“He’s dead.”
That almost went without saying. He’d dropped a dozen feet and his neck was at a right-angle. And yet, until Sarah spoke those words aloud, I still didn’t quite believe it.
He’d been supposed to teach me so many things. I felt almost indignant for a moment about every broken promise for an explanation he’d given me, before cursing myself for the impulse. He was dead.
And because he hadn’t told me how his own machine had worked, I didn’t have a damned clue what had even gone wrong. That bastard.
That poor, dead bastard.
Raspe lay unmoving on the floor. His corpse would have been in a worse state if I hadn’t gotten the generator off so quickly. Wherever the Godbox had gone, the wires had been cut and were coiling and writhing like eels, threatening to electrocute anybody who got close.
Sarah was kneeling beside him, priests crowding around. One with a clock-pendant, worshipper of Mordant, was administering final rites, prayers to get his soul to a decent afterlife. Others had been ready with healing prayers, but it was much too late for those.
“Did- did anybody see- did anybody see where the machine went? The- Godbox? Big- big clockwork velvet box thing?” I tried, limply. I wasn’t even sure who I was asking, I just sort of said it into the open air.
There were only two exits to the little stage area, one through the door I’d come through, and one through the curtains in front of a hundred waiting attendees. Hauling a huge coffin the size of a small shed through that was almost unthinkable.
But it was still gone.
“Alex, give me a damned second, I need to administer- shit…” Sarah snapped a moment, then she saw my face. She softened. “...We should get you out of here. You shouldn’t have to- you knew him better than any of us, you shouldn’t have to see him like this.”
“No, I need to- it’s just not possible, where did it even go? This can’t be possible, it-”
“Don’t- try not to think about it. Let the police figure that out later.” She stood up and started to shepherd me towards a door, not quite putting a hand around me for comfort, but hovering it. I twitched in irritation, and I stood my ground.
“No, I mean this literally isn’t possible. The Godbox doesn’t even fit through the door upright. We had to get four people to haul it through sideways. Somebody would have seen, and-”
Sarah saw I wasn’t moving. I wasn’t even looking away from the body, staring unblinking. The- Raspe’s body, not just the body. It wasn’t any old corpse, it was his. That still didn’t feel right.
“Fine. You, go get some coffee and a blanket, guess she’s staying.” She pointed at one of the junior priests, and he ran off obediently. “And- has nobody called the fucking cops yet? You, fetch.” A second priest, with a raven necklace matching Sarah’s own. “In damned person, you know they take forever to respond to bloody messenger prayers.” The priest scuffled off, as Sarah pinched her nose.
The organization calmed me. The room was getting at once quieter and louder. It was less crowded, but the people who hadn’t already taken the opportunity to exit were crowding around the stage, staring or arguing. The priests were trying to keep anybody from getting too close whilst a few men in overalls were arguing with them in the audience aisles.
I slumped against the wall, legs shaking.
“Oh, screw waiting for the coffee… here.” Sarah reached into her purse and took out a little flask, then offered it to me. Whiskey, from the smell. I took a sip, it burned my throat, and I hacked a cough before passing it back with teary eyes.
“Figured you’d want the excuse for red eyes. Not that you really need one…” She sighed. She was right, it helped, a little. I wasn’t that close to Raspe, I wouldn’t cry for him, but I really felt like I should.
Sarah was calm, though. Collected. Her voice was soft as she said “Look, I’m going to need to ask what you, uh- what you saw. If anything. I know you- well, I know this wasn’t you, but-”
“But I’m the only one who backstage with him. No, I get it, but- wait, why’re you going all detective? Don’t-”
“Hate to say it, but I’m a bishop, and the Priest’s Union’s gonna be shitting bricks about this. I’m gonna need to do… explaining, even aside from any official investigation.”
I paused a moment, just staring off into space. Still a little shellshock, but I think she took my look as questioning.
