The Broken God

by Gareth Hanrahan

  “Were you looking for Vorz?”

  “Books have to be balanced, but that’s my business.” She removes her glove, carefully tugging at the fingers, one by one, to avoid tearing the skin. She touches the wall with her spell-scorched palm. “I’ll see the boss, now.”

  The new master is younger than Myri expected. Her face, too, is familiar. She sits behind a heavy desk in the house on Lanthorn Street. She’s richly dressed, a jewelled pin at her throat like a respectable guildmaster.

  “You’re Hedan’s daughter, right?”

  The master’s face is impassive. “I remember you, too. You were Heinreil’s sorceress.”

  “Is he—”

  “I am master of the Brotherhood now.” She toys with a little golden casket, the only ornament on her desk.

  “Didn’t you take the ash?”

  “I did. But the dragon I swore to serve is dead, and my brother negotiated a bargain with Thyrus and Carancio. They had little choice but to accept. Now, the Brotherhood has an understanding with the Ghierdana. This is our city once again.”

  “And your brother?”

  “He crossed the Ghierdana. He had to go.”

  “All right. I’m not getting involved. I’m not staying. I was done with Guerdon years ago.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “I owe a debt to Carillon Thay.”

  “She’s dead,” says Karla. “She fell from the seawall, and the sea took her. Her body was washed away.”

  “She had a friend. Spar.”

  Karla rises. “I can show you his grave.”

  The dark cellar would smell foul, if she could smell anything.

  “Watch your step,” warns Karla, and Myri conjures a werelight in response. The floor of the cellar is pockmarked with old graves, hastily dug out of the solid floor with pickaxes and then refilled, urban cairns. Karla leads her to one open grave. A single pebble rests there.

  “I didn’t know what else to do with it,” says Karla, suddenly nervous. “He was… in there, I think. I don’t know. He never spoke to us. Only Rasce.”

  Myri kneels down in the dirt of the cellar and begins to inscribe a complex glyph on the floor. Her fingers trace silver lines of sorcery over the empty graves.

  “He doesn’t need to speak to me. Just listen.”

  A distant flare of light.

  Not light.

  Sorcery. A light in the aether, an invisible sun. It draws Spar back together, gathers him. Fragments of awareness gone feral, rats creeping through the walls of what was once his mind.

  A stranger’s voice, but the light’s enough to keep his attention. He can string his consciousness along the trail of light, for a little while. Remember what it was like to be.

  “I went to the masters of Khebesh. I told them everything I knew about the Gutter Miracle. About the New City, the Saint of Knives. Everything I knew about Jermas Thay’s work, about Carillon’s creation. Everything.

  How do I put this?

  Gods are patterns. Patterns in timeless motion in the aether. Living spells, if you want to think about it that way. Mortal thought agitates the aether. Individual mortals don’t count for much, but the right thought makes a spell. And a lot of mortals… Gods are born out of our collective thoughts. Into the pattern of their divinity, they channel prayers, channel the residuum of the dead. That’s what keeps the god moving through the aether. The pattern retraces itself, over and over.

  And then there’s you. A mortal soul, given the accumulated power of a pantheon. The masters didn’t believe me when I told them you’d survived in any form. You’re an anomaly, Spar Idgeson. Caught halfway between god and mortal.

  So, if you’re not a god, how was Vorz’s pawn able to make sacrifices to you? Not to the Black Iron Gods. To you.

  My theory – and the masters agree – is that you’re holding yourself back. You’re caught between the mortal world and the divine – between being a timeless pattern of magic, endlessly renewing itself, and being a mortal mind anchored to the material world, to mortal time.

  There’s the choice before you. You can let go of your linear consciousness, stop clinging to anchors like Carillon, like your memories. You won’t think any more, not like you do now, but you’ll still exist. You’ll be… a pattern. A living spell. If people worship you, you’ll gather power, influence fate. Maybe even accrue saints, think through them. Like Pesh was all war, like the Mother is all mercies, like the Lord of Waters is the seas of Ilbarin, you’ll be… well, I never knew you, Spar Idgeson. I don’t know what sort of god you might be. A tyrant, or something else. Maybe something good. I don’t know.

  Or, you stay as you are. This beacon I’ve conjured to draw you out – I can inscribe it, make it a lasting enchantment. It’ll keep you together, for a while. It will be an anchor for you, a sort of artificial saint to give your consciousness a reference point. The spell will run out eventually… but not before you. Your mortal body is long dead; your thoughts are fuelled by the stolen power of the Black Iron Gods, and by whatever’s left of the sacrifices the Ghierdana gave you. Maybe more residuum from corpses would prolong you for a little while, but you can’t process it cleanly. Human thoughts are too messy.

  So. That’s it. I don’t even know if you can hear me, or if you’re too far gone already. If you can answer, give me a sign.”

