Darkness, and the stench of rotten eggs

To make his eyes water. If he had held

His hand before his face, Shane could have seen

No glove, no fist, no color or outline.

He did not bother to. He blinked the sting

Out of his eyes, and strained toward the depths

To which the bittersweet was pulling him.

As when he had plummeted through high clouds

So white they made the lightning flash look dark

He felt their coolness stroke him, like clean sheets,

So now he felt the brush of coils of smoke

Heavy and oily, reeking of decay.

Instinctively Shane knew the urge to cough

For a trap, meant to make him lose the sprig

Of bittersweet clamped in his teeth, and told

Himself that he was dead, and had no need

To breathe. And soon the urge to cough had passed.

Another bank of smoke, and on his chest,

His shoulders and his face, and down his shins

And everywhere that plowed the smoke head-on,

An itch spread like salt-water up the sand

When tide rolls upward, dark, devouring.

It ground his skin until it seemed that he

Was covered in red ants. Shane clenched his teeth

And told himself his body turned to earth

Beneath a stone, under grey frozen grass,

That he himself had seen not long ago

In a city he'd never see again.

The itch passed over him, and soon was gone.

Another plume of smoke, thicker this time,

And suddenly Shane could not feel the wind

Rush past him as he fell. He could not feel

His body's motion onward, nor the wide

And empty spaces spun beneath his face.

The smoke around him seemed petrified, and

Himself entombed, barely able to move,

Within a tiny crack no wider than

His body in a flawless, featureless

And infinite expanse of solid stone.

As does a caver, delving in the depths

Where sun has never shone, nor wind has stirred

Squeezing his way through some deep place, stop short

At sudden realization just how much

The mountain heights above him weigh, and feels

How very little needs the rock to shift

To bring each pound of it down on him, trapped

For days, for weeks maybe, while he is crushed

Millimeter by millimeter in

A light-starved place, so did the smoke hold Shane,

His muscles straining but motionless, his

Heart pounding but barely able to beat.

But through his teeth, he felt the bittersweet

Pull, wiggle, wax and wane, and with a swell

Relief first, then of anger, knew the cheat

The claustrophobia practiced, for the sprig

Of autumn's flower told him he yet moved.

And as he felt the rigid closeness melt

And slip behind him, he did not hear but feel

A voice under the smoke 'So you are brave.

That will not matter. Bravery burns too.

And brave man's ashes are no different

From cowards'. Though it seemed the voice was close

Enough to whisper, far ahead a glow

Not of light made, but light reflected, like

The eyes of some wild beast in the wide night

That does not dare to show its face past dawn,

Like distant headlights. 'Do you think you can

With all your strength of purpose, all your will,

All of your bravery break through my hold?

You are a fool. The world you seek is mine.

And like all that is mine, soon it will be

Ashes and smoke. And those too I shall burn

Until there is nothing but dark nothing

Forever and forever and amen.'

Shane felt it giggle, and its laughter was

Like fingernails upon a chalkboard, like

The grinding of bone fractured on itself,

Like biting down too hard on splintered wood.

Shane clenched his fists and fanned his anger hot.

Ahead of him, beneath the lights there shone

A sawtoothed mouth, malevolent and pleased

With its malevolence. The gaping eyes

And shark's grin glowed with the same sick, soiled light

As if all were but shaped holes in the iron

Of a hellish lantern. 'You cannot win.

There is the worlds, and me. The worlds are small

And fragile and ephemeral, and I

Am an infinite emptiness that spreads

In all direction around all of them.

Each second do I eat inward, until

All is eaten away, then every thing

Will be alone in an infinite room

Of blackness, with me standing just behind

And smiling at them for eternity.'

Shane seemed no nearer, but now he could see

Images flicker in the gleaming eyes

Like momentary portents in a fire-

-A man in a grey raincoat waited in

A screen of bushes. Within easy reach

Was the sidewalk. Soon the young girl

He had been following for weeks would come

Through the sulfur-hued streetlights. If she was

With friends or family, then he would watch

In silence, and go silently away.

If she was alone, then there would be

The screams, and then the blood. And he would smile.

