Songs to Setirov.

Somewhere dusk was settling. The air
Was stirring gently as one sleep deprived
Whose body yearns so much to dream that it
Rebels, and tries to slumber standing up
Whenever and wherever mind and will
Relax their vigilance. It moved the grass
Upon the hills as tides roll through the weed
In rocky coastal crevices, then sank
So grass and leaves grew still, then with a start
It woke again to glide across the plain.
Somewhere sun was setting. All the air
Was turning gold translucent, like the film
Of antique movies all in shades of brown
As if shot through a lens of topaz carved.
Somewhere night was coming. Ere it came,
Varr knew they would need shelter, lest the ash
Destroyers, overcome so easily
In daylight, should upon them chance at night
With strength and stealth and cunning multiplied
By darkness, as a sponge with water swollen.
He was only a moment’s time away
From speaking, when the refugees they led
All stopped at some sign silent. One of them—
A beldame matronly—had raised her hand
And all the folk watched her as soldiers do
When their orders are only half pronounced.
She stood not to her full height, but she stooped
As if with long attention on some craft,
Or if with weight around her shoulders hung
As if she carried iron ingots strung
Beneath her many shawls and petticoats
Instead of only beads of colored glass.
Her gown was patterned like a circus tent
Inverted or rotated in fragments
So that the bands of color twisted round
Into a geometric tangle. In
Her auburn hair, she wore a feather tucked
Behind her ear, and chains and braided charms.
She nodded at a boy and girl. “Go fetch,”
She said, “a willow switch, no longer than
The space between your finger and your thumb,
Peel back the bark, and then fill full your bowl
At yonder stream. Come swiftly back to me,
And go with wariness. Do not assume
That champions like these grow on the trees.”
Varr looked askance, but Shane laughed and he said,
“Caution is good. A guard is better. I
Will go with you, children, and watch your task.
Those that would offer harm must go through me.”
“Go then!” the lady said, and smiled. They passed
Through screens of tangled brush that by degrees
Concealed the pilgrim band, so that they saw
Decreasing fragments of the scene they left
Eclipsed by autumn-fading yellowed green.
Down underneath a canopy of brush
Between two almost-cliffs that it had carved
With weight of water and slow years from clay
So that a careless touch could smash the work
Of ages, lay a secret stream. The sky
That showed above between the treetops shone
In perfect congruence. It reflected
The shape of waters that reflected hue
From it, except where willow fronds,
Still clinging to their summer stoplight green
Where the long leaves had their roots in the bough,
Trailed down into the ripples. There the boy
His pocketknife between his teeth, scrambled
Onto the listing trunk and disappeared
Among the leaves. The girl regarded Shane
With solemn curiosity as she
Immersed one corner of a wooden bowl,
With bluebells and with oak leaves painted, in
The stream, like one who stoops to pan for gold
In pantomime or some ceremony
Unconscious. Shane returned her look, like one
Addressed in tongues he does not know, and she
Asked him, “Are you not cold? The autumn air
Cannot be kind to one so lightly dressed.
My grandmother, who sent us, can lend you
A cloak or tunic, an you need but ask.”
Shane blinked. “I am not cold. I had not thought
Upon the weather. I do feel coolness
Upon the air, like scent of distant rain,
But I can feel no chill from it,” he said.
“I had forgot,” the girl replied, her bowl
Now brimming full, “that you would be of those
Who have gone through your graves to arrive here.
Perhaps the cold cannot sting you, or numb
The corners of your face as it does me.”
The boxer said in puzzlement, “Then you,
You are not dead, as I was told I was?
You live yet, and came to this place alive?
Do you then know a way one could return?”
She laughed. “Doubt not that you have died, warrior,
Though whether you are dead I cannot say.
My grandmother told me how such as you
Will wake amnesiac to wander here,
Will like the angels neither breed nor age,
Will wait like plasters until battle comes,
And how could they thus, if they had not died?