  The city sorely needs inspiration. The dream of the New City is rotting around him. It’s a thief’s city, but thieves in the manner of Heinreil, in the manner of the dragons. Taking from the poor and the desperate, instead of the guilds and rich merchants. Idge wrote of a better way. Spar allows himself to imagine rebellious saints, holy thieves. Champions of the gutters and the alleyways, casting down the corrupt guilds, demanding a fairer city. The Tallowmen and the other obscenities and cruelties of the alchemists destroyed, the mad gods driven from the city.

  A holy revolution.

  But Spar Idgeson is not his father. He’s been the custodian of Idge’s dream all his life, all his temporary after-life too. He’s served Idge’s memory as Rasce served the dragon, thought himself chosen to carry on the dream of a fairer Guerdon.

  But in his own way. Not Idge’s.

  Spar draws all his remaining strength together. With an unseen finger, he writes on the cellar wall, burning his message into the stone.

  I’LL WAIT FOR HER.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It’s 13 July 2020 as I write this, and honestly some days the future feels so unpredictable it’s an act of absurd optimism to write. I hope, gentle reader, that you’re well as can be expected under the circumstances, whatever those happen to be when you read this.

  Thank you, by the by, for reading this; special thanks to all those who read and reviewed The Gutter Prayer and The Shadow Saint. Special and heavily armed thanks to BookNest.eu.

  Endless gratitude to the editorial team of Emily Byron, Bradley Englert, Jenni Hill and Joanna Kramer, cover artist Richard Anderson and the rest of the Orbit team.

  Even Nazia. She knows what she did.

  Portions of this book were written during lockdown. My condolences to Edel and the kids, who were trapped in a house with a writer on deadline and no access to coffee shops.

  I remain indebted to stalwart agent John Jarrold, beta readers John Nephew and Neil Kelly; also to the Pelgrane crew, the Twitterati, and the circle of friends that became a set of squares on Zoom in recent months. Here’s to better times ahead.

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  Photo Credit: Edel Ryder-Hanrahan

  GARETH HANRAHAN’S three-month break from computer programming to concentrate on writing has now lasted fifteen years and counting. He’s written more gaming books than he can readily recall, by virtue of the alchemical transmutation of tea and guilt into words. He lives in Ireland with his wife and twi
n sons. Follow him on Twitter @mytholder.

  Find out more about Gareth Hanrahan and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at orbitbooks.net.

  if you enjoyed

  THE BROKEN GOD

  look out for

  THE BONE SHARD DAUGHTER

  Book One of The Drowning Empire

  by

  Andrea Stewart

  The Bone Shard Daughter is an unmissable fantasy debut from a major new voice in epic fantasy—a stunning tale of magic, mystery, and revolution in which the former heir to the emperor will fight to reclaim her power and her place on the throne.

  The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animallike constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands.

  Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognize her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

  Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright—and save her people.

  1

  Lin

  Imperial Island

  Father told me I’m broken.

  He didn’t speak this disappointment when I answered his question. But he said it with narrowed eyes, the way he sucked on his already hollow cheeks, the way the left side of his lips twitched a little bit down, the movement almost hidden by his beard.

  He taught me how to read a person’s thoughts on their face. And he knew that I knew how to read these signs. So between us, it was as though he had spoken out loud.

  The question: “Who was your closest childhood friend?”

  My answer: “I don’t know.”

  I could run as quickly as the sparrow flies, I was as skilled with an abacus as the Empire’s best accountants, and I could name all the known islands in the time it took for tea to finish steeping. But I could not remember my past before the sickness. Sometimes I thought I never would – that the girl from before was lost to me.

  Father’s chair creaked as he shifted, and he let out a long breath. In his fingers he held a brass key, which he tapped on the table’s surface. “How can I trust you with my secrets? How can I trust you as my heir if you do not know who you are?”

  I knew who I was. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. I shouted the words in my head, but I didn’t say them. Unlike my father, I kept my face neutral, my thoughts hidden. Sometimes he liked it when I stood up for myself, but this was not one of those times. It never was, when it came to my past.

  I did my best not to stare at the key.

  “Ask me another question,” I said. The wind lashed at the shutters, bringing with it the salt-seaweed smell of the ocean. The breeze licked at my neck, and I suppressed a shiver. I kept his gaze, hoping he saw the steel in my soul and not the fear. I could taste the scent of rebellion on the winds as clearly as I could the fish fermentation vats. It was that obvious, that thick. I could set things right, if only I had the means. If only he’d let me prove it.

  Tap.

  “Very well,” Father said. The teak pillars behind him framed his withered countenance, making him look more like a foreboding portrait than a man. “You’re afraid of sea serpents. Why?”

  “I was bit by one when I was a child,” I said.

  He studied my face. I held my breath. I stopped holding my breath. I twined my fingers together and then forced them to relax. If I were a mountain, he would be following the taproots of cloud junipers, chipping away the stone, searching for the white, chalky core.

  And finding it.

  “Don’t lie to me, girl,” he snarled. “Don’t make guesses. You may be my flesh and blood, but I can name my foster son to the crown. It doesn’t have to be you.”

  I wished I did remember. Was there a time when this man stroked my hair and kissed my forehead? Had he loved me before I’d forgotten, when I’d been whole and unbroken? I wished there was someone I could ask. Or at least, someone who could give me answers. “Forgive me.” I bowed my head. My black hair formed a curtain over my eyes, and I stole a glance at the key.

