I Cannot Solve Everything

The Sheriff Marc had an inner circle of exceedingly young and nubile boys. He detested women, yet coupled with them often, for public display, or at times, to satiate some violence within.

His taxations were unparalleled and the country worked hard to appease his demands.

It was six months before Tooke and Robin were to be told of the hangings he had ordered - for the two had travelled in a different direction to the Brothers, and communication was scarce, due to the war. And they had purposefully hidden in places of no connection.

"Why did you not know this in time to save these men?" Tooke asked despairingly.

"We have had this discussion a many times" said Robin casting his head back and staring at the sky. "I am not God, Brother - I simply cannot see and solve everything, or even much at all.

"We should have both foreseen the risk and kept them in our care."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Early Ikea

Stefan Kopinski

"Treason is treason - and no Court needs to decide this - the criminals shall hang!"
Pre-cut scaffolding came in kit form in easy-to-assemble pieces. The Viking carpenters were the first to bring the new system to the British Isles. Eleven poles sat erect upon a stage-like platform. The Sheriff would have been content with trees; but authority spoke far louder through a good show.

"You cannot execute monks,” the chief Ambassador sternly counselled.

"That as it may be, but this lot gave forfeit to the protection of their holy Order - and so, you have no argue with me concerning what I may or may not do with their sentences. You can join them if you prefer their point of view to mine."

The Ambassador sneered behind the Sheriff's back - he did not take well to being threatened.

The Sheriff Marc spun around and caught him on the nose - sticking a finger up inside each nostril, freakishly intimately, intimidatingly. Two black rays shot forth from his fingertips, directly up and into the brain. If you could have seen inside the Ambassador's head there was a black pungent vapour that wound around the interior, saturating his inner flesh.


He fell to the ground in a seizure of ecstasy. Opiates or ale could not have come par to the raptures that this poor man was spun into. From hereon the rest of his life became a shadow and he would hover like a dog towards Marc's power wantingly.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

We Know Exactly our Borders

"Pass me that apple."

Tooke threw the fruit hard, which Robin caught skilfully at the end of his sword - it burst open, showering them in a golden spangling light.

"Why could you have not used those tricks when we needed them?"

"I could not."

"But why?"

Robin appeared to be genuinely mournful and his youthful composure seemed to ague. He looked grimly at the ground and then back at Tooke who was waiting for an answer.

"If the Fey had license over the affairs of Men, they would run this world outright. I can solve a problem here and there individually, but I cannot affect history, for my own world would crumble with such an effort.

"Unlike men we know exactly our borders of what we can and cannot do. Our instincts are sharp to this; our faculties know the cosmic limits of our racial interactions...

"I have a history with you, but there is only so much that I can ever manifest - even to save a brother for whom I am most cherished of."

"I now know this well." Tooke said - understanding that in the world of Men there was only so much that the Holy could do on behalf of the rest - and if it were otherwise the world's salvation would be guaranteed, were it not so compromised then by the few.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

So Uncanny

"If you cut me do I not bleed?"

Robin took the end of the sword to make a point and sliced himself over the arm. Tooke was horrified.

"Ha!" exclaimed Puck flamboyantly ... "Oh no! Fancy that! I do not!"

"Sometimes I forget that I am not nearly the same as you" Friar Tooke conceded. He was a man of moderate composure whose thinking was so sedate it rarely inflamed with emotion of any kind. But his friend could vex him so.

Robin was just trying to make merry - disposing of the fact that Tooke's chapter had just left him and that the brethren had reentered the world for good.

Puck was continually showing him the incomprehensible - and was so uncanny that Tooke could not help but be disturbed on so many levels.

Robin, on the other hand, was beginning to feel the outcast that he was - and had only ever sought to impress his close friend - not to frighten.

Coming out of the woods and into the realm of men was never easy for him - he was sensitive to those things that they could never really understand.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Let them go

The skies were overcast and threatening again. The chill in the air had a bite that nipped the ears, and his fellow monks were all losing weight - despite of the thick clots of crème they had been eating.

Ever since their torment, nigh after the Sheriff had bemused himself with his bilious comments whilst restraining them, the men had been downcast and believing themselves to have failed for becoming a'feared. Added to that was their survivors guilt from the battle; for all of them had brothers and fathers that had died that very day and it had only been the robes that had kept them from being cut down also.

