"A game of cards"
I’ve never really felt comfortable on other people’s ships. Especially those that can’t soar the skies, like mine can. I’ve also never felt at ease this deep into Imperial territory. Given my meager claim to fame, it wouldn’t take much for one of these soldiers at the table to decide the bounty on my head is worth more than the pot in the middle.
One of them, the youngest-looking of the bunch, was playing fairly. I felt sorry for the poor neophyte, if only a little bit. The other two were cheating, but getting in each other’s way. They were in for themselves, which made it easy to play them against one another. About four or five more off-duty soldiers lazed and lined the walls surrounding our table. Probably to make sure I wasn’t cheating. They weren’t good at it, or were unfamiliar with a pirate’s methods. Naturally, I was cheating too. The trick wasn’t to win it all at once. I needed them to think that they were a step ahead of me.
While my gold pile dwindled at an agonizingly slow pace, I was looking for my exit strategy. Imperial types are easy enough to flee from, so long as your goal is only to get out of the room. Getting off the ship would only be a degree or so more difficult. The hard part comes from getting to my own vessel, and subsequently getting it out of Imperial airspace. Preferably in one piece this time.
The sands of my hourglass were measured in little gold coins. Funny enough, it wasn’t even the gold that I was after. Stealing from the bored cannon fodder was child’s play. The kind of thing they would teach in Sky Pirate Elementary School, if such a thing existed. (It doesn’t.) I wouldn’t put myself so deep into treacherous skies and waters if I just wanted a pay day. No, I was here on a mission.
There’s much more to treasure than gold or gems. Fancy, antiquated weapons or crowns. Portraits or trinkets. Sometimes, mundane things can be treasure, depending on whose eye is caught. And sometimes, that treasure isn’t tangible. Around this particular table, my treasure just happened to be information. Getting it so far was easy. The more gold I lost, the more time I could take between rounds. The more time I took to play, the more they talked.
Ironically, the young recruit playing straight was the hardest to play around. Cheaters playing other cheaters is easy. We’re all just following a script and seeing who forgets their lines first. And despite what my various enemies might call me to imply otherwise, I have impeccable memory. …When it comes to stage play lines. And counting cards. But an honest person? It’s harder to get a read someone who says what they really mean.
I had to stall a little to compensate. Win small victories here and there to extend my time. Act as though I were making a comeback, only to begin the losing streak anew. All the while, the soldiers around us talked. They were trained well enough to keep their voices low, at least. And while I stared at my cards and coins, it was easy to avoid suspicion. Make them think I couldn’t hear them.
Minutes turned to hours, and I had just enough coin to stay in the game, only just. But my fortunes weren’t measured in gold. I learned much and more, far more than I needed to for my client’s sake. More than I should ever have known. Information of the caliber to bring down empires weighs more than a thousand chests full of gold and gems. I began to wonder why I was the one tasked with stealing it in the first place.
It wasn’t my place to question. I began my comeback. The signal that I needed to get out of there. The tip of the hand in one layer of the game while gambling on my escape in the real game. It took only minutes. A few choice plays, a flourish of dumb luck. The ever increasing tempers of my two partners in crime at the table, yet played straight incredulity from the newbie. The tension of the soldiers who no longer lazed against the wall. Finally, the accusation from the eldest of the players, and the drawing of weapons. As far as they were concerned, the game was up. For me, the second act of the play was only just beginning.
The first step was leaving the room, which was trivial. Getting off the ship, only slightly less so. The ship I was playing on was, ironically enough, not in Imperial waters. It was a freshly commissioned thing, nearly sunk on her maiden voyage, and brought back to the Imperial Palace for repairs and corrections to glaring design flaws. (Note to self, find who this shipbuilder is and never let them within a continent of the Sparrow.) That was what made this game so dangerous. And while I am normally wont to say ‘It wasn’t the first time I’ve fled Imperial territory, and won’t be my last,’ with what I now knew, I had a feeling that I would never want to see this side of the world again, for better or worse. Of course, I had to consider all of this while on the move.
Fleeing from armed soldiers is truly perilous, let me be clear. It comes second nature, with enough experience roaming the skies as I have for so long. Running down halls I’ve only seen in pictures, dodging weapons, crossbow fire, all of it, it was just background noise while I made my true escape. Palace walls are never high enough for a bird, after all.
The town surrounding the Imperial Palace was, as expected, much more tricky to get through. Perhaps it was intentional security to have such crowded, rich markets. Not getting hurt was easy. Keeping hundreds of innocent civilians from getting hurt was harder. Not that I couldn’t, but it wasn’t a picnic either.
But the worst part was finding my own ship. Before coming to this place, I’d already planted trusted sources in the right places. Paid off guards and soldiers to keep the Carnelian Sparrow safe and ready to go, rather than locked up as they were ordered to do. But as part of the deal for my entry onto the Gilded Siren to play cards, (as opposed to, you know, being arrested on arrival) I could not know where my airship was.
This, too, was part of the game. As I’d said before, I was cheating. (You can’t expect a pirate to play fair, right?) It wasn’t my fault that the soldiers didn’t know how many layers there were to the game. Through the yards of houses, alleys, and market-going masses I fled, until I found myself at the actual gamble. I knew the Sparrow was in one of two places. Either the docks, disguised as a mere seafaring vessel, or in the warehouses of the industrial district, made to appear as just another cargo ship.
A toss of the coin is the most fair judge in all of creation. It is also the most cruel.
Perhaps it’s bad karma to leave a tossed coin without looking to see which side it landed on, but I knew better than to ignore my gut feeling. With a little feint to make it seem like I was headed towards the industrial side of town, I made my way to the docks. Sure enough, I found my “guy on the inside” waiting for me.
I couldn’t afford even a moment of hesitation. If my trust (and coin) was misplaced, I was dead anyway. But I never let myself worry about such contrivances such as betrayal. As if events like this were scripted for the stage, the Carnelian Sparrow took to the sky just in time for a veritable legion of soldiers to descend upon the dock. I took my partner in crime with me, of course. Leaving them to their fate was too cruel, even for me. Besides, I thought they could use the excitement when I picked them out in the first place.
Call it a knack, but I have a habit of finding people stuck in the wrong line of work when I’m scouting out a locale for a job like this. People who dream of the sky are easy to talk into sailing it, after all. In this instance, I was grateful for the company. It made it easy to distract myself, having someone to talk to.
Because this was where the true game really began. The information I carried was no treasure. It was a weapon. Potent, deadly, and irreversible. My current employer undoubtedly knew this, even if she didn’t know exactly what this information was. I began to realize why I was chosen. This was a contest of wit and will.
If I deliver this information, as promised, I would never want for anything ever again. The skies themselves would be mine until I grow too frail to sail them. The palace I could build would be more grand than any could ever dream of. But the cost would be great. An Empire would fall, blood would spill, and the war that would inevitably ensue would risk burning the very fabric of civilization on this grand eastern continent to the very ground.
I wasn’t playing against my employer. I was playing against myself. The irony was no longer lost on me.
As one could assume, I would take my time in deciding what to do with what I now possessed. I had a week to show results, or defiance. A week of sleepless nights, as not even a sky pirate could sleep knowing what I know. But I was grateful for the time to calculate my move. She was the sort that could best me in such games, if I were not careful. But I’ve lived a long time as a sky pirate, and I intend to continue to do so for quite a long time.
A whole week…
Splitting the gold I’d won from the Imperial Legion fifty-fifty with my new crewmate, I proposed a game of cards to pass the time.
~Skye Scarlet