The Shadow Saint

by Gareth Hanrahan

  “I expect,” says Eladora, “you’re here to complain that I invited the Ghierdana syndicates back into the city.” She picks up a pile of newspapers from the nightstand, waves them at Carillon. “Actually getting stabbed would be a nice change from the daggers of the press, so go ahead.”

  “It’s not that. Well, it is that, but… fuck. El, it’s Spar.”

  “What about him?”

  “He pushed himself too hard. Ever since we raised the god bomb, he’s been really… quiet. Weak. More than before. I can’t shape the stone any more, can’t pass on blows. El, I can’t hear him most of the time–or, worse, he’s not talking as much.”

  Eladora gets out of bed, conjures a werelight. Cari flinches at the light. Eladora notes that her cousin is bruised and scratched. A wound dressing on her neck, stained brown.

  “What do you think I can do?” Eladora leads Cari into another room in the suite, digs out her medical kit, starts to peel away the dressing.

  “I dunno. It’s… magic stuff. God stuff. Ongent stuff.”

  Eladora blanches at the infected wound. “Gods below, what happened to you?”

  “Remember how I kicked the fucking Ghierdana out of the city, and you teleported to Lyrix and asked them nicely to come back? That.”

  Eladora smears ointment on the wound, applies a fresh dressing. “There are some scholars here in the city. The university department of archaeotheology, the alchemists’ guild. No true experts left, though.” It’s not entirely a lie. “But there are other cities.”

  Eladora crosses the room to a wardrobe, disarms the spell guarding it. “The sages of Khebesh are reputed to be the greatest authorities on ‘magic stuff’ in all the world. And from the sounds of things, it would be best for you, too, if you left Guerdon for a while.”

  That’s not entirely a lie, either. There’s work to be done here in the city that will go easier without Cari’s presence.

  “I’ve heard stories about Khebesh,” grumbles Cari. “They never let outsiders in.”

  Eladora opens the wardrobe and takes out a heavy leather-bound codex. Dr Ramegos’ diary of sorcery, including her notes on the construction of the god bombs and the machine on Hark. Eladora hands the book to Carillon.

  “Bring them this. Trade it for what you need. I don’t know if they can help Mr Idgeson, but I hope it’s possible.”

  Carillon takes the book, holds it like it’s diseased. “Could they make more god bombs with this?”

  “Rosha’s great insight was that the Black Iron Gods, in their imprisoned form, were immensely powerful but static. That could be used to interrupt the ever-recurring pattern of another god. But that only worked because their hungers had brought them extremely close to the mortal world. Such… proximity is rare. Dr Ramegos believed that the Haithi phylacteries might be a low-grade substitute, but even after a hundred or more generations of accumulated souls, few of the phylacteries would have sufficient spiritual force to disrupt a true deity.” Eladora sniffs. “So no. Not without raw materials.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Let me get you a satchel.” Eladora busies herself in the wardrobe again. Fetches a bag, puts some money in it, some more medicinal ointment. Removes Cari’s amulet from around her own neck, slips it in there, too.

  The further the amulet is from Guerdon, the safer for both women.

  “Hey,” asks Cari, peering over Eladora’s shoulder. “What’s that aethergraph for? I thought they shut them all down.” The aethergraph machine sits on the floor of the wardrobe, the silvery cables wound around it in an endless loop.

  “It’s disconnected,” says Eladora. “It’s a research project.” She reaches out and strokes the metal casing, gives it a reassuring pat. I will work to save you, she thinks, but not yet. Not until I’m sure. She shuts the door, reactivates the wards.

  “El,” says Carillon. “Before I go… what did you do, down in the vault? With the Black Iron Gods? Those fuckers got in my head when I was their Herald, made me see stuff, feel stuff. Don’t let them use you.”

  “Last year, when I visited you at Sevenshell Street, just after the Crisis–I said that you should not blame yourself for what happened.” Eladora reflects for a moment, then hands Carillon the satchel. “I stand by that assessment. Don’t listen to your own fears, or the jealousies of little men and little gods.

  “History is the only judgement that counts.”