“There’s… fuck, after all that time preparing to tear his invention to shreds or planning for if it tore our theories to shreds, it fucking vanishes? I spent a lifetime making a job out of providing solid enough proof of how gods work to convince people they do. Shit’s powered on belief, doubt drains it like a hole in a raft. And instead of being able to prove or disprove him, he’s a big fat maybe forever?” She balled her hands up and let out a scream through a closed mouth, muffled but getting the frustration out. “My colleagues’re gonna want to push speech laws again to keep people from talking about this and I barely even blame them. What am I supposed to do with a maybe like that? I can’t disprove shit with the box gone.”
I nodded, mutely. Just let her words wash over me again. Tried to get my brain together.
“...sorry. I just-” She held up a hand, smiled. “We should- tell me what happened. Please?”
I paused a moment just to think. “I just turned the power on and pulled the curtain, that’s all. Door was open and in my sight the whole time, nobody could’ve gone through to do anything. I- there wasn’t even a jolt, the generator was attached to the damned machine. It couldn’t’ve…”
Sarah knelt next to the wires, peered at the tips. It took her a moment of following one thread to find the end, the way they were coiled, but- “Clean cut… I- what we saw matches your description. There was a noise, a weird thrumming-”
“The machine does that. That’ll’ve been it turning on…”
“Right.” She hummed, thoughtful. “There was- I had people measuring. Like you said, to be sure the Godbox was legitimate? There was nothing, no divine energy. Then… then the curtain fell, and he was hanging there. No Godbox, just him. I almost thought it was part of the demo a second, before-”
I closed my eyes. Tried to picture it in my head. There was at most ten seconds between the machine coming on and the curtain opening, no time for much to happen. Raspe would have been standing there next to it, ready to give his opening speech explaining what the Godbox - ach, they had me doing it now… what the Godbox was, and then-
“...How did the machine turn on?” I asked, slowly.
“What?”
“Raspe-” I looked at the body. It was dead center stage. The Godbox was meant to have been to the right and a little to the left, with the cloth curtain concealing the inside facing the audience.
“Raspe couldn’t’ve activated it, there was… he was outside it, and it’s operated from inside. There shouldn’t’ve been a thrumming, that’s only when it’s in use.”
Sarah got my meaning immediately. “I mean, maybe he did and came back out? Or he had an assistant inside?”
“Or a murderer… you can’t see through the curtain, somebody could’ve been waiting- well… who knows how long” I murmured. Yeah, that made sense. That was a little closer to physically possible. Though how that murderer then managed to escape, with the Godbox no less, was-
“Doesn’t have to be a murderer. I-” She paused a moment, expression hardening. I knew that look.
“Sarah.”
“...What?”
“You just thought of something you don’t want to tell me. What?”
“I-” She hesitated, sucking in her lips. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, is all. It’s just-”
“Everybody out of the fookin’ way! Let me at the body!”
My head snapped forward as a big, well-built bald man pushed past the priests trying to ward him and his friends off. He was in a suit, but a faded, tattered one, whites turned to browns by overuse, and the sleeves rolled up higher than they were meant to go to reveal hairy and scarred arms.
“Bloody Priests. Trying to keep the public out, and nobody’s thinking to stop the bastard what did this from get away? Mike, you’re on doors, don’t let nobody out of the building. Tom, do me a favor ‘n get Green John down here, see if he don’t have something to say about what kind’ve prayer did this. And- this is a building full of academic geezers, ain’t it? Find an actual bloody doctor!”
The man squatted down next to the body, rolling it over onto its back, as the priests gasped and hissed objections but didn’t actually stop him.
“I’m sorry, and who the hell are you to just take over the fucking building?” Sarah hissed in fury at him.
“Frank Crewe, dock union head, Society For Divine Liberation, shagging the current minister of education. Take your pick on which you think gives me most authority here.” He cracked the joke but he didn’t smile, he just rolled his broad shoulders and stared Sarah down.
