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The Show Goes On
40: Behind the Stars
"My best friend's a huge magic nut," Kimi said after she had listened to their story. "She'd just die if she knew I'd met you," she added to Kaito. "She'd want your autograph."
"I'd be happy to sign something for you to take back to her," he replied.
Kimi snorted. "I'm sure you would. But I guess if we ever get back, I'll take you up on that. Anyway, she was the one who signed up for this convention. She was really excited about it too. But she got this call just before the trip. It turned out her father had a stroke. He was in the ICU. Of course she rushed off to see him at once, but first she asked me if I wanted her ticket to the convention. I thought it might be a good change of pace, so I said yes. It just goes to show, doesn't it? Guess my luck is just lousy."
"So did you do anything unusual at the convention?" asked Shinichi.
"Not really. I danced with a few guys. None of them were worth writing home about, if you know what I mean. So I decided to leave early. I came back to my room, called my friend to ask her if there was anything she wanted me to bring back for her from the convention. Then I went to bed. When I woke up, I was here."
She gestured at the room around them.
"And I was a zombie. Which turned out to be a good thing because I didn't have anything to eat in my room anyway. I was pretty confused, obviously, but I thought I was dreaming. So I went back to sleep. But I kept waking up to the same dream. So, after a few days of that, I decided that this wasn't a dream after all."
"That's…good," Shinichi said uncertainly.
Kimi snorted. "I was happier thinking it was a dream. But anyway, since I decided it wasn't, I thought I'd look around. But there was like nowhere to go. I didn't want to jump over the waterfall. I mean, who knows what might have happened if I'd done that. The ground's not exactly soft down there. So all I could do was walk up and down along that river out there."
"How far did you go up it?" Kaito asked.
"Most of the way, I think. At least until I found the man with the wings. But he was a bore. So I came back and decided that I could just live in my room for a while. And maybe I really would wake up eventually."
"About that man you met upriver," Shinichi pressed, leaning forward as his ears pricked forward in clear excitement. "The one you said was boring? What was he like?"
"Uh, boring, obviously."
"I mean can you tell us more about him? Like what kinds of things he said to you."
"Not much. Sometimes he just snored. Sometimes he told me I was missing the point. He said that a lot. Almost three times a conversation, and I really didn't have that many with him. He also liked to ask me what I wanted. What I was looking for. I tried answering, but his answers never made sense. I couldn't tell if he was even really listening. Maybe he was just talking in his sleep. He always had his eyes closed."
"What are you looking for?"
The words echoed in Shinichi's ears in Kaito's voice—only it was a Kaito without any of the warmth or mischief that the real Kaito had. He shivered at the memory, feeling phantom fingers closing around his throat.
"Shinichi?" Kaito asked, concerned by the way his detective had gone pale.
Said detective gave himself a quick shake. Now was not the time to be dwelling on random nightmares. Still, the similarity was striking. It may hold some significance.
"Kimi-san, do you think you could introduce us to this man you met? We need to talk to him. He might have the answer to how we get out of here."
"I can show you where he is, but I doubt it'll do any good. Like I said, he's a lousy conversationalist." Kimi hopped off the bed where she'd been sitting and strode right out the door without waiting for a response. Shinichi and Kaito were forced to hurry after her, picking up Hattori and Kazuha along the way.
X
They could no longer see the cavern walls. Only darkness stretched around and over and away from them as they continued along the shore of the river. It felt like they were walking through an endless void.
Yet, despite the darkness, they found that they could see themselves and each other more and more clearly with each step. No longer did they have to rely on Kazuha's pearly glow to light their way. It was as though there was a light shining upon them and the surface of the river that could not touch anything else. That or there was simply nothing else around upon which the light could shine.
Shinichi had no idea how long they had been walking except that they could no longer see that dwindling sliver of light that had marked the opening back out into the garden of sleepers. That was about when the darkness ahead gradually began to thin. It was still dark, but now they could see something more than pitch blackness.
