The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  Cari sinks down in the mud, unsure what do with all her anger. She shoves the rock in frustration – betrayal she can cope with. Bastard sorcerers with their schemes and treacheries, she knows how to deal with. Someone helping her? What do you do with that? She can imagine Myri’s thought process. The sorceress is cold enough to weigh the odds, to decide that Cari’s got a better chance of reaching Khebesh on her own than the sorceress has of escaping Gissa without her. To decide that the optimum outcome is for her to hide the book and draw the foes away.

  Hawse did the same, but that’s something Cari can understand. You take risks for your friends, for your crew. Myri hates her, and it’s fucking mutual. She was looking forward to stabbing the witch, and now that joy’s been taken away from her.

  With shaking hands, she picks up the grimoire. She hesitates, then grabs the aethergraph and the rest of the bundle, too. There has to be some configuration of the controls that’ll let her contact Spar. Or, failing that, someone in Guerdon. Some military channel, maybe. Carillon Thay calling Queen’s Point, calling Parliament, fuck it – calling Eladora Duttin, are you annoying, over? She’s maybe got enough supplies to make it to that fishing village, Yhan-something. It can’t be that far. And she’s got some coin to buy passage to Khebesh. That, or she steals a fishing boat. Dodge the Kraken somehow.

  Walk away, she tells herself. Get to Khebesh. Get moving, while you’ve still got cover of night.

  Her feet seem rooted to the ground, like they’ve turned to stone.

  Myri’s probably dead. If she isn’t, she’s the prisoner of a mad god, and she’ll be dead soon anyway. That Rhan-Gis is as powerful a saint as you used to be, back in the New City, she tells herself. You broke the Ghierdana, remember? Remember all the shit you did to people who came after you with guns and magic? Walk away.

  She takes a step in what is utterly, unambiguously, the wrong direction.

  Myri told you to run. She might as well have painted a big sign on the ground saying “leave me and go”.

  A second, stupid, step.

  Spar would tell you to leave.

  But she knows, sure as anything, that that’s a lie, and it only makes her take another step, and another, and fuck it, now it’s a rescue mission.

  A few hours sneaking around Gissa, and Cari’s learned three things.

  First, it’s really easy to work out where Rhan-Gis himself is. There was a trail through the city that led from his big mobile temple to Myri’s ditch and back again, a trail of reassertion. Places where the dream of old Gissa condensed into mortal reality, where muddy ground transmuted into paved streets, where scattered stones rose up as towers and walls. Divine urban renewal. Cari saw flowers blossom where saints of the Mother passed, back in Guerdon. Same thing, only with the city. Unlike the miraculous flowers, though, the renewed buildings wilt pretty quickly, rotting and crumbling away. She hopes that means that Rhan-Gis is low on divine strength, that he’s depleted himself. Keeping the city intact, keeping his worshippers fed, his motley-guards alive, and fending off rival gods – all that has to sap his strength, and there aren’t that many people in the city.

  Another clue – she can feel that same friction that she experienced on the mountain at Ilbarin, and in the water. Thinking about it, she felt it in Guerdon, too, but back then she either had the Black Iron Gods screaming in her head or had far more powerful divinatory senses through Spar, so she hadn’t paid much attention to the feeling. (Also, you were drunk a lot, says a whisper in the back of her mind.) Other saints can do it, too, she guesses – she remembers Saint Aleena talking about sensing Ravellers and the Black Iron Gods, but no one ever trained Cari in sainthood.

  The presence of Rhan-Gis scrapes her mind, but not that much. She guesses – and this is very much in the realm of things that Eladora or Myri or someone should be dealing with, not her – that it’s to do with divine congruency. Spar’s not a god, but he’s similar enough to the god of Gissa if you squint your inner eye. Maybe the sandpaper effect comes from the friction between Cari’s lingering sainthood and the sort of holy ground she treads on. The more different the god, or the more hostile, the more friction.

  She wishes she had Spar to help her make sense of these thoughts. Part of sainthood is not knowing which thoughts and impressions are really yours and which stem from the gods. Still, she tentatively adds “risk of spontaneous combustion” to her long list of reasons sainthood is shit.

