It grinned. It ripped a fist of mangling claws

Down like a meteor. It gouged the stairs,

Where Varr and the Old Man had stood away

As could a spoon through cold whipped butter-cream,

But they had ducked, had rolled under its palm

As it passed just above, just near enough,

To raise a hand and touch, and lose it, scorched.

They raised instead a black sword, an oak spear

And scored the molten wrist. The Old Man rolled

One way, Varr rolled the other. From the cliff

The stairs had been crushed to they skittered down.

The Sulfur Carrier upturned its arm,

Regarded for a moment the thin well

Of liquid brimstone boiling into smog

That fizzed along the cut. And then it grinned.

It shot an arm out, like orangutans

Would snatch to swat a beetle, but the spear

Was thrust against its palm, and the Old Man

Was pushed back deep into a crevice where

The claws were too gigantic to reach him.

Varr squinted at the scorch, and with both hands

Hewed at its ankles, but it heeded not.

It grinned. It with a sickle-like finger

Fished in the crack. The point of the oak spear

Deflected off the questing claw as if

It had struck at obsidian. Varr drove

The black sword in as deep as it would go

Into the ankle, shrugging off the burst

Of sulfur gushing forth around the tang,

Clambered and kicked his way onto its foot,

He yanked until the sword ground free, then like

A lumberjack against an ancient pine

So thick that if it were hollow, he could

With ease make in the stock a home, he hewed

Steadily, rhythmically, tirelessly

To hack the noisome foot off of the leg.

The Sulfur Carrier was only bent

Upon the crack where the Old Man was pinned.

It grinned, and slashed across the crevice walls.

As down around his ears the pebbles rained

The Old Man shook his oaken spear, and laughed,

“You cannot triumph, dark corrupting flame!

All Valhalla has stood against you! None,

Nay, none can triumph against Valhalla:

No matter how many, or few, or one,

We stand, and if we stand yet you are doomed!

For all Valhalla stands against you still!"

The Sulfur Carrier only grinned the more

And in the molten bubbling faintly Varr

Could hear thick mocking laughter, rising with

The acrid smoke that smothered up the stars.

So somewhere there was darkness. Somewhere else-

-The darkness greyed, and faded into light

Of some slow-soaring dawn, before the sun

Climbs through the mountains. Here were no mountains

But higher peaks of dormant thunderheads.

Here were no hills, only cumulus bluffs.

And here the valley of the sunless dawn

Was walled with towering wreaths of cloud, and floored

With fathoms of clear air. No earth beneath

Was to be glimpsed even from eagle's wings,

Only eternal depths of weightless sky.

The air was cold, and smelt of frozen dew.

The cloud leviathans were edged with gold.

All was stillness, and changeless light, and peace.

Then from the cloudface burst a running man

Like diver from a cliff, like firefighter

The windowpane kicked in. He plummeted

Between the cloud cliff faces. Frosty air

Buffeted at his face, roared round his ears,

And plastered back with dew his short red hair

As though it were a rushing cataract

That he stood underneath. Although he fell

No 'down' could he discern. The clouds were all

The lonely feature in that trembling sky.

He could have thought himself in outer space,

But Shane spared not a moment to think but

To will himself faster, harder, further

In the direction that the bittersweet

Clamped in his jaws pulled him: darkward, and down.

Though the sun was invisible, the clouds

Around him billowed, dazzlingly white

Almost too bright to look at. Underneath

The shadows were deep blue, and soft, and cool.

Though he glanced at them not, beneath the rolls

Of twisting cloud, reforming, remelting,

Loomed huge shapes motionless. As when a car

Is rushing down the highway with the wind,

And speed and unfamiliarity

So bleed all the surroundings to a blur

That all outside the windows—other cars,

Roads, houses, signs, the swoop of power lines,

Forests and fields and flow of flashing sea—

Is unintelligible, suddenly

There flashes past some landmark, some place known

Of old, and like a cipher-key the sense

Of place returns, and now the world comes clear

By being left behind as you come home,

So through a rift Shane might have seen a brow,

Or through the next, two eyes sealed as in sleep,

Or through the next, a mouth expressionless.

But not until he turned shoulder to stretch

His neck, did Shane see suddenly the face

Within the clouds, enormous and serene

Sculpted from cloudstuff as if from marble.

And at that moment, cold arose the wind

From under Shane's bare chest, so that he slowed

As would a paper plane before it fell.

It scooped up and it scattered off the clouds.

The cloudmass caught him like a wave, and washed

The sky away in morning-scented grey

That whitened suddenly to honeyed cream,

Before it broke, and then the sun burst through.

As even and as straight as pillars stood

Statues gigantic formed of cloud, more than

A thousand upon either hand, as if

To buttress the long aisle of morning air

Between cloud walls. The young sun shone on them

But their eyes did not stir. Their faces were

Serene and silent, and their eyes were sealed,

Their bodies at attention, like a guard

Of honor at a wedding or funeral.

