Chapter 34
An Absurd Man
A new day had come, and with it, a new month. With Halloween over, everyone was out cleaning up the remains of the festivities, including the students who got the day off from classes. All of the students were out sweeping, packing up decorations and throwing away garbage. All of them except for five students who had gathered at a classroom at the history building to speak with the teacher there.
Viceroy Kevin Lin sat on top of his lecture table with his arms crossed, and one leg folded over the other while scowling sternly at the kids sitting in front of him.
The previous night, after rescuing Lily from an army of homicidal skeletons and suits of armor, Viceroy carried her out of the underground chamber filled with deadly traps through holes he made by punching the walls and ceilings, and then took his niece to a nurse's office for a checkup before returning to the dorms to rest. He discovered the others' involvement in Lily's magical activities when showed up to see how she was doing and had them come to the meeting taking place now.
As soon as everyone was seated, Viceroy got started.
"Now then," he said. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I want to hear your story first."
He looked Lily square in the eye.
"Tell me everything. Leave nothing out."
Lily and the others gave each other quick glances. After taking a deep breath, she told her uncle everything. From the moment she found the bracelet to all the adventures she and the others had; she left nothing out.
When she was done, Viceroy closed his eyes for a moment to ponder.
"I see," he said after opening his eyes again. "So you've been sneaking out at night to deal with a magical maniac who's been tormenting the students for his own amusement who's been calling himself the Schemer. And you freaked out yesterday because you thought I was working for him."
Lily nodded. "Yeah. But now I'm not so sure anymore. Please tell me, Uncle Viceroy, what is really going on?"
"First of all," Viceroy said, "I have no idea what's really going on. I never even heard of the Schemer before today, let alone work for him."
"But then why lie about losing a bet to patrol the library?" asked Lily. "Why were you at these places before the Schemer hit them? And why were you so chummy with him yesterday? What even are you? Since when could you use magic?"
"Yeah," Tanja cut in. "And why do you wear glasses even though your medical records say you got perfect vision?"
Everyone looked at her funny.
Uncle Viceroy asked, "Why do you know what's in my medical records?"
"No reason," Tanja quickly replied. She turned her gaze away while whistling innocently.
"Uh-huh." Viceroy had a raised eyebrow but chose to just steer back to the main matter and started to tell his story.
"I suppose I should start with that last question. When I was about your age, me and my cousin Jodie suddenly got zapped to another world that was like straight out of a fairy tale. We met a famous witch there and traveled around with her for a bit before we found a way back home. During our travels, me and Jodie read some magic books and practiced a few spells, which was how we gained our powers."
"So Aunt Jodie has magic powers too?" asked Lily.
"That's right," Viceroy said with a nod. "And she's probably way better at it than I am. She used to do all sorts of experiments on my after we got back from Emeron."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Lily cut in. "Hold the phone here. Did you just say Aunt Jodie used to experiment on you?"
"Yep," said Viceroy.
"Like you were some kind of lab rat?"
"Yep."
"And you let her?"
"Yep."
"Why?" Lily asked her uncle. "Just why?"
"She paid me with Pokémon cards."
THUNK!
Lily planted her face down on the table and groaned.
"Anyway, that's how I got magic powers," said Uncle Viceroy. "Now what else . . . Oh, right! About lying at the library. Well, I noticed something magical going on that time and came to check it out. I couldn't actually tell you that since magic was supposed to be a secret, so I made something up. Though, I suppose that was pointless."
"And the places the Schemer hit? What about those?" asked Lily.
"Bluestone asked me to check those places out because he noticed something out of the ordinary," Viceroy said. "I didn't find anything myself and thought they were all just false alarms, except for that tiger statue everyone was talking about. I thought I heard a girl while I was dealing with it, but never imagined it was actually you, Lily."
"Pardon me, Mr. Lin," Oliver cut in. "But you said Director Bluestone asked you to investigate those places?"
"That's right," Uncle Viceroy said. "Oh, you probably don't know this but Director Bluestone is actually a magician like me. And a pretty powerful one at that. Well, you have to be if you want to be part of the Magic Council."
"The Magic Council?"
Uncle Viceroy explained, "They're a group of magicians that go around telling all the other magicians in the world what to do. They're not actually a government for magicians, but they got a lot of magic power, a lot of money, a lot of people working for them and almost everyone goes along with the same kind of rules they make anyway. And believe it or not, I'm actually a secret agent for the Council."
Lily raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You're a secret agent, Uncle Viceroy? How'd that happen?"
