122. Jester's advice

Author's note

I think I found an artist I like, so there should be some character art coming!

***

Ophelia felt like she was on a school trip all over again, and this time, she got to sit with the cool kids, as the back of the bus was taken up by Sam, the cat, and their friends, with some… interesting people around. She was pretty sure that the two women sitting on the second-to-last seat were mermaids, judging by the melodic voices that seemed to lull her into a trance. There was also an old cat lady who took care of Q’Shar. She arrived separately last night.

She could also see a few more mycanoids, a dark elf, a regular elf, and a few warlocks, one of whom was covered in tattoos similar to the ones that sometimes showed on Sam’s hands, but those were either permanent or purposefully on display.

Ophelia then looked at the clothing. Most of the gathered people wore ceremonial clothes. Sam was wearing a black wizard’s robe with many silver details and his family crest on the arm. Q’Shar was sporting some strange headwear, made from small golden chains with a few earrings to match, one of which also had the Alhazred crest. The vampire wore a long, Victorian-looking, blood-red dress, while William looked like an aristocrat from a British drama.

Another detail she noticed was that everyone was armed. When asked, Sam explained that most were deadly with their hands anyway, so everyone was allowed to bring weapons in. She herself was given an elegant dress with the Alhazred sigil on the arm and a decorated sheath for her rapier.

Now, the most interesting clothing was worn by the cat lady. She had an elegant dress on with Egyptian decorations. The dress, however, had one wide sleeve made from a completely different material—much thicker and plusher, reminiscent of a carpet, and not fitting the dress at all. The sleeve also had a strip of material going farther down into a large loop. Ophelia didn’t understand what it was.

She listened to conversations all around her—most about magic, magic research, and fighting. The atmosphere made her feel strangely at peace, like she was supposed to sit there and talk to a massive mushroom about her rapier technique rather than have small talk with some colleague at work.

They drove for some time, and she could see the Vatican through the tinted one-way windows.

Finally, they arrived in a multi-level parking lot, not entering the Vatican but close to the massive religious complex. They drove into an underground parking garage, then onto a lower floor guarded by a security guard. He looked like a normal policeman on the surface, but she could see what looked like a sword handle sticking out of the booth for easy grabbing.

They were then led into the lowest level of the parking complex, where more guards were gathered. Once all the buses arrived—and there were many of them—the guards approached one of the walls. After some movement of mana, large enough for Ophelia to feel it from a distance, the wall opened, revealing a large, dark corridor sloping slightly downward.

The buses slowly made their way underground. Ophelia looked in fascination as they drove on. The corridor was really long, and she noticed they must have crossed the border and were under the Vatican.

After five more minutes of driving, the bland cement slowly gave way to white marble. The material was cracked and damaged, but as they drove on, the cracks and chipped walls disappeared, giving way to pristine marble, then to carvings and paintings.

Soon they arrived in a hall, which was a large circular room with a high dome overhead. Once there, the vehicles came to a stop and they slowly left the buses.

She looked around curiously. There were many carvings here, most depicting battles. Ophelia followed them with her eyes, from one side of a massive two-winged door to the other, and she realised they were telling a war story. At first, they depicted small battles and a few people giving speeches. Then the scale of the battles grew larger and more brutal, the carvings becoming more unnerving. She could see faces twisted in pain and despair, and bodies missing parts, the brutality realistically captured in the white stone.

They then transformed into more religious iconography. To her surprise, she recognised some of it. The middle part looked like the Way of the Cross she saw in normal churches—but changed, different. It then transformed into a large carving, but that one was destroyed, not necessarily intentionally, with most of it chipped and cracked as if neglected.

The battle it depicted was unreadable. But she could see the upper part, and even with all the damage, she was pretty sure she recognised—

“Ophelia!” A shout brought her out of her thoughts as she looked to Sam with a start. “Move, the buses need space,” Sam said and dragged her to the side.

Only now did she notice that the massive double doors were open, revealing a brightly lit banquet hall inside with many long tables covered with different food and drink. Looking to the side, she noticed that the cat was now being carried by the old cat lady, with Bakari the tiger walking as part of the protection detail. She realised the long sleeve of the strange dress was made to hold the animal comfortably, with the large loop going around the woman’s neck like a sling for a broken arm, so that she wouldn’t get tired carrying the cat. Most of the higher-ups in the cat faction travelled like that, carried by elegantly dressed older women. They were clearly trained to pretend they didn’t exist, acting like mobility scooters for the animals.

“Ugh. The opening banquet,” groaned Sam.

“I won’t have to dance, right?” Ophelia asked, going slightly pale, as a classical orchestra played and the place looked suspiciously like a Renaissance banquet, only missing the pairs moving to a classical waltz.

