“These are the plans for the great temple soon to be built in upper Urbis,” Praxis then replied.

“Is Urbis short of temples?” asked Everyman in disbelief.

“No. There are temples to all the mountain gods but none to horses ever have been built.”

“Is yours to be the Temple to the Horse?”

“Well … yes …” said Praxis. “At least the unicorn …” Then formalizing all his doubt he said with certainty, “It will become the Gilded Temple of the Unicorn. But tell me of your Singer, and tell me what it means to be unchained.”

“You may only be unchained if you renounce your petty dreams and hunger to be free and come to life. Then you will know the joy of melodies that can swirl and echo like a dervish in the soul,” said Anthem.

“Must I give up the mountain gods to know the Singer’s music?”

“Yes.”

“But why? Why isn’t your Singer the friend of all the other gods?” thought Praxis half aloud. He thought a moment and then continued as if he had been overcome by a sudden transformation of some lofty thought or lost ideal. “Better yet, let’s give the Singer temple space in Urbis. I’ll save a handsome niche in the Temple of the Unicorn where he may stand in state for all the gods and ages to adore.”

Anthem cringed. “No, Builder! … He is not a mountain god, for they are not. The Singer is.”

“It’s all the more a reason that his reality cannot be threatened by their non-reality. Let’s bring the Singer to the market place and raise him in an arch of colonnades. Let’s lift him as a warrior king in bronze and decorate him as a slayer of the hosts. Can you imagine how temple choirs could sing the Ancient Star-Song in great antiphonies? Thousands might call out to be unchained.”

He seemed about to cease his rhapsodizing; then as an afterthought he added, “He will need a consort now, of course.”

“A consort?” questioned Everyman.

“Yes, to keep him from too much transcendence: It might destroy him. Recall the myths. The great gods never sleep alone or rule alone. They live in pairs, and in their heavenly sovereignty they need not give up such delights as men can understand. Men will not worship long that which is too unlike them or too far above them.”

“But that’s the meaning of the word ‘unchained!’” protested Everyman. “Freedom only comes when men give up their grip on their humanity. Mountain gods are made by men and are too much men to help. They cannot liberate who are not free.”

The Builder took his pen and dipped it in the ink and quickly drew a sketch. It was the Singer as he imagined him to look—a naked titan whose great lyre hung across his back. His heavy locks of hair fell down over his ears and sturdy jaws. His thighs were marble pillars. The drawing was an athlete god who bore a chilling likeness to the youthful Sarkon.