Tales of Eldelórne Page 4

  “They always start it! Can you not get that through your thick head? You have to stop listening to vile words. Our mother would not be happy to hear of this EJ,” Roe growled knowing his brother was stubbornly not listening.

  “Let me down!” He hit at Roe’s firm grip.

  “Fine,” Roe slammed his brother on the ground so hard the air left his lungs. Stunned into silence, EJ lay in a heap in the dirt, gasping for breath.

  “That will shut it,” Roe scowled as he stormed away.

  “But I was just trying to stand up for you big brother,” Eijlam pulled a bruised knee up to his face and cried out in the pain of it.

  He did not understand the depths of his sibling's dark side or why he seemed to turn his anger towards him. He felt like Roe wanted to make him feel sad on purpose. He shook his head, disbelieving his own thoughts.

  “That cannot be truth. I will not believe that of my own brother,” EJ frowned through wet tears.

  Her Final Hour

  Chapter Four

  Faded and weak, Thendiel had walked through the Illianheni gardens and across the long wooden footbridge for the last time.

  “This place… where I have lived all the days of my life... it has so soon come to an end! Everything would be changed for us on the morrow, and I cannot stop it,” Thendiel wailed in anguish, clutching the top of the last bridge post for support.

  She wanted to lay down and give in, to stop the pain, but she couldn’t let that happen. Not after resisting all this time. The threads of her life in this realm were pulled taut and unraveling back into the void where she had trespassed so many years ago. Her time had come, and she could fight no longer. There were final preparations to make before mornings first light. Thendiel strengthened her resolve. Light rain clattered down through the branches, soaking the ground.

  Hastily wiping her face on the edge of her damp sleeve, she swung her long hair over her shoulder as she stepped onto the stone path to Eldelórne. Moving quickly under the full moon, Thendiel hoped the cool rain would diminish the signs of her weeping eyes.

  Her home was dark except for the blue starlight she knew was hanging in Roe’s window at the top of their beautiful tree. A slight smile crossed her lips, thinking of the tiny blue beacon, and the king who loved her.

  Entering the doorway, she ran her hands along the smooth insides of her home. Usually, her touch would signal her arrival, but on this night, her message was telling of her final departure when the dawn broke over the land. The trees, in their empathy, sent back a wave of sadness, almost drowning her mind with their many concerns.

  “Nooo… please no,” she almost fell to her knees in the barrage of too many voices. The grove quickly calmed themselves and continued to quietly sing impassioned comfort to ease her mind. The whole village of trees now understood what a frail, desperate state she was in.

  Thendiel was sending her sons to the kings palace. She expressed her desire for their safety. They would be alone for a time waiting for Ellinduil to collect them. “He will keep my son’s safe,” she murmured to herself. She entreated their living home to help them as best it could. Her home tree sent back a solemn promise to ease her troubled heart.

  Looking around for the last time, Thendiel took off her precious amulet. She placed it in a solid wooden box with her old diary. The usually glittering stone went dark as it lost contact with her body. “Let them find this when they are older. It may ease my son's minds… someday…” Her tree spoke quiet acknowledgment of her wishes. She placed her only treasures in the home’s hidden cache. The place had witnessed this kind of leaving before. It would hold to its promise and wait, no matter how long it took because they knew their elves would always return, and the trees had patience.

  Thendiel anxiously climbed the stairs to see her young ones as they were sleeping. Roevash slept alone in his own room most times now. He had grown so tall, he easily could be mistaken for a human boy of maybe sixteen she guessed.

  As Thendiel sat next to him on his bed, her eyes narrowed sadly remembering the time they had.

  “You are your beloved father’s son. I see his kind face in you.” She breathed out a long sigh.

  “I pray you make good choices and have the strength to carry on after I am gone from here, my little deer. Keep our small family safe.”

  She felt the sting in her nose as rising tears turned it red again. Watching Roevash sleep peacefully in the glow of his starlight, she was comforted by the sound of her son’s steady breathing. Thendiel sat for a long time with her hand on her son’s arm.

  Eijlam lay curled up, half-asleep in his mother’s bed. He could see her in the soft light of the burning candle set on the side table as she entered the room.

  “Mother? Are you crying?” He knew she was suffering somehow, and wanted to help her if he could.

  “I am sorry, my little one. I have tried to tell you, both of you, but it is my weakness to share only happiness with my beloved sons.” She looked at him tearfully.

  “The King is sending horses for me on the morrow as the sun rises.”

  “Horses?” He was confused.

