Tincture, A Weird West Trilogy (Matthew D. Jordan)

This wasn’t the first time that something had tried to kill Abranyah. It was, however, the first attempt with a cannon.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Seventeen:

Tom Vourtsis – Black Eyes
The OO-Ray – Sleep Kingdoms
Radere – Snow Noise (Overhead)
Christoper Bissonnette – Downwards
Lee Rosevere – Squinting At The Sun (radio edit)
The OO-Ray – A Savage Exhibition
Wild Wild Ambient Boys – 7/8 Is Wild
Podington Bear – Reflector
Julien Mier – Ptarmigan

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

The diner was far enough away from work, but nothing felt far enough when there was going to be talk of confidential things.  Things some argue better left unexplained, not discussed, kept away from deeper thought—weird things.

Music in Book 3, Chapter Twelve:

Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear - Undersea Garden (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Periodicals (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Sergey Cheremisinov - The Loneliness (CC BY-NC 4.0)
David Szesztay - Cascet (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Cobweb Transit (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Surly Bonds (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Bliste (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Turning (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Nic Bommarito - Apace (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear - Submerging Green (CC BY-NC 3.0)

In a sun dappled stretch of the Scar, endless as it had always been, a young woman found herself near done with what the dust had to offer.  So goes folk in younger years—just aged enough to know and appreciate the finer and subsequent illuminations of ferment—yet still damn fool enough to know nothing else of nothing else.

Music in Book 3, Chapter Thirteen:

​Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)​
HarryHaaren - Acoustic Ambient (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
ambient-samurai - Scene Of Sunshine Filtering Through Foliage (CC BY 3.0)
Zhalih - Firefly (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0)
​Blue Dot Sessions - Diagram K (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Guerrics - the new season (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
​Scott Holmes - Black Jack (CC BY 4.0)
​Finn Perring - Ascension (Above The City) (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

The day had started to stretch on, and there were always more questions.

The animals were silent, distanced at the far end of the property near Urcent’s odorous work barn, and everyone else was out in the sun, mired in deep contemplation.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Thirteen:

Allen Masterton – Cowboy Conversations
Kreng – Celeano
Krowne – Embarrassed Even By Death
Allen Masterton – More Cowboy Conversations
Podington Bear – Dark Matter
MiaMia – Bend Over Harder
Brian Joseph Davis and Steve Kado – Alvin Lucifer (Two Excerpts)
Dexter Britain – Overcoming Stage Fright
Dexter Britain – The Stars Are Out

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

The moment cut his word in half, flickered lights before his eyes, then shut it all down with a deep dark absence of color so grim it was difficult to put word on.

Music in Book 3, Chapter 18:

Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Marcos H. Bolanos - Stranded (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Allen Masterton - Iridian
Siddhartha Corsus -  Oh Radiant One (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Borrtex - Fog In The Street (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Floretin Interlude (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Crowander - Underwater (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Catcher Textile (CC BY-NC 4.0)
AVOIDANT - Apparitions (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Kai Engel - Extinguished (CC BY-NC 4.0)

How he’d awoken in the middle of tall grass probably should’ve been his first question—but instead—Rhamuel simply wanted to know what time it was.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Nine:

Howie & Ann Mitchell – Clogger’s Inconsequential Selection
Spuntic – Wake Up
Regis Turner – ouais non je sais pas des fois je suis juste un peu mélancolique
Tom Fahy – Blackberry Vigil
Dexter Britain – After Christmas
Dexter Britain – Collapsing Time
Dexter Britain – The Time To Run
Dexter Britain – Seeing The Future

“I have every confidence in his ability to avoid a well deserved death,” said Abranyah. She only considered the words after she had said them, surprised that she had actually meant them.

Marcus shook his head. “If you say so.”

They both turned to face Barabbas, the large dog laying on his side in the bright morning sun. He was awake, but more grumpy than usual, as Barabbas simply laid there, huffing and puffing. Occasionally he’d bark, but he was more or less grunting out his displeasure with Salt’s withdrawal from their journey. Yerses was asleep not far from the dog, having taken a liking to the animal, and while it was generally a 50/50 shot if Barabbas liked you, Yerses appeared to come out of the gamble favorably.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Fifteen:

Bleak House – Coloured Lead Fingers
Bleak House – Barometer
Lee Rosevere – The Ambient Ukulele
Antony Raijekov – Lightout 2003
Podington Bear – Cloud 9
Kreng – Merope
Muhmood – Dream
Allen Masterton – Let’s Go Catch Our Death

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Be forewarned, I can still taste the ferment on my teeth. Conjecture and abstract thought do not, admittedly, serve much purpose in a guide to the mysterious world you and I now inhabit, yet I would submit that you can cut as deep as you like as long as your implement remains sharp.

