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

the yliaster merchants. Even the explosion in the Wash, at Baston’s. What is this – Vyr’s archive of blackmail material? Did he think to present all this to Great-Uncle when the dragon returned, to replace Rasce as Chosen? Or, far worse, has Vyr betrayed the Ghierdana?

Mixed in with these accounts, other notes. Words Rasce doesn’t understand, like congruency. Names he knows – Idgeson. Carillon Thay. Eladora Duttin. A description of the visit to Mandel & Company.

“What’s taking so long? Let me in!” cries Karla, slamming her fists against the door.

These notes cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the city watch, or any of the Ghierdana’s enemies. There’s a fireplace in one corner of the room, the grate full of cold ash. Rasce stuffs handfuls of the papers in there, sets them alight, stirs them as they burn so nothing legible remains.

At the back of the drawer is a metal box, decorated with curlicues in some silvery metal. He opens the clasp – inside is another machine of some sort, with a set of lettered keys and a tube of some alchemical goop. Rasce has a pirate’s eye for design – he grew up in Great-Uncle’s palace back on the isles of the Ghierdana, and that was decorated with treasures stolen from all over the world. He can tell that this box was not made in Guerdon. The smiths and alchemists of Guerdon drew on the aesthetics of the Keeper’s church for inspiration – their works are stern and imposing, with little unnecessary adornment. Images of cages, lanterns, the solemn faces of saints and martyrs. The machine in the box, by contrast, has fanciful touches. The connectors where orichalcum wires enter are made to resemble blossoming flowers, and silver fish dance along the circuits.

Rasce catches a glimpse of his own face in an inset mirror, and for an instant he can’t remember if he’s the living man in the mirror or the dead man watching from the New City. He slams the box shut. It’s some sort of communications machine, he guesses. The alchemical equivalent, maybe, of his clever pebbles.

It, too, must be destroyed.

“Boss!” calls Karla. “We have to go!”

The little fire in the grate isn’t hot enough to damage the machine. He takes his own dragon-tooth blade and cuts the box, slashing it over and over. The thin metal tears. Components break like small bones, and the glass tube shatters and spills its vital fluid over the floor in a visceral rush. He drops the corpse of the machine to the ground, wipes his hands on the bedsheet. Kicks the burning papers in the grate, to ensure everything’s erased.

“Vyr,” he whispers to the corpse. “Your blood is my blood, and you shall be avenged. I don’t know what you were doing in this place, but I know who murdered you.”

He unlocks the door, and Karla practically tumbles in. “Gods below!” she curses as she sees the body on the bed. “We’ll find whoever did this, Rasce, I swear. But I think they got away – we had all the exits secure. Maybe they got away before we arrived.”

“Or they had some arcane means of escape,” says Rasce. “Some trick of the alchemists.” Who knows what devilry Mandel has brewed in that fortress? Oh, for him there will be no chance of atonement, no offer of ash in exchange for fealty. He will burn. No one crosses the dragon.

“Either way, we’ll track them down, I promise.”

No one left the inn by any path I can see, adds Spar. Maybe the attackers are in the taproom below – but you can’t hold them. The inn’s surrounded by city watch. Either you fight your way out, or you talk your way out. Alic Nemon is here.

Karla picks up the wax-seal letter from the desk, scans it. Her face pales. “Godshit. See this?”

“I did.” Rasce stands, brushes little shards of metal off his trousers. “Gather up my cousin’s remains,” he orders, “no ghoul or god shall have his soul.” He takes the letter from the alchemist from her and tucks it into his pocket, careful to avoid cracking any of the wax seals.

Through Spar’s eyes, he watches Karla lead his body down the stairs.

Outside, a stalemate.

The inn’s become a besieged fort. Rasce’s men are at the windows, hiding in alleyways, crouched behind crates and barrels, or holding fat merchants as human shields. Lined up along Mercy Street, the city watch. Mostly street guards, armed with no more than truncheons or swords, but a detachment of armoured watch, too, with firearms. And this isn’t the New City, or even the Wash – these streets are unfriendly. Pale faces look down from the surrounding trading houses and offices, waiting for the iron fist of the city watch to crush the invading thieves, to drive them back where they belong. No doubt there are packs of ghouls in the sewers below, waiting to intercept anyone who tries to escape that way.

Beyond the watch’s line is the carriage that Spar spoke of. A quartet of raptequines, sweat steaming from their flanks. Beyond them, a crowd of onlookers, held back by more city watch. In the distance, a growing traffic jam of carts and carriages. Venture Square’s clogged with crowds.

And beyond them, all the way down Mercy Street, past the ghost of the Duchess Viaduct, past Parliament and Gravehill, past Five Knives and Scuttle, is Mandel. Rasce’s anger wants to take flight, to spread its wings and soar over the city. To burn Mandel’s fortress from the sky.

The Fog Yards are a heartbeat away as the dragon flies, but he’s rooted to the ground. His path barred by the city watch, by the ghouls, by all of Guerdon’s impediments.

Alic Nemon, the minister for security, stands by the carriage, speaking with a pair of city watch captains. Nemon’s a forgettable bureaucrat – but when Rasce draws on Spar’s sight, and views the scene from above, Nemon seems weightier, more significant. All the people in the crowds