Kassad shouted in pure rage and defiance and struck at it.

Father Paul Duré stepped through the Pope’s Door to God’s Grove without incident. From the incense-laden dimness of the papal apartments, he suddenly found himself in rich sunlight with a lemon sky above and green leaves all around.

The Templars were waiting as he stepped down from the private farcaster portal. Duré could see the edge of the weirwood platform five meters to his right and beyond it, nothing—or, rather, everything, as the treetop world of God’s Grove stretched great distances to the horizon, the rooftop of leaves shimmering and moving like a living ocean. Duré knew that he was high on the Worldtree, the greatest and holiest of all the trees the Templars held sacred.

The Templars greeting him were important in the complicated hierarchy of the Brotherhood of the Muir, but served as mere guides now, leading him from the portal platform to a vine-strewn elevator which rose through upper levels and terraces where few non-Templars had ever ascended, and then out again and up along a staircase bound by a railing of the finest muirwood, spiraling skyward around a trunk that narrowed from its two-hundred-meter base to less than eight meters across here near its top. The weirwood platform was exquisitely carved; its railings showed a delicate tracery of handcarved vines, posts and balusters boasted the faces of gnomes, wood sprites, faeries, and other spirits, and the table and chairs which Duré now approached were carved from the same piece of wood as the circular platform itself.

Two men awaited him. The first was the one Duré expected—True Voice of the Worldtree, High Priest of the Muir, Spokesman of the Templar Brotherhood Sek Hardeen. The second man was a surprise.

Duré noted the red robe—a red the color of arterial blood—with black ermine trim, the heavy Lusian body covered by that robe, the face all jowls and fat bisected by a formidable beak of a nose, two tiny eyes lost above fat cheeks, two pudgy hands with a black or red ring on each finger. Duré knew that he was looking at the Bishop of the Church of the Final Atonement—the high priest of the Shrike Cult.

The Templar rose to his almost two-meter height and offered his hand. “Father Duré, we are most pleased that you could join us.”

Duré shook hands, thinking as he did so how much like a root the Templar’s hand was, with its long, tapering, yellowish-brown fingers.

The True Voice of the Worldtree wore the same hooded robe that Het Masteen had worn, its rough brown and green threads in sharp contrast to the brilliance of the Bishop’s garb.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, M. Hardeen,” said Duré. The True Voice was the spiritual leader of millions of the followers of the Muir, but Duré knew that Templars disliked titles or honorifics in conversation. Duré nodded in the direction of the Bishop.

“Your Excellency, I had no idea that I would have the honor of being in your presence.”

The Shrike Cult Bishop nodded almost imperceptibly. “I was visiting. M. Hardeen suggested that it might be of some small benefit if I attended this meeting. I am pleased to meet you, Father Duré. We have heard much about you in the past few years.”

The Templar gestured toward a seat across the muirwood table from the two of them, and Duré sat, folding his hands on the polished tabletop, thinking furiously even as he pretended to inspect the beautiful grain in the wood. Half the security forces in the Web were searching for the Shrike Cult Bishop. His presence suggested complications far beyond those the Jesuit had been prepared to deal with.

“Interesting, is it not,” said the Bishop, “that three of humankind’s most profound religions are represented here today?” “Yes,” said Duré.

“Profound, but hardly representational of the beliefs of the majority. Out of almost a hundred and fifty billion souls, the Catholic Church claims fewer than a million. The Shri—ah… the Church of the Final Atonement perhaps five to ten million. And how many Templars are there, M. Hardeen?”

“Twenty-three million,” the Templar said softly. “Many others support our ecological causes and might even wish to join, but the Brotherhood is not open to outsiders.”

The Bishop rubbed one of his chins. His skin was very pale, and he squinted as if he were not used to daylight. “The Zen Gnostics claim forty billion followers,” he rumbled. “But what kind of religion is that, eh? No churches. No priests. No holy books. No concept of sin.”

Duré smiled. “It seems to be the belief most attuned to the times. And has been for many generations now.”

“Bah!” The Bishop slapped his hand down on the table, and Duré winced as he heard the metal of the rings strike muirwood.

“How is it that you know who I am?” asked Paul Duré.

The Templar lifted his head just enough that Duré could see sunlight on his nose, cheeks, and the long line of chin within the shadows of the cowl. He did not speak.

“We chose you,” growled the Bishop. “You and the other pilgrims.”

“You being the Shrike Church?” said Duré.

The Bishop frowned at that phrase but nodded without speaking.

“Why the riots?” asked Duré. “Why the disturbances now that the Hegemony is threatened?”

When the Bishop rubbed his chin, red and black stones glinted in the evening light. Beyond him, a million leaves rustled in a breeze which brought the scent of rain-moistened vegetation. “The Final Days are here, priest. The prophecies given to us by the Avatar centuries ago are unfolding before our eyes. What you call riots are the first death throes of a society which deserves to die. The Days of Atonement are upon us and the Lord of Pain soon will walk among us.”

“The Lord of Pain,” repeated Duré. “The Shrike.”

The Templar made an ameliorating gesture with one hand, as if he were trying to take some of the edge off the Bishop’s statement. “Father Duré, we are aware of your miraculous rebirth.”

“Not a miracle,” said Duré. “The whim of a parasite called a cruciform.”

Again the gesture with the long, yellow-brown fingers. “However you see it. Father, the Brotherhood rejoices that you are with us once again. Please go ahead with the query you mentioned when you called earlier.”

Duré rubbed his palms against the wood of the chair, glanced at the Bishop sitting across from him in all of his red-and-black bulk. “Your groups have been working together for some time, haven’t they?” said Duré. “The Templar Brotherhood and the Shrike Church.”

“Church of the Final Atonement,” the Bishop said in a bass growl.

Duré nodded. “Why? What brings you together in this?”

The True Voice of the Worldtree leaned forward so that shadow filled his cowl once again. “You must see, Father, that the prophecies of the Church of the Final Atonement touch upon our mission from the Muir. Only these prophecies have held the key to what punishment must befall humankind for killing its own world.”

“Humankind alone didn’t destroy Old Earth,” said Duré. “It was a computer error in the Kiev Team’s attempt to create a mini-black hole.”

The Templar shook his head. “It was human arrogance,” he said softly. “The same arrogance which has caused our race to destroy all species that might even hope to evolve to intelligence someday. The Seneschai Aluit on Hebron, the zeplens of Whirl, the marsh centaurs of Garden and the great apes of Old Earth…”

“Yes,” said Duré. “Mistakes have been made. But that shouldn’t sentence humankind to death, should it?”

“The sentence has been handed down by a Power far greater than ourselves,” rumbled the Bishop. “The prophecies are precise and explicit. The Day of Final Atonement must come. All who have inherited the Sins of Adam and Kiev must suffer the consequences of murdering their homeworld, of extinguishing other species. The Lord of Pain has been freed from the bonds of time to lender this final judgment. There is no escaping his wrath. There is no avoiding Atonement. A Power far greater than us has said this.”