Music in Book 3, Chapter 16:

Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Allen Masterton - Berceus
Scott Holmes - Abandoned City (CC BY 4.0)
Scott Holmes - Vasky Skyline (CC BY 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Nervous Whisp (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Allen Masterton - Iridian
Blue Dot Sessions - Cobweb Transit (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Stillness (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Crowander - Backward (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Origamibiro - Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Crowander - Above Us (CC BY-NC 4.0)

The ways a body tends to crave its own undoing is a humanistic riddle that I no longer wish to endure. A short way to speak it, I suppose: my empathy muscles have atrophied.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Four:

Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Kosta T – Red in Black (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Stillness (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – A Simple Shroud (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Podington Bear – Undersea Garden (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – That Horse Ithaca (CC BY-NC 4.0)
David Szesztay – Freezing (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Submerging Green (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Swale (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Mobile (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel – Highway to the Stars (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Bare-footed and with packs slung over their shoulders, Rhamuel and Abranyah made for the main gates of The Omaha Claim, fit to leave as fast as the dust would allow.

Music in Book 3, Chapter Fourteen:

​Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Emmit Sprak (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Aloscape 2 (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear - Lonesome (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - VK Mendl (CC-BY-NC 3.0)
Sound Phenomenon - Sci - Fi Ambient 6 - The Vast Calm (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Blue Crystal Star - Legends (CC BY-SA 3.0)
poalopat - [AMBIENT] Desert Valley (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Cold and Hard (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - VK Tails (CC BY-NC 3.0)

Old splinters whistle. 

Everything across The Scar has aged long past the reek of decay, more so worn, faded, and abused by the transient miscellany that wandered through it over and over and over.  There was a weird beauty when the too-bright day went purple as night prepared, no windows left to cover, no reason even if they remained.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter One:

Kai Engel – Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Audionautics – Crowd Long (CC BY 3.0)
Kai Engel – Universe In Hands (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – 3rd Chair (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel – January (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel – Morbid Imagination (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Between Stones (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Will Bangs – I’m So Glad That You Exist (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Sergey Cheremisinov – Back to Home (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Bliste (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Sergey Cheremisinov – Birds Walk Away (CC BY-NC 4.0)

To enjoy fishing, a body didn’t require much by way of supplies—but water was a good start.

In two old chairs sat two old men, Eloy and Emmett, twins by birth. The creaky old barn served up a good dose of shade on mornings like that, the ones where everything was just a tad brighter than it felt like it should be. They sat in the quiet shade, listening to the gentle breeze dart through the boards and splinters, each holding a fishing pole—repaired and working like it had originally, like it once did in a time long before this day.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Seven:

Cherly KaCherly – Underwater sleep while trying not to breath
Peter DiPhillips – Soroya
Cherly KaCherly – Time is running out. I’m sure.
Lee Maddeford – Ask An Eskimo
Kosta T – Nevertheless
Spuntic – Composition
Shake That Little Foot – Bonaparte’s Retreat
Radikal satan – Espacio
Bleak House – Highway Acrylic

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

With a shriek and a rumble, the black car awoke.

Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. She tested the clutch pedal and pushed the gear shifter into a variety of patterns, then held her thumb out of the window to Arachal.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Twelve:

Lee Rosevere – Phase of Prisms
Lee Rosevere – Illuminations
Vitus Von Degen – Pulse
Lee Rosevere – Cat Wearing Glasses
Lee Rosevere – The Car Chase
Lee Rosevere – Opening Titles
Lee Rosevere – The Ambient Ukulele
Lee Rosevere – Ice Chimes
Dexter Britain – The Stars Are Out (Interlude)
Howie Mitchell & Ed Trickett – Man of Constant Sorrow

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Rhamuel watched the helicopter effortlessly lift into the air, and he briefly pondered how useful such a thing could be out in the barren.

The boy was long past making his decisions of fate.