He would return each night. Eventually

She would walk past alone. He was patient-

-The foremost of the surging horde stopped short,

For on the monastery door there had been carved

A statue of a saint. His eyes were wise

And sad, his hands were slim and graceful, and

His beard was carved into delicate folds

Like curtains in a gentle breeze. Before

He stooped to join his fellows in the sack

And plunder of the sacred riches, he

Brought down his axe upon the marble face

Until it was but shapeless pebbles- -In

The warm not-quite-dark of the summer's night

Through the green pregnant fields drifted a whiff

Of black cancerous pollen. The gold ears

That autumn would be bloated with the weight

Of slow, flavorless poison- -In the high

Back stair, where light was dusty and smelled stale

The flies who did not comprehend why they

Could not fly through the windowpane were caught

Carefully, one by one, by a small boy

Who delicately pulled off each small leg

And then the one wing, and then the other, and

Watched fascinated as in agony

They wrothe helpless toward a helpless death-

-In half a dozen rooms lit only by

The wan cerulean of computer screens

The men who did not know eachothers' names

Made plans to ruin the career, the home,

The reputation, and the friendships of

Another man that they had never met.

One said perhaps this one would take his life

And all the others laughed aloud- -Behind

The double-wide, blue-painted, brick garage

A woman held a garden hose to wash

Her hands of fear urine, and thought of the

Small puppy sealed inside a plastic bag

That she had left out in the woods. The boy

Next door did not yet know his dog was gone;

The dog was not dead yet. It would take hours

To suffocate completely, and those hours

Should be enough to bring the boy from school.

It would amuse her, were the times to match.

She smiled to herself, turned off the hose,

And went inside to make a cup of tea-

-In the high temple, firelight and gold

Illumined the proud faces with the strict

Precise profiles of highest birth in rouge,

In robes of finest silk, in silver chains,

With diamonds dripping from their necks and brows.

Fine wines were there, in lapis studded cups,

And delicate pastries. But no music.

Music would have obscured the infant cries

As they were thrown alive into the flame

Of the immense bronze furnace- -The shop girl

Had been watching the counter for long hours,

As artist upon artist came to her

For paints, for canvas, for quill and foolscap,

And each talked of the great things he would do

Till she was sick to death of beauty quite.

When one spoke of a stained glass window, she

Gushed flippantly how stained glass always made

Her wish to see bricks thrown. None laughed, and she

Embarrassed, shrugged and said it was a joke,

And in her heart she itched to throw the brick-

-A man lay sleeping, sheets tangled around

His feet like pasta on a fork. The fan

Spun on the ceiling almost too slowly

To stir the thick dark air. The orange streetlights

Shone slanted up the wall. And in his brain

There was treason. His blood slowly burned out

Small patches of his mind, like cigarettes

Put out scorching against the carpet. He

Would one day soon wake up to find his eyes

Were dead, or that he could no longer walk,

Or that he could no longer swallow food,

Or that he would no longer wake at all,

Until that day the traitor blood rotted

Silently and unstoppably- -The saw

With which his great-grandfather father cut the trees

That built the house in which his grandfather

Was born and raised, sat out upon the porch.

The rain and wind beat down on it. The roof

Above began to buckle and to rot.

The saw itself was older than most men

Live to remember. Things were made to last

Back in the days when it was forged. From time

To time the young man would pause as he passed

And give the saw a long considering look,

And then ignore it once again. The rust

Was close now to the center of the blade.

A month more, and it would be finished- -Deep

Under the mountain's heart, a lightless hole

With every precious thing was full: red gold,

White silvers, gems of each color and cut,

Wrought into rings and cups, strung upon crowns,

The storied wealth of countless kingdoms past,

All lost. Upon them brooded a grim shape,

Bat winged and demon clawed. The only light

That ever glinted off the facets was

The dull reflection of its molten breath.

In ages past, it had plundered the lands

As far as it could fly. Too heavy now

To rise aloft, too thick to even leave

Its riches-mattressed catacombs, it lazed

Hoarding more stolen fortunes than a king

Could have imagined in his dreams of greed.

For all the use they were, they might as well

Have all been dirt and gravel- -In the wide

Cicada haunted summer twilight, the

Smell of dry jasmine turned to gasoline

And on the porch the dark eyed man threw down

The empty fuming can. He struck a match.

He watched the upstairs window through the flame

And, smiling, hoped someone was sleeping there-

-Somewhere the skeletons of weeds were rank.

