Cutty Jay 1 - Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

Author:Chris Wooding [Wooding, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780575085169
Publisher: Victor Gollancz Limited
Published: 2010-04-01T21:34:48+00:00

Twenty-Two

Sharka’s Den - Two Captains - A Strange Delivery - Recriminations

The slums of Rabban were not somewhere a casual traveller would stray. Bomb-lashed and tumbledown, they were a mass of junk-pits and rubble-fields, where naked girders slit the low sunset and the coastal wind smoothed a ceiling of iron-grey cloud over all. In the distance were new spires and domes, some of them still partially scaffolded: evidence of the reconstruction of the city. But here on the edges, there was no such reconstruction, and the population lived like rats on the debris of war.

Sharka’s Den had survived two wars and would likely survive two more. Hidden in an underground bunker, accessible only by tortuous, crumbling alleys and an equally tortuous process of recommendation, it was the best place in the city to find a game of Rake. Sharka paid no commission to any Guild, nor any tax to the Coalition. He offered a guarantee of safety and anonymity to his patrons, and promised fairness at his tables. Nobody knew exactly what else Sharka was into, to make the bigwigs so afraid of him; but they knew that if you wanted a straight game for the best stakes, you came to Sharka’s Den.

Frey knew this place well. He’d once picked up a Caybery Firecrow in a game here, on the tail end of a ridiculous winning streak that had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with luck. He’d also wiped himself out several times. As he stepped into the den, memories of triumph and despair sidled up to greet him.

Little had changed. There was the expansive floor with its many tables and barely lit bar. There were the seductive serving girls, chosen for their looks but well schooled in their art. Gas lanterns hung from the ceiling, run off a private supply (Sharka refused to go electric; his patrons wouldn’t stand for it). The myopic haze of cigarettes and cigars infused the air with a dozen kinds of burning leaf.

Frey felt a twinge of nostalgia. If he didn’t count the Ketty Jay, Sharka’s Den was the closest thing to a home he had.

Sharka came over to greet him as he descended the iron steps to the gaming floor. Whip-lean, his face deeply lined, he was dressed in an eccentric motley of colours, and his eyes were bright and slightly manic. There was never a time when Sharka wasn’t on some kind of drug, usually to counteract the one before. He was overly animated, his face stretching and contorting into grins, smiles, exaggerated poses, as if he were mouthing words to somebody deaf.

‘Got you a private room in the back,’ he said. ‘She’s in there now.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You think she was followed?’

‘No. I was hiding out there a while. I watched her go in, checked all the alleys nearby. She came alone.’

Sharka grunted and then beamed. ‘Hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘I always know what I’m doing,’ Frey lied, slapping Sharka on the shoulder.

Sharka was as much a survivor as his den was.

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