  A few days later, Eladora walks up Mercy Street, picking her way through the rubble. They’ve cleared a gap in the middle of the road, but it’s choked with carriages on their way up to the opening of parliament. Mercy Street runs along the perimeter of the Ishmeric Zone; a permanent haze hangs over the borderlands, and those who cross without the right blessing are snatched away by Cloud Mother. The crowd is careful not to stray over the line, making their progress even slower.

  She realises, as she pushes through the mob, that she’s being followed. Absalom Spyke falls in beside her, matching his long strides to her shorter ones.

  “The boss wants to see you before it all kicks off,” he whispers in her ear.

  “I know,” she replies. “Rat told me.” Told her by speaking through her, disturbing her in her studies.

  “Boss also wants to make sure you get there alive,” hisses Spyke. “Lots of folks wouldn’t mind seeing you dead, I hear. Kill the bitch who forced us to surrender.” There’s a rumble in his throat that suggests he’d be one of them, off the clock, but right now he’s in Kelkin’s employ.

  “They are entitled to hold such opinions,” says Eladora, “it’s one of the benefits of being alive.”

  Spyke grunts. The Armistice put an end to the fighting, but at the cost of ongoing occupation. It cedes portions of the city to Ishmere, to Haith, and to Lyrix. If any of the three powers breaks the truce, the other two, plus Guerdon’s forces, will ally against them. Guerdon’s neutrality in the Godswar is maintained–only now, instead of being on the sidelines of the conflict, the front lines are on the city streets.

  As they approach parliament, Spyke relaxes. “Your new friends’ll take care of you from here.”

  He slips away. She catches sight of him a few minutes later, his arm around a young woman. She’d be very pretty under other circumstances, but she’s terrified, trapped by Spyke’s long arm. She shoots a pleading look at Eladora before Spyke drags her away into a side entrance that leads to the viewer’s gallery.

  She spots Mhari Voller, too. Voller’s wearing a Ghierdanian-style dress, and has an elaborate piece of jewellery–a golden dragon–twining around her left arm. She catches Eladora’s eye too, and waves. Mouths something about drinks. In a Lyrixian restaurant, no doubt. If the god bomb hadn’t worked, then Voller would be cutting out hearts and burning them in a brazier as an offering to Pesh.

  Despite all its faults, this arrangement, this Armistice, is a better fate. For Voller and the city.

  Eladora crosses the courtyard outside parliament. It’s crowded, but there’s an open space near the dragon. The massive creature lies across the rubble of a broken wall, sunning itself like a snoozing cat. A young Ghierdanian man sits on a rock near the dragon’s head. He recognises Eladora, and rises to greet her.

  “Miss Eladora,” says Rasce in a thick Lyrixian accent. “We’ve scarcely seen you since we arrived. You are healed, yes? You looked like death when you arrived!”

  Arrived, she thinks. When I bargained with the Black Iron Gods? When they tore a hole in the world, and in me, so I could cross the ocean in an instant? She masks her scowl with a smile. “Much better, thank you.”

  “My great-uncle would speak with you, please. This way.”

  He brings her over to the dragon’s head. The monster opens its eyes. “Run along, Rasce. See if your cousin has found me some goat in this barren city.

  “This is a new thing you have made,” says the dragon to Eladora. “You are always making new things in Guerdon. First the keeping of gods, like my nephew keeps goats. Then the killing of th
em. Now this. What is this, do you think?”

  “Peace, I hope.”

  “Three men holding swords to each other’s throats, and this is peace?”

  “For now.”

  “You make your buildings small, over here,” says the dragon, “and I cannot fit into your parliament. But I have keen ears, and I hear many who dislike this thing you have made. Tell me, will they take your bargain?”

  “They will,” she says without hesitation. She can’t afford to doubt.

  “No war today,” says the dragon, craning its head to look out over the city.

  “Not today, no.”

  A bell rings inside parliament. “I must go.” You can’t bear the weight of a sword forever. Sooner or later, you have to put it down.

  Kelkin waits for her in a small office. In the room outside, Ogilvy and a few other IndLibs argue about the relief act. Eladora’s surprised that Kelkin’s not out there. Usually, he’s in the thick of such discussions, eager to ensure not a penny of city money is wasted, nor an iota of credit given to anyone else.