But once she foretold one like you, I think,
Who will salvation be from sulfur dread,
And if it was you, you need worry not.
For you death works two ways, if but you choose.”
And more she might have said, as earnestly
And casually as one remarks upon
The possibility that it will rain
Had not the boy dropped from the rustling leaves,
A bare twig in his hand, and scowled at her.
“Heed not my sister, sir,” he sulked, “she speaks
Things not for ears of outsiders. They wait
For us, and night waits not for them.
We may have miles to go before we sleep.”
So they returned: the boxer sore confused
At his demise discussed so casually,
A willow twig bare to the green-white wood
Clutched in one fist, the girl abashed, the boy
Frightened and angry at he told not what
So that he would not suffer his sister
Should help him bear the bowl up the steep bank
Though nigh it came to spilling more than once.
The lady took the bowl with thanks. She raised
The green wand to her lips, and whispered low
Something sibilant and warm sounding: though
Shane did not catch the words, the murmur felt
Like spring and budding leaves. She set the twig,
Now leaking sticky sap, to float upon
The trembling water’s surface. As all watched,
It swung round slowly; first clockwise, then back,
Then back again, as does a compass swung
Suddenly round that gropes for north again.
Then it was still, quivering, like the coils
That burn electric vibrations within
The antique heater your grandmother had.
The lady smiled, though suddenly she seemed
Both tired and out of breath. “Yonder,” she said,
“Not far beyond these hills our haven lies.
Yonder our beds tonight. Yonder safety.
Let all make haste, before the day is gone!”
The refugees as one hoisted their packs
And set off where the wand had pointed, save
The boy who cut it. First he went to help
The lady, who seemed now to need a prop
And followed on his arm as on a cane.
Shane stood dumbfounded, mind incapable
Of swallowing what eyes reported. Though
He had strange things seen, none had been so plain
And obviously otherworldly yet.
Varr shook him by the shoulder. “Brother, wake!
We must not fall behind. The night is nigh.
If come the Soot again, these folk will need
Your fist more than they did this morning! Come!”
Shane shook his head, as does a dog who gains
The shore and shakes the water from his ears,
And cried incredulous, “What are these folk?
Who know how we are dead, yet have not died?
Who speak of secrets and who whisper sooth?
Who complicated wonders work as if
It were no remarkable than to
Sweep up the dusty floor or boil an egg?”
They followed rearmost in the failing light,
And as they made their way, Varr thus explained:
“These are the Witchfolk. Ever were they here.
Before the first of us awoke, they dwelt
Amidst the forest fastness, in the glades,
Deep in the mazy thickets where the paths
Shift when you are not looking, to confuse
And deflect the chance visitor. No more
Than half a month together they would stay
In the same place, but ever on the move
They would through copses steal in twilight’s cloak
To yet another secret haunt. They take
Not kindly toward strangers. Not well known
Their hospitality was. Those who strayed
The wrong way on patrol might disappear
To surface several seasons later on
With three days growth of hair upon their cheek
And memories no firmer than a dream.
But now, it seems we’re good for more than sport.
For now, I guess, they have another foe
More hated and more puissant against
Their charms and mind fogs. If they ask our help,
I willingly will give: I hate their foes
More than they fear their foes, more than they scorned
Those whom they tricked, more than I love my pride.
But I will not entrust my life or hate
To such as these, who hide behind dead leaves,
Who fight with shadows and illusioncraft,
Whose very nature is to run away.
I trust not such. If you count worth my word,
Do likewise, brother.” Shane frowned, and he said,
“I would I could be as aloof as you,
But something they let slip, that sounded like
The echo of the answers to my dreams,
And I must know the whole of that, at least,
Or call myself a coward. I do fear
That I could be afraid of what I learn.”
Said Varr, “I know this much: they cannot lie
Outright. Whatever answers the witchfolk
May give you grudgingly, they will contain
Some truth, if not too much. Ask boldly, then,
But what you hear, interpret cautiously.”
