Baston’s up again, attacking the Tallowman from behind. He gets his forearm across the creature’s throat in a chokehold, and pulls with all his might. The Tallowman doesn’t need to get air to its lungs – if it even has lungs – but Baston tugs with such force that the waxy neck stretches, pulling apart, gooey strands of wax snapping and parting. Rasce ducks forward, scoops up the dragon-tooth blade – and the Tallowman kicks him in the face, sending him sprawling once more. Again, it twists free of Baston’s grasp, scrabbles across the pavement on all fours like some nightmare insect, melting face scuttling ever closer.
It’s on top of Rasce now, pinning him, hot wax dripping on him. The dagger’s in its wax hand, and then it slashes him across the throat, quick and neat.
No pain. No blood.
He feels the blade skitter off the skin of his throat, but he’s uncut.
The Tallowman frowns, opens its mouth, and a bubble of hot wax bursts on its lips. It drops the dagger, tries another murderous approach. Fingers – horribly soft and malleable, boneless, but terribly strong – close around Rasce’s throat. The other hand probing at his nose, his mouth, fingers slipping past his lips, closing his nostrils.
Rasce fights for air. He slams his fist into the monster’s side, tries to push it off him, but it’s locked on tight. The other thieves are there, too, but somehow they’re very, very far away even as they tug at the Tallowman’s limbs, to no avail.
Vyr’s shouting. Baston’s shouting. Where’s Karla? He’d like to see Karla.
The heat of the Tallowman’s blazing wick on his face is like Great-Uncle’s fire.
The dagger is by your left hand, says a voice in his head. Blindly, he reaches out, finds the dragon-tooth. He stabs it into the Tallow, and there’s a hot gush of molten wax, an inhuman bubbling shriek, but the monster doesn’t let go.
Then Baston takes the dagger from him, and drives it into the Tallowman’s spine, severing the wick. The wax horror spasms, limbs flailing until the flame in its skull goes out. Wax mingles with blood and rainwater on the pavement of Philosopher’s Street.
Voices, all around him, but Rasce can’t move. A tremendous exhaustion suddenly lands on him. He feels drained, his energy utterly sapped. His limbs as distant as the towers of the New City, as heavy as stone. It’s like he’s falling away down some deep shaft into darkness, leaving everyone far behind. The voices of his companions echoing down from far, far above.
Vyr, angry and accusing. Snatching the dragon-tooth blade away from Baston.
Karla, running up. Cursing herself for arriving late. Cradling Rasce’s wounded arm, his blood welling up between her fingers.
More shouting. Baston, intercepting a carriage in the middle of Philosopher’s Street, throwing the driver down into the gutter. Hands, lifting him. But all so far away as the stone drags him down.
That night, Rasce’s dreams are confused. Usually, he dreams of flight, but not now. The dreams are vivid and insistent, pressing on his brain, less like passing fancies and more like a cavalcade of unwelcome spirits that sit on his chest and show him visions, some of which he would rather not see. Over and over, he dreams of the people who live along the dockside wards of the New City. Acrid smoke from the burning yards blowing in their windows, leaving streaks of black soot on the white walls of the New City. They cough and wheeze, breathe through dampened clothes or flee their tainted homes. Children in their beds, retching. Childen, found stiff and cold in the morning.
Another vision. Black smoke from the burning yards mixes with the rain to coat the world in ash.
Black smoke from cities scorched by dragon-fire coats the world in ash.
Through the haze, he sees Baston and Karla on the streets of the Wash, far below. She’s gesturing up at the New City, at the Ishmerian temples that dominate the skyline of the Wash. They fall silent as a stalking spider moves down the street, then resume their argument. Baston’s sullen and impassive, but Karla’s face is animated, passionate; Rasce feels a great swelling of lust for her, suddenly, and the dream fragments and shifts. Now she’s in bed with him, limbs intertwined with his, coiling around him, the heat of her body like a naked flame, and he’s not sure if this is part of the dream or the waking world. He pushes into her, eagerly. Her face changes – it’s a different woman, dark-haired instead, a knife in her hand. There’s a knife in his hand, too, his Great-Uncle’s dragon-tooth dagger.
