OTHERWISE|
Elke

---

Chapter Three

"One only ever understands what one tames. People no
longer have the time to understand anything. They buy
everything ready-made from the shops. But there is no shop
where friends can be bought, so people no longer have
friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"
"What do I have to do?" said the little prince.
"You have to be very patient," replied the fox. "First, you
will sit down a short distance away from me, like that, in
the grass. I shall watch you out of the corner of my eye and
you will say nothing; words are the source of misunderstandings.
But each day you may sit a little closer to me."

*

Dragging his feet, he roamed the infinite corridors. Silence had condensed to a perceptible rampart surrounding him, hanging over him with leaden weight...imprisoning him... Darkness did no longer ally with him; he seemed to be invisible...absorbed by impenetrable blackness...

He felt that he lived - and yet he existed only for himself. He could have been dead as well. He raised his head. Death... To die was a possible alternative... But also in death one was alone.

Alone ... alone...

The word echoed in his mind, and again he fled from his solitude; fled from darkness and silence. He fled from himself - into a heartbeat that constantly pulsed through him.

Again he was comforted by the soft warmth coming from her - and again pain and longing made him feel his aloneness more intensely than before. There was no way out of this vicious circle...

His longing for her had driven him Above - up to the city at night. He had stood on her balcony, had looked into rooms that were warm and bright...and had disappeared without drawing her attention to him.

That was not his world. And his world would never be hers. Their paths had crossed briefly - and parted again. Either of them had to live their own life - there was nothing they had in common.

Sometimes a man was with her. One of those who ruled the world Above. Every time Vincent saw him at her side he was engulfed by a surge of helpless, painful rage, and only a single thought was left in his mind: to kill him, to tear him to pieces - him who was what the beast could never be. About hundred times he had visualized himself breaking through the French doors, slashing her lover's human face and flinging him over the balustrade.

But that had only been fantasies...

He could again force her to go with him, but that was all. Never would she feel more for him than contempt and abhorrence. She would hate him - hate him just as he hated that man for holding her, kissing her...touching her...

One night he had happened to find them making love and had watched how their entwined bodies rolled over the bed. He had heard their groans of delight and had sensed her pleasure for a long time after he had made his escape from the balcony.

Indelibly engraved in his mind this recollection kept him awake on long cold nights, and his hatred was stirred by it. Never - never! - would his touch set her body on fire; never would she writhe in ecstasy beneath him, never become lost in him. Never would she call his name...

The voices of some children, their laughter and the sound of running feet broke through his jealous thoughts. For some time now Jacob Wells' community had moved more freely in the tunnel system. Although they never forgot their caution of him, they expanded their area little by little.

When their children came to the mirror pool and had their fun, playing in the cold water, they were always guarded by some adults, but the nearby corridors rang with their laughing and boisterous screams.

Had he laughed like that when he was young? No, surely he had not. For him, there had never been any reason for laughing, just as he had never known how it was to play among kindly smiling people.

Yet he had played...at least had tried to play. Once he had owned a small toy, a red wooden truck without wheels. He had found it somewhere when he'd been allowed to go Above with Tamara. Sometimes, when he had thought himself safe from discovery, he had shoved it on the ground - and though he hadn't really known what to do with it, he had guarded this simple toy like a treasure, for it had been his only one.

Until Erlik had happened to watch him playing. The next day he had looked for his truck in vain.

Anew the flame of hatred flared up in his breast. However ridiculous these feelings seemed to him now - the pain over this loss was almost as strong as it had been then.

He would track down Erlik and make him pay for all the pain he had ever endured because of him.

Again there was silence; the children had disappeared somewhere in the upper corridors. Sighing, he turned to go back to his cavern. Sometimes, when he buried his face deeply in the soft gown Catherine had worn, he could fool himself that she was close. The vision never lasted long, but...

He reacted within a split second - yet it was too late. The same moment he whirled around with a furious hiss as he felt a sharp pain his left shoulder. Powerful arms clutched his waist and squeezed his ribs like a vice. Desperately panting for breath, he tried to wriggle free - simultaneously, recognition flashed through his mind like ice.

Only one was his equal in strength. Only one was able to harass him this way. A creature that was devoted to its master beyond death...

*

"I can't understand you any more!"

Plunging his fists deeply into the pockets of his designer-jacket, the dark-haired man stared through the French doors. The sky over Manhattan was colored red and golden by the setting sun, yet Tom Gunther was too angry to see it.

As he got no answer, he turned to the young woman who was lying on the couch, and continued heaping reproaches on her.

