Following them, tended by acolytes, is a man wearing a jewelled headdress in the form of a lion. A sword has been strapped to his limp hand, and his head lolls about. His once-mighty torso bears a hundred scars, marked by a hundred triumphs in war, now run to seed. A sickly grey pallor to the mangy fur that sprouts on his neck and shoulders. Once, he was a saint of Pesh, Lion Queen, goddess of war. A saint shackled to a dead god, and the cost is plain for all to see.
The Smoke Painter saint steps forward and bows. Its face is hidden behind a mask of tattooed flesh, its body twisted and elongated grotesquely, but its fingers are beautiful in their elegance as it conjures a harp of golden smoke from thin air and plucks the strings. It plays haunting music that’s also somehow a voice.
“Hail, Taras, eldest of scourges, father of the Ghierdana. The bargain is struck. The Sacred Realm shall not speak against your works here” – the long fingers, trailing tendrils of smoke, gesture over the glittering harbour – “in exchange for the murderess.” The Ishmerian’s satisfaction at the bargain is palpable. Of all the belligerents in the Godswar, Ishmere makes the least use of alchemical weapons. The collapse of Guerdon’s alchemical industry is a boon to the Sacred Realm.
Great-Uncle nods his head in acknowledgement. “May her death renew the fortunes of Ishmere.”
With brutal efficiency, Baston drives his fist into Cari’s spine, twists her arm painfully, sending her to her knees.
The dragon spreads his wings, so wide they stretch across the world, casting all of Guerdon into deep shadow. He shuffles to the edge of the seawall, feeling for the rising winds.
Rasce steps forward.
“My beloved Great-Uncle. A word, please, in private.”
Cari watches as the dragon mantles one wing, creating a hollow for Rasce to enter into. The dragon coils around his great-nephew, the massive bulk of his scaly body and long tail becoming a wall, building a sanctum only for the Ghierdana.
No one can hear their conversation. No one else is privy to their words.
The Ishmeric priests glance at each other. Fate Spider whispers urgently in High Umur’s ear. Smoke Painter casts divinations, but the wind catches them and blows them away.
Far below, the prisoners from Moonchild shuffle nervously. Cari wishes she could protect them, be the Saint of Knives one last time, but she’s got no power here. She can’t even say goodbye.
Baston keeps hold of Carillon’s upper arm with one hand, restraining her from running. His other hand on his gun. She can feel the tension through his skin, the barely suppressed violence.
Wait. Hold for the moment.
A muffled shout, from within the belly of the beast, and a roar of anger.
Then an explosion of movement. The dragon unfurls, wings spreading, rearing back, eyes burning with fury. It looms above them, blotting out the sun, darkening the sky.
But Rasce’s faster. He’s moving, dodging to the side, opening the long coat. It billows behind him, his own leather wings, and he brings up a weapon. It’s a fucking blunderbore. He fires at point-blank range, vanishing for a moment in the billowing smoke. Great-Uncle bellows in shock and pain. The dragon’s hide is tough enough to shrug off artillery shells or divine wrath, but the blunderbore’s loaded with a dragon-tooth dagger. The discharge shatters the knife, turning it into a hail of bone shards, razor-sharp, driven deep into the dragon’s flank. The shards tear gaping wounds in Great-Uncle’s side, cutting through its scales to the flesh beneath.
The dragon topples backwards, thrashing. It slips over the edge of the seawall, and gravity tugs at it, pulling the beast down towards the crashing waves below. The dragon’s claws dig into the stone, arresting its fall. Great-Uncle inhales—
And Carillon breaks from Baston’s grip, runs towards the dragon-fire. Acting on Spar’s instinct, that redemption’s possible even for Rasce. Her fingers intertwine with his, and in that moment she’s aware of the New City again, aware of the miraculous realm all around her.
The dragon roars, and lets loose the fire, but Cari’s ready with a defensive miracle. With a twist of divinity, she shunts the fire into the New City, transferring the injury away from herself and away from Rasce, two saints shielded by the same miracle. This time, she’s able to redirect the devastation away from the surface, away from the parts of the New City where people live. She takes that fire and buries it. The ground shakes as the vaults below explode in stolen flame.