  “Oh, my sweet Eijlam.” She wished he was sleeping so he might have one last night of peace, but now she had to tell him what was going to happen. It would not be right to say all was well when clearly it was not. She wept openly, unable to hold the flood back.

  “Your innocence has always filled my heart with such gladness. I have found so much joy having you and your brother in my life.”

  “Are you going somewhere, mother?” Eijlam’s huge eyes regarded her tearful face and fear gripped inside his gut.

  “I am so weak… can you not see I am faded? I am being called away to Ilmatar. I have made arrangements to give you over to our king’s care. He will treat you as his own for the sake of me.”

  Eijlam’s face froze in horror at the thought of her leaving and being in so much pain. He was too young to understand all that she had just told him.

  “Mother,” was all he could say, and he began to cry with her.

  Thendiel bundled her young elfling tight in her arms as if she would never let him go. Her agony eased as invisible light shimmered around mother and son. They fell tearfully asleep in the protective glow that took away his mother’s pain.

  +++

  When the morning arrived, Thendiel was but a faint and ghostly shell. Roevash stubbornly refused to understand the plans she had set for them, and blamed Eijlam for her suffering.

  “You are too young mother,” Roevash cried out, holding her to his bosom. He towered over her, having grown to an almost six-foot stature. He was shocked to find her so frail as a wisp in his arms.

  “Be wise, my brave son.” Her eyes were haunted by the distant thrumming of Lord Untuoni’s persistent call.

  “You know I must journey on to Ilmatar’s peace across the sea. This is the way of our kind once we are worn in this mortal life.”

  “Tell me I will see you again,” he keened in grief.

  “Yes, Roevash, you are Edhellen even though you may not always feel it. You are my son. Be noble and true as I know you are, and you will always find your way to me.” Roe hung his head in shame at her words.

  “Come on Roevash,” Thendiel touched his chin and tipped his gaze upward into her own.

  “You know I will be waiting joyously on the shores with all our kin, singing boldly the song of my love for you.”

  Thendiel took her ring off and slipped it onto her eldest son’s smallest finger. He cringed at her actions, not wanting her beautiful ring to become a symbol of her leaving.

  Looking him directly into his eyes, she said firmly, “Do not blame your brother. For this was my doing, and my own choices that have brought me to this.”

  Roe blushed in shame again for his desire to point blame. “I am ugly, and not kind as I should be,” he tortured himself with such thoughts, but, “I will try harder mother,” was all he could say to her in his defense through tears and growing frustration.<
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  She sadly, pulled away from his embrace, for the time had come. Thendiel kissed both her beloved sons goodbye, and then turned to leave. The king’s attendants silently lifted her up onto the light gray steed that would carry her in such weakness. The line of elves glowed in a ghostly pallor and turned to mere shadow in the morning mist as they traveled away to their final destination.

  “Do you not have anything to say for yourself!” Roevash’s swollen tear-stained face swung around and bellowed at Eijlam through clenched teeth.

  His little brother looked wretchedly small, and pale, as he silently watched the shadow, that was the last of their mother, moving out of sight.

  Roevash again, sounding too loud and too angered in his frustration, as their eyes locked, saw only the deepest of shared grief in his brother, but it was too late… Eijlam blinked his huge eyes, and a flood of tears splashed out onto the stone path. Slowed, as in a dream, he turned and whisked away within the echo of his brother's voice.

  Shamed again by his actions, Roevash could only watch in horror as the form of his brother faded and disappeared into the mist.

  “Noooooo!” he shouted into emptiness. “What have I done?”

  In that moment of shock, his heart changed, and he wished he could take it all back. In blind frustration, he tore his mother’s ring off his hand and dropped it harshly to the ground. Stunned and utterly alone, he fell to his knees sobbing. All the years of taunting and fools games he had put Eijlam through. He had somehow forgotten how to be a good brother. He repented in his anguish, but now it was too late. Eijlam was gone somewhere, and he did not know where or how to find him.

  In the days that followed the elves of the village looked upon Roevash suspiciously, as if he had done harm to his brother. They were not sure that he wouldn’t have. In denial of what his eyes had witnessed, Roevash spent all his time desperately searching the woodlands and asking in neighboring settlements to the west, but found naught a sign of Eijlam.

  “It is as if he just vanished before my eyes!” Roevash pondered reliving the scene over and over in his head.

  “I have to look farther,” he suffered in his thoughts, “or I will have failed in my promise to our mother.” He hung his head in sorrow.

  “Before my life is gone from this realm, I would be known as true hearted and not a monster in the eyes of my own brother,” he vowed to himself.

