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

was a tool, at best; a callous, cruel fanatic. She wants to not miss him, to not feel horribly alone.

A door at the back of the chapel opens, and Alic Nemon slips in. He takes his place at Eladora’s side, and avoids looking directly at the shrine at the top of the room, where a statue of the Mother of Mercies stands, marble hands open in a gesture of welcome.

The eyes of the statue seem to stare directly at Alic; somehow, even though the stone face has not moved.

“Kelkin couldn’t get away?” she whispers to Alic, as the aunts haltingly sing the Litany of the Keepers.

“I shouldn’t be here,” murmurs Alic. “Kelkin’s taken ill. The healers are with him, of course. Are you all right? I know you weren’t injured in the attack, but…” Alic’s presence is warm, reassuringly competent, enfolding. Like being swaddled in webs. She has to watch that. The god wearing a human face is not her friend.

“I’m fine. Tell the Haithi and Ishmerians that it was an alchemical accident. Tell them it doesn’t threaten the Armistice.” The story has already gone out to Guerdon’s newspapers.

“The Haithi know the truth already, though, and my, ah, former counterparts will divine what happened.”

“The ghouls have recovered the Black Iron G-Gods.” The statue of the Mother of Mercies doesn’t move, but still, its eyes seem to flicker to stare at Eladora when she mentioned those dread gods. “Not ideal, but it seems acceptable. And the other relics stored in Mandel’s remain secure.”

“How can you be sure? The place looks like it got hit by dragon-fire. The lower levels are still inaccessible.”

“A family friend assured me the wards would hold.”

She takes a little pleasure in Alic’s look of confusion. She still has secrets even Fate Spider doesn’t know. Eladora examines the blackened fingernails on her hand, testament to her own use of sorcery. All things considered – her failure to hold the Ghierdana back behind the truce line considered – they, too, have escaped relatively unscathed. The Armistice remains intact. The city has survived.

“Mandel’s place is a ruin, and the whole of the Fog Yards are shut down. Venture Square’s in a panic, and the price of yliaster is twenty times what it was last year.”

Something of Kelkin is rubbing off on Alic, it seems. Worrying about the speculators and the moneymen.

“Nothing of importance, then,” clarifies Eladora.

“You don’t understand,” whispers Alic, loud enough to get a dirty look from an aunt. “This was sent to Kelkin this morning, straight from Guildmaster Helmont.” He slips her a note, and she reads it by the light of Sinter’s pyre.

“The alchemists are leaving.”

CHAPTER FORTY

The ceiling’s familiar to Rasce. He’s spent a lot of time, these last few weeks, staring up at that ceiling. Or staring down through it.

Lanthorn Street. He’s back at Lanthorn Street.

He’s not dead.

Panic seizes him, and his point of view flickers. He’s looking down at the bed now from above, and – to his relief – the body in the bed is still alive. His face is blistered in places, but no worse than it would be after a burning raid with Great-Uncle. The smell of the alkahest poultices on his bandaged skin is overpowering. His throat is very dry, and tastes of metal.

“Boss.”

Baston’s slumped in the chair by the bed.

“My friend,” croaks Rasce.

Baston frowns at that. “You survived.” Baston’s matter-of-fact delivery can’t quite conceal the awe in his voice. “The whole of Mandel’s burned, and you survived.”

“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.