A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

father going on and on about peace, how the servants of God did not go to war.
    “‘Beat your swords into ploughshares,” murmured Zeck, echoing his father quoting Micah and Isaiah, as he did all the time.
    “Bible quotations,” said Wiggin, uncurling himself. Now he lay flat on the ground. Completely open to any blows Zeck might try to land. But the rage was dissipating now. Zeck didn’t want to hit him. Or rather, he wanted to hit him, but not more than he wanted not to hit him.
    “Try this one,” said Wiggin. “‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ ”
    “Don’t argue scripture with me,” said Zeck. “I know them all.”
    “But you only believe in the ones your father liked. Why do you think your father always quoted the ones about hating war and rejecting violence, when he beat you the way he did? Sounds like he was trying to talk himself out of what he found in his own heart.”
    “You don’t know my father.” Zeck hissed out the words through a tight throat. He could hit this kid again. He could. But he wouldn’t. At least he wouldn’t if the kid would just shut up.
    “I know what I just saw,” said Wiggin. “That rage. You weren’t pulling your punches. That hurt.”
    “Sorry,” said Zeck. “But shut up now, please.”
    “Oh, just because it hurt doesn’t mean I’m afraid of you. You know one of the reasons I was glad to leave home? Because my brother threatened to kill me, and even though I know he probably didn’t mean it, my guts didn’t know that. My guts churned all the time. With fear. Because my brother liked to hurt me. I don’t think that’s your father, though. I think your father hated what he did to you. And that’s why he preached peace.”
    “He preached peace because that’s what Christ preached,” said Zeck. He meant to say it with fervor and intensity. But the words sounded lame even as he said them.
    “‘The Lord is my strength and song,” quoted Wiggin. “‘And he is become my salvation.”
    “Exodus fifteen,” said Zeck. “It’s Moses. Old Testament. It doesn’t apply.”
    “‘He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
    “What are you doing with the King James version anyway?” said Zeck. “Did you learn these scriptures just to argue with me?”
    “Yes,” said Wiggin. “You know the next verse.”
    “‘The Lord is a man of war,’” said Zeck. “‘Jehovah is his name.’”
    “The King James version just says ‘the Lord,’ “ said Wiggin.
    “But that’s what it means when the Bible puts it in small caps like that. They’re just avoiding putting down the name of God.”
    “The Lord is a man of war,” said Wiggin. “But if your dad quoted that, then he’d have no reason to try to control this bloodlust thing. This berzerker rage. He’d kill you. So it’s really a good thing, isn’t it, that he ignored Jesus and Moses talking about how God is about war and peace. Because he loved you so much that he’d build half his religion up like a wall to keep him from killing you.”
    “Stay out of my family,” whispered Zeck.
    “He loved you,” said Wiggin. “But you were right to be afraid of him.”
    “Don’t make me hurt you,” said Zeck.
    “I’m not worried about you,” said Wiggin. “You’re twice the man your father is. Now that you’ve seen the violence inside you, you can control it. You won’t hit me for telling you the truth.”
    “Nothing that you’ve said is true.”
    “Zeck,” said Wiggin. “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.’ Did your father quote that very much?”
    He wanted to kill Wiggin. He also wanted to cry. He didn’t do either. “He quoted it all the time.”
    “And then he took you out and made all those scars on your back.”
    “I wasn’t pure.”
    “No, he wasn’t pure. He wasn’t.”
    “Some people are looking so hard to find Satan that they see him even where he isn’t!” cried Zeck.
    “I don’t remember that from the Bible.”
    It wasn’t the Bible. It was Mother. He couldn’t say that.
    “I’m not sure what you’re saying,” said Wiggin. “That I’m finding Satan where he isn’t? I don’t think so. I think a man who whips a little kid and then blames the kid for it, I think that’s exactly where Satan lives.”
    The urge to cry was