The Legend of Broken

great Stadium. As ‘alive,’ that is, as any animal can be kept in the dungeons below that place of sickening spectacle—”

The old philosopher is interrupted by a single noise: the first great, thunderous crack of the oak planks of the South Gate. The attackers before the gate can suddenly make out, above the deteriorating portal, the figure of Lord Baster-kin, who is returning from the southwest wall: the site at which, the Merchant Lord had become certain, the main attack on Broken would actually come.

And although this much more may be impossible for those on the ground to perceive, Baster-kin’s proud face suddenly sinks into utter despair, as he realizes that his calculations have been incorrect; that whatever sorcery (and he persists in believing it so) the outcast criminal Caliphestros has used to create this fire that has been ignited by, and burns so terribly hot in the midst of, a rainstorm, it is the fire itself that may well prove his undoing.

“Very well,” he mutters bitterly, running his hands through his drenched hair and smelling the stench of his rain-soaked velvet cloak that clings to his armor. “But if my world is to vanish — then I can yet take pieces of yours with me …” Glancing about at the sky, and realizing that his long-held plan to burn the Fifth District has also been undone, Baster-kin feels his bitterness run deeper; and his only thought, now, is for vengeance. “For if my triumph can be stolen — then you will yet find, all of you, that yours can be turned to ashes in your mouths …” He glances at the Guardsmen immediately about him. “Three of you — now! We go upon what may be our last errands of blood!” And then, making his way into the nearest guardhouse, Baster-kin descends to the Fifth District, below, a long and lethal dagger appearing from within his cloak.

It is a dagger, however, that will be stricken from the Merchant Lord’s hand almost as soon as he exits the guard tower, just as life is immediately stricken from the unlucky Guardsmen who accompany him. And as he glances about, ready to inflict his wrath on whatever unlucky resident of the Fifth District may have committed the act, Baster-kin discovers a terrible fact that instantly changes the outlook of his entire existence. By now, the South Gate of the city has begun to glow with the destruction of its inner side, and by this light, Baster-kin can see clearly, circling him:

Some ten enormous, powerful attendants from the High Temple, all armed with terrible, seven-foot sacred halberds, well-kept blades that reflect enough firelight upon their gathering for Baster-kin to realize that these are not attendants that he has ever seen before. Their smoothly shaven heads also reflect the light of the gate that will soon collapse in flame — and they wave the Merchant Lord toward the Path of Shame.

“Rendulic Baster-kin,” one of them states, in a tone as impressive as is his long, gilt-edged black tunic. “Your presence is required by the God-King Saylal, as well as by the Grand Layzin. And I suggest we move with haste, ere what was entrusted to you as one of the impregnable portals to the sacred city comes crashing down about our heads.”

“The God-King?” Baster-kin repeats; and for the first time, this supremely powerful man feels the same terror he knew as a boy, when called into the angry presence of his tempestuous father; but, now as then, he attempts initial defiance. “Why do you not address me by my proper title?”

“You no longer have either title or rank,” the attendant replies, a strange joy in his eyes. “But you have been granted that rarest of gifts — a journey to the Inner City.”

Baster-kin’s very guts fill with dread; but he will not show this collection of fearsome priests the same terror he once allowed his father to witness. He somehow finds the strength to draw himself up to his full height and attempt his haughtiest posture, and then says simply, as he points along the military pathway, “Very well, then — lead on, that I may finally perceive the visage of my most gracious and sacred sovereign. For I have no reason to fear an audience with him, having only ever served his will.”

As the former lord steps forward, however, several of the sacred halberds cross to prevent him. “Not that way,” says the same attendant, his voice answering pride with disdain. “You shall ascend the Path of Shame.”

The Merchant Lord is momentarily taken aback. “But the Path of Shame has been walled off from the rest of the city.”

The attendant nods. “True — and the God-King would ask you about that. As it is, an opening has been made in your illegal barrier. Wide enough to allow our coming — and our going. Shall we, Rendulic Baster-kin?”

“My ‘illegal barrier’?” Baster-kin echoes; while silently he realizes, So that is to be the way of it … But aloud he utters not another word, as he begins what he is all too certain will be his final walk through the streets of the great city.