Baston ducks behind a wall. Down the street, the Ishmeric priests scream and fall back. They incant desperately, calling the attention of their gods, but they’re gentled and out of position, and their prayers go unheard in the moment.
Through the fires, Carillon screams as the miracle takes its toll. The city’s store of magic is depleted. Through Rasce, she can draw only on the scant residuum of the few bodies in Lanthorn Street. Like a sorcerer, she must pay the debt in the coin of her own body and soul.
And in the same moment, Rasce reaches out, and Great-Uncle’s wounded flank explodes.
The dragon-tooth was not the only material loaded into the blunderbore. A handful of pebbles, too, cut from the living stone of the New City, from Spar’s transmuted flesh. The miracle causes the pebbles to erupt with conjured stone, spears and buttresses metastasising beneath the dragon’s hide. The same miracle that shattered Mandel’s fortress now impales the dragon.
Dragons are not gods.
Dragons can be killed, and never return.
Great-Uncle’s wings beat in agony, once, twice, fighting against the sudden weight of the stone. Then he falls, breaking as he plummets, rending and shattering at once. Dragon’s blood falls like rain across the harbour, hissing on the waves, as the magnificent wreck of Great-Uncle crashes into the water. City watch boats nervously circle the gigantic carcass. Waves from the impact grind Moonchild against the shore. Thick clouds of smoke and steam cloak the seawall.
Rasce leaps to the edge of the fire-blackened wall and howls, a feral cry. “I did everything you asked of me!” he screams at the titanic corpse below. “I sacrificed so much for you – and all the while, I was nothing to you! But I win, Great-Uncle! You are dead, and I am a living god!”
He turns to Cari. Extends his hand to help her up, a crazed grin of triumph on his face. “Listen to me,” he hisses in her ear. “I bargained with your cousin last night! She gave me proof, yes, that Vorz is an agent of Ulbishe! He conspired with my Great-Uncle, betrayed me. Betrayed the Ghierdana, betrayed Lyrix. Everyone. I shall take over the yliaster trade and endure the guild’s supply. But you—” He wipes ash from his face. “You must run! There’s a boat waiting in Shriveport. That is the bargain – everyone will be told that it was you, the Saint of Knives, who killed the dragon! You slew Pesh – they will believe it!”
“I just got home, I can’t—”
“Go!” insists Rasce. “Or you shall bring both the wrath of the Ghierdana and the Sacred Realm down on your precious fucking city!”
Cari wants to scream. Through gaps in the smoke, she sees the glittering waters of the harbour, and beyond, the open ocean. Not an escape, not blessed anonymity and a new life – just eternal exile.
But everyone gets to live if you go. Everyone down there on the Moonchild, everyone up here. Rat and…
“Take care of Spar for me. If you don’t, I’ll come back and I’ll kill you.”
He clasps her hand. “I shall.”
Then, out of the smoke and ash, comes Baston Hedanson. The dragon-fire caught him badly – his right side is badly burned, arm and face seared almost to the bone. But in his left hand is a gun, and he holds it perfectly steady.
His boots crunch as he steps on discarded glass vials.
“You crossed the dragon,” says Baston. “By the laws of the Ghierdana, your life is forfeit.”
He fires. The bullet, washed in Vorz’s tincture. In her blood.
And Rasce, too, falls.
Cari sees the gun, the flash of discharge, out of the corner of her eye. She turns, but Rasc
e is already stumbling back, dragging her with him. In that split second, she reaches for one of her old saint-tricks – tries to anchor herself to the stone of the New City – but it doesn’t work. Spar doesn’t have the strength to work the miracle, or the dragon-fire has burned away the magic.
Rasce still holding on to her hand, and he carries them both off the edge of the seawall.
The sickening moment when she goes over the edge.
Falling now.
Tumbling towards the rocks and the waves.
Everything wheeling around them, sea and sky and city. Spar described his fall from the Seamarket to her, and for a moment she’s back there again, back in the Crisis, back next to the Black Iron Gods. She feels like she’s watching herself fall, her and Rasce.
