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

from the downpour. He walks past the lighted doorways, keeps walking in the rain. The clouds are so dark it’s hard to tell when the day finally slips into evening.

The few people who recognise Baston know better than to get in his way. In moods like this, he walks. He walks like he can outpace the darkness that follows him, as if it’s a black cloak that might be torn from his shoulders if he moves fast enough. He walks until his legs ache, but the city’s still wrapped around him, clutching at him.

Karla, he tells himself, will be fine no matter what happens. His sister always lands on her feet, and she’ll take care of their mother. He comes to Sumpwater Square, an unexpected opening in the narrow streets of the Wash. Tenement blocks rise from all four sides of the square like sheer cliffs pockmarked with narrow windows. Water pours down the storm drains, gurgling into the entombed rivers under Guerdon.

He moves faster now, heading for the heart of the old Wash. The worst of the rookeries, streets the city watch never dared go. Not even the Tallowmen went down here. A place that no Kept God ever held sway over, where neither act of parliament or royal decree ever mattered a damn. These are the Brotherhood’s streets, and the clubhouse is at the centre of the maze.

Baston turns a corner, and there it is. The headquarters of the Brotherhood for as long as anyone can remember. An anonymous house, a tavern without a sign or a name, a door like any other, except for the wear on the step outside, the shine on the brass handle from generations of eager hands. But now, sprouting from the roof of the clubhouse, is a structure that calls to mind a nest as much as it does a temple, bulbous and papery. Phantasmal spiders scuttle around its crenellations, vanishing into hiding places or crawling along cables that run from the temple’s upper levels to some unseen realm, fading from view above Baston’s head. Endless whispering, chittering, the susurrus of billions of spiders crawling over one another in the darkness within. The buildings around the clubhouse are covered in thick webbing, and Baston can make out cocooned shapes – offerings? Informants? Hanging there. The hanged man, a sigil that’s haunted the Brotherhood since Idge’s death. The same pattern repeated in a corrupted form.

The headquarters of the Brotherhood, now the temple of Fate Spider in Guerdon.

He finds himself walking down to the lock-up on Hook Street. The lock-up on Hook Street isn’t that far away, and the weapons stolen from Dredger’s yard are there. He retraces his steps, winding his way back. These streets, he realises, are replicated in the New City, too. Not quite the same – it’s the same configuration, but exaggerated, grown larger. Alleyways become boulevards, the rookeries exalted into miraculous spires and castles. A strange thought, and he puts it aside. He’s become very good at hiding his thoughts, but he’s tired of that burden.

His fingers shake as he fumbles with the cold metal of the padlock. His thieves do good work – at first glance, the lock-up looks like it hasn’t been used in years. Dusty tarpaulins covering battered tea chests and old crates, junk crammed into every corner. Baston shoves crates aside, searching through the prizes stolen from Dredger’s yard until he finds what he seeks. A phlogiston siege charge. The thing is a brass sphere, about a foot in diameter. Beautifully baroque, covered in inlet valves and detonator rods and spikes of obscure purpose. Liquids slosh within it as he lifts the weapon. Elemental phlogiston, the essence of fire. At the heart of the weapon is a reaction chamber where fire burns itself, exploding and imploding all at once until there’s nothing left. Brighter than the sun. He imagines himself standing there, holding that blazing sphere, thrusting it into the face of the gods even as he’s blasted away. A thief emerging from the shadows for the last time, stepping into the brightest light of all.

He won’t hold back this time.

He puts everything else back, just as it was. Closes the door and locks it – his father drilled into him that a small error can ruin the best-planned heist. It’d be the worst luck of all for his grand gesture to be foiled because some well-meaning citizen spotted he’d left the padlock off and called the watch. Someone in the Wash calling the watch would be a miracle, of course, but miracles are two a penny since the invasion.

Baston wraps his cloak around the precious bundle, cradles it like a baby.

“Baston, we need to talk.” Baston’s head snaps around, startled. He nearly bolts, then he recognises the voice.

Rasce steps out of the fog. His face is flushed, and he sways on his feet. He’s wearing a cloak, but little else, like he wandered down here from his sick bed. His feet are bare and there are bruises on his chest and throat smeared in some alchemical cure-all. A stained bandage trails from his arm. “Something strange is happening to me. It – it knows you.” He stumbles forwards, steadies himself by grabbing on to Baston’s shoulder. “Such dreams. He’s shown me such sights. I must put it right.”

Godshit. Rasce is Ghierdana. If he’s found wandering in the Wash, within the Ishmeric Occupation Zone, he’s dead. The man clinging to Baston’s left arm is as explosive as the bomb cradled in the crook of his right.

“Come on.” Acting on reflex, like he’d protect any member of the Brotherhood, Baston hustles Rasce off Crane Street, into the alleyway behind the lock-up. The nearest hiding place is… hell, it’s Baston’s own house. Fine. Downhill, then, towards the docks.

“How did you find me?” mutters Baston.

“I saw you. From up there.” Rasce waves up in the direction of the New City.

The few streets from the lock-up to Baston’s home have never seemed longer. The distance stretches, and the bomb