The green canvas he’d wrapped around his nose and mouth had been chafing for the better part of the day, but he had finally reached town, so the prospect of things to come occupied his thoughts instead. Out in the barren, a body could only lift their heels for so long before they started to wonder if they’d ever see populace. The bright of the day set in early, and few traveled at night, so your thoughts were all that was left for the company. Even with family in tow, it always devolved into silence.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Two:

Pretty Little Dog – Shake That Little Foot
Yum Yum – Old Shapes (Jerry Lim + Evan Rapport)
Saydak – M-Pex & Makrox
Ask An Eskimo – Lee Maddeford, Roland Vouilloz
Charting Waters – E.R. Goodman
Movement – Spuntic
The Wandering – E.R. Goodman
Lupine Rot – Laura Sheeran

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Rachel liked the smell of a wood fire, yet, she felt a bit more uncomfortable when that smell—and the fire—were indoors.  She blinked her eyes rapidly, taking in the scent of things, then, when they were good and proper open, she scrambled onto her backside and slid into the corner.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Sixteen:

Ilyas Ahmed – Moon Falling
Trans Atlantic Rage / Balogh – Somewhere Leading To Nowhere
Origamibiro – Flicker
Dexter Britain – Seeing The Future
Trans Atlantic Rage / Balogh – Soul Search
Jahzzar – Jardins du Luxembourg

Excerpted from: Revenants of War
An Attempted Guide for Safe Warrant After The Whatever

So much we don’t understand, so much we’re trying to quilt together, so much that we never will. Days, hours, and whatever other increments we fret with, the more we dig out from the dust only serves to confuse our already time addled brains. Some folk will find themselves kicking along to the black-cross only to stub their heels on a remnant from the peoples who used to call our world their own. They’ll look down, hymnal in one hand, a bottle in the other. Two thoughts cross their mind: I hope I’m not late for service… and who in ten shits is Dr. Pepper?

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Four:

Lloyd Rodgers – Cartesian Reunion Memorial Orchestra
Michael Edwards – Option A
Radikal Satan – Perifrico
Robin Grey – Ninety Days (Instrumental)
E. R. Goodman – Means To An End
Nevermore Eleanor – Invitation
Laura Sheeran – Rain Song

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

The rumbling engine of the big motor was loud enough to drown out her thoughts, and for once, Abranyah was glad for it.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Eight:

Tom Fahy – Rabbit Asleep
Ono – Difference
Spuntic – Ulitma
Spuntic – Movement, Album Edit
Indian Wells – South Beach

Marcus had always thought of gambling as a fool’s exercise, and this was his usual justification for losing at cards.

“That’s three of the same shape and color,” quipped Gordius. “That means I claim the winnings, yes?”

Marcus sighed, slapping his cards face-down on the large wooden spindle they were using as a table.

“Yeah, it does. Again.”

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Five:

E.R. Goodman – Roil
Crimson Curtain – Vanishing
Anita Exira – Feeding Out Among The Crows (warped)
Radikal Satan – Periférico
Bleak House – Everything Is Broken Or Intact
Bleak House – Praise Book
Cherly KaCherly – The pond as too far but we have the small buthtub just for the both of us
Podington Bear – Data
Podington Bear – Reflector
Cherly KaCherly – Starting my work with the daily rebuilding of the telescope

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

The shiny black motor flew across the barren, and vengeance followed.

As Abranyah piloted, Rhamuel sat in the passenger side window well, one palm on the roof of the motor, the other wrapped around the trigger of a long rifle.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Nineteen:

Dexter Britain – Telling Stories
Bersarin-Quartett – St. Petersburg
Origamibiro – Flicker
Sunhiilow – Le Songe d’Hacolhii’
Dexter Britain – Running Through Tunnels
Trans Atlantic Rage / Balogh – Soul Finding Solice In Resolution
Blear Moon – Cold Summer Landscape
Anita Exira – Feeding Out Among The Crows
Dexter Britain – The Time To Run (Finale)
Aaron Ximm – Spring Rain
Trigg – Yasmin
Steve Gunn – Improvisation 2
Régis Turner – ouais non je sais pas des fois je suis juste un peu mélancolique
Blue “Gene” Tyranny – Letter From Home (piano solo)
My Bubba & Mi – Nothing Much
Lockerbie – Sumar (intro)
Steve Gunn – Trouba
Emphemtry – Old Dreams
Jamie Evans – Opening Doors

Excerpted from: Revenants of War

An Attempted Guide for Safe Warrant after The Whatever

Some think The Whatever came in the form of an all-out piece of military vengeance, someone with their mitts too close to the red button and a predilection for sociopathy.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Ten:

Dexter Britain – Slow Motion Strut Version Two
Spuntic – Closes
Tom Fahy – Rabbit’s Theme
Spuntic – Slow Drift
Tony Higgins – The Hungerford Bridge
Underground River – Interlude
Underground River – Cure Me Slowly

An old man and a young man sat across from each other in a bar, locking stares with joy and fear, and while the young man had a simple question, the old man would be dead in seven minutes.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Two:

Ambienteer – Ecclesia
Sehv Tsahno Ambient – Allen Masterton
Gareth Dickson – Noon

Rhamuel inhaled deeply through his nose, and pondered the world.  They’d made camp under a billboard, and after having been awoken by Rhamuel gently sprinkling sand into his ear, Marcus began to question his own decision making abilities.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Four:

Hypermagic – San Fairy Ann
Plusplus – The Old Country
Adriano Orru – Nemus
The Magick Traveling Backpack Band – Prelude At Last
Vate – Afrodita

The tanker was always a curiosity for Rachel.

