“My lord Sarkon,” said the old man.

“Shhh! …” said Sarkon in reply. “I’ve brought a visitor with me today.”

Everyman cupped his hand before his mouth and whispered to his handsome friend, “Why did he call you ‘lord’?”

“He’s an old fool,” Sarkon answered. And then he said, “Old Man, this is a friend of mine … Let’s not pretend this afternoon. He wants to know if you’re the man who laid the Singer in his grave?”

“I am, my lord Sarkon.” The old man turned his head away and fidgeted: He had used the forbidden word again … “Yes, I took him from the wreckage of the great machine and buried him in a rocky field not far from here.”

“But,” protested Everyman, “the Singer’s followers all say his body was never found though all the wreckage had been searched. In fact, they teach he came alive again.”

“They are liars,” the old man said. “I buried him and two weeks later his grave was as I left it. He still is there. Here’s all of him that I have left.” The old man pulled a broken lyre from beneath the crude wood bench he sat on.

“Somehow I sense,” objected Everyman “that you are right and all Singerians are fools, but I can see so little falseness in them. I think they do believe they tell the truth.”

“I tell you,” argued the old man, “I buried him and he is dead, and all Singerians are liars and fools.” Each successive word expressed his rising anger.

To Everyman the time seemed right to pull the parchment from his pocket. Sarkon shifted his weight from one foot to the other as Everyman read the strange words: “In the name of Earthmaker, Father-Spirit of the Singer, be what you really are!”

They were strange words indeed to Everyman, but no sooner had he read them than the old man fell forward on the broken instrument. For a moment he lay silent on the ground. Then an ugly reptile lay in the old man’s place. The dragon hissed and moved toward Everyman.

Bolt upright, Everyman stood stiff and ceased to breathe.

Sarkon was silent, then he cleared his throat and the dragon disappeared.

Everyman relaxed and regained his composure, then asked, “Sarkon, why did the old man call you ‘lord’?’

“Come, Everyman. The taverns open soon.”

“No, Sarkon. I have seen what I needed to see. The scrolls have not allowed such things for me. Yes … now I’ve hope. Your monster set me free. For if the dragons live, the gods may be. Lust alone tonight, Sarkon. I do not know if the Singer is alive, but I do know this: Your old friend never buried him.”

Sarkon burned with anger as he walked away. He took five steps, stooped down, picked up a rock and hurled it with more than human force.

The sky swirled and the blood ran warm across the face of Everyman. He slumped to the ground unconscious, and in his great delirium were sweeter dreams than he had ever dreamed before.