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

upriver as far as Asegata. Rasce fought in those battles with Great-Uncle, but he never paid much heed as to why. Now, he finds himself listening intently.

No. Rasce is not listening intently. It’s Spar. The distinction between the two blurs; Rasce has to examine his own thoughts and impulses closely to see which are solely his, and which spring from the stone of the city around him. Sometimes, the visions are things Spar wants him to see, showing him people in need, people he can help. The Brotherhood took care of their streets, and all these streets are Spar’s.

“Enough!” Rasce cries. “We have work to do, friend. Baston has done his part, now you must do yours. Show me the secrets within Mandel’s fortress.”

I’m not some demon conjured to grant wishes. I want something in exchange.

“What do you desire? More coin for beggars?”

I want to talk to Rat. I’ll need you to speak for me. He can’t hear my thoughts like you and Cari can.

“The Lord Rat of Guerdon. He was your friend, yes. Karla told me. He was a common ghoul, and you a common thief. Now you are both very much changed.” Rasce finds he can’t lie on the couch any more; too much nervous energy to stay still. He paces the room, feels the sensation of his footsteps on the stone floor through Spar. “Will the Rat come if you call him?”

He’s still my friend.

“And he is chieftain of the ghouls, in league with the city watch. I must tread carefully, friend. Show me Mandel’s secrets, and I shall do as you ask. Now, no more hesitation,” he tells Spar. “Reach out.”

I’ll try. Spar’s soul is gargantuan, swollen beyond mortal recognition by the miracle of his rebirth. His mind encompasses and inhabits the New City. Now, Rasce demands that his conscious mind – perhaps the greatest portion of what remains of Spar’s consciousness – balance itself on five little pebbles, five shards cut from the living stone. It’s a psychic high-wire act, crossing an abyss where you can only cling on to a narrow ledge by the fingernails of one hand.

Spar tries. The first attempt is a dismal failure; his soul pratfalls, sending him tumbling down alleyways of memory, his consciousness shattering like a fallen vase. He remembers toddling into Idge’s paper-strewn study at four years old, interrupting his father’s work. Idge gently but firmly putting him out, closing the door, choosing the work over the child. Not knowing they’d only have a few more years.

He remembers lumbering across that side street near the House of Law, knowing there were Tallowmen around the corner, trusting in Rat and Cari to unlock the door and let him in before the candles got him.

Rasce draws him back together, sends him out again.

The second attempt is better. Birds take flight, frantically racing north along Mercy Street, and for a moment the flocks resemble a humanoid figure, a giant rising from the rooftops. The suspension bridge at the Viaduct sways and creaks, even though the day is windless. On Holyhill and the University District alike, the keen eyes of saints and the subtle instruments of alchemists alike discern an invisible wave crashing across the city. The ghouls smell it, too, in the dark pits beneath Gravehill, where the Rat of Guerdon sits on a hexagonal pedestal and dreams of elder days. They yelp and hiss, all but one unsure of the meaning of this omen.

But he falls again. The wave of his mind breaks far short of the distant Fog Yards, squandering the strength of his will amid the alleyways and tenements of the Five Knives.

It’s too far.

“Gather your strength! Try again!”

Every time I try, I diminish, says Spar, his thought edged with exhaustion, and, beneath it, despair. An inverted horror – once, he feared his body turning to stone, his mind remaining healthy and whole as it became trapped in a living tomb. Now, his worry is that he shall erode his soul to nothingness, expend all that he is on failed miracles, and be reduced to nothing but a hollow structure, a corpse grotesquely fossilised and bloated. A horrible image flickers through his mind – Carillon returning to Guerdon too late, after he’s gone. He envisages her walking through the streets of the New City, and finding them empty. He would let that thought go if he could, but it haunts him, clinging to his mind. In his mind’s eye, he watches Cari wander lost through dark passageways, lonely and despairing.

“You say you are weak,” whispers Rasce to the wall. “How can we make you strong again?”

My – no, this strength, Spar replies, was stolen. It’s the accumulated power of the Black Iron Gods, accrued through their reign of terror. Three hundred years ago, they ruled this city. They forced everyone to worship them, and conducted mass sacrifices through their Ravellers. Cari’s perverse inheritance, and she gave it all to him.

“Do you want me to praise you?” sneers Rasce. “To sing hymns glorifying your name?”

I’m not a god, says Spar wearily. I don’t want worship.

“I speak of need. If it would strengthen you—”

I don’t think it would. Spar gives the psychic equivalent of a shudder, which manifests in the New City as a moment of quiet. For an instant, every conversation comes to a natural pause, the wind off the harbour drops, silencing the flapping of the flags and banners. Even the seabirds cease their cries. During the invasion, the people of the city prayed to me – to Cari – for help. I protected them, but I’d have done that even without their prayers. I could hear them, but they were just words.

And then footsteps. Karla’s coming. Something’s wrong.

Rasce runs downstairs and is waiting at the door before Karla even reaches Lanthorn Street.

“It’s Vyr,” gasps Karla. “He’s been attacked. The Green Inn.”

“Show me,” he demands of Spar.

Rasce’s vision blurs, doubles, and it’s as though he’s standing atop one of the tall towers of the New City, looking down