In the mist of his concussion swam wondrous dragons and singers in the streets.

Sarkon would have killed him for the dreams if he had known the nature of his sleep. But he had other appetites to feed. There were tavern maids and other youthful scientists he labored to deceive.

XIV

I heard the ballad of a fool whose simple song made synonyms of life and death and cursed the right and called it wrong:

Come play along the precipice—

Don’t worry that the cliff is steep—

The little flowers on the brink

Are daisies, but their roots grow deep.

The Invader stirred within the drowsy Anthem and he could not sleep. He pulled his tunic on and then his shoes and hurried out into the night. His feet were given no instruction by his mind and yet they fell in firm intention. At last the meadow hurried into trees and soon became a grove so dense the starlight halted on the tops of leaves.

He felt his way along in some denial of the mission that he could not comprehend, till in a clearing where no star shade fell, he saw a man lie wounded in the night. He approached and knelt in dust to lift the youthful head which lay face down on the earth.

In a nearby stream he soaked his shirt, then lifted up the head and swabbed the dust and blood away. It startled him to realize the man in need was Everyman.

When he had swabbed the face the second time, the youth awoke and muttered from the mist that was his mind. He sat upright and stared into the night. When finally his world merged with the one he sought to see, he knew the hand that cooled his brow was the singer that Sarkon had stoned in his contempt. They shared a common wound. At last words broke the stillness of the woods. Night silence surrendered up its hush.

“There are dragons!” said Everyman.

“Yes …”

“The old man did not put the Singer in his grave!”

“No …”

“Why did you come?”

“The Invader led me to you because the Singer loves you.”

“Are the Singer and the Invader one?”

“As water and ice are one—or heat and fire. The Singer came to be a man, then came again to be in man. The first time that he came he was the Troubadour and the next, the Wind Song.”

“Why did the old man change himself into a dragon?” asked Everyman.

“He did not.”

“But I saw him do it here … tonight … He changed himself into a croaking evil thing.”

“That’s only as it seemed. It was a dragon who had changed himself into a man. The words you read from the parchment scrap forced him to become what he has been through all time. A man can not become a dragon. But a man may sometimes be a dragon in disguise.”