“No. This is just a small part for everyone to mingle and eat something before the morning talks,” Sam said.

They went in, ate, and drank, talking with different people. The conversations didn’t catch Ophelia’s attention—most of them were relatively normal—and those clearly not normal, done mainly by the cat, were clearly in code and filled with double meaning she couldn’t catch.

It was all going well until Sam saw someone in the hall. To Ophelia’s surprise, he looked pretty excited to see the person. This contrasted with the cat, whose tail flopped down.

“Oh no,” groaned Q’Shar.

Ophelia followed his gaze and noticed something strange. Among all of the magically dressed people, there was a group wearing mundane clothing. The man now heading their way was wearing blue jeans and an “I want to believe” T-shirt with a UFO flying over a forest. He also looked slightly unkempt, with dark hair falling almost to his shoulders and a light beard.

Ophelia saw Sam smile as she turned to the cat, question clear in her eyes.

“If they start talking about giraffes, we are out of here,” hissed the animal.

“Samuel!” shouted the man.

“Mark,” Sam greeted. “How is your work?” he asked immediately.

“With the recent shit show? We are eating goooood,” the man answered jovially.

“I can imagine. So tell me, which ones were yours? I couldn’t catch up on much.”

“Oh my God. Did you hear about the Bay Harbor wendigo?”

“Oh yes, my broker went to deal with that one,” Sam answered eagerly.

“Okay, get this… UFO.”

“Nice.”

“The wendigo didn’t leave any bodies, so it was easy—one UFO expert, some flashing lights. And then… we hit them with the shaky footage.”

“Oooh, good one.”

“Hell yeah, shaky footage seals the deal, I tell you. All the AI just makes it easier.”

Ophelia slowly turned to Q’Shar, confusion written all over her face.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t introduce you,” Sam said, remembering the other people around. “This is Mark. He is responsible for one of the most important jobs in the arcane world—for some time at least—and that is the cover-ups, or at least the interesting part. And Mark, this is Ophelia, my apprentice.”

“Hello,” he greeted.

“You should tell her about your job,” Sam said, to which Q’Shar groaned. “They are really underappreciated if you ask me,” her teacher told her, nodding to himself.

“Oh, so you aren’t aware of the work we are doing?” the strange man asked, and continued excitedly before she could say anything. “You see, we are the very people responsible for the entire magical world staying a secret. You think that, oh, the guys doing all the science cover-ups are the best ones, huh?” he said, and then continued in a mocking voice. “‘Oh, we created the entire paleontological history of cats on Earth. Oh, look at us, we are sooo smart.’” He finished and looked her in the eyes. “No. Wrong. Bullshit. It’s our division that keeps the world a secret.”

Ophelia looked at Sam, who was listening to the whole thing, clearly amused.

“Do you think normal people are hard to lie to? Huh? They are the easiest possible. Someone digs up a dragon’s bones—oh, it was a dinosaur—bullshitsaur—and they eat that up. But do you know who the real hard-to-deal-with people are? Huh?”

She thought it was another hypothetical question and that the man would continue with his short speech, but after a few awkward seconds of being stared at, she realised he was actually waiting for an answer.

“Scientists?”

“Egh!” He made a strange noise meant to mimic a wrong button being pressed in a TV show. “Wrong. All you need is believable data, and they buy anything. ‘Oh, look at that, they built pyramids with wood and boats. It’s totally believable.’ No—it’s the conspiracy theorists. You see, they are the toughest to cheat. Once, only once, some cunt managed to get footage of a Bigfoot, and it’s a pain to this day. Every time something strange happens, they start digging, and oh, trust me, they will buy magic, gods, and demons as an explanation. Can you imagine how hard it is to get them off track?”

Once again, the man paused, as Ophelia realised he was waiting for an answer.

“Ummm… very?”

“Yes! Good—very hard. So we work to disorient them. Videos with yellow subtitles, flat earth, History Channel after midnight. That’s all us—we are the masters of misdirection!” the man said with pride, to which Sam slowly nodded as if in deep respect.

“So… um, you tell people that pyramids were built by aliens so that they don’t figure out they were built by cats?” Ophelia slowly asked, feeling her brain cells protest the sheer stupidity of the sentence she just spoke.

“Yes! Exactly. Aliens—God, they are useful. Massive magic circle in the field? Aliens. Mexican pyramids? Aliens. Stonehenge? Aliens. God, I love aliens—almost as useful as giants. And who do you think came up with the zoo initiative, huh? Us! Any cryptid without obvious magical abilities gets shipped to zoos. We freed up so many hidden valleys and forests that you can’t count them. And they buy it, that’s the best part. Photograph them every day, and even the conspiracy morons don’t know anything! Our best work.”

