He stood outside reality and watched it forming in accord with the well-ordered Laws of Nature. He became one with the whirling lifestream that generated the Laws. There was nothing that was not Jindigar, yet Jindigar was only a component. He was only a Jindigar who would one day, if he could Complete, join The Jindigar.

He had been named Jindigar—Eternal Reverberation—but only now did he discover what it meant. The Completion of Jindigar would sound a chord, like shaleiliu, that would ring from one end of time to the other. The Complete Jindigar was part of the Completion of the lifestream itself. It was part– and yet it was the whole.

As with all things in Aliom, the part contained the whole, and the whole was only a part. The part and the whole, the individual and the group, the Observer and the Observed, Dushau and ephemeral, Dushaun and Phanphihy, Incomplete and Complete—the relationships were so clear to him at that peak moment that The Complete Jindigar could look upon the Incomplete and see the walls of fear dividing his mind, keeping him Incomplete.

His inner fragmentation was reflected in everything around him, just as Shoshunri's Second Observation predicted. That's why nothing his Oliat did worked. His Oliat's failures hadn't been caused just by splashback from his past Inversions but also by the fears dividing him.

The fear had started when he had first suspected that Krinata was in fact Takora reincarnated as an ephemeral.

Because, if Dushau reincarnate as ephemerals, then all of Aliom is invalid. Which means my experience at my induction was only illusion, which can't lead to Completion. In fact, if Dushau reincarnate, it isn't even necessary to pursue Completion with such dedication.

He had admitted his fear aloud, but the saying had blocked his appreciation of meaning. It was a lesson. True work is done in silence. How could I have forgotten that?

He had indeed Emulated humans too deeply, too often, too persistently. Perhaps he had been reaching out toward Krinata, who could not come to him. To the degree that he could not reach her, he feared her. He had to touch her, to close an open circuit that was draining away his vitality. He had to dispel the fear of her, the fear of how helpless her every act made him or, perhaps, the more basic fear of being helpless before overwhelming force.

That was the one salient lesson toward which Oliat training led—that being passive did not mean being ineffectual. This was the step he had to take toward Completion before he could

Dissolve his Oliat and become an Observing Priest. When he had done it, he'd be able to give up Oliat work without the poignant regret he'd always felt at the thought of leaving Oliat behind forever.

The colors of the Complete Priests blended into the whiteness of Dushaun's worldcircle, and Dushaun's whiteness blended vibrantly into the whiteness of Phanphihy, the part into the whole, Observer into Observed, and all of it faded rapidly as the induction Emulation ended.

As an Active Observing Priest, it would be incumbent upon him to comb the tenets of Aliom for fallacies and truths and to teach by Observing what he found. He had always known that, but now he knew with thunderous revelation that it was up to the Observers to challenge every tenet, and even to rewrite them. Every Observer has discovered at least one fallacy–in order to become a Senior Priest. He couldn't think of a single exception, yet never had anyone made a special point of it.

Is anything I believe correct? He had once told Krinata that she had to develop an epistemology. But, true to Shoshunri's Second Observation, it was he, himself, who needed to reconstruct his entire epistemology, for clearly his fears had kept him from Observing many important things.

Shoshunri was famous because he had codified the epistemology of Aliom, but every Senior Priest had made some contribution. Aliom was not infallible, nor was it Complete. It offered no safe refuge from overwhelming force. Nor had anyone ever made a secret of that.

Aliom viewed the universe holistically, and Aliom itself was holistic. An error in one premise, such as "Dushau do not reincarnate" did not necessarily invalidate the whole any more than one malfunctioning brain cell incapacitated the whole brain. The validity of Aliom was not threatened by Krinata being Takora.

And when Krinata had the chance to cut him off, as he had cut off Takora, she hadn't done it. Krinata, herself, was no threat to him.

The trouble her actions caused him was probably the result of his Inversion of her Oliat. And what he really feared was the incredible force he had unleashed with that Inversion. The splashback from that force was naturally overwhelming. He would simply have to grow strong enough to absorb it and damp it down, or wait it out. It wasn't something to fear, it was something to cope with and learn from. It was a real threat only if he was too afraid of it to Observe it properly.

He had been tying himself in knots over nothing.

How absurd to fear truth. He couldn't imagine where he had picked up such a twist to his thinking. It was totally out of character. Darllanyu had known him long enough to be disturbed by the change, and—No wonder Grisnilter was so worried about me! He must have thought Aliom had taught me to fear truth. But then, why would he have trusted me with his Archive?

Again revelation shattered him. Every brush with the Archive made him want the Archive, undermining his priesthood—because carrying an Archive was initiatory, like the Aliom induction. It wrought permanent change. Grisnilter did that to me on purpose! And Jindigar had been vulnerable because of the blind spots his fear of Krinata created.

Well, no more. He was ashamed of what he'd put his people through, but it would end now. He would make the Center's decisions as necessary, and he would face what he had to face to finish with Oliat, for, he realized, he had just received his induction into the Observing Priesthood.

Peace throbbing silently through him for the first time in far too long, Jindigar came to full awareness. As always after this discipline, he was cold. His dark indigo hands lay spread before him, the pure energy of the world rising through them now without distortion. / have joined Dushaun and Phanphihy.

On the worldcircle, a short way in front of his hands, were two bare feet, Dushau feet, female feet—dark, dark indigo feet; elderly feet, but the toes were slightly inflamed with budding nails. Still struggling to focus his eyes, Jindigar forced movement into his neck and followed his gaze up the two trousered legs, and up and up to find Trinarvil looking down at him, her face in repose, radiant.

As his eyes made contact she effaced herself and bent to place both her hands, palm down, on the ground before him– doing homage to the Active Priest, saying by that silent gesture, "You have, by the exercise of your craft, given the world into my hands and shown me how I'm a part of it."

Jindigar had not intended to perform in that role. He had done his discipline to maintain himself and the community at large, as an Inactive Priest must, not for the service of any individual, as the Active do. / mustn't become Active yet.

He pulled his hands back from the circle and rose stiffly. It was nearly midnight. Without disturbing him his Oliat had assembled in the Temple, and now they closed in around him poised to work, as if there had never been strife among them. His exercise had steadied the Dushau, but he couldn't guess what had brought Krinata peace with herself.

He had not felt them around him so harmoniously since the moment before the planned weddings when they began to Dissolve. There had been risk then. Now it was almost certain that someone would die. Deep revelations aside, he was ruefully aware that he still would not accept any deaths. Some stubborn part of himself was convinced that there was a way for all of them to survive. But there isn't.