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
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
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
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 - 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
"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
"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
