11. Wonderland (26)
11. Wonderland (26)
The Judicial Theater carried a weight of authority and solemnity unlike any other venue.
The sheer mass of its marble construction, its dizzyingly high ceiling, and the colossal stone pillars that held it all up radiated an oppressive presence that cowed anyone who entered.
But what truly set it apart was the monumental staircase leading to its entrance.
Other buildings went out of their way to make entry as effortless as possible, terrified a patron might turn back if the path seemed too daunting.
The Judicial Theater made no such concessions.
The stairs were towering, and visitors were expected to climb every last one. When we tore our admission tickets, we found ourselves deposited not at the building's doors, but at the bottom of those steps.
"Three minutes until the sentence is carried out!"
Patrol officers standing guard at intervals shouted the warning.
Three minutes was barely enough time just to climb the stairs.
I was about to hurry us along when I noticed Ella's gaze fixed on something else entirely.
She was staring out at the plaza.
A festival atmosphere saturated every corner of Cadsun, but the central plaza was especially rowdy.
Shouts, songs, cheers, and the clamor of instruments poured out from every direction.
I knew exactly what was happening over there.
The competition the patrol officers had bragged they'd be entering was in full swing right now.
We'd head there ourselves soon enough, but not yet.
"Miss Elphi, we're running out of time."
At my words, her dazed eyes snapped back into focus.
"Huh? Oh—right! This is no time to dawdle. Let's go!"
We rushed up the stairs.
But urgency aside, Rumi struggled to keep pace with us, just as she had when we'd climbed the ruins. Every time I took three or four steps at a bound and Ella managed two, Rumi barely made it up one.
"These are way too high! We'll never reach the top at this rate!"
She shouted that, then shot me a sidelong glance.
I caught what she was angling for, let out a small sigh, and bent down.
"No helping it, then. Climb onto my shoulders."
She shoved her arms roughly into my straw torso—an exceptionally bizarre sensation—and wrapped her other arm around one of my shoulders.
Immediately, Ella, who'd been running along just fine on her own, started bouncing in front of me.
"Me too! Me too, mister!"
"Good grief. All right, Miss Elphi, this side!"
And so I found myself sprinting uphill with both women clinging to my back.
The path was broad and unobstructed.
"Strange, though—there aren't many people around."
"You're right. Maybe because the stairs are so punishing?"
"Is this punishment thing really that gruesome? Like, are they going to do a dismemberment or something?"
Rumi's remark drew a burst of laughter from both Ella and me.
Everything we'd seen of Wonderland made that seem profoundly unlikely.
Thanks to the lack of crowds blocking the way, we managed to slip inside the theater just before the cutoff for entry.
"Carrying two people while running has left my shoulders creaking."
"Still, I'm lighter than Elphi, right?"
"Wh-what?! What are you talking about?! We're different heights—isn't that just obvious?"
Listening to the two of them, I couldn't help but laugh.
"Honestly, carrying Miss Elphi was the easier of the two."
Rumi leveled a half-lidded glare at me.
"You're not getting back at me for earlier, are you?"
"Perish the thought. Miss Elphi knows how to distribute her weight so she sits in a comfortable position. You, on the other hand, Ms. Rumi, cling to my frame pole and just hang all your weight off it."
Rumi's expression turned sheepish.
Considering Ella's tightrope-walker expertise, that kind of difference was only natural.
"W-well, it was pretty comfortable anyway! How about you be my ride from now on? Honestly, keeping up with you two on foot is just too hard."
"You want me to be your... ride?"
My face twisted at the absurd request.
She merely shrugged, as if she couldn't see what the problem was.
"Fairies have a hard time exerting themselves inside Cadsun. Most of us hire rides, you know?"
I recalled the people and animals I'd glimpsed on the way, hauling a pile of fairies on their backs.
Ah. So that was what that was.
"Even so..."
Just as I was about to protest, Ella spoke up.
"I think it's starting."
The hall where the sentence was to be carried out already held several thousand spectators.
It wasn't a large crowd by any measure—the hall was less than a tenth full.
The emcee took the central stage.
His persona was deeply ridiculous. His costume marked him unmistakably as a magician, yet he had stacked dozens of hats one on top of another over his blue Spirit Body.
He swept a gaze around the audience, then spoke in a grave voice.
"As announced, the sentence upon the intruders will now be carried out."
At his gesture, guards in the corner of the hall led the prisoners forward.
