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

into an office. A brief moment of haggling. Beneath a portrait of Guerdon’s new minister of security, a guard captain takes the money, then ostentatiously closes a ledger of visitors without entering Baston’s name. They don’t search him. They bring him like a condemned prisoner through a maze of dank tunnels. He’s heard tales that the prison is haunted, that the first Tallow Vats were made in secret in the cellars, that even the Holy Beggar turns his face from those sent here, but the Last House doesn’t need horror stories to chill the soul. The despair of the place sinks into his bones. The weight of the dead stone is enough to crush the spirits of those condemned to the dungeon cells on the lower levels.

But they bring up him up out of the mire, up to the tower cells once reserved for the nobility. Just as that bag of dragon’s gold bought Baston access to the prison, money works its own miracles. Here, the air is fresher, the floor warmer.

The guard captain knocks respectfully on one door, then unlocks it. Inside is a cosy room, the walls lined with bookshelves. A fire burns in the hearth, and a side table bears the remains of an evening meal. Seated in a wheeled bathchair by the window, head bent as if in prayer, is a little man in a dressing gown. A blanket on his lap cannot conceal his extensive injuries – his left leg is missing, and his right foot is twisted inwards, and painfully swollen. His abdomen, too, is bloated, pockmarked with needle scars, and there’s an undeniable stench that the smoke from the fire cannot hide.

“Ten minutes,” whispers the guard, and the door shuts behind Baston.

He spends thirty seconds of his precious ten minutes just waiting, breathing, letting the anger that wells up in him at the sight of the prisoner slowly drain from his blood.

“Boss.”

“Ach, Baston. There’s no ash on your brow, so it should still be master to you.” Heinreil’s voice is only just above a whisper. The master – former master of the Brotherhood – gestures at an empty chair. “Sit. Let us talk. Tell me of my city.”

Baston scowls. “The Ghierdana sent me. I’m here on business.”

“Are you, now? You never had a head for business, in the old days, but I still found a use for you. There was a whole crop of you youngsters – Idgeson, obviously, but you, too. Lem, Rynn the Red, poor Hosker Venson – all raised on tales of how the great Idge defied the interrogators and preserved some dream of a better tomorrow. Thank the gods that Idgeson got the plague, or you’d all be dead in some ill-thought revolution. I tried to take you in hand, make something of you.”

“They are all dead.” Spar and Hosker died in the Crisis. Lem in the invasion. Rynn, eaten from the inside out by spider-spirits two months ago. “And you made me do the things you didn’t have the stomach for.”

“At least you’re not dead, lad.”

“I always thought you were clever,” says Baston. “But you’re a bloody coward. You were so fucking good at undermining anyone who opposed you, anyone who questioned you, but you never did anything that could have made things better. You squandered the promise of the Brotherhood. Skimming off your take, while the city got worse, the guilds went unchecked—”

“You said you were here to talk business,” interrupts Heinreil, “and you don’t have much time left. Old men like me will ramble on about the old days if you let us.”

“The old days, then. Mandel & Company. Karla said you had a way in.”

“Your sister is cleverer than you. You should listen to her more. She knows the proper way of things.” Heinreil’s stomach gurgles; he leans over in his chair and farts loudly, wincing in pain as he does so. There’s a metallic edge to the stench, like blood. “Ach. I was clever, Baston, but what did all my cleverness avail me when my carriage ran off the road? At least Myri made it out. Now there was a girl who understood business. Like your sister, aye? I should have put more trust in women, I think. They’re better at handling the slow days, the between days, and that counts for more than you think at first. Men tend to rush about shouting, and that’s what you need in a fight. But if it gets to a fight, something’s gone wrong, eh? There’s a woman who comes in to wash me. To talk to her, you’d think her empty-headed – but she listens, and watches, and I’ve no doubt reports everything. Not to the guards here, mind you, but—”

Baston reaches over, puts one finger on Heinreil’s belly, and presses hard. The old man doubles over in agony, retching. “You sold us out. You think you’re broken now? The Fever Knight teach me how to hurt people.”

“Gods below, boy!” Heinreil dribbles blood. “There are guards outside!”

“They’re well bribed. You taught me that, too.”

“Aye, well, I bribed the whole watch so well that they made the Tallowmen, so what do I know?”

“Mandel & Company.”

“Why them?”

Baston reaches forward again. Heinreil raises a hand like a shield. “I’ll tell you, but I need to know the shape of the thing. Are you trying to rob Mandel? Kill him? What does the Ghierdana boy want?”

“Control of some trade that Mandel’s involved in. The yliaster supply.”

“Yliaster,” Heinreil echoes. “Where’s the profit in that? They dig it up for two coppers a sack.”

“Talk.”

“You have something for me, first.”

“What is it?”

“The last of my gold. Your mother kept it for me.”

Baston digs out the little snuffbox. “This belongs to the Brotherhood, then. You stole from us.”

“I earned that payment,” croaks Heinreil, “after Idgeson kicked me out. It’s mine by right.”

Baston flips the snuffbox open. Inside is a fat white grub, its ridged body pulsing gently. The sudden light makes it curl up, wriggling into a corner.

“It’s what you think it is,”