The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  He reaches the head of the dragon and kneels smoothly, drawing his knife in the same motion and holding it out so that Great-Uncle can see his own carved tooth, symbol of the bond between the two.

  “Beloved Uncle.”

  “Rasce. Come, sit.” The dragon nudges a block of masonry forward with his chin, a seat so close to the dragon’s maw that Rasce can feel the fiery heat of Great-Uncle’s breath.

  “Vorz,” rumbles the dragon. Doctor Vorz glides out of the shadows, holding his black bag. He hands Rasce a folded sheet of paper, then reaches into his bag and draws out a glass vial. The Dentist closes Rasce’s fingers over it as if it’s something precious. Vorz’s own fingers are soft and very, very cold.

  “There is other business,” says the dragon. Great-Uncle extends one bat-like wing over Rasce, angling it to create a leathery tent overhead. The dragon’s long neck slithers out, twists around and tucks under the edge of the wing. Stones crack and tumble as Great-Uncle coils his tail round them, making a perimeter wall. Suddenly, Rasce’s entirely surrounded by the dragon, cocooned in a hot little box of wing membrane and scaly flesh. Alone, facing the dragon’s head.

  Great-Uncle snorts, and the sulphurous smell fills the space. Rasce swallows hard, trying not to gasp for air. Beads of sweat run down his back; it’s furnace-hot in the dragon’s embrace. A private conference is an honour.

  “I have a task for you,” says Great-Uncle. “Look at what Vorz gave you.”

  Rasce opens his hand. The glass vial glimmers softly with silvery light. It’s full of liquid and some whitish-grey crystals, like salt. “Yliaster,” says the dragon, “spirit brine. Used in great quantities by the alchemists. The substance is vital to their industry.” Great-Uncle licks his lips, and the scraping of tongue over scale is deafening in the enclosed space, like a sword being dragged across stone. “And we have secured control of a vast deposit of yliaster. Soon, we will begin importing it. The alchemists’ guild of Guerdon relies on a handful of merchants here in Guerdon for their needs. Deny them yliaster, and the factories grind to a stop. They must have a constant supply.”

  “Where’s our supply?” asks Rasce.

  “Ilbarin,” says Great-Uncle.

  The Firesea region is a long flight. The direct route is perilous, but going via Lyrix and on through safer territory adds days to the journey. “I’ll get my flight gear,” says Rasce.

  “No. Doctor Vorz will ride in your place,” says Great-Uncle.

  “Alone?” Rasce can’t believe the dragon’s words. A dragon might – rarely – carry a passenger, bundled up like cargo, but for someone who isn’t family, who isn’t Ghierdana to ride in the saddle is unthinkable. “He’s not one of us!”

  “Your place,” says the dragon, “is here. There is work to be done, and it may be that you are best suited to it. The yliaster importers… they must buy from us.” Great-Uncle’s massive tongue scrapes again over his scaly lips. “Give them the dragon’s choice.”

  Take the ash, serve the Ghierdana. Or perish.

  Great-Uncle withdraws his head. The wing’s edge comes down, closing the gap, leaving Rasce alone in the hot darkness of the dragon’s embrace. Outside, the sound of bone crunching, meat tearing as Great-Uncle takes another mouthful.

  Rasce is momentarily blind-sided by this. Why him? It must be a test, he tells himself. Artolo was high in Great-Uncle’s favour, but failed, fell when he was given a mission here in Guerdon. Rasce tries to breathe, but there’s no air in here. The merchants who currently supply this alchemical stuff, this yliaster – he needs to persuade them to serve the Ghierdana. To take the ash, even. All of them are outside the Lyrixian Occupation Zone, so he cannot draw on the strength of the Ghierdana directly. A hundred ways this could go awry.

  He must not lose Great-Uncle’s favour. He will not.

  He squares his shoulders, lifts his head proudly, as a Ghierdana should. He is Chosen of the Dragon. He never fails.

  Great-Uncle’s head returns, his chops now covered in blood and goat entrails. Rasce wraps the paper around the yliaster vial, stuffs both inside his jerkin. “It shall be done, Great-Uncle.”

  “Good boy,” says the dragon. He lifts his wing, and abruptly Rasce is back in the bright courtyard.