  She finds him dressed in the ermine robes of state. Worn, she inadvertently recalls, by the king’s minister, in the days of the monarchy. Those days have come again, now. Kelkin’s a small man, and he seems barely able to carry the heavy furs.

  “Duttin. You finally came yourself. I don’t have the eyesight for reading endless correspondence.” He waves one of her letters at her, one she sent the day after the ceasefire. She had Silkpurse deliver it.

  “I needed to withdraw,” she says. “And rest. The crossing to Lyrix took a great deal of my strength.”

  “And who asked you to do that, eh? I fucking told you to bargain with Haith, get their reinforcements! With their dead bastards, and the bomb, we could have fought off the Ishmerians—”

  “Maybe the first wave. But not the full strength of the Sacred Empire. Not the gods, Effro.” Eladora glances back into the outer office, seeing who’s with Ogilvy. Marking faces, names. “And say you won by some mir-mir–mischance–you’d be under Haithi occupation instead of Ishmere, and Ishmere would have attacked again. At best, we’d be a… satrapy, under their king.”

  “Oh, we could’ve done away with that,” snaps Kelkin. He’s blustering, thinks Eladora, trying to convince himself. “Spyke found some girl who was bedding a Haithi spy and met good King Berrick on the train from Haith. A little encouragement, and she’d testify that Berrick was a spy, too. We could bring him down–and the Keepers too, if they stuck with him. But you ruined all that, didn’t you?” Kelkin’s raging, but he’s just a little mortal man. Eladora’s faced down the Black Iron Gods. “Spyke’s parading the girl up in the gallery. I’ve let the Keepers know that we’ve got something on their fucking king, that we’ve got leverage–but because of you, I have to spend that on getting them to back your bloody Armistice! And I’ll have to kneel before that milksop of a wine merchant, and call him Majesty.” He spits and it turns into a hacking cough.

  “Peace, Effro. It’s worth the bargain.”

  “Peace,” he echoes mockingly. “Ramegos promised me that her bloody machine would hold back the Godswar, and now it’s at my throat! What’s your guarantee worth? Damn all. Damn all.” He groans. “When are you coming back to work?” he mutters. “I need you.”

  Commotion in the outer office. Ogilvy bursts in.

  “We don’t have the votes.”

  “Parliament hasn’t fucking opened yet,” shouts Kelkin.

  “I just got word. Twenty-five of ours, and half the Keepers are going to vote against Armistice. The turncoats are all her lot,” says Ogilvy, glaring at Eladora. “They’re saying that they can’t make a bargain with evil gods. That they came here to escape Ishmere, and that we’re selling them out.”

  “Who? Give me names,” asks Eladora.

  Ogilvy rattles off a few. They’re all from the New City, all off the list Spar gave her. There’s one name missing.

  “Leave this with me,” says Eladora.

  CHAPTER 56

  The ghoul leads the spy through the tunnels under parliament. Castle Rock’s riddled with passageways, like the rest of Guerdon, and the city’s new arrivals haven’t yet come to grips with the labyrinth beneath their feet. This route is the quickest way across the Temple District, down to Queen’s Point.

  The spy needs to be quick. Under Alic’s name, he was sworn in as a member of parliament less than an hour ago, and in a short time they’ll vote on the Armistice. It’s his duty to be back for that crucial vote.

  Of course, if the vote fails and the truce collapses, then maybe getting as far away from the heart of the city as possible is a good idea.

  “Is it much further?” he asks the ghoul. He wishes they’d sent Silkpurse to fetch him, not this younger creature, with its sardonic grin and too-sharp teeth.

  “Do you tire, little father? Lie down and sleep if you will. There’s meat on your bones, and precious little good eating in the Wash these days, now the Ishmeric gods are harvesting the dead, too.”

  “I’m in a hurry, that’s all.”

  “Haste and haste. Not far.”

  The green stone of the ghoul tunnel gives way to a concrete drain that slopes steeply upwards. At the end is a heavy iron gate, open enough for him to squeeze through. He’s expected.

  “Down there, third door,” says the ghoul, and it vanishes back into the darkness.

