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

protection of the Brotherhood meant more in the Wash than anything the city watch could offer, knew that the Brotherhood’s threats had more bite. But all that’s changed now. The Brotherhood’s gone, leaving Baston as a man without a roof, without a shield against the powers that stalk the city.

All very neat. But Sinter doesn’t see everything. The priest may have his spies and watchers, but he doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t know Baston’s soul. That’s the last redoubt, the one place they can’t reach.

“See you next week,” he mutters to the girl as he leaves the tailor’s, and he can’t help but wonder if that’s a lie.

Karla’s waiting for him around the corner from the Seamarket.

“Rasce wants to see us,” whispers Karla, “another job.”

“Craddock’s.”

“Yeah. They want to see us up on Lanthorn Street. Tiske was right – this is the chance we’ve been waiting for. We’ll stick close to the Ghierdana boy and grow strong again. Better days are coming.” Karla’s excited by the prospect, her eyes bright as she looks up at the shining citadel of the New City. Baston, though, feels the familiar grime of the Wash cling to him, call to him. These are his streets, the old lanes and wynds and alleys between Castle Hill and the docks. He was made for these streets, not that eerie labyrinth. His feet drag as he approaches the border, but Karla pulls him onwards.

They cross into the New City. The Eshdana at the checkpoint recognises them, waves them through, and from there it’s only a short walk to Rasce’s headquarters. A short walk in the New City, of course, is always a confusing and tangled thing, but that’s to their advantage – any pursuers would be shaken by the twisted route they take through the shimmering arcades.

Baston pauses outside the house. It’s uncannily similar to his mother’s, to all the houses along Hog Close. It looks like a ghost of a house, a pale apparition in stone.

Karla doesn’t hesitate, and walks straight in.

INTERLUDE I

The aethergraph on Eladora Duttin’s desk spits out a brief message, wreathed in Sinter’s distinctive combination of musty odours and spite. HEDANSON IN.

Eladora sits back in her chair and allows her eyes to close for a blessed moment of rest. The situation with the Ghierdana is an unwelcome distraction from other, more important duties, and it’s a relief to know that their stratagem is working. There’s something satisfying, too, about using one brutish criminal to counter another.

The work continues. Officially, Eladora is the city’s special thaumaturgist, in charge of regulating sorcery. She picks up a stack of applications for licences to practise magic and leafs through them. A few renewals. A greater number of cancellations – sorcery takes its toll. She skims them all, then scribbles her approval on each.

The new applications are of more interest. All from newcomers to the city, refugees from the Godswar or agents of occupying powers. They’ll go to the minister of security for investigation. There are less than a dozen, all told. Kelkin wants to put a law through parliament rescinding the right of the alchemists’ guild to internally regulate its own sorcerers, instead putting them back under the thumb of the special thaumaturgist.

Eladora wonders if she’ll still be in this seat when that happens.

She wraps the stack of new applications in a length of purple ribbon and walks out to her assistant in the outer office.

“Rhiado? I’m going to walk over to Minister Nemon’s office.”

“Excuse me, miss, but you’ve a visitor.”

Waiting for her is a round-faced little man, red-cheeked, his black robes mottled with spilled droplets of bleach or acid. A golden eye-and-flask chain of office around his neck, studded with gems.

Of course, they had to make a new chain. The old one was lost with Rosha in the Crisis.

“Guildmaster Helmont,” says Eladora, curtseying. “Forgive me, I didn’t know you’d made an an appointment.”

“Oh, I haven’t, I haven’t. This is just a brief social call. May we?” He gestures back towards Eladora’s office.

“Of course.”

She stuffs the applications into a warded drawer and checks to ensure the aethergraph is locked down before settling back into her chair. Helmont – the master of the alchemists’ guild – waits patiently until she’s done.

“You never considered a career in alchemy?” he asks.

“No.”

“A pity. I’m sure you’d have done very well in the Crucible.”

The alchemists’ guild holds tests for schoolchildren at the age of fourteen; those who meet the grade have their further education paid for. For the worthy, an apprenticeship and a lifelong career in the guild. “My m-mother never let me attend the Crucible.”

“Well, you’ve risen very high, nonetheless. Still, what might have been, eh?

Eladora considers the man as she clears her desk. From what she understands, Helmont was a compromise candidate – elevated as a caretaker guildmaster. A cautious, plodding lab worker, not a brilliant mind or respected captain of industry like his predecessors. The weakest master, her informants tell her, since the founding of the guild.

“What can I do for you, Guildmaster?”

“Nothing. I’d like you to do exactly nothing. Simplest thing in the world.”

“In connection to…”

“The guild intends to recover certain treasures that were buried under the New City when the Alchemists’ Quarter was destroyed. Valuable experiments, relics of the guild, and whatnot.” He waves his hand, as if he’s talking about mere trifles – not the remaining god-bombs, or Guildmistress Rosha’s phylactery, or all the other horrors entombed there. “I’ll put a proposal before the security committee. I just want you to refrain from objecting to it.”

Eladora gives him a pinched smile. “Guildmaster, you know that previous attempts to open that vault met with disaster. In any event, the vault’s beneath the Lyrixian Occupation Zone and any intrusion would endanger the peace.”

His face falls theatrically. “Oh, I see. I see. Endangering the peace, yes, that would be a grave concern.” He rubs his jaw. “You know, I’ve heard the strangest rumour. Damnedest thing. I’ve heard that you’ve already done exactly what I propose to