Shane turned to look, as he began to pass

Between the solemn rows, tumbling in his

Free-fall. Cold wind and warm sun slid across

His skin like night and day. He remembered—

Grim satisfaction was it that he could—

Seeing just such a look as they all wore

Upon the still, settled face at a wake.

Still awestruck at their size—his whole height would

Be just enough to span a fingernail—

Shane heard a voice that said "You were not taught

To read the wind. Listen to it instead.

And when you hear, do not question, but go."

Another voice echoed bodilessly,

"We are your brothers, Champion, who fell

Our victory incomplete, our glory paused.

It falls to you to triumph for us while

One less death you have died." Another said

"For there are deeper deaths than this to die

And higher valhalas to win onto.

And in these clouds is room yet for one more

Champion. Do not come to it too soon."

A higher voice rang out "If you defeat

The Sulfur Carrier, we shall begone,

Our honor full avenged, to higher worlds

With harsher fights to win, trebled glory."

A somber voice replied "If you should fall

Then with us shall you wait through eons long

Until the Sulfur Carrier's unchecked hate,

Consuming world by world, leads it to this.

Then, one among us, you face it again

To avenge your own death and all the worlds."

Shane drifted like a leaf on a slow font.

He slowly turned onto his back to see

The cloud heads motionless above him with

The gold sun splintering round their silver heads.

He tried to speak, but dared not move his mouth

For fear the bittersweet would fall. "No need,"

Another voice echoed, "We know what you

Would ask. You are a warrior, as we were.

You think as we would think, ask as would we.

What one of us would not ask, in your place?

What one of us does not yearn to be in

Your place, though pain and fire you must pass through!"

A grim voice echoed, "Champion, beware!

For by this time the foe will have wrapped round

The world you strive to reach and to defend

With its all-caustic soul. Though you came through

Before opposed by only one small spell,

Now must you push through the innermost depths

Of the Sulfur Carrier and its hate."

"You must break through the heart of what it is.

And that is nothing. Know that above all."

"Remember all that you have seen, from the

First moment your eyes opened on the leaves

Settling toward you on the autumn air."

"Do not go in with strategies. Trust to

The moment to provide. What it provides,

Take it with thanks, and do with all your might."

Shane felt the wind behind his back freshen

Grow more insistent, and ahead he glimpsed

A darkness deeper than mere cloud's shadow,

Rather a place where light did not venture.

A hole of darker blackness in the black

Of outer space. And felt it grin at him.

"Before you go to seize your destiny,"

Said a low voice. The sun vanished behind

A bank of higher cloud. The light grew dim,

And all the cloud statues grew grey and stern.

Far underneath the voices Shane could hear

A distant roll of beckoning thunder,

And felt an invisible spray of rain.

"Take you a message, from one honored dead

To one I stood with, who is not yet here."

Shane looked up, and he saw built out of clouds

A man holding a mighty spear, "I was

Guz the Leveler, brother in arms to

Thy blood-brother, Varr Last-to-Flee. Well did

Whatever elder baptized him foresee.

Behold, we all are left the battlefield,

And he alone remains. Tell him that it

Was not by fault of his that we were slain."

"Tell him," another said, higher and harsh.

Shane turned to see a man with broken swords

And bare feet, outlined in a distant flash

Of nearing lightning. "That we count ourselves

Avenged in full. He has no debt to us.

And say if Luke the Barefoot yet could fight

Varr would not fight alone. Go in my place,

And spit for me at that sulfur bastard."

“Go tell my father," said a voice that rose

Within the rising wind, and Shane beheld

A young man in a cloak, “That I give you

All freedoms and inheritance that were

Promised to me, his only son. I have

No need of them, and if they add the least

Strength to your arms, or swiftness to your legs

Then you have need of them. Go with

The blessing of my people upon you."

“A blessing that you need, Shane Champion,"

A voice familiar echoed. Thunder growled

And chill was the thin rain that swirled down toward

The nearing dark below. And on his right

Hand stood the form of Klau, his face serene

As never had it been in life. “I left,"

His voice said, and the far-off thunder groaned,

“My sword with Varr. The prophecy must not

Be made a lie. My sword must strike the blow

That slays the Sulfur Carrier, saves our land,

And slakes my thirst for vengeance. Hurry, Shane.

Come not too late. And if you come too late

Take up the sword, and strike the heaviest blow

That ever you have struck. Remember me

As you strike, and I count myself avenged."

If there was more, Shane did not hear it. A

Great shaft of lightning clove the sky not three

Paces before his face. The thunder roared.

And blind and deaf for a few heartbeats Shane

Felt gravity return. No longer he

Was flying forward, but now falling down

Into the waiting darkness. Once he blinked

Over his shoulder, but the clouds were rent

And tattered scattered over the white forms

Of fallen warriors watching in the sky.

Nothing there was behind him but the storm

That pushed behind him, like a stallion drunk

On trumpets lifts the lancer toward the red

And roiling smell of battle. Shane gritted

The tiny twig, wooden and faintly sour,

And slick with sap upon his tongue. His fists

Clenched in his gloves as he pulled his arms close

And dove into the nothingness below.