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

at the inn from a distance. It’s near Venture Square, off Mercy Street – not that far, as the dragon flies, from the border. He can’t see inside the inn, but he can peer in the windows from every angle. There, on the floor of an upper room, he can make out what must be Vyr, lying on the floor. The room’s in disarray, papers scattered across the floor – and then a dark shape moves across the window.

Someone’s still inside.

“Let’s go,” says Rasce.

Baston appears at his shoulder like a loyal shadow. “I’ll go. This stinks of a trap. Like that candlejack.”

“This is an attack on the Ghierdana! On the blood of the dragon! I must go.” Rasce hurries out of the door.

Baston protests. “The place could be crawling with city watch! Or—”

“It’s not. I can see it.” Rasce strides down Lanthorn Street, steel boots sounding out a call to arms. Eshdana gather in his wake. “Baston, go and tell the other dragons. An attack on one is an attack on all.”

Baston hesitates. He grabs Karla by the shoulders, whirls her around so he can look in her eyes. For a moment, he seems to be about to speak, but then he just snarls and pushes her away. Karla reassures him. “I’ll stay with Rasce. Go, go.”

Baston vanishes down a side street. Absently, Spar watches him sprint up the winding stairs and alleyways of the New City, heading for the dracodrome on the southern face of the city.

Karla takes her brother’s place at his side. “Who raised the alarm?” he asks.

“It’s not the first time Vyr’s gone to that inn. I had a friend of mine watching, just in case anything happened. She came running to me, said she heard fighting inside Vyr’s room.”

Something is very wrong. Spar feels it in the streets, feels it in the invisible divine currents that eddy around Holyhill, around the IOZ. Gods are abroad tonight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Artolo seethes at the sight of Carillon Thay. Clenches his ghost-fingers, imagining they’re closing around her throat. The bitch sits there shivering, clad only in a grey shift, but she’s still dangerous. Don’t they see how dangerous she is? Yesterday, she nearly wrecked the refinery. What if she’d sabotaged the athanor and destroyed their ability to process yliaster? That’s what Thay does – she ruins things. A bomb on legs.

Vorz’s laboratory is much too cramped for Great-Uncle to enter. The roof creaks under the dragon’s weight as he cranes his head down to peer in through the little windows. Carillon on a metal chair in the middle of the room. The witch standing sentinel at the door. And Vorz gliding around like he’s Chosen of the Dragon, even though his nose is a mess of bandages.

“Now, let us begin. A physical examination first.”

“I want Adro healed before we continue,” demands Thay, folding her arms and staring up at the dragon. Insolent, arrogant. How dare she make demands of Great-Uncle!

The dragon snorts, clouding the glass window with its breath. “If it spares us more embarrassment, very well.” Great-Uncle smiles. “You have the word of the dragon that he shall be spared. Artolo, see to it.”

Vorz looks over at the witch, who follows her cue and seizes Cari in a paralysis spell. She freezes, every muscle locked in place by arcane bonds. It would be so easy to cross the room and kill her. Would it be more or less satisfying if she couldn’t struggle or scream?

The Dentist lives up to his name. His first action is to open Cari’s mouth and examine her teeth. With gloved hands, he probes beneath her fingernails. Examines the scars on her face, an old scar on her shoulder. Studies the skin between her breasts with his eyeglass.

Great-Uncle stirs. “Well? Can we make use of her, or not?”

“Patience,” replies Vorz.

“When our business is concluded, you can play all you want.”

“This,” says the Dentist, “is not play.” He bends over to shine a light into Cari’s eyes. Held open by the witch’s spell, she can’t even blink, and they’re reddened around the edges. Tears run down her cheeks, tinged purple by the arcane light coruscating around the witch as she holds the spell.

One of Vorz’s instruments chimes. The metal box he arrived with.

“Release her,” he orders. Both Cari and the witch sag. Cari eyes a tray of scalpels. Go for it, Artolo urges her. He’d have to kill her then. Smash her. Cut off her fingers, one by one.

Vorz glances over in irritation. “Please, breathe more quietly.”

A hurricane-gust of amusement from the roof. “Get on with it, Vorz.”

The Dentist opens the metal box. Inside, Artolo catches a glimpse of a keyboard attached to a glowing tube wrapped in silver wire. The machine chimes again, and the Dentist spreads his long-fingered hands over the keys like a musician. He presses a stud, and the machine hums, a discordant noise like a key being dragged over piano wire.

“Is it Ulbishe?” asks Great-Uncle. Is the machine communicating with someone in Ulbishe, all the way across the ocean? In Guerdon, they have aethergraphs, but those machines are connected by silver cables. This is something new. Artolo’s coming to despise new things. Give him a ship, give him a flight on dragon-back and a fat merchant to rob. One with sails, too, sails that burn and masts that break. Not a stinking alchemy-driven iron hulk of a ship. Give him his youth back, give him his hands back.

Make him Chosen again.

She took all that away. She’s less than ten feet away. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

“No,” says Vorz. “Guerdon.”

“Ah. What does my nephew report?” asks the dragon.

Does he mean that arrogant brat Rasce, or Artolo’s son Vyr? Artolo hasn’t spoken to Vyr since he was exiled to Ilbarin. His only communication with the boy is through Lorenza. Artolo can hardly blame his son – pleasing Great-Uncle is more important than any other relationship. Artolo displeased Great-Uncle, so it’s right and proper that Vyr abandon him. But the