There, O King, thou shalt enter the Sea of Souls by the shore where the
altars stand which are covered in mist. In that sea are the souls of
all that ever lived on the worlds and all that ever shall live, all
freed from earth and flesh. And all the souls in that sea are aware of
one another but more than with hearing or sight or by taste or touch or
smell, and they all speak to each other yet not with lips, with voices
which need no sound. And over the sea lies music as winds o'er an ocean
on earth, and there unfettered by language great thoughts set outward
through the souls as on earth the currents go.

Once did I dream that in a mist-built ship I sailed upon that sea and
heard the music that is not of instruments, and voices not from lips,
and woke and found that I was upon the earth and that the gods had lied
to me in the night. Into this sea from fields of battle and cities come
down the rivers of lives, and ever the gods have taken onyx cups and
far and wide into the worlds again have flung the souls out of the sea,
that each soul may find a prison in the body of a man with five small
windows closely barred, and each one shackled with forgetfulness.

But all the while the light on the mountain grows, and none may say
what work the god that shall be born of the silvern light shall work on
the Sea of Souls, when the gods of Old are dead and the Sea is living
still.

And answer made the King:

"Thou that art a prophet of the gods of Old, go back and see that those
red flames burn more brightly on the altars in the mist, for the gods
of Old are easy and pleasant gods, and thou canst not say what toil