Alia’s image of the mountains that conceal distances is metaphor for the paradox of Paul’s power. Paul’s prescience, which reveals the future that lies in the distance, conceals the
actual distance to the future. It is not simply that Paul’s power is incomplete; instead, Paul’s power is flawed because it is
too powerful. In this way, power itself is an inherently flawed thing, and this suggests that no person can possess absolute power.