"Everything You tell me, Keshava," Arjuna said, "I believe. All of it. I hold every word to be true."

He meant it. There was no doubt left anywhere in him. The friend who held his reins had said he was the source of all things, and Arjuna believed it the way you believe the sun is warm when it falls on your face.

But then a thought rose in him that made his eyes widen, and he spoke it aloud, almost to himself.

"And yet, O Blessed One — not even the gods know how You truly appear. Not Indra on his white elephant, not Agni in his fire, not Varuna in his deep waters. The shining gods in their heaven cannot trace where You come from. And the demons — the mighty Danavas, who shook the worlds and fought the gods for the nectar of the churning sea — they cannot see it either. The greatest beings there are, the brightest and the most terrible, all stand in the dark before the mystery of You."

Arjuna looked out across the two vast armies. Somewhere in those ranks were warriors descended from gods, warriors blessed with weapons from heaven, men as close to divine as men could be. None of them, gathered all together, could measure the one sitting quietly in front of him with a peacock feather in his hair.

And that, Arjuna realised, was the wonder of it. It was not that he understood Krishna. He did not. No one could — not the gods, not the demons, not the sages, not himself. The mystery was bottomless. But he did not need to reach the bottom of it to trust it. A small boat does not have to understand the whole ocean to float upon it.

"I cannot fathom You," he said softly. "No one can. And still I believe every word."

Krishna's eyes warmed. This was faith of the truest kind — not the faith of one who has explained everything away, but of one who stands before something far too great to explain, and loves it, and trusts it anyway. The gods and demons strained to know. The friend simply believed.