Author's Note: Part of this Prologue appeared in the story Swan Song, with some alterations.

"I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin."

- Leonard Cohen

Prologue

I heard your groans of anguish and the shattering of glass, but by the time I reached the room at the top of the stairs with the great swan bed, you had vanished. On the table lay your white mask.

I picked up your mask and looked at it for a moment in wonder. At first its shininess looked like ceramic, but it was actually glossy, polished leather. This was on your face, I thought, and I am going to see that face no matter what. Christine left with Raoul in the boat. That could mean only one thing, that she left you. But where did you go?

My head swam with possibilities, all tumbling one atop the other. I couldn't see you, but I knew you were there, in the same way I knew when you crept in the rafters. Where are you? I called out, silently. I could hear the shouts and curses of the mob. Oh help him, please, someone. Please help him.

Glass covered the stone floor. Why was there so much in front of that curtain, where there seemed to be no mirror? Something pulled me toward the thick red velvet drape. and I ran toward it. He's behind there, I thought, not knowing how I knew, but knowing I was right.

A sound came from behind the curtain, a curse, followed by one thump, then another, and then the sound of boots receding into the distance. I flung the curtain aside and peered into a long, dim tunnel lit by a few tiny blue gas flames. Then, like an arrow that flies straight into the heart, I ran down that murky corridor, kicking up shards as I went.

The black distance of tunnel seemed to be endless, and up ahead I heard the scrapes of stone upon stone. Faster I went through the dim light, until in surprise and frustration I came to a blind end, and you had gone.

My heart filled to bursting. To come all this way, only to lose you once more, to lose you like the shadow you were. There was some trap door, some secret passage somewhere, but where? In frustration, I pounded helplessly in all three directions around me.

Then strong arms grabbed me and pulled me through a crack in the wall that opened suddenly. It snapped shut with a click, and there stood before me with your face all on fire and wet with tears, your shirt sticking to you with sweat.

You leaned your head against the rough stone of the tiny, narrow corridor and hid your face with your hand. Gently I grasped your hand and lowered it, taking your hand tentatively in mind, waiting for you to snatch yours away. Your warm muscular hand pulled me down the corridor. Mine felt so small, clasped inside your rough, dry palm.

My boots clicked on the stone floor. Clicks changed to thuds as we crossed onto a wooden walkway. In places boards were broken or loose and I was grateful for that night's breech role, because in trousers and boots I could pick my way over the bad spots easily. The walkway turned into a narrow bridge, and and down beneath I noticed a deep gouged pit of three or four meters, full of broken pieces of stone. Suddenly I quailed, imagining being dashed to pieces on the stone below.

You turned to me with a look of anguish. I looked over the edge, resolutely, and then looked at your mask. Hateful thing of lies, I thought, and I threw it down into the rubble below. It bounced several times, then landed among the broken stones. I turned my face up to yours and flipped back my long hair, and with your hand in mine, we walked across the bridge.

When we reached the other side, you pulled a knife from your pocket, and a flicker of fear went through me. Were you going to cut me for throwing your mask away? Instead you cut the ropes of the walkway, and the bridge collapsed into the pit below.

You started to walk away quickly, and I followed as fast as I could. You linked your arm in mind and through a maze of tiny passages we slunk. Over and under, farther and farther down the passage went, until at last we came to a rough wall made of the natural stone under the earth. You climbed the wall, hooking your feet into the rough edges. When you had ascended about two meters you reached your hand down to me, and up I went as well.

We crept on a narrow ledge above until we came to a small cleft in the stone, and through it you squeezed into the darkness. Then your hand came through the opening, and I took it, feeling my way in entire blackness with only your hand pulling me through.

Cold air played over my face, and I heard you strike a match. The chamber filled with soft yellow light, and we found ourselves in a natural cave, fit with a cot, a cupboard, a few shelves, and candles. You lit one candle, and then another, until I could see you clearly, and then you sat on the cot and buried your head in your arms.

Slowly I came over to you, and sat down. I knew you could not send me away - how could I get back over the stone pit? Where would I go from here? In the eyes of the law you were a murderer, and by being with you, that made me a murderer too, or at least the helper of one. However, you did not send me away. I thought that over and over to myself, you did not send me away.

