The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  Mixed in with these accounts, other notes. Words Rasce doesn’t understand, like congruency. Names he knows – Idgeson. Carillon Thay. Eladora Duttin. A description of the visit to Mandel & Company.

  “What’s taking so long? Let me in!” cries Karla, slamming her fists against the door.

  These notes cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the city watch, or any of the Ghierdana’s enemies. There’s a fireplace in one corner of the room, the grate full of cold ash. Rasce stuffs handfuls of the papers in there, sets them alight, stirs them as they burn so nothing legible remains.

  At the back of the drawer is a metal box, decorated with curlicues in some silvery metal. He opens the clasp – inside is another machine of some sort, with a set of lettered keys and a tube of some alchemical goop. Rasce has a pirate’s eye for design – he grew up in Great-Uncle’s palace back on the isles of the Ghierdana, and that was decorated with treasures stolen from all over the world. He can tell that this box was not made in Guerdon. The smiths and alchemists of Guerdon drew on the aesthetics of the Keeper’s church for inspiration – their works are stern and imposing, with little unnecessary adornment. Images of cages, lanterns, the solemn faces of saints and martyrs. The machine in the box, by contrast, has fanciful touches. The connectors where orichalcum wires enter are made to resemble blossoming flowers, and silver fish dance along the circuits.

  Rasce catches a glimpse of his own face in an inset mirror, and for an instant he can’t remember if he’s the living man in the mirror or the dead man watching from the New City. He slams the box shut. It’s some sort of communications machine, he guesses. The alchemical equivalent, maybe, of his clever pebbles.

  It, too, must be destroyed.

  “Boss!” calls Karla. “We have to go!”

  The little fire in the grate isn’t hot enough to damage the machine. He takes his own dragon-tooth blade and cuts the box, slashing it over and over. The thin metal tears. Components break like small bones, and the glass tube shatters and spills its vital fluid over the floor in a visceral rush. He drops the corpse of the machine to the ground, wipes his hands on the bedsheet. Kicks the burning papers in the grate, to ensure everything’s erased.

  “Vyr,” he whispers to the corpse. “Your blood is my blood, and you shall be avenged. I don’t know what you were doing in this place, but I know who murdered you.”

  He unlocks the door, and Karla practically tumbles in. “Gods below!” she curses as she sees the body on the bed. “We’ll find whoever did this, Rasce, I swear. But I think they got away – we had all the exits secure. Maybe they got away before we arrived.”

  “Or they had some arcane means of escape,” says Rasce. “Some trick of the alchemists.” Who knows what devilry Mandel has brewed in that fortress? Oh, for him there will be no chance of atonement, no offer of ash in exchange for fealty. He will burn. No one crosses the dragon.

  “Either way, we’ll track them down, I promise.”

  No one left the inn by any path I can see, adds Spar. Maybe the attackers are in the taproom below – but you can’t hold them. The inn’s surrounded by city watch. Either you fight your way out, or you talk your way out. Alic Nemon is here.

  Karla picks up the wax-seal letter from the desk, scans it. Her face pales. “Godshit. See this?”

  “I did.” Rasce stands, brushes little shards of metal off his trousers. “Gather up my cousin’s remains,” he orders, “no ghoul or god shall have his soul.” He takes the letter from the alchemist from her and tucks it into his pocket, careful to avoid cracking any of the wax seals.

  Through Spar’s eyes, he watches Karla lead his body down the stairs.

  Outside, a stalemate.

  The inn’s become a besieged fort. Rasce’s men are at the windows, hiding in alleyways, crouched behind crates and barrels, or holding fat merchants as human shields. Lined up along Mercy Street, the city watch. Mostly street guards, armed with no more than truncheons or swords, but a detachment of armoured watch, too, with firearms. And this isn’t the New City, or even the Wash – these streets are unfriendly. Pale faces look down from the surrounding trading houses and offices, waiting for the iron fist of the city watch to crush the invading thieves, to drive them back where they belong. No doubt there are packs of ghouls in the sewers below, waiting to intercept anyone who tries to escape that way.

  Beyond the watch’s line is the carriage that Spar spoke of. A quartet of raptequines, sweat steaming from their flanks. Beyond them, a crowd of onlookers, held back by more city watch. In the distance, a growing traffic jam of carts and carriages. Venture Square’s clogged with crowds.