"I know, you've gone through a lot! The accident, the operation... The last months were a hard time for you. I understood you and was really patient with you, wasn't I? But now all that is a thing of the past! Come on, Cathy! Why don't you see reason?"

"Did you ever understand me?"

His anger grew when she remained calm. Frowning, he opened his mouth, but she cut him short.

"If you had ever tried to understand, you'd know that I've never been as reasonable as I am now! I'm fed up with parties and eccentric people. I'm fed up with all this, once and for all. And with you, too! To you, I'm only a...a status symbol, like your limousine!"

She rose, lowering her voice when she added, "I shouldn't have been surprised if you had dropped me if my face couldn't serve your purposes!"

"I surely would have done so if they hadn't fixed it!" he hurled at her. It had been mainly to hurt her, but after an instant's thought he realized that his words were not so far fetched. She had been disfigured... He didn't know for sure whether he would have kept up the relationship with her if this had not changed for the better.

"I want you to go! Now!" Her voice turned into ice, her features seemed frozen as she opened the door. "Goodbye, Tom!"

When he had left the room, she breathed a sigh of relief. This was the end of a relationship that had lasted for more than one year and yet she only felt as if a weight had been lifted from her. The slight pain she felt was not for the man who had just disappeared from her apartment and from her life, but for the time wasted. She must have been blind not to see how superficial their feelings had been.

It hadn't always been that way; not in the first months. But now she was no longer the same person she had been then. Not only Tom but also other friends of hers had noticed this without understanding what was happening to her. And she had to admit that sometimes she was hardly able to understand herself...

No doubt, the accident and all that had happened afterwards, had been a decisive point in her life. What she had endured had left its marks on her soul. Scars that were invisible and couldn't be removed by any plastic surgeon...

For weeks she'd been haunted by nightmares in which her face had been disfigured and she'd been laughed at by people she'd thought her friends; and sometimes she'd been lying in the van again - not able to defend herself when the blade slashed her skin...

After starting her self-defense training with Isaac Stubbs, as she had learned to trust her strength, those dreams had gradually found an end. Then others had followed - dreams that showed her a unique face and a pair of eyes that reminded her of the color and the crystal depths of mountain lakes...

These dreams had never stopped - not even when she had regained control over her life. It had been then that this special change in her had begun...

First the parties and the frivolous lifestyle of her so-called friends had got on her nerves, and in time it had become increasingly difficult to get along with Tom...to bear his kisses and his touch, though it had never been unpleasant to lie in his arms. Although he wasn't highly imaginative, he'd been a gentle lover who had always paid attention to her wishes. The empty aftertaste that had become a little stronger every time they had made love to each other had made her understand that Tom didn't mean enough to her to spend a lifetime with him - not even enough to justify a continuation of their relationship.

Yet it was not only Tom... During the last months she had realized a lot of things didn't mean as much to her as she had thought.

Smiling, she remembered her father's puzzled face when she had turned down the trip to Europe which he had suggested to take her mind off things. Certainly he'd thought her not to be in her right mind. And what she was planning now would be even more astonishing to him...

Her job in his office had never given her real satisfaction, and consequently she had tended to abuse her position and neglect her obligations. But why she had just applied to the District Attorney's office, where she would no longer be the `boss's daughter' but only a cog in the works, she could not even explain to herself.

Maybe it was just this kind of challenge she needed - maybe she had to prove something to herself...

*

Lifting his dazed head, he found himself lying on the ground, unsure what had happened to him. Only when he rose to his elbows and caught sight of Erlik's lifeless body that lay streaming with blood about two yards away, did he remember their enraged fight.

To rise to his feet took all his strength, and, groaning, he leaned against the wall, groping for his shoulder. The wound had stopped bleeding, but every time he moved something sharp seemed to sting and scrape his shoulder blade.

Slowly, he staggered along the corridor. Although he felt utterly miserable and every breath made him feel as if he were pierced by thousands of red-hot pins, he tried not to pay too much attention to his state. It would pass - physical pain never lasted long. His loss of blood must have been enormous, otherwise he wouldn't feel so weak and dizzy. He wondered how long he'd been unconscious, but he had lost any sense of time and was not able to assess whether it was day, morning or night.

Returning to his cavern he fell down several times but was too occupied with walking upright to care. Having reached the drinking water spring he halted. Gasping he extended his arm to catch water in his cupped hand - just then the corridor started to sway, back and forth, back and forth, faster and still faster until it felt like the walls were rotating around him.

