The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  “Doctor Ramegos was known to us.” Twelve Suns Bleeding studies its gloved hands like it’s examining the fingernails it doesn’t have. “Might we examine this tome?”

  “No. The book’s somewhere safe.” It’s only half a lie – Hawse has hidden the fucking book somewhere safe. She’s just not entirely sure where.

  The important thing, though, is keeping the Crawling One’s wormy fingers away from the fucking book.

  “You intend to trade Doctor Ramegos’ grimoire for entry into the city. A plausible exchange,” continues Twelve Suns Bleeding.

  “So, what do you want?” asks Cari.

  Twelve Suns Bleeding raises an empty hand. The fingers – more than five, and no discernible thumb – fold inwards, squeeze, and unfold again. Now there’s a jewelled box in its hand, about the size of Carillon’s thumb. It looks like a tiny coffin. The Crawling One opens the clasp, and a worm wriggles out of its glove and into the casket. The lid shuts again, and Twelve Suns Bleeding lays the casket down on the table between Cari and Adro.

  Neither of them move to take the box, even though it’s made of gold and studded with rubies.

  “What do we do with that?” asks Adro.

  “The sorcerers of Khebesh worship no gods. When a sorcerer dies, the body is placed in a lead sarcophagus and locked away in the Vault of Aeons. You will bring the casket within the walls of Khebesh, and find a dark, moist place. A patch of earth, perhaps, or a drain, or a midden. Let the worm do the rest. We shall multiply, and grow strong, and we shall find a way into the vault. Stone cracks, lead corrodes, and flesh decays. The worm always conquers, in the end.”

  “That’s it?” Adro’s surprised. “And for that, you’ll get us all out of Ilbarin?”

  “Passage to Khebesh, and from Khebesh to another port of your choosing within the Firesea. There are no safe ports any more, but we shall ensure your protection as much as is reasonable.” The mask tilts. “We gave your grandfather a similar arrangement, Carillon Thay. You shall see the wisdom of an alliance with us.”

  Cari hesitates as she considers the gleaming casket. She never met the wormy resurrection of Jermas Thay – it was Eladora, instead, who fell into their grandfather’s slimy clutches. Eladora who got used in his attempt to bind and remake the Black Iron Gods. But she saw the other Crawling Ones that infested the city. Their malignity is something other than the crazed fervour of the gods – it’s a slow rot, a cancer. There’s a horrible inevitability about it. Everyone knows that the sorcerers of Khebesh are the best at sorcery, just like Guerdon’s alchemists are the best in the world, far beyond their competitors in Ulbishe or Paravos. What will happen when the worms get into the Vault of whatever-it-was and eat the knowledge of the dead archmages? How much stronger will the Crawling Ones become?

  But if she doesn’t take the deal, what then? Spar dies, she probably dies here on Ilbarin when the Ghierdana find her, and the worms find some other way in. The next pilgrim seeking Khebesh might not hesitate. What should I do? she thinks. She wishes she could ask Spar, even though she knows what he’d say. Spar would tell her that it’s too dangerous to give the Crawlers such power, that he should do the honourable, self-sacrificing thing instead. He’d martyr himself, and say something inspiring about his father Idge.

  You martyring yourself is how we got here, she snaps. I’m saving you no matter what. What’s the value in thinking through the consequences, in considering the morality of your action, if your conclusion is that it’s wrong, but you have to do it anyway?

  Her hand hovers over the casket, her fingers flexing, unable to decide.

  It’s Adro who jumps up, Adro who grabs the casket, stuffs it roughly into his pocket. “It’s a deal? Right, Cari?”

  “Fuck it. Deal.”

  The carriage can’t cross the mud of the shore. Artolo climbs down and strides across the muddy slope towards the wreck of the Rose. Werelights glow on the deck – the witch must still be there. Ropes trail over the side of the hull, and it’s clear from the footprints that most people took that route up on to the deck, but with his maimed hands it’s denied him, because of Carillon Thay. He searches until he finds a breach in the hull and squeezes his broad shoulders through, makes his way through the stinking bowels of the wreck. It’s pitch-black and he has to shove his way through the debris, kicking and pushing junk out of the way until he finds the cramped stairs up to the deck.