Yet there their conference ended, for they came
To a hill crowned with boulders, laid the one
So close against the other that they formed
A natural battlement about the top.
Within the circle towered three great pines
Whose boughs and darksome needles gently trailed
Upon the rock tops. In the only gap
There stood a stunted sapling of the three
That towered overhead and stole the light
With gnarled roots to crevices clinging
And knotted trunk, and slender sprigs for boughs.
Within, the cleft was carpeted in brown
Soft pins long fallen on the mossy stone
From which the rich aroma of decay,
Of tannin, and new soil slowly arose.
The weary people filed within, relief
Upon their faces written. Shane and Varr
Looked backward for pursuit, but nothing stirred
Upon the evening-soaked shadowy knolls
Save grass wind-animated and the glint
Of fireflies illuminating for
Another night of watchmanship. At last
The lady spoke, “Good warriors, go within.
It would be poor repayment for your might
To leave you locked without throughout the night.”
They shared a puzzled glanced, but stepped across
The line of rock gates and dwarf pine, then turned
In time to see the lady reach within
Her draping sleeve and fumble there, as does
A raccoon at the waterside, that gropes
For crayfish in the mud and catches them
By feel. She drew a slip of paper, brown
With age and entropy. Inscribed upon
The nether side were sigils serpentine,
And tangled glyphs, and runes forgotten long.
A moment only it was visible,
Yet at the sight Shane felt his breath go cold
And come with much effort, as if his lungs
Were shrunk by half, or the air were thickened
To the consistency of wet concrete.
His balance told him that he stood upon
A surface slowly tilting, and he felt
Himself drift forward, though he did not move
As does a man in fever when he sleeps
And feels his mattress forget gravity.
The moment passed. Shane stumbled standing still.
Varr’s gasp for breath told that he too had felt
The radiated flash the runes had shone.
The lady smiled sadly at them. “These signs,”
She said, “Are those of death and burial.
Of all the paths beyond the living world.
Of cairn and pyre, of barrow and churchyard.
The dead cannot pass by where this is set,
No more than can the water flow uphill
Whether they be brave souls bodiless, or
Corpses of the dishonored, lacking souls.
Thus must our ash marauders wait outside
While we lie safe and soft this night. Affix,”
She told the boy, who only with her stood
Outside the ring of stones, “This paper here
Upon the sun-starved bark, then come inside.
To wait much longer is nigh suicide.”
So saying she passed by, and went within.
Shane raised a hand, but could not bring it near
The place the ward was set, but he again
Felt faint and breathless, as if he were pulled
Unwilling from himself, as some have said
They witnessed their forms lying in white light
In hospitals or ambulances, ere
The doctor’s magery returned their souls
Into their bodies. “I think you were right,”
He said to Varr, “She truly spoke the truth.
We cannot pass this ward.” Then Varr replied,
“That means, at least, you know that you are dead.”
He said no more, but turned and left Shane there
To watch the last light vanish from the plain.

The sky above the east was solid light
From edge to edge. If all the sky were one
Piece of soft paper, dipped into a cup
Of melted luminescence, that light crept
Up it by capillary tug, spread out
Neon infection through the fiber sheet,
Just so that sky would look. Or like a pane
Of plastic counterfeiting glass, but grown
Opaque with years of sunburn, now exposed
To searchlights blazing, just so would it look.
The trees stood still in slumber, for the sun
Was unarrived. Between their net of limbs,
Their lattice of dark boughs and dying leaves
Whose colors, backlit, all had sunk into
Stark, same, dramatic black, fluorescent dawn
Poured through the holes that flexed in size and shape
As waking breeze rolled through them toward the plains.
While Shane arose, and stretched himself, and dashed
Cold water from the ewer by the door
Over his face and shoulders stiff, and shook
The water from his quilly crimson hair,
Varr stood, his tunic cast aside, and let
The morning wash across his limbs. His scars
Glowed like a web of wires electrified
Where they reflected back the almost-dawn.
