11. Wonderland (13)
11. Wonderland (13)
There wasn't a single person who went by the name "entertainer" who didn't know the playwright Christian. His standing in the industry was that immense.
Yet no one could claim to truly know him, either. He was that much of an enigma.
The only thing publicly known was the single pen name Christian—nothing about his appearance, his sex, or even his age had ever been revealed.
"Christian" itself had, from the start, simply been a name the world had arbitrarily assigned him.
Some thirty-odd years ago, carriage companies used to distribute little booklets containing basic maintenance knowledge and maps to travelers.
Among them was a company called "Christian"—long since bankrupt and gone—that included a column introducing local attractions in each region. The anonymous critic who wrote for that column was the very person now known as Christian.
It was an era when popular art was steadily advancing after the Industrial Revolution, making the position of aristocratic art increasingly precarious.
The world of entertainers was no different. It manifested as a rift between magicians, whose main patrons were the upper class, and acrobats, whose audience was the lower class.
Magicians looked down on acrobats as the sort who performed cheap tricks on marketplace corners, while acrobats saw magicians as frauds who dressed up nonexistent skills in finery to flatter noble tastes.
And into that climate of baseless mutual denigration, Christian appeared.
He viewed the performances of both groups from the same standpoint.
It wasn't that no one had tried before. But most attempts merely set up some arbitrary middle-ground standard that earned nothing but disdain from both sides and quickly fizzled out.
Christian's criticism, however, operated on an entirely different axis.
He focused on how technological progress and social change affected performance, and what was added or discarded in that process. He traced where each performance had taken root, through which branches it had spread, and what flowers it had bloomed—and then he gave high praise to the new possibilities that had sprouted from those seeds.
His writing was precise, incisive, and steeped in a palpable love for the performance itself. Even those he panned could not help but marvel at his words.
Thanks to the renown his criticism earned, what had been nothing more than a free handout guidebook from a carriage company outlasted the company itself and evolved into an independent performance-review magazine. Only the name remained unchanged, carrying forward to become today's Christian Guide.
That Christian Guide, for all that it was a mere magazine, held the authority to award stars in this year's Circus Grand Prix—an influence owed in no small part to the weight of Christian's name.
The critic who had earned such renown didn't stop there. He went on to write scripts of his own.
He released one script a year; twelve were officially published. But after his death, a rumor began to circulate: a thirteenth script existed, written but never released.
The bundle that now lay before the acrobats assembled in Duke Slagbort's reception room was precisely that fabled "Illusory 13th."
Every person there had their eyes locked onto that stack of paper.
Lord Fantastic was the only one among those invited who had known beforehand.
The Golden Carnival was staying at the Duke's villa, and through the Duke's people, he had been tipped off the previous night.
While everyone else was utterly absorbed in the script, he swiftly gathered his thoughts and stepped forward before the Duke.
"I understand perfectly why you have summoned us. An original work by Christian—there is no choice but for acrobats to tackle it."
The others nodded at his words.
Christian's works had been adapted into countless versions after their release to the world.
Yet considering he had passed away less than twenty years ago, the number of adaptations was excessive. That sort of thing happened with popular works, certainly, but the problem was that his actual originals had been staged far fewer times than the adaptations.
This stemmed from the inherent difficulty of Christian's originals.
His scripts demanded not only acting and singing from performers but acrobatics as well.
For instance, the scene in Count Wolfenstein where the maid dangles helplessly, bound by the Black Mage's threads, or the fresh-baked pastry juggling sequence between master and disciple in The Princess Who Bakes Cookies—those were emblematic.
In short, Christian demanded that an actor possess the full skill set of performer, singer, and acrobat all at once.
Naturally, it was no simple matter to assemble people capable of all three.
Hence the flood of adaptations that either simplified the acrobatic scenes for actors to mimic or cut them out altogether.
"Right now there are probably only four places in the entire world capable of realizing a Christian original perfectly, purely from the script and without the author's direct guidance. The Wheel Circus, where a deep pool of talent makes gathering versatile performers easy. Rekachev 25, where acting, singing, and acrobatics are all polished to first-rate level. The Christian Memorial Hall, one of the Six Great Theaters. And the Golden Carnival—which I lead."
Lord Fantastic emphasized that he was the troupe leader. If he put his Inspiras to use, he could make every one of his members perform at a level exceeding Rekachev 25.
Having said that, he cast a glance at the other acrobats gathered there, his mustache twitching.
"Are we not sufficient? Is there truly a need to crowd in substandard performers? Those two in particular are glaringly deficient."
"What did you say?"
"You've got to be kidding!"
Minova and Ella both shot to their feet, yelling at the same time.
"Did you forget I'm a strongman and a singer? I performed Christian originals back in my teens!"
"Exactly what are you saying we lack?"
Lord Fantastic leveled every shade of contempt at the two of them and clicked his tongue.
"It's not a matter of skill."
He softened his expression and bowed toward the Duke.