Soon, however, he is detained: a small group of elderly military veterans — one of whom he vaguely recognizes, as the old soldier hobbles upon a crutch of truly fine workmanship — step out from the Arnem home, near the head of the Path of Shame. The men surround a woman, the lady of the house, Baster-kin can easily see: she for whom, and yet in spite of whom, he has undertaken so many of his recent endeavors. The Lady Isadora Arnem. With her eldest son close by her side, she walks out of the family’s garden door; and while both mother and son appear more gaunt than when he last confronted them, they are far more healthy than the greater number of those citizens past whom it is now Baster-kin’s destiny to walk, in other districts of the city.

“My lord,” comes Isadora’s unfailingly kind yet strong voice that instantly reminds Baster-kin of the strangest and, in their way, happiest days of his life. “Rendulic,” she continues, taking what would seem an unheard-of liberty; yet none of the royal and sacred attendants so much as makes a move to either prevent her approach or upbraid her manner. Isadora looks to the man who leads the increasingly ominous group. “May I, Attendant?” her ladyship continues.

The man fills his face with a facile smile. “Of course,” he replies. “The God-King would have us show every deference to the family of the great Sentek Arnem, out of consideration for the perfidious confusion that has somehow come to dominate the kingdom’s treatment of that great man, and of all those he holds dear.”

Baster-kin merely nods bitterly, glancing at the attendants again, and then fixes his gaze on Isadora once more. His words, however, are yet addressed to his escort. “Please inform the Lady Arnem that I have nothing to say to her at this time.”

But before the leading attendant can respond, Isadora has stepped forward, with a sweetness of urgency to which only a man whose heart has been embittered over long years of loneliness and disappointment could fail to respond. “Rendulic, please, you must try—” Isadora says, unsure of what message she is attempting to communicate. Nor can Baster-kin comprehend her meaning or aspect: would she have him escape? he wonders. Unlikely. Or is it that she has finally been reminded, if only for a moment, of what he has remembered vividly for so long: the closeness they shared when he was but a sickly youth and she a maiden, apprenticed to the cronish healer who aided him?

Wishing to believe the latter, Baster-kin would have her speak no more, a wish granted, at that instant, by the sound of the last of the South Gate being shattered by an enormous, wheeled ram, the building of which has been the object of the fevered work of the Bane warriors during the hours leading up to the assault. The gate crashes to the ground, and then the loud clanging of the gate’s fiery-hot iron bands being pulled away with chains and hooks from the now open portal into the city by the fearless warhorses of the cavalry units of the Talons resounds throughout the streets of the Fifth District.

But Baster-kin never turns from the countenance of the woman before him. “Do not trouble yourself on my account, my lady,” he says, with what seems genuine concern. Finally, he turns away for an instant, to glance at the sky. “For in this matter, as in so many things, today, the wind has blown in your family’s favor …” He turns back to her once more. “Do not question it — for all the good that could be said between us was said long ago …”

And then Baster-kin’s face suddenly darkens, and becomes a mask of all the evil he has done in the name of his golden god and the same God-King who has now, apparently, abandoned him; the change in his features is startling enough to take young Dagobert — who had thought the Merchant Lord’s resignation and conciliation genuine and even honorable — by such surprise that he quickly grasps the hilt of his father’s marauder sword and moves in front of his mother. Smiling just slightly in a cruel manner, his lordship keeps his eyes fixed on Isadora’s. “Besides,” he says quietly, “I am not dead, yet. Not quite yet …”

Without ever softening his look of lethal intent, Baster-kin turns and indicates to the attendants that they may continue onward. Isadora is left to watch him disappear through the widening hole that has been created in the wall at the head of the Path of Shame — by the same masons who built the structure — before losing sight of him for what she hopes, for her children’s sake if not her own, will be the last time.

“Mother?” Dagobert asks, sighing with relief. “He seemed almost — a man, like any other, for an instant. I even felt sorry for what those attendants from the High Temple seem bent on doing to him. But just as quickly, he