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

stepping over bodies – sleeping or dead, it’s hard to tell – until she finds a guard post.

“Hey!”

It’s too dark for her to make out his features. He’s just a dark outline against the pinkish sky, looking down at her.

“Go and find the Dentist. Tell him I’m ready to co-operate.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

There’s a glass of arax waiting for Baston at Lanthorn Street. He wishes it was something else – the smoky liquor echoes the smoggy air of the Fog Yards instead of washing away the taste – but he still raises his glass when Rasce toasts his success. There’s a third glass on the table. For Karla, maybe. Or for Spar.

And next to the glass is Rasce’s snuffbox of ash, for anointing new Eshdana. Its presence unsettles Baston. It reminds him of the grave-worm in Heinreil’s little gold casket.

“A daring raid,” says Rasce, “into the heart of the enemy!”

“All for naught, unless you can find the tunnel. Have you looked, yet?”

Rasce shakes his head. “I’ll wait until nightfall. It’s easier for Spar, then. I don’t know why.”

“What’s it like? The visions, I mean?”

“Perilous, in its way. Like walking along a parapet.” Rasce sits down, swirls his arax. “No, better. Sit down and I’ll tell you what it’s like. Sometimes, in the summer, Great-Uncle would play with the children on the island.”

“The dragon… would play with the children.”

Rasce nods enthusiastically. “It was wonderful. We’d climb all over his back, slide down his tail. Go hunting and seeking in the folds of his wings. He’d throw us up in the air and catch us, or blow smoke rings the size of wagon wheels to jump through. He’d whisper secrets to us, too – things we weren’t supposed to know. Who had gained his favour, or lost it. Who was strong, who was weak. Marvellous it was to be a child and know that a dragon watched over you. That’s what the visions are like, my friend. I am watched over by something great and glorious, and it whispers secrets to me.”

“It’s strange to hear you talk of Spar Idgeson like that,” says Baston. It sounds wonderful, in truth. The Brotherhood, blessed and cleansed, watched over by Idge’s son. “In my head, he’s still living off Crane Street in the Wash.”

“What was he like, in life?”

Baston shrugs. “His father’s son. A good man. A great one, I think, had he lived.” He throws back the arax. “We moved apart, and I regret it.”

“And Carillon Thay?”

“I hardly knew her. Spar and I… once he got the Stone Plague, we had to stay away from him, right? It’s catching. So I only met her a few times. Once or twice in the clubhouse, and on the streets. Sour-faced. Skittish.” Baston rakes through his memories, searching for some early sign he missed. That flighty little cutpurse became the dread Saint of Knives, powerful enough to hold back the Ghierdana.

“You said the visions could be perilous.”

“Ah, yes. Once, Great-Uncle was playing with my cousin… cousin… ah, what was her name? Tero’s girl? He’d fling her into the air with his teeth and catch her again. How we laughed – and then Great-Uncle flung her up, and gobbled her up instead of catching her. Like that!” Rasce’s hand mimes a snapping jaw closing.

“Gods below!” Baston’s stomach turns. He didn’t think he was still capable of feeling revulsion, after all the things he’s done.

“Oh, she deserved it,” laughs Rasce, finishing his drink. “Tero had failed Great-Uncle, and so he had to atone. We all belong to the dragon, my friend, and he shall reward or punish as he sees fit. But you have nothing to worry about – you’ve done well, Baston.” He pushes the snuffbox across the table. “I need a strong right hand. Take the ash, and I can send Vyr back home. You can have his place.”

Baston shakes his head. “I’ve already given you my word. That’ll have to do you.”

Rasce frowns, and the room seems to darken for a moment, the light in the stone walls guttering out. “For now.”

“Show me.”

Rasce hardly needs to say the words, now. Every day, he becomes more adept at calling on Spar’s miracles. The visions grow more tactile, too, Rasce sharing more of Spar’s strange perceptions of the city. Rasce can feel his mind moving through the streets, feel the people of the New City as soft, hot, fragile things amid the stone. His own body, lying on the couch in the upstairs room on Lanthorn Street – he sees it from the outside, sees it from every angle, an eye in every wall of the house, and he beholds the whole house, too, the whole street, his mind’s eye shattering and re-forming to encompass the new way of seeing. He sends his thoughts dancing over the streets, leaping invisibly from spire to spire, then leaping into the sky like a dragon to spy on the other Ghierdana families. He glimpses Major Estavo bent over a desk full of maps. Glimpses the Street of Saints up near Ghostmarket – and the slumbering gods in those temples sense him, too, a profane presence searching their altars for hidden gold.

He sees the dragons Thyrus and Carancio in private conference, their wings a black leathery tent, blocking out all eavesdroppers – but he’s there, too, listening from the stone. He hears the dragons grumble about the war. Ishmere’s collapse has thrown the southern portion of the continent into chaos. Lyrix vies with Ulbishe and Khenth, and with wild gods from the interior beyond the forest. Without the foothold in Guerdon bought by the Armistice, Lyrix’s forces could never hope to compete against mainland deities. Lyrix needs the New City as a supply depot, a secure port and a nest for dragons, who are much more vulnerable on the ground than in the air. Thanks to the Armistice in Guerdon, there’s a chance for Lyrix to greatly expand its influence inland. There’s war in the south, with Lyrixian forces ranging