  Vorz is now wrapped in an expensive fur coat, with a breathing mask strapped to his head. The Dentist doesn’t look any more or less human with his eyes hidden behind bulbous glass goggles, with a breathing tube snaking from his mouth to a tank on his back. He clutches his black bag tightly.

  Vorz lays a gloved hand on Rasce’s arm. “You are far from home, here, and there are powers in Guerdon you do not know. Your Uncle Artolo moved without caution, and it cost him dearly.” Vorz’s fingers spider down Rasce’s bare forearm, linger a moment too long on Rasce’s knuckles. “But it is written: there are moments when the forces balance, and one man in the right place can change the world. Be brave, Rasce.”

  “Thank you for your counsel,” says Rasce, scornfully. He has little time for Vorz’s mystic mummery.

  “I have prepared the way for you. Speak to Vyr.”

  Great-Uncle growls, eager to be off. Vorz climbs into the saddle on the dragon’s neck. Instead of the long rifle, the spear, the scale-brushes and hooks and other supplies that would normally be kept within easy reach, there are bags, chests of alchemical supplies, an ornamented metal case that Race doesn’t recognise.

  “Be ready, Rasce,” says the dragon, “for my return.” The dragon spreads his wings, and steps forward over the edge of the sea wall. He catches the rising air and soars up, circling higher and higher over the New City.

  Ascending, without looking back, into the heavens.

  The city feels different in the absence of the dragon – fragile, weightless, like it’s made of spun sugar and the rain’s about to fall. Rasce tries to cling to his bravado, discovers he’s clutching his dragon-tooth dagger like a talisman. He shoves it back in his belt, takes a breath. By the grey god’s balls, he’s fought in the Godswar. He’s been a pirate, a soldier, a dragon-rider. He’s Chosen of the Dragon, and he’s never encountered a foe he couldn’t best. In all his life, he’s never lost. Convincing some withered old merchants to take the ash should be easy.

  He beckons his cousin over.

  “Vyr. I’ll need somewhere secure as a headquarters.”

  To his credit, Vyr takes to his new role with great efficiency. Before the first day’s out, he’s found Rasce a large house on Lanthorn Street, on the lower north side of the New City, close to the edge of the district. It was occupied, but Vyr had the families squatting there moved up to the towers.

  Like the rest of the New City, the house sprouted from the same miraculous stone. No one built it. Still, as Rasce wanders the freshly scrubbed rooms, stinking of some alchemical cleaning agent, the shape of the house is strangely familiar to him, like a childhood memory.

  Vyr stations guards at the door. A sniper’s nest in the attic. Promises to hire a street sorcerer to draw spell-wards at the entrances. “And I’ve put poison down in the basement.” Vyr taps the floor of the cellar with the point of his sword, and there’s a faint echo. “The whole city is riddled with tunnels. The cursed ghouls aren’t supposed to cross into the LOZ, but they do anyway. They’re informants for the city watch so don’t say anything down there you don’t want repeated.”

  The list of merchants. None are based here in the New City, but a few are close by, in the neutral zone along the docks. Others are on the far side of Guerdon, past the other occupation zones, in the region called Fog Yards. It’s almost funny. In the air, that distance from the New City to the Fog Yards is a heartbeat, a single sweep of Great-Uncle’s mighty wings. Here on the ground, it’s a considerable obstacle.

  “Vyr, we shall need to hire some local ruffians. Blades, smugglers, footpads.” Rasce forces himself to smile at his sickly shadow. “I shall be boss, yes, and you shall be my counsellor.”

  “As the Chosen commands.”

  CHAPTER THREE<
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  Something taps on the window.

  Cari’s awake in an instant, blade in hand. Spar, show me, she thinks, before she remembers that she’s far, far away from the New City, far from her friend. She’s alone here, far from home, and there’s something at the window so get it together, Carillon.

  Again, the tapping. Wet thumping, really, like someone’s slapping the outside of the building with a dead fish. The window’s shuttered; bluish light seeps through the slats.

  Run, her instincts tell her. Running used to work for her.

