Song for Ulvaak

With a poisoned blade and a list of names
 I stabbed and slashed and made my fame
 For gold, I took lives free of blame
 In the city of Gamotia
 My sword was keen, my armor thick
 No fighter's thrust or wizard's trick
 Or curse from priest, or thieving pick
 Could pierce my heart of stone
 So off one day I rode and rode
 Into a dungeon's maw I strode
 Some beast to worry, bait, and goad
 Then kill, to claim a bounty
 Then down a crooked hallway crept
 Across a spiked canyon leapt
 Into a chamber, phantom-swept
 There sat my newest prey
 A hissing demon made of bone
 A rotted tunic, eyes that shone
 Regal, sat on silver throne
 A zombie king, I reckoned
 It made no difference—I'd been paid
 A killer's contract had been made
 This ghoul's head, severed, would be laid
 On my retainer's table
 Then up he sprang and drew a scroll
 And with a voice dry-dark as coal
 Began a chant that pierced my soul
 And froze me where I stood
 I wore two rings one carved from jade
 One of mithril, elvish made
 The first one cause all magic to fade, the second made me swift
 Not swift enough or so it seemed
 The ghouls eyes sockets yet still gleamed
 And then drew close as gray mist steamed out of his hingey jaw
 "Your contract's null, yet you will live
 I'm not the one your death to give
 That fate awaits—but, like a sieve,
 Your time is running short."
 He said, "There are worlds above our own
 We are but fancies, proxies thrown
 Into a dream—not flesh and bone
 We are but dice and paper."
 "We're hero figures for the weak
 Who aren't yet confident to speak-
 To girls, or claim the life they seek,"
 The ghoul said with a sigh
 Back in Gamotia, suddenly
 (Or had it always bothered me?)-
 I sensed a subtle falsity-
 In every face I spied
 Their skills and defects, will and wit-
 Seemed paper-thin and counterfeit-
 Their fates the same and long pre-writ-
 Off in some far-off sky
 The sky I noticed seemed to be
 Of crumpled foolscap torn me
 No longer was I a killer free
 To kind my own lifes path
 I sensed, somewhere outside the land,-
 A soft and inexperienced hand
 That knew no steel and claimed no land-
 Had brought me into being
 And so decided, in a flash
 I'd not be tossed away like trash
 My sword would rend and gnaw and lash
 Against a pudgy god see less