The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📕

into the churning waters and searches for his prize. Around him, Moonchild groans, pitching wildly from side to side as the storm pummels her. A few crew fall overboard, offerings for the Kraken. The whole ship could shatter, and Artolo would not be dismayed. He’s a thing of the sea now, a saint of the Kraken. His desire – the god’s desire – for revenge outweighs mortal necessities like shelter from the storm.

A tongue of water lifts the wreckage of Carillon’s little boat on to the deck before him. He sifts through broken timbers, finds her battered body.

A memory flows into Artolo’s brain, unimpeded now that his skull has become a fluid sac. He remembers when the gods of Ishmere made war upon the gods of Ilbarin, when he and his sisters brought low the Lord of Waters. Glorious was Pesh on that day, Lion Queen, war goddess, blood-crowned! And glorious was the Kraken on that day, diamond-dappled, master of the seas, and a million souls in Ilbarin drowned in celebration of His victory!

But Pesh died. It was another city, another sea, another war – but Pesh is on every battlefield, just as Kraken is in every sea. For the gods, there is neither space nor time, only the infinite iterations of their divine litanies, holy monads drawn in the heart of all things. Gods are beyond time, and cannot die – but Pesh died, her pattern overwritten by the abomination of Black Iron. It was Carillon Thay who struck her down, Thay who maimed both Artolo and Ishmere.

A death for a death. He lifts Cari’s limp body out of the wreckage, wraps his fingers around her throat. His touch is careful, almost gentle. This must be savoured. This must be sacred.

She must know it, too. He raises a slimy tentacle-finger, strokes Cari’s cheek. Traces the marks on her body – the burns from the shattered Black Iron God, the scars where the dragon bit her, a hundred other cuts and bruises. Her body a map of her failed journey. He can taste her skin through receptors that sprout in the suckers on his Kraken-fingers.

He examines the pale grey skin of her cursed hand, runs his new fingers – so wonderfully soft and adaptable! – between her frozen ones. It’s the only part of her that isn’t limp and unconscious. That won’t do at all.

He nibbles her earlobe, then bites, tasting her blood. “Carillon Thay,” whispers Artolo, “the gods say I shall kill you.”

“… what gods?” she whispers, still stunned, only semi-conscious.

“Pesh, the Lion Queen, shall be avenged. Kraken made me whole again.” The litany comes spilling out of him, like he’s just a mouthpiece for the unseen gods. As he speaks, the feeling of power grows, divinity pressing against his exposed brain. “Fate Spider set my destiny. High Umur judges your crime. Smoke Painter, Blessed Bol, Cloud Mother—”

“Lord of Waters!” she cries.

And the god rises.

For it is said in all the lands, gods cannot die.

The Lord of Waters, fortified by all the souls salvaged by his loyal Bythos, drawn by the blasphemy of the invaders, surges from the deeps. This reborn incarnation of the god is diminished, changed from the kindly deity who blessed the harbour at Ilbarin and guided the ships home safely. His once-glorious visage is ill-made, his body laden with seaweed and debris. His eyes are bleary, and his voice is no longer the booming of thunder, no longer full of wisdom and foresight, but an animalistic roar of hatred.

But his spear is sharp and true, and for a moment his face is that of Captain Hawse.

It wasn’t a physical blow.

Cari can’t tell what’s happening in the physical realm, and what’s bleeding through from the realm of the gods. She’s seen gods walk in the mortal world, so fuck it, maybe the Lord of Waters did just rise from the ocean depths and strike down Artolo. If he did, though, the attack left no physical mark. Artolo’s bloated torso doesn’t have a giant hole in it.

The effects, though, are undeniable. Artolo topples, bonelessly, collapsing to the deck. All around them the storm rages. Moonchild spins wildly, thrown by the churning seas. Dimly, Cari’s aware that a blow has been struck in the Godswar, that Kraken has been wounded and thrown into disarray. The storm around them shifts in a way she can recognise but not name, like the wind’s howling in a different key. It’s still about to sink the Moonchild, though.

Cari crawls away from Artolo’s unmoving form, finds Dol Martaine lying there, face pressed against the deck, hiding from the gods. She grabs him, shakes him until he looks at her. “Pray!” she shouts, “tell them all to pray!” She shoves him towards the nearest hatch.

The crew are mostly Ilbariners. Some taken as slaves, others wiping away the ash-marks from their foreheads, but all take up the prayer, following Dol Martaine as he recites words Captain Hawse taught him. A prayer for deliverance from the storm.

It’s not enough. Moonchild begins to capsize as the raging waters crash against her.

Cari bends over Artolo’s body. Boneless, it sags and spreads over the deck like a beached jellyfish. He’s still alive, staring glassy-eyed into the sky. A bloody stain begins to spread beneath the unbroken skin of his breast. Divine stigmata.

“Hey, fucker.” By a stroke of luck so apt it must be divine, she still has her fish-gutting knife.

His slack lips twitch, like he’s about to try to speak, but it’s too late. She drives the knife in, starting with the old scar, the place where she cut him in Guerdon, but she keeps going. His Kraken-touched flesh yielding to the knife, parting like a wet bag as she carves him up. She dives into Artolo’s body, searching for his heart.

A terrible, intoxicating feeling of rightness flows through her. You were made for this, it seems to say.

She finds her enemy’s soul, seizes it, and flings it into the sea. The Bythos will take it to the