The consequence of metamagic takes over the skies and turns them black, the concept of Death is applied to the demon of the depths that creates tidal waves when it awakens. The invisible storm intensifies; tornadoes as big as mountains create an apocalyptic cataclysm. With its magic, the beast rises shrouded in darkness and defends itself, and to chain it again, pillars of ice and glacial spikes pierce the screaming creature. Morgana's power reminds me of Hilda's constructions—her power returns and overwhelms her as my magic corrodes the seal. Soon, she would be free. That concern would have to wait for another time. At the other end of the archipelago, fighting at supersonic speed, Elijah battles Magnus, their auras shining like stars. To avoid both fights and proceed smoothly to the central storm that guards the Illusionist, I pull the clown by the wrist as I propel myself toward the final destination.

  “I don't want to go!” the clown says, struggling to keep his feet on the ground. “Are you crazy?! Fight that thing?! He'll kill us both! You're a lunatic teenager! You can't fight a master of illusion like that!”

  “Everyone will die if I don't.”

  “And if you do, you'll die!”

  “Maybe. Not if you're there.”

  “And I won't be, because I'm not fucking stupid!”

  “We can't win if we don't fight.”

  A sunny beach surrounds us. “Now we have it! We can stay here and eat coconuts for the rest of our lives. Yes, yes. We can escape the Islands and head to the other side of the world, where the influence of the Unknown has not reached.”

  “Then the Rift will grow, and millions of people will die.”

  “Great! The world needs fewer people!”

  “It doesn't, and not like that.”

  A glacier expands. I grab the Clown by the wrist and throw myself so that we are unreachable by destruction until we land on the other side of the island, piercing his illusion of a beach and returning to reality.

  Again, however, I am imprisoned. This time, we are in a bar. The court jester dresses like a nobleman, and his face is finally visible behind the clown makeup. He is young like me but still has stripes on his forehead and wrinkles from so many exaggerated expressions. Something strange between an old man and a teenager, but not really an adult. His nose is long and pointed, his mouth is large, and his eyes are almost bulging. People sing, dance, and drink around me.

  I inhale. “What are you doing?”

  “Keeping myself alive, commoner,” he says. “Now beg for mercy and—”

  Mana burns and transforms; the power explodes and tears the fabric he used to bind us to the wood. The clown looks on in terror and throws himself to the ground, taking us to a war scene. For a second, I see myself picking up a bow and aiming at an enemy tower, until I focus to break out of the illusion and return to my senses.

  “Stop! You'll kill us both!”

  “No! As long as I stay here, I'm safe! If you don't interfere, I'll be able to create my own world within these Islands, and none of this will bother me!”

  “It's a fake world! With fake people!”

  “IT'S ENOUGH FOR ME!”

  Another scene. A castle. He is the court jester, but also the king. They look on in wonder, laughing with him and at him, subjects and sycophants, the people and the nobility. My hands follow the movement, and for a few seconds, I lose consciousness and daydream until I interrupt the movement and counterattack with my illusion. The scene shakes and warps, and the nobles fall to the ground as if the strings of their puppets had been cut. The clown grits his teeth and imagines that I am also moved by strings, grabbing them and pulling them so that I conform to his dream. I set them on fire and fall to the ground as if my muscles had lost their energy.

  “Cutting your tendons…” says the fool. “Not a good idea.”

  I have no way out. He's getting stronger… Is this because of his Chaos? In that case, what I can do is…

  “I don't have tendons. I'm just a ventriloquist's dummy!” I say. Now my body is a rag doll moved by the claw of a lion hidden behind red curtains. “And you're another one!”

  “Huh?” The other puppet says. “Hey! Don't do that to my dream!”

  “Your dream doesn't matter as much as the world outside.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “There's nothing out there for people like us. There's only what we're expected to do and what we want to do. I'm not a subject of pigs.” He says, and the veil separating illusion from consciousness breaks. I overcome his illusion by taking advantage of his temporary weakness and return to my normal body. We are in a theater. My senses feel strange.

  It's okay. I understand how it works.

  The “Court Jester” is a user of Chaos and therefore can increase the entropy of the world around him. The Islands are protected by Unbreakable Law, which excludes them from the absolute authority of metamagic and prevents us from having control over it. But by using Chaos to disrupt what separates his mind from reality, and using high-level Illusion, he can do the same as the Illusionist and manifest any phenomenon he wants, as long as he can overcome the magic of others. Using my Chaos, I can do this in his moments of weakness, even if my illusion is weaker.

  I wish I could summon Aldwyn to help me with this, but if I abuse metamagic, the Rift will open even wider, and Hoffstein…

  The court jester takes on a role. He picks up a rapier and dresses like a duelist, in exaggerated, blue-colored clothes. “I'm not coming back.”