There was a lake ahead of them. It was out of that lake that the river poured. And, just barely visible in the gloom, was what appeared to be a narrow, stone bridge. It arched over the lake's black waters to touch down upon the shore of a small island.
Kimi strode right out onto the bridge without a moment's hesitation, so the rest of them followed suit. Their reflections glimmered in the waters beneath them, unnaturally vivid considering the lack of proper illumination.
The island itself was a barren, rocky place, all gray stone and more gray stone. Kimi led them up a flight of rough steps that had been hewn right into the rocky slopes of the island by a less than skillful mason. Every step was a different height, size, and shape. In fact, the only thing any two steps had in common was that they had nothing in common. Naturally, progress was slow. But then they were topping the ridge, and suddenly the ground smoothed out into a perfectly circular plateau. Twelve ornate pillars stood at regular intervals around the perimeter of the circle. And at the very center of it all stood the most luxuriant couch that any of them had ever laid eyes on.
Its heavy, ebony frame supported a sea of plush, black velvet draperies heaped high with cushions. Lying supine in the hart of it all was a man clad in equally pitch black robes. Attached to his back was a pair of enormous, feathery black wings that curved up over his shoulders, giving him an almost regal air—or that might have been the case had he not been fast asleep.
And no one could possibly miss the fact that he was asleep because his rhythmic snores were the only sounds they could hear now in this effervescent void.
"I'm back!" Kimi declared. "And I brought some people. They want to ask you a few questions."
Her declaration was answered by only more rhythmic snoring. The man sprawled amidst the black velvet cushions didn't even stir.
Four cushions slid off the mound upon the couch and flopped to the floor.
"That means he knows we're here," Kimi explained, taking a cushion. She plumped it before setting it on the ground. "He seems to have gotten our numbers wrong though. Or I guess maybe he just knows that ghosts can't sit."
Kimi plopped down onto her cushion and carefully arranged her tattered skirts about her. The others followed her example, though none of them were quite sure if they were going to get the kind of audience they had been hoping for.
The snores continued unabated.
Once everyone had been seated, Shinichi cleared his throat. "Um, excuse me, but are you the Lord of the Court of Stars?"
He had to admit, he felt ridiculous asking questions of a man who was so obviously (and loudly) fast asleep, but there didn't appear to be anything else to do.
He wasn't sure what surprised him more—the fact that his question was answered or that said answer came right out of the air and was punctuated by the ever continuing snores. Stranger still, the sleeping man's lips moved with the words despite the fact that the sounds were not coming from his direction. Altogether, the effect was most disconcerting.
"Do you dream of starlit nights?" the voice whispered, each syllable echoing through the cavern until it seemed a whole chorus of voices were speaking at once. "Of song? Of dance? Of wondrous sights?"
The travelers traded looks, their expressions exhibiting various degrees of "huh?".
"Do you wonder when to dream?" the voices whispered on. "When to laugh and when to scream? Tell me where the world ends. Tell me what the heart spends to buy a promise and a key to all the riches that can be housed within an empty gaze in this never ending maze…"
The musings went on, layer upon layers of voices that seemed at once all to be the same voice yet different all at once. And with each passing second, another stream of muttering would join the growing cacophony either to echo words already spoken or add new thoughts, very few of which seemed to have anything to do with any of the others.
"What's going on?" Hattori hissed at Kimi, his hand clenching instinctively around the light saber handle in his lap.
The zombie shrugged, apparently unconcerned. 'No idea. He's never done this before."
Not reassured, the scarecrow leaned over to whisper into Shinichi's ear only to realize that said ear wasn't where he expected it to be. Remembering belatedly that his friend's ears were now somewhat higher up on his head, he adjusted. "I don't think this is getting us anywhere."
The furry triangle of Shinichi's canine ear swiveled towards Hattori as the scarecrow spoke, and the Osakan detective had to swallow a snigger. Now wasn't the time, and it was probably the stress of their situation getting to him anyway, but that ear suddenly seemed like the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
"I think we should give him a few more minutes," Shinichi murmured back, a little uncertain but suspecting that here was the answer to, if not all their questions, at least some of the more major ones that had been haunting their every step since waking in this world of endless midnight.
