Tephe turned his attention from the priest and the acolytes and to the god, who stood, simply, motionless, quiet, its eyes closed. Tephe did not pretend to understand how the god did what it did to bring them from one point in space to another, swallowing distances so unimaginably vast that Tephe feared to comprehend them.
They say that they gather the very stuff of space in their minds and twist it,said Wilig Eral, yeoman of the Hallowed, the first ship Tephe ever served upon.
And how do they do that?Tephe asked. He was fourteen, the fourth son of impoverished baronet, landed in a far corner of Bishop’s Call. He was not missed by his older brothers, nor they by him. Being indentured on the Hallowedwas a demeaning step down in status from being the son of a baronet, even a minor one. Tephe gloried in having escaped.
If I knew that, boy, you would call me Bishop Eral,the yeoman said. They say the priests know how the gods do it, but I would not recommend you ask them. Priest Oe here would snap you up as an acolyte and never let you visit the rookery.
The young Tephe blushed, remembering his recent first visit, his embarrassment and the gentle good humor of Tei, the rook who gave him his release. I won’t ask the priests,he said.
Good,Eral said. Now help me shelve these supplies.
Much later, when Tephe was no longer in danger of being abducted as an acolyte, he did ask a priest. The priest’s response was a watch-long discourse on the commentaries which spoke to the defeat of the god by Their Lord, and how the priests’ prayers when a god brought a ship across space compelled the god to do only what was required of it, not the god’s own wishes, because the gods were wicked.
Tephe, by this time a new officer on the Blessed, listened politely and realized within the first five minutes that this priest had no answer for him either. Later than this Tephe realized there were no answers that would be given as to how gods brought ships across the stars, or how the ships could use the captive gods as a source of power to keep the crews secure and safe in the cold and airless expanse between the planets.
Tephe was not given to know such things, even as a captain. He was given to have faith: that the ship’s god had powers, and that its powers were controlled by His Lord, through His priests and through His captain—through Tephe himself. Understanding this was not required. Believing it, and showing faith in His Lord was.
Tephe believed. Tephe had faith. If not for himself, then for the sake of his ship and crew.
The captain shook himself out of his reverie and noticed the god staring at him. The stare was seemingly blank, without interest or intent; Tephe wondered if the god, lost in its ritual as it was, even actually saw him.
As if in response, the smallest of feral smiles crept across the gods face, although the eyes remained blank. Tephe was discomfited, as he often was with this god.
Tephe recalled the gods of the other ships on which he had served. The god of the Hallowedwas indeed a defeated thing, an inert object with a man’s shape that performed its duties in unquestioning, disinterested silence. Tephe saw it only once and would have been convinced it was a statue had it not been prodded into a small movement by an acolyte’s pike. The god of the Blessed, in contrast, was a toadying, obsequious thing which tried to engage the attention of anyone who entered its chamber. When it spoke to Tephe for the first time, begging him to tarry and speak, the new officer wondered if the god was trying to lure him unwarily into its iron circle, until he later saw an acolyte playing draughts with the thing, well within the circle. The god was letting the acolyte win and praising his every move.
Tephe never spoke to the god of the Blessed.
The god of the Holywas as quiet as the god of the Hallowedbut held its dignity. Tephe would have liked to have spoken to it but knew it would not respond to him.
The god of the Righteouswas like none of these. The god of the Righteouswas not inert, nor obsequious, nor held its dignity. It was capricious and vicious; acolyte Drian had not been the first Righteouscrew member who had been attacked by the god in its long tenure aboard the ship. It obeyed at the threat of punishment, and would even then use the weakness of language to perform its task literally correctly and logically at opposing ends. It tested the weaknesses of iron and human. It mocked and spat. It was chained; Tephe would not choose to call it defeated. For the briefest of moments the god’s name began to surface in Tephe’s mind. He hastily shoved it back down into its memory hole, not even allowing himself to give full voice to the name even in mind.
The god, still staring at Tephe, winked at him.
Here is the name of the god, which you must know, if only to bring down Our Lord upon it,said Captain Thew Stur, placing his hand to a single sheet of vellum which lay on his desk. On the sheet was a long word, scrawled in an oxidized ochre hue that Tephe knew was the god’s own blood. Tephe was taking command of the Righteousfrom Stur, whose weary displeasure of the fact had been well communicated to Tephe by others. Nevertheless Stur’s allegiance to his ship was such that he treated Tephe with the courtesy owed a captain. Tephe wondered when his time came if he could muster the same.
And this,Stur lifted his hand and placed it this time on a thick parchment envelope with an unbroken seal, this contains the particulars of the god. Who it was before Our Lord defeated it, how Our Lord defeated it, and how theRighteous was built around it. You knew we build our ships around the captured gods?
I have been to the yards,Tephe said.
Of course you have,Stur said. We build the ships to enclose their aura and in doing so the ship becomes part of them. Or so I have heard it said. It was not my task to know.
Tephe nodded slightly at the envelope. You resealed the envelope,he said.
I never opened it,Stur said. Nor did Captain Pher, my predecessor. Nor have any of my predecessors so far as I know.
I don’t understand,Tephe said.
Neither did I when I took command,Stur said. I believed as you do now that a captain knows everything about his ship, every beam and rivet and crew member. But you have to understand, captain, that this god will know what you know about it.
It reads minds,Tephe said.
It readsyou, Stur said. It is a god. It apprehends things about us we are not aware of ourselves. The god—this god—will take what you know about it and use it against you. Use it to plant doubt in your mind. To drive a wedge between you and your faith.
My faith is strong,Tephe said.
It would have to be to be given this ship,Stur said. But you have not been captain of a ship before. You have not had the responsibility for every life on it be yours. You have not had the weight of being Our Lord’s strong and flawless arm set on you. You will have doubts, captain. And this god in particular will see that doubt, because it is old and it is malicious. And it will work it against you. And it will use what you know about it to do it.