It was that clean and simple. No mirror chamber, no threats of imminent death, no tears. No one would have gotten hurt. Well, not entirely. If she’d given me my ring and not her heart, I would have been hurt, but no one else would have been. If you had stayed out of my business, we would all
be living out our lives the way we wanted it and not the way I want it. But no, you pious fool. You knew best, right? Well now, look where we are.
“You’ll be responsible for the deaths of so many tonight, even that young man in there beside you. He never would have come this close to finding my lair. You had to be leading him the entire way. Well, aren’t you proud of yourself? You thought you were leading him to my door but you’ve only led him to death’s door. Congratulate yourself!
“When will you learn? You have no control over any of this, so keep your mouth shut. I’m the only one with a queen and she’s heading straight for your king without any protection left for you. The only hope any of us have is that Christine will make the right choice. She’s the only player strong enough to help.
“Tell me something, Oded. What did you hope to accomplish by coming down here anyway? Did you think you could simply walk into my home, uninvited, and tell me you were here to take my bride away from me—and on my wedding day, no less? Did you think that would checkmate me? Did you expect me to say, here she is, take her away with you? What were you thinking, you fool? You’ve seen enough of my work. You had to know you couldn’t get past my perimeter of protection. What were you thinking? Now, stay out of this or there’s no hope for any of us.”
“Please, Erik, let her go!” Raoul interjected.
“Erik? Now you call me Erik? Now you say please? What happened to your demands? What happened to the designation—old man or demented monster? Your tune has changed now that the demented monster has control over your destiny, now that you can’t settle this with another bullet in my back, hasn’t it? Well, maybe you’ll think twice from now on before judging a book by its cover. Oh, no, wait a minute. You won’t have another chance to judge anything, unless your sweet Christine makes the right choice and marries me.”
Through Phantom Eyes: Volume Five - Christine Page 70