As though in answer to his thoughts—or perhaps in answer to the questions the voices were whispering all around them, images began to appear out of the darkness of the cavern.
Men and women dressed in a range of elaborate outfits swept across a ghostly dance floor just above the black waters of the lake around the island. They spun and stepped and laughed and twirled all in utter silence, appearing then disappearing at random as they waltzed in and out of sight and through one another as though none of them were real. Disembodied laughter bubbled up in the distance, soft and hollow and light, but it was punctuated in another direction by the clang of metal against metal—of swords clashing against swords and shields and the cries of warriors in battle. Strains of music twisted through the air, tickling their eardrums then fading away just as fast before their notes could be properly heard and identified or fixed into a solid melody. Colors and lights, shadows and whispers, flickers of motion and the glitter of eyes and stars in ribbons of sky flitted and cavorted all about them—a phantom kaleidoscope of sights and sounds and even scents.
Caught in the eye of the storm, the travelers instinctively drew closer together. None of them were certain how to interpret the growing maelstrom. Had they angered their host? Or was this his answer to their questions? For all they knew, this was a daily phenomenon in this cavern. It wouldn't be the strangest thing they had seen in recent days.
"Has this ever happened before?" Shinichi whispered to Kimi even as he shifted unconsciously closer to Kaito. The magician's hand found his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"Not that I've ever seen," the zombie replied with a shrug. She alone seemed completely unfazed.
"What do you want?" the voices asked.
"What do you want?"
Loud one moment, in whispers the next, the words spun and danced with the leaping illusions as though the questions themselves wore the shapes of man and beasts and were cavorting around and around in this cave that was both too small and immensely, endlessly large.
And in the rising storm of indistinguishable voices and cries and confusion and laughter, that one voice rang, cutting through it all. That one question.
"What do you want?"
Shinichi stood up, back straight, shoulders squared, ears pricked forward, and one hand clasped tightly in Kaito's calloused hand. Ignoring all the whirling, phantom dangers and half heard music, he focused his eyes and his ears only on the man with the black wings still fast asleep on his black velvet throne.
"I want answers!" he shouted because he had to shout to be heard over the mayhem of echoes of countless parties and battles, tourneys and marches and orchestral chimes.
And suddenly they were all gone. The courtly dancers, the music, the flittering fairy lights—all of it simply gone in the blink of an eye, leaving only the solid stone pillars around their circular plateau and the sleeping man with his night black wings and velvet throne.
Except they had been joined by yet another man. He had appeared as though stepping from the illusory ballroom into their very real cave. He was cloaked in a black, with his face hidden behind an equally black masquerade mask.
When he stepped forward, Shinichi drew in a sharp breath in recognition, and he felt Kaito's hand tighten around his.
The newcomer looked only at Shinichi, his indigo eyes intent and full of something the detective couldn't quite put a name to.
"All that you may wish lies here in void between," he said, and Shinichi felt a shiver run up his spine as his ears twitched towards Kaito. This stranger had his Kaito's voice. If the man were to remove his mask, Shinichi knew with a sudden, icy certainty that the face behind it would be Kaito's too. This was the man without a scent. And now that he saw them together, the resemblance was irrefutable. "Knowing that, do you still wish only for answers?"
"Yes," Shinichi said without hesitation.
The illusion—for he had to be an illusion of some kind to have a form but no scent—tilted his head one side, considering. Then those indigo eyes shifted to Kaito then Heiji, Kazuha, and Kimi. "And you? Do you all wish the same?"
"We do," Heiji said quickly. "Right Kazuha?"
"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah, of course." The ghost girl let out a nervous laugh. "I mean, who wouldn't want to know what's going on?"
"Then answers you shall have," the illusion said. "Or rather, you shall have those answers to which we are privy. For this is the place where dreams come true."
TBC