They did not feel like men, and nor did they feel holy. This was a low period for them all.

"You must know that you are nit-picking about the crème" remarked Robin in his most tedious voice - what he meant to be saying was that this was the least of their troubles.

"I do know" the Monk replied wearily ... "but it fills in a day. There is nothing for us to do out here in hiding and the brothers are getting tired of it just praying all the time. I fear that their hearts are not attached to their contemplations anymore."

"You should let them go", Robin said unexpectedly. "The villages are in need of men - their own families are calling for ploughmen and fathers to be. Perhaps you should release them of their vows."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Cream of the Crème

"Do you call that cream?"
"Yes. The lumps are all the more fancy."

"That is foreigner's crème not Anglaise cream."

"'Tis a marvel, I know."

Friar Tooke grunted, he liked his cream to be straight off the top and not diddled with - the panjacks were better rustic than fancy. This was not a good omen to begin the day.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

At the River's Edge

Brother Tooke read his expression as consent and said:

"It is with love that I say this to you Brother." And then he backed up a few paces, rolled his baggy sleeves up to the elbows and ran powerfully towards Robin ending with a head butt to the chest - which was just enough to make him buckle. He then lifted him high, heaved him over his shoulder, running fast the fifteen paces towards the river, which lay, not far beside them.

"In the Name of the Son, The Father, and the all-pervading most Holy Ghost" he threw Robin in, jumped on him, dragging him down beneath the muddy water.

"Welcome! To the Order of Man and the Benevolence of the Christhood and its sanctity within our blessed Church!"

"Well, glad I am that that dialogue is now over" Robin said, caught by the humor of it, and that he had in fact, not dissolved in body or soul. He knew also that the monk never really did anything for mirth alone - Tooke was a practical man spiritually and as far as he was concerned, everything had its purpose, and that purpose was always good.

Drying off on the grassy banks Robin took a flying leap at Brother Tooke, hurling him back into the river again.

"It is only just my friend, that I should baptise thee!" he shouted as he had thrown him into the water's arms - narrowly missing the bulging boulders besides.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Christ-shone Magick

"So what is it that concerns you boy?"

Robin could not find the words - which was very unusual for him.

"This is personal and private to me alone ... I am not of your ways, nor need to be."

"But what harm can come of it I say? That is of course,” he added with a smile, "if there is a soul in there to be saved."

"Well thank God you be smiling. Had it not occurred to his holy-ness that you might just dissolve me altogether with your Christ-shone magicks?"

The monk would not have this. Tooke's smiling eyes did their best to pierce Robin's own, with meaning.

"Under God, you and I are the same with spirit, and with His Love. I do not doubt it and neither should you."

"If that be true then", returned Robin, "Why the need for baptism then? I still can't grasp your enchantments!"

"There are many paths and although not a shortcut, it is at the very least, a straightforward one. I sit with your Elvin Council, why then can you not indulge me with this one ask?"

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A Pole that Bore a Shining Silk Cloth

As the figures dropped away, the crowd was clearing; it became apparent that there was someone standing central to them after all.

This figure was one of light also, indicating that his ghost must have already dissolved ... it stood very tall and seemed different to the other knights and soldiers surrounding him.

He held a pole that bore a shining silk cloth draped from it - and his face was covered with a golden helmet. People all around him knelt and bowed their heads - as though they thought somehow that it was he who had delivered them. It seemed that the battle was over, and peace had ever so gladly resumed.

Cheering began and grew louder very quickly. He had taken his helmet from his head and knelt also alongside the many who had remained.

"Strueth!" said Bart so loudly everyone jumped a little - "is that Brogan down there?"

Marley looked hard - but it was difficult to see in any great detail - but yes, the one central to the mob, now wearing a crown, did bear a remarkable resemblance to Brogan oddly enough.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Like Arthur with the Sword from the Stone

One hapless ghoul had been stuck through the middle with a four-foot sword. He was tugging and pulling to be free of it, and lay impaled, writhing on its pin.

A man, who also walked as though in a cloud of light, was dressed as a farmer in working clothes. He came out of the airs, and like Arthur with the sword from the stone, plucked it firmly out - freeing him at last from his centuries of aggravation. He then disappeared, as the others had done before him.

