Discovering, as he had, the source of all others' revulsion towards him, the child who wore the silver mask threw himself to the floor before the altar to the sea god. He prayed to the sea princess who had fostered him and bade she return him to her home in the muck where none had eyes and the world was thick and dark. And there he remained prostrate for many days until all the candles he had lit burnt out and the chamber before the altar grew chill with a winter air. But it was the sea god and not his daughter who at last came to the child. And the sea god spoke without revulsion, for there are beasts of great ugliness in the sea. And the sea god spoke without pity or compassion, for the sea is a cold and hard place which tolerates neither weakness or failure. The sea god told the boy to stand. He told the boy he was no longer a child but was now indeed a youth. And, he told the youth to train until he was a man and that the gods would send word to him. The youth who wore the mask to conceal his hideous face arose and did as the sea god told him.
The sea god, for his part, was cunning in this lie, for he knew not the fate of this human and resented that a mere samurai of no particular merit had thrust this grotesque being upon him. The sea god went to his brethern with his problem and it was the sun god, the sea god's elder brother and the greatest of the gods, who smiled for he held the solution and it was by his design that all in the life of the hideous youth in the silver mask had come to pass.
Some years later, on an evening after the youth had trained hard and knelt before the altar to pray for many hours, the sun god whispered in his ear.
