Si'Wren thought she had seen
it already coming apart into two halves in mid-air, but that was
absurd. Why would Sorpiala bring a broken idol to show them? Anyway,
Si'Wren had not seen it clearly and could not truly be sure.
"Oh, forgive me, Sorpiala!" Nelatha wailed as she stared, eyes wide in
abject terror, at Sorpiala.
"What? Oh, it was only a mistake," said Sorpiala, already trying to
console Nelatha.
She turned and smiled brief reassurance at Si'Wren also, to show that
offense had been neither perceived nor taken.
Si'Wren blinked, and, remembering her manners, bowed low, uttering
quickly, "I am most grieved, Sorpiala," in a formal utterance of
deepest consolation which gesture alone seemed appropriate to such an
unhappy event.
"No, it is nothing," Sorpiala said, bending down and picking up the two
broken halves herself to gather up in the folds of the gauze and burlap
again. "Do not worry."
She turned as if about to go, and then paused and looked directly at
Si'Wren.
"Si'Wren, you know, I am not so sure that a goddess which can be
dropped and broken is anything worth believing in. Do you suppose some
time, you could tell me about your Invisible God?"
Si'Wren, caught off guard, smiled hurriedly.
"Why, certainly, Sorpiala," she said.
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