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thing. What wife would allow the brothers to carry a mother to him then? What children would he ever have again as long as he lived?
Quirn was safe. They might not heed him, but they wouldn't harm him.
Yet when he arrived at Warmaker's forest, they wasted no time listening to him. The brothers seized him, threw him to the ground, and dragged him to Warmaker.
"This wasn't necessary," he said. "I was coming here anyway."
A brother was beating on the tree with sticks. Quim listened to the changing music as Warmaker altered the hollows within himself, shaping the sound into words.
"You came because I commanded."
"You commanded. I came. If you want to think you caused my coming, so be it. But God's commands are the only ones I obey willingly."
"You're here to hear the will of God," said Warmaker.
"I'm hear to speak the will of God," said Quim. "The descolada is a virus, created by God in order to make the pequeninos into worthy children. But the Holy Ghost has no incarnation. The Holy Ghost is perpetually spirit, so he can dwell in our hearts."
"The descolada dwells in our hearts, and gives us life. When he dwells in your heart, what does he give you?"
"One God. One faith. One baptism. God doesn't preach one thing to humans and another to pequeninos."
"We are not 'little ones.' You will see who is mighty and who is small."
They forced him to stand with his back pressed against Warmaker's trunk. He felt the bark shifting behind him. They pushed on him. Many small hands, many snouts breathing on him. In all these years, he had never thought of such hands, such faces as belonging to enemies. And even now, Quim realized with relief that he didn't think of them as his own enemies. They were the enemies of God, and he pitied them. It was a great discovery for him, that even when he was being pushed into the belly of a murderous fathertree, he had no shred of fear or hatred in him.
I really don't fear death. I never knew that.
The brothers still beat on the outside of the tree with sticks. Warmaker reshaped the sound into the words of Father Tongue, but now Quim was inside the sound, inside the words.
"You think I'm going to break the oath," said Warmaker.