  Thing Number Two: it’s really easy for her to move around the city, because the citizens of Gissa are mostly out of their skulls, stumbling around like sleepwalkers, mouthing litanies at each other. She gets the impression that Rhan-Gis doesn’t tolerate dissent, and anyone who argues with the divine tyrant got walled up years ago. Between the general inattention of the populace, and their inability to distinguish reality from their memories of what Gissa was, she can sneak around without being seen. There are parts of the “city”, too, that are empty, scars that move with the wandering metropolis. She guesses these are districts that got hammered in the Godswar. They’re empty of anything living, so she can cut through them when she needs to hide. Best not to linger there, though – in one, the shadows were ice-cold, and drew blood.

  Her working assumption is that Rhan-Gis can track her if he tries, but as long as she doesn’t provoke him, she’s as safe as anyone can be in a phantom city of religious lunatics situated in a blasted hellscape in the middle of the Godswar.

  Part of her wonders who Rhan-Gis was – not the god, the human who’s become His saint. She doubts there’s much left of the mortal; the body’s just a tool now, a channel between the god and the mortal world. Hollowed out. Did he welcome it, she wonders, a faithful follower of the god of Gissa, thinking he was being exalted instead of being eaten alive? Was it forced on him? Was he horribly aware the whole time? Or did he know the cost, know the truth, and do it anyway? Towards the end, when Spar was getting really weak, his miracles took a toll on her soul. If she’d stayed in Guerdon, would Spar have consumed her? Cari always thought that self-sacrifice was a fancy word for surrender, but if it was the only option – would she have let him do it, if it kept him alive? If it was the only way to protect people she cared about?

  Another horrible thought wells up from the seemingly inexhaustible reserve of horrible thoughts the Godswar engenders in her – what if it all works, and this is how Spar turns out? She gets to Khebesh, finds a way to help him stay alive – and in a few years she’s a drooling husk like the saint of Rhan-Gis, and everyone in the New City is running around with stones for heads or something? At this point in her life, Cari’s grasp of what counts as sane and normal is shaky, but she knows that’s not right.

  The third thing she discovers on the afternoon of the second day.

  Artolo’s here.

  Moonchild’s a huge ship, but she moves swiftly through the ocean when lightly loaded. The thunder of the alchemical engines and the wild rolling of the deck exhilarate Artolo. If he closes his eyes, he could imagine himself on dragon-back.

  He doesn’t sleep. Not after the first night on board. The dreams of the Kraken came on too strong, flooding his brain with images of the Ishmeric god. He doesn’t want to fall under the spell of the Kraken. He shall not kneel again, not be chosen again. Kraken is his tool. The priestess, Damala, is his tool.

  His destiny is clear. First, he’ll find Carillon Thay, the woman who ruined him, and he will destroy her. Kill her slowly. Strangle her. Break her, finally and completely. He’ll mount her as a figurehead on Moonchild, as a warning – this is what happens to those who cross Artolo of them…

  No. Just Artolo. Artolo alone. Artolo, the Pirate King. He’ll take Moonchild into the war. Outfit her with weapons, show those cowards in Lyrix how a true pirate marauds. Maybe he’ll go back to Guerdon and put the city to the torch. He’ll burn the world.

  Damala tells him – or maybe he dreams it – that they’re on the trail of the witch’s boat. The witch will suffer, too. He’s brought along the w
itch’s armour. He’s going to use his new hands – his new, dextrous, boneless inhuman fingers – to weld her into the suit. Fill it with hot lead, then sink her. He’ll shoot down Great-Uncle and mount the dragon’s skull on the prow, too. He’ll piss on the world, strangle every living thing until the scales balance and they’ve all suffered like he’s suffered!

  In his more lucid moments, he thinks of his son Vyr. Thinks of his wife Loranna. He cannot remember either of their faces. No matter – they are better out of hell. They are safe across the world, in Guerdon and Lyrix respectively. No harm will come to either of them. All the harm has come to him, instead.

  Damala tells him they are close, very close. And on that night, he walks the many decks of the Moonchild instead of sleeping. Walks through the cavernous cargo bays that should be loaded with casks of Great-Uncle’s yliaster. He finds one of the deckhands and strangles him until the boy is unconscious, then ties a leaden weight to him and throws him overboard, while chanting a prayer in Ishmeric that he does not know.