Reflexively holding his arms in front of himself, he tried to cushion his fall - but when his head hit the rocky ground he could feel it no more...

*

It was a sultry night. Since the stuffy air in her apartment kept her awake Catherine Chandler opened the French doors, then went back to her bed. Changing her mind halfway, she turned around and stepped out on her balcony. Leaning against the balustrade, she let her eyes wander over the skyline. Darkness, lights and stars - monumental and unreal... As unreal as a creature that sometimes seemed to be only a dream she remembered. A dream which she didn't know whether she feared, or wished to dream it again...

How strange that she couldn't get him out of her mind...

Since the morning when he'd been in such a sudden hurry to get rid of her, she had sometimes thought of him - but it had always been brief and never as often and intense as in the last few days. Just at this moment it felt as if he were close...somewhere out there where stars and lights touched...

She tried to waste no further thought on him. She would never meet him again - not even if she wished to. He had briefly appeared in her life, like a figure in a fairy tale that she had loved in her childhood. Her mother had read it to her very often, wiping away the tears Catherine had shed each time when their reading reached the passage where the Beast was dying. And though she'd known that only one paragraph later it would turn into a beautiful prince, she had pleaded from the bottom of her heart, 'Don't die! Please, oh please, don't die!'

And sometimes the Beast had come into her dreams. Then she had been the one who broke the spell...the one the prince with the golden circlet took home to his kingdom...

But that had only been a young girl's fantasies - now she was grown-up and had to live a real life. Vincent was a freak of nature, and she'd do better not to get involved with him. He could bring her only trouble...

She went back to bed and finally fell asleep though it was still hot. When the dream began, she was vaguely aware that it was one of those rare ones in which she knew that she was dreaming; one of those out of which she could escape with a simple 'I'm only dreaming' when the visions became too terrifying. Nevertheless she wasn't able to get free for a long time, and when she eventually woke she was bathed in sweat and couldn't remember what the dream had been about.

And there was something strange - something that worried her deeply.

As long as she kept her eyes open everything seemed absolutely normal. But whenever she closed them, trying to go back to sleep, his face appeared before her. Looking at her softly, he gave her this irresistible half-smile she'd seen only once while she'd been with him. Then, totally unexpectedly, his eyes turned into that of a deadly wounded animal; were fixed on her pleadingly and full of pain for some seconds - until the vision of him faded and disappeared.

And why was a golden circlet gleaming in his hair...?

She opened and closed her eyes several times. Each time it was the same.

After a while she could stand it no longer. Usually she didn't believe in meaningful dreams or omens like her friend Jenny did, but this was neither a dream nor an omen. It was a vision which recurred so persistently that she was gradually getting frightened.

Early morning light was falling through the windows, and Catherine decided to get up. Now she wasn't able to sleep anyway, and if necessary she could have an afternoon nap so that she would be rested when her father picked her up for the concert evening.

Aimlessly she walked about her apartment without knowing what she wanted. She took a shower, and when she had dressed she tried to enjoy an early but substantial breakfast. But although the vision was not permanently before her eyes any longer, she couldn't find peace.

One hour later, when she opened the small door and climbed down the iron ladder to the basement of the apartment building, she told herself she was behaving like an idiot. It was a crazy idea to go into the underground tunnels which she wasn't familiar with. At best she would only get lost - about the worst she didn't even dare to think.

*

About six in the morning Jacob Wells was rudely awokened. Matthew, one of the guards, was shaking his shoulder excitedly.

"Father! There is an intruder!"

Drowsily the old man sat up in his bed. He needed some seconds to clear his mind, then he asked, "Where exactly?"

"It's a woman!" Matthew answered. "Stephen is watching her. She's already left the upper sections. We noticed her near Mary's chamber."

Jacob Wells knitted his brow. "Somebody we know?"

"No! I think she found the way by pure chance. She went round in circles several times, and we hoped she would go back when she became aware of it. But she didn't..."

He cast an asking glance at the older man. "What shall we do?"

Jacob Wells, who was called `Father' by all members of the community, didn't answer immediately. The tunnel system consisted of several interlocking sections, which were comparable to the floors of large building complexes. Looked at in this way, Mary's chamber was located about one and a half floors above his own, followed by the sector with William's kitchen, the larder and the large room in which they took their joint meals. When she reached this area the stranger would see that these tunnels were inhabited, provided that she hadn't already realized it...

"We'll go and meet her!" He rose, put on his robe and took his cane. "We'd best speak to her and find out what she wants!"

