{"sf1_id":1720943,"sf2_id":"5nzOq61G","title":"Ragnarok - XXII","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":1479,"posted_at":"2021-05-22T16:29:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1720943-ragnarok-xxii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/5nzOq61G","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/bf/b9/bfb9f725-d99f-4a89-9137-1ec92e5e2d49","description":"#23 of Ragnarok\n\nShane returns to find the Old Man conferring with the leaders of the Witchfolk.\nThe poem deliberately walks the line of ambiguity about whether this is actually Nordic mythology or just something imitating it. On the one hand, this is the most unambiguous claim that someone IS a nordic mythological figure. On the other, that claim comes in the context of, apparently, a spell to force that person to act as if they were that mythological figure.\nIt's important, though, that when the Old Man gets hit with a True Naming, that there are nine of them.","content":"Shane found the Old Man waiting underneath\n\nA spreading and a skeletal ash tree.\n\nAnd he was not alone. Beside him stood\n\nThe Lady, with her ineffable smile,\n\nThe Old Woman, frowning upon her cane,\n\nThe Witchfolk King, rolling brown oak leaf shreds\n\nInto a cigarette paper. The Old Man raised\n\nHis head and gravely said, \"Now do I see\n\nThe fullness that I saw in you but half\n\nBefore, and thought the half the whole\n\nAnd doubted if the half was worth the whole\n\nNot knowing what I saw. I think you know,\"\n\nHe smiled, \"The Witchfolk King, the Three Ladies?\n\nThough where the third is-\" \"Boxer, but a word,\"\n\nThe Lady interrupted. There was but\n\nA single moment's weakness in her eyes\n\nThat gave the lie to her sphinx smile. \"Do you\n\nKnow anything of my Granddaughter's fate?\n\nShe should have come with us, yet she did not,\n\nAnd clouded are mine eyes, I cannot see\n\nBeyond this world at all. If you know aught,\n\nThen tell, if she is safe and where she is.\"\n\nShane shook his head, ashamed. \"The Girl refused\n\nTo follow in your exodus, though we\n\nInsisted she was not safe, could not stay.\n\nShe said if she stood with us, we would win.\n\nBut when the-\" Shane looked his question to the\n\nOld Man, who nodded once, as if to say\n\n'Say on, that name deals no more danger now,'\n\n\"-But when the Sulfur Carrier appeared,\"\n\nShane continued, \"I carried her, perforce,\n\nIn your retreating footsteps. I bore her\n\nThrough gateway hid behind the world tree.\n\nBut when I came to on the other side\n\nI was alone. I know no more than you\n\nWhere your granddaughter is. I am sorry.\"\n\nAt that, the Lady's smile deserted her.\n\nA thousand naked possibilities,\n\nSome dreadful, some delightful, most which Shane\n\nCould not interpret before they were gone,\n\nFlashed through her countenance. She bowed her head,\n\nCrying \"I can foresee no more! Our hopes\n\nBelong to her! Where she is gone, there is\n\nOur future! Never will I know again\n\nIf we have a future!\" Yet when she raised\n\nHer eyes again, her lips again were curled\n\nInto a knowing smile. \"Be not concerned,\n\nBoxer. Our fate is nothing to you now,\n\nAnd you have wars more weighty far to win.\n\nTo us is given only to depart,\n\nDiminish, melt into the sunset clouds,\n\nForget and be forgotten utterly.\n\nForget us.\" She smiled, turned and walked away.\n\nShane never looked upon her smile again.\n\nThe Old Woman snorted, \"What, Falconi,\n\nDo you intend to do? What plans have you\n\nSufficient to topple-\" she caught herself\n\nAbout to say what she did not intend,\n\n\"-the Sulfur Carrier? You have at last,\n\nAgainst all odds and reason, made your peace\n\nAnd found your place. All very well. What now?\"\n\nShane did not look at her. He took his gloves\n\nFrom round his neck and picked the knot apart\n\nThat held the laces one to the other.\n\nAnd as he did he said, \"I do not know.\"\n\nAnd as he frowned he said, \"How should I know?\n\nWhat good are plans? What tactic now will serve\n\nWhen everything relies on you, and you\n\nHave nothing but yourself? What else is there\n\nBut to fling that small, scant, fragile yourself\n\nAgainst the darkness, caring naught for life\n\nNor naught for death, and make every blow count,\n\nAnd trust the gods to make good out of it.\n\nWhat now? Why, as I always planned to do,\n\nThe only plan that I have ever made,\n\nThe only thing that there is left to do:\n\nTo hit it until one of us is dead.