I put my arm around your shoulder, and you started to shake, slowly at first, and then more, until you sobbed. The sounds were terrible to hear. I thought that you would sit there locked inside yourself lamenting forever, but under the gentle pressure of my arms you unlocked yours, and lay your head upon my breast, still sobbing.

Your wet shirt and face soon soaked mine, and then my tears joined yours as you held me like a rocking, grieving child. I stroked the coarse unevenness of your hair, and you put your hands on my own hair and wiped your tears with it. Gradually your keening stopped, but you still pressed your face into my bosom.

If this cave collapsed on me in this instant, I could not be happier. It seemed dreadful in a way, to reap so much happiness from your bitter sorrow, but there it was. I held onto your head and soon you relaxed into me, leaning your weight against my whole body, as I rocked you on the narrow cot many meters under the earth.

Then you lifted your head, and looked me full in the face. I had only seen your disfigurement from a distance, back on the stage in the moment before you and Christine disappeared into the trap door of fire. I put my hand on your blighted side and you winced, but I softly stroked your face and made shusshing noises. Then you let me touch it, and my fingers went over it again and again, the red and ravaged hairless skin; the ragged and uneven hair; the ear bent and malformed; the twisted flesh around your eye.

You looked at me with sadness almost too deep to bear, and there was nothing to do but fold you all in my arms, and place my face next to the side of yours, the side that caused you such pain.

You trembled less than before, because no one can cry forever. You lay down on the cot, and I could feel the exhaustion in the muscles of your back and arms. I drew you to me, and once again, your face rested on my breast, your arms enclosed my back and shoulders. Slowly I rubbed your shoulders the way my mother used to ease the cramping and burning from my legs, when they pained from too much exertion.

One of the candles burned down, and you slept.

But not I. I watched the candlelight play over the cave walls and thought, I can never sleep again. If I do, I will lose some of this moment, because there is no guarantee that any more moments will be there to follow it. There is just this one, and it is almost beyond my belief, beyond my ability to believe. Yet here you are, asleep in my arms, your chest rising and falling against my stomach, your head nestled between my breasts and your arms close around me, your head resting on my arm. Each moment you slept bestowed upon me another minute with you, and another, and I clung to you until at last I too fell into darkness.

When I awoke, the second candle had burned out entirely, and it was like blindness, because there was nothing at all in front of my eyes but utter and entire black. Nevertheless, in my arms you rested warm and strong, and I could feel from your small movements that you were awake. We shifted a little, and then your hand came up to the side of my face, and drew me toward you blindly. I felt your mouth on my eye, then my nose and cheek, and then down to where it brushed over mine in the dark.

"Thank you," you said in a soft hoarse whisper.

In answer, I kissed you full on the mouth. I was a virgin, not only down below but up above as well, and at seventeen had never been kissed by man or boy. If he pulls away, I thought, don't let me die. Please don't let me die of sorrow right here, because he may not want me; he still loves Christine, and a thousand similar demons stabbed my heart. If he pulls away, I still have had the gift of his sleep in my arms.

But then your mouth moved over mine in a hesitant round of gentle exploration, and so we went, back and forth, forming a circle dance of kissing, now straight ahead, now circling around, now straight ahead again, but always coming back to that sweet center.

When I watched you sing on stage in the bridge scene of Don Juan Triumphant, I thought I could be no fuller of heat than that, but I had much to learn in that unrelenting darkness as your rough thick hands went over my body. Then you stopped kissing me, and lay quietly for a few moments in the darkness that veiled your expression. I could feel your thoughts, as if they seeped through your skin into mine.

He's deciding, I knew at once. He is not going to take me simply for pleasure. If he does take me, it will be for good, and there will be no turning back. Once he sets his mind to something, he does it, for good or ill.

Finally, you spoke, and your words came out low and a little harsh in the darkness. "Is this what you want, Meg? I don't what will become of us. Are you sure?"

I put my hand on your chest, and could not tell the difference between the pounding of my own heart, and the massive movements of that great one within the edifice of your muscle and flesh and bone.

Then I breathed my swan song, one word, "Yes," and everything that I had known, everything I had been up until that point died on a narrow cot in the bowels of Paris, under the pressing weight of the earth, of the darkness, and of the fierce wild strength of the body of the man, my man.

(To be continued.)