{"sf1_id":1719157,"sf2_id":"GnDb6Ker","title":"Ragnarok - XVII","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":1694,"posted_at":"2021-05-17T16:15:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1719157-ragnarok-xvii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/GnDb6Ker","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/99/f9/99f9ee42-72bd-4dd4-89b0-3f3cccc8ace7","description":"#18 of Ragnarok\n\nAs the Sulfur Carrier's final assault begins, Shane and Varr try to get the Young Girl to safety.\nIf I'm remembering right, this was where progress on the poem stalled for a long time while I was at Grad School.","content":"Said Varr, voice hollow like a man bereaved\n\nAnd echoing around the council hall,\n\n\"Never before have I turned tail. What has\n\nBecome of Last to Flee? If such as I,\n\nBy death made undying, by corruption\n\nMade incorruptible in who we are,\n\nAlready have abandoned our real names,\n\nAlready are mere shadows of ourselves,\n\nAlready we have lost.\" \"We have not lost,\"\n\nShane said, \"Nor have we fled. When she is safe\n\nThen shall be time, I swear, to put past doubt\n\nWho we are.\" Said the girl, \"there is no need\n\nTo wait, and no time better than the now\n\nFor provings. I am safe enough. No Soot\n\nShall breach this door. Go, Warriors!\" as she slid\n\nFrom Varr's back to the floor. But when her foot\n\nBut touched the stony floor, she cried aloud\n\nIn pain. Her leg refused to bear even\n\nHer sylphy weight. She toppled to the floor,\n\nWhimpering curses in some crimson tongue\n\nAnd clutching at her shin. A splash of blood\n\nAs red as holly fruit grew on the floor\n\nTo match the splash, like careless paint, left on\n\nVarr's hauberk. As he rushed to bind the wound\n\nUnnoticed, inflicted by nameless sword\n\nAstray, Varr chided, \"That is how safe you\n\nMay hope to be while yet this battle lasts!\n\nAt least you cannot stray back into harm\n\nUpon this leg.\" Shane hoisted her onto\n\nHis shoulder, \"The portal should not be far,\"\n\nHe said, \"so I shall bear you thither. Come.\n\nNo gainsaying or pleading will I hear.\n\nWe swore to spend our lives, or what you will,\n\nTo save this world. And that means saving you.\"\n\nBeyond the archway all was black. The sole\n\nHint of their whereabouts that it would give\n\nWas echoes of their footsteps, labored breath,\n\nAnd low rhythm of heart and weapon's clank.\n\nImagination of yet-mortal man\n\nMight easily have fabricated ghouls\n\nAlways just out of reach, or enemies\n\nAround the coming bend, invisible\n\nUntil one stood amid their silent throng,\n\nOr fancied that the sound returning of\n\nHis footstep masked the hiss and shuffling march\n\nOf the triumphant Soot coming behind\n\nAnd gaining gainst all reason. But no fears\n\nOf phantom form assailed the stalwart dead.\n\nThe boxer and the warrior forged ahead\n\nBy baseless fears untroubled. If the girl\n\nHad any fear of darkness, she spoke not.\n\nThey had, indeed, more than enough to fear\n\nThat was no craftsmanship of craven mind.\n\nWith no idea of how high they'd climbed\n\nBeneath the mountain's slope, Shane squinted. \"I\n\nCan see a light ahead, if it be light\n\nAnd not phantasm of my starving eyes.\"\n\n\"I see it too,\" said Varr. \"Do you know aught\n\nOf this passage?\" he asked the girl upon\n\nThe boxer's shoulders. \"Please, disturb her not,\"\n\nShane said, \"I fear her pain is more than she\n\nWill own-\" \"Your brother,\" she interrupted\n\nWith ragged gasp, \"Speaks wisdom, Champion,\n\nSo chide him not. I know this passage well.\n\nBy it my people first came to this world,\"\n\nShe paused to dig her fingers, like a vise,\n\nInto Shane's bare shoulder, as one would bite,\n\nA leather strap in ancient surgery,\n\n\"In ages past,\" she finished. \"I have been\n\nThis way before. Let lights give you no pause.\n\nIt is only whatever sky is left.\"\n\nThen as they reached the light, they saw the cave,\n\nOr tunnel, was tunnel or cave no more:\n\nFirst holes and cracks, and the whole ceiling\n\nWas fallen in, years, ages, eons hence,\n\nTo form a narrow cleft between rock walls\n\nToo high to glimpse the top. The starlight came\n\nDown on them like the rays dyed every hue\n\nBy high cathedral glass. So on they went,\n\nThe little light not much, only enough\n\nFor ghosts, who can make do with little light.\n\nThey heard the battle not. They knew no hint\n\nIf any of their brethren lived or fought.\n\nThe war, the Soot, the Sulfur Carrier,\n\nEach might as well have been ages away,\n\nA footnote only in some dusty tome\n\nOf no significance next to the weight\n\nAnd permanence of these unfeeling crags\n\nInvincible to any force of time.\n\nYet something, if not time, then before time,\n\nHad carved them, and more carefully than time\n\nHas oft been known to do, for now they came\n\nAs suddenly as starts a man surprised\n\nOut of a daydream by the stoplight's change,\n\nInto a grotto not by nature made.\n\nThe base of it was wide, and yet so high\n\nDid the coarse granite walls above it rise\n\nThat it seemed narrower than does the point\n\nOf a needle. But these walls were not rough\n\nWith nature's stonecutting, rather they had\n\nBeen chipped and chiseled to the very top\n\nInto uneven straightness, so the sky\n\nLooked down this narrow chimney, and its light\n\nHad no corners to round. The floor was clothed\n\nWith scraps of wintry moss. An avenue\n\nOf stunted, leafless shrubs led toward a grove-\n\nBoth obviously placed here by design-\n\nAround a single tree. Its roots were gnarled\n\nFrom long grasping at jagged, hairline cracks.