  The next day, there is no sign of Carillon on the sea. Moonchild cruises the coast until the lookouts spy the witch’s boat. The cove is too narrow for the great ship to enter, so Artolo orders his crew to sail south, a course parallel to the mountains. They are to anchor at the first harbour they find, and await instructions.

  Await omens.

  Artolo goes ashore, taking with him Damala and a host of Eshdana. The soldiers quail at entering the Godswar, but once Artolo offers one to the Kraken, the rest find their courage. On the shore, they find a curious trail, as though something has slithered out of the ocean. They follow it to Erephis, finding the footprints of two women in the dirt as they go. Artolo lies down, laps rainwater from Carillon’s footprint like a dog, and tastes her scent.

  But in the chaos of the ruins there they lose the path. Some foe has torn up the land, drawn arcane sigils that baffle Damala’s divinations. Artolo’s hunters scout the surrounding lands, come back empty-handed. The last one to return, Artolo strangles without noticing. Two do not return at all.

  Carillon has escaped him again. For a day and a night, he screams, and his screaming is like a storm at sea. His anger as jagged and sharp as broken glass.

  He drowns another offering in a pool of mud, and the gods reward him. Aerial saints, devotees of Cloud Mother, spot them from the heavens. Cloud Mother whispers that there is a city to the south, the city of Gissa.

  Damala speaks with her fellow priests and soldiers of the Sacred Realm and explains their quest. At the mention of the name of Carillon Thay, the heavens quake. The gods of Ishmere share his hate. His quest for vengeance is more than sanctified, it is fundamental, as true and certain as day follows night. He could no more turn from this quest than water could flow uphill.

  The world is like Moonchild, huge and ponderous to turn, but driven by great engines on a course he dictates, and he directs it at Carillon Thay.

  The world is like his rifle, heavy and hard to aim, but it shall wreak such terrible suffering, and he directs it at Carillon Thay.

  Not just Artolo.

  Cari hides amid the wandering ruins, behind a low pile of stones that’s only a wall if you worship Rhan-Gis, and watches her enemies approach Gissa under a banner of truce. A bunch of Eshdana, and some old hag that seems to be in charge. No sign of a dragon, which is a small mercy. Weirdly, they’re all damp and shivering despite the heat, and there’s a small boat stranded in the mud outside town, even though they’re miles from the sea.

  They’re met by Rhan-Gis and his courtiers, who emerge from the temple into the great square to meet the newcomers. Rhan-Gis strides out, fragments of a beautiful mosaic appearing under his feet. His courtiers follow, pomp diminished by the need to struggle through the mud, their gold hats made to resemble the towers and palaces of the vanished city, their procession forming a cityscape in miniature. At Rhan-Gis’ right hand slithers a Crawling One, clad in the standard-issue dark cloak and porcelain mask that all the worm-colonies favour. Do you know that Artolo’s dragon torched the Crawling One colony on Ilbarin? she wonders. Maybe she can turn the Crawler to her advantage.

  She can’t eavesdrop on the conversation between Rhan-Gis and Artolo. All she can do at this distance is read body language. Spar, I really wish you were here, she thinks. You could drop chunks of masonry on them all. Help me spy on Artolo. Find sodding Myri. And I miss you. Cari’s never been homesick before. You need a home for that.

  Rhan-Gis is preening and disdainful, which clearly pisses off Artolo. The big bastard’s face turns so purple it’s visible even from far away, and he clenches his fists. There’s something weird about his hands, Cari can tell, and he’s not wearing his gloves. The old woman seems to be playing mediator. Several times, she gestures off to the north-west, towards the front lines with Ishmere. When she does, the Crawling One stretches up and whispers in Rhan-Gis’ ear.

  From the size of the crowd in the square, Cari guesses that half the temple clerics and servants have followed Rhan-Gis out. Plenty of those motley brick-and-mortar guards, too. So, the temple’s only lightly guarded, right? She slips away, circling the fringes of the great square, sneaking along in the shadow of the massive oiled runners that allow the temple to be dragged across the land, bringing the ghost of the city with it. She scans the temple’s crumbling walls, looking at the little barred windows, the doors that once led out on to the street, and now step out into empty air ten feet above the muddy ground. Ancient weathered statues of the god Rhan-Gis, depicted as a sphinx, but the god’s face is identical to that of the saint who’s negotiating out in the market square right now. The temple’s scarred in places – targeting temples and shrines is a standard tactic in the Godswar. Maybe she can climb in through one of those breaches, then sneak around until she finds Myri. And then… then she’ll come up with something.

