The window was but a few meters away, the light of the moon cast through it.
But how could Vaien truly know that it was the light of the moon? How could he know whether the window truly was a window to the outside world and not a sham?
Certainly, he could simply go outside; but even then, how was he to know whether his memory of the moon 'outside' was correct?
How was he to know, for that matter, that what his eyes showed him was real? It was simply an interpretation of the outside world; how could he know whether the outside world really was like what he was shown?
How could he know that his voice was his voice, that others' voices were their voices, that the floor was a floor, that the wall was wall?
The world was a world of shams; everything was a lie. The truth could be revealed; but only through destruction. Fire, ievonuia; all of it had that same underlying force of destruction.
The destruction was not earthly destruction; it was heavenly; that is, it appeared to be destruction but actually was revelation and a construction.
This duality was in everything holy; yet it could not be understood for it was perhaps an aspect of God (the Holy Spirit, perhaps), and God, how great and magnificent He was, could not be understood by the imperfect human mind.
Yet even then the school was shadowed even from any basic understanding. The destructive creation and revelation of fire, the primeval force, would banish these shadows, destroy the facades that concealed everything, and leave only the truth of God which lay in everything.
Then they would all know; they would all know.
But even then, fire was, like all things on Earth, corrupted by the Fall. While primeval and thus the holiest of all earthly things, it could not induce the revelation of all things as the Holy Spirit could.
Ievonuia, the secondary primeval force, had the same flaw, but through its blessing and its connection to the Holy Spirit as an emanation of it, was more perfect, although not entirely so.
The two together, however, would induce the seeing of the whole truth.
The great folkloric tradition of the Apostolic Church affirmed this, he remembered.
He touched his pocket, which still contained the little lacquer box which itself contained the bottle of ievonuia.
Vaien realized that there had been someone standing in front of him throughout his entire reflection. "I am very sorry for keeping you, I am prone to this," he said in a crisp, practiced voice. He shook the outstretched hand, taking care not too grip too lightly or firmly, not to shake too vigorously or lightly. All of these now concerned him; but it was all so tedious.
Throughout this entire short ordeal, he was smiling as though someone had forced him, threatening the most painful of deaths, to do so.
He let go of the other's hand. "Hello," he said, in the same practiced, polished, stiff voice that he had used before. "My name is Vaien Ueliohen. How has your day been?"