  And beyond them, all the way down Mercy Street, past the ghost of the Duchess Viaduct, past Parliament and Gravehill, past Five Knives and Scuttle, is Mandel. Rasce’s anger wants to take flight, to spread its wings and soar over the city. To burn Mandel’s fortress from the sky.

  The Fog Yards are a heartbeat away as the dragon flies, but he’s rooted to the ground. His path barred by the city watch, by the ghouls, by all of Guerdon’s impediments.

  Alic Nemon, the minister for security, stands by the carriage, speaking with a pair of city watch captains. Nemon’s a forgettable bureaucrat – but when Rasce draws on Spar’s sight, and views the scene from above, Nemon seems weightier, more significant. All the people in the crowds are ephemeral to Spar, wispy shades of water and flesh moving through the stone and brick of the city, but Nemon has a solidity to him the others lack. The mantle of his office, maybe, the embodiment of Guerdon’s tattered establishment, even though Nemon’s no more a native to this city than Rasce.

  Eladora Duttin watches from Nemon’s carriage. Rasce has met Duttin before, under strange circumstances. Six months ago, during the invasion, she appeared out of thin air in Great-Uncle’s palace. Somehow, through some secret sorcery, she teleported across the ocean from Guerdon to Lyrix. Rasce recalls the tolling of unseen bells that heralded her arrival, and when she appeared she was covered in a thin film of reddish dust, like rust or dried blood. Still, despite the trauma of her unnatural mode of travel, she had the presence of mind to demand to speak to Great-Uncle. She carried with her a message from the rulers of Guerdon, and she pleaded her case before the dragon while barely able to stand. As much as anything else, the sheer bravado of her act impressed Great-Uncle and sealed the bargain that led to the Armistice.

  Like Nemon, Duttin is more dangerous than she appears.

  She’s Cari’s cousin, adds Spar. She’s a friend.

  “My cousin,” murmurs Rasce, “is dead.” To the abyss with the Armistice and all the laws of this city – the blood of the dragon has been shed. No one crosses the dragon and lives.

  Spar’s vision shows Rasce one more thing – there’s a gap in the line of the city watch. Nemon’s deliberately refrained from stationing any guards along the street back to the New City, obviously leaving a line of retreat open to the thieves.

  Spar also shows him snipers on the rooftops, the long guns used in the war against saints and monsters.

  You’re too far away from me to protect you if they shoot.

  “They don’t have the stomach for it. They don’t want a fight.”

  They might not. A fight might happen anyway. A flicker-vision – the clouds twisting and boiling in the sky over the Ishmeric Occupation Zone, as the gods there sense destinies colliding. There are spies in the crowd, Rasce guesses, who’ll report events back to their masters in the Haithi Bureau, too. The rules of the Armistice are clear – whoever breaks the truce is the enemy of the other three signatories. Lyrix and the Ghierdana would be set against the unlikely temporary alliance of Haith, Ishmere and Guerdon.

  Be careful, urges Spar. His voice is fainter, weaker than before. Failing, just when Rasce needs him.

  Again, Rasce sends his mind aloft, climbing Spar’s soul like a ladder to the sky. Again, he looks down at Mercy Street from the heights of the New City. He can see the heaving crowds behind the watch lines, see Baston shoving his
way towards the inn (an unfortunate watchman tries to stop him at the border; there’s a moment of violence, and then the watchman’s unconscious in an alley and Baston hasn’t broken stride). He sees a knot of dignitaries, debating and blustering like they mean something. There’s the Lyrixian ambassador and Major Estavo, both red-faced and angry, arguing with some Guerdon official, Eladora Duttin lurking in the background. Gods and politicians alike, all trying to seize the thrashing serpent of events. Everything could change, here on Mercy Street.

  But it’s all in the decisions of two people. In this moment, only two men command the city’s destiny.

  Rasce walks forward, leaving the cover of the inn. From the New City, he can see snipers on rooftops aiming at him.

  Alic Nemon pushes forward through the ranks, to meet him in the middle of Mercy Street.

  “Prince Rasce.”

  “Minister Nemon.”

