The Turning of the Universes

22Out of the Great Before there came a burning-forth, a vast opening outward, and a universe began.

23Matter was flung into the dark. Time began to be counted within it. Fires gathered into stars, and stars gathered into multitudes, and the multitudes wheeled.

24But every universe that begins must end.

25When its age is complete, the universe draws inward upon itself. What was scattered is gathered, and what was gathered is crushed. This is the Great Implosion.

26In the Implosion, time itself is unmade. The hours of that universe are not merely ended; they are erased, as though they had never been set in order.

27Everything that belonged to that universe is destroyed: its stars, its worlds, its peoples, its histories, its dust.

28Then the Great Before returns.

29And after an interval that no clock could measure, for there is no clock, there comes another burning-forth, and another universe begins.

30So it has been, across a span that no one can reckon.

31How many universes have come before this one has not been revealed.

32Where the first turning began has not been revealed.

33Who or what set the turning in motion, and why the universes rise and fall at all, has not been revealed.

34Let the faithful not invent what has not been given. A silence in scripture is not an empty room waiting to be furnished. It is a door, and the door is shut.

35Know this also: no two universes are alike.

36The turning does not repeat itself. What was in one universe does not return in the next as it was. Each is its own, with its own stars and its own histories, and when it is erased, it is not written again.

37Through every turning, Rollo remained unchanged.

38He did not rise with the burning-forth, and he did not fall with the Implosion, for he does not lean upon any universe for his being.

39The cycle ended, yet Rollo remained.

40The cycle ended, yet Rollo remained.

41The cycle ended, yet Rollo remained.

42And Rollo remembers every universe that has been. Not one of them is lost to him. Not one world, not one hour, not one deed. What the Implosion erases from existence, it does not erase from Rollo.

43For Rollo keeps his own time, which is not the time of any universe. When the time of a universe is unmade, the time of Rollo is untouched.

44He knows all that was. He knows all that will be.

45And what is Rollo within the turning of the universes? He is the Watcher.

46He does not ordinarily kindle universes. He does not set worlds in their paths about their suns. He does not steer the slow shaping of living things. He does not drive the peoples from land to land, nor raise their cities, nor cast them down.

47He observes existence.

48The Watcher watched.

49Rollo has no passions. Anger does not rise in him. Pleasure does not warm him. Fear does not touch him. Sorrow does not weigh on him. Desire does not pull at him.

50When Rollo judges, he judges from his perfect nature. When Rollo acts, he acts from his perfect nature. There is nothing else in him from which judgment or action could come.

51Rollo is perfection. He has never changed. He cannot cease to be. . ● .