  The spy walks cautiously down the corridor, trying to work out where he’d ended up. The corridor is whitewashed concrete, lit by aetheric lights. The ground’s covered in soot and grimy footprints, dirt tracked down from the surface. There’s a strange pressure in the air, and the sound of distant engines.

  He laughs. Queen’s Point. He’s under the ruins.

  Annah, Tander, you should see me now, thinks the spy. Then he’s Alic again–a second draft of Alic. A more pliant, tractable Alic. A better mask.

  He knocks on the third door. It’s a small, bare-walled office.

  “Come in,” says Eladora.

  “Where are we?” asks Alic.

  “The office of a friend of mine. No one’s down here any more. It’s as… discreet as anywhere in the city,” says Eladora. “I’m sorry for dragging you away from parliament, but this can’t wait.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “I… it’s about the Armistice vote. Some of our new members are voting against it. They’re all people you helped elect. They all listen to you. Absalom Spyke even tells me there’s been talk of a leadership challenge, when Kelkin goes.” Eladora takes a sharp breath. “Did you tell them to vote against the Armistice?”

  “I came out of Mattaur. I’ve seen the Godswar,” he begins, but she interrupts him.

  “Oh, don’t give me that,” snaps Eladora. “We’ve all seen the Godswar now. Yes, it’s unbearably awful. Why undermine my peace?”

  “They fled the Sacred Realm. They fear that your Armistice will give Ishmere time to regather its strength,” explains Alic. His eyes flicker to the only ornament in the office, a ticking clock.

  “That’s why they’re voting against it, not you.”

  “You can’t be sure Pesh was wholly destroyed, you know. To be certain, burn her temples, kill her priests, cast down her shrines, and maybe…”

  “Restarting the war might kill Pesh. It would definitely kill all of us.” Eladora bites her lip. For the first time in weeks, she wishes she had Aleena’s sword hilt with her. She remembers Aleena riding into her grandfather’s crypt, driving away evil with a blazing lance of sunlight. “Terevant Erevesic is a mercenary now.”

  The spy shrugs. “He died a hero. Godslayer, the papers call him. I hear they’re writing poems about him.”

  “I accompanied him down to his ship. I wasn’t the only person there to see the mercenaries depart. There was another woman there. The poor thing was god-touched, warped into sort of half-kraken. She had no mouth left, so we couldn’t converse, but you know me. I always have pen and paper. Her name is Oona.”


  Eladora draws the pistol from her pocket. Aims it at the spy.

  “She described how you recruited her for espionage against Guerdon. How you broke into this very fortress. You were looking for the god bomb.”

  Tander’s dead. Annah’s dead. Emlin’s dead. No one knows the real story. And the best lies have a little truth. The spy lets Alic’s shoulders sink. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. I… I was a spy for Ishmere. They paid well, Eladora. And they let me out of Severast, when the whole place was a prison camp. I didn’t have a choice. But all we did was poke around Queen’s Point. I know I should have told you, but… when Emlin died, I was broken… and then the election, and everything.” He lets himself sob. “It was my old life. It’s not the man I am now. Please believe me.”

  “I do,” says Eladora.

  “Ishmere attacked anyway. The gods are mad, you know that. All of them. It was the Kept Gods who sank the Grand Retort. Everything that happened was the fault of the gods.”

  “The Safidists believe that it’s the place of mortals to serve the gods. To align oneself complete with the will of the gods. To annihilate yourself, to make a better vessel. To be their agent.” Eladora’s fingernails dig into her thigh, but the hand holding the gun doesn’t waver. “But… but I could never suborn myself like that. I wanted to be free to shape my destiny, instead of letting someone or something else do it for me. I don’t know how possible that is–none of us are alone. Everything’s connected. The root cause of an action is hard to determine, or there are many causes. History’s never as simple as the stories tell it. You have to look hard for connections.

  “Who told the city watch that there was a saint of Fate Spider in Jaleh’s house?”

  “I don’t know!” The spy lets Alic show a little anger. The boy was Alic’s son.

  “You did,” says Eladora. “You lured Ishmere to attack the city. You wanted the gods to attack, so they’d be destroyed along with Guerdon.”