  Most of the doors in the palace were locked. He hobbled from room to room, using his bone shard magic to create miracles. A magic I needed if I was to rule. I’d earned six keys. My father’s foster, Bayan, had seven. Sometimes it felt as if my entire life was a test.

  “Fine,” Father said. He eased back into his chair. “You may go.”

  I rose to leave, but hesitated. “When will you teach me your bone shard magic?” I didn’t wait for his response. “You say you can name Bayan as your heir, but you haven’t. I am still your heir, and I need to know how to control the constructs. I’m twenty-three, and you—” I stopped, because I didn’t know how old he was. There were liver spots on the backs of his hands, and his hair was steely gray. I didn’t know how much longer he would live. All I could imagine was a future where he died and left me with no knowledge. No way to protect the Empire from the Alanga. No memories of a father who cared.

  He coughed, muffling the sound with his sleeve. His gaze flicked to the key, and his voice went soft. “When you are a whole person,” he said.

  I didn’t understand him. But I recognized the vulnerability. “Please,” I said, “what if I am never a whole person?”

  He looked at me, and the sadness in his gaze scraped at my heart like teeth. I had five years of memories; before that was a fog. I’d lost something precious; if only I knew what it was. “Father, I—”

  A knock sounded at the door, and he was cold as stone once more.

  Bayan slipped inside without waiting for a response, and I wanted to curse him. He hunched his shoulders as he walked, his footfalls silent. If he were anyone else, I’d think his step hesitant. But Bayan had the look of a cat about him – deliberate, predatory. He wore a leather apron over his tunic, and blood stained his hands.

  “I’ve completed the modification,” Bayan said. “You asked me to see you right away when I’d finished.”

  A construct hobbled behind him, tiny hooves clicking against the floor. It looked like a deer, except for the fangs protruding from its mouth and the curling monkey’s tail. Two small wings sprouted from its shoulders, blood staining the fur around them.

  Father turned in his chair and placed a hand on the creature’s back. It looked up at him with wide, wet eyes. “Sloppy,” he said. “How many shards did you use to embed the follow command?”

  “Two,” Bayan said. “One to get the construct to follow me, and another to get it to stop.”

  “It should be one,” Father said. “It goes where you do unless you tell it not to. The language is in the first book I gave you.” He seized one of the wings and pulled it. When he let it go, it settled slowly back at the construct’s side. “Your construction, however, is excellent.”

  Bayan’s eyes slid to the side, and I held his gaze. Neither of us looked away. Always a competition. Bayan’s irises were blacker even than mine, and when his lip curled, it only accentuated the full curve of his mouth. I supposed he was prettier than I would ever be, but I was convinced I was smarter, and that’s what really mattered. Bayan never cared to hide his feelings. He carried his contempt for me like a child’s favorite seashell.

  “Try again with a new construct,” Father said, and Bayan broke his gaze from mine. Ah, I’d won this small contest.

  Father reached his fingers into the beast. I held my breath. I’d only seen him do this twice. Twice I could remember, at least. The creature only blinked placidly as Father’s hand disappeared to the wrist. And then he pulled away and the construct froze, still as a statue. In his hand were two small shards of bone.

  No blood stained his fingers. He dropped the bones into Bayan’s hand. “Now go. Both of you.”

  I
was quicker to the door than Bayan, who I suspected was hoping for more than just harsh words. But I was used to harsh words, and I’d things to do. I slipped out the door and held it for Bayan to pass so he needn’t bloody the door with his hands. Father prized cleanliness.

  Bayan glared at me as he passed, the breeze in his wake smelling of copper and incense. Bayan was just the son of a small isle’s governor, lucky enough to have caught Father’s eye and to be taken in as a foster. He’d brought the sickness with him, some exotic disease Imperial didn’t know. I was told I got sick with it soon after he arrived, and recovered a little while after Bayan did. But he hadn’t lost as much of his memory as I had, and he’d gotten some of it back.

  As soon as he disappeared around the corner, I whirled and ran for the end of the hallway. The shutters threatened to blow against the walls when I unlatched them. The tile roofs looked like the slopes of mountains. I stepped outside and shut the window.

  The world opened up before me. From atop the roof, I could see the city and the harbor. I could even see the boats in the ocean fishing for squid, their lanterns shining in the distance like earthbound stars. The wind tugged at my tunic, finding its way beneath the cloth, biting at my skin.

  I had to be quick. By now, the construct servant would have removed the body of the deer. I half-ran, half-skidded down the slope of the roof toward the side of the palace where my father’s bedroom was. He never brought his chain of keys into the questioning room. He didn’t bring his construct guards with him. I’d read the small signs on his face. He might bark at me and scold me, but when we were alone – he feared me.

  The tiles clicked below my feet. On the ramparts of the palace walls, shadows lurked – more constructs. Their instructions were simple. Watch for intruders. Sound an alarm. None of them paid me any mind, no matter that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I wasn’t an intruder.