  Instead, she crosses the muddy floor of the abandoned room, stepping so softly she makes no sound. She readies her blade, positions herself to one side of the window, keeping the solid wall between her and – whatever’s out there. It’s big, she can tell that from the sound of its laboured breathing, from the weight of it as it thumps at the shutters. But probably not hostile – the shutter’s not that sturdy. If it wanted in, it could get in.

  She peers through a slat and finds herself looking into a fish’s eye the size of a dinner plate. Unblinking, an awareness both terrified and placid, as if all it has ever known is suffering. The eye stares back at her without recognition, then the thing thumps on the shutter again, hard enough this time to pop the latch. The shutter bounces back, swinging open to give her a better look at the thing.

  It’s either a huge fish that’s eaten the head of a drowned man, or a drowned man wearing a giant fish like a cloak or headdress, the two fused where the headless neck of the human portion meets the underbelly of the fish. She wonders if she’d see a face if the creature opened its mouth. The human body bends under the weight of the huge fish on its back, its knees and hands caked in mud. The body’s bloated, its flesh pockmarked with bites from smaller fish, water oozing from old wounds. Naked, but the fish have eaten away the genitals. The hands are caked with salt or something similar, little crystals clinging to the skin. More of the crystals smeared on the window.

  The fish-part is still alive as far as she can tell, its brownish-green flanks beaded with moisture, gills pulsing in the pre-dawn air. The fins twitch, brushing against the window frame.

  It stands there for a moment, then a ghastly sound bubbles from the drowned man, like he’s trying to talk even though his head’s got a fish clamped to it – or maybe fused to it, because she can’t tell if the man’s head is in the fish’s mouth, or if it’s more like a monk’s cowled hood instead of a mouth. The groaning gurgle goes on, a terrible keening, and she can nearly make out words in the sound.

  Glass smashes – a bottle, thrown from a window across the street. Bluish blood runs from the fish’s back. Then a hail of stones rains down on the creature. As far as Cari can judge, the attackers aren’t scared, just irritated to be woken by the creature. Like it’s the town drunk, singing at the top of its gills in the middle of the night. The thing’s just standing there, taking the punishment.

  It slaps on the window again as if it’s waiting for her.

  Fuck it. She’s got no reason to stay. Cari grabs her pack and slings it on to her back. The weight of the fucking book makes her slip in the mud. She climbs out into the street. Someone above shouts a curse, and flings a bottle at her, too. It shatters on the wall nearby, showering her in broken glass. Cari grabs a stone and throws it up at the window. She’s a better shot; there’s a second, and considerably louder curse, and the window above slams shut.

  The fish-headed thing – Monkfish, she decides to call it – begins to walk. There’s something absurdly solemn, even dignified about the way it staggers through the muddy streets, dragging the train of its massive fish-body behind it. The absurd entity makes its way downhill, and she follows, staying in the shadows cast by the creature’s radiance. As far as she can tell, she’s the only person on the streets of Ushket at this hour. The sun’s only just crested the shoulder of the Rock, sending long shadows striding west. The light shows her the town. Houses with large arched windows, flat red-tiled roofs, whitewashed walls. Shady green courtyards, to provide relief from the summer’s heat.

  She was right about the transformed terrain. Ushket sits on a hillside, once high above the sea. Now the sea laps at the heart of the town. Through gaps in the buildings, dawn light flashes off the water, blindingly bright. The sea level has risen hundreds of feet; either that or the whole island’s sunk, buried by the divine wrath of the Kraken of Ishmere. When the gods go to war, the way the world works is the first casualty.

  The Monkfish leads her through the streets. A different route to the hill she climbed last night. The streets are still eerily empty, but she can hear the town waking up on the upper levels. Glancing up, she sees rope bridges and walkways crossing overhead, linking the various buildings. The people of Ushket have moved up, ceding the streets to the tides. She spots early risers on some of the walkways, and some of them might be armed. She tries to stay hidden, but Monkfish doesn’t stop moving and the muddy ground is treacherous; at least one of them spots her. She hunches her shoulders and keeps moving. Moves her pack around, so it’s less obvious she’s got anything worth stealing.

  More Monkfish come shambling down different lanes. It’s a congregation, a whole pack of animated-corpses-hauling-giant-fish-things. The fish all goggle at one another; their zombie host-bodies just keep trudging through the mud. Cari sticks close to her Monkfish, although she’s having second thoughts about this whole idea. Maybe she misinterpreted the creature’s intent entirely. Fuck, maybe it has no intent at all, and it’s as dumb as it seems.