Somewhere the iron brambles tangled grey.

Somewhere the almost rain hung overhead

Sullen and solid, hunkering upon

The low hilltop that pulled horizons in

And made the universes nothing more

Than this shallow depression in the weeds.

A small boy crouched beneath a withered ash

Gathering tinder half dry-rotted. In

His hand he held the lighter he had been

Forbidden from touching, and on the ground

His little sister's favorite doll lay

Face down. Its hair was carefully braided.

Its dress was smudged with mud. He snatched it up

Onto the tiny woodpile, and he flicked

The lighter expertly. The flickering

Painted his slow, wide, sharklike, joyless grin

A sulfur colored jack-o-lantern orange-

-Shane shook himself aware. The voice had been

Whispering at him for some time. Did it

Know he had seen into it? "You are wrong

If you believe the Old Man, he'll not help.'

Had he been meant to wallow in them, and

Be swallowed in the hypnotizing hiss

And digested in visions of despair?

'He is not who you think he says he is.

He is not who he lets you think he is.'

Or was there no intent, and nor no plan?

Shane hardened in his mind that everything

The lies, the miasma, the thousand forms

That malice showed him, were the Enemy,

As much as fists and heart and soul were him.

'If he is playing Odin, I play Surt

and Fenrir, and the Worm Ouroborous.'

No nearer, and Shane knew not how to push

Closer through the unlighted emptiness.

'And you are here alone. How does it feel?'

But his anger was all awakened now

And anger in its fullest righteous bloom

Is all senses unto itself. It told

Shane he was close enough to spit. He did.

He spat the sprig of bittersweet into

The gaping molten maw. It snapped fast shut.

The whispering cut off. Around him the

Blank emptiness convulsed, and the fell voice

Dissolved into long screams broken by coughs.

Not heeding the impossibility

Shane pounced, fists raised, already raining blows

And on the first few impacts, the darkness

Crumpled and crunched, like dead leaves underfoot.

The seeming hugeness looming over him

Dissolved like cobwebs in a burning house

And for a split second Shane clearly saw

The Sulfur Carrier. It was not large.

Indeed, it had the stature of a child.

It was not broad. It was sickly and thin.

But still its eyes shone hate. Shane did not slow

His charge. He stuck its seeming fragile bones.

It howled again in pain, it flailed its arms.

Shane felt the flash of pain across his chest

As one thin claw touched him, but he was past

Caring for pain, for life or death. He did

Not even feel his anger, and he fought

As if time were asleep. He did not need

Fear or anger. He had no fear and he

Was anger. Now the Sulfur Carrier

Came at him from the right, and seemed to take

An age to bring its claws toward his face.

He simply bent his knees, and its long arm

Went harmlessly above his head. So he

Pushed off with his back foot, and buried his

Strong right fist in its famine-lined ribcage,

And even as he heard them snap, he had

Enough time to observe that it had more

Ribs than it ought, and they did not align.

Now came its left, from underneath, to claw

Open his stomach and rip out his bowels.

Shane dropped his left hand like a bomb onto

Its wrist, and crushed it on the unseen floor

And when it stumbled forward, shot his right

Up underneath its jaw, shutting its grin

So hard that shark-like teeth eachother ripped

Out of their roots. Now both claws came at once

One right behind the other. Shane stepped toward

His foe, bending an inch out of the way

And then within the circle of its arms

Laid three quick blows, felt them echo along

His arms. The Sulfur Carrier tried to

Snatch at his throat, but racking coughs again

Erupted from its chest, and paralyzed

It could but whimper as Shane knocked it flat

With a sole uppercut. Again it came

Now bruised and broken, and Shane beat it down

Again, deftly and effortlessly, like

A diagram of how to box against

The devil. A third time it arose and came,

Howling in hate, bleeding brimstone in pain,

And spasming at bittersweet inside.

Shane almost felt the moves he made before

The time had come to make them, as a man

Who every song has mastered can forehear

The song's next note inevitably. It

Fell battered and bruised over his shoulders,

And Shane stood, only barely out of breath.

His triumph singing in his blood, so that

He missed the meaning of his victory.

And blinked bewildered when he realized

His foe was fled, and now he was alone

With no more bittersweet to guide him on.