Chapter IV.LVI (4.56) - Performance

  The sea’s water’s roiled. A flash of lightning followed by an angry clap of thunder overhead. Sailors yelled at one another but their words lost their way in the chaos of the storm.

  Kizu concentrated on his part of the illusion. While Faible juggled the ship and auditory illusions of noise, Kizu was responsible for the sea and rain. Real students scuttled about on the illusory ship’s deck, performing predetermined acts. One fell overboard and Kizu manipulated his illusion to account for the student splashing and clawing his way up, only to be overtaken and disappear under the waves.

  This was the opening scene of the first act. Technically Kizu’s character was meant to be on deck with the others, but that wasn’t possible with Kizu being one of the main illusionists in the Drama Club. Faible needed him backstage functioning as auxiliary for this scene.

  Beside him, Ione finished up a summon and sent it out onstage. It was a massive python, dyed an unnatural blue. It slithered beneath the waves of Kizu’s illusion and then leaped out, cresting over the water before resubmerging. Then it struck one of the first year students playing a sailor and the girl cried out as she struggled with the fake sea monster.

  Akira stepped forward and swung his dull katana down, beheading the beast. Faible had opted for Akira to wear a mask in this scene so as to not have his smiling face ruin the mood.

  Two more serpents rose from the water, only to be struck down again and again by Akira’s character.

  Then there was a crack of lightning and the ship’s mast burst into flames. The actors screamed and Kizu worked on dampening that sound with an illusion, letting it fade alongside his and Faible’s illusionary noise. The red curtain slowly closed on the scene and Kizu let his illusion collapse into nothing. Once hidden from the audience’s sight, the students all scrambled, dragging out dummies to scatter across the stage to act as dead bodies. Only Akira remained on stage, taking his place among the dummies, his mask now broken to his side.

  With the scene complete, they heard polite applause from the audience on the other side of the curtain.

  “Whew.” Faible wiped sweat from his brow. “First challenge complete! Well done Kizu and Ione. That was exactly what we needed. Now Kizu get up there and prepare your part!”

  Kizu nodded his farewell to Ione and Faible and passed Stina and Basil who were practicing their lines, preparing for their roles later in the play. As he walked, he noticed something off about the nearby floorboards. It was blackened with rot. Weird, but no time to investigate at the moment.

  Kizu passed through a doorway enchanted to help keep all noise from backstage nullified, and onto the stage.

  The magical lights remained dimmed. Kizu took his place on stage, kneeling among the scattered dummies, holding one of them. Swords lay strewn about, stabbed into the ground. The remaining members of the ronin’s clan now lay dead or dying. Only Kizu’s character would be walking out of this ambush alive.

  The red curtain opened. For a dozen silent seconds, his nocturnal eyes let him see a crowd of people sitting in the auditorium in front of him. A quick scan didn’t reveal his parents, however he did spot Anata, Mort, and Mae sitting in the middle of the crowd. He knew exactly where to look, aware of where Mort perched on Anata’s shoulder. Mae’s fox ears twitched in excitement and Anata looked like she might fall out of her seat.

  Taroe though was quickly walking away from his charges, towards the exit alongside Kizu’s spatial mentor, Wakino. In the brief moment Kizu took them in, they seemed to be bickering, their body languages taut and stiff.

  Kizu’s eyes flickered to the front row where most of the cast’s family and friends sat. Among them he spotted a vaguely familiar Tainted girl who intently stared directly into his eyes, utterly unaware of the darkness blinding her.

  Then a beam of light, centered on him, blinded him to those beyond the stage. His performance began.

  “Oh woe to those souls lost,” he said, beginning his first soliloquy. “Far from the soil they were raised. I have no means in which to return you. This foreign dirt must suffice for your resting place. Please forgive me. If only I had served better. Oh that just one soul remained to confide their counsel in guiding me from this place.”

  Kizu lifted the dummy’s body in his arms and set it down on the other side of the stage. Then he nearly fell over in mock shock at the sight of one of the bodies.

  “Hark!” Kizu proclaimed. “My brother. You remain with me among the living?”