One by one the spectres were reclaimed as the party watched from the top, transfixed by the dramatic stories becoming evident – now, with much happier endings than before.

Biff, who had fallen asleep during the prayers, woke to find everyone standing by the windows - he asked Jobe what was going on.

"That Priest there is mighty. He's gobbling up the dead wrecks and moving their sorry arses on. Hey, look over there - that real ugly one just disappeared!"

Goober scowled at this disappointing lowbrow explanation, feeling pretty sure it was far from the real truth of what was going on before them. Deep magic is best not talked about whilst you are in the very middle of it happening, and so he decided to let the comment pass.

Marley stood beside Puck, looking at him wonderingly. She loved his connectedness, and how he mixed with so many people. She thought of all of the centuries he had lived - without forgetting like the mortals do – and she wondered to herself just how many he had known.

It seemed to be getting darker - or perhaps it was that the body of collective light was brightening as the numbers of illumined souls began to outrun that of the remaining ghosts.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Nervina Watched

A gleaming Knight, head to tip in full metal, came out from the mists and strode over to one of the ghosts who were holding fast to the host group.

He tapped him on his shoulder, and the spectre fell loose from the mass. His eyes were but sockets unfilled as they had been dug out at the battlefield where he had fallen, and one of his arms hung heavily down in a dead weight twisted to the side. The ethereal Knight lowered to collect him from the ground, and no sooner had he lifted him up, the ghost of the other disappeared.

Beings of light started appearing in the dozens.

One, a fair young woman - or very possibly just a girl - stepped forward. With a handsome modesty, her face gave serenity its name. She went over to a teenager who was lying folded on the ground, naked and bleeding from the thighs. Her hair had been pulled out, revealing bare patches on her skull, black with dried blood; one ear was torn where her earring had been wrenched.

The girl of light did not go straight to her as one might have guessed that she would. Instead she walked on past, going northwards around the outside of the stack.

Nervina watched her picking through the huddle, until she stopped and leant into puzzle of bodies, picking a bundle from the mass.

She went back to the naked girl and showed her a very tiny unborn that had once been lost to her. Unfastening her cloak at the throat, she covered her infant as one might do with a blanket. The mother and child wraith evaporated, just after the girl of light had knelt down to unite them both.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Stack of Spectres

Father Tooke returned to his petitions, with a constant and unerring application naming each soul on the ground below. He was calling them to come and collect what was left of their astral corpse - to take it back into themselves, forgiving the failings of the past and make peace once again.

From the top level one could see through the haze that the ghouls had now come away from the mansion's windows and walls, and had congregated into one massive huddle together on the grounds below.

This stack of spectres looked domed from the outside and it appeared as though there was a central force within, drawing them all together.

The cries and moans had ceased and were replaced with a gentle melodious hum. There was a palpable solemnity thickly spread within the atmosphere that overcame the former rants of sadness.

It began at first with the children.

A little girl appeared coming out from a rosy light. She approached a smaller child who was clinging at the outer edge of the hive. She touched her hand gently. The other child turned to look at her, and had you been up close enough you could have seen that they were of the same face – only one looked a little older.

The girl of light then wrapped her arms about her naturally, embracing the waif as though she were her baby sister, whereupon the wretch of a child just vanished from that spot.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

There are Ghosts Everywhere

There are ghosts everywhere - wherever you go in the world where people have lived, there is a constant imprint on that space - reliving, retelling what has taken place.

The Physical World lives and breathes these memories, even though those who are alive cannot penetrate their realities knowingly.

This single-mindedness keeps men from reliving that of their own past and allows the futures to greet them fully.

The difference between the usual ghosts and the ones at siege at Basingstoke Close was that their feeble consciousness had been imbibed - something had drawn the actual souls back - in part to revisit their tormented stories of that time.

There are good deaths, great deaths, and those passings that require healing- those deaths that in need of rehabilitation not ever final until laid to rest properly. And this can take time ... with centuries of turmoil.

Their souls, however, have long vacated their astral remains and are refreshed, quite separate to the harrowing ghosts that in time they shall reclaim to assimilate that part of themselves they did leave behind at the hasty end.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Dead Centre of the Swarm

"Humour is never explicable", said Goober, "it comes in sideways to logic, and that's what makes it funny".

There was silence in the room while everyone considered this.

