The Prince of Mirrors watched the arrests but still did not see Dreamer. When all had been collected, the Hater rode his horse through the guarded doorway of the temporary compound. When they saw him in their midst, the Singerians began to chant, “He comes! He comes! He comes! …” Their voices grew in volume till the Black Prince could not stand the roar.

Then they began the chorus:

“The Prince of Dragons soon must fall

Before the Prince of Planets.”

The World Hater had no tolerance for their music. He had heard it through too many centuries. He once had hoped to grind the music into silence. Now the hour was late and the music rose around him with foreboding. The Death Stallion pranced uneasily amid the mob.

The Prince of Mirrors reined the horse so sharply that it reared into the air and wheeled upon its haunches. He swung his long sword in each direction and the hooves of his steed fell again and again. The brandished blade cut indiscriminately. Then quickly he departed.

Dreamer had been arrested with the others. Yet he had not been discovered by the Dark Prince. From the shadows of the makeshift prison he beheld the massacre and wept. He embraced an old and dying woman, careless of the gore clotted on her wrinkled face.

“He comes!” he said to her.

“He comes!” she said through pain. Her smile froze into silence.

The Invader swirled hope through the darkened room like hurricanes of light. His brilliance pushed back the gloom. Joy washed down their faces. “He comes!” they cried.

The dead were moved to the center of the room as the Singerians voiced the words of THE FINALE they had left too long unsung:

“He comes in power,

Rejoice, the hour of jubilee is near.

Lift up the cry

Before we die, our Singer will appear.”

XXI

Take your visions.

Give me photographs.

The book of visions always has blank pages, for the mystics never can agree on exactly what they saw.

The album’s filled with photographs where lens and light and silver nitrate record the moments as they were.

A steady light may be observed.

A flash, however brilliant, is debated.

Three hours before the dawn, the stone face of the prison house crumbled. The roof blew away. The prisoners stood at once to their feet. Through the devastated walls they saw the starry sky. One star began to grow, flooding the sleeping city with its light. It settled ever closer until it came into their very midst.

“He is here!” shouted Dreamer.

The glare softened into friendly incandescence and then into a glow.

Invader had gathered the harsh light around him and swirled it ever faster until the two great lights converged in a blinding supernova, then softened once again.

A great horse emerged from the brilliance and the Troubadour dismounted.

The prisoners fell upon their faces.

The Singer with one hand held Light-Raider’s reins and with the other palm he lifted up the face of a young man.