The End of Rackam's Tale
As soon as Samovar fell dead to the deck, Josiah ripped the sacred diamond of Riora from his neck, then held the gem aloft. In sparkled like a strobe light. In the longboat, the late Samovar's thirty-three subjects bowed. According to their dogma, Josiah had just been selected by the Gods as the fourteenth Emperor of Cymbala.
A few hours later, the Paixhan crewmen stuffed the poor souls into the Paixhan's hold, along with the three hundred others Josiah had previously agreed to purchase.
On his first night as Emperor, surveying Cymbala's motley collection of dirt huts and tree houses, Josiah realized he didn't want the job. He decided to sell the entire population, save the nubile women.
The Sacred Diamond of Riora, proved too difficult to vend without drawing unwanted interest. So it was cut into three and four carat bits, then discreetly disbursed throughout Europe. Josiah was suddenly an extraordinarily wealthy man.
The Paixhan's crew had hoped his first act as such would be to lead them on a record-long bender. His fancy, though, was death to the Cookes, (Nelson's line) due partly to generations worth of unsettled scores, but mostly because the rotters had twice taken his brigs and made off with sizeable prizes, including slaves, whom, damned if Josiah knew why, the self-righteous bastards had liberated. He placed high prices on the heads of several Cookes.
Fortunately, from his heirs' standpoint, Josiah invested the remainder of the proceeds from the sale of the diamond in ships, rather than benders. Also, he diversified the contraband he ran, which served the burgeoning Hood empire well when the slave trade dried up, not long thereafter.
That's when the really scandalous part began--
On the word, "began," Rackam's face slammed into the bar, causing every drink in the place to ripple.
"He dead?" George asked.
Nelson looked at him as if it was a stupid question. I was wondering the same thing as it happens. Flarq was busy talking to the girl he scrimshawed, Jill. "No, it's poison," Nelson said.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"First, I've used the exact same type," He said, "And second..." With a wave, he indicated the far end of the bar, and the two men sitting there smiling and toasting us, and, with their free hands, holding Glocks. Bonney and Yahttzee.
They prodded us all into the back of their SUV, Jill too (worse, she seems to be hitting it off with Yahttzee (worse, he's the hundred-year-old guy)) and are taking us off now to interrogate then kill us.
P.S. A quick 'shaw of Bonney and Yahttzee:
