Hi all,
It's been some considerable time since I last shared some of my work with you all. The fact that this much has been written by yours truly is as much of a surprise to me as it is anyone else.
In truth, over this last year I had honestly considered giving up writing any kind of original work due to extreme personal circumstances.
Fate, an enthusiastic friend and a loving and accepting wife all refused to let me put to bed that which I love to do, even just as something I enjoy. But that is a tale for another time as I know what you're all really here for.
So, without further ado, please enjoy the first taste of the Deag MacTir Novelette,
An American Wasteland
“To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time” – Ed Tessel
It had rained the night before that much he could immediately by how the soil and sand beneath his feet made a delightful squelching noise and sank with each step. It was not uncommon for hard rains to come at the end of summer, or at any point in the year if he was being honest. But normality had a way of evaporating out here in New Mexico.
It was raining now as well, but only a soft downpour, the kind that made you wet without even knowing it was happening. He could feel his long crimson locks gradually getting damper and damper the further he walked.
There was a fell wind that accompanied the rain but that was always true this far into the American Wasteland, this far into the Glimmer. It cut sharply across his skin and he pulled his black coat tight around his chest to shield himself from the freezing attack that defended the moors.
Venturing a look in front, Puck saw his companion scouting the paths up ahead of them and wondered, not for the first time, just how the hell he had got roped into yet another lunatic situation.
“Just my luck I suppose” he said to himself bitterly, “Either that or I just have insanely bad karma”
Jenny Nevermore turned and looked over her shoulder at him. Her ever present companion, Scout or ‘The King in the North’ as she called him, was nestled comfortably on her shoulder dozing away and paying no heed to either the wind or the rain. Time and the world passed by without a second thought for the mottled brown moggy who only stirred on occasion when Jenny would feed him the occasional treat kept in her coat pocket.
Puck growled low and pushed his irritation as far down into his stomach as he could but his annoyance at being dragged along to the moors was only getting harder to contain with each passing hour.
“Is there a pub near here?” Puck yelled at his companion, “I have need to warm my feet else they’re going to fall off!”
“Quit your whining, we’ve got a job to do. You can drink yourself stupid once we’re back home” she yelled then continued on the trail forward.
Puck looked to the sky, the clouds turning from grey to black as the weather signaled its intentions to give more than a light drizzle to accompany them on their path.
“Yeah, definitely bad Karma” he said and quickened his pace to follow Jenny.
* * *
“So, who is this guy called again?” Puck asked from his barstool as he flicked absently through the small paperback book he had been given.
“He’s called The Man in Black” the young boy sitting on the stool next to him explained.
Puck read a couple of lines and glanced sideways at his young companion. Seeing the expectant look from his childish face the Fae was not sure if he wanted to share his opinion on the young lad’s book.
“And, what does he do?” he asked with the measured tone of the aged speaking to the youth. The young man grunted in exasperation, frustrated that Puck had clearly not been paying as much attention as he had wanted.
“Uncle Puck, I told you!” he whined.
Puck stared down blankly at the young boy then shook his head with confusion.
“You did?” he said. The young boy snatched the book back from Puck and began to rifle through the pages until he found what he was looking for, held the page open and pointed at the line he wanted him to read. Puck took the book back from him and looked down at the page.
“The Man in Black fled across the desert…” he read aloud, almost gingerly. He took another sideways glance at his friend who gestured him to continue reading with a large smile. “…And the gunslinger followed.”
“See, didn’t I tell you that was an amazing beginning?” he asked eagerly.
The Fae had to hold his tongue firmly behind his teeth at the question. Puck had never been one for the art of Saga Speaking, it was a part of magic that had eluded his once vast repertoire of Spellweaving. From his experience, most Saga Speakers preferred to recount the deeds and tales of those who had actually lived, albeit usually dressing it up a certain amount for artistic purposes. He could not say as he saw a great deal of value in the art but he understood that most people did.
Hume Saga Speakers tended to make their stuff up as they went along. Recounting stories that were entirely fictional and told the stories of people who did not exist. Puck could not understand why these lunatics did not get the help they so clearly needed. If there were that many people living inside someone’s head, whispering things to them, telling them to write down their stories then there must clearly be something wrong with that person.
“I suppose it is” Puck offered fairly, “I still don’t know with this fellow does but I suppose it’s a good start.”
“Mum!” the boy shouted.
“What?” Sirenia said from her spot at one of the tables at the far end of The Maltings. She had been sat cross legged at the table by the window for several hours now. A mountain of paperwork strewn in front of her, a large cup of coffee and a calculator standing at the ready when needed.
