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

dare stand in his path. Everyone would make way for the Chosen of the Dragon. Back home, men would come up and greet him, shake his hand, seek his blessing. Women would watch him, whisper about him, the young prince of the Ghierdana. Back home, all know he has the dragon’s favour.

Here, as soon as he steps out of Great-Uncle’s shadow, he’s lost. Oh, a few know him, but only as one of the Ghierdana. They don’t know how high his station; they do not see the significance of the dragon-tooth on his hip. He’s anonymous in this crowd. Earthbound, no longer soaring.

He pushes through the crowd, and instead walks the twisted streets of the Ghierdana enclave in the New City. He wants to feel the wind on his face again. There are many spires and towers in the city, rising like frozen waterspouts or icicles towards the clashing clouds. Yellow fumes from the alchemists’ factories, the natural slate-grey of Guerdon’s skies, and, over the IOZ, weirder clouds – living spawn of the sky goddess, trailing tentacles like jellyfish over the rooftops, plumes of incense from the temples, ephemeral staircases and citadels that fade into empty air. There must be a way up somewhere, but the New City’s absurdly confusing, a labyrinth of bridges and walkways, stairs and arcades.

Rasce finds a stairway that seems to lead up to the level above, but it peters out before it reaches it. The whole New City is unfinished; the miracle that made it ran out before it was done. Cursing, he hurries back down the steps.

“Cousin. Are you lost?”

Vyr calls to him from the foot of the stairs. Looking at Vyr is like looking at a phantom conjured by a fortune teller as a warning about some horrible fate. Vyr and Rasce are first cousins. They’re about the same age, the same height and build. The same olive skin, the same dark hair. Even their faces are similar, though Vyr’s spent too long here under these bleak skies, and there’s something sickly about him now, the perpetual impression that he’s about to throw up and is moving cautiously to avoid upsetting a delicate stomach. And, of course, Vyr doesn’t have a dragon-tooth dagger, nor the enchanted Ring of Samara that adorns Rasce’s finger.

Vyr glances at the ring, and he can’t quite hide his envy.

And my father never brought shame on the family, like Uncle Artolo did.

“Clearly, I’ve become accustomed to flying. It all looks different from on high.”

“How goes the war?” asks Vyr.

“Like the gods are cats and the world’s a sack,” replies Rasce. “How have you been? Do you still have all your teeth, or has the Dentist been plying his trade on you?”

“Truth be told, I’ve seen little of him. I’ve been tending to our business here. I know not what he’s doing, save counting coin and brewing his elixirs,” grumbles Vyr. “The New City’s ours, every whorehouse and gambling den – but only in the New City. We’re penned up here, by the peace lines. We got the worst of the deal when they carved the city up, and there’s little enough gold to be found here. We should have demanded Serran and Bryn Avane, not here.” Vyr rambles on about problems – disputes about passes and permits, legal entanglements, a litany of names and factions that Rasce doesn’t bother following.

He yawns. Business is so dull. It’s for dull people like Vyr and the Dentist to take care of. A dragon sleeps on a bed of gold, resting and dreaming for months at a time until it’s time for action. Time to fly. “I need a bath, a cup of wine and a bed, cousin. Quickly, now.”

Vyr hurries off in the direction of the Ghierdana compound. Night’s falling, and the walls of the New City glimmer slightly, a glow rising from within. It looks like fire buried deep within the white stone, and Rasce finds it pleasing.

Rasce follows the path Vyr took, but the city’s confusing. He takes a wrong turn at some point, and finds himself back at the foot of the staircase. No – it’s one almost identical to it, as similar to the first as he is to Vyr. This staircase, though, is complete, running up to the tower entrance he desired. What a mad folly this New City is! It’s almost as though the staircase grew new steps to accommodate him.

He climbs, up and up, until he can feel the wind on his face. From this perspective, looking inland from the shore instead of down from dragon-back, the various districts of the city blend into each other, and he can’t clearly distinguish the various occupied zones from each other, can’t tell where the IOZ ends and Venture Square begins. It’s all one great urban wilderness, a jungle bristling with chimneys and church spires. A labyrinth in its own way – the rest of Guerdon may not be as bizarre and mutable as the New City, but it’s still strange to him, and he has no desire to know it better.

It’s much better to be up here, unentangled and aloof from the city below. To soar free.

Tomorrow, though. Right now, he wants a glass of arax and a warm bed, so he descends.

At times, it seems like he hears another set of footsteps on the stairs behind him, but when he turns there’s no one there.

The next morning, Great-Uncle summons Rasce.

Back home, on Great-Uncle’s island, there is a cavern beneath the family villa. Rasce remembers playing on the cavern steps as a child, his cousins daring him to take a few more steps down into the dark, until he could see the red-golden glow from the slumbering dragon. None of them would ever dare trespass into Great-Uncle’s chamber without permission; even the head of the family would wait on the threshold until the dragon acknowledged them.

There are rumours of equally large vaults and caves below the New City, but none are accessible to the massive dragon.