  I need to find a way to convince him. The Illusionist planned this. He must be trying to do something with the Rift while I waste my time here. So…

  I manifest a rapier. Within the illusion, he is stronger than I. But as long as this is a game of meaning, then defeating him on his own rules will make me win—just as the rules of fairies are.

  “And that's how you win? Fighting me so you don't have to fight for yourself?”

  “I'm not a fighter. I never chose to be. I was born this thing. Because of you.”

  “Has there ever been a moment in your life when you took the blame for something you did?”

  He frowns and advances. One, two. Skills I don't have manifested while the game is running. I parry the first thrust, twist my fist, and raise the blade to cut off the court jester's hand. He changes the game, and now we are pirates. He points a strange mechanism at me and pulls a trigger, but although the bullet can pierce flesh, it is incapable of killing the great sea monster that I am. I throw myself in this new form at the clown and force him to change the scenario. We are now in the Empty Sea, above the earthly firmament, observing the stars of the cosmos. He approaches in the form of a comet, and I take control of the scenario to make him a child banging his head against the wall. A tear runs down his face, but he does not cry out. Adults underestimate the wrath that lies in a child's heart. I know this feeling well.

  “What do you intend to do here?” I say. “Run forever? Hide like you've been doing all this time until the world ends and you are destroyed?”

  “The result is the same, with me here or not. And if it's not, I don't care. They deserve it.”

  “I'm not talking about them. Who are they? Does your anger against the world extend to those who have never seen your face? How can you blame them for something that hasn't even happened? Do you have any idea what you're doing and what you're saying?”

  “I don't care! I'm satisfied.”

  “Satisfaction is not destiny. You've settled for ridicule. What is this? Are you not a man?”

  He frowns. “You're not, demon.”

  “No. And yet, I do. And yet, I fight. I will enter that tower. I will fight. And if you don't come with me willingly, I will break your body until you are convinced to go.”

  “You can't force me to do this!”

  “What you want or don't want, what you allow or don't allow, doesn't matter. I won't sacrifice the world for your will. You're not that important.”

  He lunges a second time and tries to punch my chin. My child form is weaker than his. Naturally, after all, I was malnourished at the time. But I can fight back. He is nothing compared to the demons of the Unknown. I dodge a punch from below and hit his chin with a hook. The scene changes again, and we are in a colosseum wielding swords. I defend myself with a spear shield; he spins and hits my knee. I make a deep cut in his arm with my gladius. Blood spills onto the floor, and he stares at me.

  “If I'm not, then leave me alone!”

  “I can't. It's your destiny.”

  “It's your fault that I am who I am. It was your shitty destiny that created the chain of events that brought me here. If you had chosen to fight, I wouldn't be here today. But no. You decided to destroy the world. I can too.”

  “No one has that right. I did what I did by disobeying you. Are you willing to do the same? To kill millions? Don't you have family, or friends, or a lover? Do you know what will happen if we fail here?” I frown. “Everyone will die. All of them.”

  “What do you know about waste?! I managed to support myself! I managed to get a life! Until you bastards took it away from me again to come here! I never wanted this! None of this! Why me?! I don't care! The world can go to hell!”

  He jumps, and the scene changes. I carry a spear and a loincloth; the fool becomes a powerful, striped beast that roars and advances in a storm of scratches. I move carefully through the dense jungle, using the green as my camouflage and the brown of the trees as protection, until I pierce a paw and then lunge forward. Steel pierces flesh. I feel claws explode the skin on my back and tear out my muscles, but before the battle instinct leaves my body, even if it's the last thing I do, I would drive the spear until it reaches its heart and finally…

  A wave crashes against the rocks. Back to reality. The storm had worsened, and the seas rose.

  “The world, the world. This is about the world, but not only about it. I don't think about the world when I save someone. I think about Morgana, about Elron. Mostly, I think about myself. If the world dies because of you, you will be judged for it. If the world dies, you will die. You and I, taken to Charon, drowned in the underworld. This was the fate that Chaos wanted for me. That it wanted for you. I refuse this fate. You should too.”

  The clown dug his fingers into the ground and stood up. “… I would rather not have to do this. None of it. This fate—this struggle. I never asked for it. I never asked for this existence.”

  “… I know. But if it were anyone else, they wouldn't listen to me. It had to be you.”

  He braces himself on his knees as the skies roar with thunder. Rain falls upon us. One minute. Two. “If we win, what happens?”

  “You'll go to Solace, hide from the Lion so he doesn't take your body during the Blood Moon, and then you can live a normal life or flee to the fringes of society or beyond. The apocalypse will begin. You don't have to participate if you don't want to, as long as you don't get in our way.”

  The clown inhales.

  “Right. Right. Let's go, then. Before I change my mind.”