The upper chambers of his mines, long since stripped of ore, were used for other purposes. Some served as quarters for the miners; many were gaping caverns, eerie and empty.

Some Singerians worked in the mines and often met to keep the Singer’s Meal and read THE FINALE, their book of hope.

Dreamer was a miner. He had heard the Star-Song on his journey to the Crystal Range several years before. Invader swirled light into his deepest crevasses of doubt, and he was unchained from deep servitude to the Dark Prince. Now he drove his mattock into the walls. He knew his work set him against the life of Terra, but he found refuge from his guilt in the great Invader’s light.

Dreamer suffered from a malady that made him an uncertain resident of two separate worlds. A queer enchantment had first come over him while he ate the Singer’s Meal. He dreamed of a glorious realm of life.

He loved the dream and it returned. Gradually dream usurped reality. He rose to levels of existence his Singerian brothers could not understand. The unbelieving miners ignored his noble fantasies.

But in the dreams Invader’s storms of light obliterated all drudgery—transporting Dreamer to walk another world.

III

The world is poor because her fortune is buried in the sky and all her treasure maps are of the earth.

Some miners near the upper shafts dressed in heavy furs to fight the frigid winds of the Crystal Range. But Dreamer dug in warmer unlit crevasses a thousand feet below. He picked the soil to find the fabled ore of death.

Dreamer’s malady worsened, pushed him to the border of sanity. If he closed his eyes, the darkness of his voluntary blindness yielded light. And when the light had run its way through the chasms of his lonely spirit, it flooded past the threshold of his private world.

Dreamer finally was two men.

One kept his eyes open and chopped the death ore from its icy mountain veins. The other closed his eyes and walked a world whose glory men never had beheld. Dreamer loved the world beyond, for there he saw the only hope of life.

One night during his evening meal, he began meditating on the great Invader. Transport was immediate. Lifeland emerged. The world he loved appeared around him!

He was not alone. A hand reached out and clasped his shoulder. He turned to see a man with royal countenance.

“I am Ansond. Follow me and you shall see the measure of your world. Terra is dying. Beware Elan, and make him not your Lord, nor wear his sign upon your chain. Who wears the sign of Elan bears the mark of life in vain. For when the War of Fire is through, Terra shall not rise again. Come, Dreamer.”

Ansond beckoned and Dreamer moved to his command. The Singerian’s mind spun. Unbidden flew the gleaming ground. Lifeland rose up where majesty was found. At the source of light rose up the chair of sound.