A crowd was gathering around their conversation.

“Listen to me,” called the Madman to the crowd.

“I hung upon the wall until this very hour. When the moon was full I roamed in wild unholy grottoes of my mind. See these wrists,” he said pulling back his sleeves.

The marks and scars of chafing steel were obvious to all.

“The manacles of iron did this. I could kill and would have many times except for the great chains which held me. I cried within the grove and wished to die. I tore at every band and tried to set my own brutality toward freedom, but never did the chains give way until today.”

“Stop!” cried a voice within the crowd. “You are still mad,” the voice continued as the Hater came out of the crowd. “Listen to me, Madman,” he said pulling out the silver pipe.

Beads of perspiration appeared upon the Madman’s brow. Fear tore at him—could he stand the melody that formerly had driven him insane? The weird progression of shrieking notes began.

But the Madman’s tension soon began to ease. In the frustration of his losing, the Hater played more loudly than before.

Soon the Madman was entirely at peace. He exulted in the confidence of total sanity. “It’s no use Hater, the Troubadour has come.”

The crowd had grown to several hundred people and the Madman called out over them, “This man’s pipe wiped out all my sanity until today. I learned a new song from the Singer for whom the world so long has waited. Listen to the Song of Life.”

He began to sing. The Singer himself was startled at the beauty of his voice. He sang with such confidence that none could doubt the meaning he found springing up within his soul.

“Where did you learn this confidence and joy?” they asked him.

He nodded toward the Singer. “He has saved me from myself and from a thousand maddened spirits from the Canyon of the Damned.”

“Who are you, Man?” they asked the Singer.

“I am the Troubadour, the Son of Earthmaker,” the Singer then replied. “I have come to save the world and close the Canyon of the Damned.”

“Can we know your saving song and sing it as the Madman does?”

“You may, if you believe I am the only Troubadour.”

They mulled the proposition in their muddled minds.

Then someone in the fringe cried loudly, “Halana to the Troubadour, Son of Earthmaker!” Another to the far left took up the cry. A third and then a fourth—and suddenly the world seemed caught up in the cry.

“Halana to the Troubadour, Earthmaker’s only Son.”

Through the ancient city gates the joy echoed down the plaster canyons and drubbed its cadence over cobblestones. The cry became a tumult in the city,

Joy to the Earth,

The Troubadour has come

Make ready for the Song of Life.

A thousand dancers swelled the streets and instruments of music gathered up the merriment of holiday. Every street cried out the newness of the singing age that came to close the joyless era that had gone before.