A thousand, thousand towering feet of shimmering glass—invisible, unseen—not even there, yet standing fast. Ansond fell on his knees and so did Dreamer. Above them towered the chair and a voice called out of it: “Ansond, stand! Come forward!”

Ansond stood and saw the Singer. Sound swirled. Trumpets lifted up a fanfare of magnificence. Ansond knelt before the Troubadour and touched his forehead to the ground.

Once more he rose and faced the Crystal Chair and cried the coronation phrase, calling out with arms uplifted:

“Victory and power! Nobility and honor to the Troubadour of Life! Born from the womb of stars! King of the Crystal Chair! Great symphony of cosmic melodies of light! Arise and rule till all glittering night be born again in splendor.

“Halana to the Singer, Earthmaker’s Living Son! Halana to the Troubadour who reigns in sovereign song! Halana to the planet’s star!”

The Troubadour knelt before Ansond, who took a golden vestment and laid the rich brocade on the Singer’s shoulders. Ansond took the crown of life and placed it on the victor’s head.

Once more he approached the Chair of Glass and brought the Sword of Ages to the kneeling Prince. He offered him the hilt.

The Singer stood and raised the blade.

Ansond and the Prince then faced each other with their arms raised to the glass. The Court of Lifeland sang as one:

“Behold, the galaxy shall quake.

Starstorms will rage where dragons groan.

Terra bleeds upon the stake.

The Troubadour ascends the throne.

Halana.”

IV

Authentic Messiahs cannot cease their meditation on vast human hurt

to heed the pain of nails in their own wrists.

Only from the cheaper, little crosses come the cries of impaled egoism:

“Damnation, senseless killers! Oh, for a free hand … and a machine gun!”

Ansond climbed to the pinnacle above the Chair of Glass. He stood and called the Phoenix down. Dreamer strained to see the bird hovering in the spangled canopy above the chair. Its shrill scream pierced the battlements:

“Beware Elan,

You sons of man!

He rides the winds

That Death transcends,

And steals all light

To rule the night of Man!”

Dreamer awoke. Terra’s dull materiality emerged. The towering chair dwindled to a post that steadied him. The canopy of stars became the gray reality of cavern walls.

Men were rushing everywhere in panic.

Suddenly he saw the reason for the madness in the mine. From the blackened walls there came a man, half again as large as any miner in the camp. He wore a chain of bronze stars doubled at his shoulders. It ended in a cast-iron world that bore the name of Terra. Through the small, iron globe a sword was run and tiny fissures crowded out on brazen continents and seas. His clothes were dark, coarse and metallic, as though they had been burnished in some fiery war between the quarreling asteroids. His boots were silver corroded at the soles, for he had waded bloody fields where Terra’s grudges grew intense from time to time.