The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  “So… so it would seem. I can’t remember… Gallerus set explosives to blow up the yliaster.”

  “A lot of things burned that night. The stone you conjured took the fire for you. Hell of a miracle.” Baston walks across the room, opens a window. From outside, the sound of angry shouts. “Course, everyone knows how you managed that.”

  The burning of the tower. Great-Uncle’s offering. They know.

  Rasce leans back, lets his mind slip into the New City. The mob presses on Lanthorn Street, surrounds the Ghierdana enclave, the Lyrixian military compound. He feels them all, all those feet stamping on the stone, all those upraised fists and shouts of protest. Karla’s name is on the lips of many of them – she’s become a martyr for them, a heroine. He feels individual tears fall and splash on the ground as they weep for her; feels their cries echo off his walls.

  There are more bodies on the ground – fresh-killed corpses, shot by Lyrixian soldiers when they tried to breach the compound walls.

  And thanks to Vorz’s experiments, Rasce feels a horrible ghoul-hunger when he perceives those dead men. There are still souls within the corpses, fresh and untapped residuum that he can access if only they’re buried in the basement at Lanthorn Street.

  He moves on, his mind sweeping through the city. Spar, he calls, show yourself. He can feel traces of the ghost, comes upon calcifying memory-shells cast off by Spar as he fled, but whatever remains of Spar’s mind hides from him.

  “Great-Uncle,” he mutters to himself. “Great-Uncle has returned.”

  His questing mind finds the dragon down by the docks, in council with Thyrus and Carancio. His heart soars at the sight. Everything’s gone to hell, but Great-Uncle will know what to do.

  “He carried you out of the fire,” says Baston. “The dragon did. Flew across Guerdon like a fucking thunderbolt, swooped down and scooped you out of Mandel’s. Everyone else had given you up for dead.”

  “I must go and see him,” he tells Baston.

  Baston nods. He doesn’t move.

  “Are you still with me?” asks Rasce, hesitantly. “Now – now that my task is done here in Guerdon, I am sure I can be more forgiving. Even of…” His breath catches as his lungs press against the stone scabs on his ribs. “Maybe… maybe even of your sister. And you, you did well. Together, surely we can make things right.”

  Baston’s face is unreadable. “Aye. I’m still here, aren’t I? I swore an oath.”

  Baston walks two paces behind Rasce as they go through the New City. At the boss’s right hand, watching for trouble, just like the Fever Knight trained him. Today, of course, there’s no need to look for trouble – just step out on to the street, let the mob find them, and there it is.

  The burned towers are visible everywhere in the New City. An accusation, black against the sky.

  “Did you know?” asks Baston.

  “I knew Vorz had a plan to deliver me the strength I needed to bring down Mandel. I did not know the details.”

  The details. The details were named Enry Sarrason. The details were named Muira Longwater. Thamas the Carpenter. Stonewoman Jal. Two families from Mattaur, three from Severast, three from Jashan. Eighteen children among the details. Rescuers choking on the ash from the details’ scorched flesh.

  “I shall make this right,” says Rasce. “It’s war, my friend, and there is always suffering in war. But we have won a great victory, and there shall be a share of the spoils for the deserving.” He glances back at Baston. “They don’t know which dragon it was. You must not tell them.”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  They emerge from a warren of alleyways and descend down steep slopes towards the harbour. The seawall rises high above them, a frozen wave of stone. The New City docks are under Ghierdana control, Eshdana muscle keeping the mob at bay, and the sound of shouting and weeping fades as they descend.

  Only the waves on the shore, now, the crying of the gulls – and the rumbling colloquy of dragons.

  The pain in Rasce’s leg vanishes when he sees Great-Uncle. His breath comes more easily when he sees Great-Uncle. His worries dissipate like ice, melting in the heat of the dragon’s presence. Seeing him approach, the dragon turns from Thyrus and Carancio, and mantles one wing, offering Rasce a private conference. The dragon’s head, eyes glowing with wisdom, fills the world as Taras enfolds Rasce.

  “You have done well, my nephew,” says the dragon. The rumbling of his voice can be heard through the stone.

