The Land of Somewhere Safe

by Hal Duncan

  For a thousand yonks, she’s lived glamoured as sundry Lady Fays.

  • 4

  Is that the truth of it? Well, it’s the fabble of it now, says she. Part of her’s sure it’s wrong, that her Dunnian kin, full-grown and pint-size, roved the real world until those dreadful imperial Romans come along, that she lived in Dun Scaith on Skye through their twilight centuries, until the last Dunnian left for an Appleland where all’s been fun these last thousand yonks, Nod and the Doggedy playing ringleaders of the revels to this day. Until...

  With the young Scruffians’ somewhat rash opening of the Bridge outside her castle’s sphere of containment... something’s changed.

  So they tells her of Blackstone, of him being a Nazi, his transformogrication and everything.

  – Ochone, ochone, says she.

  Cause she’s had many a fracas with that reverend in her role as Lady Fay, had to socialise with him at Soltice Ceilidhs, suffer through him waffling on about his bleeding allegorical novel with its bollocks moral of sin and salvation. She knows all about his vision of a Father’s Land, purged of all darkness, decadence and deviance, open only to innocents pure as the driven snow.

  He’s working to turn the Land of Nod, she realises, into his Nazi Heaven.

  – Oh, it’s all my fault, says Peter. If I hadn’t stolen the Stamp for him, he mightn’t even be here.

  On the battlements of Dun Scaith, he looks out over the moonlit water, feeling stupid in his silly spaceman silver, and alone as if he were in space. He’d shove his hands into his greatcoat pockets in a mopey hunch if he only had em.

  – Och, laddie.

  Erin pats his shoulder.

  – Oh, he remembers.

  He unzips the spacesuit to rumpage in shorts pocket and down his shirt, ferret out the wishsnuff and chanter.

  – It’s not the only thing I stole.

  She looks sorta wistful as she turns the chanter in her fingers. It were Able’s, she fabbles him. As Keen’s left horn called his kelpie cavalry, so Able’s pipe whistled up the wind, and his Good Ship to sail it – sunk a thousand yonks, alas, Able alone knows where.

  – Och, she says, best I ever got from it’s a banshee babby’s squawl. Keep it. And as for the wishsnuff...

  She gives the tin a wee shake, hands it back with a wink as makes him... curious. Makes him pop the lid, to find it full.

  – No harm done, she says.

  • 5

  – No harm done? growls Squirlet inside, as Peter stands before them scruffs for his reckoning, Erin behind with hands gentle on his shoulders, herself having fortified him into coming clean – Whip the plaster off and have done with it, laddie.

  – Peter, how could you? says Lily. We thought you were scrobbled and... how could you?

  – Bad form, old boy, says Foxtrot.

  Janie shakes her head.

  – Well, there were an abominable lake monster involved, says Flashjack.

  – Still, snaps Squirlet.

  – Children, says Erin in a voice as reminds a scamp and scrag that even with centuries each... they’s still nippers beside her.

  So the traitor’s confessed, scamps, and about time too, and with a little stern remindering of fallibilities and explifications of an Addanc’s workings on the part of Erin O’Morrigan, who speaks like’s she might even have firsthand experience of such cold wet clutches and the cock-ups born of em, feathers is unruffled to a range of acceptances from grudging to blithe. But yer know what, scamps? Don’t mean all Peter’s mope’s just washed away like that. Still feels like fucking shit, mate, so he does. Not far off that Addanc being latched on his back, really.

  A perfect rotter.

  It’s not running away though, scamps, when he takes a snort of that wishsnuff up on the battlements, in the wee hours of the morning, and flies off over the moonlit loch. No, it’s just cause he can’t sleep, for the peace of it, to be soaring free of the weight of himself. He don’t go far, just finds himself on the cliff above Spitfire’s cave, where’s the dragon’s snoring away. Finds Lily’s ickle cowboy hat and takes it back to Dun Scaith, sets it down on a parapet. Whooshes up into the sky again, back off into the night.

  He ain’t running away, scamps, as he heads northish along the coast of Slide, looking over to his left at a distant speck of orangey light, what’s maybe’s them centaurs in Dun Winkle, eh, however many’s left of em, drinking toasts around the fire to their roasted CO, whether in good riddance or respect. He’s just flying aimless, really, until that light minds him of two Home Guard satyrs sent to investergate the scruffs’ stories of Nazi elves prepping an invasion of Dun Tarakin. It’s only then he thinks... maybe’s he could do some recon himself. And off he goes.

