5. Mage Maya (7)
5. Mage Maya (7)
'Silver Screen' Arno.
A master of Illusion Magic whose gender, age, appearance, and real name were all unknown.
A finalist in the inaugural Circus Grand Prix.
One of the elders of the industry, having led a circus troupe for over twenty years.
Mage Maya's teacher.
Yet for all the weight of that setup, his role in the game amounted to almost nothing.
Even after you rescued him, he never joined the party.
Instead, he sat in camp and played back the Memory Disks the players brought him.
He'd record event scenes and replay them whenever the players wanted.
Essentially the "gallery" mode from other games.
It certainly fit the flavor of an illusion mage, but from a player's perspective, it was a massive letdown.
The label of "mentor to one of the three heroes" set expectations sky-high, and all he did was screen videos at camp.
That earned him some ignoble nicknames — the Voyeur, the DVD Rental Shop Owner.
That was only his role in the game, though.
Here, he carried the genuine charisma of a troupe leader.
He examined each illusion laid before him and calibrated his response precisely to its quality.
Illusions beneath his consideration he passed by without a second glance.
Those a little short of the mark received a few pointed criticisms before he moved on.
Before a well-crafted illusion, he would demand the mage execute several variations or movements — usually complex maneuvers the construct could theoretically perform.
And if they pulled it off flawlessly, he produced an invitation from his coat.
At last, Maya's turn came.
I caught the shaky breath that slipped through her mask and knew she was nervous.
She didn't need to be.
Maya's illusion was more elaborate and lifelike than anyone else's under that tent — the work of those who'd already received invitations didn't measure up either.
I knew the future.
Her joining the Silver Screen Circus was a fixed point in history. There was no chance she'd be rejected.
"Hm."
Arno stood before Maya, rubbing his chin as he gazed down at her creations.
A cat, a windmill, a carriage, a swing.
Any observer would call them flawless illusions, beyond reproach.
His judgment matched.
"Perfect."
"Thank you."
At the first pronouncement of "perfect" from him, every gaze in the tent converged on Maya.
Just days ago she could barely manage the scribble-level illusions of a child.
Nobody could believe she had advanced so far in so short a time.
—That is staggering polish.
—So genius does exist after all.
—Looks and brains both. The world is truly unfair.
Envy and admiration volleyed back and forth through the murmuring crowd.
"Now then."
The moment Arno spoke, silence fell again.
He pointed a finger at the cat.
"Make it stand on its hind legs and dance."
In a voice utterly devoid of levity, he delivered a patently absurd request.
For the other mages' illusions he'd demanded far more precise, delicate maneuvers. Was there some arcane meaning only illusionists understood?
A glance around at all the bewildered faces suggested nobody knew.
Except one.
Except Maya.
Her hands clenched and unclenched.
She was unmistakably on edge.
"Dance? What kind of...?"
"Any dance will do. Simple is fine. Anything, so long as it's a dance this cat would never perform."
A dance it would never perform?
There was a barb in that phrasing.
Maya drew a slow breath, then reached toward the illusion.
Light streamed from her hand, and the cat responded.
It rose upright onto its hind legs.
But the shape... was not what anyone had expected.
It was a horror.
Crack.
Pop.
The upward momentum accelerated, and the spine snapped backward. The cat's neck stretched like a snake, the head dragging against the ground. Eyeballs punched through the surrounding flesh and bulged free; the tongue flailed spastically in every direction. The tail pierced the body and pulled back out, over and over, while the upright hind legs crumbled joint by joint as if they were dry reeds.
A silence like ice water dousing the tent fell over the crowd.
The image of a cat butchered as if by some system error.
"Ah."
Her hands were trembling now, visibly enough that others could notice. Cold sweat slipped down the back of her neck.
For her, this was the emotional equivalent of someone else's scream.
Why had this happened?
The master illusionist provided the answer.
"Your illusion was perfect. Excessively so. But it was nothing more than an automaton repeating a pre-programmed color, a pre-programmed shape, a pre-programmed motion. We illusion mages are puppeteers who manipulate the marionette called illusion through the thread called the 'Image.' You, who can only replay what you have recorded, are no different from a Memory Disk."
A Memory Disk.
That was how he defined Maya.
And that was why the cat illusion had collapsed.
She had never prepared the action for standing on two legs.
"Your talent is commendable. Hundreds of thousands of light particles performing a group dance in perfect lockstep according to a predefined rule — that is your illusion. In the sense of deception, it was superb. But that is all. Without knowing the mystery of the Image, you can never become an illusion mage."
