Reflections I

Gene Wolfe creates a most interesting character in Father Inire, a cacogen (alien) who has devoted himself to furthering human destiny.  He is an adviser to the Autarch, and a keeper of mirrors.

How foolish to call them mirrors.  They are to mirrors as the enveloping firmament  is to a child's balloon. They reflect light indeed; but that, I think, is no part of their true function.  They reflect reality, the metaphysical substance that underlies the material world.

The mirrors are transport, communication and more.  As conventional mirrors can reflect each other indefinitely, perfectly aligned these mirrors access the infinite.