The God Reborn

Chapter 9

Vinicius scowled indignantly as he roused himself from his pleasure cruise. He wasn't sure why the 22nd had taken captives; the orders he had passed on from Kobus to his High Intermediary had been to slay all of the heathen. Yet for some reason, that order had been misunderstood. Now that they were here, it made sense to interrogate them.

Normally he wouldn't have stirred himself out of his imaginary worlds in the ether to deal with something so mundane as interrogating captives, but Laura's admonition still resounded in his mind. He was to look after this matter personally. And so he would supervise the captives' interrogation himself.

Questioning a heathen, he knew from experience, was no easy task. He winced at the prospect of trying to decipher hours of their primitive, barely intelligible speech. And they rarely knew anything of value. Nevertheless, the task was his.

He blinked and the yacht disappeared. Instead of reclining on its padded deck, straddled by two beautiful young women, holding a glass of champagne, he found himself lying on his back in a cylindrical sarcophagus. The tube's lid hummed and shuddered as it slid open, and he pulled himself up and out of the vessel, into the brightly lit room outside.

Even as he stood, members of the Household saluted him somberly and then scurried around, some standing on stools to remove his feeding tube and straighten his hair even as others wrapped him in silken garments and sprayed him with perfume.

He waved them off, except for the acolyte holding his horns, which he pulled from their golden tray and inserted snugly into their socket at the back of his skull himself.

He strode out of the room, paying the saluting acolytes no mind, and through a doorway that was high enough to allow him, complete with his long horns, to pass without bowing his head. From the triangular chamber outside the door, he climbed the ten flights of stairs, until he arrived in the room above. This was the central office of the Household Company, and sat on ground level of the Divine Residence directly above his sarcophagus room.

He walked the length of the long chamber without greeting any of the acolytes that stood to salute him, and exited through the tall steel doorway at its end. Two heavily armed Household Guards snapped to attention and saluted him with the words "All hail, lord Vinicius!" as the doors clanged open to allow him through.

He strode across a granite antechamber, lit with golden light from illuminated wall panels between bass relief statues of himself, and down a long hallway. Finally, he reached the entrance to the audience chamber where he would receive the heathen captives. Two of his Household Guards stood in the doorway, and saluted as he strode past. He flicked the long green curtains shut behind him, obscuring the room from their view.

There were two captive heathens waiting for him, a female he judged to be sixteen years of age, and a male of eighteen years. They were both kneeling on the ground in their filthy rags in front of the six warriors who had escorted them. Five of the guards wore the drab, functional armor of Shields, and the amount of mud caked into their clothes implied they had just returned from the field, while the sixth guard wore the green ceremonial armor and tunic of the Household Guards.

As Vinicius looked around the room, he saw terror play across both heathens' faces. Even his own acolytes appeared overawed by his presence. These were emotions he was accustomed to seeing in human and heathen alike when they encountered him. He would say something to the soldiers to congratulate them on their recent victory. His horns told him that two of their comrades had died in the battle, and another five a few days before. Acknowledging their bravery and sacrifice might set them at ease, and reinforce their loyalty. Then he would ask them why they had defied his order to take no captives.