The dazzling hurricane of light fell full on Terra’s shame and a fiery brilliant radiance proclaimed his mighty name—Invader.

VII

Where do the old gods live?

In temples tended by old, old men.

And the young gods?

In young men who dream of building temples so that they will have something to tend when they are old, old men.

It is better to believe than dream.

For dreams grow old and so do dreamers.

Dreamers die but not believers.

An old man lifted up his face and wept before the transfixed crowd. He called out through his tears, “What must I do to be unchained?”

And Anthem answered, “Admit your emptiness. Open to the Wind. Receive the Stigmon of the Singer.”

“I will. Come in, Invader,” he cried into the swirling radiance. He held his leathered face in wrinkled hands, and when he took his hands away, he wore a strange new countenance of light.

Anthem reached down and scooped a handful of moist earth. “Do you believe the Singer is alive and that he is Earthmaker’s Son?”

“Yes,” cried the old man in a husky voice, choked by the fullness of his joy.

“Then,” said Anthem, “receive the Stigmon.” He traced upon the old man’s face the Singer’s Sign with earth and spoke:

“It is only out of Terra’s shame

That men of Terra wear the name

Of Singer,

Prince of Planets,

Troubadour of Life.”

And then he placed a small amount of the remaining soil in the old man’s hand, as he breathed the last lines of the Stigmon:

“Remember as your hand is stained

That his was crushed and torn by pain

That men of Terra fully know

There is no depth he would not go

To Love.

Earthmaker, Singer and Invader be

The substance of infinity.”

The old man suddenly found himself in a sea of thirsty faces crying out to the Invader to enter them in the storm of light that now enveloped all.

Hundreds were invaded and the Singer added to this number all who were unchained and had received the Stigmon. Their foreheads were smudged with the Singer’s Sign and their hands bore the symbol of his wounds.

The day was long and lovely and substance slept with a thousand hearts by fall of night. It was the dawning of the Age of the Invader.

VIII

The fable reminds us:

A witch may beguile us with apples!

Beware old women selling green fruit.

Their sales deceive.

Who spares a witch may but a serpent save.

A dying dragon digs a witch’s grave.

We seldom trust the fairy tales

Until we gasp in claws and scales.

Anthem slept a lovely sleep that would have lasted through the night except the fire before his gate was gone. So in the center of the night he was awakened by the rapping of an old familiar hand outside his room. He lit the lamp and opened up the door. His faint light fell into the night before the fingers of the dark pinched out the amber fire.