Having all stopped talking momentarily they realised that there was also a silence outside as well.

Biff was imagining a whole bunch of clowns now down there waiting for him - "terrific" he thought to himself, "just terrific, ghouls and now clowns". This was not turning out to be the party he had imagined.

"Something to tell the folks at home about I suppose" he further thought - they love this stuff. By 'home' he had meant their little chapel.

Bart could be heard yelling from somewhere down the stairs "Help! Quick! Brogan's gone outside and they’re attacking him".

Marley looked anxiously over to Puck who was peering through some binoculars into the crowd. He was scanning for a pulsing light that came from the tag he had placed on him back when he had died. He located it soon enough to find that Brogan was dead centre of the swarm.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Aren't clowns meant to be funny?

"Oh!" shrieked Jobe at the top of his voice, "there's a clown at the window!"

"Easy boy" said Nervina parking himself on the window seat in between Jobe and the face peering in.

"It's only another ghost" he said - shaking his head at the reaction.

"Looks like a clown to me."

"Aren't clowns meant to be funny?" Goober asked joining them with a dish of fried potatoes.

Nervina explained: - "Every now and then a plague comes to the world and the mortals end up in a terrible mess just before they pass over ... with sunken dark circles and bleeding from their eyes, rashes around their mouths, all dribbling down. At that point their minds go and they start stumbling around. Well, clowns were fashioned on this type of ghost - and not the other way around. That is why so many folk have a morbid fear of them - because they aren’t so funny at all."

He'd been talking above the Priest who had continued to pray, and only now had just stopped and was walking towards them.

Nervina blushed with embarrassment realising that his talking had interrupted the effort.

Father Tooke shook his hand warmly and said: "Never understood the clown thing before - thank you".

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Pile On

Brogan had recognized one of the men he had seen at the window - he knew that face with a fond feeling of recollection and something within his heart compelled him to go and greet him, face to face.

No sooner was he outside and into the grounds the clamour began. Wraiths came to him from all over and like an enormous bee stack attached to the hive, layers of ghostly beings clung to each other around him.

He felt nothing ... It all went dark ... Brogan faintly heard a squeal coming from high up in the house, and it sounded like Marley.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Bony Fingers Rapping & Tapping

The child ghosts were unnaturally aggressive - they were biting one another. The women were tearing at their dresses and beating at their husbands. Their ribs showed through with hunger, their breasts hung like an old woman's sack, and their babies had turned blue.

Brogan strolled over to the side window - twenty or more faces were pressed up against the glass - their bony fingers were rapping and tapping on the panes.

"I didn't think that this was ever meant to happen,” said Bart looking over his shoulder.

"It's not" Brogan replied, "It's not".

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Storm Outside

Father Tooke could be heard on the floor above, praying out loud from up the main staircase. The insane wails persisted in relentless waves.

The shadows had infiltrated the walls, showing all terrible scenes that gave a pictorial account of hundreds of final moments. These ghosts were more than restless; they were trapped in anguish, and overwrought with the pain of it. Something or someone had stirred the phantoms from their places in the ground.

"Do you think that the Priest will be able to annihilate them all?" Bart asked timidly.

His fear had got the better of him - as this generation of the fallen ghosts were a far wilder lot that even he had been used to. The streets of Medieval England must have truly been a rugged place to survive in.

"I don't know" Brogan considered "he has some powerful magic I have heard, and that is why Puck did bring him to us. His strength is the kind that could reduce ghouls into dust I don't doubt. When all settles we can go back to our party.” Although he said this reassuringly, he had never known anything like this before, and it worried him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

One Last Prayer

After the King's army had departed, the Monks rose from the ground and brushed the dirt from their cloth. They neatened themselves as best they could; their tears making trails on their grubby faces.

Robin had been there with them all of this time, lain amongst them, and was wearing the same robes, as he did, when in their company.

"There is a challenge of a man to pray for" he said sarcastically.

He turned to the Monk beside him who seemed stricken with melancholy. He was trying to pull the shortened cord back around his waist - it had been cut with the Sheriff’s knife to expose his nakedness, before being forced to the ground.

"What now Brother Tooke?" he asked gently.