With those words, Arno turned his back and walked away.
Maya remained where she sat, staring blankly at her own creation — the dead cat, limbs still dangling grotesquely.
***
The cat died in an accident.
A stone wall collapsed, sending rocks crashing down; one struck its head directly and killed it instantly. The skull caved in, limbs twisted at wrong angles, viscera spilled out.
Maya calmly observed the state of the body and reached her conclusion.
Ah, it's dead.
Then she went home and carried on with her day as she always did.
Not long after, people asked where the cat was.
Maya answered honestly.
The cat was dead.
So they asked the next question.
What had she done with the body?
The body?
Did that matter?
It was just decaying organic matter now.
Had telling them she'd simply left it where it was really been so disturbing?
Through continued teaching, Maya had naturally learned how other people looked at the world.
Ah, so that's how they think.
They saw the world differently from me.
She no longer made the same mistakes, but deep in her heart she still could not sympathize — not with their way of seeing.
From that day on, people worried she might be capable of some demonic act.
It was a baseless fear.
Maya was no monster, no demon.
She was the same as everyone else.
She treasured her family, was grateful for love, could feel anger at injustice.
She simply didn't show it on her face. Her vantage point on the world was simply different from theirs.
—A person without a heart can never become an illusion mage.
—You can never become an illusion mage.
Such arrogant prattle.
I do have a heart.
It's just different from yours.
They never understood her.
They only repeated the same empty phrases.
Feel the Image.
Embrace the mystery.
She saw an entity as a collection of information. She could never grasp the world between concept and reality that others called "mystery."
That was what saddened her.
Because it meant she would never, in her whole life, be able to see the world as her mother had — meant she would never be able to open the recordings her mother left behind.
Enclosed within a space stripped of all five senses, she sank deep into thought.
It was a meditation space meant for experiencing mystery.
Other people encountered their past, their dreams, their hopes here — she only faced a space of nothingness.
She stood alone in a different world.
One nobody could understand.
Clink.
A sound invaded her meditation space.
She lifted her head. Some of her hearing and sight returned.
A blond man in a black suit and black cloak stood before her.
The conversation partner who had served as her small comfort over the past few days.
Wonderstein.
"Go away."
Maya's tone was flat, affectless.
Instead of replying, he held out a handkerchief.
Did he see her huddled like this and assume she was crying or something?
"I don't need it. I wasn't crying."
"Your hair is wet."
Her hair?
The meditation space dissolved.
The world bleached white, then slowly regained its color. Her senses all returned.
Shhhhh.
Rain was falling.
The place where she had been crouching was the rear courtyard of the inn she had booked.
Ah, right. I came back.
Spending time in the meditation space often tangled her short-term memory.
Eunmak Arno had ruthlessly dismissed her. She had left the Illusion Demonstration Hall and returned to her lodgings. Instead of going to her room, she'd sat in the back courtyard and quietly lost herself in thought. Had naturally slipped into the meditation space.
She hadn't even noticed the rain.
"How did you get here?"
"I followed you."
A man who openly admitted to tailing her. Not a trace of embarrassment on his face. He was smiling brightly. A strange man, through and through.
"I don't need consolation."
"I didn't come to console you. I was just curious. What will you do now?"
More meddling. This man clearly had far too much free time.
Maya shook her head.
"I have no obligation to answer you."
Even at her chilly retort, the smile never left Wonderstein's lips.
Ah. Right. That's what he's like.
He asked a different question.
"Are you going to give up on joining the Silver Screen Circus?"
Maya had been about to repeat that she had no obligation to answer, but she hesitated.
The conversation would just deadlock anyway. That response was too formulaic.
"...No. There are still a few days left. I'll keep trying."
"And will that approach work?"
He asked it with a teasing smile.
Maya held her breath and forced the words out.
"I have to try."
"How about hearing my suggestion?"
A suggestion.
Maya's fists tightened. Her pale hands went whiter still.
She was sick of it. Sick of suggestions like that.
People who lacked both the capacity to understand her and the will to try.
Image, heart, mystery, meditation — she wanted to hurl it all away.
"I'll help you in a way that suits your strengths, Miss Maya."
Maya laughed inwardly. Suits my strengths? What do you even know about me? We've only exchanged a handful of words over a few days.
Nobody could understand her. Nobody saw the world the way she did.
Maybe it was because she'd already shattered once that she asked anyway, in a spirit of abandon.
"What would that way be?"