  “It has been hard,” admits Rasce. Gods, he’s missed Great-Uncle. He’s missed that guidance, that certainty. “Very hard. We lost…” His voice breaks, and he gestures helplessly with his hands. His own injuries to body and soul. Vyr’s death. So many betrayals. So much death and suffering. “But I did what you ordered.”

  “Forget what has been lost. Consider what has been gained. The only question, nephew, is whether we are in profit or not, and what coin to measure that profit in. We have spent blood and gold, yes. You have suffered, yes, I see that. But from all this, we have won power, and from power all else flows. We have won a greater victory than you understand.”

  “Then tell me. Show me. Take me aloft.”

  “In time,” rumbles the dragon. “Patience, O Chosen of the Dragon. Patience. You are still needed here,” says the dragon, uncoiling. “Major Estavo has work for you.” Great-Uncle folds his wings back, leaving Rasce blinking in the harsh light. The dragon slithers away, returning to his conversation with the other two wyrms.

  A flurry of activity. Doctor Vorz, first, with his black bag and his vials. Muttering to himself, talking about absorption rates, conversion efficiencies, projection quotients. Injecting more of his tinctures into Rasce’s battered flesh. Small stone scabs have formed over the injection sites, and Vorz curses as one of his needles snaps. Rasce feels like some alchemical apparatus, being checked and calibrated.

  As Vorz works, Rasce watches a graceful young woman cross the dockside. She has a breathing mask tucked under one arm, her other hand resting casually on the hilt of a blade at her side. She moves like a lioness, proud and cruel. Her features remind Rasce of one of his younger cousins, Vyr’s sister. The woman glances over at him, a look of pity on her face – and then Vorz injects something into Rasce’s face that makes his eyes water, and he loses sight of her with his human eyes. His inner eye, though, tracks her as she saunters up a gangway and vanishes aboard Vorz’s ship moored at the dockside.

  Then Estavo, the major mopping his brow, looking back towards the dragons for support. He has a bundle of papers in his hand. Architectural drawings, hastily prepared, the ink damp in places. A plan for fortifying the Lyrixian military compound, for sectioning off the Ghierdana compound from the rest of the New City. Wide, wide streets, deep trenches. New walls and barriers, all to be conjured from the mutable stone.

  “The dragon Taras assured me you could do this,” says the major, wiping his moustache. His voice low, like they’re engaged in something shameful.

  “I don’t know if I have the strength,” says Rasce.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” says the major. He pats Rasce on the shoulder, careful to avoid any contact with his skin. “Doctor Vorz explained that he has some sort of, ah, alchemical engine down on Lanthorn Street. We shall supply you with, ah, the necessary fuel.”

  Baston’s waiting for him at the foot of the stairs.

  “What’s the word, boss?”

  “They will bring more… offerings to Lanthorn Street. We should return there.”

  “And then what, boss? You destroyed Mandel. What’s next?”

  “Yliaster,” croaks Rasce. He can’t even remember what the stuff does. “There’s a shipment of yliaster coming up from Ilbarin. We control the city’s yliaster trade.” Baston starts to shake his head, but Rasce presses on. He clutches his dragon-tooth knife, and his plague-granted strength is enough to crack the hilt. “When the shipment comes in, there’ll be coin enough to solve everything. It’s… it is business, my friend. I
t will all be worth it.”

  But there will be no shipment of yliaster from Ilbarin.

  Across the sea, the yliaster refinery on the edge of the drowned city lies in ruins. Moonchild’s guns bombarded it while Carillon, Dol Martaine and the rest of the crew broke open the work camps. Then on to Ushket where they looted the contents of the Ghierdana warehouses, taking on food and supplies for the long voyage home. Some of the survivors of Ilbarin joined her crew there, abandoned the dying land for the promise of distant Guerdon. Others stayed behind, prisoners of their own pasts, or chained by fears of passing through the Godswar again. All were free to choose.

  The Saint of Knives has little patience. After three days, Moonchild cast off from Ilbarin, never to return. Now she sails for Guerdon. Her decks are crowded, every hold occupied. The freighter becomes a floating city.

