The God Engines

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It was time to whip the god.

Captain Ean Tephe entered the god chamber, small lacquered, filigreed chest in hand. He found blood on the deck, an acolyte spurting one and lying shivering on the other, and the god prostrate in its iron circle, its chains shortened into the circle floor. The healer Omll muttered over the acolyte. The god giggled into the iron its mouth was mashed into and flicked its tongue over red lips. A priest stood over the god, just outside the circle. Two other acolytes stood against the wall of the chamber, terrified.

Tephe set the chest on a table filled with discipline instruments. He turned to the priest, Croj Andso. “Explain this,” he said.

Andso bristled momentarily. His nominal rank was not less than the captain’s. But this involved the Righteous, and thus Tephe’s position of authority in this case was higher than Andso’s.

“The Defiled was refusing its orders, and so I had Drian here discipline it,” the priest said. His eyes tracked to the long iron pike that lay just outside the god’s circle. A spatterline of blood trailed from it to the acolyte Drian. “The Defiled trapped the pike as Drian thrust in and pulled him into the circle. It bit him and released him only after I had it ordered driven into the floor.”

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