The Rise of Ransom City by Felix Gilman

Author:Felix Gilman [Gilman, Felix]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Steampunk
ISBN: 9780765329400
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2012-11-26T13:00:00+00:00

Halfway down the block from the Baxter Tower there was a small hotel. A man stood on its steps, leaning against a wrought-iron rail and smoking. He wore a rumpled suit of red and green linen, and a sloppy bow-tie. He had an impressive black mustache, that was shaped somewhat like the cow-annihilating cowling of an Engine, or the design on an old-world knight’s shield that is called a cheveron. He had a nose that was probably eagle-like before it got broken, and he had very blue and very clever eyes, with which he had quite clearly been watching me watch the gate of the Baxter Tower for some time.

He was utterly unembarrassed to be caught spying. As a matter of fact he smiled and waved me over, like we were friends.

“Your head’s bleeding,” he said.

I touched it. “So it is.”

“So,” he said, “new in town?”

I saw no reason to deny it. “It shows, huh?”

“It does. No harm in that. Everyone was new in town once. I myself was born down in the Deltas, more years ago than I care to remember.”

“Hamlin,” I said, naming the first Rim-town that popped into my head.

“Not familiar with it.”

“Rim-wards.”

“Uh-huh. Fleeing the fighting out there?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Too bad. Cigarette?”

“No thank you. You know, I was told that people in Jasper were unfriendly to strangers.”

“Well,” he said, and smiled. “My motives are ulterior.”

I could at that point have run away. But it is not in my nature to spurn friendly conversation.

“I heard that about you big-city types.”

“So,” he said. “You’ve got a keen and patient interest in Mr. Baxter’s Tower. I have been watching you from the window of my room since lunchtime. I have watched mystics meditating on the empty throne of the Silver City or counting the innumerable coils of the World Serpent and few of them have the staying-power you exhibit. What could possibly account for it? Are you just seeing the sights? Or looking for work?”

“I have work, I think. On Swing Street.”

He raised one eyebrow. I don’t know if I mentioned his eyebrows before but they were as impressive in their own way as the mustache. Throughout our conversation they bristled and flattened as he spoke so that they could express good humor at one moment, curiosity the next, fulminating wrath when necessary. Sometimes I felt I was conversing with the eyebrows and he was merely taking notes.

“It’s not what I expected,” I said, “but it’s better than nothing.”

“They let you spend all day staring at Mr. Baxter’s Tower?”

“Theater-folk keep irregular hours.”

“They do,” he said. “That’s very true.”

He lit another cigarette.

“So,” he said. “Maybe your fascination with the Baxter Trust stems from anger. The Smilers will tell you anger is bad for the soul but I disagree— sometimes a good spell of anger is just what this damn awful world calls for and there’s no alternative. Maybe the Trust foreclosed on your farm or maybe they dammed your river up-stream—or maybe it’s political, maybe you’ve come all the

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