“What are you looking for?” she asked. “You said you had an idea?”

Arachal was bent over the front seats of his black Mustang and rifling through the glove compartment. “I do. I’m looking for—ah, here we are.”

Withdrawing his long frame from the car, he held up a stack of pink sticky-notes in one hand, a black marker with Warrant Sciences embossed on its gray surface in the other.

“Pink?” asked Rachel. “I don’t remember pink.”

Arachal raised an eyebrow. “What color should they be?”

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Nineteen:

Kreng – Merope
Jahzzar – Part X
Art of Flying – fields so green, part 2
MiaMia – Bend Over Harder
Julien Neto – From Cover To Cover
Podington Bear – Mensa
Art of Flying – a. Guitar #2
BOPD – 2.18.05 dai
Podington Bear – Desormais
Lee Maddeford, Roland Vouilloz – Yuyu
Dexter Britain – Utopia, Part 3
BOPD – Grotesque
Makunouchi Bento – Seduction Theme from Millano Brothers IV
Podington Bear – Brightening
The OO-Ray – Silhouettes
Krowne – Embarrassed Even By Death
Remus – The Sciolist
Podington Bear – Reflector
Dexter Britain – Zenith
Lee Rosevere – Cat Wearing Glasses
Art of Flying – O daughter, dear daughter
Brian Joseph Davis – Track5
Dexter Britain – Nothing To Fear

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Excerpted from: Revenants of War
An Attempted Guide for Safe Warrant After The Whatever

Much has been mired in speculation of the burnouts, most of it the mealy speech of a drunkard, or on occasion your humble author. People have actually visited the things, for Christ’s sake. Their jagged profile out on the horizon is a curious thing for those of us who wander the scar. It’s easy to get caught up in wondering where the places came from, who built them, and how far removed from those peoples we in the barren actually are. What happened to them might be the next question—the topic derived from a series of otherquestions that have yet to be answered in a culturally accepted way. Most simply agree, whatever.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Eighteen:

Earsmack – So This Is How It Ends
Marcus Fischer – Up Above The Hill Sky
Spuntic – The Scene
Podington Bear – Gauze
Lee Rosevere – The Ambient Ukuele (radio edit)
Allen Masterton – More Cowboy Conversations
J Butler – Sundown
Regis Victor – Le permis de conduire

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Rachel stepped back into the church and spat on the floor.

“Well we’ve got lights again, no thanks to you,” she said. “In the movies when they siphon gas out of a car, they never throw up. Guess who learned a new thing today?”

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Sixteen:

Lee Rosevere – Gymnopédie No. 1 (Satie)
Tortue Super Sonic – Film 1
Julien Mier – Ptarmigan
Lee Rosevere – The Attic
The OO-Ray – Diplodocus
Podington Bear – Constellation
Vitus Von Degen – Countach
Jared C. Balogh – Equal Value (Ode To A Squirrel)
XYZR_KX – Fly
Nevermore Eleanor – Invitation
The OO-Ray – Oceans Apart

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Stirring, Abranyah woke, and after a small stretch of lip smacking and unfocused blinking, she saw that Rhamuel was covered in blood.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Twelve:

Tom Fahy – I, Unfortunately, I Am Russel Huggins
Plankton Wat – Hash Smugglers Blues
Caligine – Mε Πιάνουνε Ζαλάδες
Dexter Britain – Calling (Instrumental)
Spuntic – Ultima
Co.fee – Calabash
Tom Fahy – Creeping
Allen Masterton – Sehv Tsahno Ambient
Tom Fahy – Woodlawn At Night
Action Davis – Deep Thoughts

They arrived at dark, and it was the men on rooftop with loaded rifles that cemented Rhamuel’s distaste for strangers.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Six:

Hypermagic – Jackie Dash
Caligine – Mε Πιάνουνε Ζαλάδες
Action Davis – Japanese
“Blue” Gene Tyranny – Letter From Home
Allen Masterton – Sehv Tsahno Ambient
Allen Masterton (Anita Exira) – Feeding Out Among the Crows

I begin my day with calisthenics, then soon after, I start withdrawing my own blood. Without an accurate view of the sun, my internal clock is sufficient to ensure I awake properly, however, the stop-watch I placed in the adjacent room has proven my biology to be reliable. I find long periods of stretching to affect my moods in a positive way, though I sometimes find myself impatient, and so I will run for around fifteen minutes on the treadmill. It is loud, but operational, and I will admit that I find the inconsistent hum of the thing as a utility in meditation.

