They called the city Thebes.
Most of the people in the city, the residents and the comers-and-goers alike, didn't know about Earth's Thebes or that one was named for the other; no one seemed to know why it'd been named that way, if the city had been warm and sunny on the edge of a desert once upon a time, or if the founders had a wry sense of humor. Maybe they missed home enough to ignore the irony... but there was no denying that Thebes was very, very cold. Like Archangel or Hammerfest, one of the icy hellholes on the frozen edge of a continent that defied all reason by harboring life and profit.
But this winter had been hard on Thebes, and the waters all around her began to freeze. Spring had begun, the ice had split and broken, and ships were only just coming and going when the blizzard came back for an aftershock. Not enough supplies had come in, and stores had started to dwindle. For the first time in decades the men and women of this mind-bogglingly profitable and active port could see the back wall of their cellars, and while panic had not and likely would not set in... they were concerned.
But a rumor started somewhere in the chilly stone streets, coming down from the rocky coast with the lighthouse and the watchtowers into the bars and pubs where the sailors wasted coins they couldn't afford on bad ale and worse whiskey: the good stuff was gone, the bad stuff was vanishing, and they turned to whatever news and rumors they could glean for amusement, picking it apart more ways and more times than they were used to. Someone else had probably heard someone else say that the keeper had said that three big ships were on the horizon.
And they were splitting the ice before them.
"****in' cold," the gravel of her voice steamed out in angry little wisps of warmth. The sun burned white on the distant horizon, the dark-sketched silhouette of a port looking fragile against such a bleak backdrop.
Under the double-heavy weight of wool and an old black, leather jacket, the Collector swung a leg over the edge of the Crow's Nest and scaled down the rigging. Black boots hit the deck with a soft double-tap, her smile as brittle as the ice-flows crunching, creaking, cracking and popping as they made way for the ship. Even still, progress was slow.
"Sounds like Ol' Man Winter's bones."
The Baron himself was at the prow, teeth clenched around one of the many cigars currently stashed in the Red Jack's hold. In spite of her small size, they took the lithe and well-armed ship because the pirates on this route had grown so desperate lately... desperate enough that, once the ice thawed off the ship's side, the crew would be painting another kill on her, her eighth. His green-skinned Aurk bodyguard Jack looked on nervously as his charge perched precariously close to the edge, one arm wrapped up in the rigging as Thebes grew ever larger before them. He had on goggles for the cold wind and snow, currently dangling around his neck over a thick wool scarf. With those, his old brown duster and a pair of mean-looking revolvers on, he looked the part of an adventurer out of some old story.
They carried enough grain, flour, milk and the like for the city's poor, that were likely not faring so well as the rest: cheaply bought, and to be given away for free. The rest of their cargo? Silver Mark Black and Amber Lager, Evil Empire IPA, Baron's Batch Red Ale, Reveler's Red Rum, Icecrest's Own Vodka, Hardy Ja'ir Tobacco, Spiced Teobrec Cigarettes, and eleven hundred and ninety-four Montren Ebony Cigars.
The ship lurched dangerously as the reinforced arcane iron hull smashed through another icy barrier, and Alain grabbed the rigging tighter as Jack stirred restlessly. "Something like that." He squinted at the horizon, then peered over his shoulder at Mac. "What would bring you to a hellhole like this... besides cash?"
The geometric lines of Mac's crooked mouth skewed dangerously towards a smirk as her tongue ran across her top teeth. "Y'said I'd get to sail. See the world. Y'left out the part where it was on the other side of froze-over-hell, mate."
"I'd be a liar if I said I didn't know it'd be this bad." His teeth tightened over the strangely dark cigar, and he blew another puff of thick and pungent smoke into the wind that evaporated almost instantly. The ship bucked again as he worked his way back to her, past a visibly relieved bodyguard. "Besides... there's business in this city that just might be right up your alley." He offered her one of the cigars once he got close. Make that eleven hundred and ninety-three.
"Hm." Single eye narrowed from the horizon to the man, once Detective, now Baron, sometimes Bastard. Always friend. The tips of inked fingers pressed past the cut-off fingers of a pair of wool gloves and accepted the peace-offering. "Mos' my alleys are in warmer places," she bit off the end of the cigar and spat it on the deck, "Dick."
He grinned, the sort of hard-lined grin that only emphasized the fire in his gaze as he continued to stare at Thebes. "Don't worry, all that liquor will be open almost as soon as we make landfall. Then we'll be plenty warm."
He turned to her again, striking a match and shielding it expertly with his right hand, unafraid to singe the strange arcane nerves that worked beneath the old burn scars. As she lit her cigar, he continued, "The Grand Shik of Thebes is old and feeble, borderline senile... In his day he expanded the city, reinforced it, secured it against invasion with treaties that still last, but now his presumed eldest son is running the show in everything but name. Strengthening the police, trying to push through tarriffs and excise taxes and outlaw immigration, erecting a secret court to deal with smugglers -- all of it bad for business. And it's assumed that he's the eldest son, and therefore will succeed the Grand Shik once he dies."
