PART I: For a time, the Late Inspector Slept.
And when he woke, he found himself dead.
This was as it should be.
"L'inspector Javert... Il est morte. Par dieu!" A raspy, child-mannish, vaugely feminine voice invaded on the Late Inspector's grim perusal of the Death affair. "Wot? C'est... there's bobbies in heaven? Wot rotten luck!" Another voice, younger and full of spunk. Javert thought both familiar... but he could not see much further than his hands. He was miserably damp, but that did not disturb him overmuch, as a matter of fact, one familiar with him might have called his demenor 'relaxed', 'peaceful', even. And then, confidentially expressed sheer terror at the semblance. Even in the calm of death, the Parisian dog-tiger was formidable.
Javert experienced a prickly feeling of someone near... then a palpably hot glare of anger seared suddenly across Javert's back, causing him to quickly turn. He found no one there. The late inspector discovered himself a shade away from being profoundly disturbed. But... there had been quite a few deaths this day and the last.
In spite of the hazy void, Javert was quite certain that he was not alone. Nor did he particularly agree with the voice of the young lad- the gamin from the barricade, he'd wager, had he been a betting man- about this being heaven.
For you must understand, that while Javert was a paragon of Righteous Virtue and absolute Law, he had quite recently become familiar with the existence of situations absent of any sustaining order, or crammed perhaps with rules of an altogether unfamiliar sort. This struck him as being one of those sorts of places.
Furthermore, Javert was rather aware that the manner of his death, if not the reason behind it, was hardly acceptable to the One whom he supposed was in charge of this dim region; to whom he had submitted his terrestrial resignation. He was aware of Dante in the way that you or I are aware of Andrew Lloyd Webber or Philip Quast- to be suddenly transformed into a gnarled tree and set beside a river of tears, to wail for all eternity in a wood of fellow suicides- this would not have surprised him in the least. Javert did not speculate overmuch upon what he waited for, he simply waited. He was changed from what he had been- not appreciably. His one chaotic act had resulted directly in his demise; all in all, the result (or consequence) of this chaos was acceptable to his spirit. Ultimately; Javert was incapable of change.
And ultimately, the world was incapable of him.
Something brushed darkly past the late inspector's face- a bat or an owl, he did not know which. The haziness lightened some, suddenly, and Javert could see that a few feet away, a man lay, unmoving. Javert himself had not moved since his arrival... when? it seemed to him that he had been standing for quite some time. His bludgeon was clutched customarily under his arm. his memo pad was in his pocket. Everything seemed to be in order. Was this what he was waiting for? He was compelled to take a step or two towards the newcomer, who, he considered, might have been lying there in the shadow a good deal longer than Javert had been standing. This was not the case however. The features of the prostrate man became discernible as the late inspector approached; the latter felt his newly-regained composure drop into his stomach and threaten flight. He trembled; he sighed with resignation. For he knew the man there prone upon the terre.
As the reader has probably guessed, the man was Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean awoke to find himself dead, and once again beneath the shocked scrutiny of M. Javert. It is worthy to note that Jean Valjean seems to have been present at most or all of the few occasions where Javert has found himself shocked. So death imitates life, does it?
Perhaps, after a fashion. Fortuitously, at that moment, Death
arrived on the scene to settle the matter.
PART II: Voila Mademoiselle La Morte
"Hi there. Sorry to keep you." The young lady in black appeared as suddenly as a shadow when a light is clicked on in a room. Both Javert and Valjean felt, in her presence, the sensation of being in the company of an old,long-missed friend. The manner of her dress was almost identical to Javert's own uniform, with the exception of an umbrella tucked beneath her arm in place of a cudgel. A silver ankh hung from the velvet bow at her neck; the waistcoat and trousers did not conceal the girl's femininity, and furthermore were very becoming on her. Beneath her gaze, Javert's shock subsided into sighing resignation- perhaps the presence of the convict that had tormented his final hours was more than appropriate- fitting, quite. Valjean sat up, staring at her. His presence seemed to take the girl by surprise.
"Oh, there are two of you?" She blinked and wrinkled her nose. "You're dreaming aren't you?"
"Cosette?" asked Valjean dubiously hopeful. The girl smiled beatifically, which put both men in mind of Michaelangelo's Pieta sculpture- had the Virgin black spiky hair, surely she would have looked thus!
"No, not Cossette. You know me, Monsieur Le Maire."
"Is he..." Valjean's question had brought Javert's attention back to him, "are you also, dead?" He addressed Valjean in the formal, without knowing it.
"Of course." Said the mamselle dans-noire. Valjean gave no sign that he had even heard Javert- but seemed to shrink with weary relief.
"Then finally..."
"Of course." repeated mamselle. "Umm... If you'll excuse me for just a minute..." She broke off, smiling all the wider at Javert. "I really like your hat." She said, reaching up gently to touch the brim of the late inspector's topper. She then retreated a pace or two away, to consult, it seemed, with the talisman around her neck. So Javert and Jean Valjean had a moment to themselves.
