"I am a man. Why have I not the dignity of one? And behold there came unto me a sweet maiden as you have not seen, whose gilded hair, as it were indeed, danced about her. And the crown that be upon her hair was not of lilies or of rosebuds or of irises but a no-known flower. And of her draperies, indeed, her gowns were translucent and mellow and free. Behold, she came unto me and behold she gave unto me a great sword. It sang; it sang. Yet it took nigh, as it were indeed, nine hands to hold its handle, it was so great."

"And she gave it unto me. This is what she said: "O Ram, O Ram, I beseech you - who have learned and woken our Spirit of the pity of our beings - the truth. There must be a truth that lingers in the land. Thus your prayers have been heard. You are a man of means and conviction. Take you this sword and wear it well." And she was gone with herself. And I was blinded in my madness and my illusions in what I had seen. And no longer did I shiver against the great cold, for I found warmth there. And thus when I looked again where my tears had iced themselves, there grew a flower of such sweet refrain and color that I knew the flower, as it were indeed, would be what is termed hope. The sword Crosham, the Winged Carrier, it was the Isness that formulated itself into an apparition of the most beautiful sorts that gave me the sword and told me, "Go and conquer yourself." And the rest is history, don't you see? There was no entity that lived in that which is termed a singular form that exists that gave me that sword. It is the harmony of the Isness that produced the Winged Carrier."

"I came down from the mount with my great sword to the hovel of my mother who had perished. Who was the suckling upon my mother's breast? It was you, for you are of my kingdom and my house and my dream. And as a little boy I gathered up that which is termed, as it were indeed, timbers and I laid them together. And I laid the timbers on top of my motheren and then stole away in the night and gathered that which is termed fire. You know what it is? It is a little different than this. And I brought it and cuddled it and I said a great prayer to my motheren and my little sistren and I loved them greatly. And I lit that which is termed the timbers, for if I did not do so swiftly, the stench from them would cause agitation in the area in which they lived and they would fling them into the desert, that the hyenas could prey upon them and tear them apart so that they were not bothered. I set them to fire and burned them. I burned my mother and my sister upon a funeral pyre, and I wept."

"Now for that which is termed the rest of the story, there are a lot of you who know it well. But what drove me to conquer and to master, which was a part of my soul emotion, was the desire to make it even. I created war, indeed, for there were no warring factions against the arrogance of the Atlatians - none. I created it. I came from the great mountain, intimidated by the Unknown God, given a sword and told then to conquer myself. I could not turn the blade around and hack my head off; it was too long. My arms would not reach, as it were indeed, to that which is called the stiffling of the sword. I wept a great deal but I got honor in my sword. No longer weak of bodily movement or frail, I became a Ram in all the sense of the word and made war upon the tyrants of all my peoples who were enslaved by them. And when I returned, I laid siege to Onai."

Next -- I Had No Teacher but Nature