The Cleft Beneath All Things is a god of openings that used to be used by the Great Glottage Police Force.
ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD! Beyond this point, major plot spoilers are expected. Continue at your own risk.
Description[]
The Cleft Beneath All Things was presented as a god of truth, but was in reality a god of openings used to torture suspects and gain confessions for crimes.
"My grandmother told me once about something that your policemen would do to us, if we were ever caught.
Your adjudicators wanted you to extract confessions from your suspects, and you were too stupid and clumsy to achieve anything by yourselves, so you’d hit upon the idea of using a god as your tool. Maybe some kind of God of Truth that you could pray to, to help get answers out of the people you’d caught.
But there’s no such thing as a God of Truth because, well, how would that even work?
So you found a God of Openings, and you prayed to him instead.
You drew the right marks. You whispered the right words. And you told your prisoners to open up - admit what they’d done. Before it was too late.
And if they didn’t talk, they opened up. Some part of them, small at first. Skin and flesh flowering off the fingerbone. An eyeball blossoming into a different shape. And if they didn’t talk, it got worse.
Their ribs splitting and stretching, up and out.
Every part of them becoming an opening.
And even if they never spoke a word, it was still a victory, because you could take what remained of them, hallowed and eternal, and share the photographs with the newspapers for front-page circulation - as a reminder of the dreadful harm that obstinacy can cause."[1]
It is no longer used and has been made illegal within the Peninsula, which Hayward informs Carpenter of.[1] Regardless, it seems to be a point of tension between the Peninsulan citizens, particularly those worshipping false-faiths, and the country's police force.
Trivia[]
Hayward's story about The Lady of Linked Hearts[2] and Carpenter's story about The Cleft Beneath All Things[1] mention deities that could be argued as foils. The first revealing if lovers were true but not giving real information, and the other forcing truth from those in questioning. There is also something to be said about the iconography of the deities, one of locks and the other of opening.