"So..." This time it was Valjean who broke the silence, staring up at the shade of his former shadow.
"So..." Replied Javert, at as much of a loss.
There was far too much to say, and there was nothing to say at all. From a far-off distance, someone was singing in a merry and lilting voice, "I fell on the terre; tis the fault of Voltaire...Little People are tough, and they're tougher to scare..."
Someone else was singing farther off in a voice bursting with seraphic, righteous fury- it was the owner of the hateful glare that had accosted Javert earlier. It struck him who the owner of that wrathful voice was- that Student with the face of an angel- the revolutionary Enjolras, who had taken him prisoner and given him water. Jean Valjean regarded Javert's contemplation with an interest suspiciously like concern.
"He reminded me a bit of you, under different..."
"...Circumstances." Javert finished Valjean's thought, which had not been too far from his own. He had been considering that he might have had a son like that Spartan prince; that bold Lucifer blazing in the dawn or sunset of Jovian France. Had it not required women to make sons, that is.
"For some, no respite, even here." He thought out loud. Another voice, sweet and sad, floated to them across the other voices, singing,
"I dreamed a dream in time gone by...." Valjean struggled to stand at the sound. This time, knowing full well what he was doing, Javert offered Valjean a hand, which the latter took to pull himself to his feet. the black-clad mamselle, (whom Javert, too, had recognized as Death- and we shall call Mlle LaMorte) having finished her conversation with the talisman, rejoined them.
"It seems," she said pleasantly, with an air of mischief, "that the two of you've got a choice."
"Choice?" Echoed Valjean.
"Yup." She wrinkled her nose and leaned on her umbrella, "The two of you were dreaming when you died. So it's my brother, or me. He'll be here soon."
"Your Brother?" Wondered Javert aloud. "What is your brother, Madmoiselle?"
"The King of Dreams, Monsieur L'inspector." replied Mlle. LaMorte cutely. Valjean was put in mind once again of his Cossette as a little girl, and trembled a little. Javert was reminded more of the voice had heard earlier; he placed it now as belonging to the little wretched girl- her father had been the repulsive Thenardier man. She too, then... yes, he had seen her corpse at the barricades... the little beast. He looked guiltily at the mamselle LaMorte, afraid that she could detect his thought. Her serene face seemed simply all the more tranquil and kind. If anything, she made him think of the Thenardier brat as, perhaps, lovely... Any continuance of that vein was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a rather tall man, clad in white, bearing on his shoulder a white raven. Stars danced in his headfrom eye-pits as black as one had thought that the living inspector's soul might be. Death embraced the newcomer warmly, and, one arm around his neck, indicated the two little ghosts with the other.
"Monsieur Javert, Monsieur Valjean, meet my brother. Dream, voici les bonhommes mortes, Monsieurs Valjean et Javert." the alabaster apparition bowed deeply, and, in a voice that seemed carved of the very fog itself, said to them,
"I am... pleased to make your acquaintance.
I was wondering if you might not wish to come and work for me."
PART III: The Meek shall inherit, and those who follow the path of the righteous shall have their reward.
The Raven cawed unkindly. Javert snapped his attention away from the dazzling sparks in the eye-sockets of the man in white, with the shock of hair as white as Valjean's.
"In what capacity?" He managed to inquire. The man seemed to smile without moving a facial muscle.
"I have need, it would seem, of an institution of law within my realm. There has been... confusion of late as far as certain Rules that has nearly resulted in the destruction of the Dreaming. You would be charged with preventing this." The man seemed to include Valjean as well, but the latter was not sure.
"Monsieur LeRévé," for he gathered that the man he addressed was, indeed, The Dream, "What of me?" The man Regarded Valjean with no little surprise.
"It is you that I mean, Monsieur Le Maire." He looked at Javert, "You, Monsieur L'inspector, will be subordinate to Monsieur Valjean." Javert looked from the man in white, to Valjean, to the sweet mam'selle, who stood a little to the side. He inclined his head, having nothing to say. Even this did not ruffle his eerily imperturbable calm.
"What if I decline?" inquired Valjean. Mlle. La Morte shifted.
"You can come with me."
"What will happen to me then?" She smiled reproachfully,
"You've gotta go to know."
"If you wish to go with Mlle. LaMorte, I will understand." Said the man dans le blanc-matineaux. Hitherto we will refer to him as M. LeRévé, following M. Valjean's example.
"If you want to come with me, then take my hands." She held her glove-buttoned paws out to the two men. Valjean took a step towards her.
"Wait!" Javert could not help the sudden alarm that welled up in him."You decline M. LeRévé's offer?" Valjean looked at Javert with a gaze full of weariness and surfeit.
"I am tired, Javert." The late inspector looked up at M. LeRévé.
"If he goes with the mademoiselle, then what of me?"
LeRévé looked thoughtful.