The ship began to slow and turn, and a sizeable crowd was already gathering on the docks to greet them.
There had better be at least one bottle of decent tequila in that hold or the Aussie would be a mad as a cut snake. And just as pleasant. She held the heavy heat of the thick smoke in her lungs before finally setting it free in her reply.
"Can't wait t'meet th'bloke."
"Not everyone assumes he's the eldest. He's a bastard son... and there's other bastards" Alain ashed his cigar and watched the high stone cliffs that protected Thebes rise up before them; the great grey faces were frosted silver and white, some of them all the way from top to bottom for wide stretches. The mainland was useless, though, a vast frozen wasteland that had never produced anything, as far as anyone could remember. "We don't have many good informants here, but the last time we sent a spy on a visit, he figured out there's an eldest, and our man Lokshi isn't it. We think he's hunting for the Shik's other children, and even when he finds out they're younger... well."
Alain smiled grimly. "None of them's ever been proven a murder, but they turned up dead either way."
As the City drew itself large, the Collector took in the sight with an Auditor's eye; looking for the lies in the cracks, the invisible scent of paper trails. Under the jackets, ink stirred and her smile sharpened, cigar tucked into a crooked corner. "Well. Then mebbe I won't hate y'forever fer draggin' m'arse out past the black stump." Out past the back of Nowhere.
"I'll play up the stir we're making when we arrive... and it should last long enough to let you slip away unseen. There's an old lover of his at an inn called the Sea-Goat, said he'd slurred out his lineage a time or two while drunk; find him, secure him, sober him up, and we'll take care of the rest." Jack the bodyguard was listening to all of this, and he nodded suddenly, looking not at all nervous anymore, only very grim.
"With any luck, Lokshi won't attempt a military coup with three foreign gunships in his harbor."
"Sea-goat." She ground out the stub of her cigar on the cold planking beneath her boots. "Luck is not bein' born Capricorn."
And as the shipped docked, lines were thrown, gang-planks lowered, crowds shouted, and the poor cheered, No one noticed another well-bundled body in the masses as Mac cut a path towards the streets. But the Baron might notice the bite of cold around his neck and his missing scarf.
Most of the people in the city, the residents and the comers-and-goers alike, didn't know about Earth's Thebes or that one was named for the other; no one seemed to know why it'd been named that way, if the city had been warm and sunny on the edge of a desert once upon a time, or if the founders had a wry sense of humor. Maybe they missed home enough to ignore the irony... but there was no denying that Thebes was very, very cold. Like Archangel or Hammerfest, one of the icy hellholes on the frozen edge of a continent that defied all reason by harboring life and profit.
But this winter had been hard on Thebes, and the waters all around her began to freeze. Spring had begun, the ice had split and broken, and ships were only just coming and going when the blizzard came back for an aftershock. Not enough supplies had come in, and stores had started to dwindle. For the first time in decades the men and women of this mind-bogglingly profitable and active port could see the back wall of their cellars, and while panic had not and likely would not set in... they were concerned.
But a rumor started somewhere in the chilly stone streets, coming down from the rocky coast with the lighthouse and the watchtowers into the bars and pubs where the sailors wasted coins they couldn't afford on bad ale and worse whiskey: the good stuff was gone, the bad stuff was vanishing, and they turned to whatever news and rumors they could glean for amusement, picking it apart more ways and more times than they were used to. Someone else had probably heard someone else say that the keeper had said that three big ships were on the horizon.
And they were splitting the ice before them.
"****in' cold," the gravel of her voice steamed out in angry little wisps of warmth. The sun burned white on the distant horizon, the dark-sketched silhouette of a port looking fragile against such a bleak backdrop.
Under the double-heavy weight of wool and an old black, leather jacket, the Collector swung a leg over the edge of the Crow's Nest and scaled down the rigging. Black boots hit the deck with a soft double-tap, her smile as brittle as the ice-flows crunching, creaking, cracking and popping as they made way for the ship. Even still, progress was slow.
"Sounds like Ol' Man Winter's bones."
The Baron himself was at the prow, teeth clenched around one of the many cigars currently stashed in the Red Jack's hold. In spite of her small size, they took the lithe and well-armed ship because the pirates on this route had grown so desperate lately... desperate enough that, once the ice thawed off the ship's side, the crew would be painting another kill on her, her eighth. His green-skinned Aurk bodyguard Jack looked on nervously as his charge perched precariously close to the edge, one arm wrapped up in the rigging as Thebes grew ever larger before them. He had on goggles for the cold wind and snow, currently dangling around his neck over a thick wool scarf. With those, his old brown duster and a pair of mean-looking revolvers on, he looked the part of an adventurer out of some old story.
