The entire city died.

Fear stalked the living cities. Elan won the praise of men. Desperate children sang in terror.

“Where have the little cities gone?

The shadow of the Vollkons passed.

The flaming air denied the truce,

The flying dragons have let loose.

The very soil is poisoned where

The fire once hung in Elan’s air.”

Terror brought submissiveness. The planet filled with sheep. The armies now met frail replies and thousands every dawn received the chain of fear. Singerians alone refused the glass. Many hastened to the glistening new capital of Ellanor, the City of Man.

Only in the center of the Empire were they safe from Elan’s fiery wrath. Everywhere in Ellanor the Prince of Mirrors preached the doctrine of the glass and sang The Hymn of Man.

Dreamer knew it was not safe to stay within the mines. Mass arrest of all Singerians was coming and he had been more vocal than the rest. He knew he had to flee the mines and seek the enclave of the capital.

He knew he had to hurry; his disaffection for the chain and glass would not be tolerated long. So he prepared to leave.

His journey would be a desperate flight up a thousand feet of icy shafts that passed the Vollkons’ lairs. Once outside the caves of death the air would be so cold that even brief exposure would be fatal. Seven days through icy crags and narrow ledges would he travel to the Steppes of Varge and Thade whose ashes inspired fear.

“Oh, Singer,” prayed the Dreamer,

“May your sacrifice

Protect me from the Vollkons’ fire

And shield me from the Empire’s ice.”

X

Evil finds a ready home

Where beauty is despised

And ugliness enthroned.

The Prince of Mirrors returned from preaching through the Empire. On every continent of Ellanor, men stood enthralled, staring at their images. “We wear one face, behold a common glass,” they sang.

Elan closed all the temples to the Troubadour. He decreed that all who sang the Star-Song would be imprisoned.

Beneath the Vollkons’ lairs and yet three caves above the praying miner making ready for his flight, Elan and the Prince of Mirrors met. Their covenant was brief.

“You need my doctrine,” said the Prince of Mirrors.

“You need my armies more, if you would make this world you so despise sleep in terror and despair,” said Elan.

“We are in league then?” the World Hater asked.

“We are. Where is your book of truth?”

“Here!” the Hater said, pulling the mirror from his pocket. “Here is the doctrine by which men most bend to our control—man’s fascination with himself. In this small glass is subjugation so complete it wipes away the universe. As long as men behold themselves, they will look no higher, my dear Elan.”

“Then I pledge to our new partnership the fire of fear,” the Emperor enjoined.

“And I … the image of complete dependency—the face of man.”