\n\nIts trunk was wide, and sinewy like rope.\n\nIts bark was smooth with the same silky sheen\n\nAs melting chocolate. Its branches spread\n\nFrom wall to wall, more like to twigs than limbs,\n\nLike net, spread out to grasp the smallest fish,\n\nLike a mosquito cloth to stop all gaps,\n\nLike a tent canopy, to catch the least\n\nAnd weakest sunbeam that might glance down here.\n\nThough they seemed brittle, they bore yellow leaves\n\nDrooping like paper in a gout of steam,\n\nAnd yet a few green apples. Varr approached\n\nLike one who wishes not to start some wild\n\nAnd skittish beast. \"My father said,\" he said,\n\nAbove a rock pool twixt the twisted roots,\n\n\"There was a tree that was the world. I knew\n\nNot what he meant, but now I think I see.\n\nHow did my people know this tree grew here?\n\nAnd how did they mistake? Our tales said that\n\nIt was an ash, and not an apple tree.\"\n\nShane frowned, Varr's awe opaque to him, and asked,\n\n\"If once the Soot reach it, then what?\" The girl\n\nLooked his reflection in the eye, and said,\n\n\"As ever happens to what the Soot touch,\n\nAnd then all is darkness. This is indeed\n\nThe tree that is the life of all the world.\n\nMind not its species. It may be an ash,\n\nOr flowering cherry perfuming the wind,\n\nOr honey-linden loving the pure sun,\n\nOr apple bearing life and wisdom both,\n\nSlow fir with frosty baubles glistening,\n\nArbutus, anchor to the flood-filled ark,\n\nFor any tree, when it is all you have,\n\nIs the World Tree. The live day is its stock,\n\nIts roots, deeper than earth, fastened on hell,\n\nHas thunderheads among its leaves, and stars\n\nBetween its topmost twigs.\" \"We have no time,\"\n\nThe boxer growled, \"for philosophic trees!\n\nThe sooner you are safe, the sooner we\n\nYour World Tree may defend! Where leads the path?\"\n\nShe looked at him and answered not, leaning\n\nHer wounded weight against the apple trunk\n\nAnd scowling stubbornly. Without a word,\n\nShane plucked a pliant sucker shoot, and held\n\nIt up before her face. They traded stares,\n\nTill finally she sighed and breathed on it\n\nSome words he did not catch. He cast it down\n\nUpon the pool, where it turned a moment,\n\nThen pointed. Shane scooped up the girl again.\n\nAnd Varr already strode along the line\n\nThe branch had cast. He pushed aside the scrub\n\nAnd tangle of the leafless brush, and there\n\nThey saw an arch of fieldstone, rough mortared,\n\nAnd old beyond guessing. They took but one\n\nStep toward it, then no more. Faintness and cold\n\nAnd suffocation washed over them both,\n\nFor on the keystone there was hung a scrap\n\nWith sigils in the Lady's hand. The way\n\nWas barred to any who had died. Varr's head\n\nSwam as he stumbled, as he thought he saw\n\nA pyre upon an ocean cliff, above\n\nA sea the color of the sunset clouds\n\nThat hovered close above, and smelled sweet smoke\n\nAround him curling slowly. Shane fell to\n\nHis knees, thinking in slow-motion that the\n\nMoss-covered rocks looked very like a mat,\n\nThe scrawny bushes very like the ropes,\n\nAnd wondering where the crowd, upon their feet\n\nAnd shouting in a frenzy of outrage\n\nHad come from suddenly. He could not breathe.\n\nHis head and chest felt weightless, and the ring\n\nOr grotto, for he know not which it was,\n\nWas ringing with the breathy harmony\n\nThat sounds within a shell held to the ear.\n\nHis dizzy eyes rolled will-less cross the crowd\n\nBut then they met the eyes of one who stood\n\nIn the front row, slack-jawed in disbelief,\n\nHands fastened to the ropes, her blue eyes filled\n\nWith heartbreak cutting closer than mere shock\n\nOf spectators, with sharp reflexive fear,\n\nWith disregarded prophecies of woe\n\nNow all fulfilled. She seemed just close enough\n\nTo touch, and suddenly Shane's head was clear,\n\nHis muscles ready, and his mouth forming\n\nA word he knew the meaning of only\n\nAfter he heard his own voice pronounce it,\n\nThe name \"Barbara.\" Somewhere the boxer\n\nFound himself staring through a stony arch\n\nAs if at someone just inside. Before\n\nHis will could tell his legs to stand, he stood.\n\nBefore his mind could order the advance,\n\nHe staggered forward, like a man against\n\nA powerful current. Before his thoughts\n\nCould write the words and pass them to his tongue,\n\nHe was shouting, \"Go back and use your sword!\n\nI only may this threshold cross! Go to\n\nThe victory! I won't be far behind!\"\n\nVarr sputtered, unable to draw near, \"Wait!\n\nBrother in Blood, what if you come not back?\"\n\n\"I will come back!\" roared Shane the Champion,\n\nAs he forced one toe past the archway. Black\n\nWas the tunnel beyond. The Lady's spell\n\nSnapped like steel cord, and the Champion\n\nAnd girl he carried, both were vanished. In\n\nThe pool beside him the green twig quivered,\n\nThen sank beneath the clear, clean water. Varr\n\nThe Last-to-Flee was left alone beneath\n\nThe ragged branches of the World Tree.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1718783-ragnarok-xvi.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1719495-ragnarok-xviii.json"}}