Chapter 219: Cut the Deck
Ten minutes later, Ozzy had gotten Woodrat to agree to not start another fight. They were in the captain's cabin, seated around a round table that was bolted to the deck. A circular bench, also attached to the floor was in lieu of chairs. The table was inlaid with geometric patterns in different colored woods and worn smooth. In the center they created the image of a drunken mermaid, a jack of ale in each arm. The top was worn smooth, and in a few places the wood was discolored. Ozzy could only imagine how many card games had been played on this table during long voyages.
The woman had produced a deck of cards from a drawer, and to Woodrat's delight, a full bottle of aged Deadeye. Neither of the other two were drinking, so he just took swigs from the bottle, careful to recork it every time, a habit of many sailors. Drink was too precious to waste to an accident.
Cards were dealt, but Woodrat didn't pick his up. "I don't play cards with people I haven't been introduced to. I'm Captain Woodrat, of the good ship Splinter, which true to her name is in a few pieces at the moment. This is my talented first Mate, Mr. Ozzy, raised in the conjunction and now getting his true education here in the Smoke."
"What's in a name? Something to be bound with when you trust to easy, and give it away to the wrong person. Call me Mariah, it's served before.
The stakes were for chips, with each person making theirs out of their own smoke. Mariah demonstrated for Ozzy, breathing out a bit of smoke and forming it into a flat disk. There was a minutes pause as Ozzy struggled to form his cash, Mariah making a pile of white chips with little to no effort, and Woodrat creating a much darker pile of black chips with a red sword in the center. Ozzy's chips were a neutral gray.
The game was familiar to Ozzy: five card draw. He'd played hand after hand with his friends, at a penny a point. This deck's illustrations were anything but familiar. The four suits were Fyre, Skye, Sea, and Rock. The aces were all Cyclones, the face cards were of captains or pirates. The lesser cards were fantastical monsters or sailing ships. Each card was a work of art, and for how much they felt old and used, he saw no wear on them. There was just a weight to them, as if they were more than cards.
Woodrat took the first hand, with a pair of Aces. Ozzy saw that the illustrations looked like Cylones, One white and the second made of flames. His own hand was a scattering of cards, and he only managed a pair of deuces, a rocky two headed giant and its cousin striding through waves with a scaly skin. Woodrat laughed and gathered in the chips. He picked up a white chip and stared at it. Mariah glared at him. "Put it down. You need to win the game first." Woodrat just laughed and took two cards. He thought that he had won that hand with two pair, Aces over threes, but Mariah held five rocks, and took the hand with her flush.
The game wore on through many rounds, and Woodrat finished his bottle. Ozzy notice that the Jack of Fyre looked very similar to the god named Jack. Ozzy was cleaned out after awhile, having lost his 137th chip, which Mariah told him was a natural limit to a short game. The chips swayed back and forth across the table between Woodrat and Mariah, with the size of the wagers increasing. Then came a hand when neither player took cards, and each simply pushed in all their chips. Ozzy studied both people. Woodrat's face revealed nothing, but there was a spark that danced in one eye. Mariah's face could have been carved from Ivory.
Mariah laid down her cards, not being able to withhold a smile as she did. She had pulled a natural straight flush of rocks with the ace high. It looked like a dust-devil with red glowing eyes. She started to pull in the chips when Woodrat laid down his own hand. "Not so fast, darling. You never know how a captain's luck is running until you see his hand."
One at a time he laid down his cards.
Ace of Fyre, a red cyclone with blackened bodies whirling inside.
Ace of Sky, a white cyclone in a light blue background. Lightning arcing all around it.
Ace of Sea, a green-blue typhoon with sharks swimming within.
Ozzy whistled, and Mariah shook her head in wonder. "It's pretty, but you can't win with that. Another pair won't help you, and I have the last ace for your set."
"Ah, but these two gentlemen came out to play." Woodrat laid down two jokers. One had the image of a huge man in the garb of a captain with long hair and bushy beard aflame. The other was a giant of a man, with bulging muscles and arms wrapped in chains. "Five Aces. Read them and weep." The table was silent as Woodrat pulled all the chips to his corner of the table
Woodrat turned to Ozzy. "You were out first minnow. Time to put all the cards on the table and tell us your goals and dreams. Where you're headed and where your loyalty lies."
Ozzy felt a light compulsion, and knew he could ignore it, but that would break the spell the cards had cast, and who would trust him then? "I came here, accidentally or on purpose to learn how to use smoke. I've accomplished a lot and want to go home. My best hope is finding Old Smoke. He's chained by Captain Blackgut to one of the Black Galleys. He's sailing the smoke, somewhere. Loyalty? Ultimately to myself, and my best friends. I'll serve you as mate and sure as hell won't betray you, but if I get a good chance to go home, I'm taking it."
Mariah raised an eyebrow and took a long, slow breath, then started talking. "I was bound a long time ago, a slave on this ship for as long as the captain lived. As he was dying, he cheated and bound me to that bottle like some damned Djinn. I want to be free. I'll sail on this ship for seven years if you promise right here and now to free me after that. If you try to keep me bound beyond that, or don't agree to free me after at all, I'll twist every order you give to cause problems and get a chance to kill you."
Woodrat looked at the empty bottle where she had been imprisoned. It was heavy glass, enchanted to be unbreakable by normal means, and he knew the little white cyclone couldn't harm it herself. The bottle was the chain he could use to command her. "I'm a guppy who was given a chance to be a shark. I sailed on a dozen ships and was shipwrecked or tossed overboard two-dozen times. If my luck hadn't changed when I found this waif from the junction, I'd still be a regular sailor. Now I'm a captain, and one of the seven. I've ridden a whale and fought fearsome foes. I don't know how long I can stay on the crest of this wave, but I'll ride it to the end."
He turned to Ozzy. "Stay with me as my mate, and I'll do everything I can to get you home when the chance arises. And as for you..." he turned to Mariah. "Neither I nor my mate likes keeping slaves, and I don't fancy sailing with an angry cyclone in my crew, useful as you would be. Stay your seven years, or fly off to Skye. That's up to you."
He tossed the bottle to Ozzy, who held it in one hand, and punched it hard with the other. The bottle shattered in an explosion of glass shards and magic. Woodrat and Ozzy picked themselves up off the floor. Mariah grabbed Woodrat in a quick hug, kissed Ozzy on the cheek, and faded away in a gust of white smoke and wind.
Ozzy picked a few bits of glass out of his hands and cheek. "That was a good thing to do."
Woodrat shrugged. "Well, it was a gamble, but not much of one. Not much chance she'd stay, really, and now there's no argument about who's ship it is. But the most dangerous creatures in the whole of creation are a woman or a creature of wind bound against their will. I'm sure her last captain didn't die easily."
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