Satisfied that the knot would hold, he then looked back up at Robin and answered stoically: "My guess be that it is time for us all to take our leave" his voice went quieter at the end of these words as the two looked out over the fields.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Black Sheriff's Threats

"You cannot kill the Monks!" a voice shrilled bitingly.

"No, but I can castrate the bastards! I assure you it would be doing the Holy Church a service increasing their virtue..." the Black Sheriff sneered, and then spat, pacing around the twelve that were lying face down on the ground in front of his men.

The figures were motionless, helpless in submission, with their hoods over their heads and long brown robes, and just ankles and sandals bared.

"This Order harms no one Sir" the knight persisted bravely in his dangerous protest.

"Perhaps. Yet they contrive against me all the same - with their insolence. They endeavor to heal the foe we strike down - what madness compels them to nurture our enemy? It is contrary to law, and they needs be punished for their fickle humors."

Sweat drinkled down his neck, as the heat of the day had set upon them. Their tunics were weighing heavy, as none had slept and plainly his men had become weary.

"I will give them but one day to produce the traitor Robin or I will cut them all" he then added to pepper his threat: "Their hymns will be sung all the sweeter."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Humble Monk

Outside blood dripped everywhere, it shot and spurt in orbic globs, stickily clinging to the spectres that caught their sprays, patterning the outside walls with ghoulish graffiti, where lines dripped into pictures, in monochrome records of how the dead had fallen.

Once these were nearly all young and robust men. They had been sons of villagers, children of Barons, shouldered together, in fighting lines of mindless formation. Censored, disengaged, now angry men, whose ghost wives and children now stood beside them.

Frantic and accusing they stared out from sightless eyes, with mouths slung open, drooling witless words, stumbling steps from an atrophied and necrotic flesh.

"Oh the Priest is like the cleaner” he said knowingly - I imagine he will take the dark forces, bag them all up and commit them to some out-of-the-way place - he is that powerful."

***

They had expected an Archbishop but this fellow was but a monk.

They had anticipated royal purple robes, with embroidery and fancy work, and a golden cross upon the breast, but this humble Monk wore none.

He stoutly stood; pale faced and solemn - looking so deeply concerned, whilst everyone who was counting on him fell to dismay.


He greeted the group warmly and then said "Kneel brothers".

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A Ghostly Ferment

“We must call in the Priest – he will know what to do.”

“What of Kybosh?”

“No, it is never any good to add calamity upon calamity - we need an expert in quelling this turmoil. I will find him and bring him here.”

Earlier that day Puck had met with the realtor and secured a winning price for Stanhope - its invisible householders were pleased. They had gathered together to celebrate the residence when the moors had started to froth over with a ghostly ferment.

Very soon its mists had grown faces and a stronghold of four hundred ghouls were howling at their windows.

Zombies are physical bodies who manifest without souls, and ghosts are astral remnants that live on without inhabiting souls - shells of former men recanting their past woes.

These fellows had been aroused from their rest and their carryon was overbearing. They even brought with them an odour most foul.

Tonight's party had fallen short.

"How about I'll go and get the Priest and you look after what is happening here?" offered Nervina who was chilled by their presence; for there were sides to humanity he could not stomach well.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Stanhope Manor

Thrice the bell sounded to an empty corridor. The figure at the door had departed, flicking the latch, the gate snappily clacked shut, and the house wheezed an ethereal sigh, much relieved.

For a decade Stanhope Manor had sat empty with only the Lady Marthorn and her borders in residence; who preferred the mansion to be vacant - for the commotion of mortals gave them all a terrible brain fag: which was a fatigue from the constant interruption to their creative sensitivities....

Puck made his commute from the forest to the town house that he and Marley shared, keeping a watchful eye, all the while on Stanhope, protecting its ghosts and the wealth of mineral that lay tucked beneath it.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Diving Down out of a Cosmic Sky

There are faerie lights in Faerie - not the tiny paper lanterns that you might see strung up high upon a tree, and not the fat neon fireflies that sprinkle the forests at night - no, these lights are actually the beings themselves, visible as just a pin-point of light, like stars on the sky, the etheric beings grace our world with fleeting sparks of brilliant radiance.

They say for every problem there is a solution, and that grey wolves have white beards; marshmallows taste better toasted; and, once a queen, you are always a queen until death. Sifting through such wisdoms is a pastime of the disenchanted, for they have lost their own secret knowledge and seek to find it by the light of another's insights.