  • 6

  It’s a gryphon as delivers Peter’s spaceman suit with the reverend’s message, the next morn after lunch, as the War Meeting’s in full flow as to how to deal with the invasion threat, and the blackguardry of Blackstone wherever he might be, and whatever the fuck’s befallen Peter – with Squirlet, for all’s her being the toughest nut, being the stubbornest in reckoning foul play over flight. It’s a gryphon’s screech brings em all rushing to the drawbridge – and fitting that is, yer lion and eagle the most regal of beasts, beloveds of every imperial fuck from Nero to the Nazis.

  – I ain’t staying behind, says Flashjack. There’s a Liberating needing done, mate.

  – Look, it’s only sensible, says Foxtrot. It’s what you’re here for.

  – Janie stays here with the Stamp, says Squirlet. So her hellion escort stays with her.

  Janie steps up beside Flashjack, arms folded: nope.

  – Oh, come on, says Squirlet.

  Thing is, for all’s Foxtrot’s and Squirlet’s centuries of savvy, scruffs isn’t really bossable when push comes to shove, just easy-oasy when it don’t. And as much as Peter done em wrong, now’s he’s Gone Offsky and got himself scrobbled...

  Well, there ain’t nuffink more stray than that.

  As the Morrigan’s bloodcurdling howl dies down, the four scruffs wiggles fingers in ears, and Lily unclaps her paws from her own.

  – Was that absolutely necessary? says Foxtrot.

  – Rallying the troops, laddie, says Erin. What’s the loyalest beast?

  – Dog, says Flashjack. Duh.

  – And what does a dog dream themself, lad?

  And first they hears the howling, then they sees em come, racing in over the moors, great hoary brutes. Queerly, the biggest of all, clear leader of the pack, has a right lollopy look and stride, like’s he ain’t even full-growed yet. More a whelp than an adult wolf.

  As Flashjack, tongue and teeth marking his kinship, bounds around beyond the drawbridge, bonding with these lupine allies, he’s too busy to even notice the ginormous raven he swore bloody murder at from his other beastly instamate, flying in now from the west, smaller ones joining it from all directions.

  – More allies? says Squirlet.

  – Might not mind their own names, lass, but I’d trust their mettle with my skin. And they might be too grown and grim to play here as you scruffs... but a Rake still dreams.

  That’s right, scamp. Bang on! What else would Rakes be but rooks?

  • 7

  – Does that mean, says Lily, we were eating... oh, I feel rather queasy.

  – Best not to think of it, says Foxtrot.

  In the raven-drawn chariot of Erin O’Morrigan, they ride, in her sleek black beast of a chariot as might, in another world, look more’n a bit Bentleyish, wolves racing below, and oh, however’s that lolloping lupine leader keeps pace, fuck knows, scamps, cause they’s bloody bombing it over the moors of Slide, up and around, along the coast looking out on Scalp Isle, through the Cool’uns, and over Slickyhand, up past Dun Tarakin...

  To the Stour and winter.

  It’s a stark land they enters, all em apple trees stripped to tawny gorse and grim rock along a gold-cobbled road now grey. Where’s the Grotternish they arrived in were a dream of Skye so f
oresty they didn’t even see the precipice and pinnacles they passed, now as they comes in over the loch-split lowland nooked betwixt scarp’s edge and sea, yer couldn’t miss the Old Man jutting from the snowpatched hillside. Or how’s befront the monstrous bluff looming behind it, a mountainous outcrop’s now a carved triangular pediment over a monumental entrance, like some temple or tomb.

  As they circles the Old Man widdershins, descending to the base of that monolith’s grassy mound of pedestal, to where’s that slope meets a flat field of solid ice, as they sees the ice steps leading up from there to a cavernous maw now cut into the cliff-face... Now, scamps, from between the pillars each side carved as Teutonic Knights in sword arch salute, out of shadows aflicker with torchlight, comes Blackstone, His Leonine Majesty, striding proud with a retinue of deathly pale Aryan catwalk nobs dressed in yer finest Hugo Boss.