“Uncle Puck’s not listening to me about the book!” he whined.
Sirenia did not even look up from her calculations but instead continued to scribble on a notepad as she made her deductions.
“Puck, pay attention to Errol or else I’ll box your ears!” she said without raising an eye, her voice remaining flat and uninterested.
Errol decided that educating his “Uncle” on the finer points of his favourite book was clearly a lost cause and so decided to take his book and promptly left the bar area. Puck heard the door on the far side of the pubs kitchens slam and knew instantly that he had taken his book to read in the playground outside.
Consulting his pocket watch and finding that it was only nine fifty five in the morning Puck decided it that it was time for his breakfast drink. The Perky Parrott had been closed for renovation these last few weeks so his desperation for decent coffee had driven him to begin his drinking earlier and earlier. At least, that was the excuse he told himself along with all the other reasons he gave for his rampant alcoholism.
Walking behind the bar he took in the sight of all the drinks available. He looked over his shoulder quickly at Sirenia and saw that she was still too engrossed in her work to pay attention to him. Turning back to the stock in front of him he selected a strong Dwergan whiskey called “Iron Forge” and Draed ale called “Oak Heart”. Once he had poured himself a large helping of each, he went to take his first sip of the day.
“You better be willing to pay for that” Sirenia said, again without looking up from her paperwork.
Immediately, Puck stopped himself from drinking and looked over at Sirenia with confusion. Ever since she had taken ownership of The Maltings she had never once charged him for a drink. In fact, he was more than certain his bar tab, as it stood right now, could probably have paid for her supply of alcohol for the next year. At least, that’s what Sirenia tended to tell him anyway.
Feeling a sudden urge of guilt, he pulled his purse from his pocket and emptied several shillings into his hand, grabbed his drinks and came and sat opposite Sirenia as she worked.
He placed the money gently down in front of her then knocked back his whiskey. Sirenia, for the first time, looked up from her paperwork but only to take the money, pocket it and add its value into the sums she was currently making her way through.
“A bit snowed under there aren’t you?” he asked as he took a sip of his ale. Again she did not respond but shuffled her papers and rooted around through her notes until she found what she was looking for.
Taking in his friend as she worked he noticed that there was something wrong about her, she looked tired. Alfr’s never looked tired, it was a simple fact of the universe. The elven people had an uncanny knack for looking amazing at any given time, regardless of circumstance or situation they looked flawless. Even Alfr veterans from the war, the ones who had come out of it missing limbs, scarred, burned and horrifically changed both physically and psychologically still looked far and away more beautiful than any human, even if it was a dark beauty.
But they never looked tired.
Sirenia not only looked tired but she looked haggard and restless. Dark rims and shadows fell beneath her bloodshot eyes as she worked. Her skin, usually a perfect porcelain white, was blotchy and had turned a creamy off white shade that looked like a spoiled egg. Her cheeks were dry and flaky and seemed to peel off in large sections of dried skin. Her jawline had always been pronounced but the flesh on her face seemed to sink inwards as if she had lost weight drastically. Her hair, normally so bright and vibrant now looked brittle and greasy as it drooped past her face.
“Is everything alright?” Puck asked. Sirenia continued to ignore him, either out of desire to be left alone or simply because she was too busy, he did not know which but he was not going to find out.
He stood sharply and slammed a hand down on the table right in front of her, forcing her to look at him.
“Sirenia” he said, “What’s wrong?”
The blonde Alfr looked up at him slowly, her eyes dark and red sore. She put her pen down gently on the table and pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked exhausted. There was a weight to her whole posture that seemed to bear down on her soul that she was keeping hidden in a way that she did not vocally express, but Puck could see it was there.
“I can’t sleep” she said. “There’s…”
“There’s what?” Puck asked.
She dipped her head forward, her expression heavy and sad. There was an unspoken grief hanging over her that spoke outwardly from her core. Puck could not bear to see his friend laid so low and he reached out a hand to take hers.
For a moment Sirenia simply stared at his pale hand, its skin whit as fallen snow, as if she could not see it or that it was not there at all.
All of a sudden she snatched her hand away and stared at him with a bright blinding hatred he had never seen before. She jumped to her feet and laid a firm hard slap across his cheek, sending him flying to the floor as she roared in fury at him.
“You’re a selfish boy Robin Goodfellow, do you know that!” she screamed, “You sit here day after day, drinking so as to forget your guilt, waltzing through the lives of those who care for you without ever giving a second thought to the destruction you leave in your wake!”
