by Hugo Damas
Falk smiled, beginning to see the plan take shape.
The reality was that everyone had allies. Everyone on every side of the fight had allies, except for him. Falk had no one.
Well, neither did the Circus Freak, but unlike the clown, and unlike anyone else in such a situation, Falk was going to accomplish much.
So many would try and stop him, and they would all fail.
Without exception, they would all perish in their feeble attempts to keep the world from burning in a glorious effigy to his greatness.
By his hands, and his hands alone, it would be done.
Who is the Street Rat?
“Sir Jonah, what a pleasure to meet you again,” Sarah greeted, almost gagging as the old pervert kissed her hand. She responded to his undue affection with a nervous grin that would mask the slight disgust she couldn’t help but show.
It helped that she didn’t have to look at him because she was bowing.
“It has been so long since you graced us with your lovely presence, Lady Sarah. Too long,” said Jonah kindly but not without secondary desires.
Lady Sarah was her noble character for attending Neyerk balls and overall getting into contact with the Holy Lady.
It was a performance she put on so rarely that only Andy knew about it. Sarah was supposedly from the mainland, a country in the middle of a neutral nation which kept royalty around for the sake of having royalty and nice parades, but didn’t actually let them have any legitimate power. The royals of the world who were attending the party were going around, richer than most the world, talking honorably and politely and being overall bright-eye gullible happy bundles of righteousness. And she was one of them.
Sarah waved her hand in front of her face, slightly blushing in embarrassment. “Oh yes, I know. My father worries to see me so far away from home, all on my own.”
“Well that is just silly, you’re so grown up already, no one would even mistake you for my daughter anymore,” Jonah told her.
Oh, this dried up old pickle did not just say that, Jamie thought, all while smiling warmly. “Oh, Jonah, you’ll make me blush. How is your darling wife, is she here?”
“Oh, I’m afraid she stayed home. Age has not been kind to her.” Unlike with him, his expression seemed to say. Jamie fought the urge to kick him, and instead spotted an acquaintance she had made in the very first party she attended.
Jamie knew from the start she’d need someone in case she wanted to avoid other people, and Rachel had been easy to befriend.
“Oh, I see Rachel over there, if you’ll excuse me, sir,” she said, gracing him with a parting bow. He wrestled for an excuse to keep her attention but came up too slow. Jamie walked off, reminding herself not to run since she wasn’t wearing normal shoes.
Dressing up was stupid, and Jonah was a pervert that got on her nerves, but she still blamed his attitude on how she had to present herself. He would never be interested in the real Jamie, but whiten the skin a bit, curl the hair properly to form a tidy tent around her head that curtained over her shoulder, and suddenly she was desirable. There was also the dress, which included a bodice that accentuated her curves to a point where, in all honesty, it was faking them. Her chest looked bulgier than it would ever naturally look, and some stupid padding made her butt curvier.
That was what annoyed her, Jamie knew, that everything about her get-up was trying pretty hard to look desirable, maybe even be desirable. How anyone actually felt desirable with so much effort spent on misleading what they looked like, she’d never understand.
Of course, Jamie knew the real problem was dressing to get attention instead of to avoid it. It was very counter-nature.
“Rachel!” Sarah greeted.
The sweet black-haired girl turned around to face her.
“Sarah, I didn’t know you were here,” they held hands in-between them, “I would have sought you out. You look beautiful!”
“Aww, I see you haven’t changed, you are just the sweetest. And prettier, too, did you lose weight?” Sarah had been disappointed to find out how easy it was to warm up to ball-going ladies.
“Oh my, stop, you. Did your father allow you to come?” Rachel asked, conspiratorially.
“How else would I be here? Surely you don’t think I would just disobey him,” Sarah said. Perish the thought.
“Oh, I know what you are capable of,” Rachel suggested with a wink, excited to know Sarah was capable of stealing food so she could eat more than she should. The girl was also a fan of Sarah exacting pranks on whoever was rude to them.