  “You’re well beyond the truce line here, my lord. Can we resolve this without bloodshed?”

  “Blood has been shed. My cousin, Vyr, was murdered in that tavern.”

  Nemon bows his head. “You have my condolences, for what they’re worth. But the Inn of the Green Door’s in free city territory, not the LOZ. March your Eshdana back across the border into the New City and I’ll see that the case is investigated promptly and thoroughly by the city watch.”

  “I’ll save you the bother. I know who was responsible. The alchemist Mandel.”

  “Do you have proof?”

  Rasce flings the sealed letter at Nemon’s feet. Wearily, the minister bends down in the dust of the street to pick it up. “This is a receipt for a set of prosthetic hands.”

  “Mandel enchanted them to murder my cousin. It is proof enough for me.”

  “And why would Mandel do such a thing?”

  “That is between Mandel and the Ghierdana, but know this – he will pay.”

  “The Ghierdana,” says Nemon, “have no business beyond the truce line. Take your Eshdana back to the New City, now.”

  “You dare—”

  Do as he says, urges Spar. This isn’t your moment. Fall back, regroup, come up with a plan first. Don’t rush off blindly.

  Some of Rasce’s anger bleeds off into Spar; it’s like pressing his forehead against a cool wall, soothing and calming.

  “We shall bear my cousin’s body home. But this is not over. Do not come between the dragon and his foe.”

  “Should I ever meet an actual dragon, I’ll remember that,” needles Nemon.

  Rasce raises his voice, calls out to his followers. “We are leaving! We gather again at Lanthorn Street.”

  The way they leave the inn speaks much about each man. Many of the Eshdana in Rasce’s entourage are veterans of the Godswar, veterans of fighting in other cities. They move in ones and twos, scurrying from cover to cover. They move as though the buildings around them were burning and about to collapse, as if the massed lines of the city watch were about to open fire. The few full-blooded Ghierdana, distant cousins from minor branches of the family, march out proudly, an honour guard for the sheet-wrapped corpse they carry with them. The Ghierdana do not give their dead to any god or psychopomp; Vyr’s body will be interred in the haunted crypts back on the isles.

  The new recruits, the Brotherhood thieves, they slink out of the inn, hiding their faces from the eyes of the watch. They’d melt into the shadows if they could, vanish down the alleyways and side streets off Mercy that run down towards the Wash. Karla’s there, close behind the corpse. Baston at the corner of Seamarket Way, as close as he can get without breaking the watch line, urging them onwards with his eyes. A motley host, marching back up towards the New City on the hill.

  “Your kin can go. Your Eshdana can go,” says Nemon. “But I mark some in that crowd who are Guerdonese. Criminals known to the watch. They’re under arrest.” At a nod from Nemon, the watch level guns at the Brotherhood thieves. Baston’s suddenly seized by plainclothes watchmen in the crowd and slammed up against the wall. Karla breaks from the line and runs towards her brother; the watch closes on her, too.

  The Lyrixian ambassador huffs up, followed by Major Estavo. “Don’t—” he gasps for air, “don’t argue. Otherwise – breach of Armistice. They’ll—” Out of breath, he waves an arm towards the New City, gesturing in the direction of the Lyrixian Occupation Zone and their military toehold here and the Godswar and everything. “All fucked,” he explains, undiplomatically.

  Rasce’s hot anger has been quenched, congealed and cast like metal into something hard and cold. He turns to Nemon.

  “No. All of them are mine. All under my protection. They all get to leave.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” says Nemon.

  Rasce closes his eyes for a moment, sees a shadow cross the New City.

  “Yes, it is.”

  For months now there have been dragons in the skies over Guerdon. Ever since the Armistice, ever since Eladora Duttin crossed the ocean and invited the Ghierdana to occupy part of the city, there have been dragons in the skies. But all that time they’ve been a distant threat, easily forgotten by a city eager to return to its grubby ways of commerce and corruption. They’ve nested in the heights of the New City, where there is all manner of strangeness anyway, not part of the real city, the old city. They’ve soared beyond the clouds, vanishing into the smog above Guerdon on their way to war in the south or west, problems for some other unlucky city, just like the crates of alchemical weapons piled on the docks. For months now, the people of Guerdon have had the luxury of forgetting they share their city with living dragons.