The dream shatters. Rasce wakes for an instant – he’s in his room in the house on Lanthorn Street, his sheets soaked with sweat. The stone walls of the room are ablaze with light. They flow and crack, like melting ice. There’s liquid beading on their surface, caustic and foul-smelling. Alkahest, some distant part of his brain identifies it.
He tries to struggle out of bed, but his limbs become immeasurably heavy, like he’s turned to stone. He falls back, and as soon as he hits the pillow he’s asleep again.
Rasce falls. He’s in a tunnel now, alone. He snarls, furious to have been snatched away from pleasure. Greenish walls, marked with carvings scratched into the stone over thousands of years. Pitch-dark, but he can still see. He can see gradations of darkness – the fragile cobweb darkness that fills the void when the light leaves, darkness so small that it can be banished with starlight. The settled darkness that accretes over time, leaving a patina of grime, a deep chill that never quite goes away. The thick, hoary darkness of the old tunnels, where no one has dared bring a light for generations. The darkness of the deeps that has learned to slither. Ghoul tunnels.
Out of that darkness comes a huge figure. Hunched, but still its horned head scrapes the ceiling. Massive cloven-hoofed feet, the stench of its rank fur filling the tunnel, claws scratching against the tunnel wall – and Rasce can feel the sensation of the claws against stone, like they’re skittering across his ribcage.
The elder ghoul, Lord Rat of Guerdon.
Rat stops, sniffs the air of the tunnel. Its yellow eyes pass over Rasce without seeing him, like he’s not really there.
The ghoul opens its massive maw, but it doesn’t speak. Instead, Rasce feels pressure at his own throat, invisible fingers forcing his mouth open, seizing his tongue.
SPAR? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? HAS CARILLON RETURNED?
There’s no response – no spoken one, anyway. But the earth creaks, and dust falls from the ceiling of the tunnel.
THEY HAVE OPENED THE VAULT. TAKEN THE BLACK IRON BELLS, AND THE RUINS OF THE ALCHEMISTS’ QUARTER. THERE WAS NO CHOICE.
The weapons Artolo sought! Great-Uncle commanded Artolo to find the weapons of black iron – and that failure doomed Artolo. But who is the Rat talking about?
The horned ghoul sniffs the air. Yellow eyes peer into the darkness.
A low growl.
YOU ARE NOT CARILLON THAY.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Vyr snarls in Baston’s face. “My cousin’s blood is the blood of the dragon, and it has been spilled on the streets. This is an unforgivable insult – and an unforgivable failure.”
Vyr sounds a lot tougher when he’s got half a dozen Eshdana backing him up. All Lyrixian by the look of them. Two of them wear black jewels on their foreheads, symbolic reminders that they’re ash-bought.
“I snuffed the bloody Jack,” snaps Baston.
“After it maimed four other men. After it nearly killed my cousin. It’s a miracle he survived. You failed to protect us.”
“It was a fucking Tallowman, Vyr,” argues Karla. “No one’s seen a candlejack in more than a year. They’re all supposed to be gone. How could we have known?”
Vyr’s gaze is reptilian in its coldness as he turns his attention to Karla. “Your absence was noted, too. You should have seen the danger. You also failed the Ghierdana.”
“I’m going to talk to Rasce,” says Karla, stepping towards the door.
“No. The doctors are attending to him.” Vyr folds his hands tightly in front of him. “Your services are no longer required by my family, and neither of you have taken the ash. If you are fou
nd on this size of the LOZ border by nightfall, your lives are forfeit. The same applies to any associates of yours.”
“I see what this is!” shouts Karla. “You’re trying to take over!” She addresses the Eshdana standing behind Vyr. “You all see it, right? You see what this shit is doing?”
“If you speak again,” says Vyr, “I shall have your tongue torn out.”
“And how are you going to get to the Fog Yards without us? None of those louts can cross the border!”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“You fucking need us, you idiot!” shouts Karla, loud enough to be heard upstairs.
“Her tongue,” orders Vyr.
