"I can't. My oath forbids."
"Couldn't you see the Archive is unaltered? You came into it to rescue us."
Krinata listened, haunted by echoes of memory—suddenly unable to sort dream from reality. Did she remember being sucked down into a whirlwind called an Eye, or had that been a nightmare from the bad times out on the plain?
"With Grisnilter's Seals broken there's no way to test his Archive. No one could check every record in it against other Archives. It would take more than a lifetime! But we were all able to get out, which clearly indicates that the structure is undistorted. Your zeal convinces me that the contents are probably unedited. That's why I made my offer. I'll chance it, if I have proof of your fidelity to satisfy our Criteria. Surviving Centering would be sufficient."
"But that's impossible. You saw that at the grieving. My identity is pledged to Raichmat's multicolony just as it is to delivering Grisnilter's Archive. Since the Archive will destroy any Oliat zunre linked to me—in fact, it prevents my completely dissolving the duad I'm holding with Krinata, and so it endangers her too—I can't fulfill either pledge.
"Shoshunri Observed that it's impossible to achieve Completion by forsaking fidelity or to achieve fidelity by forsaking Completion. You're demanding I choose between two vows of equal force. Either choice is a forsaking of fidelity. So you're asking me to forsake fidelity to prove fidelity."
He knew something like this could happen, thought Krinata. That's why he fought Grisnilter so hard.
"That's a good description of what you're demanding of me," the Historian replied. "I'm pledged to protect the accuracy of our memory. I dare not introduce a questionable Archive into our colony's permanent record. This is now my community. For a Historian, the community becomes Identity. I wouldn't expect an Aliom to understand Identity, but you come of a Historian family...."
Jindigar seized on that. "Yes, and so I know this community must have this Archive—the risk of taking it is less than the risk of delay, for I will fail eventually."
"I don't know that you haven't failed already. With the
Seal broken I've no way to test it, short of absolute proof of your fidelity. How did you break into it? Inverting?"
Jindigar held himself very still, but his confession when it came held neither guilt, remorse, nor pride. "Yes." Jin-digar recited the events that led to Desdinda's death as if telling off memory beads on a well-worn string.
Finally he added, "We were a very hasty, unbalanced triad, and I did Invert them—but only to affect the Emperor's machinery, which was being used to keep us from our proper place in the pattern—I wouldn't expect a Historian to understand. We did survive, so I was right. But Desdinda's death left us all injured—so I was also wrong. Frey eventually died as a result of a train of bad judgments, for which I'm also responsible. If Krinata and I die because of the Archive being unSealed, then it will confirm the injunction against Inversion, for it will be clear that Inverting has impaired my judgment, preventing anyone associated with me from attaining Completion."
"And if you survive?" Threntisn prompted.
"It won't disprove the theory, for the dangers are as formidable as reputed. Threntisn, I didn't Invert originally to disprove the major tenet of Aliom! It was a 'strike,' an unpremeditated action, an expression of the primal desire to survive to Completion. I believe I still have a good chance at it." He explained how Desdinda's death had left a Loop impressed on Krinata, and how she'd finally dealt with it in the hive. She hardly recognized a single image. But it brought back the stark terror, the forced confrontation, and the infinite relief she'd felt. Those had become such an integral part of her identity, she didn't know they were there anymore.
He finished his account, adding, "I couldn't help either Frey or Krinata because of the Archive. Krinata healed herself, despite the hive's Long Memory, while Frey failed."
"You put the Archive above your zunre's lives?"
Jindigar hung his head. His sigh was a long shudder. But when he raised his eyes, he said firmly, "Yes. And I will always, because if I break my pledge to Grisnilter, what good is my pledge to my zunre, and if I forsake fidelity, how can I or my zunre achieve Completion?"
Threntisn turned to Krinata. "How do you feel about that?"
"Maybe I can't ever know how a Historian regards Identity, but I'm beginning to believe mine includes Jindigar, and that's why we're linked. But I'd rather die than see him go to Dissolution, which is what ruining the Archive would do to him."
Astonished, Threntisn asked Jindigar, "Is she another Ontarrah? Is that why Darllanyu—"
Ontarrah. Images of a sumptuous bedchamber flooded into her mind, and suddenly she knew who Ontarrah was, though the memory had that same maybe-not-dream quality which so confused her these days.
"No, she's not," Jindigar answered levelly. "We won't make that mistake again. But I owe her my life, many times over. She's zunre to me, and your son—and so to you. Take the Archive, Threntisn—before it does become altered—and let me fulfill my other obligations."
Silently he weighed Jindigar, and Krinata thought he'd do it, but he said, "I believe you, Jindigar, and I want to now. But I can't. I must have full-jeopardy, objective proof for the record before I can risk it. Doesn't Aliom have some such law for its Seniors?"
"Yes, of course. I understand, but I disagree. There must be some law you are breaking by forcing this choice upon me." He glanced at the sun. "We must go." On the stairs he turned and added, "After you fished us out of the Archive's Eye, I thought you'd understand."
"I do, Jindigar. You chose Dissolution with the Archive, rather than break either oath. You'd have made a great. Historian. That's the only other choice you have, you know." He gestured to the portal behind him. "Come in and let me teach you to reSeal it and foster it yourself."
Jindigar looked up at the other man with an ironic smile. "I will—on the day you become an Aliom priest."
"Then we may go to dissolution/death together, each clinging to our own path to Completion and failing."
Jindigar sighed, shook his head, and took Krinata off toward the street that led to the compound gate.
Eye of the Archive. The image awakened vague shuddering terrors for Krinata. "It seems everybody else remembers what happened in that grieving. All I seem to have is a determination never to try it again!"
"Grieving itself isn't a fearful experience; being dragged into someone else's attempted suicide is. I'm sorry, Krinata, but you left me no choice."
When she asked what he meant, he drew her a vivid word picture of the Archive swallowing them. She recalled the jagged black pinnacle, and a pond with its ludicrously fearsome guardian, and described them, saying, "I cast us off and limited your options. If I'd understood then, I might not have done that. I'm sorry."
"It was the only way out for me. The problem, of course, was how many other lives were risked for my sake and what I owe them all for that."
"I didn't know anyone else was involved when I did it."
"No?" He shook his head. "Pinnacles, fountains, and luminous statues, of all things—the imagery of the human mind is astonishing. I wonder how I can possibly train you in duad across such a gulf. But I know I heard you play the whule—and beautifully too."