Puck was struck dumb by her outburst. Excluding cases where Errol was involved, Sirenia’s worse side never bubbled to the surface as she kept her more emotional side in tight check.
He rubbed the side of his face, the sting of the blow still bright and fresh across his face and could offer no response except to sit there dumbly staring back at his friend.
“You’re a fool Robin, a big steaming pile of Dragon shit and maybe, just maybe, the world would be better rid of you once you drink yourself to death!” she stormed behind the bar and made for the staircase that lead to her apartments upstairs.
She paused for a moment and looked back over her shoulder. Tears were free flowing from now red and puffy eyes, her sobs deep and heartfelt as she fought in vain to choke back the mysterious grief which had taken hold of her.
“You know what!” she shouted, “Perhaps I’ll join you and see if your way truly works at all!”
She stormed across the bar and grabbed a bottle of black rum then headed back up the stairs, the snapping shut behind her.
Puck sat on the floor in complete and absolute disbelief, his face continuing to sting and swell as he could do nothing but look at the empty space where Sirenia had been standing. He was utterly perplexed by the outburst; Sirenia had never and would never behave in such an overly emotional way, it was simply not in her nature.
The sound of heavy bare feet padding their way over to Puck broke him from his stupor and he found himself staring into the face of Slozo, Sirenia’s Trollish chef. He looked down at Puck with soft, sympathetic eyes the peered through a string of greasy hair held back only by an overly large red bandanna. His overly large front teeth gave him a lopsided smile before holding out a large hairy hand for Puck to take.
“What the hell was that about?” Puck asked as Slozo pulled him to his feet.
“The boss has been like it for the last couple of days Mr Puck” Slozo explained.
Puck had to smile through the pain on his face at the ever present courtesy of trolls. Even after such a dramatic outburst as Sirenia had given, Slozo still maintained the adherence to courtesy and politeness that was infamous amongst his people.
Picking up his chair and seating himself again, the Red Wolf took a long draught of his beer and moved his jaw around experimentally. The pain from simply drinking shot through his jawline like a spike and he winced at the sensation.
He gestured for Slozo to sit and the large troll squeezed into the booth with a thud, shifting the table with his belly and looked at Puck sheepishly.
“There was a courier in the night” Slozo explained, “Errol said that whoever it was came late, after closing and banged on the door so hard that he was afraid they might break it down”
“What did they want?” Puck asked.
“Errol said he couldn’t make out what was being said, just that their voices were raised and that the Boss mentioned something about a set of guns and a horse?”
Puck had been about to reach for his whiskey when Slozo mentioned the gun and the horse but stopped so as to take in the enormity of what he had just said. He twisted in his seat, a certain uncomfortable knot began to form in the pit of his stomach and all of a sudden he felt very, very, sick.
“A pair of six shooters right?” Puck asked, “With an accompanying ammo belt?”
Slozo looked at him, his face a mixture of astonishment and confusion. Puck glanced back down at his drink, his little finger began to tap the wooden table uncontrollably.
Flashes of the war suddenly began to blaze through his mind like strobe lighting. Faces and places tore through his brain of foreign battlefields, he could cannon firing in his head like thunder, could smell the smoke and the blood as if he were back there again. His fingers itched for weapons that weren’t there as his senses desperately searched for enemies that didn’t exist.
He took a pull from his beer and tried to breathe as steadily as he could but even now he could feel the sweat begin to pour as his heart beat faster.
“Are you alright Mr Puck?” Slozo asked with the concerned innocence of a teenager.
Puck ran a hand over his face, discarding of the sweat as best he could then fumbled in his coat for his pipe.
“Yeah,” he lied, “Yeah, I’m good. What about the horse?”
“Apparently there wasn’t one, but the messenger said that a six legged black stallion was due to appear any day now, in service to its new master” Slozo explained.
“Shit” Puck muttered. He finished his whiskey then placed his pipe between his teeth and filled it with weed.
“What does this mean Mr Puck?” Slozo asked.
“Nothing good” he replied. Once he lit his pipe and several bellows of purple smoke began to waft from his nose he rose and grabbed his beer.
Without saying anything further he went straight for a door behind the bar, the same one Sirenia fled through not a few minutes earlier and headed upwards to the land lady’s private dwelling.
***
Like the rest of the Maltings, Sirenia’s living area above the pub was predominantly wood panelled, dark oaken walls matched the floorboards that creaked beneath his feet. He could still hear the sounds of the pub beneath him, of revellers coming in for the lunch time rush while everything here, in the living quarters, remained quiet.