As a sister to nine brothers, half of them bastards, Rachel had been more than happy to have a girl friend. Especially one who would stand up to others for her.
Rachel was a hollow-head and beyond naïve, but she was good company to keep while Jamie waited for the Holy Lady. And, at the end of it all, a nice girl.
“Oh! I must introduce you to my aunt!” Rachel said, excited.
“Oh, the famed aunt,” Sarah said with a light clap, “yes, let’s.”
They crossed the very large ballroom, circumventing the very wide area of dancing partners, as well as groups. Her aunt had a dress on that was much like that of Rachels’, a red one-piece, though Rachels’ had a more pinkish hue which grew more evident the closer it got to the chest. The aunt’s dress, however, had a dark hue. Sarah’s own white bodice and skirt stood in stark contrast.
“Auntie, Auntie, look, Sarah made it to the party,” Sarah happily announced.
“Lady,” Sarah greeted, bowing even before the woman had fully turned towards her, so only when she stood up did she find the very unwelcoming expression of someone who distrusted her.
The heck? What’s the problem? Jamie wondered.
“Pleased, darling. My sincerest apologies but I really do not have time at the moment, my dear.”
Oh, Jamie thought to herself, realizing the old woman was just upset. Jamie looked at who she was talking to, finding the Chancellor himself.
“Sarah?” He asked, surprised. He sounded as if the fact that something happened that he did not expect meant he had no control over his nation.
That was often how he sounded.
“Sir,” Sarah greeted with another bow and then gave him a sweet smile. “Such a pleasure to return here, you throw such beautiful balls.”
“Yes well, if only circumstances were better, my dear. I bid you stay clear of the torns, I know how you often like helping the orphans there.”
Whenever she was Sarah, in Neyerk, she would visit the home of the Scavengers. Nobody would recognize her and, like that, she evaded any suspicion that she had come from there. The general populace may be oblivious to the nature of her organization, but rulers were not. The best of the rich were not. So when she decided to show up at a ball as an unknown little girl, she decided it was best to make sure her cover was ironclad.
It was never something she had had to worry about, but she was proud of her work in that regard. Jamie had even found a Lord on the mainland, of a small city nation called Ashtreich, to claim himself to indeed be the father of a bastard daughter he loved very much, called Sarah.
He was, as it turned out, in danger of losing his noble title. In the nation of Ashtreich, one needs to pay a yearly fee to keep one of those.
“Why?” Sarah was legitimately concerned. “Did something happen? Please don’t tell me you evicted them.”
“Nothing like that. There was an attack on our great city focused on that location.” The Chancellor shook his head in sadness, “I wish I knew why.”
“That’s terrible! Who would do something like that?!” Sarah’s indignation was truthful.
“Some ruffians who feel they’re above all laws,” the Chancellor blabbered to himself, adjusting his spectacles. “But we’ll show them, oh yes we will.”
“None of it will matter if the dark ones keep coming,” the auntie argued.
“Oh, my lady, you press me too far on this subject. Very real threats fall upon my very re
al subjects, and you would have me worry about some over-bloated demon-spawns that are not even heading our way?”
“Actually, my father seems to think the threat is very real, Chancellor. No one on the mainland seems to think otherwise,” Sarah said, helpfully.
“And I feel for you, my lady, but each of us addresses the problems that concern us, not others. And especially not while ours are severely more pressing!”
As expected, the old Chancellor very much preferred to hide in his island trying to find some lone pilots than to get involved in a war. Jamie knew there was no way to turn him since there’s no turning a coward unless there is a way to mislead them into misjudging the threat, on behalf of the possible gains. Unfortunately, there was no doing that with the Chancellor of Neyerk.
His wife, however, was another story. The Street Rat knew the real night was about to start when the whole ballroom went silent.
