Blue Words - Part I

by M.C. Edwards

forests. Again he proved resourceful. Again we suffered as he depleted our numbers. This time Kyran seized upon paranoia which was rife in the colonies. He used the guise of a fanatical witch hunt to identify and decimate our number, along with many innocent civilians. The smell of burning brothers and sisters is more baggage I carry, along their screams begging for help which we could not provide, such was the cost of remaining in the shadows. We used the last of our blood; no more would ever be Inscribed.

  He shifted his seat of power again and again, following the demand for different minerals and resources, into Asia, Africa and finally Australia, where I find myself today. I am not alone in my losses, nor my grief. All Inscribed have suffered, all Inscribed have lost. Our thousand year struggle has been a bloody one. We have all watched those we care about ripped from our lives, either through battle or the ravages of age.

  Did our focus ever falter from our sworn task? Of course it did, we’re human. Of course we considered giving up, but then the dead would have been lost for nothing. We have fought a secret war, a war where we are forever rebels, forever terrorists. Should we ever be victorious, there will be no recognition of it. We will forever be in the shadows. The only solace we have is that the gods know.

  As our numbers continued to shrink, our plight seemed more and more futile every day. We still made new friends, people who would have been inscribed had the situation been different, but we never seemed to get any closer to our goal. Until today. Today I witnessed Gudrik, last of The Twelve soaring majestically through high rise buildings. Finally the fates have conspired with us. Finally the tables have turned in our favour.

  Isolation

  “Only when alone can your needs truly be felt.”

  George woke the next day with a dry mouth and a pounding headache. It had been a long time since she’d had that much fun, not to mention drank that much. Kahn, Dorian and Malaki had collapsed in a scatter on the main living area floor. Teefa and Neasa had retired to hammocks slung from the rafters of the shed. Paw had passed out face down in the front yard and Gudrik dozed off in a chair on the verandah. This had left the small bedroom free for George and Tabitha, a gesture she appreciated. Gingerly she propped herself up against the wall, massaged her throbbing temples and remembered why she’d stopped drinking. The room spun as she looked around and gathered her senses. “Wakey, wakey,” she sang, unwrapping the blankets to see how Tabitha was.

  Panic! The blankets were empty. George leapt to her feet, all traces of hangover suddenly forced out of being. Blame flooded in, long before logic or reason could. “What kind of mother am I?” she thought, mirroring her emotions of the previous day. “How could I let them knock me out with booze. They could be anywhere by now, doing anything to her. God I hope there’s no rape dungeon!”

  She flew from the room in a terror-fuelled rage, frantically turning the house, and then shed upside down. Nothing. The house stood eerily deserted, the Inscribed gone. The ground beside the shed, which was last night littered with cars, sat bare, fanning her fears further.

  George shot up the side of the house. Tears began to fill her eyes. In the empty front yard she dropped to her knees, weak with worry. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. The mother’s head fell into her hands and she sobbed uncontrollably, drowning in hopelessness. Seconds of grief felt like hours of torture in George’s world. Her panic clouded mind left her paralysed, kneeling helplessly above a serene snap of paradise. Emptiness and regret, that was all George could muster. They consumed her entirely, but a distant sound soon slapped her free of her spiralling self pitty.

  Her head shot up. Her eyes blinked free of their tears and focussed on the beach. Far below in the distance George spied solace. Three figures, one tall, one tiny and a dog. “Wait…a dog?” The trio were skipping, running and frolicking along the water’s edge, leaving long trails of footprints in the pristine, white-gold sands. She quickly shook the hopelessness off and darted down the winding path which snaked through the grass of the hillside. She passed through the cool shaded archway of entwined Casuarina limbs. George streaked along the sands which were just beginning to warm in the sun’s early rays.

  “Tabitha, Tabitha!” she screamed.

  “Mummy!” came a cheerful squeal in reply. Tabitha tottered over and leapt into her mother’s arms. George hugged the child tightly and peppered her with kisses. A crushing weight was set free seeing Tabitha safe and happy, but the bubbling mess of emotions which were surging and churning inside caused her only to cry even harder than before.

  George hated crying in front of people, in fact she despised it and she had done far too much of it in the last twenty-four hours. “Pathetic!” she thought.

