Then I went to that place where are those who upon Earth know not true gods, but worship a blind figure of injustice whom they call Fate; and they are guided not by their will, but are driven by the reins of their own imagination.
Among them are those who fear famine. Although the granaries are full and their sleeping bodies are satisfied with food, here they are like skeletons with hunger, and round them are empty grain-jars, and even their water pitchers are cracked and broken.
And here, also, are some who on Earth have but a little fever, yet here they suffer the torments of all the illnesses of the flesh that they have seen or heard of, and they spend their nights sweating in an agony that is of their own creation.
And here are some who, though their land is at peace, fear death in battle; and though their sleeping bodies are safe upon the bed-places of their own houses, every night their flesh is pierced by arrows and their skulls staved in by the maces of their enemies.
And here are some who upon Earth have well watered fields deep in grain, and fat cows whose milk hisses from heavy udders, yet here they wring their hands as they walk over the desolation of their barren fields, or watch their sick cattle dying in the byre.
To these I went, and I told them that they were being as cruel to themselves as a scribe who cut off his right hand, or a gardener who destroyed his most precious plants; and I told them that of their own craven fear they created the realities that they dreaded, so that the wise compassion of the Gods was kept from them by barriers of their own building.
Few there were who listened to me, but to one I talked who night after night for years had lived death. On Earth he was a soldier of the garrison of Na-kish, and he was on an expedition in the deep forests to the south. I knew that round his camp there was an ambush of the pygmy people. I told him to return to Earth and to lead his twenty men through a narrow defile down to the river where they might yet escape this closing net. I put my hands upon his shoulders and said, “You shall have the courage for which you have prayed, and you shall no longer visit this shadow-land, but belong to the companionship of the brave.” And his fear-ridden eyes grew calm; and he returned to his body and left my sight. I knew that before the sun again set over Kam the time of his return from exile would be reached, and that in his dying he would find that he no longer suffered a thousand deaths; rather would he walk dear-eyed and fearless into the Light.
Then I talked to a man who feared pain and disease, and I told him no longer to think about his ills, but to fill his courtyard with all the suffering and the crippled who crossed his path. And in succouring those who needed it, he might attain to the courage of those who felt deep pain and rent not the air with lamentations, but smiled their courage.
And I told a rich man who feared to starve, no longer to guard his granaries, but to share his plenty with the poor; and that in so doing he might share the satisfaction of those whom he had fed, and learn that it is better to lie hungry upon straw and to find refreshment away from Earth than to live in fear of famine and in sleep to suffer it.
These three listened to me. Yet there were many who refused my words and strove not for that courage which would free them. And they stayed among the pitiful ones who dwell in prisons they have built around themselves.