“I died not," Varr breathed shallowly, “I woke

Midmorning, by a gentle brook. How far

I'd skirmished from satanic swamplands I

Had no surmise. Three days I nursed my wounds,

And then I took the mission meant for Luke,

To warn the Old Man. As I went, I met

The soot-things marauding. I ended them

By day, and in the night I took to stealth.

But it was all for naught. The hall was gone.

Either the Soot were torchbearers, or else,

They could ignite with nothing but a touch.

Their arsonry outsped me, and my news.

The hall where I had lived was naught but ash.

Out from the ruins, thus, I set my face

To anywhere the Soot might come, to slay.

I do not hope to win. What hope of that?

But I will be defeated in a death

That will be worthy of remembrances."

Shane thought of and rejected several ways

To say there would no need for dying be,

To say their foes would be the ones to die,

That death would be an honor, by Varr's side,

That nothing could withstand them, and he frowned

Exasperated at this heroes' world

For which he was unlettered. Yet ere his

Ungainly eloquence had come to him

And something epic uttered, Varr announced,

“But there! Perhaps to die is not so much.

What matters death to the already dead?

Come, brother champion, I weary you

Enough now. No more answers have I. Sleep.

Your wounds will pain you less for it, and then

Come morning we will salve your wounded pride

With chase, with skirmish, and with victory."

Varr made Shane take the bed, for himself straw

Into a corner heaped. He would take no

Refusals. Shane could only say “I will

Repay this hospitality, I swear!"

'Goodnight' he did not manage, for the furs

Were soft and warm. His heartbeat echoed in

His ears as sound, his wounds as pressure-pulse,

The darkness might have been no bigger than

The outline of his body, and he mused

On how he felt more dead in sleep, than when

He waked and heard the claim that he was dead.

So sank Shane down through all of this to dream.

At first his rest was seamless, like the sleep

Slept by a child exhausted in a car

That plunges onward in the trackless night

And dives through waves of streetlamps thunder-hued

That flash across the infant eyes and stir

Them not. But as he longer slept, the furs

Began to shudder, shift, and shakily

To writhe. Shane dreamed of darkness in a ring,

An audience that stank of ashes, and

A rain of blows from every side, that he

Was powerless to raise his hands against,

From foes intangible, unheard, unseen.

Then came one to his face. His neck snapped back,

His body stiffened like an uncoiled spring,

The world burst into shards of rainbow pain,

And he was falling fast, into a pit

Drilled in an evil smelling swamp. Below

A sallow spark hung, distant, and there came

The tang of sulfur from it. Then the spark

To see him seemed, and opened, grinning rows

Of blackened shark teeth, glowing red within.

Shane twisted as he fell, then sat up sharp

Panting and nigh sweat-drowned. Upon the straw

Varr snored, the embers huddled, and the room

Was as he'd seen it last: rough stone and earth

By firefly basket lit. Yet not this bright:

The shadows had been deeper, had they not?

Shane blinked the flakes of sleep out of his brain,

And saw the extra hundred glowing spots

That streamed in through the open door, to whirl,

Encircling a figure just inside.

He wore a cloak of dirty grey, a hat

Wide-brimmed and pulled diagonally down

Across the left half of his face. His face

Was fixed illegibly between the smile

Of one upon the gallows wrongfully

Who knows his death will prove him in the right,

And that of an archangel, judging sooth

In wake of battles biblical. Shane pushed

Himself upright and raised his fists. The man

But smiled a little more, “I will not say

'Be not afraid,' for Shane the Champion

Fears nothing. So I say I am your friend

And hope that you will welcome me as such.

Alas, for all my warriors who survive!"

He nodded toward Varr sleeping on the floor,

“My world has been a no-man's-land too long.

My men seek bolt holes where they may, to wait

For you, oh Champion, and know not what

They wait for. I knew not myself until

This night I saw you at the forest edge-"

So saying, he removed his hat. His hair

Was grizzled grey, and trailed forward through

The bands of thick black cloth across one eye.

Shane licked his lips, and though he dropped his fists

He kept them clenched. He made to speak

But found his tongue immobile, still in sleep,

Or paralyzed like those who dream they run

But cannot move their legs. But the Old Man

Was gone, and in his place there stood a crone.