  “For a minute,” Akira replied, smiling up at him. The makeup artists had done a number on him. His clothes looked torn through and blood actively seeped out of his wounds. “I take heart in your survival. One remains to tell those at our home of our great misfortune.”

  “I fear it is a bleak tale,” Kizu replied grimly. “But I will bear it.”

  “Good. And I have one more secret to burden you with. A message too dangerous to die with me. Please, come closer so that I might whisper it as my final words.”

  Kizu did as Akira instructed. This was meant to be intelligible whispers, so that if someone in the crowd enhanced their hearing, they wouldn’t be able to pick out the message and ruin the play’s plot. Instead though, Akira spoke to him.

  “That girl in the front reeks of death. A friend of yours?”

  Kizu blinked. For a moment his heart skipped a beat, thinking Akira meant Anata. But she wasn’t in the front row and Akira had met Anata previously.

  “Now, I leave this mortal plane,” Akira announced. “Carry my words to the highest mountain of Hon.”

  Akira went limp on the ground. Kizu counted down in his head from fifteen. At zero, he was meant to break the silence with sobs.

  While he counted, his brain quickly went over the words Akira had spoken. Someone reeked of death? What was that supposed to mean? Was the prince trying to knock him off balance with nonsense as a means in which to embarrass him in front of the crowd?

  When he reached four, something broke the silence prematurely. A chuckle. Then a chortle. Finally, a full guffaw. It came from the auditorium.

  Startled by the sudden noise, Kizu lost his count. But in a moment, he regained his senses. “Who dares laugh at my companion’s death?” he called out, keeping in character and trying to play off the noise as part of the performance. He opened his mouth to continue on an improvised rant about laughter and death and place the blame on invisible spirits, but someone actually answered his question.

  “I do.”

  Out of the darkness, stepped a Tainted girl. She was smiling, her eyes a filmy white under the stage lights as she faced him. Stupidly, Kizu’s mind flitted back to a memory of Faible instructing them to never place their backs to the audience. This girl defied that rule. Of course, she wasn’t actually a member of their club so that didn’t matter.

  “You…you’re familiar,” Kizu said, slipping from his character. He rapidly thought back to who this might be. A Tainted friend of Emilia’s from one of her parties? No. Somewhere else. Then it clicked and he blinked. “You messed up my leg. Raygen, right?”

  Raygen raised a hand to cover her smile. “A delightful little connection. Funny.”

  Kizu looked out at the audience. They all still thought this was part of the performance. But there was something really off about this girl. What had Emilia told him about her? She was the only survivor in her entire town after the Dragons ravaged it? Then he thought about the raving Tainted man he’d met in Port Kallis.

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  “You’re mad,” Kizu surmised.

  “Am I mad? I think naught. I simply process information in a way beyond your comprehension. And I happen to find the idea of a prince of Hon dead at your feet rather funny. Ironic, considering what you’ve done.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Kizu’s mouth went dry. Did Raygen somehow discover he’d chosen to protect Hon rather than stop the rise of Dragons in the west? Did she blame him for her family’s deaths? Or was this about Inari’s death?

  Kizu glanced to the side. Why wasn’t Faible interfering? He quickly went over his available options. Completely abandon character and jump this girl off stage. They could probably salvage the performance from there. He was meant to walk off stage anyway after another monologue.

  Another option was to play along. But this girl’s words held an edge to them. They felt slightly unhinged. Continuing to chat with her could prove dangerous.

  From his angle, the crowd remained obscured by the stage's lighting. So instead of relying on his own senses, he quickly tapped into Mort’s.

  His familiar could feel Kizu’s unease and understood something was wrong. The empty seat next to the girls meant that Taroe had yet to return. Mort yanked on Anata’s hair. The monkey now understood his role in this. Get the girls out of here. It took some coaxing before Anata and Mae ducked out of their seats and started toward the exit.

  By the time Mort had the girls moving, Kizu’s focus had returned to Raygen.

  “What do you want?” he asked flatly.

  Raygen shook with rage. Then pointed a quivering finger down at Akira, limp at Kizu’s feet. “More of that. I long to see it all. Every Hon royal dead. Covered in the mud, blood, and filth.”