  Dol Martaine rushes over to him like a hound greeting its master, licking the bleeding stumps of Artolo’s fingers. Too eager. Too eager by half.

  “We got a tip-off, boss, but it didn’t pay off.” He jerks a thumb towards an old man sitting on the deck. “Just some crazy hermit. God-touched, I’ll wager. Seeing things that aren’t real.”

  Artolo ignores him. “Hands,” he says to the witch, “now.”

  The witch recites the spell, and the ghost-fingers awake. Strength runs through his hands.

  “She was here,” whispers the witch.

  “You’ve searched the ship.”

  “She’s gone. I’ll find her. You need to focus on the yliaster supply. The dragon will be—”

  Artolo turns away. He picks up the old man, ghost-fingers gripping the collar of his priestly robes. The old man’s mumbling to himself, snatches of a prayer to the broken gods of Ilbarin.

  “Hawse, yes?”

  “Blessed be the Lord of Waters. My soul shall sail over calm seas until the Bythos carry me down to the fathomless palace.”

  Artolo strikes the old man in the face, but he keeps mumbling through broken lips. A fanatic. It’ll take time to break him. He drops Hawse at the feet of another Eshdana – Rauf, he recalls.

  “Hold him. Make sure he doesn’t run off. Or die.”

  Rauf’s a little slower than he should be, wary of laying hands on a holy man. Infuriating – he should fear Artolo, not the broken gods. All these bastards need reminding who rules Ilbarin. It’s because of his fingers. They don’t respect a maimed man. They don’t respect him because of Carillon Thay.

  “Martaine,” snaps Artolo, “search the shore. She was here. Find out where she went.”

  “First light, we’ll sweep the shore.”

  “Now.”

  “It’s too dark, boss.”

  Artolo takes a breath. More and more, it feels like he’s wrestling with the whole of Ilbarin, like the whole island is conspiring against him. Godhusks, foot-dragging workers, cursed weather. Crops that won’t grow, ships that won’t sail, alchemical machines that break down. Every time he pins one problem down, another sprouts, and the only tool left to him is fear.

  Very well. He’ll make them scared.

  “Oh? It’s light you need, is it?” He grabs Martaine, spins him around, ghost-fingers seizing the smaller man by the wrist, arm locking across Martaine’s neck. He bends Martaine’s sword arm back painfully. “Witch! Burn this fucking ship.”

  The witch raises her hand, makes an arcane gesture. Blue flames flicker in the captain’s cabin, then catch on the piles of salvaged books. Artolo force-marches Martaine over to the burning pile and shoves his face towards the flames. “You belong to the Dragon! You don’t question my orders! You belong to me!”

  Martaine struggles, but Artolo’s too strong for him. “I’ll find her! I’ll find her!” whimpers Martiane. Artolo drops him to the floor, kicks him in the side, lets him crawl away. Martaine’s men, the witch’s men, all Eshdana, all gathered in a gaggle around the deck, faces lit by the dancing firelight, all watching Martaine’s humiliation. Artolo roars at them. “You think the ash-mark means you’re safe? You’re mine, too! I can put you back in the camps! Make you dive until your lungs burst! If any of you want to get off this stinking rock, you’ll do as I say. Find her! Go!”

  Led by a limping Dol Martaine, they scramble down the side of the ship.

  Artolo’s left alone with the witch. The fire’s blazing now; the whole cabin’s aflame. Soon, it’ll consume all the rotten timbers of the Rose. It bathes his left side in uncomf
ortable heat. He can only imagine how hot it must be inside the witch’s metal suit. All that exposed brass and steel, next to the open flames.

  Servants, he can break. Martaine, he can hurt. The witch requires special handling.

  He stands there for a long minute, watching the fires dance. Great-Uncle is coming. Hasn’t Artolo done enough to atone? Hasn’t he done enough to be forgiven? It wasn’t his fault; it was Carillon Thay who ruined everything. His fingers weren’t enough to satisfy the dragon. Carillon Thay – he’ll stake her out like a goat. Roast her. Gut her. Burn her.

  There’s a hiss of steam from below as little burning fragments of the deck fall into the waters in the flooded hold underneath. Little ticks and creaks from the heating metal.

  “Someone told you she was here.”

  “You told us she might know a sailor. And there were stories on the street about the hermit behaving oddly.”