  No Bythos ride the bow wave of Moonchild as she steams out of Firesea. The wounded Kraken does not reach for her, and she sails into open ocean where no gods hold sway. Her engines groan and roar as they are pressed to the limit of the capacities built into them by the alchemical engineers of Guerdon. The Saint of Knives does not tarry. She’s going home, as quickly as Moonchild will carry her.

  A city needs order. Ren proves to be an able administrator, Cari’s right hand. He oversees the distribution of rations, ensures that everyone gets a fair share. Oversees the engines, ensures they have enough fuel to make it all the way to Guerdon. There are refuelling stations en route, but they’re all controlled by warring parties in the Godswar, by Old Haith or Ulbishe or Lyrix, and none of them would trade with Moonchild. Ren watches the gauges tick down, and knows that Adro would tell him not to worry. They’ll get lucky, Adro would say. It’ll be tight getting to Guerdon, but with a fair wind and calm seas they’ll make it.

  A city needs hope and purpose. Ama, Ren and Adro’s daughter, plays in the sun, and laughs for the first time in months when they cross west of the cape of Eskalind.

  A ship, though, needs a captain. Cari’s spent half her life at sea, but Moonchild has no rigging to climb, no sails to trim. Alchemical engines are a mystery to her. Still, she does her best impression of Captain Hawse, rallying and training her amateur crew, making them ready for the trials to come. They sail through disputed waters now, seas prowled by saints and monsters.

  A ship needs a navigator, too, and again Cari fulfils that role. Hawse taught her to read charts, but she doesn’t need any map to tell her the bearing to Guerdon. She can sense the New City when she closes her eyes – but she can’t sense Spar. Her prayers go unanswered, and every day her worries grow as the silence remains. I’m too late, she thinks. She’s returning empty-handed from her quest, and she’s coming back too late even to say goodbye.

  She hides her fears from her crew. She’s become their champion, their saint, and she has to show courage for them. She’s promised them a better home in the New City.

  The crossing takes three weeks, even with Moonchild at full throttle. Supplies run low; disease stalks the lower decks. The voyage is not without sacrifice.

  But, as Adro would have said if he was there, they get lucky.

  The waters near Guerdon are empty. Far fewer now seek sanctuary than before. The war has moved, and the city is no longer as safe as it was. Still, the people of Moonchild cluster at the railing, searching the horizon for the first glimpse of their new home.

  At last, ahead lies Guerdon’s wide harbour. Cari can feel the weight of the distant city. Past the Isle of Statues, where the old Stone Men go. Past the skeleton of the new lighthouse on the Bell Rock, past the quarantined Hark Island, the low sandbar of Shrike. She can almost see it now, see the towers of the New City reaching for the sky…

  “Turn the fucking ship,” orders the Saint of Knives.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Glass crunches under Baston’s boots. The tavern’s windows were blown out by the fires inside. He steps through the scorched doorway, steps gingerly through the still-smouldering embers. It’s professional work, he has to admit. There were times when Heinreil would send the Fever Knight to torch some business that hadn’t paid its dues to the Brotherhood. If you won’t support us in the struggle, Brother, we have to assume you’re on the side of the Guilds. Heinreil’s words, making a mockery of Idge’s ideals.

  For a tavern like this, you want to get the fire burning near the bar, near all those casks and bottles of flammable alcohol. An amateur, or someone who just wanted to send a warning, would toss a firebomb in the door. Sow terror and cause a bit of damage, but if you want the place destroyed efficiently, you set your phlogiston charge behind the bar.

  The bar was popular with Lyrixian soldiers. When the fire started, the place was full of them, some just arrived from overseas, others just back from the Godswar down in Khenth. Major Estavo’s furious, according to Rasce, threatening retaliation.

  Scuffed patches where the bodies were removed. Already, they’ve taken the corpses down to Lanthorn Street, so Vorz can drain them of what residuum might remain. The arsonists barred the doors to ensure no one could escape the blaze. Baston spots a little half-melted metal amulet behind the bar and bends down to examine it. A sigil of the Kept Gods of Guerdon.

  He picks up the talisman, weighs it in his hand. Keepers burn the dead – the flames of Safid carry the soul to heaven, that’s the litany. He wonders if there’ll be any residuum at all left in that body, and if whoever died here knew what they were doing.

  Like the rest of the New City, the tavern sprang from the stone, and Rasce has eyes in the stone. The attackers will be found and judged by the living saint.