He stooped, and raised the basket, lidless now.
From it the fireflies, emerald and jet,
Their lamps exhausted from nocturnal watch,
Buzzed grumpily, to vanish in the grass
Swallowed like pebbles dropped into the sea.
Varr did not turn, but said, “I almost see
Why you go nearly naked into war.
Without familiar weight of armor borne
More for long custom than for precaution
How light my muscles feel, how full my lungs!
The wind upon the skin invigorates
Like food and drink and sleep and prayer combined.
For you, who wear but those half-breeches soft,
What fierce elation must a battle be!”
“My shorts?” Shane blinked, confused, “That is not why
I dress this way. Only within the ring
Shed I all else to don my trunks and gloves.
Elsewhere would I wear garments more like this.”
So saying, Shane the tunic passed to Varr
Who took it, cautiously replying back
Like one unsure if ground on which he treads
Will bear his weight, “You fought within a ring?
Were you a gladiator, then? If so,
Why did you fight in less than otherwise?”
Shane blushed, ashamed he knew not why, for all
His age undaring, dull, and paranoid.
“To keep the combat fair, I think. To keep
Out subtle knives or bags of blinding sand.
No hidden weapons could there be, because
There was no place to hide them.” Shane half-smiled
For his own explanation sounded weak.
Varr frowned. He pulled his armor on again
And said, “Are they so untrusting, your folk,
That even those enacting holy rites
Of combat, man to man, done for the sake
Of making those who grapple part divine
At least as long as confrontation lasts,
Or for the fight itself, and nothing more,
Are in suspicion held so deep?” Shane saw
Too many hurdles in between the truth
Of how his life and combat were, and Varr’s
Misunderstanding of it, so he said,
“The treacherous are ever slow to trust,
And there are none more treacherous than those
Who riches gleaned from managing our fights.
But brother, come! The morning ages fast!
My wounds are closed, and all my strength returns!
That life is past, and this yet lies before!
My heart reproaches me, so I must go
And answer the insult I gave myself
By shrinking from a battle yester-night!”
Varr grimly smiled, and buckled on his sword,
Saying, “Fret not. Our enemy has blazed
As clear a trail as any pathfinder.”
Upon the threshold there lay flecks of black
And from the door they trailed, toward the plains
Where withered grass joined clumps of ash still damp
All pointing to the object of Shane’s wrath
Which blazed like embers smoldering but touched
By oxygen when he beheld the trace.
“You are courageous, Champion,” said Varr
His voice constrained by deadly quiet thrill,
“Now show your brother warrior if your speed
And stamina are proportioned the same.”
“Fear not for me,” laughed Shane, and beat his gloves
Together, “Rather have a care that I
Will get so far ahead that naught remains
For you!” Then they were running side by side
Across the plains, so swiftly that the waves
Of wind among the grass kept pace with them.
All dreams evaporated from his mind,
All thoughts of Sulfur names that he knew not,
All care for cagey clues in riddles couched
By barely there Old Women and Old Men,
All worries after if he was alive,
For Shane had never felt half so alive
As he felt now. The grass around his feet
Like breakers splintering beneath the prow
Of a dreadnaught, majestic, triple decked
And triple masted, built of iron-tough wood
By surf and sunlight burnished to far more
Warm brilliance of hue than it could have
Alive and growing in some distant glade,
That grips as does a cavalier his horse—
Loose, lightly, lovingly, yet with all strength—
The raptured and relentless ocean air
With white seraphic wings, a dozen piled
Into the sky like cumulonimbus,
Was split, and flowed like fluid to each side
To surge together after he had passed.
The dew was scattered outward in their wake.
Each drop of it that from the whiplashed blades
Of grass flew sideways, shattered, and released
The smell of morn, of water, and of cold
Which rose around them, an incense in haste,
To cool their sweat and hold off weariness.