One of the Eshdana lunges at Karla. Baston grabs the man’s wrist, pulls him off balance, punches him in the throat, leaves him gasping on the floor. The other Eshdana draw blades, but they hesitate to attack. Baston shakes his head. “We’ll go.”
“No!” Karla protests, but the Ghierdana close ranks. Baston takes his sister by the arm, pulls her out of the room. No one stops them walking out of the ghost-house, although the sniper on the top floor tracks them as they walk down Lanthorn Street in the pouring rain. It’s dusk already, the New City beginning to glow faintly beneath their feet.
“Little Ghierdana shit,” complains Karla. “He’ll have the fucking leeches bleed Rasce dead. What a disaster!” She keeps ranting all the way down the street, but Baston’s hardly listening.
“Where,” he asks, “do you think that Tallowman came from?”
“I don’t know. What, you think Vyr sent it? Where would Vyr get a Tallowman?”
The idea is nonsense. The things were made by the alchemists’ guild, hired out to Guerdon’s city watch. Each Tallowman was human once, a condemned thief. Heinreil’s bargain with the alchemists meant the old Brotherhood paid a secret tithe to the guild – as long as Heinreil handed over a few bodies every month for the vats, the Brotherhood was permitted to continue its criminal ways. But Heinreil’s in prison, and the vats were shut down years ago, the monsters banished from the city. The alchemists are banned from making new ones, too. There are still a few left, Baston’s heard, guarding the new factories, but there shouldn’t be any on the streets.
It was an old Tallowman, its wax thin and flaky. The things had to be remade every few weeks to replenish their waxy bodies. Could this one have somehow survived all those months, rotting in some attic? But why attack Rasce? No, far more plausible is that someone must have activated an old Tallowman, relit its wick and sent it on a new mission. But who else knew that Rasce would be visiting Craddock & Sons? We only require information from you, nothing more. If action is warranted, we have our own resources.
The thought weighs heavily on Baston’s shoulders. He tries to tell himself that it’s not his fight – if Duttin and her cabal want to plot against the Ghierdana, it’s none of his concern. He hasn’t taken the ash, neither has Karla. And any prospect of an alliance between the Brotherhood and the invaders is dead now, washed away into the gutters up on Philosopher’s Street.
The coil inside him snaps. The machine’s finally broken.
To hell with them all.
“Tell our lot,” says Baston, “that they need to get back to the Wash before nightfall. I’m going home to rest up.”
“Are you all right?” asks Karla, face full of concern.
“Just a few cuts.”
“I won’t be back tonight,” she says, “but I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll figure out what to do next.”
Baston descends, trading the strange, shimmering heights of the New City for what should be the familiar streets of the Wash. The streets of his boyhood, the streets he knew, now turned monstrous. He steps over rubble, passes buildings scarred by claws or bullets or explosion. Skirts around pools of rainwater – the razor-edged water of the Kraken has mostly retreated, but he’s seen unwary travellers cut their feet to ribbons by splashing through the wrong puddle. The Ishmerian temples are crowded this evening – he can hear the chanting of the priests, the ecstatic responses of the crowds. He wonders if there’s some reason behind this intensity. Have the Ishmerians won some victory in some other part of the Godswar or is it one of their seemingly unending parade of holy days? Flames leap from the great sacrificial brazier atop Smoke Painter’s pyramid, hissing and crackling far above, lighting up the rooftops. He passes the former cathedral of St Storm, now a temple to the Kraken. Dark shapes swim on the far side of the stained-glass windows. Kraken-cultists shamble past him along the alleyways that run down to the sea. They look bloated, the touch of the god slowly turning them into something inhuman.
The dockside taverns are busy, too, crowded with people sheltering from the downpour. He walks past the lighted doorways, keeps walking in the rain. The clouds are so dark it’s hard to tell when the day finally slips into evening.
The few people who recognise Baston know better than to get in his way. In moods like this, he walks. He walks like he can outpace the darkness that follows him, as if it’s a black cloak that might be torn from his shoulders if he moves fast enough. He walks until his legs ache, but the city’s still wrapped around him, clutching at him.