Their bodies were shrouded in coarse hemp, but glimpses of skin visible beneath made it clear they were living people.
"Huh? What? Who are they?"
Ella tilted her head at the sight of them.
They were alive, all right, but they weren't from our party.
Then the emcee listed their charges.
"These individuals assaulted the Apostle Council several days ago."
Hearing that, I realized who they were.
"That's a relief. They aren't our people."
"You know who they are?"
"The ones who carried out the terrorist attack here a few days ago."
"They're the reason you two got mistaken for hostiles."
"A relief indeed. At least they're not ours."
Having finished reading their list of crimes, the emcee proceeded to introduce himself.
"I am the Apostle tasked with this execution. You may call me 'Crazy Hatter.'"
"Crazy Hatter!"
Ella exclaimed as if she recognized the name.
Beside her, Rumi nodded.
I'd heard of him as well.
While conducting my experiments with Starlight, I'd tracked the whereabouts of other samples that had surfaced elsewhere.
As an object of symbolic value in the circus world, it was frequently mentioned in trade journals.
Several vials of Starlight had originated from the Hippodrome, and one of them had come up at a Vegas auction just weeks ago.
The auction house hadn't disclosed the buyer, but a few representative items from the lot had been listed.
Crazy Hatter's item was among them.
A master of hat magic who had been active decades ago.
My interest had begun and ended with the Starlight itself, so I'd never looked deeper into him.
But judging by Ella's and Rumi's reactions, he must have been a magician of such renown that his status as an Apostle of Kirkeus made perfect sense.
Crazy Hatter continued the proceedings, bobbing his head to arrest the precarious tilt of his hat-tower every time it threatened to topple.
"These individuals have confessed their crimes. They belong to a Madosa group known as the Voodoo Cult and infiltrated Wonderland under orders. We have ascertained their objectives and methods, but they refused to the very end to divulge the name of their leader."
He raised a hand.
The guards escorting the prisoners promptly stripped away the rough hemp cloth covering them.
"Today's punishment is both a reckoning for past crimes and an interrogation to extract information. And simultaneously... it is also a performance to delight you, the audience."
Crazy Hatter's voice carried no trace of humor. The crowd, however, exploded with laughter.
They couldn't help it.
The prisoners revealed beneath the cloth looked far too ridiculous.
"Bwahahahaha!"
"What is that?!"
"Disgusting! Hee hee hee!"
They were ordinary human men and women in their thirties and forties.
Their physical features were unremarkable.
The problem was their attire.
They had been dressed in midriff-baring sailor uniforms and miniskirts, with fishnet stockings and high heels. Their lips were smeared with heavy lipstick, and their hair was tied into twin pigtails.
Middle-aged men and women, potbellies and all, trussed up like modern teenage girl idols.
The sight was grotesque beyond words.
The three of us froze at the spectacle, but the rest of the audience clutched their stomachs, howling.
"Incredible! Absolutely incredible!"
"This is exactly why I come to the Judicial Theater!"
"Get on with it! Get on with it!"
The crowd bellowed, drunk on a bizarre fervor.
Crazy Hatter stared at the prisoners and delivered his next words with complete solemnity.
"From this moment forward, all authority on this stage belongs to me."
He snapped his fingers lightly.
Rousing music flooded the hall.
"Shall we start gently? First... spell your names with your hips!"
The instant the command dropped, the prisoners thrust their backsides toward the audience and began tracing their names in the air.
The spectators howled.
The faces of the Voodoo Madosa turned a shade of red so vivid they looked about to burst.
Yet they could offer no resistance, compelled to perform every motion Crazy Hatter demanded.
"That much is nothing. Shall we continue?"
Crazy Hatter gave the next set of orders to the prisoners, who couldn't lift their heads and panted raggedly for breath.
As the punishment progressed, the spectators' laughter swelled louder and louder.
The stomping of feet against the floor shook the entire hall.
Crazy Hatter's commands grew relentlessly more vindictive.
He made them speak blasphemies against their own Demon God from their own mouths.
He made them punch each other, fight each other, hurl insults at one another.
He even made them douse one another in filth.
He ordered them through every action that could wring out shame and humiliation—some so obscene they defied description.
And they had to carry out every last one while thousands jeered in their faces.
I clapped my hand outright over Ella's eyes. She buried her face into my palm and let out slow, trembling breaths.