  And Peter shivering in tanktop and shorts.

  – Dear children, says that Nazi fuck – voice deeper now with liony rumbling. And Lady Fay, of course.

  Gathered at their backs, an army of wolves rumbles deeper.

  – It is my privilege to return your comrade.

  And with none more shocked than Peter, he shoves the boy out onto the ice, to slip, and scramble, and scurry into hearty embraces – Peter! Old boy! Yer okay!

  – It is my pleasure, says Blackstone, to see a traitor returned to meet justice.

  – Justice? growls Erin.

  And if ever a lion could smirk.

  – Under the Law of the Land, he roars. THE TRAITOR MUST DIE!

  • 8

  In blackening skies, thunder rumbles, scamps, over a scene of parlay to chill the blood. Picture it: this great rink of ice, and faced-off across it: our heroes with an army of wolves and ravens at their back, a veritable goddess of war in front; that lionheaded usurper with his honour guard of Nazi elves well outumbered... but with this towering lowering edifice of stony majesty behind him.

  – THE LAW OF THE LAND! he bellows, and thunder rolls. I was there when it was written –

  – Not the first time round, says Erin.

  – Defy it, he gloats. And be exiled.

  The War Meeting is... vigorously opinionated.

  – Fuck yer Law of the Land, says Flashjack. Pile of fucking wank.

  – Damn straight, mutters Squirlet. Since when would Keen and Able have laws –?

  – It’s not so simple, says Foxtrot and Erin together.

  They looks at each other. Erin flourishes an hand: Go on.

  – It’s a Game, he says. Like the Statues game, Firepot in Dun Tarakin. Break the rules and... Pop.

  – We’re all Out, says Peter. And none left to stop him. Oh, that’s diabolical.

  – Despicable, says Lily.

  – I shan’t be his blasted pawn again, says Peter. Not in this. I bloody shan’t!

  – It won’t work, says Foxtrot pacing. Think about it.

  – A Rake’s life for a mortal bairn’s, laddie, says Erin. He’ll no can resist it.

  – And the Queen of the Dead dies for a sinner’s life, he says. Heathen forces vanquished, sacrifice, salvation. Think.

  The horror dawns.

  – A Christian allegory, shudders Erin.

  – A Christian allegory, says Foxtrot. Written into the Land of Nod.

  – Oh, it’s the Devil and the deep blue sea, says Lily. Whatever can we –?

  – Stop, says Peter quietly. Just stop.

  And they stops at his tone, so sure in its calm, resolute.

  – The traitor must die, he says.

  – Yer wants yer bonce looked at, says Flashjack. Did yer blow yer nose fifty feet up and plop down arse-upwards or summat? Yer’s gone crackers, mate.

  – You mustn’t, Peter, says Lily. Foxtrot, tell him he mustn’t.

  – There’s every chance this is a winning strategy for him too, says Foxtrot. If we play his Game –

  Janie tugs at Foxtrot’s sleeve.

  – At least you won’t be Out, says Peter, and the Land won’t be... allegorified.

  Janie jiggles Foxtrot’s arm.

  – Just let me think, old boy, I’m sure... What?

  Janie unslings the rucksack from her back, flaps an hand flat, like: duh.

  • 9

  Weren’t none of them scruffs a fabbler like yours truly, scamps, to do it proper like, with the full fabbling of The Taking of the Stamp we gives strays before’s joining, so’s they knows the score. But between them four – with even Janie contributing the odd pokey mimey reminder of some bit they’d skipped – between em, they gots the gist of it across. Then they gots Peter lain on the ground, shirt open and belt betwixt teeth, and they rolled the Stamp upways over his chest to read him, downways to write, to Fix him.

  And the scrag rose, ready.

  It’s Squirlet takes him first for training, a quick crash course in how to hide whatevers, not the chanter or the wishsnuff maybe’s – they’s too big – but at least a wee shiv, hid where’s Blackstone will never find it. And she learns him how to hide himself in shadows in an empty room, so’s he can sneak away afterwards, like.

  See, if Peter’s to be hung, or shot blindfolded against a wall, or whatever, it ain’t to be the scruffs doing it. No, they could do it that way with the fucker just watching, but this is... an opportunity, innit.