They carried enough grain, flour, milk and the like for the city's poor, that were likely not faring so well as the rest: cheaply bought, and to be given away for free. The rest of their cargo? Silver Mark Black and Amber Lager, Evil Empire IPA, Baron's Batch Red Ale, Reveler's Red Rum, Icecrest's Own Vodka, Hardy Ja'ir Tobacco, Spiced Teobrec Cigarettes, and eleven hundred and ninety-four Montren Ebony Cigars.
The ship lurched dangerously as the reinforced arcane iron hull smashed through another icy barrier, and Alain grabbed the rigging tighter as Jack stirred restlessly. "Something like that." He squinted at the horizon, then peered over his shoulder at Mac. "What would bring you to a hellhole like this... besides cash?"
The geometric lines of Mac's crooked mouth skewed dangerously towards a smirk as her tongue ran across her top teeth. "Y'said I'd get to sail. See the world. Y'left out the part where it was on the other side of froze-over-hell, mate."
"I'd be a liar if I said I didn't know it'd be this bad." His teeth tightened over the strangely dark cigar, and he blew another puff of thick and pungent smoke into the wind that evaporated almost instantly. The ship bucked again as he worked his way back to her, past a visibly relieved bodyguard. "Besides... there's business in this city that just might be right up your alley." He offered her one of the cigars once he got close. Make that eleven hundred and ninety-three.
"Hm." Single eye narrowed from the horizon to the man, once Detective, now Baron, sometimes Bastard. Always friend. The tips of inked fingers pressed past the cut-off fingers of a pair of wool gloves and accepted the peace-offering. "Mos' my alleys are in warmer places," she bit off the end of the cigar and spat it on the deck, "Dick."
He grinned, the sort of hard-lined grin that only emphasized the fire in his gaze as he continued to stare at Thebes. "Don't worry, all that liquor will be open almost as soon as we make landfall. Then we'll be plenty warm."
He turned to her again, striking a match and shielding it expertly with his right hand, unafraid to singe the strange arcane nerves that worked beneath the old burn scars. As she lit her cigar, he continued, "The Grand Shik of Thebes is old and feeble, borderline senile... In his day he expanded the city, reinforced it, secured it against invasion with treaties that still last, but now his presumed eldest son is running the show in everything but name. Strengthening the police, trying to push through tarriffs and excise taxes and outlaw immigration, erecting a secret court to deal with smugglers -- all of it bad for business. And it's assumed that he's the eldest son, and therefore will succeed the Grand Shik once he dies."
The ship began to slow and turn, and a sizeable crowd was already gathering on the docks to greet them.
There had better be at least one bottle of decent tequila in that hold or the Aussie would be a mad as a cut snake. And just as pleasant. She held the heavy heat of the thick smoke in her lungs before finally setting it free in her reply.
"Can't wait t'meet th'bloke."
"Not everyone assumes he's the eldest. He's a bastard son... and there's other bastards" Alain ashed his cigar and watched the high stone cliffs that protected Thebes rise up before them; the great grey faces were frosted silver and white, some of them all the way from top to bottom for wide stretches. The mainland was useless, though, a vast frozen wasteland that had never produced anything, as far as anyone could remember. "We don't have many good informants here, but the last time we sent a spy on a visit, he figured out there's an eldest, and our man Lokshi isn't it. We think he's hunting for the Shik's other children, and even when he finds out they're younger... well."
Alain smiled grimly. "None of them's ever been proven a murder, but they turned up dead either way."
As the City drew itself large, the Collector took in the sight with an Auditor's eye; looking for the lies in the cracks, the invisible scent of paper trails. Under the jackets, ink stirred and her smile sharpened, cigar tucked into a crooked corner. "Well. Then mebbe I won't hate y'forever fer draggin' m'arse out past the black stump." Out past the back of Nowhere.
"I'll play up the stir we're making when we arrive... and it should last long enough to let you slip away unseen. There's an old lover of his at an inn called the Sea-Goat, said he'd slurred out his lineage a time or two while drunk; find him, secure him, sober him up, and we'll take care of the rest." Jack the bodyguard was listening to all of this, and he nodded suddenly, looking not at all nervous anymore, only very grim.
"With any luck, Lokshi won't attempt a military coup with three foreign gunships in his harbor."
"Sea-goat." She ground out the stub of her cigar on the cold planking beneath her boots. "Luck is not bein' born Capricorn."
And as the shipped docked, lines were thrown, gang-planks lowered, crowds shouted, and the poor cheered, No one noticed another well-bundled body in the masses as Mac cut a path towards the streets. But the Baron might notice the bite of cold around his neck and his missing scarf.