Grandmotherly she seemed, not as if warm,

Not likely to bake cookies or knit scarves,

But august, ancient, matriarchical,

All over wisdom-written with long care

For wayward progeny that heed her not.

“You know me not, Falconi," said she, “But

I know you well enough. Your place is not

Among this naïve band-" Then she was gone

And quick as blinking the Old Man was back

As if in cinema someone had switched

The reels of film all out of order, that

A scene to later ones transmogrified

Was, with such swiftness that the audience

Confounded quite, has blinked and missed the change.

The Old Man bent his head, as does a man,

After interruption, and said “I deem

That you may be the last intrepid soul

Who finds the earth too shallow for his deeds

And seeks his promised place here, in my lands.

You have the bearing, restlessness, and stance

That speak defiant heart enduring all.

You bare your chest before your foes, to dare

Them spill your blood. You even glare at me

As does a falcon at the falconer.

If you are last, then you are fit to make

A worthy end for us, and I am used

To watching what my wisdom calls the last-"

The old woman frowned, as if at a child

Who fidgets at his lesson, and she said,

“I think you have more anger than you know.

I think life cheated you, and gave you less

Than man needs. You left cursing at the fates

That cut you off, and wove your path, and spun

Your birth into a war you did not make

And to a world that scorned you to the last.

But hear me, there is still a home for you,

But it is far beyond this petty dream

Of boys' imagination. Leave it, come,

And find what you have yearned for all your days-"

A presence deep invisible, but grim

Like sensing suddenly that one is watched,

Grinned from behind the fire. Shane heard it not,

Nor saw it, but he felt it hating him-

The Old Man pulled his wiry beard, the hue

Of old titanium, and whispered “I

Come long ago from lands far to the north.

The winters there were long, like onto five

White winters stacked together, with no spring

Or summer in between. When food was stale,

And drink was flat, and love was merely one

More way of huddling against the cold,

My people lived on hope. I gave them hope

When all became despair. But for myself

I kept no hope or strength, nor for my cause.

I had hope hand to mouth. You are my last-"

The old woman before him stood again

Her iron-grey tresses trailing round her face,

“You are no fool, Falconi. You must know

That this is foolishness. Can but two men

Outlast the hordes infinite? Can two men,

However brave, command the tide to halt

Or stay with sword and fist a cataract?

Can two souls left alone, divorced from aid

From heaven, hell, and their own earthly clay

Endure the death of worlds, relight the sun,

And seek to slay the Sulfur Carrier?

If you would live, abandon foolishness-"

Again the Old Man stood, as if he had

Been standing talking all the while, his place

Not trading with an opposite. “I know

Your questions, Champion, but beg of you

Abandon them. Your hand is at a task

Too urgent, too immediate, too high

To hesitate in curiosity-"

“-You think you will get answers," said the crone,

“From him? All answers are to him a chance

To pose in Spartan attitudes against

What his own posing makes from possible

To inevitable. You will be slain

And never know why, how, or who killed you-"

“-I did not seek that any of my sons

Should die. I sought that they should have a chance

To drink of glory deep, to stuff themselves

With life like lava blazing, to feel love

Not for a passing thing but for a fact:

That they had done extraordinary deeds

And no defeat or death could alter that,

Nor everlasting darkness reach that truth

That courage once had lived, and it was theirs-"

“-So if you are determined, Falconi,

To walk with suicidal fools, I wash

My hands, though most reluctantly, I own,

Of your fate. To your master I spoke truth

When I told him that all his hope was gone.

I speak the truth to you, and say the same.

Go find your hearth and home without my help

If you can. We will twice more meet again-"

-We will meet, thought the something in the fire,

And I will drink your blood while yet you live

And tear you into ribbons ere you die-.

The Old Man raised his hand, and said, “Do not

Think this speech but a dream-" The old woman

Said “Think not that you dreamed this, when you wake-"

Shane felt a hand pressed to his brow, and then

He started up, his eyes wide, and looked around.

The room was empty, and the door stood wide.

The dawn was just upwelling on the plains.

Varr stood outside, his armor standing by.

Shane lay propped on his elbows, with the furs

Bunched up across his knees. He would have thought

The past night all a dream, but that his wounds

Were healed and gone each one, with not a scar

Left on his flesh, to show where they had been.