The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  Baston finds Rasce waiting in a café nearby. Four Eshdana at the door, two more inside, and either end of the street under guard, too. Baston catches a few people glancing fearfully at him as he marches Gunnar down towards the little eatery. The owner – a Mattaurese woman, eyes marked with dark kohl, her wooden shoes clattering as she clears plates – frowns when he enters with Gunnar, but quickly conceals her distaste. The place has been cleared of other customers – it’s just Rasce and his guards.

  Rasce is looking stronger. Only a little stiffness in the way he turns reveals his injuries. His high-collared jacket and gloved hands conceal any trace of the Stone Plague.

  “Gunnar,” says Rasce. He puts down his butter knife. Picks up his dragon-tooth. “You plotted against the Ghierdana. You attacked the tavern.”

  Gunnar swallows. “No, sir.”

  “I heard it from your own lips, friend.”

  Gunnar hawks up a gobbet of phlegm and spits. Rasce doesn’t dodge. The spittle drips down his cheek. He takes a napkin and wipes it carefully away. Drops the napkin back on the table. Then, with the same hand, he grips Gunnar by the throat, and lifts the bigger man up. Rasce’s arm quivers with the effort, but the added strength granted him by the Stone Plague is obvious.

  “This man swore an oath to the Ghierdana, did he not, Baston?”

  “He did.”

  “And what is the punishment for oath-breakers?”

  “Death.”

  “But perhaps,” says Rasce, “I could be merciful.” He drops Gunnar. “What do you think, Baston? Maybe we could use an informant?”

  Gunnar gasps for air, unable to speak, but his eyes stare pleadingly at Baston.

  “The punishment for breaking the oath,” says Baston slowly, “is death. He knew it when he took the ash. And you see everything. You don’t need any spies in the New City.”

  “I suppose not.” Rasce sighs. “Very well.”

  Heinreil would have had the Fever Knight kill Gunnar, thinks Baston. Or he’d have had me do it. On the streets of the old Wash, Heinreil was the generous boss whose hands flowed with silver. He was the man you went to for favours, the court of last resort. It was lieutenants like the Fever Knight or Baston who did the killing, who bore the sin. Baston’s already carrying his damn oath to the dragon, and that’s burden enough. Rasce will carry this killing. The people of the city will see him do it.

  “You should do it yourself. Do it outside,” says Baston. “Show people what happens when they cross the dragon.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Baston clenches his teeth, and nods.

  They drag Gunnar outside. Baston watches through the window as they force the boy to kneel. One of the Eshdana pulls back his head, exposing his throat.

  Heinreil knew how to lie and keep his own hands clean.

  Rasce brandishes the dragon-tooth, then draws it across Gunnar’s throat in a red rush. Blood gushes out across the pearly stone of the street, running into the hungry throats of gutters. Once Gunnar stops twitching, they pick up the body, throw it in a cart. Down to Lanthorn Street, down to the cellar. Cellars, by now – Vorz’s crew have expanded their makeshift catacomb, to cope with increased demand.

  A hundred eyes watch Rasce murder Gunnar. Baston doesn’t have Rasce’s supernatural awareness, but he knows Guerdon. Whispers on the streets, like poison poured into every ear. The city turning sour. Baston’s bound by his oath, but he can undo his mistakes. He can drive a wedge between the Brotherhood and the Ghierdana, push people to rally against the tyrant god that’s growing in their midst.

  Heinreil taught him to be a monster. Very well – he’ll be a monster. He’ll force some Brotherhood to stand up. The guilds’ oppression made Idge. He’ll force some other hero to rise up.

  Rasce comes back in. He throws a handful of coins down on the table, but the café owner doesn’t touch the money. She vanishes into a back room to fetch a bucket of water for the stained pavement outside. No doubt she fears that her coffee shop will be hit next, targeted for collaborating with the occupying forces.

  “You know,” Rasce says, “Great-Uncle shall move on soon. Back to Lyrix, or back down to Ilbarin to clean up the mess my Uncle Artolo left there. I shall fly with him, of course, but there’s a place for you, too. A high rank in the Eshdana, wealth and power beyond measure.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Rasce takes a step towards Baston, and Baston steps back. “The plague, boss. Better I don’t get too close.”