  Happy with the hug she had received and completely oblivious to her mother’s emotional torment, Tabitha wriggled free of George’s grasp and scampered back over to Gudrik. He was standing shin deep in the crystal clear water with an unnaturally large, black dog at his heels. Its eyes were a striking electric blue colour and its thick legs ended in the wet sand with shaggy paws large enough to have belonged to a bear. It stood staunch at the Warlock’s side, ears pricked, intently staring at Tabitha, watching her every movement as she jumped and splashed playfully. No sooner had she run back over, then the dog had run up to her slathering a sloppy, wet lick across her cheek. Tabitha cackled loudly.

  George was shaking with anger, her fists clenched tightly ready to tear strips off Gudrik and possibly knock a tooth or two out for scaring her. But as soon as George saw the blissful smile on Tabitha’s face, she couldn’t do it. Instead she took a deep breath, pushed her own feelings into the pit of her stomach and beckoned Gudrik closer. She forced a tight smile across her face. The Warlock splashed towards her, his tiny, adoring shadow trailing closely behind. “Are you well?” rumbled Gudrik, in the happiest tone his deep, gravely pipes could muster.

  “Well, other than being sharply reminded why I swore never to drink again, I’m just hunky dory thanks.” She rubbed her forehead.

  “Keeping pace with Kahn in the art of drink is no feat to be dismissed.”

  George covered her face and groaned, “Ah that’s right, the drinking competition. That’s why it feels like someone is chiseling away at the inside of my skull.”

  She looked over at Tabitha who had her arms around the large dog, dangling joyfully from its thick, shaggy neck and kicking her legs. The strange animal’s presence finally got the better of George. “Umm, why is my daughter hugging a stray dog?” she asked.

  “He’s a wolf,” grunted Gudrik.

  “Okay. Where did you find a wolf?”

  “I bled him for Tabitha. His name is Fenrir.”

  “Jesus Gudrik, he’s big enough to swallow her,” George said, rolling her eyes.

  “He won’t harm her. He will protect her. Fenrir would follow Tabitha to the end of the earth and back again,” reassured Gudrik. George didn’t have the patience to continue the discussion right then.

  “Ok Gudrik, but next time you feel the need to get her a gift, how about just a teddy bear or something?”

  “I can make him into a bear if you wish,” offered Gudrik. George rolled her eyes yet again.

  “No he’s perfect,” she relented, “Anyway, let’s go have some breakfast.”

  The four began the short, winding hike back up the hill to the house. “What was its name again?” asked George as they walked through the shaded arch, screwing her face up in thought. Gudrik flashed her a blank look. “The wolf,” she added.

  “Fenrir,” he replied. Again there was a poorly restrained roll of the eyes.

  “Gudrik, she struggles to say hello and goodbye. Tabitha will be twelve before she can pronounce that name.”

  “Fenrir is named after the father of wolves, a very noble name,” he explained.

  “Did you ever have any children Gudrik?” George asked.

  “No. None of The Twelve ever did after the change.” He paused. “I take your meaning…. about the name. I have told her
how to say it many, many times. Still, she calls him pup pup.”

  So it was that the noble beast Fenrir was from that moment forth known to all who met him simply as ‘Pup’.

  Upon arriving back at the beach house they enjoyed a breakfast of fried eggs and toast. George also introduced Gudrik to something which he had never experienced before, coffee. “This is a drink which traditionally follows a night of.........indulgence in our culture,” she lectured.

  Even through the splitting ache of her hangover, George couldn’t help but be reminded of weekend family breakfasts when she was a girl, the relaxed enjoyment of knowing there was nowhere anyone had to be. She had always loved them, and was grateful Tabitha was experiencing one too, even under such bizarre circumstances.

  The uneven rumble of a rather old and rather large engine bubbled in, interrupting the peaceful breakfast. Pup was the first to react, pricking his ears and moving himself closer to Tabitha. The two adults then leapt to their feet and moved to the window, leaving Tabitha to fumble at the table alone. She proceeded to feed most of her meal to Pup.

  A large, rusted out hulk of a truck had rolled up the drive and pulled in beside the drunken shed. There was a loud creak as the heavy steel door swung open and a man stepped out, stretching his arms, legs and back simultaneously, forming a crucifix.