Sarah didn’t smile either. Her face turned to pale fury at the mention of the Liberation Society.
“No. No, absolutely not. I- you two, get him out of here. I’m not having a bloody Liberationist tromping around using this as an excuse to make like this somehow proves their moronic ideas right.”
Two junior priests, spotty-faced, walked up to him. They put their hands on the channeling necklaces, probably ready with channeling prayers. Frank towered a head above the tallest of them, and he was backed by two men of his own who each looked like they had more muscle than the priests had body mass.
He gave a cheery little grin at the priests. “You say a sentence starting with ‘God, I invoke thee’, you’re finishing that sentence without any teeth.”
The priests weren’t guards. Prayer could be a scary thing in a fight, but I doubted those two really knew how to use them. They looked back to Sarah with a desperate look, a silent plea for help.
“Glad that’s settled then!” Frank strode past them before Sarah had a chance to encourage the two, right up to Raspe. He pressed two fingers against his neck, taking his pulse. Then put a palm on his chest, then his stomach. “Whelp, yeah, that’ll kill you.”
“We got that far…” I murmured.
“No, I mean it ain’t the neck that did it, bloke’s insides’re scrambled, nasty business.”
Looking at it, there were… bulges, under the skin of his belly, like something inside was pressing against the skin. “That’ll be- ugh. If- the Godbox caught him, that’ll do it. With space so warped… it’s a shock he isn’t more mangled.”
I’d been inside the warped reality bubbled before, but only ones with very carefully chosen changes, designed to be safe. I had no idea what a truly random warp might do to a person. I imagined it was like getting an arm stuck in industrial machinery, that doesn’t know nor care what it does to flesh.
Well, now I supposed I didn’t have to imagine.
“I seen divine curses do the same. Never pretty.” Frank grunted. Sarah tilted her head at him
“It’s a bit overkill, if you want a God to do it, they could’ve just lifted and dropped. A curse is excessively… painful. What would be the point?” Sarah asked.
“Maybe the god had a grudge, wanted to make it hurt.”
“They-” Sarah’s brow twitched. “They don’t have grudges, they don’t want anything. They aren’t sentient. They want what people believe they want, or what they’re contracted to want.”
“Seem sentient enough to me when I talk to ‘em. Smart, even, can talk politics better’n some blokes, make actual points ‘n not just rattle off the same retorts I’ve heard a hundred times before.” Frank grunted, giving her a flat look.
“You’ve heard it before because it’s staggeringly obvious, it’s- it’s one of the most studied fields on the bloody continent! Thinking they have their own thoughts is like thinking the planet’s flat, or- the Endless Jungle is literally endless just because it’s called that. Like thinking the moon doesn’t control the tides!”
I put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder, pulled her back a little. “Look, he’s- trying to help. Hash this out with him later, maybe?”
She settled down a little, but kept glaring daggers. “I just- I have to deal with these morons enough at work.”
I smiled, trying to be comforting, before looking at Frank. “Do you have any idea- any idea how this could’ve happened?”
“Ain’t it obvious?” He looked at me blankly, a little confused, scratching the back of his head. When he saw it wasn’t, he continued. “Look, I ain’t gonna pretend like I didn’t come in here wishing the man failure, or expectin’ this ‘Godbox’ to be real, but… I figure it’s like a stageshow, right? Omnipotent magic box is a stupid idea, it’s gotta be a trick. And the only way to pull off that trick is a mechanical whatsit- that old story from the Coil States, said they made a machine that plays board games but actually there’s a bloke inside-”
“A mechanical gnoll?” I supplied, and he snapped his fingers, grinning.
“Yeah, that’s the one. It’s like that, he got a god inside making the magic happen. ‘Cept since he’s trying to pull the wool over you priests, he never got it contracted or licensed right. It got pissed, and-” He nudged the body with his foot. Raspe’s head lolled morbidly. “-well, yeah.”
