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

– horribly soft and malleable, boneless, but terribly strong – close around Rasce’s throat. The other hand probing at his nose, his mouth, fingers slipping past his lips, closing his nostrils.

Rasce fights for air. He slams his fist into the monster’s side, tries to push it off him, but it’s locked on tight. The other thieves are there, too, but somehow they’re very, very far away even as they tug at the Tallowman’s limbs, to no avail.

Vyr’s shouting. Baston’s shouting. Where’s Karla? He’d like to see Karla.

The heat of the Tallowman’s blazing wick on his face is like Great-Uncle’s fire.

The dagger is by your left hand, says a voice in his head. Blindly, he reaches out, finds the dragon-tooth. He stabs it into the Tallow, and there’s a hot gush of molten wax, an inhuman bubbling shriek, but the monster doesn’t let go.

Then Baston takes the dagger from him, and drives it into the Tallowman’s spine, severing the wick. The wax horror spasms, limbs flailing until the flame in its skull goes out. Wax mingles with blood and rainwater on the pavement of Philosopher’s Street.

Voices, all around him, but Rasce can’t move. A tremendous exhaustion suddenly lands on him. He feels drained, his energy utterly sapped. His limbs as distant as the towers of the New City, as heavy as stone. It’s like he’s falling away down some deep shaft into darkness, leaving everyone far behind. The voices of his companions echoing down from far, far above.

Vyr, angry and accusing. Snatching the dragon-tooth blade away from Baston.

Karla, running up. Cursing herself for arriving late. Cradling Rasce’s wounded arm, his blood welling up between her fingers.

More shouting. Baston, intercepting a carriage in the middle of Philosopher’s Street, throwing the driver down into the gutter. Hands, lifting him. But all so far away as the stone drags him down.

That night, Rasce’s dreams are confused. Usually, he dreams of flight, but not now. The dreams are vivid and insistent, pressing on his brain, less like passing fancies and more like a cavalcade of unwelcome spirits that sit on his chest and show him visions, some of which he would rather not see. Over and over, he dreams of the people who live along the dockside wards of the New City. Acrid smoke from the burning yards blowing in their windows, leaving streaks of black soot on the white walls of the New City. They cough and wheeze, breathe through dampened clothes or flee their tainted homes. Children in their beds, retching. Childen, found stiff and cold in the morning.

Another vision. Black smoke from the burning yards mixes with the rain to coat the world in ash.

Black smoke from cities scorched by dragon-fire coats the world in ash.

Through the haze, he sees Baston and Karla on the streets of the Wash, far below. She’s gesturing up at the New City, at the Ishmerian temples that dominate the skyline of the Wash. They fall silent as a stalking spider moves down the street, then resume their argument. Baston’s sullen and impassive, but Karla’s face is animated, passionate; Rasce feels a great swelling of lust for her, suddenly, and the dream fragments and shifts. Now she’s in bed with him, limbs intertwined with his, coiling around him, the heat of her body like a naked flame, and he’s not sure if this is part of the dream or the waking world. He pushes into her, eagerly. Her face changes – it’s a different woman, dark-haired instead, a knife in her hand. There’s a knife in his hand, too, his Great-Uncle’s dragon-tooth dagger.

The dream shatters. Rasce wakes for an instant – he’s in his room in the house on Lanthorn Street, his sheets soaked with sweat. The stone walls of the room are ablaze with light. They flow and crack, like melting ice. There’s liquid beading on their surface, caustic and foul-smelling. Alkahest, some distant part of his brain identifies it.

He tries to struggle out of bed, but his limbs become immeasurably heavy, like he’s turned to stone. He falls back, and as soon as he hits the pillow he’s asleep again.

Rasce falls. He’s in a tunnel now, alone. He snarls, furious to have been snatched away from pleasure. Greenish walls, marked with carvings scratched into the stone over thousands of years. Pitch-dark, but he can still see. He can see gradations of darkness – the fragile cobweb darkness that fills the void when the light leaves, darkness so small that it can be banished with starlight. The settled darkness that accretes over time, leaving a patina of grime, a deep chill that never quite goes away. The thick, hoary darkness of the old tunnels, where no one has dared bring a light for generations. The darkness of the deeps that has learned to slither. Ghoul tunnels.

Out of that darkness comes a huge figure. Hunched, but still its horned head scrapes the ceiling. Massive cloven-hoofed feet, the stench of its rank fur filling the tunnel, claws scratching against the tunnel wall – and Rasce can feel the sensation of the claws against stone, like they’re skittering across his ribcage.

The elder ghoul, Lord Rat of Guerdon.

Rat stops, sniffs the air of the tunnel. Its yellow eyes pass over Rasce without seeing him, like he’s not really there.

The ghoul opens its massive maw, but it doesn’t speak. Instead, Rasce feels pressure at his own throat, invisible fingers forcing his mouth open, seizing his tongue.

SPAR? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? HAS CARILLON RETURNED?

There’s no response – no spoken one, anyway. But the earth creaks, and dust falls from the ceiling of the tunnel.

THEY HAVE OPENED THE VAULT. TAKEN THE BLACK IRON BELLS, AND THE RUINS OF THE ALCHEMISTS’ QUARTER. THERE WAS NO CHOICE.

The weapons Artolo sought! Great-Uncle commanded Artolo to find the weapons of black iron – and that failure doomed Artolo. But who is the Rat talking about?

The horned ghoul sniffs the air. Yellow eyes peer into the darkness.

A low growl.

YOU ARE NOT CARILLON THAY.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Vyr