{"sf1_id":1716817,"sf2_id":"beblrwnA","title":"Ragnarok - X","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":2645,"posted_at":"2021-05-10T18:02:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1716817-ragnarok-x","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/beblrwnA","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/7b/88/7b88ce0f-bae7-4bd8-98a6-56188c53f7be","description":"#11 of Ragnarok\n\nHaving taken refuge behind a charm that wards off all those have died--both the Soot, but also Shane and Varr--the witchfolk settle for the night and Shane seeks answers.\nThere's several things I would likely do differently if I were to write this as I am now. But this is the introduction of the biggest change I'd make.","content":"Like a gazebo in an empty park--\n\nWhere silent is the playground, where the paths\n\nNo longer feel the tread of shoes or hear\n\nThe jangle of the collar and the leash,\n\nWhere wild and weedy tend the lawns, and trees\n\nGrow forestlike and rough--where once a band\n\nMight play upon a summer evening calm.\n\nThat music, drifting low like heavy fog,\n\nShould permeate the lines of lazy homes\n\nWith false but sweet nostalgia. But no more:\n\nThe band now long gone, stands their empty shell\n\nAmid the dust and crabgrass, made to seem\n\nThan itself larger by echoes and soft\n\nRegret that what was never had is lost,\n\nSo seemed the space too spacious. For a roof\n\nThe needles, boughs for vaulting, and pillars\n\nThe three wide trunks of titan trees; all seemed\n\nAs if indoors the witchfolk sat, and yet\n\nThe rustling of the wind, the smell of night,\n\nAnd flash of fireflies among the boughs\n\nTold touch and balance that outside they lay\n\nTo cast their bedrolls, rummage in their packs,\n\nAnd kindle tiny cookfires from the cones.\n\nWhere chinks of sky showed through the pine screen, grass\n\nNow gold and brittle, had put up pale arms\n\nIn silent, somnolent alleluia\n\nTo catch and drink whatever sun slipped through.\n\nAmid each tuft there sprawled a trailing shrub\n\nWhose branches splayed this way and that, as if\n\nIt once had been a vine, and groped around\n\nFor pole or trunk but, finding none, resolved\n\nTo do without and stiffened all its stalks\n\nTo pale dun wood. They bore few yellow leaves,\n\nBut multitude of scarlet berries, crowned\n\nBy golden sepal, like the halos set\n\nBehind the faces of Byzantine saints.\n\nAmid the scene the lady moved, her hands\n\nAnd voice busied with comfort and with help.\n\nShane patiently observed her, till she raised\n\nHer marble chin and said, \"If you would speak,\n\nGood warrior, come. No ceremony here,\n\nAlas, but you are master of plain speech,\n\nAnd this is the plain-speaker's place and hour.\"\n\n\"Lady,\" said Shane, \"I come not with plain speech\n\nBut with plain questions, in the hope that you\n\nEmpowered are to fit an answer plain\n\nOnto the tail of each. I am no sage.\n\nI am not mystagogue, nor alchemist.\n\nI am no quantum physicist. I am\n\nA boxer. I know simple things, and I\n\nCan stomach all but mystery. If you\n\nKnow something that can peel away the fog\n\nFrom off my mind, great gratitude is yours.\"\n\nThe Lady signed that Shane should walk with her.\n\nBack they went, among smaller stones, fallen\n\nInto rough simulacra of a maze\n\nOn the cathedral floor. The Lady looked\n\nNot at the boxer, but upon the ground\n\nAs if she read there secrets that pleased not.\n\nFirst Shane asked, \"What are you, and what your folk?\"\n\nThe lady looked at him as if she saw\n\nOver his shoulder monuments to years\n\nLong passed, and places long forgotten, now\n\nAbandoned to time's slow demolition.\n\n\"My people have been exiles for too long.\n\nWe have no places hallowed by our step.\n\nWe have no strongholds, as we used, nor paths\n\nWhere we would walk unseen but not unfelt,\"\n\nThe lady answered, \"Once we did, upon\n\nA hundred hundred shores, wreak wonders wild.\n\nNow we are hunted up, like autumn birds,\n\nOut of the land we fled to, poor and sad.