  “Of course.” There’s a weight to Rasce’s voice, a leaden resignation. He turns away, eyes half-closing as his mind flickers through the stone.

  “Boss…” says Baston.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you really speak to Spar Idgeson?”

  “For a while. But he’s gone now. The New City belongs to the dragon.” Rasce turns. “Keep going through the list of names I gave you. Send them all down to Lanthorn Street.” He wipes the dragon-tooth on a napkin, throws it on the floor. “Great-Uncle calls for me.”

  Great-Uncle suns himself on the plaza. Rasce approaches and bows, wincing as the stone plates dig into his ribs.

  “My boy,” rumbles the dragon. “How fares your city?”

  “It is unsettled,” Rasce admits, “but the trouble will subside.”

  “It is good for them to know fear.” Great-Uncle stretches his wings. “Walk with me, Rasce.”

  Great-Uncle leads him across the plaza. For a moment, Rasce is comforted by the presence of the dragon; he can feel Great-Uncle’s thunderous footsteps as he ambles across the courtyard, feel the scales of the dragon’s tail slither across the flagstones. He beholds Great-Uncle’s radiant glory from every angle. It reassures him – Great-Uncle will help him with this cursed sainthood – but he cannot rid himself of the troublesome impression of how small the dragon is, compared to the New City.

  “Look,” rumbles the dragon. Rasce looks out up at the serried ranks of grey clouds marching in from the sea, the dazzling patches of blue sky in the gaps between. He imagines flying with Great-Uncle, soaring up above that dull canopy to the bright realm beyond, liberated from the sullen earth.

  “Not there, Rasce,” chuckles Great-Uncle. “The harbour.”

  “Oh.” Rasce looks across the island-spangled harbour. “What of it?” With a pirate’s eye, he distinguishes traders and freighters from fishing boats and warships.

  “During the invasion, Carillon Thay used her miracles to raise the wreck of the Grand Retort. She conjured a new island.” Great-Uncle pauses and digs his claws into the plaza, ripping up the flagstones and cracking them into smaller pieces. Rasce winces as the claws scratch his borrowed flesh. “Doctor Vorz proposes that I scatter stones like seeds, and you make them sprout. Imagine it – a barrier we can command, nephew. Every ship passing through the harbour shall pay us tribute – and should we desire, we can close it. Doctor Vorz is a man of vision.”

  Rasce closes his eyes and imagines it. The same miracle he conjured in the Fog Yards, over and over again. The last time he did that, the stone tore through his innards even as he shattered the world.

  “Such a miracle,” he whispers, “would be costly.”

  “Have no fear,” says the dragon. “All is arranged.”

  On the horizon, a great freighter steams into the harbour under armed escort.

  Moonchild has returned to Guerdon.

  It’s twilight by the time Rasce returns to the House on Lanthorn Street. There are thirty-seven guards stationed there, in the house and in the surrounding buildings, watching the courtyard and the alleyways.

  Two hundred and four people in the buildings immediately nearby, and at least one hundred and fifty of them hate him. He can feel their anger through the stone.

  Under cover of darkness, two young boys daub Karla’s name on to a wall in an alleyway. In a nearby tower, one of the few thieves to make it back from the Fog Yards lies slumped in a corner. She’s taken lotus-dust to numb her mind, but she still has ni
ghtmares of the stone walls around her coming to life, erupting into spikes and knives. Rasce hears his name over and over, whispered over dinner tables and in clandestine meetings in taverns and temples.

  I didn’t ask for this, he wants to shout. Even contained, his anger sets the stone around him burning, ripples of ghostlight blazing beneath the courtyard as he walks towards the house.

  Twelve guards there, including the sniper in the attic. Four working down in the basement, their pickaxes hewing at his body, tearing new holes in him to match those made by the needles. They’ve already interred Gunnar Tarson. Rasce can feel the boy’s corpse like he’s a lump beneath the skin, feel microscopic particles of dust invade the body, sprouting within the dead man like marble fungi. A New City in miniature, growing within Tarson, those tiny towers like cilia through the gaping wound in Tarson’s neck, pushing through the dead flesh in search of the man’s soul. Tarson’s hate comes flooding out with the residuum, the last vestiges of the soul flowing into the hungry stone.

