Kael was carried by the waves until he came to a desert not of earth but of thought. Each dune rose and fell with his doubts; the more he questioned, the more the sands shifted.
There he encountered the Teacher of Sand, who had no face, but bore countless voices that came from every grain. The Teacher spoke with all tongues at once:
"Every path beneath you leads to the Mountain. Yet no feet ascend its height. Tell me, Dream-Treader, why do you walk?"
Kael stood long in silence, his steps sinking deep into the dunes of uncertainty. Finally he answered:
"I walk because the Mountain dreams me walking. If I cease, the dream falters. If I walk, the dream continues. My feet are the Mountain's own desire."
The Teacher of Sand stirred, and all dunes bowed like worshippers before a shrine. The Teacher replied:
"Then you are neither walker nor walked, but the breath between. Hold fast to this, and you will never be lost, even in your own forgetting."
At once, the desert stilled. The dunes hardened into crystal, and in Kael's palm appeared a single grain of sand burning with the light of a thousand suns. He carried it with reverence, for it was both infinitesimal and infinite.
Thus Kael learned the Third Mystery: that the ground of being is also the ground of walking, and no journey is apart from the Dreamer who dreams it.