“You are behind zoos?”

“Yes! The pet initiative is also ours. Did you not notice?” His voice grew louder and more passionate as Ophelia first looked to Sam, then, seeing his sage nods, turned to Q’Shar for help getting out of there. “Capybaras, colugos, ghost sharks, jabirus, kakapos, manatees, maned wolves, platypuses, potoos, and narwhals. No one noticed. They actually believe they are animals. Do you think borzois are dogs? Huh? All this castle of glass would crumble to the ground the day giraffes once again breathe fire. And—”

“Okay, we need to go,” Q’Shar interrupted, using a claw to drag Ophelia out. “We need to talk with my… ummm… associates. Sorry,” said the cat as they left in a hurry.

Ophelia turned around just to see Sam deep in conversation with the strange man.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Leave madmen to their talk. Last time I got roped into a half-hour speech about giraffes being the best work of the conspiracy department. Not repeating that.”

“Riiiiiight.” Ophelia continued after the cat, trying to wrap her head around the strange conversation.

She spent the next hour walking around the banquet with the cat and sometimes Sam’s friends, meeting people. Overall, it was a pleasant experience, and despite the strange atmosphere and a few stink eyes she got from apparently opposing factions, it helped her relax.

After most of the food was eaten and the conversation had started to die down, they were all brought into another room.

And as she walked, Ophelia was stunned. It was a massive, brightly lit auditorium. It was all carved from milk-white marble, with a high ceiling held up by massive columns. The whole place was lit by glowing orbs held in the hands of various sculpted figures of angels and saints, circling the walls and the giant columns. The ceiling had a massive fresco depicting something akin to the Creation of Adam, but instead, there were more people behind Adam, and God was handing them an enormous book.

The centre of the room had seats in a half-circle around a multi-level speaking platform. The seating area was lifted slightly off the ground by more marble.

As they approached, she noticed that the seats were all arranged for specific families, with the names carved into the wood and family crests next to them. Ophelia noticed they were seated in the front row. The audience was clearly divided into three sections, with empty seats in between. She noticed that the Alhazred clan was placed in the middle of the third section, right up to the very front.

Ophelia turned around and saw that most of the demihumans, outsiders, and more eccentric-looking people sat behind them. She also noticed a large balcony behind the seating area. It was entirely covered in black fabric, and when her eyes met it, she could hear the sounds around her grow muted and distant.

Feeling uncomfortable, she brought her eyes back to the room. In the middle was what she assumed was the religious faction, with many priests gathered in larger groups. The one closest to the massive door they walked in from was the noble faction, with more elegantly dressed people sitting in smaller groups.

She also saw the last few arrivals join them, apparently skipping the banquet. Sam waved at a blind woman who walked in with a group dressed in a strange mix of elegant clothing and animal skins.

Once everyone was seated, Ophelia could hear the clear sound of a massive bell ringing… somewhere. She didn’t see the bell, and the sound seemed to come from all around her. The bell rang nine times, and after the last ring still vibrated in the air, a door behind the massive speaking platform opened, and a man—to Ophelia’s surprise—in jester’s clothing walked in.

She furrowed her brow as he did flips, each movement accompanied by the jingling of the many bells on his clothing. He was dressed in all red with a strange hat in the shape of a star, with a small bell on each of the star’s arms, which rang with each movement. The man danced and jumped his way to the highest platform. He looked at it as if he'd never seen anything like it before, then did a flip, and landed on the barrier in front of the speaking platform. He then held his sides and smiled a relaxed smile despite the significant drop in front of him.

“Heheheh,” his laughter rang clear in the room. “My lords and ladies, gathered in this hall, so many crowns—but watch out! They’re prone to fall,” he said with a smile after bringing his cupped hand to his mouth as if telling a secret. “You steer the world, mortals you elude. I? I tell truths, like a drunkard should. Remember this, before your war: there’s no VIP list at the death’s door. So when you cry, ‘The world will bow to thee!’ the graveyard coughs, ‘Just leave your bones to me.’” He then lowered himself, still balancing on the handrail, his voice now more serious, no longer loud and jovial. “This world now trembles, balanced on a blade. One law you sign decides what’s built or flayed. Be brave enough to doubt your favourite schemes, and wise enough to feed the poor, not just your dreams. For I’m the fool, and yet I’ll say it plain: a leader’s first and greatest trick is easing others’ pain.” He then straightened himself, bringing the happy smile back to his face. “Now start your talks. I’ve jingled all I can. Just try, for once, to be wiser than this one man,” he finished, pointing at himself, his last word ringing with an ominous tone.