We are always starving. It sort of goes with the territory—this being hungry in every odd tick of the day. An empty belly and its degrees of unpleasantness is better than any watch or sundial, and no further calculations on mood need interject.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Nine:

​Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
​Scott Holmes – Shimmer (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Podington Bear – Swale (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Turquoise (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
​Dexter Britain – Late Mornings Beginning (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Dexter Britain – Late Mornings (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear – Monday (CC BY-NC 3.0)
AVOIDANT – At First, the Separation from Your Body Was Harmful (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Cach (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Marcus felt like he was drowning, and his imminent demise tasted of ginger root.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Eighteen:

Jahzzar – Whisper
Trans Atlantic Rage / Balogh – Seeing The Illumination Of The Sun
Mark Neil – The Cold From Within
Tom Fahy – The Long Long Epitaph (Futurity Suite)
Ilyas Ahmed – Unveiled Nightmare
Cobra – Joyeux Drille
Allen Masterton – Sehv Tsahno Ambient
Mark Neil – strANGE_Ls

The sun had left the day, times as they were, and Allgood was set for blood.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Seventeen:

Zero V – Notch
Tom Fahy – Creeping
Trans Atlantic Rage / Balogh – Soul Search
Allen Masterton – Sehv Tsahno Ambient
Jahzzar – Guilty
Dan Warren – The Decline (Instrumental)
Tony Higgins – The Hungerford Bridge
Cobra – Prud’Hommes

In the dark and rainy parking lot of the diner, Tom and Noah pulled the collars of their jackets up over their ears. Mark did not seem to notice the rain.

Music in Book 3, Chapter 17:

Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Rain On Heavy Glass
Blue Dot Sessions - Remsen (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Allen Masterton - Iodine
Borrtex - Going Undercover (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Marcos H. Bolanos - Suspects (CC BY-NC 4.0)
poalopat - [AMBIENT] Desert Valley (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Allen Masterton - Project 5
Blue Dot Sessions - Bliste (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Borrtex - The Undertake (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Grave robbing requires a corpse, so at most, this was all just simple thievery.  At least, that’s what Rhamuel liked to tell himself as any proper heir to the abandoned goods he was claiming may have simply had their bones turned to dust by The Whatever.

Music in Tincture, Chapter One:

Steve Gunn – Trouba
Tom Fahy – Creeping
Tom Fahy – Long Winter’s Journey Into Spring
Tom Fahy – Hell Cats
Wooden Ambulance – Dishonest

King’s office was surprisingly empty for a man of his resources. There was no special reason for it—he was in charge of it all, the whole enterprise, but cared little for the more obvious of comforts or distraction.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Ten:

​Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
David Szesztay – Underwater (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Scott Holmes – Something In The Distance (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Podington Bear – Three Colors (CC BY-NC 3.0)
VYVCH – Get Well (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – More Weather (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Dexter Britain – Dance For One (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Will Bangs – Cold Feet (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Sacred Harp Signers of Cork – Drone: 274t The Golden Harp (CC BY-NC 3.0)

None of this felt real.

Abranyah ran her palms over her jacket, the same brown duster she’d been wearing since taking on the mantle of sheriff. It was night, sort of, but everything was covered in a wily haze, blurred like she had one pull too many from the ferment bottle. Shapes and corners were punctuated by an aura that faded outwards. Abranyah smelled her own breath by blowing into her cupped palm, but she detected no ferment, no ginger. She didn’t feel off-heels, but everything before her was disconcerting in ways she couldn’t quite understand.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Eight:

Spuntic – Lunar Trees
BOPD – Grotesque
Andu Simion – Argon
Lee Rosevere – Spiders / Escape / Whacked
Spuntic – Out of Step
Bleak House – Coloured Lead Crayons
Spuntic – Equilibrium
Old Shapes (Jerry Lim + Evan Rapport) – yum yum
Edmund Sullen – A Cry Within
Podington Bear – Lola

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

There was a solemn nature about a place designed to fly folk around the landscape—especially one now long past use—but the way Rhamuel figured, it was just a big graveyard without any bodies.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Eleven:

Tom Fahy – Thimbleful of Black
Tom Fahy – Being David Duff
Ono – Difference
Dexter Britain – From Truth
Tom Fahy – The Mare Crisium Fairy Book
Tom Fahy – Op. 7, No. 10 – Gestapattr No. 77
Secret Jane – Otherworld

Excerpted from: Revenants of War

An Attempted Guide for Safe Warrant after The Whatever

One of the hardest things to reckon out in the wide barren, times as they are, is not only losing folk that you held close, but trying to keep a strangle on the memories they left.