  Rescue missions aren’t like stealing. If she was just going to rob the temple, she’d shove a handful of jewels into her bag and run. Myri’s going to be harder to rescue, assuming she’s even still alive. This is a stupid idea, Cari, she tells herself. But her voice in her head doesn’t sound like Spar’s voice, so she doesn’t give it much credence.

  “Ho there!” calls a voice from a balcony above her. She glances up, and it’s Beard Priest from the market, the sleazy courtier who tried to show her the fountains.

  Con artistry of this sort isn’t Cari’s strong suit, but she knows when to grab a lucky break.

  She looks up, waves, puts on her biggest smile. “Isn’t it wonderful to be in Gissa in its glory!” she calls. “Why, the only thing that could make this perfect city even more perfect would be that cup of wine you spoke of!”

  Another thing Cari’s learned: one of Myri’s painkilling drug vials, mixed with a cup of wine, makes for a quick-acting sedative. Within twenty minutes of Beard Priest admitting Cari into the temple through a side door, he’s snoring on the couch in his little chamber. He told Cari his name at some point, but she wasn’t listening.

  From the look of the chamber, being a temple acolyte of Rhan-Gis means a much better life than the average citizen, but that’s starting from a very low mark. Still, Cari loots the room, grabbing spare clothes, coin, a few other treasures and relics. A sacrificial dagger, too, which always puts her in a good mood. At least, she hopes that’s what she’s grabbing – at one point, she glances out of the balcony window and sees a glorious city of marble and gold, which means she’s falling under the spell of Rhan-Gis. For all she knows, the temple treasures and holy robes she’s stealing will turn out to be handfuls of pebbles and ash when she leaves the city, like fairy treasure in some kid’s story. She slips one of Beard Priest’s robes over her head in a gesture towards a disguise, makes sure Beard Priest is still breathing, finishes the undrugged goblet of wine, and then it’s off on her rescue mission.

  She walks swiftly but not hurriedly, head bowed so no one sees her face. That won’t matter when Rhan-Gis comes back, of course, so she doesn’t tarry. Not
even when she passes one chapel that’s dripping with jewelled treasures, including a golden sphinx with ruby-eyes the size of pigeon eggs. Spar, you had really better be worth it, she thinks. Myri certainly isn’t.

  Up one level, and she finds a door with one of the motley part-masonry part-living guards in front of it. Cari’s getting that sandpaper-itch at the back of her mind, so she has to go for the direct approach. Please be really, really stupid.

  “Uh, I’m here for the prisoner. In the name of Rhan-Gis the, uh, glorious.”

  The guard frowns, brow furrowing where it meets the half-mask of stone. “Who commanded this? Who are—”

  Cari puts the sacrificial knife to his throat, but it doesn’t intimidate him, and she flinches when he moves. He grabs for her, slamming her against the wall. Cari twists away, tries to run, but he tackles her, sending them both to the floor. There’s a brief moment of struggle, and then – shit – the knife ends up in his side. He stares at it in confusion, blood bubbling out of the wound with every gasping breath, and he makes a hideous wheezing noise that stops only when Cari swings her satchel and catches him in the flesh-face with the edge of The Fucking Book. He goes down, and she feels sick to her stomach at what she’s done. The sentry didn’t have it coming, not really. Maybe Rhan-Gis can patch him up. Maybe as he bleeds out, he’ll see the perfect city of his dreams, and be at peace. Please, let him have been an utter bastard. Another virtue of her lost sainthood – she could see, through Spar, who deserved mercy, and who didn’t.

  Keys. Door. The floor’s a mess of blood, so all pretence at stealth is gone. Speed’s her only friend now.

  Inside is, as she’d hoped, a small row of cells. A rescue mission’s equivalent of a treasury full of gold. Most of the cells are empty, but in one she finds Myri. Unconscious, bound hand and foot, and surrounded by a weird arcane binding circle drawn on to the stone floor. The air above it shimmers. Crossing it wouldn’t be a good idea.