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

said Heinreil. “If you’re going to go after Mandel on some fool’s errand, you’ll need sorcery or something like it. Alchemy, miracles – this is no city for mortals any more. Can’t do anything without power. I had Myri and the Fever Knight – and brave boys like you. I had the Crawling Ones. I had the support of Rosha herself, and the backing of the alchemists’ guild – yet Idgeson and his sainted bitch still took me down. Your Ghierdana boy can’t use their dragons, and I hear the Dentist isn’t around either. Muscle won’t be enough – what’s his edge?”

Spar, thinks Baston. He wants to gloat, to torture Heinreil with the revelation that Spar Idgeson not only survived, but is now guiding Rasce.

“You’ve got something,” says Heinreil. “What is it?”

Baston plucks the worm out of the box and holds it aloft.

“Careful with that. It’s one of the last in the city. Ghouls killed the rest.”

“And when you die, you live on in this, is that it?”

Urine dribbles down from beneath the blanket. “Ach, boy, does it matter? You don’t have much time. You want to know about Mandel? I’ll tell you.”

Baston sits back down, still holding the worm between thumb and forefinger. The grub writhes around as if trying to bite him. It has two teeth that look horribly human. He squeezes it, enough to hurt it. “Talk.”

“Mandel used to work for the Thay family, years ago. Long before my time. He went off with Erasmus’ boy, Jermas, on trading expeditions. Now, Jermas comes back from one of these trips to Firesea with a head full of madness. He squanders the Thay fortune on who-knows-what, and we all know how that ended. But Mandel saw which way the wind is blowing, and started up his own trading house. He took over a lot of the Thay business – as they declined, he rose. He started importing alchemical components on the side—”

“From Ilbarin?”

“Nah. Overland, mostly. Jashan. Ulbishe, too, I think.”

“He’s an alchemist himself?”

Heinreil shrugs. “High in the guild, aye. Mandel was in thick with them in the early days. I do know he got into trouble with the Keepers – they sent a saint round, to put the fear of the gods on him, and after that he stuck to business. Made his fortune when the alchemists’ guild was founded. Sensible man. More people should do that.”

“Stick to the topic. What was your way in?”

“Mandel took over part of the old city walls to house his refineries and holding tanks. There was a temple there, dating back to the bad old days. I dug around in the archives, found some old drawings, mapped the tunnels. There’s a way in there. That’s one thing I love about this city – so many hidden ways.”

“They’ll have sealed it, surely.”

“Oh, no doubt. They sealed all the deep ways. But this tunnel was different. You’ll see if you go there. It’ll be watched, but I don’t think they could close it. It wouldn’t stay closed.”

“Where is it?”

“You know St Styrus’ Shaft? There’s a branch off that. The ghouls know.” Heinreil coughs, his body wracked with pain. “Mortality is such shit. The gods and their spawn go on, undying, and what do we do? Rot when we’re alive and rot when we’re dead. Nothing lasts. You have children, and they’re ungrateful little scrotes who think you’re all that’s wrong with the world. You build something, and fools come in and break it.”

“Why didn’t you use the shaft? If Mandel was that rich, why did you never go after him?” For a moment, Baston has an inkling of another Guerdon, another strand of some web of fate – a world in which Idge survived and used this tunnel to sabotage Mandel. No Mandel, no alchemical components. No alchemical components, no guild. This blight on the city, excised before it could fester.

Heinreil grins, revealing a mouth of rotten teeth. “Because I was sensible. We were only mortals, Baston. Even back then, I knew that we weren’t enough.”

Business is over. Baston holds up the grub.

“You corrupted the Brotherhood. You could have done what Idge promised, fought the guilds instead of taking their scraps—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” groans Heinreil, “how many times does Idge get to throw that argument in my face? The man’s twenty years down the shaft, and still he vexes me.”

“Ideals can’t die,” says Baston.

He squeezes the worm.

Or, at least, he tries to.

His fingers don’t move. He’s paralysed, caught in place by a spell.

“Ideals are like gods. Fucking troublesome. And when you kill ’em, they come back warped.” Heinreil reaches forward, groaning with the effort, and plucks the grub from between Baston’s frozen fingers. As he does so, he whispers, “Be like Idge, boy. Say naught. All’s in hand.”

Then he raises his voice. “Come and take him, if you want him.”

The bookcase opens silently. A secret door. Rough hands grab Baston, lift him from his chair, drag him into the darkness.

They drag him down a secret passageway. Too dark to see, he can only smell the dust that tickles his nose, feel the bump of each stone slab as his frozen feet pass over them. From the curve of the corridor, he guesses it runs behind several cells on this level.

A door opens, and he’s flung to the floor. A lamp on a rough wooden table illuminates a room that Baston guesses doesn’t appear on any plans of the Last House. Old rusty manacles on the wall. Old rust-coloured stains on the floor.

Duttin staggers past him to sit in a chair. She cradles her right hand, and there’s a lambent glow to the blood that stains her fingers. She’s breathing heavily, and waves at the other two men to begin while she catches her breath.

One of the two men Baston recognises. Sinter. The priest is armed, as before, and this time is careful to stay out of Baston’s reach, pressing himself against the wall as he circles around. The second man would be forgettable,