The Elven brothers, Part XI

     Like an echo of a vision an amorphous form slowly began to solidify. Pale blue wisps of light caressed it and wrapped it solidly in their warm glow. A quiet wind moved about it pushing its unaccountable mass from center to side and back again. Hollow and translucent it still gave a sense of life as if it had once been very strong and only in death was it a weak entity. Like misty tendrils of fog it carefully pulled on Veldren's paleing face and turned him to watch the scene before him.
     There, like a portal to the past, was the day his father had battled Sythsyss and lost. He could still smell the warm pie scent that had wafted from their cabin to his young nose and he could feel it tickle his stomach. Warm was the sun that poured down from the canopy onto his face but it also was wicked for it provided illumination for the horrid sight of his father being ripped end from end by Sythsyss. He was just a small child then and he knew not what to do. Veldren watched again and found he could not move, just as he had when he was young.
     Ariad's green orbs blazed with fire as the thick shaft of the Lizardman's spear dug deep into his chest, impaling his heart and lungs. Veldren saw his father lunge at the scaled monster with his sword aimed to kill Sythsyss even as he was thrown wildly on the mean end of his spear. He could see the look in Sythsyss's eyes, he could see the fear that welled in him even though his father would surely die in mere moments. Veldren saw his father's strength, his mettle. He saw then what Kemen was trying to show him all along.
     Sythsyss cringed in fear and in doing so he averted the chest wound that would have followed Ariad's menacing swing. The sword instead connected with his eye, bursting it and causing thick white liquid to seep from it for the rest of his days. With Ariad dead, however, the evil thing found renewed confidence and with a powerful yank he had recovered the rich ruddy heart that was secured to the head of his spear.
     As Veldren watched in a haze of disbelief the lizardman devoured the ichor filled muscle while his father lied motionless on the ground beside him. The menacing maw of the beast was filled with jagged teeth that it used to tear the heart apart and coax the quickly thickening blood from its center. Pain ran through Veldren's body just as it had that day. The lasting pain of loss that no child should ever encounter, his father was dead and he could do nothing more than hide and watch as the beast that murdered him befouled his body as he feasted upon his entrails.
     Veldren blinked. The haunting was over. Marylvin stood over him with an outstretched hand offering him help to stand, for unbeknownst to Veldren he had obviously fell asleep in the middle of his conversation with the Arael. All was quiet for a moment and the deep thoughts that had accosted his mind ebbed from his senses.