Watching the stage, I felt my stomach heave.
The laughter of thousands felt like being smothered.
I glanced aside. Rumi, too, was staring at the stage with a rigid expression.
I wanted to tell her to look away if it was so painful, but my jaw was clamped too tight to speak.
Once the prisoners' faces were fully caked with despair, Crazy Hatter halted the music briefly and put the question to them.
"Now, answer. Who is the Voodoo Cult Leader?"
"Graaaagh!"
"You lunatic god-worshipping wraiths!"
"You think we'll talk?!"
Most of the Voodoo Madosa answered with curses or spitting.
They had been enemies in the game, but here and now, I felt nothing but pity for them.
Crazy Hatter's face betrayed no reaction as he walked past them to stand before the last prisoner.
The man's complexion was so ashen it would've been no surprise if he collapsed then and there.
"Are you willing to speak? Who is your ringleader?"
"Th-that's..."
"Evidently not."
Crazy Hatter turned on his heel at once.
That was when the prisoner shouted.
"W-wait! I'll talk! I'll talk, I said!"
Crazy Hatter turned back slowly.
The other prisoners erupted in an uproar at the man, but one dismissive wave of Hatter's hand left them moving their mouths soundlessly, no voice escaping their lips.
"Go on, then. Speak."
"I-it's..."
He glanced nervously at his comrades, his voice shaking.
He swallowed hard, then opened his mouth.
"Won... der..."
I swallowed a groan and fixed my eyes on the prisoner.
Was this where I got exposed?
Here, of all places. With both of them right beside me.
Fortunately, he stopped there and clamped his mouth shut. He stared down at the floor, as if mulling something over.
When he lifted his head again a moment later, he glared fiercely at Crazy Hatter and yelled.
"Won... Wonderland dogs can eat shit!"
Jeers erupted from the audience. The hostility was so raw you'd be hard-pressed to find its equal anywhere else in Wonderland.
"We'll take a brief recess."
With that, Crazy Hatter stepped down from the stage.
He'd apparently concluded that the interrogation couldn't proceed properly in this atmosphere.
The shocking spectacle had struck us all speechless when a strange noise came from beside us.
—Keeruk, keeruk.
—Kiririk.
Tiny yellow spheres, each about the size of a fist, were bobbing nearby.
Their perfectly smooth surfaces were broken only by a single crescent-shaped hole. Out of it came a bizarre sound—half laughing, half jeering.
"What... are those?"
At Ella's question, I finally let out the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and answered.
"Kiklings. Laughter sprites."
Rumi, too, cleared her throat hard and picked up the explanation.
"They're said to burst out laughing when they see something funny. You'll find them scattered all over Wonderland."
Ella's eyes met mine.
We both recognized that the same question had flickered through our minds.
"...Is that so."
Ella said it flatly, then looked down.
During the intermission, spectators were streaming out of the seats and gathering in front of the stage.
Even as the guards held them back, they hurled taunts and curses at the prisoners.
Rumi draped an arm gently around Ella's shoulders.
"Shall we get up and leave?"
"...Yeah."
Applause and cheers erupted again behind us as we exited the hall.
Crazy Hatter had apparently returned.
None of us spoke again until we were fully outside the building.
The open expanse of the plaza spread before us.
We all exhaled at the same time.
"I had no idea the punishment would be like that."
"Me neither."
Ella glanced back once at the Judicial Theater, worked her lips soundlessly for a moment, then spoke.
"We're getting our people out, no matter what happens. Put someone through something like that, and the shame alone could kill them."
I studied Ella's face.
She was wearing an expression I hadn't seen on her in a long while.
Rage. Disdain.
Once upon a time, that look had been directed at me.
"Miss Elphi, you seem quite angry."
"Do I?"
She clutched her swallowtail coat and stopped at the top of the stairs.
A sharp wind rode up the dizzying slope of the steps.
The tails of her coat billowed behind her.
"You're right. I'm furious."
She bit out the words, then steadied her voice into something cold and went on.
"I don't know how grave the crimes those people committed are... but that wasn't a performance. At the very least, they had no right to call that a performance under Kirkeus's name! The audience's laughter, too... that was closer to mockery, scorn, or ridicule. That kind of thing... that kind of thing..."
Ella stopped there and pressed her lips into a thin line.
Rumi gave a wry smile and finished the thought for her.
"Is uncomfortably close to the original Monster Circus."