\n\nWe knew the virtues of all hedgerow weeds;\n\nMistletoe, for the peace that comes from strength,\n\nSweet Amaranth, to hold off time and chance,\n\nHolly, to undo all malicious charms,\n\nAnd Bittersweet, that you see round your feet:\n\nThere is no fitter symbol for your kind\n\nThan this, that blooms when all about is dead,\n\nThat sad and glorious fruit does bear, before\n\nThe cold of winter seizes it. And this\n\nIs of the knowledge given to my folk.\n\nOur power, you have seen the thinnest edge,\n\nIs birth and life and death and birth again:\n\nThe hollow underneath the toppled pine,\n\nThe whirlwind glimpsed in how it whirls dead leaves,\n\nThe sharp percussion of the cracking ice\n\nAnd strings of running water. We were in\n\nThe dewdrops on the rocky fields, that catch\n\nThe images of infant grass, and depths\n\nOf forests where the canopy above\n\nHas grown so thick it soaks up all the sun\n\nSpongelike that what few drops do trickle down\n\nAre colored with the taste and sound of leaves.\n\nWe once had many names, now have we none.\n\nCall us the Witchfolk, call me Lady, let\n\nThat serve. For more than that is past recall.\n\nAll those you saved this morning are my kin,\n\nAnd family are we to all our folk:\n\nOur power flows from cousin to cousin\n\nAs does the wind from cloud to cloud enwrap.\n\nWhat my granddaughter spins, I weave,\n\nAnd my grandmother cuts. Thus is our kind.\n\nI think we may be kin, at furlong's length\n\nTo that Old Man you serve and have not seen.\n\nYet your brother-in arms,\" she smiled at Varr,\n\nWho round the rockface went in close patrol,\n\n\"He trusts us not. And he is wise indeed.\n\nWe once delighted in malicious pranks,\n\nIn what were no jest to the hapless knaves\n\nWe caught in webs, befuddled with marsh-mist,\n\nPinned fast in cloven trees, and how much more.\n\nWe are not trusty folk, I fear. We keep\n\nThe letter of our word, to break the soul.\n\nYet do not fear, Champion. We are deep,\n\nToo deep in dire extremity for play.\"\n\n\"Your wizardry,\" asked Shane, \"is in your blood?\n\nDo all your folk partake of it by birth?\n\nFor she who termed you grandmother said much\n\nThat touches me I do not know how near,\n\nAnd I would know both what she meant, and what\n\nOf truth the meaning she meant had. She said\n\nThat one like me was long foretold. She said\n\nThat I would save somebody from sulfur,\n\nWhatever that might mean. And last she said\n\nThat I could journey backward into death\n\nAnd out the other side. Can you unwind\n\nThis soothsaying, if soothsaying it be?\"\n\n\"You ask a fearful thing,\" the Lady said,\n\n\"Though to you fear means next to nothing, I\n\nHave not such rigid bonds upon my heart.\n\nTake care, lest you find too much prophecy\n\nFrom every side envelops you too tight\n\nTo move, so you lie mummified until\n\nThe future that has frozen you into\n\nA pale predestined puppet. Be thus glad\n\nOf this: you heard not foretelling, nor glimpse\n\nOracular of chronicles unpenned.\n\nIt is the folklore every child is told.\n\nIt is the tale we grip to fuel our hopes.\n\nIt is the closest thing my people have\n\nTo covenant. Any small child could tell\n\nAs much to any warrior, and what\n\nWould that mean unto either one? As for\n\nThe meat of what she said, what did she say\n\nThat one might not discern from but a look?\n\nYou are unlike your fellow soldier ghosts,\n\nAnd anyone may see as much: your clothes,\n\nYour way of fighting, your weaponlessness,\n\nYour trick of speech, and that of which you speak\n\nProclaim you as unique as messiah.\n\nYour brother walks by faith and not by sight.\n\nHe bid his earthly life farewell long ere\n\nYours did begin, and he no more laments.\n\nYou have no faith. You walk where you see not.\n\nYou never said your goodbyes to your world\n\nNor made your peace with those who yet draw breath.\n\nIn all my years, and I am older far\n\nThan my appearance makes me, I spoke not\n\nMy counsel to a single warlike shade,\n\nYet you came seeking answers. Yet you stare\n\nIn wonder at a child who calls you strange\n\nAnd think that she speaks portents?