Viceroy shrugged and replied, "Not sure. After my term as a Fourth Grade English teacher in a Japan was over, I suddenly got a call from them saying they wanted to hire me. Maybe me nuking the Illuminati had something to do with it."
Lily cried, "You did WHAT?"
Uncle Viceroy acted like he didn't hear and continued. "I haven't really done anything secret agent-y yet though," he said. "The Council had me stationed here at the school as a teacher for cover while I wait to get a mission."
Under his breath, Oliver muttered, "Something tells me you're never getting one."
Lily overheard and wordlessly agreed. It was pretty obvious that the Magic Council's real aim was to keep Uncle Viceroy from making more trouble by putting him somewhere out of the way.
"But we're getting off-topic," he said, oblivious to the students' thoughts. "There's still one final question, I need to answer, right Lily?"
He looked Lily square in the eye, his usual goofiness gone and replaced with a chilling sharpness. Lily swallowed but gave a firm nod back.
"You accused me of being chummy with the Schemer yesterday. Before I explain, let me ask you a few questions first. Judging by when you freaked out and broke that transformation spell, I'm guessing you're talking about the visitor I had at my office. Am I right?"
Lily nodded.
"Why did you think my visitor was the Schemer?"
"Are you kidding me?" cried Lily. "Looking like that, who else could he be?"
Uncle Viceroy rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a bit.
"And just what exactly does the Schemer look like?"
Lily scowled at her uncle.
"Just humor me here, guys."
Reluctantly, Lily obliged. "Well, he's really big and tall."
Viv added, "He's got on this blue gown with long flowing sleeves and a hood over his face."
Eddie chimed in, "And you can't see anything under that hood. Like completely pitch black."
To cap it off, Oliver said, "He also sounded like he was using one of those digital voice changers, all deep and distorted."
"And that's what you saw and heard Lily?" Viceroy asked.
Lily nodded.
"I see," said Viceroy. "But what, or rather who, I saw looked completely different. Who I saw was an old man of average height with white hair and dressed in a business suit."
"How can that be?" cried Lily. "I did see the Schemer! I really did! I was there listening to you chat and laughing over evil schemes! I'm not lying."
"I never said you were lying," Viceroy said. "I'm just saying that you and I saw and heard different things."
Lily crossed her arms and irritably asked, "How is that any different?"
"Think about it, Lily," said her uncle. "There must have been something strange from our chat, something that doesn't match, a gap or two maybe?"
"Now that you mention it, I did notice some weird pauses you made," said Lily. "But what does it all mean?"
"I can understand your confusion," said Uncle Viceroy. "But there is a pretty obvious reason behind these discrepancies, one that anyone involved with magic could think of: an illusion. You were hit by a magic hex that made you see and hear things differently from what is actually there and said."
"But when did that happen?" asked Lily.
"If I may, Lily," said Oliver. "I believe you may have been hexed with an illusion spell at the same time you had been transformed into an infant. I suspect that what happened yesterday was no accident, but an orchestration of the Schemer."
"You think he used his magic mumbo jumbo on my stuff?" Tanja asked. "But when would he have the chance to do that?"
"Remember, Tanja," said Oliver, "our opponent is a cunning sorcerer far more experienced and educated in the magic arts than we are. There's no telling what sort of tricks he still has hidden in his sleeves. He could easily tamper with our things without us noticing and has only done so now because he probably felt like it was time to up his game."
"That said," Uncle Viceroy spoke up again, "I don't have any proof to anything I just told you. It's just my word against what you saw and heard with your own eyes and ears, Lily."
"I believe you," Lily said with conviction. "If you were really working for the Schemer, you wouldn't have put a stop to that tiger statue. And you wouldn't have come to save me, twice."
"Well, I'm glad I have your trust again," Uncle Viceroy said, smiling warmly. "It's just too bad I have to give you all detention for the remainder of the school term."
Lily blinked. "Say what?"
"I'm also banning you from all the game rooms, movie theaters and playgrounds. You won't be allowed to go anywhere except for your classrooms, the dining hall and your dorm rooms. Oh, and you can't use the internet anymore except for the school's digital library for homework."
Eddie exclaimed in dismay, "What? Why?"
"What did you expect?" asked Uncle Viceroy. "You guys admitted to breaking curfew, trespassing to off-limits areas, and even snuck out of school grounds one time. Worse still, you kids knowingly put yourselves in danger. You should count yourselves lucky that I don't tell your parents about this. I can't anyway because of all the magic stuff. Well, except for you, Lily."
"What? You're going to tell Mom about this? No! You can't!" Lily cried. "She's going to kill me!"