  The parade of Monkfish passes through an archway, and suddenly they’re at the edge of town, on the open hillside. There are sentries on the walls of Ushket, but they don’t spot Cari as she slips out and follows the parade down to the new shore, where waves break on the remains of drowned vineyards. It’s a graveyard of ships – there are a dozen hulks here, carcasses drawn up and left to rot. Their prows face the road, and the ebbing tide washes around their sterns. Mastless, some partially broken up. Dragged out of the water judging by the gouged tracks they left behind them, by the heaped and broken earth like frozen red-brown waves around their keels. Something big – a dragon, she guesses, if the fucking Ghierdana are in town – dragged those ships out of the sea and left them broken on the shore. It puts her in mind of beached whales.

  One by one, the Monkfish wade into the water. As they enter the sea, the creatures become suddenly graceful, their human bodies going limp and trailing behind the dancing, leaping fish. They surge through the surf, joyfully, vanishing into this new sea.

  All except her Monkfish. That one wades into the surf and stands there. The fish-eye stares are her, and then it haltingly raises a human arm and points to one of the more intact ships.

  She recognises it. Gods below, she knows it. It’s the Rose.

  Cari runs across the muddy hillside towards the wreck. When she glances back, the Monkfish is gone.

  It’s the stillness that disturbs her. She still knows every inch of the Rose, could find her way through the compartments by memory alone. This was her ship, her home, her salvation. The Rose carried her away from Guerdon, away from the legacy of her family, away from her aunt’s curses and torments, away from the black iron dreams. This ship gave Cari her life.

  But it’s all too still. Rose used to roll with the waves. Cari could feel every breath of wind or pulse of ocean through the decks. Now, the ship’s like another dead body washed up on shore, cold and still.

  She climbs in through a hole in the hull and makes her way through the forward hold. The aft hold looks to be mostly flooded. She sloshes through stagnant water on her way to the ladder that brings her up on to the deck. Rose is listing over to the side; the deck slopes, like the ship’s caught in a never-ending wave. The door to the forecastle, the crew cabin, is open, and Cari stares at it for a long while. For five years, that was her home, her first real home. Her aunt’s house in Wheldacre was never as welcoming or as loved as that little nook under the bowsprit. Unconsciously, as if enc
hanted by her own past, she re-enters the room, finding memories with her fingertips.

  That bunk on the right, that used to be where the first mate, Adro, would sleep. Dol Martaine on the other side. She still instinctively steps to the right to avoid the empty bunk – Martaine would beat anyone who woke him. Gods, she hated him, still hates him, but somehow it’s a fond memory, too.

  She ducks to dodge the lamp that used to hang there, steps over the memory of Cook’s boxes. There are rusted hooks in the walls, for the hammocks were once slung there, a labyrinth of canvas, the crew of the Rose crammed in tighter than sleepers in a flophouse. Storage lockers and boxes, all broken open and empty. The floor’s dirty, too, and that’s so wrong it hurts her bones. Cari’s stolen from temples, faced down saints, even killed a goddess, but this is blasphemy.

  Finally, she sits down on her bunk. For a moment, she imagines what she would do if she could step out of time and reach across the years, speak to the girl she was when she first came aboard, curled up and seasick on this little bunk. Dressed in boy’s clothes, frantically trying to work out how to go to the toilet without giving away her secret. Thinking that was the only secret she had. If you ever go back to Guerdon, Cari thinks to her twelve-year-old self, things will get fucking weird. You’ll make friends, and one of them will turn into the king of the ghouls. And you’ll get the other one killed. And then you’ll be an avenging saint for a while, and that’ll be fun – only it’s killing him again, and you’ve got to cross the world to save him. And don’t get me started about gods and alchemists.

  Oh, and you’ll have to put up with know-it-all Eladora again.

  Look, don’t go back to fucking Guerdon, all right.

  But if she never went back to Guerdon, she’d never have known Spar.

  And Spar would still be alive, she reminds herself. Her presence in Guerdon brought ruin to the city. So much of the suffering is her fault.