Puck was more than a little interested in Sirenia’s dwelling; his first concern was his friend but he would have been lying if he had said he wasn’t being in the slightest bit nosy.
Unlike most veterans of the War of the Wild Hunt, Sirenia did not make a display of her time in active service. She had been young during the great migration, barely in her twenties when the Great Breach was made. As the war progressed, like so many other Mythic’s, she had been pressed into service out of desperation. She had an aptitude for magic and had put it to use as a field healer; but when the depths of her abilities began to manifest, that’s when things changed for her.
While there may have been a complete absence of memorabilia of her past life there was an overabundance of memories from her life as an adoptive mother.
Errol had not been her first adopted child. Sirenia’s true calling, even beyond that of being the Gatekeeper of the Maltings was to give a home to children who had none. Crude art made by children on thick pieces of purple paper lined the walls of her home. Photos of her attending graduations, weddings, birthdays and dozens more celebrations were ever present. He could not count how many children’s eyes were looking down at him nor how many different nationalities they came from.
Black skinned Humes, White Skinned ones, light brown ones and a whole melange more, Sirenia had adopted them and given them the best life possible before letting them fly the coop.
Puck had known most of them of course, had watched them grow and fly away as the dutiful “Uncle” figure that he had always been. He never would have told Sirenia but, if he was speaking truthfully she probably already knew, he relished the role. It was the one part of his meagre existence that did not make him feel sick about himself.
The furniture in the dwelling was basic and it matched the wooden theme of the rest of the pub. Puck suspected that his friend had been gifted most of her furniture from Jeff, York’s resident Green Man. Most it looked as though it had been moulded straight from the earth itself. Oaken arm chairs, not so much cut as they had been crafted through use of old Elysium techniques to produce overly large dining chairs. A large dining table had been placed at the far end of the living room in front of a circular window; it appeared as though it had been grown more out of the floor than it had been placed there and again, Puck suspected that Jeff had more to do with it than anything else.
There were the usual array of bookshelves, lined with all kinds of classical literature from both Hume and Mythic authors. Books on science and engineering, art and philosophy as well as one or two comics thrown in for good measure sat on Sirenia’s shelves proudly.
Yet it was not the literature he had come here for but the small figure lying on the sofa in front of him weeping quietly as she drank from her bottle of rum. Dousing his pipe with his thumb and necking his beer he came to stand in front of his grief stricken friend.
Puck pulled up the coffee table in the centre of the room and sat , taking the bottle gently away from her as she continued to weep and stare at a small card in her hand.
“This is about Garrett isn’t it?” Puck said quietly.
Sirenia nodded, tears falling freely, her face a streaky mask of grief and heartbreak.
“When did you last hear from him?” he asked, handing her a tissue from a box next to his foot. She blew her nose with a loud and unpleasant sound then threw the used tissue across the room before sitting up.
“We haven’t spoken since…” she stopped herself short of finishing the sentence.
“Since the peace accords in 1963” Puck finished for her.
She nodded silently then sat up, her eyes never leaving the tarot card. Sirenia stroked the picture as though it were an old photograph, a fading memory of someone closer to her heart than even her bones.
The silence hung between them for longer than Puck was comfortable but more than that he did not like seeing Sirenia so broken.
Most would have thought the matching of Sirenia to a Death Rider might appear like madness but Puck had seen them both together for that brief spell in time and knew the truth of their hearts because of it. They had shared a short but powerful and passionate coupling, one that brought relief and compassion to their war torn world, bringing relief and affection to an otherwise blood fuelled chapter of their lives.
But when the war ended and Garrett had decided to leave it was an unpardonable sin both for Sirenia and Puck who had to pick up the pieces of what the Death Rider had left behind.
“I told him I hated him” she said, the tears beginning to flow once more, “I said that I hated him and that I hoped that I never saw him ever again!”
Puck nodded quietly, simply listening to his friends grief as a means of comfort.
“I didn’t tell him how I felt or what he meant to me, I just spat venom at him as he looked at me with those sad eyes” she said. Her memories caused her such pain, Puck could see that and as she continued to bawl like a new-born he felt the Deag MacTir, the Red Wolf, stirring within him.
“I need you to do something for me” Puck said getting to his feet, “I need you to call Jenny, I’m going to need a tracker and I’m also going to need you to get ready to open a doorway for me!”
“Why?” she said sniffling through the tears, trying as much as she could to compose herself.
“Because I’m going to go get the bastard!”
* * *