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Isen watched the cast unsmilingly as they took their bow at the front of the stage, lined up all in a row and holding hands. He made no attempt to keep the derision out of his voice when he spoke without turning his face to Crow, who was sitting next to him in the audience.
“They must have made this show just for children. I am not amused. What a waste of a ticket…”
“Perhaps we ought to show them our disappointment,” said Crow.
Isen thought about it for a moment. But he hadn’t brought any rotten vegetables to throw at the stage this time, and the theatre was altogether too well-lighted and structured for him to do it without being seen.
“I am tired of these morality plays,” he continued, leaning closer to Crow to be heard above the murmuring crowd. “They make me sick.”
When the monster came back to attack the villagers, it had given him some hope. But alas, he was murdered by the priest, and the virgin maiden learned never again to stray into the woods alone or go consorting with heretics.
“Don’t worry, the show is not over yet,” said Crow.
Isen could only assume this meant their favorite act—the reason they had come—was yet to arrive.
They had come all the way from across the world to give a performance in their town, and were considered by most people to be quite the blasphemous act.
It was made up of only three actors, but they were all that was necessary.
Isen’s anticipation began to build as the lighting in the theatre was dimmed even further for this performance by one of the stagehands, who went around extinguishing the lamps like snuffing out stars in a night sky.
Then it began.
_
Two of them played the saints, and one of them played the demon, moving inside of a puppet that looked like it contained three men inside. It was tall, standing on stilts, and towered over the other two by several feet. It had a goat’s visage, with large, twisting horns, was dressed in ragged black cloths, and moved in the shadows so that you could never quite glimpse it in whole.
The whole of the play followed the saints attempting to destroy the demonic force, with fire, with weapons, with prayers and priestly incantations. But the creature would not be defeated. Instead, it whispered into the ears of the humans to turn one against the other, and the story ended in them both dying in a duel, then arising again as the demon’s comrades in a war against humanity.
It was much more than a ‘smoke and mirror’ show. After the transformation of the men into beasts, they were lifted into the air and ‘flew’ with their demon’s wings above the heads of the audience, dousing them in sparks that emitted from the tips of their spears. Some of the audience members screamed out in fear, and Isen saw an old woman sitting in the front row faint, her husband catching her just before she fell over.
The sparks did something to the audience. If he doubted it, all he had to do was look around him, and for a moment all seemed transformed into horned creatures akin to the actors, with strange pupils set in unnatural irises. Everyone was frightened, and the theatre was filled with screams and cries of panic.
He looked at Crow, who stared back at him with luminescent yellow eyes, and bat’s wings outspread behind him. There appeared to be a line of fire encircling them all, preventing them from escaping, and yet he could smell no smoke.
Crow laughed, and pointed up at the actors, who were still flying about in their demonic forms, taunting people, and shining mirrors in their faces so they could see their true forms even as they shrank away from others.
Isen watched with fascination as the theatre broke out into a riot, people clawing at each other to keep their distance, and diving under the chairs to hide from their fellows, even their family members, whom they could not recognize in their changed forms. He and his friend appeared to be the only ones not panicking.
He swiftly moved out of the way as a woman with red skin and glowing green eyes rushed past him, pulling at her hair and yelling, “They’ve cursed us! They’ve cursed us!”
Crow was right, he thought to himself. This was worth staying for.
_
When it was over (all too soon), and the audience had regained their senses, they appeared ashamed of their behavior. It was believed that the actors had used some exotic concoction of mind-altering herbs and spices to induce the illusion, and that it was all just an elaborate trick of the mind.
Everyone was back to normal on the outside, but they were so shaken by it all that Isen imagined they’d have a hard time sleeping at night. Fortunately for them, this was the final act of the night, and they were able to go home to seek comfort.
Isen was loitering outside the theatre with Crow, refreshing himself with a drink, when a couple of young boys exited the building and walked up to them.
“That was no herb magic,” he was saying to Crow. “That was sorcery. They’re like us.”
“Hello,” said one of the boys in greeting. “I’ve heard of your act… recognized you from the pictures in the terror theatre books. Saw you were looking for members, and…”
Isen looked him over. Proper trousers, neatly trimmed brown hair that didn’t go past the ears, white shirt and vest, covered in insignia he had long come to associate with typical pretenders.
Isen flicked his long hair out of his face, took a sip of his black cider.
“We don’t have space for pretenders,” he said.
Seeing those three devils causing havoc in the theatre got him thinking about his own act. Someone had to keep the standards up.
Death, darkness, and destruction—that was the way to go. And he had ideas of his own that he believed would make a great show.