Si'Wren sipped a little water, and considered what to write next, whether to pursue the argument this way or that way. She did not want to seem to belittle her Emperor, even by his own example. She was no fulcrum of understanding. However, in her heart, she could only believe that mere idols were most difficult to obtain a verbal reply from, notwithstanding the obvious fact that the Invisible God had been equally silent to her throughout her entire short life.
It was hazard enough to agree with the willing self-criticism of the common man; how much more so that of one's own Emperor? But his questions were unusually persistent this time.
"Is it not truly so, little one?" Emperor Euphrates inquired, trying to give her encouragement. "See now; you have thrown down such a gauntlet as no master swordsman has ever dared to hurl, in valiant challenge to my gods and hence my own majesty and empire. Your marking sticks are mightier than their swords, and as Royal Scribe, surely you are not so afraid of what a few 'chicken scratches' in the clay on your part will reap. For if you would share thoughts of majesty worthy of your Emperor, you must consider that if you quit now like a coward, how shall such stillborn beliefs bring any hope of a harvest of reason, instead of the expected whirlwind?"
Si'Wren looked up at the dense, impenetrable foliage of the treetops covering a steep forested hillside nearby, and considered this at length. She finally lifted and poised her marking sticks over the soft clay, her fingers hovering as she prepared to reply further.
But just then Borla approached, and so Si'Wren merely bowed low to her
Emperor and waited respectfully for Borla to speak.
Emperor Euphrates looked up at Borla and said to him without the slightest preamble, "Borla, is not even the great Emperor Euphrates a mere humble subject before God?"
Borla, put on the spot so directly, hesitated, and finally stammered fearfully, "My Emperor, you are ordained of the gods."
"If God can ordain," Emperor Euphrates persisted, ignoring the difference in their words, for Borla had said 'gods' whereas Emperor Euphrates had said 'God', "can he not unordain what he has already ordained?"
"God—is God!" said Borla, finally catching on to Emperor Euphrates's unusual, singular form of referring to divinity. He had never heard his Emperor refer to the gods in the singular like this, and seeing Si'Wren present with her tablets, instantly suspected the truth and seemed to shrink back visibly from Si'Wren's openly blasphemous notion of only one God.
"God—is," said Emperor Euphrates, as if ruminating to himself.