Somewhere it was after midnight, when

The long hours of the morning stretch ahead

Sideways, so that they wider grow and can

Contain more night and not take up more time.

Somewhere a boxer wandered in his dreams

Down streets abandoned, over bridges high,

Around cold cobbled courts whose names he knew

But could not summon up to say. He saw

A door ajar. Within he found a ring:

Ropes foursquare, empty stadium, dark lights.

No sound but his footstep did echo there

As he approached, and clambered through the ropes,

In dusty silence and cold déjà-vu,

Somewhere behind him, then, a voice called “Shane,"

But as he turned, there came a mighty blow

Full in his face. He jackknifed back, and gasped,

To find himself stretched prone on pine needles.

Shane sat up slowly, panting, and he looked

To tell his dream to Varr who kept the watch.

The warrior was not there. The witchfolk were

All vanished. Here the ground looked undisturbed

As had the scarlet leaves where first he woke.

The boxer thought himself alone, as he

Arose, but then a firefly drifted past

His bleary eyes, toward the tumbled scree

Where he the Soot had faced. There, other lights

Like bubbles on the surface of a stream

All hovered slowly toward a point behind

The screen of branches evergreen. Shane frowned,

Suspicious, but he swiftly followed where

The line of insect light did point him, up

The broken talus stairway. Though he saw

No surer footing and no firmer hold

Where he pushed upward than lay to the side

Scarce inches either way, yet on the path

The fireflies marked for him the stones moved not

And what he would have thought unscalable

He scaled. Shane pushed his way through trailing boughs

That itched his naked chest, and filled his nose

With heady scents of sap and Christmas. There

Upon a horn of rock upthrust like wave

Made stone immutable there stood a man

Hooded and cowled and cloaked, who fixed his face

Toward the basin of the plains below

Ignoring the fireflies that circled him.

“You proved your worth in battle thrice today,"

He said. Shane knew the voice, though he had heard

It only once, and not with waking ears,

“You were unstoppable in victory.

You were tight taciturn against half-truths.

You were indomitable past defeat,

And your first scars of this eternal war

You shall with honor wear. Now all my ranks

Are filled. Now all my phalanxes are full.

Now just in time my forces have a head,

Captain, superhero, and Champion.

You are the last who will beach on this shore

From waters deep darksome of mortal death

To taste immortal soldiery. No more

Will eyes blink clear the clamor of the field

To glimpse my autumn woods. No more will hearts

Stopped rollercoaster like from rage and joy

Learn beating in my lands a second time.

No more souls will come here, for if they did

They would find they had come too late." He turned.

He fixed Shane with his single eye. “So you

Above all others must not hesitate.

Forget the doubts that plague you. Bid goodbye

Your longing, your regret for those you left

Behind with mortal things in mortal lands.

I am no prophet. I know not your fate,

But well I know the fate of me and mine

Is in your hands. I do not ask you win:

It may be fate that both of us fall here.

I only ask that when you strike, strike hard

As does befit a man and hero, for

Only if you are both will we survive."

The old man turned again, and raised his hand,

Pointing like dowsing rod, down into the

Invisible night plain. “Behold your foe.

Behold the rotting-worm in oak tree's heart.

Behold the sinkhole at the cornerstone.

Behold the smoldering, swiftly smoking spark

Set underneath the forest eaves to swell

And sizzle till the hills are crowned with flame

And all that lived is ashes in the mud.

I know its name, but let it never be

That he who knows this name should give it tongue.

If I did speak it now, it would be here

And our tale would be ended. Call it by

Its actions, call it Sulfur Carrier.

Behold, Champion, that which you must slay."

Where the Old Man now pointed, like the prints

From copper etched by acid, stone, or steel,

Depicting ancient patriarchs, there grew

A point upon the distant prairie, like

A watchfire or a beacon. Then it spread

Like flames across the surface of spilt oil

First in a shape like sharkmouth, jagged, cruel,

And grinning like a slash-carved pumpkin ghost,

Then into the rough outline of a man:

Like those flat giants who in chalk downs sleep,

But hulking, simian, and nigh-awake.

The smoke of it surrounded them. Shane gagged

On stench of rotted eggs and gasoline.

It wrapped around him, like a fist, to pin

His arms against his sides. He could not see,

He could not smell, and all that he could feel

Was something in the fire groping for him

To smash his neck backward and break his spine,

To crush his brains against his skull, and rake

His slowly dying body over coals.

But ere he either broke or hit back, on

His shoulder came a touch. The Old Man's voice

Said “Shane the Champion, forget this not,"

And then he was awaking. It was morn.

He lay again upon pine needle drifts.

Across the embers, Varr lay sleeping, tired

From his share of the watch, and by Shane's head

The girl who had spoken to him, her hand

Upon his shoulder, saying, “Boxer, rise!

The sun is up, our way before us lies."