"Because you were dreaming when you died, You are entitled to a place in my realm should you so choose. But I am afraid that given your nature; you are too severe to rule the House of Law alone. Severity must be ruled and balanced by Mercy... there are two brothers, from one of the oldest stories of your kind. One was the very first victim, to him was given a house containing Secrets, and he was charged with their protection. The other was the first murderer, and to him was given the House of Mysteries. But his unbidled hate festered so within the House that it burned itself down. He is no longer in the Dreaming- the elder brother. This is the result of the decay of the Rules of my lands. But Cain will return- for there must be balance. If M. Valjean goes with my sister and you choose to come with me, you will become a Nightmare." Javert nodded, satisfied. This too, seemed fitting. Valjean stared at him, turned away from mamselle LaMorte.
"I thought you quite mad, that you- Inspector Javert- released me when you had me caught."
"You had me caught first, Valjean." Valjean nodded.
"And then you committed suicide. A mental aberration, said the papers."
"That could be said." mused Javert.
"And... that madness has carried into death?" Javert started, regarding Valjean curiously.
"How do you mean?"
"You have committed suicide, and you have no wish for oblivion?"
"I never said anything about oblivion." Mlle. LaMorte reminded them. Javert shrugged, an altogether unnatural action.
"I will take what I am given. We have been offered a position of responsibility in the court of a king. I have failed at enforcing the laws of men, and yet here I am granted the opportunity to enforce those of..." he did not say a god, but looked at M. LeRévé, who shook his head.
"I am not a god. I am Dream of the Endless. I am the King of Dreams." Javert bowed deferentially.
"But it seems," he added, "that I am once more in your power, although this time my hands are not bound and you hold no knife. I will go with Le Roi de la Révé. I am content to be a nightmare, if you are set upon going with La Riene de Morte. I am content to be your subordinate in the court of the Dream-king. I have learned something, since Montreuil-sur-Mer." And then Javert did another unnatural thing. He smiled. Valjean looked at Le Roi de La Révé.
"Monsieur le Roi- what would be my duties in your court?"
"You would be charged with keeping the Books
of the Rules, in maintaining a relative tranquillity within the ordered
chaos that is the dreaming, and maintaining the safety of the Dreamers
and the other dreams. You may be called upon to settle disputes that I
have not the time for. The sort of things you did as Mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer.
Except in my realm you would be Monsieur Le Prefect."
"Are we not now in your realm?" he asked, glancing about. He could
still hear Fantine gently singing, and yearned with all his soul to go
to the sound.
"Not exactly. We are in a Soft Place, at the borders of the Dreaming. We are also near the Sunless Lands, which is the realm of my sister."
"And we must step it up," interjected his sister, tapping her foot impatiently, "You are not the only deaths I must attend today."
"How many do you see to personally, Mademoiselle?" Inquired Javert. Mlle. La Morte grinned at him.
"Why, all of them!" Valjean had another question for M. LeRévé.
"Should I become a Dream in your realm... would my daughter... would Cosette dream of me? Would I be able to visit her in her dreams?" M. LeRévé stared at Jean Valjean, one twinkling eye seemed to grow to a brilliant star of Bethlehem in it's socket.
"Perhaps." Valjean dropped his head, his white locks flowing in his eyes.
"I am a fool."
"You are merciful and just. This is why I sought you for this position. But I must add that it requires the both of you. Should L'inspector Javert have declined, and just Monsieur Valjean accepted, he would have found a place among my palace staff- Palace Matinance, Mervyn, is always in need of assistance. There is a Library, where I am sure you will find works that you yourselves have written. You will each have apartments within the House of Law, and a Garden. If you will consider..?"
"Quickly, if you will." remarked Mlle. LaMorte.
"What will you do for your House of Law if one of us declines?" Asked Javert.
"I will ask Pontius Pilate." He seemed to be joking, but it was unclear all the same.
The raven on his shoulder looked confused; Mlle. LaMorte reached out to stroke her.
"I think..." Valjean cocked his head to listen to the little gamin voice,
"So never kick a dog, because he's just a pup! We'll fight like..."
and another, glorious, more manly,
"Do you hear the People sing? Singing the Songs of...."
higher, more raspy,
"I don't feel any pain, a little fall of rain, can hardly..."
And Fantine...
"And tell Cosette I love her, and I'll see her when I wake...!"
"I think, Monsieur le Roi de la Révé, that I, too, will come with you." He turned to Javert, who could not suppress a feeling of relief. "Perhaps you are mad, perhaps not. But I do not think you deserve to become a nightmare."
"Bravo!" Exclaimed Mlle. LaMorte, clapping her hands. "Well then, it's been lovely, but I've got things to attend to. Good luck, Jean Valjean; Snookums Javert. Bye, Dream." She kissed her Brother on the cheek. "Bye Tethys."
"FAREWELL" cackled the Raven. Mlle LaMorte waved to them all finally as she disappeared into the mist.
"Be seeing you..."
FINÉ... for now!