She dressed in white, obviously. An intricate gown that no one else had ever seen and that was because she made them herself. It included a skirt long enough to cover all of her legs and a scarf that curved over her bare shoulders and down to her waist. She also wore the tiara that marked her as the leader of the Covenant of Light. The Lady of Light.
All eyes were on her, enraptured by the contrast created by her almond skin, which was a couple of shades lighter than her hair, which itself stretched down behind her back, combed to perfection.
“She’s so beautiful,” Rachel proclaimed with a dreamy voice.
Sarah smiled, happy her friend was happy. “Yes.”
Jamie would not seek her out. The Street Rat knew the Holy Lady would come for Sarah, eventually.
The Lady of Light blushed under all the attention and politely nodded down at her guests. “Now, now, everyone. I am certainly very flattered, but there is no reason to halt the party. Carry on, please!”
Rachel giggled as the ruckus and sound returned to the ball.
Everyone had stopped in part because the band had stopped. The band also stirred all the guests back to what they were doing. They had manipulated the ballroom expertly to emphasize the arrival of the Holy Lady, but only Jamie would have noticed that.
“Come, I’m famished! Let’s not bother your aunt anymore,” Sarah asked of Rachel.
“Oh, ok,” she agreed.
They skipped to the platters of food, the only really good point of parties like that, in Jamie’s opinion. They did a few rounds, then they went to the dance floor and had fun there. Rachel wasn’t very sociable, and not pretty enough that boys her age would seek her out, that would only start happening later in her life. But she had opened up to Sarah and, together, they had fun.
Sarah knew it was the kind of relationship that left Rachel wishing they were sisters.
The Holy Lady found her there, on the dance floor.
“Girls.”
They looked, surprised to be addressed directly by an adult.
“Oh my,” Rachel, flustered, quickly grabbed the hems of her dress and bowed. Sarah did the same, only instead of distance and worship, she manifested joyful surprise.
“My lady,” Sarah greeted.
“What a joy to see you here, these parties get older and older as time passes by.” She was around the forty year mark, Jamie knew, even if she looked thirty, and all while being married to the fifty-some-year-old Chancellor. “Are you having a good time?”
“Yes, lady,” Rachel nervously blurted.
The Lady of Light smiled, amused. “Well good, good. Sarah, meet me later when you get the chance, we must catch up.”
“I would love to, my lady, thank you so much,” Sarah said.
“Oh, stop with that. You call me Amara, you know that,” the Holy Lady kindly said.
Sarah gave her a happy giggle and perked up. “Yes, Amara, I sure will, thank you!”
Amara gave her a content smile and moved on to talk to some other guests.
Rachel was curious, as ever, with how Sarah was so friendly with the Holy Lady, and vice-versa. Sarah didn’t know, she had said, and some people just accepted ignorance at face value. People who were too trusting. People like Rachel.
Jamie knew, however. The Holy Lady liked spending time with Sarah for the same reason Sarah liked spending time with Rachel, only in place of friendship or even sisterhood, there was mentorship or even motherhood.
It’s a need people like them feel the need to fill. A safe relationship with someone they’re sure they can control, not in the sense of manipulation, but in the sense of trust and confidence. However, the Holy Lady was making a mistake with Sarah.
Jamie watched Amara blessing someone, placing a hand under the chin with eyes closed in concentration.
What the Scavengers were in respect to begging, Amara was in respect to religion. The Holy Lady was nothing else but her world-class thief codename. Only thieves called her that, or at least the ones who were deep enough in the underworld to know better. Scavengers, mainly, respected her a lot. Not only due to what she had accomplished but also because of the several joint ventures they had shared.
The Holy Lady won three Shadow Conclaves in a row, and the first one, she won as a Scavenger. She then left them, pretty much becoming the only member to leave of her own accord, since they were usually kicked out. Then she won a second and a third time, stopping after the Sorcerer beat her.
With those wins, the Holy Lady cemented her place in the massive organization that was her church. And climbed up the hierarchy ladder.