  Rasce can’t stay here. He’ll go mad. He doesn’t want this sainthood any more. Has he not been faithful? Has he not shown his devotion? He did everything that was asked of him and more. He didn’t fail like Uncle Artolo. He didn’t skulk and conspire, like Vyr. He did what was asked of him.

  In Lyrix, they lock saints up in madhouses and call them monasteries.

  Rasce turns and runs, fleeing the courtyard. Fleeing that awful house, this awful city. He has to go back to the plaza, back to Great-Uncle. The dragon will fly him away from this. Lift him away from the stone and the slime, carry him to the cool airs above. Great-Uncle will save him. The dragon is ancient and wise. The dragon chose him; he must be more precious to Great-Uncle than any jewel. Great-Uncle will save him.

  Guards shout at him in alarm, call for him to return. Running feet behind him, like a drumbeat on his spine. He twists the street behind him so they cannot pursue. The paths bend ahead of him, a convenient earthquake. Across the city, he knows that the dragons Carancio and Thyrus take to the air in fright, knows that Major Estavo hunkers down in the dracodome, mistaking Rasce’s headlong flight for the opening thunder of an artillery bombardment.

  He closes his eyes and runs blind, but he can still see. The city parts for him. The stone will not impede him. Right now, right this instant, he can see Doctor Vorz down at the docks, standing on the deck of a ship as his servants quarry lumps of stone from the seawall. He feels every blow of the pickaxe, and every block is a torment in waiting.

  It’s almost a relief to run into the mob. A dozen ruffians – he could summon up their names with a thought, retrace the paths they took through the streets if he wished. They know him, too – who does not know Rasce, Chosen of the Dragon, prince of the city?

  A fist cracks across his jaw. A boot slams into his stomach. One of them kicks Rasce in the back of the knee, sending him sprawling, then draws a knife across his throat – but none of them can hurt him. The impacts of all their blows are swallowed by the streets around him. He is cursed with invulnerability. Even the knife cannot bite him.

  Baston comes charging down the streeet, but only Great-Uncle can save him. Rasce lies in the street and watches with detachment as Baston scatters the attackers with efficient brutality. Sends them fleeing down the streets.

  “Go after them!”

  “I’ll put their names in the book,” says Baston, and Rasce has to laugh. The list is already too long. He can’t stay here until it’s done. Let some other servant of the dragon take over here. He cannot endure.

  Baston helps him walk back to Lanthorn Street, brings him upstairs to the bedroom. A series of sharp pains. Tincture injections? Alkahest? Sedatives? He can’t tell, but it melts his soul.

  “Baston,” croaks Rasce. “I can’t go on.”

  “The gods send dragons to scourge the sinner and honest man alike,” quotes Baston, and he’s gone.

  That night, he dreams of one name that isn’t on the list.

  Carillon Thay.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Dol Martaine spits over the side of their little boat. “This is the sort of nonsense scheme you and Adro tormented me with for years, so now I will show you how to do it properly.”

  Cari heaves on the oars, rowing towards Shriveport, the New City rising above them like a mountain, dark against the clouds. Only the lights of Guerdon can be seen on this foul night – the lamps up on Holyhill, the distant glow against the clouds of the alchemists’ furnaces, and the glimmer of the luminescent stone. A few candles burning on rooftops, making Cari shudder.

  “Stay down,” mutters Dol Martaine. Cari ducks under the pile of burlap sacks, hiding while they sail past a Ghierdana patrol. Martaine calls a greeting, some Lyrixian joke, and the Eshdana on the patrol boat laugh and let them pass.

  “Just get me close enough that I can swim to shore,” whispers Cari, “then you go back. You don’t have to come with me.”

  “Ach, and what would I tell them if I let you die?” He brings the boat alongside a larger freighter, finds a line trailing in the water. They creep aboard like ghosts, and from there make their way on to the docks, disappearing in the maze of alleyways. Cari takes the lead here, leading him through the labyrinth. Brick warehouse walls give way to pearly stone, a frozen wave of creation.

  “One moment.” Cari takes a deep breath, reaches out and touches the stone of the New City. The stone feels empty at first, hollow – but then it seems like the whole New City is slithering down towards her, unwinding, something scaly and titanic. There’s another presence there, where once there was only Spar.