The air was cool and its mists were fresh.

While the lost souls locked in the interior of Hell sat picking at their scabs, the newborns were jettisoned fast into the world, diving down out of a cosmic sky, where centuries of future men awaited their time for a soft landing.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

WAR was becoming a chore

Folk were beginning to tire of games and all around the earth members were falling away from spending their days and nights with Phoenix WAR 3.

In no time at all, the online log-ins had dropped to just a five percent attendance.

Some players had leapt into the more boutique and elite games, with political and socially happening forums, whilst the overall consciousness had just shifted and drifted away. The viral temperature was deathly cold.

Reality had become so strong, they had said, that WAR was becoming a chore.

Some thought that the glamour had dissolved because people only wanted something which is new - and after a seven year success it had simply tired and retired out of fashion.

There were, added to these considerations, the subliminal add-ons the Master Kybosh had inserted: attaching olfactory and tactile sublimates to the usual hypnotic flashes, which deceptively ran throughout the high points of engagement. Players were now smelling sulphurous eggs, and spray of cat, with a whiff of salami. He also produced pins and needles in their feet and fingers; jammed consoles and wiped their scores.

Pretty soon the youth migrated leaving only the infirm to continue playing against themselves.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Puck was not purely of Fey Heritage

Although Elvish folk have come from the old world, there is always a particle of the future that they carry illumined brightly within their quick minds that is gifted with foresight, inspiring them with an acute sense of a world just about to happen.

Technically they are not capable of, or ever meant to actually, interfere with the destinies of Men - cross paths they might, but the two streams of evolution are very distinct and separate.

But it so happened that Puck was not purely of Fey heritage, for his lineage's blood was also human, and this gave him an inherited longing for involvement in their kind as well as for those of the vale.

Apart from that fact, he also had the inclination towards a good story and the epic that is Mankind surpassed the seeming frivolity of the etheric world.

And, as a tsunamic tide, the conduct of men washes over the Faerie realm in stormy repercussion - how then could he merely await its advance, to ride yet one more deathless death?

The stories of his famed debauchery had been fabricated over time - all kinds of mischief and gossip made it difficult as historical record to put right.

Puck had loved, and he had overlooked the laws of the day when it was necessary, but he was always true to Humanity with an equal heart, through and through.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Azlan Before Me, Azlan Beside Me

Richard stood in the morning's dawn light looking into the space where the Azlan had lain and had spoken to him on the dewy grass.

This session had left him with a contentedness ... and he felt as though this strength of peace and knowing would never leave him, no matter what contest or circumstance should follow.

Such meetings are private and there are few accounts in public record given, but suffice to say that the instruction King Richard received had come to him because of his honest heart that was open enough to receive it.

He truly was a noble man - who had thought himself both troubled and weak - and had downcast his own opinion of himself so dangerously that the Azlan had now come to remedy this.

And now he was uplifted again and he thereafter honoured his emissary - he soon changed the royal coat to depict this beloved Lion who had, beyond all meta-physicks, made himself known to him.

And although he could not give explanation to this royal signature that now bore three lions, he would privately say to himself (and his children to follow):

"Azlan behind me, Azlan before me, Azlan beside me."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Golden Corona

Oh Golden Light of Christ anoint my head

And read my mind as thoughts unwind

Of battles' roads and life unkind.

Please heal my soul and faults in all.

My wit's rebound as I here stand

In this, the light of the holy crown.

Quenched in the morning's opportune

Reviving my selfhood with the beauty of dawn

Take me now! Please take me now!

For the purity of first light is bliss

And surely the whole point of faith is just in this:

-Not that we believe ... but that we ask of He to have faith in us.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Disappeared into the Night Air

"Black Marc" Robin so named the Sheriff to himself in thought - and then saw the anger flicker sharply across the brow - it was then clear to him that he had the skill to read his thinking.

"No" he flatly and finally said.
So saying, he and his men to follow, simply vanished before the Sheriff could speak again. They disappeared into the night air completely.

"No?" the Sheriff repeated questioningly in disbelief. And then screamed again "No!" He was outraged to be disobeyed and then left bluntly like that.

"Nooo!" his voice echoed now so loud throughout the forest that the birds vacated the trees and the moths flew in spurious clouds away from their bushes.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series