XIII

Those at Ravensbrück rejoiced above the rumor that the Allies were on their way. Those about to die determined they would live and strained upon the housetops to catch the first glimpse of the color guard of freedom.

Light-Raider pranced before the host. Dreamer could see the end of ranks and files of soldiers. Some were mounted and some on foot.

He meditated on the hour when Terra One would give her orbit up and Terra Two should roll to take her place.

Whatever Elan did was now of little consequence. Whatever lies the Prince of Mirrors told, it mattered not. The Army of the Liberation was on its way.

He felt himself beginning to return and despised the steel-cold air about him. He fought but could not hold the brighter world. It slipped away. He plummeted disconsolate in gray. Terra One declared to him her morbid self.

In Dreamer’s final hope of hanging on, he saw the Troubadour astride his powerful mount. With sword held high, the Singer passed the street of monoliths. The gates flung wide. Beyond the open wall a long and starless road swung down between the pale and clustered light. Even as the cavern walls closed Dreamer in, he smiled to hear the army singing through the gates:

“Raise the praise in gilded flame

Till fiery letters etch the name

Of love across the waking universe.

Singer, Prince of Planets,

Troubadour of Life!”

And far in advance of singing knights the winged Invictrix flew. Above the starless road she bore the Golden Knight, whose wounds at last were healed.

XIV

When comes that final frantic marathon

That you did not elect to run,

May there be wild flowers in your path,

Pray that your flight be not in winter, son.

Dreamer thanked Invader for his presence. He was grateful that his unseen friend would not abandon him now that the hour of flight had come.

Dreamer pulled his coat about him and started down the passageway. At the far end was a shaft that bore a thousand feet of ladders in poor repair. Dreamer’s fear of the breaches in the rungs was less intense than his hunger to be free.

Looking up, he saw a tiny speck of light. It was the opening above. The laddered shaft had been a tomb for miners who had tried escape and failed. But youth was on his side and his disciplined young legs would provide strength for the climb.

Three hundred feet above, the walls opened outward on a cavern where the canisters of death ore were stacked. When he passed the arsenal, the sentries’ heads were turned away. He moved silently on to chambers above. Cheered by Invader’s presence, he thought of Lifeland’s army following the winged Invictrix even now down the skyway into Terra.

The spot of light grew larger.

He spanned a treacherous section of broken ladder bars and passed another room where torches burned. Here was the chamber where Elan and the Prince of Mirrors had lately traded loyalty and faces.