The God Engines by John Scalzi Read Free Book Online Page B

and thought better of what he was about to say.
    The priest smiled. “We have understanding, then,” he said, to Tephe.
    Tephe said nothing but opened the portal to the god’s chamber and bid the priest enter.
    Inside was the god, chained and resting in its circle, and two acolytes standing guard with pikes. Captain Tephe wondered briefly if the pikes were finally genuine second-made iron. “Get out,” he said to the acolytes. The two looked to their priest, who nodded. The two carefully set down their pikes outside the god’s iron circle and departed, closing the portal behind them.
    Tephe knelt, drew an object from his blouse pocket and showed it to the god.
    “What is this,” he asked.
    The god turned its head idly and glanced at the thing, briefly. “A pretty thing,” it said, looking away again. “A trinket. A thing of no importance.”
    Tephe held the object closer to the god, edging the iron circle itself. “This is a Talent,” he said. “A thing gods give followers to channel their grace, so the followers may use that grace to their own ends.”
    “Perhaps,” the god said.
    “This is a Talent you gave to your own followers,” Tephe said.
    “Perhaps,” the god rather extravagantly yawned and made to lay in its circle, as if to sleep.
    “Talents hold no power in themselves,” Tephe said. “If a god does not choose to allow it, its grace does not flow to one. If a god is enslaved, all its Talents sleep forever.”
    “A master you are of things which hold no interest to us,” the god said. “A master of rules. Of little bindings. Of trivium. Of useless things.”
    “Indeed,” said the captain. “This is a thing of no use. Certainly not to the god who created it. And yet if this thing is of so little importance, then it is passing strange a dozen women died attempting to bring it to you.”
    From the floor the god shrugged. “We cannot say why women do as they do,” it said. “Nor men. You are all without sense to us. We do not see why
your lord
”—the words, spit as venom—“holds you so dear. Boring little creatures, you are.”
    “You will answer me,” Tephe said. “You will tell me what this thing is to you.”
    “We have already answered and told,” the god said. “Ask us again, and we will answer these words to you once more. If we do not fall asleep.”
    Tephe stared at the god grimly for a moment and turned slightly toward the other man in the room. “Tell me, priest”—he began, and in turning, let the Talent he lightly held graze into the air above the iron circle.
    The god snarled something high-pitched and shattering and snatched viciously at the Talent; only the fact the captain had held it so lightly kept him from losing his hand at the wrist. The Talent was airborne for the briefest of moments, the arc of its path exceeding the height of the god’s chains. It fell, and the god lunged at it, grabbing at it with one hand and then pulling it toward itself, clasping it to its bosom. The god wheeled its head around to glare ferally at the captain, a triumphant grin pulling back its lips to reveal teeth.
    Then the god screamed, hideously, and flung the Talent from itself. It clattered across the floor as it exited the iron circle. The god fell to the ground, tearing itself at the places the Talent touched.
    Captain Tephe watched all of this, calmly. He glanced toward the priest, who was both terrified and fascinated, torn between fleeing the room, and watching the god tear into itself, leaving gobbets of its godflesh on the iron of its circle.
    After a minute of this, Tephe went to the table which controlled the length of the god’s chains, and contracted them all to the floor. The god lay, spread out, writhing as it rubbed the places the Talent touched, hard on the iron. Tephe left the table, retrieved the Talent, and knelt, showing it to the twisting god once more.
    “This Talent is my own,” he said. “Given to me by My Lord when I was placed as master of this