Before them stretched the leavings of the Soot:
Ash smeared, grass shriveled, caustic footprints set
With needless violence deep into the soil,
More obvious than is a comet tail
Drawn pale across the black and velvet night
That points unerringly to source and sun
Though one is small and one invisible.
They followed it like dolphins on the trail
Of the undead illumination raised
By heavy ship’s propellers. As the trail
Of light unholy in the water dark
Leads to the leaden behemoth, this trail
Of dark unholy in the morning light
Grew tantalizing, promising a fight
To end forever the corruption dark
And wanton slaying footsteps that made it.
Atop a bluff Varr paused. “Catch here your breath,”
He said. “No need of that,” said Shane, “I have
Enough to carry on for miles still, and
Enough to blow our friend away, as well!”
Varr squinted at the distance, where the hunt
Would end. He saw their quarry shuffling off
More grime into the grass. He saw the trail
Connecting them to it unbroken; poised
To bring the two together with great noise
Like copper wire between two batteries.
But he saw other shapes. Some in dismay
With old women and children burdened down,
With poverty and sickness throttled up,
With bundles and with great extremity
Fled forward toward a tiny thread of stream
And then to the horizon. Others joined
The one that Shane and Varr had followed, in
Pursuit relentless, each one at the head
Of its own trail of charcoal sludge. “Our friend,”
Said Varr, “has found friends of his own.
And they are hunting also. If we wish
To spare these folk destruction, we must go-”
He finished not his sentence. Shane was up
And running, crying as he went “Cowards!
You stalk in darkness, only face the weak,
You will fall at a single blow! Face me!
If this be the first time that you confront
One able to strike back, I promise you
I will make it the last as well!” Shane tore
Across the plain, Varr half a step behind
And at his voice of thunder, the Soot turned,
Regarding him with unexpressing eyes.
If they were waiting for a further call
Or challenge from him, they were foolish. Shane
Straight at the nearest flung himself, and hit
With all his might of muscle and of rage
Full in its missing face. Backward it snapped
And toppled, while the filthy, skull shaped head
By boxing glove divorced from body, smashed
Upon the ground like fragile fallen glass.
As jackals, scavenging on southron plains
Out from their salt wastes venture to the kills
Of lions, stand and hesitate around
Reluctant to advance enough to steal
And too afraid to trust their numbers, while
The regal beast arises in his might.
So did the Soot hang back in hate and doubt
While Varr unsheathed his sword and took his place,
While Shane his shoulders rolled and popped his neck,
While the intended victims reached the bank,
While Shane said “See? I warned you, if you fell
Too far behind, I’d beat them all myself.
Already, brother, I’m ahead by one!”
An age they seemed prepared to stand: the Soot
In attitude of menace, the boxer
Defiant and cocksure, the warrior grave.
Yet, as even hard glass cannot remain
Forever perpendicular, but flows
After a century, until it breaks
Of its own weight, the Soot burned through their fear
To their hot core of rage and ageless hate
And hissing in their hearts, lifted their blades.
The first sword sought the boxer, clothed in rust
From bitter tip before to hilt behind,
Like bolt or javelin aimed, to spit him through
From chest to back as swift as arrowflight
In thought before the archer pulls the string.
The warrior’s blade was swifter still. As does
The blackbird stooping on the massy hawk
To drive him from her nest as yet unseen
With lesser strength and duller claws made more
Formidable by recklessness than three
Hundred hawks, or the missile meant to halt
Another’s flight with its own, held in check;
The decades-dormant bullet loosed aloft
At last to intercept some falling death
Of fire and brimstone cast across the seas
So massive it is weighed in megatons,
Varr caught the Soot right-angled, crossed his blade
Edgewise above the hilt, that its own charge
Drove it upon the sword, to split and sprawl
Beside the comrade foul it avenged not.
The third with halberd ancient came at Varr
Tip raised like standard high, to leverage weight
To double speed enough to split his shield.