  “Why come yourself, on so thin a tale?”

  “I was doing what you told me. You want her caught.”

  Finding Thay is an irrelevant distraction. His head knows this. His blood, though, roars in his ears. It knows another truth, deeper and more vital.

  “I want her dead.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Spar watches Rasce’s triumphant return to the house on Lanthorn Street. Vyr blusters, argues that Rasce should rest, but he cannot deny his cousin’s rapid recovery. Like Cari, Rasce’s vitality is renewed when he enters the New City.

  “Baston,” orders Rasce, “tell your allies that they may return, that Vyr misspoke. Tell them the New City was made for them, and they have a place here.” Spar’s lifted by those words – in his dying moments, he dreamed the New City into being as a place of refuge, out of reach of the oppressive guilds and grasping priests that rule Guerdon. His father’s writings made real in stone.

  “Vyr,” continues Rasce. “There are those here who require our charity. Open the coffers! We shall not be miserly!”

  “That’s not what Great-Uncle sent us to do,” objects Vyr.

  “I am Chosen. Do as I say.”

  “I’ll handle it,” volunteers Karla. “Just give me the money.”

  Spar can follow every coin. He can feel every scratch of Vyr’s pen on the ledger, hear every grumble and complaint. Rumour quickly spreads to the other Ghierdana families – and the other dragons – of Rasce’s odd behaviour, his swift recovery – and Spar hears every whisper. He relays them all to Rasce, who leans his head back in his chair and listens to the song of the city. Spar can sense the man’s soul expanding, intertwining with his own. Even as the city flows into Rasce, so too does he inhabit part of the city.

  On a warm evening, three days later, Rasce leaves the house on Lanthorn Street, and walks the ways of the New City again. Baston follows, a wary shadow, still unsure of what to make of this strange hybrid, now that he’s been reborn in the grubby heaven of the New City.

  They come to the base of one of the City’s great towers, and Rasce ascends, hurrying up the endless flights of stairs. This tower is among those that burned during the invasion, but Rasce keeps climbing when he comes to the ashen region. Like much of the city, the tower is unfinished – the miracle of its creation ran dry before it was done, and the topmost levels of the building trail off into stalagmites and unformed fingers of stone, like melted white candles.

  It’s easier for Spar to think up here. Easier to focus. Rasce is the only living soul at this height.

  “So,” says Rasce. “Show me the city.”

  He closes his eyes, looks within. Taps into Spar’s own perception from within. When Cari tried this, it overwhelmed her, and she had already experienced similar visions from the Black Iron Gods. It took weeks for her and Spar to find the point of balance, to drip-feed revelation into her mind. Rasce, though, eats the visions hungrily and demands more.

  “It’s not so different,” he says, “from seeing the world as my Great-Uncle does.” Rasce points north, down Mercy Street towards Castle Hill and the city beyond. Towards the Fog Yards. “Show me the yliaster dealers yonder.”

  I can’t see clearly beyond the New City. Images flicker between their two minds – glimpses of high walls, fortresses mated to factories, great holding tanks – but it’s all fleeting, all strained.

  “That’s of little use,” says Rasce. “Mandel & Company must fall – my Great-Uncle has commanded it. But there are lesser prizes closer at hand that can be swept up, while I learn how you can best aid me.” He plucks idly at a piece of scorched stone, marvelling at the experience – he can feel the stone with his fingers, but also experiences the sensation of the fingers brushing the stone, through his communion with Spar. “You burned.”

  It was miraculous fire. A saint burned Carillon with a sword of fire, and the injury was transferred to me. It set the stone alight.

  “On Glimmerside, you saved my life. Am I now invulnerable to knife and gun?”

  It’s not easy. I couldn’t always do it for Cari – and I had to draw on your life force to save you from the Tallowman.

  “If I stepped off the edge, would you catch me?”

  I’d try. I might be able to take the force of the impact, or give you something to grab on to.

  “You can reshape the city.”

  A little. It’s an effort.

  “I did as you asked me,” says Rasce. “I gave money to the wretches you showed me. They will be helped, you have my word. Tell me, O spirit, what did my coin buy me?”

  What do you want?