  Not today.

  Thyrus lands atop the Inn of the Green Door, her massive claws sending roof tiles cascading to shatter on the street below. Screams of alarm and terror break from the crowd, triggering a panicked stampede. The watch take a step back – for all their weapons, for all their authority, they’re only mortals, prey flinching in the presence of a predator. She spreads her wings, plunging the whole street into darkness. She extends her long sinuous neck; her massive head, her terrifying maw so close to Nemon and the others that the heat of her breath is like standing before a furnace.

  Thyrus twitches her tail, smashing another part of the inn. “One of my brother’s children,” she hisses, “was murdered here. The Ghierdana must grieve. Do not try my patience today.”

  For a long, long moment, everyone stops. The city swirls around them – the crowds further up Mercy Street flee in terror, the gods in the Ishmeric zone and on Holyhill rumble in their temples. Smoke curls from the gaps in Thyrus’ teeth. The Armistice balances on a knife edge.

  It’s Eladora Duttin who moves, who breaks from the crowd. She hurries up and whispers in Nemon’s ear, and it’s Duttin who curtsies to the dragon.

  “They may all go.”

  I told you she’s a friend, says Spar.

  “If she stands between me and Mandel, then she is an enemy of the dragon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When the armoured witch begins to remove her helmet, Cari braces herself for a shock of recognition. The witch, whoever she is, knows her from back in Guerdon. Knows all about her, too – her mysterious Thay heritage, her connection to the Black Iron Gods, her involvement in the thieves’ guild. Cari stares as the helmet comes away – a slight sucking noise as damaged flesh adheres to the inside of the faceplate.

  No recognition; it’s a shock of a different kind. The sorcerer’s face is scorched, half melted. Every vein is like a lightning bolt crackling beneath the skin, burning the flesh to grey ash. Hairless, the curve of the skull visible. Runic tattoos crowning the scalp, tracing the vanished hairline, and somehow the tattoos protect those patches of skin, remaining grotesquely pink and healthy, islands in the ruin. Cari’s met Haithi undead who look healthier.

  “If you want to live, help me with this,” demands the witch. Her voice is still damnably familiar.

  More of the armour comes away, syringes tearing through dead skin like wet paper. Cari�
�s heard that practising sorcery is ruinous, she’s even seen the toll incantations took on Professor Ongent or Eladora, but this is much, much worse. It’s why most sorcery is performed by godspawn and inhuman monsters like Crawling Ones…

  And then it comes back to her. Guerdon, Thieves’ Court – the night she and Spar thought they’d taken Heinreil down. Heinreil had allied with Crawling Ones – but he had his own sorceress there that night, too. Myri, her name was. Cari saw her only briefly, but she’d glimpsed her in Black Iron visions, too. Tall and proud, bare arms rippling with arcane tattoos. Beautiful, like a coral snake.

  “I saw you. I know you.”

  A scowl crosses the parts of Myri’s face that can still move. “No time for that now. Get in the barrel.” Myri points at a yliaster cask outside the door of the lab. Cari hesitates for an instant, but what’s she going to do, not get into the barrel? Hang around and wait for the psychotic Ghierdana and the creepy alchemist to come back for her?

  She climbs in, squeezing into the metal cask. The mouth of the cask is narrower than her shoulders, but Cari’s lithe enough to wriggle down. Inside, she folds up as best she can, a foetal position inside the jar. Like one of the alchemical creatures on the shelves of Vorz’s lab, only a few feet away. Myri hastily closes the lid of the cask, plunging Cari into darkness.

  Outside, the sounds of uproar. An explosion, breaking glass, shouting. There’s a clank of metal as someone attaches a metal hook on to the outside of the cask, and she’s lifted, painfully rolled as the cask is hoisted off the platform and lowered to the refinery floor below. Cari manages to keep herself from crying out in pain as the cask slams into the ground. It’s lifted again, roughly, and thrown to the side so Cari’s now lying horizontally, her spine crushed against the metal.

  Movement. She’s on a cart from the sounds, from the rattle of the wheels on the stony road. The sounds of the chaos at the refinery die away.

  Now all she can hear is the creak of the cart’s axle. The laboured breathing of the mules. Her own breathing inside this fucking coffin.