"The girl is sworn to silence," Emperor Euphrates replied. "How many can she possibly convert anyways, if she be thus bound by her own word to this god?"
Borla seemed to mull this over, but somehow failed to find enough honey in his Emperor's words to nullify the bitterness of his mounting irritation with Si'Wren's beliefs.
Si'Wren watched him implacably, but gave no sign of a response. Neither did she volunteer to hand over any of her writing tablets used earlier to explain the Invisible God to her Emperor.
"What are we to make of this Invisible God," Borla went on in a biting, petulant tone of voice, "who permits himself to be worshiped, and preached to others, by a single, silent disciple sworn never to speak in a world deafened by the ceaseless praise of idols?"
This much was true, Si'Wren reflected. Silent was she, and silent would she remain.
As Borla went on, ranting over the stupidity of worshiping that which could only be seen through the eye of inner reasoning, Si'Wren thought of the Patriarch Noah, whom they were seeking, who apparently shared her beliefs in some measure, and in light of the fact that she must not speak, Si'Wren found herself reflecting upon the interesting truth which Borla had proposed and it's apparent absurdity.
How did one worship the unseeable? Sometimes the surest way Si'Wren had of knowing the Invisible God to be the true God was by reflecting upon how foolish it was to think of worshiping dumb idols. But perhaps there was another way to show Borla the truth.
Si'Wren reached for her water skin, poured out a little water into her cupped palm, and being mindful of Nelatha's long-ago remonstrance that the reflection of water held a suggestion of how one might manage to 'see' the unseeable Invisible God, she held it out to Borla, moving her arm until one of her eyes met his in the tiny reflection of cupped water in her hand.
The very moment their two eyes met in the mirrored bit of out-held water, Borla's reflected eye flashed in alarm as he realized what she had done, and he started with an astonished grunt as if he had been cursed to within an inch of his life, and jerked his head back as if kicked by a horse.
"Agh!" he cried out. "What vile sorcery?!…"