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

for what we truly are. You cannot know yourself until you stand alone against the storm.” His voice is sonorous, deep as the sea that rushes against the flanks of the ship.

Cari sees the waters rise, surging forward. The sea floods the room, water gushing through the open door, through the portholes, rising through every gap in the floor. The sea claims the ship, drowning them all. The shapes of Bythos in the murky gloom, the holy fish claiming the drowned bodies of Hawse and Adro. Cari tries to scream, but she’s underwater, she can’t breathe—

Adro catches her as she stumbles, knocking her plate to the floor.

The hallucination vanishes. The pressure lifts.

“I’m all right,” she insists, “I’m all right.” What the fuck was that, she thinks? Adro didn’t even notice it, whatever it was. The captain, though – he called something up with his words, or something spoke through him. It stinks of a divine vision, but not from the Black Iron Gods.

“You’ve gone pale as death,” Adro says. He helps her sit down again, then turns to Hawse. “Captain, the Ghierdana will gut her if they find her here.”

Cari clings to the arm of the chair. The deck heaves and lurches beneath her even though they’re on solid land. She grabs her glass of wine and throws it back. “You said you’d found me a way off this fucking island. Let’s hear it.”

“On the Street of Blue Glass—” begins the captain.

Adro interrupts him. “No! Begging your pardon, sir, but fuck no. You can’t send her there.”

“They have a ship, Adro, and the Ghierdana won’t dare hinder them. I have spoken to them.”

“Gods below,” swears Cari, “let him talk, Ad. It can’t be that bad. Who are they?”

Adro opens his mouth to speak – and then they all freeze. There’s noise outside on the deck, the sound of people climbing up the sides of the Rose, clambering over the rail.

The captain moves to the door, opens it a crack. There’s light outside.

It’s not moonlight.

Werelight.

Shit. The armoured sorceress must be out there.

Hawse gestures, pointing towards the other door. It leads to his cabin.

“Go,” he hisses.

“Come with us,” insists Cari.

“The Lord of Waters watches over me. I have nothing to fear.”

Adro tugs her arm. “We’ve got to go!”

“Wait!” she whispers. “The fucking book.”

“It’s safe,” Hawse replies. “They won’t find it. Hide! I’ll see them off.”

Cari grabs the carving knife off the table without thinking. Weirdly, the imminent danger of being captured and killed by the Ghierdana makes her feel so much better. She’s either going to live or die in the next few minutes, she’s going to bury this knife in someone’s guts or she’s not, and there’s no time to think about anything beyond that.

The captain’s cabin is dark, except for the little moonlight spilling through a round window. In all her years on the Rose, Cari rarely trespassed in this room, and it still feels more like a sanctum to her than the rough temple below. Adro grabs the captain’s sword from where it hangs on the wall, but he doesn’t look like he’s spoiling for a fight. He’s scared, too.

Cari presses her ear to the door.

“Your table,” says the sorceress, “is set for three.” Her voice is distorted by her helmet, but it’s still faintly familiar to Cari.

“For the gods!” shouts the captain, playing the holy fool. “I set a place for the Lord of Waters! And another for Usharet – behold, she comes to dine!” It’s not going to fly – if nothing else, the fact that there are heaps of gnawed bones on the plates gives the game away. Hallucinatory guests don’t have Adro’s appetite.

“Search the ship,” orders the witch.

“Down here!” whispers Adro. There’s a trapdoor in the floor of the captain’s cabin, a square of blackness. Adro climbs down, his limbs folding like a spider’s, squeezing his lanky body into the little gap. He hangs and lets himself drop as softly as he can, landing in the half-flooded hold below with the quietest of splashes.

“Catch me,” whispers Cari, and slithers through the trapdoor. Adro’s strong hands catch her by the hips, hold her aloft so she can grab the hatch and close it soundlessly behind her, a heartbeat before the Ghierdana goons blunder into the captain’s cabin.

They’re not safe. The room above is dark, but the trapdoor’s not that hard to find. Cari creeps through the dark waters, brushing past the altar to the Lord of Waters. It’s nearly time for the Bythos to rise. Every other night, the captain came down here to pray as the tide rolled in. The water’s already rising, seeping into this temple. They can’t hide here for long. If they can get to the hole on the starboard side of the forward hold, maybe they can crawl out without being seen by the sorceress.

Cari takes the lead, sneaking forward until she can peek out of the hole in the hull. She spies more Ghierdana, out on the shore. Signals to Adro to stay back. Their lamps flood the shore with unwanted light, but they’re not moving. They’re standing guard, making a perimeter around the Rose.

“How many?” whispers Adro.

“Too many.”

She ducks down behind some debris, a pile of empty crates and wooden carving of some god, riddled with rot. She crouches in the darkness, trying to work out how to play this bad hand. Make a break for it, and hope she can slip away in the darkness? Stay here, hidden in the hold, and hope that the captain’s bullshit is enough to convince the sorceress? Sneak out and try to swim for it, turn right rather than left and plunge into the waves as they break on the shore?

Adro’s got the captain’s sword, but the Ghierdana will have guns. Charging out is almost certainly suicide. But maybe, maybe, one of them could break through the line. Is Adro willing to take that risk? Once, she’d have known exactly what he was thinking, moved when he moved, but those days are