Karla, he tells himself, will be fine no matter what happens. His sister always lands on her feet, and she’ll take care of their mother. He comes to Sumpwater Square, an unexpected opening in the narrow streets of the Wash. Tenement blocks rise from all four sides of the square like sheer cliffs pockmarked with narrow windows. Water pours down the storm drains, gurgling into the entombed rivers under Guerdon.
He moves faster now, heading for the heart of the old Wash. The worst of the rookeries, streets the city watch never dared go. Not even the Tallowmen went down here. A place that no Kept God ever held sway over, where neither act of parliament or royal decree ever mattered a damn. These are the Brotherhood’s streets, and the clubhouse is at the centre of the maze.
Baston turns a corner, and there it is. The headquarters of the Brotherhood for as long as anyone can remember. An anonymous house, a tavern without a sign or a name, a door like any other, except for the wear on the step outside, the shine on the brass handle from generations of eager hands. But now, sprouting from the roof of the clubhouse, is a structure that calls to mind a nest as much as it does a temple, bulbous and papery. Phantasmal spiders scuttle around its crenellations, vanishing into hiding places or crawling along cables that run from the temple’s upper levels to some unseen realm, fading from view above Baston’s head. Endless whispering, chittering, the susurrus of billions of spiders crawling over one another in the darkness within. The buildings around the clubhouse are covered in thick webbing, and Baston can make out cocooned shapes – offerings? Informants? Hanging there. The hanged man, a sigil that’s haunted the Brotherhood since Idge’s death. The same pattern repeated in a corrupted form.
The headquarters of the Brotherhood, now the temple of Fate Spider in Guerdon.
He finds himself walking down to the lock-up on Hook Street. The lock-up on Hook Street isn’t that far away, and the weapons stolen from Dredger’s yard are there. He retraces his steps, winding his way back. These streets, he realises, are replicated in the New City, too. Not quite the same – it’s the same configuration, but exaggerated, grown larger. Alleyways become boulevards, the rookeries exalted into miraculous spires and castles. A strange thought, and he puts it aside. He’s become very good at hiding his thoughts, but he’s tired of that burden.
His fingers shake as he fumbles with the cold metal of the padlock. His thieves do good work – at first glance, the lock-up looks like it hasn’t been used in years. Dusty tarpaulins covering battered tea chests and old crates, junk crammed into every corner. Baston shoves crates aside, searching through the prizes stolen from Dredger’s yard until he finds what he seeks. A phlogiston siege charge. The thing is a brass sphere, about a foot in diameter. Beautifully baroque, covered in inlet valves and detonator rods and spikes of obscure purpose. Liquids slosh within it as he lifts the weap
on. Elemental phlogiston, the essence of fire. At the heart of the weapon is a reaction chamber where fire burns itself, exploding and imploding all at once until there’s nothing left. Brighter than the sun. He imagines himself standing there, holding that blazing sphere, thrusting it into the face of the gods even as he’s blasted away. A thief emerging from the shadows for the last time, stepping into the brightest light of all.
He won’t hold back this time.
He puts everything else back, just as it was. Closes the door and locks it – his father drilled into him that a small error can ruin the best-planned heist. It’d be the worst luck of all for his grand gesture to be foiled because some well-meaning citizen spotted he’d left the padlock off and called the watch. Someone in the Wash calling the watch would be a miracle, of course, but miracles are two a penny since the invasion.
Baston wraps his cloak around the precious bundle, cradles it like a baby.
“Baston, we need to talk.” Baston’s head snaps around, startled. He nearly bolts, then he recognises the voice.
Rasce steps out of the fog. His face is flushed, and he sways on his feet. He’s wearing a cloak, but little else, like he wandered down here from his sick bed. His feet are bare and there are bruises on his chest and throat smeared in some alchemical cure-all. A stained bandage trails from his arm. “Something strange is happening to me. It – it knows you.” He stumbles forwards, steadies himself by grabbing on to Baston’s shoulder. “Such dreams. He’s shown me such sights. I must put it right.”
Godshit. Rasce is Ghierdana. If he’s found wandering in the Wash, within the Ishmeric Occupation Zone, he’s dead. The man clinging to Baston’s left arm is as explosive as the bomb cradled in the crook of his right.
The Broken God Page 16