{"sf1_id":1717131,"sf2_id":"rnapa9mb","title":"Ragnarok - XI","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":963,"posted_at":"2021-05-11T16:31:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1717131-ragnarok-xi","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/rnapa9mb","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/40/2a/402a1621-214e-4559-8901-6d7adf7a529d","description":"#12 of Ragnarok\n\nHaving heard that there may be a way for him to return to the world of the living, Shane has rejected it. Yet with some regret, for he cannot rid himself of the memories of his life, nor can he entirely recall them. But during Varr's watch, he begins to dream.\nI still feel like \"The Sulfur Carrier\" is a cool name, but in the years since coming up with it I've come to accept that I may be alone in that opinion.\nWhy yes, much of this poem is a reinterpretation of some elements of Norse mythology.","content":"Somewhere it was after midnight, when\n\nThe long hours of the morning stretch ahead\n\nSideways, so that they wider grow and can\n\nContain more night and not take up more time.\n\nSomewhere a boxer wandered in his dreams\n\nDown streets abandoned, over bridges high,\n\nAround cold cobbled courts whose names he knew\n\nBut could not summon up to say. He saw\n\nA door ajar. Within he found a ring:\n\nRopes foursquare, empty stadium, dark lights.\n\nNo sound but his footstep did echo there\n\nAs he approached, and clambered through the ropes,\n\nIn dusty silence and cold déjà-vu,\n\nSomewhere behind him, then, a voice called \"Shane,\"\n\nBut as he turned, there came a mighty blow\n\nFull in his face. He jackknifed back, and gasped,\n\nTo find himself stretched prone on pine needles.\n\nShane sat up slowly, panting, and he looked\n\nTo tell his dream to Varr who kept the watch.\n\nThe warrior was not there. The witchfolk were\n\nAll vanished. Here the ground looked undisturbed\n\nAs had the scarlet leaves where first he woke.\n\nThe boxer thought himself alone, as he\n\nArose, but then a firefly drifted past\n\nHis bleary eyes, toward the tumbled scree\n\nWhere he the Soot had faced. There, other lights\n\nLike bubbles on the surface of a stream\n\nAll hovered slowly toward a point behind\n\nThe screen of branches evergreen. Shane frowned,\n\nSuspicious, but he swiftly followed where\n\nThe line of insect light did point him, up\n\nThe broken talus stairway. Though he saw\n\nNo surer footing and no firmer hold\n\nWhere he pushed upward than lay to the side\n\nScarce inches either way, yet on the path\n\nThe fireflies marked for him the stones moved not\n\nAnd what he would have thought unscalable\n\nHe scaled. Shane pushed his way through trailing boughs\n\nThat itched his naked chest, and filled his nose\n\nWith heady scents of sap and Christmas. There\n\nUpon a horn of rock upthrust like wave\n\nMade stone immutable there stood a man\n\nHooded and cowled and cloaked, who fixed his face\n\nToward the basin of the plains below\n\nIgnoring the fireflies that circled him.\n\n\"You proved your worth in battle thrice today,\"\n\nHe said. Shane knew the voice, though he had heard\n\nIt only once, and not with waking ears,\n\n\"You were unstoppable in victory.\n\nYou were tight taciturn against half-truths.\n\nYou were indomitable past defeat,\n\nAnd your first scars of this eternal war\n\nYou shall with honor wear. Now all my ranks\n\nAre filled. Now all my phalanxes are full.\n\nNow just in time my forces have a head,\n\nCaptain, superhero, and Champion.\n\nYou are the last who will beach on this shore\n\nFrom waters deep darksome of mortal death\n\nTo taste immortal soldiery. No more\n\nWill eyes blink clear the clamor of the field\n\nTo glimpse my autumn woods. No more will hearts\n\nStopped rollercoaster like from rage and joy\n\nLearn beating in my lands a second time.\n\nNo more souls will come here, for if they did\n\nThey would find they had come too late.\" He turned.\n\nHe fixed Shane with his single eye. \"So you\n\nAbove all others must not hesitate.\n\nForget the doubts that plague you. Bid goodbye\n\nYour longing, your regret for those you left\n\nBehind with mortal things in mortal lands.\n\nI am no prophet. I know not your fate,\n\nBut well I know the fate of me and mine\n\nIs in your hands. I do not ask you win:\n\nIt may be fate that both of us fall here.\n\nI only ask that when you strike, strike hard\n\nAs does befit a man and hero, for\n\nOnly if you are both will we survive.\"\n\nThe old man turned again, and raised his hand,\n\nPointing like dowsing rod, down into the\n\nInvisible night plain. \"Behold your foe.\n\nBehold the rotting-worm in oak tree's heart.\n\nBehold the sinkhole at the cornerstone.\n\nBehold the smoldering, swiftly smoking spark\n\nSet underneath the forest eaves to swell\n\nAnd sizzle till the hills are crowned with flame\n\nAnd all that lived is ashes in the mud.\n\nI know its name, but let it never be\n\nThat he who knows this name should give it tongue.\n\nIf I did speak it now, it would be here\n\nAnd our tale would be ended. Call it by\n\nIts actions, call it Sulfur Carrier.\n\nBehold, Champion, that which you must slay.\"\n\nWhere the Old Man now pointed, like the prints\n\nFrom copper etched by acid, stone, or steel,\n\nDepicting ancient patriarchs, there grew\n\nA point upon the distant prairie, like\n\nA watchfire or a beacon. Then it spread\n\nLike flames across the surface of spilt oil\n\nFirst in a shape like sharkmouth, jagged, cruel,\n\nAnd grinning like a slash-carved pumpkin ghost,\n\nThen into the rough outline of a man:\n\nLike those flat giants who in chalk downs sleep,\n\nBut hulking, simian, and nigh-awake.\n\nThe smoke of it surrounded them. Shane gagged\n\nOn stench of rotted eggs and gasoline.\n\nIt wrapped around him, like a fist, to pin\n\nHis arms against his sides. He could not see,\n\nHe could not smell, and all that he could feel\n\nWas something in the fire groping for him\n\nTo smash his neck backward and break his spine,\n\nTo crush his brains against his skull, and rake\n\nHis slowly dying body over coals.\n\nBut ere he either broke or hit back, on\n\nHis shoulder came a touch. The Old Man's voice\n\nSaid \"Shane the Champion, forget this not,\"\n\nAnd then he was awaking. It was morn.\n\nHe lay again upon pine needle drifts.\n\nAcross the embers, Varr lay sleeping, tired\n\nFrom his share of the watch, and by Shane's head\n\nThe girl who had spoken to him, her hand\n\nUpon his shoulder, saying, \"Boxer, rise!\n\nThe sun is up, our way before us lies.\"\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1716817-ragnarok-x.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1717631-ragnarok-xii.json"}}