Even in that too-bright light of the morning, Abranyah always struggled to wake with it. She preferred to sleep as long as possible, but the sun would eventually prove to be an enemy—fuel for whatever device the barren was planning to kill you with today. This morning was of little difference, but the body rustling through her pack had become lazy, desperate, or both. In any case—far too loud.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Six:

Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear – Juliette (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Podington Bear – Tortoise Shell (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Kosta T – say sounds (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Costa T – Moon Valley (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
David Szesztay – Prayer (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Bkls (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel – Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Sacred Harp Signers of Cork – Consecration (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Kai Engel – Curtains are Always Drawn (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Excerpted from: Revenants of War

An Attempted Guide for Safe Warrant after The Whatever

To the forfeit wanderers and other wayward souls living in the scar:  This is a poor excuse for a travel guide, confusing at best, but if you’re still around to turn its pages, you’re already used to such nonsense.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Seven:

Free Piece of Tape – Burning School
Black Twig Pickers and Steve Gunn – Old Strange
Chris Zabriskie – What True Self? Feels Bogus, Let’s Watch Jason X
Allen Masterton – Sehv Tsahno Ambient
Plankton Wat – Hash Smugglers Blues
Andy Moor & Yannis Kyriakides – Touto To Kalokeraki (This Summer)

.2201

I met the most interesting man today. He sleeps at the fire while I write this, another few inches of bulk to my daily carry, but I find the exercise of keeping a journal cathartic. His name is Israfali. He has asked me to call him Fali, and we are very much alike in that we both are harnessed to a tank we know nothing about. We must’ve had the same tattoo artist, though. It is a damned similar thing, our markings.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Fourteen:

Lee Rosevere – Pavane pour une infante défunte (Ravel)
Tim Prebble – Tim Prebble Remix
Muhmood – Studio
Lee Rosevere – Thunder Storm – Vancouver, BC September 5 2013
Podington Bear – Forecasting
Jahzzar – Part X
Brian Joseph Davis – Track5
Muhmood – Finale
Lee Rosevere – His first day without her

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Torches had never done Allgood much favor, but that they lit up a question or two in the good populace was useful. Two old branches lit the stench of thoroughfare just before the bar-house, the tips never extinguished thanks to some flammable green-black sludge the fiddle fingers had cooked up for otherwise pursuit. They stunk, and while most folk came to the bar house either by regular pre-dinner appointment or curiosity, they came all the same.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Seven:

Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear – Nocturne Op 48 No 1 (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Kai Engel – Moonlight Reprise (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Bliste (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Between Stones (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Gtks (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – That River Wide (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Will Bangs – You Make My Heart Sing So Loud (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Stillness (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Mystified – Spooky Theme (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Sergey Cheremisinov – Back to Home (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Unlike most in the barren, Barabbas was unconditional.

Marcus, Yerses, and Devil were still asleep, the trio lying around the smolders of the previous night’s fire—the two decoy fires still within sight, but smoldering the same. Abranyah sat several yards out from the group, watching Barabbas torment Salt, the two a few yards even further, and it was clear that while the horse could not see the dog, she enjoyed the play.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Eleven:

The Green Kingdom – spring_thaw
E.R. Goodman – Red Bandana
Podington Bear – Thrum Room
Wild Wild Ambient Boys – 7/8 Is Wild
M-Pex & Makrox – Volukta
Julien Neto – From Cover To Cover
Kreng – Asterope
Billy Gomberg – Billy Gomberg remix
Podington Bear – Light Touch

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Excerpted from: Revenants of War
An Attempted Guide for Safe Warrant After The Whatever

Let us be practical. Most bodies who wander in and out of their day, they do it while accepting a relative amount of uncertainty. When one cannot remember this-or-that, taking a long mosey across the dust, a day trip putting heel after heel into the world on some sort of mission, one had better bring company along. Even better, paper. I’ve slept under the stars while finishing notes on some particular journey, dozing off in the cool and waking up in the warm. That bright welcome was worn short when I realized I had failed to mark my direction. A longer story, certainly, but not a journey has followed where I haven’t set wide sets of branches in a given direction, an elaborate reminder that, “This way, you horses’s ass, continue in this direction and do better to not-die.”