\n\nIndeed, we do need saving. We have not\n\nFor decades seen the stars. We do not dare\n\nSet foot outdoors at night, we who were once\n\nThe stuff of nightmares in the midnight groves.\n\nWe cower low by night in dread. Now day\n\nIs too become too dangerous to stir.\n\nIndeed, there is a thing I shall not name\n\nMore than to say it carries sulfur where\n\nIt steps or looks or breathes, but none of this\n\nIs prophecy, nor is it what you want.\n\nMay your last question meet with better luck.\"\n\nShane countered, \"What I want is answers! I\n\nBegin to see why Varr trusts not your kind.\"\n\nHe stopped, the final question halted just\n\nUpon his tongue, like a discarded bough\n\nBourne down on floods of snowmelt, and about\n\nTo pour over the raging cataract,\n\nBut caught between two rocks, so water flows\n\nAbove and under both, yet moves it not.\n\nFor though his soul of reason knew it not\n\nHis soul more animal had caught some scent\n\nThat set his instincts pricking up their ears.\n\nHe raised his eyes suspicious toward the trees\n\nAnd asked, \"Why are the fireflies here gone dark?\"\n\nIn answer came a hissing sizzle, like\n\nA mountain cat enraged, or the boiler\n\nOn locomotive engine long disused\n\nAnd disrepaired the instant ere it bursts.\n\nDown from a cleft where firelight did not reach\n\nA silhouette of rags and powdered grime\n\nDarted. Behind the boxer it touched ground,\n\nAnd with the wind of its descent, Shane felt\n\nA red-hot ripping rent across his back.\n\nThe Soot paused not, but toward the lady leapt\n\nWho had time but to cry alarm, before\n\nHer heart would have been carved out of her breast\n\nBut Shane, torpedolike, with both fists up\n\nFor battering ram tackled the dead thing. Down\n\nAmong the needles they both tumbled, this\n\nLeaving wet patches of dark ruby, that\n\nLeaving wet wisps of smoldering brown smoke.\n\nThe Soot rolled to its feet, Shane to a crouch.\n\nThey charged eachother like two mountain rams.\n\nShane growling, the Soot sizzling, but they crashed\n\nNot. The dark shape rag-wrapped rustily leaned back\n\nAnd skidded, dragging pitted swordtip in\n\nThe mouldy needles, like a plowshare. Shane\n\nToo late tried to sidestep. He could not gain\n\nFriction upon the slippery ground against\n\nHis own momentum. The blade raked both shins\n\nAnd sent him face-first sprawling to the dirt.\n\nBeneath the Soot's half-crumpled face there came\n\nA tinny modulation in the hiss\n\nThat might have been a laugh. It raised its sword\n\nEre Shane could clear his eyes and breath, and then\n\nThe lady flung the berries she had snatched\n\nOut of the nearest brittle bittersweet.\n\nThe struck the dented visor with a sound\n\nLike slow raindrops into an old tin pail.\n\nThe Soot cringed, frozen, like a rabbit caught\n\nBeneath onrushing lights brighter than day\n\nDown some back road, not nameless, but unnamed.\n\nIn the split second it stood paralyzed\n\nVarr flew, sword drawn and blazing, point, hand, arm,\n\nChest, legs, and feet parallel to the earth.\n\nHe stuck the Soot straight through its rotted face\n\nLike apple skewered on an arrow point.\n\nThen all was still. Varr shook his blade clean, Shane\n\nPulled himself from the bloodstained ground. \"Our foes,\"\n\nVarr growled, \"have gained in cleverness.\n\nWe must be sure, ere we rest for the night\n\nThat they are not waiting to greet us. Are\n\nYou well?\" he said to Shane. \"I will be soon\n\nEnough. Make sure, brother, we have no more\n\nCockroaches. I'll await you by your fire.\"\n\n\"Well won, warrior,\" the Lady said, as Varr\n\nClambered into the rocky stairs collapsed,\n\n\"If not for you, there would be much mourning.\n\nIf not for this brave weed, I would be slain.\"\n\nShe would thanked Shane further, but he rose,\n\nRefused all aid--he said he had had worse--\n\nAnd for goodnight said, \"You have told me much.