"Believe me," said Uncle Viceroy. "I'm not happy about this either. I'm sure to get most of the flak for this."
"Then - !"
"But for you and me, this magic business is a family matter. Unlike the others, I can't hide this from your parents. You're going to just have get ready to face the music."
"But - !"
"I'm sorry, Lily," Uncle Viceroy cut in. "But this is not up for debate. Now, get going. You're going to want to enjoy what little time you have left to be free, because starting tomorrow that freedom's going bye-bye."
**********
After watching his students trudge out of the history building, Viceroy marched over to the Castle and headed up the stairs to the top floor before stopping in front of a door.
Knock! Knock! Knock! Went his knuckles against polished wood surface. He waited a few seconds and then knocked on it again. The second time, he got an answer from inside.
"It's open!" a raspy voice called out.
Viceroy opened the door and walked into the dimly lit office space. There, he found Julius Bluestone sitting behind his desk while sunk comfortably low in his chair, one leg folded over the other with his hands clasped on his lap.
"Ah, Viceroy," said the white-haired old man. "Take a seat, take a seat! To what do I owe this sudden visit?"
Viceroy opted to keep standing and said, "I got something I needed to ask you, Director. It's pretty urgent."
"Urgent you say?" Bluestone frowned and straightened up. "Well, if it's urgent, ask away!"
"Yes, or no: are you the Schemer?"
Bluestone looked up. While his eyes were locked with Viceroy's, he tapped a finger on the end of his chair's armrest over a small rune symbol carving. That carving was the trigger for a powerful and complex illusion spell that Bluestone had built into his office that could overwhelm the strongest of minds. Whatever the victims of that spell see and hear would be things that he wanted them to see and hear.
Viceroy's eyes flashed blue for an instant, a sign that the spell had taken hold.
So, while Bluestone smiled and answered truthfully, "Yes, I am the Schemer," Viceroy instead heard, "No, I'm not the Schemer."
This should be more than enough to fool his built-in lie detector, Bluestone thought.
But against expectations, Viceroy squint his eyes and said, "So you ARE the Schemer."
Bluestone dropped his jaw, astonished. "That spell was powerful enough to befuddle a dragon. How - ?"
"Illusions are still lies in the end," Viceroy said. "Simple as that."
Bluestone gaped at the history teacher, dumbfounded. But then he snorted and laughed. He laughed and laughed. And laughed.
Then, after calming down, he said, "Here I thought you could not possibly surprise me more after literally punching through the magical defenses of the old Bluestone family lair, but to resist illusion magic of the highest grade like this! You truly are an absurd man, Viceroy Kevin Lin. But I suppose that's to be expected of the person who nuked the Illuminati."
Viceroy was not amused. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
No longer all smiles, Bluestone coldly responded, "No. You probably want to know what my plans are and why I'm doing all this, but I will divulge neither. All you need to know is that I have fallen onto the path of evil and that I will not stop."
Viceroy balled his fingers into fists, and he said softly, "You think I won't stop you?"
"No, you won't," said Bluestone. "Because you're not allowed to."
"Not allowed? And just what is that supposed to -! Huh? Why can't I move?"
Viceroy suddenly found himself frozen in place. No matter what he tried, his limbs refused to listen.
Slowly, Bluestone stood up and casually paced around the younger man with his hands held together behind his back.
"Oh, Mr. Lin," the old man said, "You are indeed an absurd man. But no matter how absurd you are, even you cannot break the chains of a magic contract."
Viceroy made a puzzled face. "A magic contract? Since when did I -?" He was hit by an abrupt realization and his eyes lit up. "My job contract! That wasn't just an ordinary piece of paper I signed, was it? That was a magic contract!"
"That's right," said Bluestone. He stopped right in front of Viceroy and smirked. "A magic contract, one of the few magic spells out there that are absolutely unbreakable. Once signed, the very universe itself will make sure you follow whatever's written in it."
Viceroy glared daggers at Bluestone while listening. "So you've had this planned out for years!" he said.
"Well, I've certainly been planning for years and years, and years," Bluestone said. He had resumed pacing around his prisoner. "But the magic contract was the other Magic Council members' idea. You didn't really believe they thought you would be the perfect secret agent to help protect the world from evil did you? To them, you were dangerous, like a rabid animal that needed to be caged. And the magic contract is that cage. I merely took advantage of the contract and added a few things to it to make you . . . convenient for my plans."
"Which you still won't tell me about?"
"No," said Bluestone. "But don't worry. You won't have to wait long to find out."
And then he burst in evil laughter.
"Mwa ha ha ha ha ha! MWA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!"