\"\n\nShane pulled his laces taut, and tied them off\n\nWith his teeth. The Old Woman chewed her lip\n\nAnd did not meet his eyes. The Old Man swelled\n\nAs does a proud father on a proud son\n\nWho marries, or is receives an honored crown,\n\nOr is brought back from honorable death\n\nIn wars on foreign shores. But King Roam sneered\n\nAround his oaken cigarette, and snapped\n\nHis fingers at the tip, and conjured flame\n\nAs if he'd popped a firefly between\n\nHis finger and his thumb. With the first puff\n\nOf sweet astringent smoke, he began to\n\nTalk so fast that Shane almost could not hear,\n\n\"Oh yes, he is your Hunger and your Rage,\n\nAnd that is what's important, in the end,\n\nAnd that is what a real man is proud of,\n\nWhat matters Thought and Memory? At best\n\nThey only show you targets for your Rage\n\nAnd for your Hunger, meat. So now, surprise!\n\nWhen Thought and Memory you have ignored\u0026nbsp;\n\nAnd obstinately cloven to the course\n\nThey ever told you above all to shun,\n\nBehold, they have deserted you! Of course\n\nThe pugilist despises plans! Of course\n\nHe thinks that Hitting Things will work! Of course\n\nYou are proud of him for it! Very well!\n\nYou did not ask us if we wanted to\n\nBecome your Thought, and we did not entreat\n\nTo be your Memory. I do not care\n\nIf this thug asked to be Hunger or Rage:\n\nIt scarcely would surprise me if he had.\n\nYou made certain that we could not remain,\n\nAnd you are doomed without us. May you go\n\nDown spitting courage. That is what you want,\n\nOr else you make no sense at all.\" \"King Roam,\"\n\nThe Old Man slowly said, \"if you would come\n\nBack with us, you may yet win the glory\n\nYou crave and thus despise.\" The Witchfolk King\n\nSnickered and said \"No fear! I know a trick\n\nWorth two of that, to rescue me and mine,\n\nWhich is more than you have vouchsafed for yours.\n\nJust as the cunning lizard drops his tail\n\nAnd leaves the useless appendage squirming\n\nIn the dry dust to draw his predators\n\nAway while he escapes, if I could give\n\nThe Sulfur Carrier what it wanted\n\nAbove all, why should it come after me?\"\n\nThe early breeze beneath the ash boughs ceased\n\nAs King Roam whispered, \"I know your real names.\n\nBut you do not know mine.\" Then he flung down\n\nThe reeking cigarette stub from his mouth.\n\nIt burst in orange sparks upon the stones\n\nAs he cried ere he could be stopped or stayed,\n\n\"I name thee the Last Stander, Pitiable!\n\nI name thee Husband of the Carrion Fowl!\n\nI name thee Lost, and Loser, and Hopeless!\n\nI name thee twelfth arcana, the Hanged Man!\n\nI name thee Martyr, name thee Sacrifice!\n\nI name thee Roland, Sebastian, Hector!\n\nI name thee Mandos, Gleaner of the Dead!\n\nI name thee Gallows God and Glad of War!\n\nI name thee Odin! And I summon thee\n\nTo thy place, which is Ragnarok and Doom!\"\n\nThe Old Man had but time to look appalled,\n\nAnd then he vanished like a soap bubble\n\nBefore the Withfolk King's triumphant laugh.\n\n\"Now, Shane,\" King Roam began, but no further\n\nDid he get ere the Boxer's firm right fist\n\nConnected with a mighty crack. King Roam\n\nFell back against the tree trunk, unconscious.\n\nShane turned to the Old Woman. \"How do I\n\nGet back, as quickly as I can?\" he barked,\n\n\"I cannot be too soon, and must not be\n\nToo late! Speak!\" The Old Woman spared a scowl\n\nOf disgust for King Roam's prone, crumpled form,\n\nAnd said, \"Seek out an entrance, underground.\n\nA subway tunnel ought to work. When you\n\nCame outward from the worlds of the dead\n\nA green willow wand guided you. To go\n\nFrom hence, I think you will need this.\"\n\nShe drew out of her sleeve a tiny sprig\n\nOf bittersweet, the berries blood-crimson,\n\nThe petals brittle gold. \"I plucked this as\n\nWe left your world. I had a foreknowing\n\nIt would be needed, though I knew not how.\n\nBy this bittersweet fruit of your lost war\n\nCan you be guided back. Seek you a path\n\nThat takes you underground. The bittersweet\n\nWill do the rest. And Champion,\" she paused,\n\n\"Be careful. By this time that world will be\n\nBy Sulfur Carrier surrounded, like\n\nA slow constricting snake, or a man's fist\n\nAround a ripe fruit, squeezing at the juice.\n\nYou will not win through unopposed.\" Shane took\n\nThe sprig between his teeth, and clenched it fast,\n\nAs does a stallion with the bit. \"This is,\"\n\nThe Old Woman said, voice soft suddenly,\n\n\"The third and final time, Shane Champion,\n\nThat we shall meet. And I dread what that means.\"\n\nShane grinned and growled around the bittersweet,\n\n\"It means we will not need to meet again!\"\n\nThen he was off and running, as he ran\n\nOnce in another world through waving grass\n\nTo catch up with his foe. She watched him reach\n\nAnd plunge into a subway station's gate\n\nWhere she no more could see him. Soon the sun\n\nArose, and seemed to her to rise too late.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1720590-ragnarok-xxi.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1721265-ragnarok-xxiii.json"}}