\n\nIf I did not delight to swallow what\n\nYou gave to sate my curiosity,\n\nThat is my fault. You must have many cares\n\nThat crave attending. Let this simple ghost,\n\nA soldier shade like any other, rest\n\nAnd wrestle out his answers on his own.\"\n\nHe left her, and beside the embers crouched\n\nHis mind curled up in thought, as does a dog\n\nAround a bone it gnaws but cannot break.\n\nHe bound his wounds. He watched the smoke ascend.\n\nHe half-remembered a dark place, the smell\n\nOf drink gone stale, a woman scared and strong,\n\nA shape of menace half-seen in the gloom,\n\nAnother rescue under neon clouds.\n\n\"She told you much,\" Varr interrupted him,\n\n\"To make you so distracted? Have you now\n\nThe answers that you sought?\" Shane shook his head\n\nAnd looked across the fire to where Varr sat\n\nRegarding him impassively. \"I know\n\nNo more now than I did when we arose\n\nTo track the fiend that tracked these fickle folk.\n\nGo not to them for counsel. They will say\n\nBoth yes and no. If I would counsel have\n\nHenceforth, I shall get it from warrior folk\n\nLike you and I, or grin and do without.\"\n\nVarr smiled like one who hears a feeble joke\n\nTold in a tiny backwater of calm\n\nAmid a roaring cataract of war,\n\nAnd said, \"Why look you thus so pensive, then?\n\nHave you another question you asked not?\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Shane, \"and for your ears alone,\n\nFor you also have passed that breaking point\n\nThat breaks all else, and have not broken, but\n\nGrasp your sword all the tighter and fight on.\n\nDo you remember of your life before\n\nAnything? Can you recall to your mind\n\nWhat it is to draw breath and have a pulse?\n\nIs there a name or face that draws you up\n\nIn startlement at times gone long ago?\"\n\nVarr waited long enough to for the pine smoke\n\nTo curl around his face, lit from below,\n\nThen answered, \"I was born, I lived, I died.\n\nIt must have been in battle, or I would\n\nNot have come here, or so the Old Man said.\n\nThere were tall trees, and never-ceasing wind,\n\nAnd always the salt smell and sound of waves.\n\nI bid all that farewell the day I went\n\nTo battle, lest my fate should find me there\n\nAnd now it fades like letters in the clouds.\"\n\nShane sighed, \"I would say likewise, but there comes\n\nUpon me like a wound internal, pangs\n\nOf something I cannot remember quite.\n\nMy way of life I can recall, but not\n\nThe details most particular to me.\n\nI do remember streets, but not their names.\n\nI do recall houses, but not my own.\n\nThough I fought my whole life, I could not name\n\nA single foeman now. Yet there is some\n\nUnknown something almost within my mind.\n\nSomeone who held up my triumphal wreaths,\n\nWhispered to me that I was but a man,\n\nAnd that was more important. Someone who\n\nHad always ready for me beer and bread.\n\nSomeone who if I loved not, I should have.\n\nMy valkyrie, my saint of sudden death,\n\nMy hope that always called out from the crowd\n\nThat I would be triumphant yet, and now\n\nI cannot surely say I did not dream\n\nThe whole of it last night!\" The boxer cursed\n\nBeneath his breath, then said \"I will trust you.\n\nYou would do as would heroes. As you say\n\nSo will I do, upon my death I swear.\"\n\nVarr said, \"No need for oaths. The Old Man asked\n\nNot such of me. As he said, so say I.\n\nA champion you are, Shane. Let your deeds\n\nBe those of champions, and let the harp\n\nWho sings your glory afterward unwind\n\nThe maybe and the might have been. Fight on\n\nWith or without your past. It matters not.\n\nCover yourself with glory, Champion,\n\nTo fill the hole left by what you forgot.\"\n\nThey spoke no more that night. Yet just upon\n\nThe cusp twixt sleep and wakefulness, a thought\n\nFlitted across the space behind Shane's eyes\n\nTangled with pain of wounds and scent of trees:\n\n\"What good is glory if she does not see?\"\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1716344-ragnarok-ix.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1717131-ragnarok-xi.json"}}