  “An army of stone golems, each one twelve feet tall and armed with poleaxes. I desire a fortress suitable for a prince of the Ghierdana, with a dracodrome for Great-Uncle. Walls thick enough to endure a siege by all the gods of Ishmere. A great juggernaut that rolls across Guerdon to the Fog Yards and crushes my rivals in the yliaster trade. Conjure those for me from the stone of the city.”

  I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.

  “In Lyrix, the priests of Culdan can put a death-curse on a blade, and every wound from that sword is henceforth mortal. The priests of Velthe can command demons. A saint blessed by the Moon Goddess can walk among the clouds and hurl spears of moonlight. Can you do any of those things?”

  No.

  “But you conjured this city.”

  We stole the power of the Black Iron Gods. They had a vast reserve of miraculous energy, accumulated over years of worship and sacrifice. We used all that to make the New City.

  “Had I the power of those dread gods at my command, friend, I would have spent it more wisely.”

  I was mostly dead at the time. The memory of Spar’s fall from the apex of the Seamarket wells up, overlaps with the thought of Rasce falling from this ruined spire. The tower shifts, sending dust and pebbles cascading over the edge to plummet down to the streets far below. Portions of Spar’s consciousness fall with the pebbles. Rasce grabs the wall for support.

  “Of course. Forgive me, friend. As with any new Eshdana, I must know your particular talents.”

  I’m not one of your recruits!

  “You’ve already taken the ash,” laughs Rasce. He holds up soot-stained fingers. “Very well. Our partnership shall be one of equals, for I bow to neither god nor man, only to my Great-Uncle.”

  The thunder of great leathery wings scatters Spar’s mind like leaves in a hurricane. Has he lost track of time again, slipped forward a few weeks to the return of the dragon? No – it’s a smaller dragon, one of the other Ghierdana family heads. Spar reconstitutes himself (a flurry of minor miracles across the streets near the tower: a pot falls from a stove, shattering; a pistol in an Eshdana armoury goes off spontaneously; birds take flight, cawing out the name of Idge) and refocuses on Rasce.

  The dragon circles the tower twice, the winds from its wings nearly knocking Rasce from his perch. A young woman in riding gear clings to the dragon’s back; through her goggles, she watches Rasce with suspicion. The dragon lands, clinging to the side of the burned tower like a gigantic bat, claw
s sinking deep into the masonry for purchase. The long neck cranes so the head can look in at Rasce.

  “Young Rasce,” says the dragon Thyrus, “why are you all alone atop this spire?” The rumble of its voice sends ash and debris tumbling from the tower.

  “I seek the pure night air, great Thyrus, for this city is full of miasmas and foul smoke. And I seek to remember what it is like to fly.”

  The woman on Thyrus’ back whispers to her mount. The dragon’s head twists around. “Be kind, Lucia,” she admonishes. “Or perhaps I shall make you walk, too.”

  “How goes the war, great one? Does Major Estavo work you hard?”

  The dragon extends one wing, displaying an ugly suppurating wound on the inside of the forewing. “Not Estavo. This I got from some Ulbishan trade ship, crossing the sea. The Ulbishans trade in alchemy now, too, in imitation of Guerdon. I thought to take one of their ships, and they drove me off with death-glass.”

  “The dragon is invincible.”

  “The dragon needs more than aphorisms,” says Thyrus, ruefully. “Next time, the dragon shall fly low, and Lucia here shall slay their gunners from afar before they can wound me. A week, and I shall hunt again – unless Estavo comes knocking. With my brother’s long absence, we must all work harder to fulfil our bargain with the mainlanders.” The dragon’s lip curls, exposing three rows of fangs each as long as a man’s hand, but Rasce can’t be sure if the dragon’s distaste is aimed at the mainland of Lyrix or at Great-Uncle. “My brother has still not returned from Firesea. What is he doing there, I wonder, that keeps him so long away?”

  “Family business, great one.”

  “Does he know you have dipped into his hoard, Rasce? I would not be so quick to forgive such a thing, were one of my kin to steal from me.”

  “My Great-Uncle trusts me, great one. He has given me a task, and I shall spend the dragon’s gold as needed.”

  The dragon snorts. “We watch you, Rasce. Remember that we are all bound by the Armistice. Be careful, child, that you do not break what you cannot mend and do not own.”