I looked to Sarah, eyes wide. “Is that- no, I helped build this, I’d’ve noticed. It’s not the same as divine magic, but-”
“It’s not possible anyway, Unlicensed gods are extremely dangerous and illegal, but- they don’t tend to kill their own worshippers.” She murmured. “Again, they don’t want things, they just- reflect the desires of the people who provide them belief and sacrifices. It-” Again, that look. That stony look, like she doesn’t want to tell me something.
“...What?” I asked her, almost pleading for her to spill. It looked like she was pulling teeth, the words dragged out of her, but she finally said
“...Could’ve been a suicide, I suppose. Overpromised to too many people, ego all tied up in the claims of, uh, an impossible magic box. A death like this, designed to make it look like the box killed him then vanished, making it impossible to prove…”
I couldn’t imagine anybody killing themselves in a way that horrible. Nobody, especially not the professor. He’d smiled at me, just before it all happened. He’d been so enthusiastic about his work, about showing it to all the world. I’d sooner believe he’d faked his death for the demonstration.
Objects not being in two places at once was a law of physics right? Why couldn’t the Godbox make a duplicate of his body? Same reason it couldn’t power itself of warp space to extend its range, I guess. We just couldn’t know without the thing in front of us to examine.
“...Alex, you really- honestly, none of us should be sitting here playing amateur detective. Let’s get you out of here, okay?”
I wrapped an arm around myself. It hurt, being here, but… “Talking about it like this makes it a little easier. And I’d- I’m gonna be stuck wondering anyway. I’ve- I’ve got to know what happened, otherwise I’m just going to- Chartered… I’m- I’m out of a job, aren’t I? I was his apprentice, officially, I quit my old job in accounting for this, do you think- do you think they’ll-”
I took a breath. Pulled myself together. My stomach rumbled, and that rumble right now chilled me, something I might be feeling a lot of in future, but…
All that did was remind me why I’d signed on with Raspe in the first place. “No. Got to focus on figuring this out, we’ll find the Godbox, and-”
“There’s a good lass. Spirit!” Frank roared. “Want to avenge your old mentor, good on you!”
I gave him a weak smile, but that wasn’t quite it. I…
Looking at the corpse I felt horrified. Bile in the throat, turmoil in my stomach, but I’d feel the same looking at any other body that messed up. Or at least, any other body I’d been talking to an hour ago casually, one I could put a name to. I knew him, but we weren’t close, he wasn’t a father figure, he’d been my mentor no more than a month.
But the Godbox… I’d made plans for what we could do with that, if we could put them into production. I’d spent long nights figuring out how to use it for agriculture, for mining, for shipping. The professor had no head for business, and every time I brought up industrialising this he sort of chided me for being out for money, but… it wasn’t about that.
I just knew what happened when the latest harvest wasn’t quite as strong as it could be, was all. I hadn’t always lived in Eccless, or big cities at all, for that matter. And the Godbox seemed like a way to stop that for good.
Frank took the smile as agreement, and I wasn’t about to unload all that onto him. “Right, well, that out of the way, let’s get up-”
“Hold on, she wants to avenge her mentor, sure. I’m here to support her and take care of the body, why are you here?” Sarah asked, suspicious. He blinked at her, and threw open his arms
“A man is dead, woman! What am I supposed to do, sit idly by and weep for him in silence? Anybody with a soul would be doing the same, or at least anybody with balls. Besides, a man dies to an obvious prayer and the priests start swarming around, what’m I supposed to let them vanish the body away a’fore any real people get a look at it?”
Sarah hissed at that. “Are you accusing us of something? I assure you, we-”
He held up a palm. “Look, I’m just gonna verify your findings is all. Surely nothing wrong with that? I- oh, hey, there you are, Johnny boy!”
He stared back up into the rows of seats as one of his men came back with…
Well, with a little god in hand.