While he was limping beside the younger man, deep lines appeared on his forehead; an unmistakable sign that he was deeply worried.

Why now, he thought, why just now...

About nine months ago their area had been filled with the intense smell of burning coming up from John's territory. First they had assumed it was another attempt to expel them from the tunnel-world. John Pater had tried this repeatedly for decades. But the three men who had gone to search for the cause of the smoke had returned with the message that there were several mutilated bodies down in Paracelsus' sector - one of them John Pater himself - and that all caverns were completely burnt out. They hadn't seen any living being there.

It had been easy to guess who was responsible for all that...

Vincent, who would have been the decisive factor in the struggle for absolute power over the world Below - if John Pater had ever used him. But for some obscure reason John had never done that, and after his death Jacob Wells hadn't thought about it any longer.

His small but close community had lived under the constant threat for such a long time, so they all had breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly, they only had to keep their eyes on the one who couldn't leave the tunnels.

Yet against all expectations Vincent had remained peaceful - apart from the food that was continually stolen from kitchen and larder since then. But that was the lesser evil, so they had resolved to ignore it as long as he didn't harass anybody.

And so far he hadn't, although sometimes since he had kidnapped the young woman and freed her three days later, he had prowled around the inhabited sector by night - a silent shadow that appeared and vanished again.

Meanwhile, everybody who lived in the underground world felt relatively safe - until now. Now, somebody from Above had to come and disturb the longed-for, still somewhat unfamiliar peace...

Well, it was a woman. Somehow it should be possible to come to an agreement with her. Maybe she, too, was seeking shelter in the tunnel system that wound mile after mile through the rocks below the city.

When voices sounded from a parallel running corridor, Matthew stopped so abruptly that Jacob Wells almost collided with him. Obviously Stephen and the woman had already met. They were talking and it didn't seem that they were unknown to each other.

The old man listened and smiled. Of course! Matthew could not know her. He had come Below just four months ago whereas Stephen had already seen her when she'd been here for one week.

Turning the next corner he found his assumption confirmed. He was glad that he had heard her voice first, for he wasn't sure if otherwise he would have recognized her so quickly. He had expected that her face would be marked with scars - but not a single one was to be seen.

He scarcely had time to admire the advances in medicine. Stephen, a boy of almost seventeen years, ran excitedly toward him. "Father! You must talk her out of that! What she's going to do is sheer madness!"

"And what is she going to do?" Soothingly Father touched the boy's shoulder.

"She wants...she wants to go down there! To him!"

Like everyone else the boy, too, avoided using the name 'Vincent'. Every time their talk turned to him, they called him 'he' with a special emphasis. Yet, Jacob Wells knew the young people also used other names when they were by themselves. 'Monster' and 'Killer' surely were the milder ones...

Meanwhile Catherine had reached the men, and Jacob Wells immediately realized the determined expression in her eyes. She's changed..., he thought, remembering the scared thing that had been lying in the hospital chamber just six months ago.

"I know, it looks as if I've lost my mind," she said, stretching out her hand to him. "Maybe I have... I don't know why, but I have the feeling something is wrong with him. As if he were in great danger..."

"He? In danger?" Stephen laughed ironically. "He is danger - the only one down here! If Father agreed to it, I'd take Jamie's crossbow and free us from him. He is a vicious monster that doesn't deserve to..."

Astonished, Jacob Wells watched how Catherine silenced the boy just by looking at him. "It's not for you to condemn him!" she replied in a firm voice. Then she turned to the older man. "I don't expect you to help him, but I'll need somebody to show me the way so that I can if it's necessary!"

*

Somehow he had made it to his cavern, for when his mind cleared briefly, he realized that he was lying on his sleeping-place. His head felt as leaden as his limbs, and meanwhile his entire body had turned into a mass of pain. He didn't know what was worse: the growing feeling of nausea or the heat that threatened to burn him alive.

Water...he needed...needed...

Groaning he fell back on the mattress. His mind became confused again; the woman's heartbeat intensified, grew louder and louder and finally roared throughout his whole being.

Turning his head with great effort, he saw wide beams of a radiant, almost white light falling through the doorway. Then, very slowly, she took shape before his eyes. Dressed in a long, white tunic she smiled at him, and on her upper arms he saw the gleam of golden bangles that showed the lion's head.

"Catherine..." Her name was only a hoarse whisper in his throat, but somehow he managed to rise to his feet. Her warm smile made him forget nausea, heat and pain. Unable to take his eyes off her, he stumbled toward her, into her extended arms - and tumbled into empty space...