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Ten:

Regis Victor – Piano Prout
Jerry Lim + Evan Rapport – yum yum
Podington Bear – Gauze
Billy Gomberg – Billy Gomberg remix
Marcus Fischer – Up Above The Hill Sky
Christopher Bissonnette – Downwards
Smyth – The Space Between
Earsmack – So This Is How It Ends
Matt LeGroulx – So Glad (Pink)
Talvihorros – The Blue Cathedral

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Every time he balanced one of the massive tobacco jars between his arthritic fingers, Morris briefly considered escape.

She’d arrived at dark, and it was the men with loaded rifles that cemented Rachel’s distaste for strangers.

She had been standing in the open field for almost thirty minutes, she figured, and under this dark of a night it made her uncomfortable. The man she was arguing with was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, assault rifle laid over his calves, and he was spinning an aluminum can around around in his fingers.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Three:

Vitus Von Degen – The Diesel People
Spuntic – Out Of Step
Xalm Retribution – Someone Is Looking At You In The Dark
Bleak House – Oil Burner
Crypt Sisters – Only He Understands Me
Kromatic – Bounce Like The 80s (Krowne Back To The Future Remix)
Vitus Von Degen – Countach
Jari Pitkanen – Io

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Vagueness and the inevitable questions it created only frustrated Rachel, and she had decided that her current predicament was simply one spot too many.

“Sorry, from up here it sounded like you said ‘your chair’ told you I’d be arriving,” she yelled.

The static voice returned. “Well, yeah. I’m not sure if he talks to other people, though. I’ve been alone for quite some time.”

“Mm-hm,” shot Rachel. “Well I’m almost convinced. Just ask the fridge or the cabinets what they think, and we’ll be set.”

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Nine:

Vitus Von Degen – The Two-Headed Saint
Peter DiPhillips – Vadso
Peter DiPhillips – White Night
Podington Bear – Swollen Cloud
Crypt Sisters – Only He Understands Me
Shake That Little Foot – Pretty Little Dog
Podington Bear – Dark Matter
Lee Rosevere – Phase Of Prisms
Podington Bear – Désormais

Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Abranyah blinked through the rain, peering down both ends of the street, waiting for activity.

Music in Book3, Chapter 15:

Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Bask VX (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Guitar Drone 1 - Ghost Hunter (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Podington Bear - Submerging Blue-Black (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear - Dark Water (CC BY-NC 3.0)
The Rifleman - Day Of The Hunter (1960, clipped)
Podington Bear - Satellite Bloom (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Crowander - Prayer (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Crowander - In The Sun (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Fog Interlude (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel - Rejecting the Sirens (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Big River Run (CC BY-NC 4.0)

At sunset, the old gunslinger looked upon a fallen kingdom and found himself unimpressed.

Music in Book 3, Chapter 19:

Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Crowander - Vanda’s Blues (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Monolog Rockstars - Two Years (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Floor Shine (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - Floretin (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Rain On Heavy Glass
Allen Masterton - Project 5
Cory Gray - Follow The Trail (CC BY-NC 3.0)
straget - the rain falls against the parasol (CC BY 3.0)
Kai Engel - From Dreams to Melancholy (CC BY-NC 4.0)
tim.khan - 019 denver airport (CC BY 3.0)
Allen Masterton - Berceus
BOPD - Grotesque (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Timbre - remixes of 32985__hardpcm__alarm001 (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions - The Envelope (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel - Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Marcos H. Bolanos - The Sea (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Podington Bear - Wren (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Borrtex - There Is Always A Reason (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Borrtex - Falling Into Presence (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Podington Bear - Juliette (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Podington Bear - Monday (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Borrtex - Over Again (CC BY-NC 4.0)
rambler52 - Pickup_Ford_62_Start_Idle (CC BY 3.0)
klankbeeld - wood on mattress 001 (CC BY 3.0)
Inspector J - Destruction, Wooden, A (CC BY 3.0)
Podington Bear - Feldspar (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Jamie Evans - Opening Doors (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Scott Holmes Music - Escape (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel - Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Audionautics - Crowd Long (CC BY 3.0)
InspectorJ - Crowd Screaming, A (CC BY 3.0)
Scott Holmes Music - Discovery (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Dexter Britain - Sleepless Nights (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Origamibiro - Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Crowander - Black Trees (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Crowander - Looking Back (CC BY-NC 4.0)
My Bubba & Mi - Goodnight Heart (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Crowander - I Found You (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Scott Holmes Music - Uninvited (CC-BY-3.0)
Dexter Britain - Lifted (CC BY-NC-SA)
Dexter Britain - Transpire (CC BY-NC-SA)
Allen Masterton - Iodine
Crowander - Old Man’s Tale (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Tom smiled and nodded with the applause, but when the meeting resumed he went right back to staring directly into the center of a donut.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Eight:

Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alterr – Small Group Applause (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Scott Holmes – Origin II (CC BY-4.0)
Seclorance – Dir (CC BY-4.0)
Charlie Salas-Humara (CC BY-NC 3.0)
AVOIDANT – Apparitions (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
KSEA – Interlude A (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Cyborgs On Crack – Paraplegic Gerbil Processing Plant (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Damon Boucher – Desert Sun (CC BY-NC 3.0)
David Szesztay – Backward (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Sepia (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Mystified – Running From An Evil Force (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Seclorance – Depths of Self-Deception (CC BY 4.0)

Truth found little purchase in a barren sown with lies, and this went doubly so for the Devil.

When time turned funny, most folk looked to one another as they struggled through their day-to-day, figuring things out and doing their best to set up four walls for them and theirs. Some had always liked lacing up the shoes of a nomad and wandering across the dust. If you had a purpose, it gave a body something to fix upon, a reason to keep stepping. However, wearing those nomad shoes out in the barren these days, the days after The Whatever, that was makings for more of a finite kind of future. A body needed the company.

Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter One:

BOPD – Grotesque
Shake That Little Foot – Shady Grove
Bleak House – Biology Slides
Kosta T – Complect for…
M Patuluci – Underground
Nevermore Eleanor – Invitation

Intro selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

Paper football or a rubber-band shootout did well to occupy those lulls in the night, but nothing passed the time quite like a gunshot victim.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Five:

Deft – Balloons Don’t Always Fly – Remix
Mitsuru Shimizu – Swimy
Sam Shalabi – Rebetikaud
Steve Gunn – Trouba

Knucklebones stepped one leathery bare foot into the plastic pool, bright and faded colors both rippling under the liquid. Filth bloomed in arcs from his foot, dirt and barren clouding the chemicals. He wrinkled an ancient looking triangle that sat center on his face, and enshrouded by the giant round disc his hat made, and Knucklebones inhaled deeply.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Eleven:

​Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear – Submerging Blue-Black (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Floor Shine (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Slow Slow Sky (CC BY-NC 4.0)
David Szesztay – First Step Inside (CC BY-NC 3.0)
David Szesztay – Creepy Atmo (CC BY-NC 3.0)
David Szesztay – Creepy Sirens (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Smolder (CC BY-NC 3.0)
BOPD – New England Air (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
David Szesztay – Backward (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Sergey Cheremisinov – Labyrinth (CC BY-4.0)
Dexter Britain – Sleepless Nights (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

This was the kind of fruitless nonsense that permeated The Scar—a seeming irregularity of principle and purpose to things. A body could rub a book to ash in their fingers. They could then take a step and trip over a heaping stack of books showing no more than frayed edges, dust, and that grainy kind of yellow that takes over the page after a while.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Two:

Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – 4th Chair (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Emmit Sprak (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Midday (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Catcher Textile (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Thread Caramb (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Cobweb Transit (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Thread Ceylon (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai Engel – Prelude – Bells in Heavy Clouds (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0)

An otherwise normal day in an otherwise normal life, time as it was. Tom had been fostering a general sense of unease for a while now, yet like a weird sort of depression, he had difficulty pinpointing its origin.

Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Five:

Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Podington Bear – Three Colors (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Submerging Blue-Black (CC BY-NC 3.0)
David Szesztay – Snow (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Podington Bear – Monday (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – Gtks (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Cory Gray – Terminal One (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Blue Dot Sessions – At All Ends (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Mystified – Spooky Theme (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
visualasylum – Radio Static (CC BY-3.0)

Old Mother placed her hands in her lap, gestured to the wooden table at her side, and ordered the boy to practice a decision of fate.

Music in Tincture, Chapter Three:

J. Koho – Ashram of Eternal Chant
Krackatoa – Grand PooPah
Allen Masterton – Sehv Tsahno Ambient
Hypermagic – Apparatus
Wooden Ambulance – Poor Bastard