“It is over,” he smiled. “I have come!”

The lad leapt upright and embraced the Troubadour. The Singer threw his arms around the youth and kissed him.

An older child ran to embrace the pair.

At once the assemblage converged upon the trio. Their joy was immense.

Dreamer had never been so happy.

The long-awaited Prince had come! Then Dreamer saw the woman who had died in his arms. She was alive and reaching to the Troubadour. So were all who had been slain. The Singer knew the old woman as he knew them all. He walked to her.

“Will I ever have to die again? … It was so … so …”

“I know how it is to die,” he smiled. “But dying is over now.”

“Come with me,” the Singer called out to the other prisoners. They followed him outside. The sentries looked yet never saw them. Light-Raider and the Singer led them through the streets. Invader’s light moved ahead of them. The streets were swelled with people from each quarter of the city. Singerians came—smiling, running, dancing through the gates.

There were many in the streets and yet the army of Ellanor did not rise to quell the unseen midnight riot.

Near the gates, the Troubadour swung back into his saddle. Invader’s light glinted from his crown and he raised his swordpoint to the city gates.

The gates opened and the drawbridge lowered itself across the moat.

The liberated prisoners sang boldly and advanced through the gates. Even as they passed Elan’s troops, they sang without fear. The sleeping Vollkons never noticed them or heard their songs:

“The Golden Age has dawned upon the grave of time

And we are free!

We lay aside the chains of our humanity.

The Singer comes to save the remnant of the age.

The gates fling wide!

The banner waves above the Troubadour of Life

Astride a steed of light!

“He comes! He comes!

The blind can see!

The halt march perfectly!

The prisoners are free!

“He comes! He comes! He comes!

Lift his name, his universal love.

Spread majesty in light above the stars,

For we are free!”

The Army of Liberation heard the captives singing and the soldiers erupted in an anthem of their own.

The realms met.

Lifeland and Terra at last were one!

In the daisied meadow soon to be a blazing field of war the liberators and the liberated sang as one:

“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 the spectacle of life began.

The Army of Liberation fell upon their faces as the Troubadour approached. The liberated captives, too, bowed themselves to the ground.

The Singer sat resplendent on his horse and looked upon the union of the ages.

He lifted up his glittering sword to the great glass chair so many light years distant:

“Father Spirit,” he cried into the night sky.

“It is done. They are yours,