Like a gazebo in an empty park—

Where silent is the playground, where the paths

No longer feel the tread of shoes or hear

The jangle of the collar and the leash,

Where wild and weedy tend the lawns, and trees

Grow forestlike and rough—where once a band

Might play upon a summer evening calm.

That music, drifting low like heavy fog,

Should permeate the lines of lazy homes

With false but sweet nostalgia. But no more:

The band now long gone, stands their empty shell

Amid the dust and crabgrass, made to seem

Than itself larger by echoes and soft

Regret that what was never had is lost,

So seemed the space too spacious. For a roof

The needles, boughs for vaulting, and pillars

The three wide trunks of titan trees; all seemed

As if indoors the witchfolk sat, and yet

The rustling of the wind, the smell of night,

And flash of fireflies among the boughs

Told touch and balance that outside they lay

To cast their bedrolls, rummage in their packs,

And kindle tiny cookfires from the cones.

Where chinks of sky showed through the pine screen, grass

Now gold and brittle, had put up pale arms

In silent, somnolent alleluia

To catch and drink whatever sun slipped through.

Amid each tuft there sprawled a trailing shrub

Whose branches splayed this way and that, as if

It once had been a vine, and groped around

For pole or trunk but, finding none, resolved

To do without and stiffened all its stalks

To pale dun wood. They bore few yellow leaves,

But multitude of scarlet berries, crowned

By golden sepal, like the halos set

Behind the faces of Byzantine saints.

Amid the scene the lady moved, her hands

And voice busied with comfort and with help.

Shane patiently observed her, till she raised

Her marble chin and said, “If you would speak,

Good warrior, come. No ceremony here,

Alas, but you are master of plain speech,

And this is the plain-speaker's place and hour."

“Lady," said Shane, “I come not with plain speech

But with plain questions, in the hope that you

Empowered are to fit an answer plain

Onto the tail of each. I am no sage.

I am not mystagogue, nor alchemist.

I am no quantum physicist. I am

A boxer. I know simple things, and I

Can stomach all but mystery. If you

Know something that can peel away the fog

From off my mind, great gratitude is yours."

The Lady signed that Shane should walk with her.

Back they went, among smaller stones, fallen

Into rough simulacra of a maze

On the cathedral floor. The Lady looked

Not at the boxer, but upon the ground

As if she read there secrets that pleased not.

First Shane asked, “What are you, and what your folk?"

The lady looked at him as if she saw

Over his shoulder monuments to years

Long passed, and places long forgotten, now

Abandoned to time's slow demolition.

“My people have been exiles for too long.

We have no places hallowed by our step.

We have no strongholds, as we used, nor paths

Where we would walk unseen but not unfelt,"

The lady answered, “Once we did, upon

A hundred hundred shores, wreak wonders wild.

Now we are hunted up, like autumn birds,

Out of the land we fled to, poor and sad.

We knew the virtues of all hedgerow weeds;

Mistletoe, for the peace that comes from strength,

Sweet Amaranth, to hold off time and chance,

Holly, to undo all malicious charms,

And Bittersweet, that you see round your feet:

There is no fitter symbol for your kind

Than this, that blooms when all about is dead,

That sad and glorious fruit does bear, before

The cold of winter seizes it. And this

Is of the knowledge given to my folk.

Our power, you have seen the thinnest edge,

Is birth and life and death and birth again:

The hollow underneath the toppled pine,

The whirlwind glimpsed in how it whirls dead leaves,

The sharp percussion of the cracking ice

And strings of running water. We were in

The dewdrops on the rocky fields, that catch

The images of infant grass, and depths

Of forests where the canopy above

Has grown so thick it soaks up all the sun

Spongelike that what few drops do trickle down

Are colored with the taste and sound of leaves.

We once had many names, now have we none.

Call us the Witchfolk, call me Lady, let

That serve. For more than that is past recall.

All those you saved this morning are my kin,

And family are we to all our folk:

Our power flows from cousin to cousin

As does the wind from cloud to cloud enwrap.

What my granddaughter spins, I weave,

And my grandmother cuts. Thus is our kind.

I think we may be kin, at furlong's length

To that Old Man you serve and have not seen.

Yet your brother-in arms," she smiled at Varr,

Who round the rockface went in close patrol,

“He trusts us not. And he is wise indeed.