  Kizu’s eyes narrowed. “You sound a lot like an insane man I once knew.” She reeked of death. That one hint clicked in place in Kizu’s mind. “You’re under Necro’s control.”

  Another cackle of laughter, even more mad than the one from earlier. “Almost, almost. But you’ve missed the mark.”

  Raygen reached up and Kizu tensed, settling into a fighting stance in preparation for a battle. But Raygen cast no spells, instead she gripped her face. Both hands’ fingers inside her mouth, she ripped down on her jaw with one hand while the other forced back her palate. The edges of her lips split open, past her jaw and nearly all the way around the back of her head. A new, dark set of eyes stared back from within her mouth.

  Raygen’s skin fell to the stage as Necro emerged from within. His body now made even paler in death, he was a stark white under the stage lights.

  More than one person screamed from the murmuring audience. But they all still seemed to believe this to be part of the act. Kizu wondered aghast, if they were truly just going to spectate. Should he yell out for help? Would that expose them to more danger? Did Necro have more zombies hidden amongst the crowd?

  “I’ve seen enough,” a harsh voice rang out. Out of the darkness stepped a furious Professor Krimpit. For the first time ever, Kizu felt a great sense of relief at the sight of the surly man. But…the professor barely spared a sneer for Necro, instead his ire was focused on Kizu. “The moment I saw you in the club, I knew you would attempt some sort of idiotic revision. What is this?”

  Kizu blinked. “Ah, Professor?”

  This time Necro’s laugh came out as a gurgle. He raised a glowing green hand at the professor’s back.

  “Professor!” Kizu shouted.

  Without even looking behind him, Professor Krimpit formed an antimagic barrier between himself and Necro. Kizu marveled for the mere second it popped into existence. The barrier had the ever so slight impression of being transparent stacks of books, piled high.

  The bolt of green death magic rammed into the barrier. The entire stage filled with a green smog. With only a fraction of a second to work with, Kizu crafted a bubble of barriers around himself and Krimpit to keep out the tainted air.

  “That is not an illusion,” Professor Krimpit said darkly. He sounded annoyed. “A true threat then and not some lark of your creation. I suppose this means that I have lost yet another argument for your expulsion from the academy.”

  “You’ve been arguing to have me expelled?” Despite everything, Kizu couldn’t help a sense of outrage at the statement.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Krimpit said. “You’re only one among three dozen students I have proposed. The one at your feet is another.”

  Akira, still with a smile on his lips, cracked an eye open.

  “The audience?” Kizu asked, staring out at the green smog. “Are they exposed to this?”

  “Of course not,” Krimpit said. “I’ve constructed an antimagic barrier between the stage and the auditorium. I am not an incompetent lout.” He stepped forward and blocked Kizu’s view. “You two, remain out of harm's way until after I deal with this interloper.”

  “Interloper?” Necro said from beyond Kizu’s barrier. His voice was a rasp as he scoffed. “Of course you toss that label on one such as I. Why would a necromancer belong among all of you? You pretentious mages think you’re better than us in every facet.”

  “The laws set have a long history of precedent to support their creation and enforcement,” Krimpit said coolly while carefully examining the direction of Necro’s words. “And you stand as yet another example of why they are necessary. After this attack, I doubt the Hon government will continue with their current course of action on the subject of necromancy.”

  A long stalagmite formed in the air in front of Krimpit, barely wider than a needle, but a hundred times the length. Before Kizu could drop or reform his barrier, Krimpit launched it forward. To Kizu’s shock, it punctured through his antimagic shield and they heard a squelch as it pierced through wet flesh on the other side.

  “You believe something like that could stop me?” Necro said, now behind them. “I’ve transcended mortality.”

  Kizu looked over his shoulder, but only saw more of the swirling green mist. He considered if he should just grab Akira and jump to the academy’s beacon. That was the rational thing to do in this situation. Get himself and the other student out from underfoot and let the professor handle the insane necromancer.