  Looking for her. Hunting for her.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Martaine looks around, as if expecting enemies to leap out of the shadows.

  “Nothing you can fight. Come on.”

  They backtrack, skirting around the fringes of the New City. Rain sweeps in from the harbour, drenching them both, turning the alleyways into tributaries. More rain falling in a minute than Cari saw in all her time in Ilbarin, water gushing through drainpipes, gurgling in gutters—

  Hissing in the candle-flame. A Tallowman drops down in front of them, blocking their path, flooding the alleyway with harsh light. The thing’s taller than Dol Martaine by a foot or more, hideously distended. Wax flesh contorted into an expression half-quizzical, half-feral, as if it’s trying to remember why it’s not dismembering them right this instant.

  Cari’s got her knife, but she knows the creatures heal minor wounds instantly. Martaine’s loaded down with alchemy, but most of the weapons either have no effect on Tallowmen, or would kill Cari and Dol Martaine if they tried setting them off at close quarters.

  The Tallowman’s lips part, stringy gobbets of hot wax dribbling from its candle-lit mouth. “Paperrrsss.”

  “In here,” says Martaine confidently. “In this bag.” He holds out a yliaster sack, shakes it. “Take a look.”

  The Tallowman leans forward – and Martaine whips the bag over the monster’s head, pulls the drawstring tight. Cari darts forward and grabs the other end of the cord, the two of them struggling to hold the bag in place. The Tallowman screeches, but its cry is partially muffled. It thrashes around, one flailing limb catching Martaine and sending him sprawling, but the Tallowman’s more focused on trying to get its head out of the bag than fighting. Its fingers claw at the sack, but the fibres of the sack are tough, and the bag’s airtight. The lack of oxygen snuffs out the flame in the Tallowman’s skull, and it freezes in place, caught in the middle of its writhing.

  “Bastard thing,” mutters Martaine as he pulls himself up.

  “There’ll be more. And worse.”

  Worse is the way down.

  Worse is ghoul tunnels under the city. Martaine’s bravado ebbs the deeper they go, as Cari leads him down into Guerdon’s depths. In the unknowable distance, echoing up the tunnels, the hyena-calls of ghouls.

  “You trust the ghouls?”

  “Some of them.”

&nbs
p; “The one we’re here to find?”

  “Rat.” Cari toys with her new necklace. “Rat’s complicated.”

  They slip and slide on muck, clamber over rubble. The dark places under Guerdon are comfortable to Cari now. The cool, moist air delights her skin. Her eyes have adjusted to the blackness, and she barely needs the little lamp she brought with her. She’s at home here in a way she never expected to be.

  Martaine’s litany of muffled curses and oaths suggests he’s having a different experience.

  “We’re here,” she tells him. “Turn up the light.”

  His breath catches at the sheer size of the outer vault.

  I did this, Cari thinks. We did this. She gave Spar the power to rewrite the city, to cast down the alchemists and bury them in this vault. In an instant, they wrought a transformation that remade Guerdon, the work of centuries upended in a moment.

  You get it wrong, and then the whole world is your fault.

  It’s strange, to stand in this titanic cathedral littered with the shattered remains of the alchemists’ machinery, this monument to her own moment of desperate power, and recognise her own arrogance. Back then, she thought that everything in the whole world turned on the decision she made. Now, she sees the truth – the Godswar is much, much bigger than Guerdon. Even if she’d taken command of the Ravellers, become the queen they wanted her to be, and seized control of the city, the world beyond Guerdon would have continued to grind on remorselessly. The poor bastards in the camps in Ilbarin don’t care who’s in charge in Guerdon’s parliament; the mad gods continue their blind struggle for supremacy.

  A burden lifts from her as she crosses the vault. It’s not all her fault, no matter how much power she has. There’s a path between vanishing into the anonymity of the open seas, and the throne of Black Iron they showed her in visions.

  She leads Dol Martaine across the chamber, looking for the weak spot. There’s a scorched section of wall, somewhere in the darkness, that marks where Haithi agents tried to break into the vault and steal the Black Iron bombs. Cari and Rat and Spar kept them safe.