  Glancing out through the shattered windows of the tavern, there’s two dozen or so people on the far side of the street, staring at him. Faces soot-streaked. All silent, all unmoving like statues, except when a mother wraps her arms around her son to keep him safe. All judging Baston with their eyes. It reminds Baston of the days after the invasion last year, when people emerged from their hiding places in cellars and shelters and found themselves in the shadow of strange powers.

  He recognises some of them. A cousin of Fae’s there – Baston met him at the wedding. That woman taught in an alley-school. Another woman in a black shawl – her husband was Brotherhood, back in Heinreil’s day, before they sent him to the Tallow Vats. All of them left the occupied Wash behind, came here drawn by promises of safety from mad gods and occupying armies. Now look at them.

  “Karla’s brother,” one of them says to another, “he betrayed her.”

  Baston wants to cross the street and greet them. Tell them that he’s still on their side. Tell them that he’ll look out for them, make things right. He can’t make them understand. If he says a word, Rasce will hear it.

  There’s a barrier between him and the other side of the street so wide and deep he cannot imagine how to bridge it.

  A shadow darkens the street outside, like a cloud moving across the face of the sun. The crowd breaks up, dissolving, people hurrying away without a word.

  A dragon passed, he realises.

  He returns to Lanthorn Street. The buildings around the house have been transformed by Rasce’s miracles, reshaped into a guarded compound. Baston passes through the outer gatehouse, marches across the courtyard towards the fortified house. He can’t even see the spot where he last saw Karla, the place where Rasce banished her to the underworld. It’s all been erased.

  She’s still alive, Rasce told him. He has no idea if that’s true or not.

  Eshdana guards stand at the door, but they don’t stop him entering. Inside, the house is quiet. The ground-floor room where the Brotherhood thieves used to gather is empty. Like an abandoned ship, half-played games of cards, undrunk bottles of arax and whisky, all preserved in the moment before they left for the raid on Mandel & Company.

  He ascends the stairs, one step at a time, as if carrying a heavy weight.

  Rasce is asleep, or in a trance. Doctor Vorz sits on the edge of the bed, like some vampire out of the Hait
hi uplands – but this leech injects blood, instead of sucking it.

  “I’ll come back,” mutters Baston.

  “No. Stay,” orders Vorz. A forced smile, as if to say we’re all Eshdana now. “I have to leave the city soon, and it would be best to have someone reliable to handle further injections.”

  “I don’t know anything about alchemy.”

  “Don’t boast about ignorance. Take every opportunity to improve yourself.” Cold white fingers grab Baston’s rough hand, guide it into place over the syringe. Rasce shudders as Baston pushes down on the plunger, but doesn’t wake. “See, the tincture is injected into the vein. It’s dilute – mostly water. A little yliaster – note how there’s a residue left in this vial, so be sure to shake it before injection. And the active ingredient, of course.” Vorz holds up another vial, reddish-black liquid clinging to the inside of the glass.

  “Blood.”

  “More or less.” Vorz carefully returns that vial to his bag. “I shall prepare a number of tinctures for you to have on hand.” The Dentist peels back the blankets and examines the stone plates on Rasce’s ribs.

  “What does it do, exactly? The tincture.” It’s not idle curiosity. More like pushing on a scab. Baston wanted Rasce’s miracles to be a genuine blessing, a sign that the Brotherhood could be reborn, that Spar Idgeson and Idge’s ideals were still alive. Better to be thoroughly disabled of such fancies, to drain the pus of illusion from the world. Deal in certainties.

  “It increases Rasce’s congruency with the Guerdon entity.”

  “With Spar Idgeson, you mean.”

  Vorz frowns. He lowers his voice and makes a curious gesture with his hand before continuing. “I do not misspeak. The entity was conjured through Idgeson, and they are entangled, but still distinct. The entity is a sort of formless deity without ethos or purpose or intent. Little more than a holding vessel for the power of the Black Iron Gods that was stolen by Carillon Thay. A null god, which retained a fleeting impression of Spar Idgeson.” Vorz scratches the bridge of his nose. “It would be fascinating to study thoroughly, but other projects take precedence.”