But when he drew near, he was knocked aside
By Shane’s hard shoulder, and shoved to the grass
There by both gloves atop eachother crushed
Like tiny fleck of gravel caught between
The hammer and the anvil. Ere there was
A moment large enough to breathe, a fourth
Hissingly hurled its self and swords—chipped down
To their iron vertebrae—between the two.
Like the philosopher’s ass, who cannot
Choose which grass sweeter is, the Soot froze there
Between the two it hated, where it stayed
Just long enough to blink, had it but eyes,
Just long enough for Shane to twist and strike,
Just long enough for Varr to bounce it back
With his shield boss, for Shane to ricochet
The revenant again with all the force
Of shoulder, chest, and arm. Just long enough
For Varr to swing as if for a home run
And cleave the Soot in two across the waist
Just long enough it tumbled through the air,
Half this way, half the other, for two more
Black ashy shades to stumble hissing close
Enough to strike. Their blades they raised on high,
And under them came Varr the Last-to-Flee
Behind him followed Shane the Champion.
The warrior’s blade wrenched heavenward. The glove
Shot uppercutting rocketlike. One Soot
Was cloven from the rotten navel up,
The other’s neck was snapped, as does a gust
Of sudden wind do to a rotten bough,
And neither fatal blow had landed first.
“Your pardon must I beg, oh Champion,”
Said Varr, “For of your prowess little use.
For poor opponents, little more than stocks
Made by the sunlight nigh unfit to slay.”
“Not so, Last-to-Flee,” Shane growled, “I scorn not
The entertainment you’ve arranged for me.”
He beat his gloves together on his chest,
And said, “I only wish it not so soon
Completed!” For the final Soot remained
Held only by its helplessness to flee
Under the rising sun. Instead it turned
With thrashing sword and shuffled toward the folk
Upon the river’s edge. Came Shane and Varr
All pride forgotten, as do those in flight
Out of a house aflame. They passed it by
On either side, and struck it glancing blows
Then skidded to a stop between the thing
And those it had pursued, as if to form
A gate between them, unseen but locked fast.
They stood triangulated: Varr,
To his right Shane, and to his right the foe.
With empty eyes it watched them, with its sword
Trailing among the tangled grass, twitching
In frustration, in anger, and in dread,
And staining it with rust. Perhaps it felt
The fear of earlier now magnified
Sixfold by its six dark comrades cut down.
Perhaps it knew too well the odds, and held
Back from a skirmish it must lose, as those
Whose souls are not worth keeping grasp them tight
And will not risk the touch of any thing—
A sea, a sky, a song, a god, a love—
Upon them. Or perhaps it thought the sun
Whose light bewilders all such dwimmer-things
Had come down from the sky to torment it
In person of these two, who’d followed it
From their stronghold last night, with sword and fist.
Perhaps it thought and felt naught but dull hate.
The dark ash mannequin advanced one step,
Varr raised his blade to stab as on it came.
Shane shuffled sideways, struck once. It was knocked
Directly on Varr’s sword up to the hilt
Like a dried hornet mounted on a pin.
The air was cleared of hissing, and was still.
The boxer and the warrior crossed long sword
With heavy glove. They struck backhanded fist
To flat of blade with sound like breaking light
Through lead-hued clouds split suddenly, and their
Huzzahs were taken up by those who stood
Just on the riverbank, as sunlight pools
On sun’s right hand and left in prismed shades
And makes two other suns. Shane caught the scent
Of victory long left behind, on cheers
For him, on hot adrenaline draining
From veins that needed it no more, on taste
Of elation he almost had forgot.
And with remembered joy came other things
Not taken with him: eyes that watched him fight,
A voice that soothed his pain, and hands that held
More in defeat than triumph. Shane was seized
With more than curiosity this time
To know if he yet lived. His ears seemed blocked
And his throat burned as if he swallowed ice
Though all around him morning warmed the earth
And wiped the last few dewdrops from the turf.