We once delighted in malicious pranks,

In what were no jest to the hapless knaves

We caught in webs, befuddled with marsh-mist,

Pinned fast in cloven trees, and how much more.

We are not trusty folk, I fear. We keep

The letter of our word, to break the soul.

Yet do not fear, Champion. We are deep,

Too deep in dire extremity for play."

“Your wizardry," asked Shane, “is in your blood?

Do all your folk partake of it by birth?

For she who termed you grandmother said much

That touches me I do not know how near,

And I would know both what she meant, and what

Of truth the meaning she meant had. She said

That one like me was long foretold. She said

That I would save somebody from sulfur,

Whatever that might mean. And last she said

That I could journey backward into death

And out the other side. Can you unwind

This soothsaying, if soothsaying it be?"

“You ask a fearful thing," the Lady said,

“Though to you fear means next to nothing, I

Have not such rigid bonds upon my heart.

Take care, lest you find too much prophecy

From every side envelops you too tight

To move, so you lie mummified until

The future that has frozen you into

A pale predestined puppet. Be thus glad

Of this: you heard not foretelling, nor glimpse

Oracular of chronicles unpenned.

It is the folklore every child is told.

It is the tale we grip to fuel our hopes.

It is the closest thing my people have

To covenant. Any small child could tell

As much to any warrior, and what

Would that mean unto either one? As for

The meat of what she said, what did she say

That one might not discern from but a look?

You are unlike your fellow soldier ghosts,

And anyone may see as much: your clothes,

Your way of fighting, your weaponlessness,

Your trick of speech, and that of which you speak

Proclaim you as unique as messiah.

Your brother walks by faith and not by sight.

He bid his earthly life farewell long ere

Yours did begin, and he no more laments.

You have no faith. You walk where you see not.

You never said your goodbyes to your world

Nor made your peace with those who yet draw breath.

In all my years, and I am older far

Than my appearance makes me, I spoke not

My counsel to a single warlike shade,

Yet you came seeking answers. Yet you stare

In wonder at a child who calls you strange

And think that she speaks portents?

Indeed, we do need saving. We have not

For decades seen the stars. We do not dare

Set foot outdoors at night, we who were once

The stuff of nightmares in the midnight groves.

We cower low by night in dread. Now day

Is too become too dangerous to stir.

Indeed, there is a thing I shall not name

More than to say it carries sulfur where

It steps or looks or breathes, but none of this

Is prophecy, nor is it what you want.

May your last question meet with better luck."

Shane countered, “What I want is answers! I

Begin to see why Varr trusts not your kind."

He stopped, the final question halted just

Upon his tongue, like a discarded bough

Bourne down on floods of snowmelt, and about

To pour over the raging cataract,

But caught between two rocks, so water flows

Above and under both, yet moves it not.

For though his soul of reason knew it not

His soul more animal had caught some scent

That set his instincts pricking up their ears.

He raised his eyes suspicious toward the trees

And asked, “Why are the fireflies here gone dark?"

In answer came a hissing sizzle, like

A mountain cat enraged, or the boiler

On locomotive engine long disused

And disrepaired the instant ere it bursts.

Down from a cleft where firelight did not reach

A silhouette of rags and powdered grime

Darted. Behind the boxer it touched ground,

And with the wind of its descent, Shane felt

A red-hot ripping rent across his back.

The Soot paused not, but toward the lady leapt

Who had time but to cry alarm, before

Her heart would have been carved out of her breast

But Shane, torpedolike, with both fists up

For battering ram tackled the dead thing. Down

Among the needles they both tumbled, this

Leaving wet patches of dark ruby, that

Leaving wet wisps of smoldering brown smoke.

The Soot rolled to its feet, Shane to a crouch.

They charged eachother like two mountain rams.

Shane growling, the Soot sizzling, but they crashed

Not. The dark shape rag-wrapped rustily leaned back

And skidded, dragging pitted swordtip in

The mouldy needles, like a plowshare. Shane

Too late tried to sidestep. He could not gain

Friction upon the slippery ground against

His own momentum. The blade raked both shins

And sent him face-first sprawling to the dirt.

Beneath the Soot's half-crumpled face there came

A tinny modulation in the hiss

That might have been a laugh. It raised its sword

Ere Shane could clear his eyes and breath, and then

The lady flung the berries she had snatched

Out of the nearest brittle bittersweet.