  And yet. Krimpit might be a far more competent mage than Kizu had ever suspected. But he still didn’t know Necro. Not like Kizu did.

  “An annoyance,” Necro said. Immediately Krimpit cast another needle of earth in the direction of the voice, but Necro simply continued on, suddenly speaking from the other side. “I need to dispose of this professor before I can take vengeance on Kaga or the noble brat. You were meant to be removed by the commotion alongside the Elites. I don’t suppose you’re open to a bargain? I’ll depart once my vengeance is satiated.”

  “A worse professor than I would hand them to you if it meant a chance at ending this,” Krimpit said. “They’re the bottom of the barrel students. But I respect and hold pride in my position.”

  Kizu held back a retort about worse professors than Krimpit not actually existing. The man was actively working to help save their lives. Best not to antagonize him for the moment.

  Krimpit knelt down on the wooden stage and lay a hand flat against the boards. Kizu could tell the professor was channeling some sort of spell, but of what branch, Kizu had no idea.

  “I work best with earth,” Krimpit explained, not looking up. “I specialize in excavations. Retrieval without damage. But that does not mean I lack the capability to perform any other feats.”

  His arm darted out and a needle tore through the air.

  “Ghuh!”

  “There, I’ve clogged up the source.” Krimpit stood.

  The smoke faded enough that Necro could now be seen, slumped on all fours and clutching at his neck where the stone spear skewered him. He desperately clawed at the wound, attempting to remove the stone from his neck.

  “How did you know where he was?” Kizu asked. Kizu’s spellsense had been completely obscured by the miasma.

  “No true lich has been seen in over three centuries,” Krimpit said. “This is just an undead who lacks a liches unregulated power and needs to syphon his magic from elsewhere. Either a human or an artifact. It just so happens I am adept in artifact detection.”

  That implied there was some sort of artifact in Necro’s neck that allowed him to cast that spell earlier.

  Necro finally succeeded in removing the spear. It exited his flesh with a squelch. The open wound leading into his neck flapped, no blood spilling from within.

  “You, prince,” Krimpit spoke down at Akira who remained crouched on the ground, smiling. “When I say the word, use wind magic to cleanse the stage of smoke. Understand?”

  “Of course.” Akira smiled up at the professor.

  “Drop the barrier,” Krimpit instructed Kizu. “I will finish the necromancer.”

  Kizu only hesitated for a second. Even if Akira failed to blow away the smoke, it wouldn’t hurt Kizu. Not with his soul parasite guarding his soul. And the crowd in the auditorium on the other side of Krimpit’s barrier had dispersed entirely

  “You’ve damaged the artifact,” Necro said hoarsely as Professor Krimpit approached, the smoke billowing away.

  Krimpit grimaced, as if swallowing foul medicine. “Another sin to add to your list, necromancer. I cannot comprehend your idiotic intentions, infiltrating and attacking alone. Perhaps your brains rotted too thoroughly for critical thinking. This was suicidal mission for the truly dense.” Krimpit raised his hands and a dozen more needles of earth formed, hovering over Necro.

  Necro bore his teeth at his executioner.

  “You believe me to be alone?” Necro asked. “And you call me dense?”

  Only then did Kizu process the fact that none of the other Drama Club members had joined in the fray. Ione, Basil, and Faible were all absent. Professor Krimpit must have connected that fact at the same time as Kizu, because his eyes likewise flicked over to the backstage.

  And he completely missed the skin falling on him from above.

  Raygen’s skin wrapped around the professor’s face and pressed his arms against his sides before he could even react. The skin tightened and twisted, driving Krimpit to his knees.

  The professor struggled, but he lacked the raw strength of other professors like Arclight. All of his spears of earth shot at where Necro had crouched. But, in less than a second, the necromancer was already on the move. Only one of Krimit’s spears hit its mark, driving through Necro’s calf.

  Then Raygen’s skin twisted and the crack of breaking bones sounded out, muffled from beneath it. Krimpit collapsed to the stage floor. The stretched skin’s face smiled, the occasional Tainted scale spotting the tanned flesh.

  “Hubris,” Necro spat. “Now I can finally deal with the two of you.”

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