The God Engines by John Scalzi Page B

Tephe’s Lord, distracted, gazed over at the god on the floor. The god rolled and revealed in its bladed fingers a Talent. The Talent Tephe had taken from the woman in the street and that the god had taken from the priest Andso. A Talent that Tephe has thought was from the god, but now realized was not.
    A Talent which Tephe now recognized as a Talent of Entrance.
    A god can’t be an entran
—Tephe thought, and then the god spoke a thundering word and the room went terribly white.
    Tephe felt himself lift from His Lord’s grip and slam into a far wall of the godchamber, crushing ribs that had not yet broken. Blood forced itself from Tephe’s lips as he collapsed to the floor. When he was able to lift his eyes, Tephe saw His Lord, backing Himself against a wall, hissing at the thing lifting itself from the twitching wreckage of what was the Righteous’ god. The thing was indistinct, blindingly bright and unspeakably beautiful.
    The gods have gods,
Tephe thought, and looked at His Lord shying away from the thing in front of Him.
And mine is afraid of His.
    His Lord tried to slip away and under and over this new thing, and found Himself blocked each time as a sudden appendage appeared to burn Him, or shock Him, or taunt Him. The new thing kept advancing on Him, slowly and inevitably.
    At last Tephe’s Lord stopped trying to escape. He drew His head back and offered a scream that took Tephe to the edge of madness. Tephe screamed himself.
    As he did, Tephe’s Lord changed form, from the beautiful man He had always been to something primal and powerful, unlovely and rank—into what Tephe knew now was as His Lord had been, before He met those He would make His people.
    The new thing stopped advancing on Tephe’s Lord, and moved back, spreading its appendages as if to offer Tephe’s Lord an embrace, or to dare Him to advance.
    Tephe’s Lord turned into all sharp edges and thrust Himself at it, keening as it did so. The new thing held itself open, inviting Tephe’s Lord in, and then spun and closed with a metallic snap. Tephe’s Lord flew into slices, spraying godblood as He did so.
    Tephe felt something rip and tear inside his mind: the place of his faith, the part where His Lord lived in him, pulled out from him in the moment His Lord had fallen. Around him Tephe heard dull howling and knew it came from the crew of the
Righteous
, as Their Lord disintegrated, taking their faith and their Talents with Him. Captain Tephe closed his eyes and tried to keep his sanity intact within the bereft vertigo of his soul.

    An endless time later Tephe opened his eyes and saw the new thing hovering above him, considering him. Tephe had no idea what to do and chose to avert his eyes from it.
    In time the new thing drifted from him. It went first to the whip, which lay discarded on the floor. The thing seemed to consider it for a moment, and then reached appendages to it, picking the whip apart. Chunks of iron made small clattering sounds as they fell to the ground. The godskin and bone disappeared.
    That finished, the new thing moved again and went to the ruin of the god of the
Righteous
. As it had with the whip, the thing reached out appendages to the ruin, moving the pieces and chunks of the body and gathering them together in a pile.
    After a few moments the pile took on a form. The form of the god as it was before.
    The form breathed.
    “It is alive,” Tephe said, to himself.
    YES,
said a voice in his head, warm and inviting and absolutely terrifying.
GODS ARE HARD TO KILL. EVEN YOUR GOD IS NOT YET FULLY DEAD. WE WILL TAKE HIM. WE WILL BRING HIM BACK. MORE PUNISHMENTS AWAIT HIM FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE HERE FOR SO LONG, TO HIS PEOPLE AND TO YOURS.
    “What of His followers?” Tephe asked, trembling.
    THEY WILL LIVE AS THEY SHOULD HAVE LIVED,
the voice said.
WITHOUT DECEITS AND SUFFERING AND WITHOUT THE FALSE PROMISE OF SOMETHING BEYOND THIS LIFE. THERE IS NOTHING BEYOND THIS LIFE THAT YOUR LORD COULD GIVE. YOUR LORD LIED AND FED ON