The man was holding an idol, which the God was inhabiting. Green John, by the looks. I hadn’t heard of him, but there were literally thousands of registered minor guardian deities running about these days, and he looked almost as generic as those come. His idol was big enough the carrier had to hold the idol in both hands, and gingerly so as not to snap the limbs. It was a carved figure of a humanoid, made of twined twigs, the face a chunk of wood carved in the shape of a leaf, with eyes and mouth in the middle. It glowed green, a sign the deity was inhabiting it, but a faint green. There was a static that came with the presence of a physical deity, a tingling in the back of the neck, and whilst I could feel it now, I had to focus to tell. Minor deity, very minor.
The idol was wearing a little flatcap, too big for its head. It was made of actual fabric, not part of the sculpture.
“Okay, set him down. Johnny, everything okay there? Know this is far from your old haunts, you full up on enough sacrifices to do this?”
Frank grinned as the statue was placed down next to Raspe’s body. The hat nearly fell off, and he caught it, put it back on more firmly. The other priests eyed it with confusion and wariness, though one cooed at the little hat before one of his seniors hissed at him to shut up.
“I’m good.” The deity replied. “Appreciate the work, laddie. Standard rates, aye?”
“You’re a union member so long as you’re with us, mate, you know that. Just need to know what did this, looks like a curse ta me, fookin’ nasty one too, but-”
Sarah was glaring daggers. No, not just that. If looks could kill, she’d have burned a hole right through Frank’s skull and left him dead on the ground next to Raspe. Frank noticed her look, arched a brow. “...What?”
“...That’s… first of all, one-” She raised a finger, counting off his infractions. “-I’m almost certain that’s a household guardian deity that should not legally be outside whatever building it’s meant to be in.” She raised another finger. “Two, we already checked for divine magic and came up negative, we know none was used” She grew angrier as she counted, her off-hand clenching into a fist. “Three, I’m a thrice-damned bishop and I know that should not be outside whatever building it’s contracted to protect.”
“I got a special exemption, can show you the papers if you want. ‘Sides, I don’t keep ‘im locked up like that, he ain’t cattle.”
“It’s a damned energy construct powered by belief, he’s not even cattle, he’s just property. Which brings me to four: You can’t take legal testimony from a god, they just parrot back whatever you expect to hear.”
“And if you keep people thinking that, people’ll only worship them for what they can give, not who they are. Keeps your leash on ‘em.”
“We keep them thinking that because it’s damned true, you-!”
They started bickering, and the noise filled my ears. I retreated a bit, overwhelmed. Even Green John looked confused at the two, the head of the idol turning awkwardly on a swivel to look between them with an audible grinding. It got worse when a few of the other priests started joining in, circling around to berate Frank, who held his corner with sheer booming volume.
I didn’t care about any of this. I always hated bloody politics, it made no sense and mostly boiled down to people acting stupid about stupid things. I wanted to focus on what mattered, getting the damned Godbox back.
“So, any of ye want to hear what I can feel or not…?” Green John asked.
“No!” Sarah growled. “It’s irrelevant anyway, it wouldn’t prove anything!”
“Oh, of course you’d say that, might prove you had something to do with it, eh? What, he didn’t pay his end of the contract for the l’il thing in the box? Embarrassed by the fact they can rebel, maybe?”
“Oh you-”
Sarah grabbed for the Idol. Frank put his body between her and it.
She was half his height - he was a bloody huge man, and she was quite a short woman. But she still looked just about ready to hit him, and she had backup, a few of her subordinates looked large enough to try it.
“Fine, let’s get you out of here.” Frank grumbled. “Tom, take Johnny boy back, not safe anymore. Stupid to bring him out, but I wanted to know-”
“It’s contraband, unless you’re able to show documents for this ‘exception’ we’d be within our rights to seize it. Are you even licensed to worship a guardian deity in the first place?”
“Try it, you godbothering bitch. He’s with us.” Frank just smiled cheerily. The same docker who’d brought John in went to grab him, pick him up to take him out of the Priest’s hands.
I grabbed him first.
