The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (most life changing books .txt) 📗

For an instant, it catches some living thing, a fish or dolphin, a domed shape breaking through the surface. Then the thing’s gone, and the hungry light moves on. If it lights up the shore, it’ll find Myri, slowly limping back up towards the village. Artolo will send men ashore to kill her.

Cari hunches, a thief’s instincts. Fly-the-light, stay hidden, you’re nearly there.

But that’s not the point, is it?

“THIS WAY, FISHFACE!” she shouts at the top of her lungs.

The searchlight in her face, like an explosion.

“Mark! A boat! A boat!”

Artolo strides across the iron deck of Moonchild to the rail. There she is. A savage satisfaction rises in him and becomes an unexpected prayer of thanks. Damala was right – this meeting is ordained by the gods. Fate Spider has woven his destiny. Kraken has blessed him with a mission of divine vengeance.

“After her!” he roars. “Turn! Turn!”

Moonchild wallows, the engines roaring as the heavy ship turns. The wind that buffets her has little effect on the massive freighter, but it still cracks and spits like a whip, forcing the other crewmen to take shelter. Only Artolo stands in the full fury of the wind.

Dol Martaine on the searchlight tracks the movements of the fast little boat as it skims over the water, fleeing north-east, back towards Ilbarin. Aiming for the narrow gap between Ram’s Head and Moonchild.

“Turn!” roars Artolo, but they’re going too slowly. Snarling, he grabs a rope and loops it around himself, then abseils down the side of the hull. His tentacle-fingers possess inhuman strength – one hand twists and grasps the rope so tightly he’s held in place even as the ship lurches, even as the gush of spray strikes him with terrible force.

He reaches his other hand down, to touch the churning waters.

At Ilbarin, it was another who did this, a Kraken called up by one of Damala’s prayers. Artolo does not know if the thing was a spirit, or a godspawn brought into the world by the Kraken. He suspects it was once human, warped by sainthood. Then, he’d recoiled in horror, suddenly suspecting that the priestess had tricked him, doomed him by healing his maimed hands with Kraken-magic. Now, he sees the truth – there is no distinction between such things. The material world around him is nothing more than the chaos of the water, flowing and formless. Only the gods have meaning. Only the gods impose order on this base matter.

Even he is nothing. The flesh that is Artolo is a passing wave, a momentary arrangement of matter. His revenge is holy. He is a holy purpose, cloaked in flesh – the instrument of Ishmere’s revenge on Carillon Thay. His defeat, his maiming, all are part of the will of the gods.

Blessed above all things is the Kraken. All things that cleave to the Kraken are part of the Kraken.

His tentacles dip into the water, work the Kraken-magic. His fingers branch again, and again, and again. He feels them stretch out, unfurl, branch, and he’s conscious of them all, all those millions of filaments snaking out into the sea ahead of Moonchild.

He can feel Cari’s little boat, fragile as an eggshell, scudding over the waves. He extends his tentacle-fingers around it, his hand now a mile long, his soul stretched into something much greater than it was before. Even Moonchild is small to him now, a little flake of iron near Cari’s speck of wood. The ocean is deeper than these mortals know, colder and darker. Unfathomable leagues below, the Kraken waits.

Now.

He clenches his fist – but as he does so, there’s a flare of pain, and one of his tentacles is cut! Carillon’s boat slips through the gap in the Kraken-water. Artolo roars in pain, reaches out again, two tentacles sprouting where the one was severed. He’s more cautious this time, employing senses previously unknown to him, new forms of perception opening as Kraken moves through his veins. As above, so below – the same pattern, repeated on many scales. Kraken seizes his brain like he seizes the water, and he sees—

—In the water, a shoal of fish swimming alongside Carillon’s boat. Dark wings of rays spread out, holy sigils marked on their hides, vestigial human remnants trailing along behind them. Bythos, thinks Artolo, idiot vermin. At the same time, though, there’s another thought in his mind, a thought that isn’t his: Bythos. Servants of the Lord of Waters. Demons. Heretics. Enemies of the one true god of the sea. He strikes with the Kraken-miracle again, and another of the Bythos hurls itself into the path of his tentacle, countering his magic. The creatures are protecting Carillon! He snarls in fury. The Kraken has uncountable tentacles, and they cannot stop them all!

He lashes out – and Moonchild lurches. Iron screams and tears. Artolo is flung forward on the rope as the ship grinds to a sudden halt, then he swings back to slam painfully into the hull. Winding him. Kraken withdraws from him, his power vanishing in a heartbeat. He’s back in his body, made terribly small again.

“Captain! Captain! Haul him up!” Dol Martaine calls from the deck above. Hands haul on the rope looped around Artolo’s chest, pulling him up. He dangles, helpless from the line, a sack of garbage, until they bring him over the railing and dump him on the iron deck.

A knife in someone’s hand. Treacherous dogs, he can’t show weakness in front of them. He staggers upright, spits blood.

“Why have we stopped?” he snarls in the face of the sailor with the knife, so the rogue steps back.

“Captain – we struck a sandbar,” says Martaine, nervously glancing at Artolo’s elongated fingers as they twist and coil.

“Reverse the engines, then! Pull us off and—”

“We need to wait for the tide to lift us. The keel’s stuck fast.”

“She escapes!” Carillon’s boat has vanished into the darkness. The searchlight has lost her.

“We need to wait for the tide,” insists