"Your Grace, the performers who premiere the Illusory 13th will certainly leave their names in the industry. They'll be the talk of the town for months. But just as surely, there will be those who envy them. They'll try to diminish the value of the premiere Your Grace has witnessed. They won't dare criticize Christian's work, so their arrows will fly at the performers instead. Those two circus troupes will become concentrated targets. Back-alley thugs in their past, or slave merchants who command hideous monsters. If Christian's name is soiled by such associations, would it not wound Your Grace, who so cherishes him?"
The Duke listened attentively to his words.
It was a decent thrust—striking at his affection for Christian.
But he didn't bother to refute it. Instead, he summoned his secretary.
"Distribute copies of the Illusory 13th."
The secretary brought out ten bundles of paper identical to the one before the Duke and handed them out.
The acrobats fell to reading the moment they received them, utterly absorbed. Even Lord Fantastic forgot about persuading the Duke and lost himself in the script. Only Maya read it with a vaguely indifferent expression.
The title of Christian's thirteenth script was The Five Acrobats.
Its plot was as follows.
The daughter of a rural lord travels to the capital to see the festival, only to stumble into the post of court jester for the Imperial Theater Troupe—a position no one else would take at the time, when the court was drenched in bloodshed. The story follows what unfolds from there.
As for why the title was The Five Acrobats, it was because the five teenage acrobats entangled with her carried the core threads of the narrative.
An heir to the throne who hides his identity to preserve his life.
An assassin who infiltrated the court on assignment from an enemy state.
An ambitious schemer dreaming of rising in status by forging connections with nobles and royalty.
A disciple who has feared the stage ever since his master was beheaded for joking about the ministers.
A young breadwinner who does anything for money to feed his family in the slums.
The story woven by these six distinctive characters was riveting in its own right.
Anyone reading it could tell it was drawn from the story of the six founders of Rekachev Circus School.
The problem was that performing the script as written required five teenage acrobats skilled respectively in tightrope walking, Ground Acrobatics, taming, Strength Show-off, and Shooting—to play the "Five Acrobats."
Only then did the five of them understand why they had been invited.
Tightrope walking: Reina.
Ground acrobatics: Karen.
Strength Show-off: Ruelo.
Shooting: Maya.
Taming: Ella.
They were the leads in this play.
When Lord Fantastic demanded to know why Minova's daughter was slotted into Strength Show-off, she answered for herself—bending his metal cane like taffy and then pulling it straight again before his eyes.
Wonderstein caught the momentary ripple that passed through her hair.
"We invited her after hearing of the feats she performed in other cities."
Simon, utterly dumbfounded, inspected the section of his metal cane that had buckled.
"Even if we grant those five, the most important lead is still missing, is she not?"
At Wonderstein's remark, the Duke nodded.
"Just so. The lead role is the trickiest. At first she's the daughter of a rural lord who knows nothing, but she learns skills from the five acrobats as she grows. That means the actor must be evenly capable in all five disciplines—otherwise she can't perform that 'improving' arc."
Ella and Reina glanced briefly at each other.
Among the teenagers gathered here, only two people fit that description.
The Duke, though blind, seemed to guess this and shook his head.
"I would prefer you two take the specialist roles. To my eye, those suit you far better. I have called the lead separately. A suitable person, outstanding in all five disciplines."
One door of the reception room opened, and a young woman in a Rekachev school uniform walked in.
Wonderstein let out a dry laugh at the sight of her.
So the girl who'd bolted out right after breakfast because the school had called her had ended up here.
"Miss Clara."
"Oh! Boss! What brings you here?"
She wore a startled expression at the sight of them.
Since she'd fainted the day before, she hadn't been told they'd received the Duke's invitation.
A brief stir went through the room.
Apparently no one had imagined that Clara, the top student at Rekachev, would have joined Wonderstein's circus.
She hadn't joined as an acrobat, so it was natural they wouldn't know.
"Grk. That girl who picked a fight with my daughter was that Clara?"
Minova wore a complicated expression as he looked at the woman more than ten years his junior, still grinding her teeth at the memory. Never mind top student—even judged as an ordinary eighteen-year-old, she seemed somehow lacking.
"Eek! You're that split-personality brat from back then!"
"I-I'm sorry..."
The gathering wrapped up with Arno being introduced as the person handling illusions.
This play would use no props, no backdrops, no costumes.
The sole audience member, the Duke, couldn't see anyway. The illusions were solely for the performers' immersion.
In a sense, there had been no need to call acrobats of their caliber at all. But the Duke had balked at conceding even that much. Entrusting Christian's premiere to talentless performers was, in itself, an insult.
He was in no position to properly enjoy a performance no matter what.
So selecting promising young talents worthy of the name The Five Acrobats had satisfied him.
"Then I leave it in your hands, acrobats. Request anything you need from my secretary."
With a smile of genuine anticipation, the Duke rose with his secretary's support and left the room.