I wanted to know the answer, dammit. I couldn’t just let him run away with it. I didn’t even care if it wasn’t proof of anything, I just needed a hint, anything, to make any of this make sense.
“Oh, heya, mucker! Fairly sure you ain’t meant ta be holdin’ me.” The idol hummed. It had a bit of an islander accent, sharp and tangy. It seemed amused.
“What- what did you detect? Was it divine? Just- anything you know about this, tell-”
“Alex! Give him here, we’ll finish this once the guard arrive, and-”
“Oi, lass, put him down. I like you, but he’s with us. On the floor, real slow, like.”
“Tell me!” I screeched. I backed away, clutching the idol close to my chest. And for all the violence in Frank’s eyes as he advanced on me, Green John seemed happy to answer, as I stared down at him, desperate for an answer, any answer, yes, no, I didn’t care. Anything. Anything that might help me find the Godbox and put it to good use. Right now it was just gone, and nothing made sense, and…
If there was a reason why I was going to be skipping meals again, why anybody was going to be skipping meals again, I damned well wanted to know what it was. I wasn’t going through that without knowing why. Not without knowing whose fault it was. Never again.
“Place stinks o’ the divine, and not just what the priests brought in. Don’t know if the they’re lying or just incompetent, but- place’s full a’ energy, way before they showed up.”
“What? The priests said there wasn’t any! What, are you saying they were lying?”
“That’s- Sarah’s my friend, why would she lie to me? I- are you saying she killed him? She wouldn’t, she-” I felt the weight of everybody staring at me. Sarah’s was aghast at the accusation and looked about ready to tear the idol out of my hands and smash it. The only reason Frank hadn’t done so himself was because he was holding Sarah back with one hand. Every priest, every worker in the room was staring. Only my eyes were on the deity. I needed answers.
And I knew the one I’d just been fed was bullshit.
Green John’s eyes flickered a moment. I thought for a second the shade changed. His voice shifted, sounded woozy, almost drunk. “Yeah, that… you’re right, that ain’t likely. Don’t think… she was lying, think-”
The moment he heard that, Frank snapped. Threw Sarah hard enough she landed on her back, and darted for me. “Stop it, dammit! You’re hurting the poor sod, you can’t-”
I dropped the idol. I was trying to stagger back, flinching away from Frank, and just lost my grip. I heard a snap as it hit the floor. Shock, mostly. That wouldn’t hurt the god, it was just inhabiting the thing, but Frank-
He rushed to grab it, but his hand landed on it right as it impacted the ground. One of the arms snapped off with a crack.
He froze at that, then stood a little straighter, adjusted his motheaten tie. I stared him in the eyes, not having the faintest clue how to read his body language. He gave a mirthless chuckle, and I mirrored it, the laughter coming more out of anxiety than anything else.
Took me a moment to realise what had happened. I’d contradicted Green John too hard, been too certain Sarah was telling the truth. Had the belief broken him a little? Made him unable to stick to his answer?
I could see why Frank would see that as hurting him.
I had no clue anymore. All the energy went out of me at the realisation I couldn’t even use Green John to try to make sense of things. I had no way to know if he was telling the truth or if Sarah was. There were too many damned unknowns. Where was the box, how did the box work? Did it have actual limits? Was it real, god-powered, a fraud? Was it even Raspe’s damned body down there?
I was barely even asking practical questions here. I’d’ve loved to be trying to work out something so simple as how to sneak somebody past a heavily watched door into the backstage, but I had unknowns down to whether the damned speed of light was actually a fixed quantity.
It was like Sarah had said. The only answer to any of those questions was a big fat maybe.
Frank cracked his knuckles, stepping towards me. I didn’t even bother to raise my hands to defend himself. This at least made sense, I knew why he was mad, and I knew what was coming. That was almost gratifying, really.
He punched me in the face. My vision exploded in white, and I remembered hitting the ground with a thud.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a guard cell a few hours later.