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.
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