The struck the dented visor with a sound

Like slow raindrops into an old tin pail.

The Soot cringed, frozen, like a rabbit caught

Beneath onrushing lights brighter than day

Down some back road, not nameless, but unnamed.

In the split second it stood paralyzed

Varr flew, sword drawn and blazing, point, hand, arm,

Chest, legs, and feet parallel to the earth.

He stuck the Soot straight through its rotted face

Like apple skewered on an arrow point.

Then all was still. Varr shook his blade clean, Shane

Pulled himself from the bloodstained ground. “Our foes,"

Varr growled, “have gained in cleverness.

We must be sure, ere we rest for the night

That they are not waiting to greet us. Are

You well?" he said to Shane. “I will be soon

Enough. Make sure, brother, we have no more

Cockroaches. I'll await you by your fire."

“Well won, warrior," the Lady said, as Varr

Clambered into the rocky stairs collapsed,

“If not for you, there would be much mourning.

If not for this brave weed, I would be slain."

She would thanked Shane further, but he rose,

Refused all aid—he said he had had worse—

And for goodnight said, “You have told me much.

If I did not delight to swallow what

You gave to sate my curiosity,

That is my fault. You must have many cares

That crave attending. Let this simple ghost,

A soldier shade like any other, rest

And wrestle out his answers on his own."

He left her, and beside the embers crouched

His mind curled up in thought, as does a dog

Around a bone it gnaws but cannot break.

He bound his wounds. He watched the smoke ascend.

He half-remembered a dark place, the smell

Of drink gone stale, a woman scared and strong,

A shape of menace half-seen in the gloom,

Another rescue under neon clouds.

“She told you much," Varr interrupted him,

“To make you so distracted? Have you now

The answers that you sought?" Shane shook his head

And looked across the fire to where Varr sat

Regarding him impassively. “I know

No more now than I did when we arose

To track the fiend that tracked these fickle folk.

Go not to them for counsel. They will say

Both yes and no. If I would counsel have

Henceforth, I shall get it from warrior folk

Like you and I, or grin and do without."

Varr smiled like one who hears a feeble joke

Told in a tiny backwater of calm

Amid a roaring cataract of war,

And said, “Why look you thus so pensive, then?

Have you another question you asked not?"

“Indeed," said Shane, “and for your ears alone,

For you also have passed that breaking point

That breaks all else, and have not broken, but

Grasp your sword all the tighter and fight on.

Do you remember of your life before

Anything? Can you recall to your mind

What it is to draw breath and have a pulse?

Is there a name or face that draws you up

In startlement at times gone long ago?"

Varr waited long enough to for the pine smoke

To curl around his face, lit from below,

Then answered, “I was born, I lived, I died.

It must have been in battle, or I would

Not have come here, or so the Old Man said.

There were tall trees, and never-ceasing wind,

And always the salt smell and sound of waves.

I bid all that farewell the day I went

To battle, lest my fate should find me there

And now it fades like letters in the clouds."

Shane sighed, “I would say likewise, but there comes

Upon me like a wound internal, pangs

Of something I cannot remember quite.

My way of life I can recall, but not

The details most particular to me.

I do remember streets, but not their names.

I do recall houses, but not my own.

Though I fought my whole life, I could not name

A single foeman now. Yet there is some

Unknown something almost within my mind.

Someone who held up my triumphal wreaths,

Whispered to me that I was but a man,

And that was more important. Someone who

Had always ready for me beer and bread.

Someone who if I loved not, I should have.

My valkyrie, my saint of sudden death,

My hope that always called out from the crowd

That I would be triumphant yet, and now

I cannot surely say I did not dream

The whole of it last night!" The boxer cursed

Beneath his breath, then said “I will trust you.

You would do as would heroes. As you say

So will I do, upon my death I swear."

Varr said, “No need for oaths. The Old Man asked

Not such of me. As he said, so say I.

A champion you are, Shane. Let your deeds

Be those of champions, and let the harp

Who sings your glory afterward unwind

The maybe and the might have been. Fight on

With or without your past. It matters not.

Cover yourself with glory, Champion,

To fill the hole left by what you forgot."

They spoke no more that night. Yet just upon

The cusp twixt sleep and wakefulness, a thought

Flitted across the space behind Shane's eyes

Tangled with pain of wounds and scent of trees:

“What good is glory if she does not see?"