If reports are to be believed, it was the Shadow Conclave’s busiest protectorate, as they had to save her from hundreds of assassination attempts carried out by either competitors or people she sought to replace as she climbed up the ranks of her church institution.
Along the way, Amanda cemented a firm saintly appearance towards the rest of the world by committing all of her gains to the poor and afflicted, on several occasions. On some of those, though, it had really been the Scavengers to receive them. In such instances, they kept a fourth of it all and gave the rest back to her. But Amara, like all great people, wasn’t someone who was trying to amass riches.
Power and influence was the Holy Lady strived to obtain.
Amara finished her prayer and the man she had been praying for, in controlled tears, grabbed her hands in a moment of real intimacy, and probably pledged his riches to her.
He wouldn’t be the first one.
Poor and rich alike, most flocked to her. She was different in that regard. While many Scavengers preyed on compassion and pity, and some on guilt, the Holy Lady had focused on worship. It was the most powerful thing to have, in the Holy Lady’s mind, adoration and worship.
Jamie disagreed, but there was no denying her success. And as corrupt as she was -- not that the Street Rat would ever have a problem with that -- she had made the whole church more welcoming to everyone, and a force of support for many. That was the nature of any tremendous con, that one had to actually do some good. Still, the result was that there was no arguing just how much influence and power Amara had over the continent, and all its rulers.
Amara had also saved Sarah’s life, and dignity. That had not stopped Jamie from working her, but she couldn’t help herself from having a really good opinion of the gal.
“Ah, Sarah, my girl.” Amara extended a hand, and Sarah kissed it lightly and respectfully.
“Amara.” She stood up straight and lightly leaned, “it’s such a joy to see you again, my lady.”
“Oh, the joy is mine, I really must convince your father to let you get out more,” Amara said, playfully.
“I’m afraid it might be even harder in the foreseeable future,” Sarah said, moping a bit and shaking her head.
“What? How come?” Amara gave Sarah a sly smile. “Have you misbehaved?”
“Well no…it’s just--” Sarah fidgeted, “he was insistent in knowing why you had talked to me so much. You know how he uh…doubts.”
It had, of course, been one of the main reasons J
amie had picked him.
“And you told him. Of the ball where we first met?” Amara’s mood considerably diminished.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah whimpered, sad to have disappointed her idol, “I know you said not to tell him, you warned me he’d only block me further from…well, seeing you, but I didn’t know how else to explain.”
“Oh darling, no, please, it’s perfectly okay.” Amara walked closer and grabbed Sarah’s hand. “Come, let’s get some fresh air.”
Sarah gulped somewhere in the middle of a nod. Jamie was happy to be alone with the Holy Lady, it always made it easier.
The building was, essentially, a tower. Dozens of floors high, its top floor was wider than everything else and surrounded by balconies which were divided by walls, to give guests both the sight of the landscape, but also the privacy they may sometimes yearn for even in the midst of a public gathering.
Jamie loved that city. The night had fallen, but the city kept itself awake, even in the small boroughs that still used gas light.
“It is the single greatest advantage, I will admit to that. To be able to see this whenever I want,” the Holy Lady confessed.
Sarah was awed by the Lady of Light. “Oh, I envy you so, Amara. Especially because it was not simply given to you. You deserve it.”
“Oh, sweety, believe me, if you fight for it enough, you too can get whatever your heart desires,” Amara reassured.
“Hum,” Sarah politely agreed without meaning it.
“So you told your father of how we met?” Amara asked.
She looked back at Amara, noticing the woman seemed worried. Sarah bowed in confirmation.
“How did he react?” Amara asked.
Jamie had told him, but far as he knew, it was all just another lie he had to vouch for. Mostly because Jamie had told him it was a lie. She had almost been -- for a lack of a lighter word, and why would one want to use a lighter word? -- raped. It was not something she liked thinking about.