And then… then Rasce’s not falling. A ring on his finger blazes with magical light, and suddenly he’s drifting down gently, like a leaf on the wind.
Cari, though, falls like a stone until she hits the bottom.
Instinct takes over. Training takes over. Rasce tears his hand free from Cari and activates the Ring of Samara. His fall’s arrested, going from headlong plummet to gentle descent in an instant. But Carillon keeps falling.
Tumbling, head over heels, until there’s no more cliff, no more air. He lands gently, knee-deep in the surf, by that little ledge at the base of the seawall. The white stone, now stained red.
The sea surges, pulling at Cari’s broken body.
Blood in the water, so much blood, but he doesn’t know if it’s his or Carillon’s or the dragons. Ash, too, falling around him. The New City above him, a mountain about to topple, but the way the sun reflects off the stone is heartbreakingly beautiful. Guerdon’s beautiful from the ground.
Shouts from the direction of Moonchild, people wading towards him. A boat’s coming, out there beyond Great-Uncle’s corpse. The blood loss from the gunshot wound begins to slow, blood speckled with grit bubbling from between his fingers. The plague has saved him, he realises. The stone plates took the bullet, too. He’s going to live.
He laughs, bubbles of blood bursting at his lips. He always wins. Great-Uncle may be dead, but he’s still Chosen. Some god has blessed him with strength and luck, and he can never fail! Look on his works! He has brought this great city to its knees! He has slain the dragon! He has brought ruin to all who stood against him – even the dragon!
He falls to his knees. What is left to him?
The amulet at his neck – Cari’s stolen amulet – spasms like a living thing. Nearby, the blood on the water turns black, a liquid shadow dancing on the waves. Rasce recognises, in that moment, exactly which god blessed him and preserved him.
Behind him, he can hear the approaching engine of Vorz’s motor launch, but the alchemist will arrive too late.
He opens his arms as the darkness enfolds him, rising up like black wings.
CHILD/SISTER/HERALD call the broken bells from far away across the city. Broken bells calling to a broken body. Cari hears them, as she always did. The calling of the Black Iron Gods drove her away to sea, where she found shelter on the Rose. Later, after the Crisis, Spar’s presence in her mind shielded her from the last of the bells. The calling of the gods silenced at the last.
She wants very much to live. She’s fought for so long to find this home again.
Spar. Forgive me.
Now, as she lies dying, Cari listens again. She strains to hear the sound of the bells. She names the Black Iron Gods, speaking their secret names with her last breath, squeezing the air out of punctured lungs, past shattered ribs, through broken lips. A reluctant, desperate claim on the legacy of the Thay family.
Saint of Knives. Saint of Thieves.
Saint of Black Iron.
Carillon Thay unravels her broken shape and steals another.
EPILOGUE
Months pass. Alchemists, gulls and other scavengers pick the carcass of the dragon clean, leaving only a few bones visible at low tide.
There’s less traffic, now, at Guerdon’s docks. Fewer ships sail past the dragon’s bones. Trains and carts roll south, carrying the wealth and knowledge of the alchemists, and do not return. The city falls into a sullen, weary mood. Turns inwards, against itself. District against district, zone against zone. Not outright war, but suspicion, jealousy. It goes unspoken for the most part, but everyone knows the city’s in decline. The Fog Yards and the new Alchemists’ Quarter are twin urban wildernesses, full of half-finished or half-destroyed factories. The alchemists’ guild has ruled Guerdon – openly or not – for nearly fifty years, but now it’s gone. The city has lost its animating spirit.
For a time, suicides on Venture Square are commonplace, ruined speculators falling from towers like overripe apples at the end of autumn.
But if there’s one thing Guerdon understands, it’s commerce. Someone’s always buying. Someone’s always profiting. Haith, for instance – with Guerdon diminished, the influence of the Crown of Haith over the northlands grows. Haith’s allies in the HOZ, too, feel the benefit of Guerdon’s slump. The churches of the Keepers are thronged, and the king’s influence waxes as parliament’s wanes. A new crop of alchemical salvage workers, in imitation of Dredger, searches through the ruins of Mandel’s yards and the other wreckage for scrap and wonders.
