Too much Sun

There was a noise coming from down the road - angry voices were name-calling and shouting loud. He looked and could see a man, a tall man, sitting astride a very small donkey.

Darius loved donkeys and his immediate inclination was to go and pat his furry head. As fortune would have it the beautiful beast had stopped right in the front of the sweetbread shop.

With a round bun in his little hand he went over to feed the shaggy animal. Missiles of waste and pebbles were being thrown in his direction and long palm fronds stretching out from irritants within the crowd were pelting the man from the sides of the road.

A piece of rotten fruit caught little Darius on the ear. Master Donkey had stopped still to contentedly chew over the bun he had been fed - Darius steadied himself, putting one little hand upon the thigh of the stranger, who caught him by the wrist just before he was to slip being struck by yet another rancid missile.

The noise from the clamouring spectators was raucous and rude - but he was not frightened, keeping his hand inside that of the man's. He stared at his face wonderingly. The eyes of the stranger looked back as though they were trying to tell him something - and he felt happy - really happy - and everything around him seemed to sparkle.

***

"You've had too much sun out there my boy", his father had said when he tried to describe the sparks and stars he was seeing almost everywhere about him.

And, the face of the man - that man...

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Famous Nails

They stood and waited dutifully. After five minutes Darius's legs were getting sore and he wanted very badly to go home. His father saw his boy fidgeting and handed him a roasted nut from his pocket fold.

Another usher with silent footfall came in and drew back a black curtain from the wall. Behind it sat a throne and upon its seat was a character enmeshed in woven gold, wearing a metal mask that had a weave of craggy horns high above his head.

This figure produced a small pouch and handed it to his father. It weighed so heavy that it bulged the material. Inside was a fine metal dust, so fine it looked like black flour and sparkled in the lamplight as he opened it.

The usher who had been waiting behind them moved forward and motioned to silently leave through another door to their left. He then took them through the maze, with no words having been spoken until they were back into the light.

"Portius instructed me to tell you that you will prosper in your business. You are to add a dram to each bale of molten iron and the metal will be all the stronger for it. Success will come shortly ... and fame of your wares will span the centuries."

This was a great honor and the prophecy did prove true. The foundry flourished and the metal polished strong - and they secured the city's tender ... a consignment of nails to be supplied, in all sizes.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Expedition into the Caverns

Darius hid within the folds of his father's robe. He did not like these expeditions into the caverns.

The people down there scared him greatly, for they wore bizarrely decorated costumes, which when seen only in the half-light looked very threatening to such a small child.

He could hear the sound of trickling water and the whole enclosure smelt exceedingly damp. The rock was warm to the touch, and incense wrote over the notes of the vaporous mould.

Women, or perhaps young men, were veiled all in black, moving all about. They blended with the shadows well, for their faces were covered also.

They transported the offerings and replenished the firelights - some had trays to sup from, some drove out the rats and swept the halls.

Smaller caves were hollowed out from the larger one.

When an usher in black led them into an anteroom Darius saw his face through the veil, and how his skin was black too - shining like polished wood.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Puck's Advice

Some of his advice was as follows:
Always tell the truth and never depart, even a little into deceiving others.

Speaking falsehoods - he said - interrupts the clairvoyant faculties. To gain entrance into the spiritual worlds one has to be aligned with the truth; for if the consciousness defers to inaccuracies and self-made fiction, it becomes inhibited into seeing only that of its own making.

Pray hard; exercise hope; look forward; project ideas; try to imagine; cast a net; write a list; summon ideals; visualize good outcomes; specify and itemise clearly ... but do not live in a phantasy of goals that you have not yet obtained. Be clear with what you are, and what you are not, and what it is that really you want.

If you fall into melancholy it is because too much unclaimed desire has overtaken your commonsense.

And, he added - throw some balls, fly a kite, and aim high.

It was this last bit that completely annoyed her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A Bout of Viral Materialism

Marley sat in the coffee-house crying into her handbag, which there within contained hundreds of little slips of paper that had kept appearing – all telling her not to worry and that somehow this would get fixed.

She had been, it seemed, infected with a bout of viral materialism and the main thing now was to be careful not to overeat or overly panic. Hopefully it would pass in a day or so.

Materialism is not dissimilar to dementia - an apoplexy of the spiritual recall. The faculties of imagination and precognition are restricted, whilst the sense of the eternal is reduced down to just momentary concerns. A very bad case of it can result in atheistic behaviours - and, at its absolute worst, it can manifest a deathly condition of unrest, chronic disbelief with relentless argumentativeness.

Like any other atrophy or paralysis, the sufferer needs to exercise what little perception they have left. Puck had given Marley a list of exercises, although her heart just was not in doing them - in fact, if anything, she seemed a little ungrateful every time he reminded her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Night had vanished from Richard's Mind

Immortals had no wherewithal to comprehend the thinking of men - let alone the minds of the history makers.

Yet they could, now and then, inspire from the left fields of a broadcast imagination.

Robin, the Fey, carried the sleeping King throughout the realms of Faerie and then transported him back into his world of Men, come the morning.

Arriving at their castle hall, a bleary eyed Richard smiled a bearded smile, as he alighted down from the coach's rise.

"I am much revived - thank you Sir for a seamless ride and delivering me so securely."

He plainly remembered nothing of the visions of the night just passed.

Disappointed, yet not surprised, Robin bowed slightly and stepped back to let his eminence pass by him.

The night had vanished from Richard's mind - he had not the ability to retain its meaning - and, like fine gold dust falling, the weight of its wisdom had slipped past his consciousness and onto his feet before him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Mystery Tour

The carriage had now accelerated its speed, and its dappled horses had transformed into black steeds double their size.

The motion of the ride was proving to be intoxicating - fast and smooth with the pounding of rhythmic hoof-fall ... Richard struggled hard with the need to rest his eyes, drifting up and into sleep's spaces. Further and further his capsule proceeded, until finally the good King gave his consent into dream.

Robin did not always talk directly with men. If he intuited that plain speak could not be properly be heard or convey what he should like to explain, he preferred, (as most agents of the divine do) to reveal the messages in visions or dreams, which could show example - and not just words.

King Richard had sought the mysteries, yet was an ever practical and earthly man. He could not, as yet, willingly perceive the Fey, anymore than they could truly understand his world. His life consisted of physical battles with blade and force, of hurt and cold, ambition and its failures; of bruises big and small; of fighting for an unseen God with no immediate or tangible reward.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series