  It’s Foxtrot takes him next, gives him all the centuries of savvy he can cram into one hour: how to escape shackles, pick a lock, clear a drugged mind, even focus it to figger a Dire Situation, to plot a path from predicament to objective. To execute a perfect assassination. However’s Peter springs back, in whatever pickle, the cunning Foxy plots him a plan for it.

  See, if they just bows to His Nibs’s almighty authority, just submits to his Law, well, Blackstone can take all that tedious responsibility off their hands, eh. And bring Scruffian vengeance into his lair.

  So, after a last round of edification from Flashjack in yer more physical side of being Scruffian, the scrag looks round his crib-mates one by one and –

  – Wait, says Lily. If it isn’t awfully forward... I think I should very much like...

  – Yer in, nods Flashjack.

  So she unfurls her otter cloak, what she’d put back on, seeing as her rifle (and cowboy hat) weren’t best sized to her human form, (and because, truth be told, she’d aktcherly got to kinda like being an otter.)

  – I don’t mind it, says she, but I’d rather not risk being Fixed so.

  • 10

  So it’s long past a nightfall come early in the Land of Nod, in this wintry foothold of Blackstone’s bastard combo of fascism and so-called Christianity. It’s dark and bitter cold as befits the coming birthday not of yer actual Joshyer Cripes – bless his ickle anarchosocialist socks – no, but of that lionheaded god them Roman Emperors swapped in, with lies of blood sacrifice washing wickedry away, Bob’s yer uncle, like’s yer fuck-ups was stains to be wiped off for yer own good, not hurts done to others yer just makes up for and don’t fucking do again, duh.

  It’s dark and bitter cold as the six scruffs steps out onto the ice, and calls Blackstone out from his Chapel Pitiless, as they lays down their weapons and kneels, and Peter walks forward to be taken into the charge of Saint Mithras, as a penitent sinner – who ain’t fucking well having anyone else, mortal or magical, die in his place, ta much. And up them icy steps he goes, between them proud pillars of Baron von Crusade and Archduke Pogrom, into the torchlit hollows echoing with pious chants of Herr Fuhrer, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.

  Oh, scamps, since Orphan’s trip to Hades to sing for the Lord of the Dead and win a princess back, since that first Scruffian the Stamp were made for, so’s his mission wouldn’t wash away in the Lethe, scamps, ain’t none suffered so much as Peter did then, stripped and whipped till’s the blood and his ickle horns made him the very spit of the Devil, his heart cut out for being heartless, his guts spilled out for being gutless – and he hadn’t no backbone nor balls, says this Lion of Judgement, so
they’d to go too.

  Oh, pitiable Peter!

  But we won’t dawdle and dwell on it, scamps, as some awesome act of sacrifice averting yer archvillain’s triumph over’s an earthly paradise turned to shit by lies. Cause it fucking weren’t. For them scruffs it were just a ruse getting Peter into position, a gruesome horror, but one as’d be undone – well, except for the PTSD – with Peter springing back. And any other ways yer looks at it, what ain’t a sadist or saint’s psycho excuses, it were just a usurping motherfucker torturing his dear child.

  Well, not just that. Not when them bells began tolling Blackstone’s Midnight Mass.

  Part Seven

  • 1

  Now, scamps, yer’s maybe heard one groanhuff’s botching of our fabbling craft what tells of a magical nowhereland island, and a flying kiddo as plays there and don’t never grow up – never never! And yer might have heard a whole classical mythology of groanhuff’s flubbings of the fabbling art what includes this kiddyish god with ickle pointy horns on his bonce what lives out in the forest tootling on his pipe. Sounds kinda Petery, eh? And where’s both yer flighty nowhereland scrag and yer flutey horny hellion is called Pan, that might’s strike yer as summat of a suspicious coincidence.

  Well, see, them bells rang out across the whole land, and as oughts to be clear from that rewritten thousand yonks, if not just from yer own doolalliest dreams, time ain’t exactly stable in the Land of Nod, and if yer can nip from tomorrow to last Tuesday in there, fuck knows, no reason a dream of happenings on one particklar Christmas Day couldn’t be half-remembered by folk visiting from elsewhens, some Edwardian scribbler or Athenian singer who wakes back up in yesteryear with a fuzzy notion of... summat Very Important to do with a flying flutist hellion scrag.