The Brotherhood, too, benefits from this diminishment. The New City is a thief’s city, in the end. Oh, it’s still technically the Lyrixian Occupation Zone, still technically under the control of the Lyrixian military and their Ghierdana allies, but it’s the Brotherhood’s city now. The war’s shifted south again, to Ulbishe and Khenth, and the dragons fly south, too, to new dracodromes closer to the front lines – and closer to the shipping lanes, for a little piracy on the side. As for the Lyrixian military – a knife at Major Estavo’s throat, and an explanation of the new order, and that’s that.
There are still Tallowmen, but fewer than before. Rebuilding the Tallow Vats is expensive, and parliament no longer has the coin to spare. The closure of the factories, too, puts a host of newly unemployed workers on the streets of the Wash. Baston’s men move among them, speaking of Idge and Karla, of other martyrs to the cause. Discontent rumbles in Guerdon that winter, but no one knows how to put things right. The city is no longer safe, no longer prosperous. What is Guerdon, if the streets don’t run with silver and the factories don’t run at all?
The future becomes shapeless and uncertain. The threads of the city’s destiny unravel.
Months pass, and a ship from Ilbarin docks at the quayside of Shriveport.
The sorceress walks the streets of the city warily. Familiar routes are closed to her. The old Brotherhood clubhouse in the Wash, for example, is locked away within the IOZ, and the streets there are all changed. On Valder Street, where she once lived, she discovers houses reduced to rubble in the invasion. Some have been partially rebuilt; one is surrounded by yellow tape flapping in the breeze. It marks places tainted by alchemical weapons. The tape is old and faded, and flakes away when she touches it. No matter.
A poster on one wall advertises sorcery-for-hire. A Crawling One. She’s heard they’ve returned to Guerdon, filling gaps left by the departure of the best of the alchemists. Hired by rich families up in Bryn Avane – and, she’s willing to wager, criminal bosses over in Five Knives. It’s how she first came here, after all.
She turns, heads south, parallel to Mercy Street. A carriage passes her, drawn by a pair of raptequines. Troubled by the sight, she ducks into a tavern. There are some half-familiar faces there, in the shadows, but they don’t recognise her spell-blasted features. Still, a few coins gets her what she needs to know.
South, towards the shining mountain of the New City.
There’s a checkpoint at the border. The slovenly guards are in civilian clothes, the only mark of their authority a tattered notice tacked to the wall, signed by a Major Estavo. Not one of the guards at the LOZ border is Lyrixian by their accents. Initially, they refuse to let her pass without a hefty bribe – her li
cence to practise sorcery is out of date, they tell her – but she makes the old Brotherhood recognition sign, and that opens the gates of this city. A hell of a lot easier, she reflects, than the Grimoire of Doctor Ramegos.
On Lanthorn Street she meets her first familiar face. Dol Martaine approaches her cautiously, mindful of her power.
“Guessed it was you from the border guards. Are you here to make trouble, witch?”
“Here to pay back a debt. And I actually mean a debt. If I meant ‘take revenge on someone’, I’d say that, all right. Books have to be balanced.”
“Right.” Martaine relaxes a little. “Is this about Ilbarin?”
“No. Not really.” She glances up at the twisted spires. The light catches her face, and Dol Martaine flinches at the sight. “Is it safe here?”
“Nowhere’s safe. But it’s all right for now.” Some passers-by stare curiously at Myri’s strange garb, and Martaine hurries them along with a growled threat. “Carillon told me you pulled her out of the work camp.”
“Is she here?”
Martaine shakes his head. “She died. Just after we arrived. She fell from the seawall. I saw it, we all did. All those who made it here on Moonchild. Saved us from the dragon, then died on the rocks.” He sighs, rubs his hands on his stained trousers. “I always knew she’d fall to her death. Told the captain so. You couldn’t keep her out of the rigging, or off the rooftops. Always climbing, always running.”
“And Vorz?” Unable to keep the note of loathing out of her voice.
“He’s gone. His men fished the dragon boy, Rasce, out of the sea and fled. Went down to Ulbishe, I hear.”
“Ulbishe,” she repeats.
The Broken God Page 56