  The murmuring and whispers of neighbors were more than Roe could stand. He had lost both his brother and his mother on the same day. Feeling desolate and alone, Roe put his mother’s ring in a hidden place in his room. He took what little he would need in his belt and a shoulder pack.

  Roevash set out from the safety of the hidden village of Eldelórne and all he had ever known, into the vast, unfamiliar realm of men.

  The king’s emissary arrived and found Thendiel’s home closed in hibernating slumber, and her young one’s were gone. The village told him of the incident as they heard it, and that the eldest ran away in shame. There were no eye witnesses that could tell him what really happened on that day. All he could do is turn around and go back to the palace and report to the king.

  Human Faces

  Chapter Five

  As Roevash first walked among humans, he was met with more abuse and, on one occasion, was even set upon by men’s dogs. Realizing it was because of his telltale ears, he covered them with a scarf acquired from some hanging laundry. Humans saw him then as an older teenage boy even though his maturity among elves was much younger. Not knowing the common tongue, he tried not to speak very much. He soon found out they didn’t recognize Elvish anyway. He knew he would have to adapt, so he watched and listened.

  Roe was head and shoulders taller than the grown men he encountered. His distinctive facial features made him strikingly handsome by human standards. The women liked his tall, dark, mysterious looks. Females were more generous with food and patience, fantasizing he must somehow, be a lost prince from a distant land. He was so polite, they happily fed him, and taught him how to speak their language.

  Girls who fancied his good looks did things that made him blush, but he shied away from those kinds of affections, not wanting to be discovered as an elf among men. He slept hidden away up in the tall tree branches at night, and went into the human settlement during the day to learn what he could.

  In Eldelórne, Roevash was one of the best in his class with the bow and swordplay. Not fully understanding what war was, he joined a band of men that were going east to fight. They said they were going to protect their women, and their way of life. They gave him a massive iron long sword, and showed him how to use it. Roe felt this might be an opportunity to travel and search for his brother among the humans he would meet. Little did he know, this was the beginning of a long career among men at war.

  Because of his inexperience, and lack of any real strength, he suffered a broken nose and lost his right eye to an enemy blade in one of his first battles. Roevash soon discovered his one advantage was being quicker minded, and more agile than any human. His body healed fast, but he still suffered agonizing pain from the many mistakes he made. His eye was permanently lost, so he was forced to wear a patch over an ugly empty socket as a deadly reminder.

  An evil sorcerer named Surmanos had grown an army of mutant hiisi and ogre-men in the fiery Ajattara Fells. Roe fought bravely in many skirmishes there, and killed many of the sorcerer’s twisted monsters.

  After decades of fighting, his body grew muscular through the shoulders and back as he expertly wielded the massive reach of the steel broadsword. He also mastered the use of a full-length set of dual swords. He started to show the shadow of facial hair of adolescence from his human half. He learned to shave, keeping the stubble short along his lower jawline. His long sable brown hair had turned into tangled piles of dreadlocks that he kept tied up in the folded scarf that also covered his ears. All this added to a dark and fearsome countenance that most common folk would choose to avoid.

  Roevash faithfully carried on his duties as a soldier, always keeping to himself. He never was one to smile or speak very much. He often thought about his family that were lost to him, as he learned about the ways of men. In all the years that followed Roevash never aged as did his companions. Wounds that would kill an ordinary human always healed at an astonishing rate.

  Believing in dark superstitions, as men will, they would sling remarks. Roe just scowled and tried to avoid those men. He dreamed of the day humans would practice more kindness or simply keep to their own business, but they never did. He always ended up having to move on when they started asking too many questions.

  Being Edhellen seemed to be such a defect, that when he was deepest in the despair of elven desolation, he thought about mutilating his long ears. He even tried to drink so much as to find the courage to do it, but alcohol never had the desired effect. He would always end up thinking of his kindhearted mother, and he would put away his dagger, and his misery for another day.

  Feeling the pain of another battle that didn’t end the way their officers had planned, Roevash looked for some peace with a cold drink in the commons. He only wanted to pass the time by himself but then the hecklers started in. They were unwavering as they mercilessly harassed him. In frustration, he finally stood up to his full imposing height and bellowed.

  “I am blessed only by my beloved mother!” He tore off his scarf to reveal the long ears. He immediately knew he had made a grave mistake.

  “The damnable Eldar abandoned us to our fate,” men yelled at him in shock of discovering one among them all this time.

  There began quite a commotion as men quickly gulped chugs of ale and rolled off benches. Others fell, tipping and spilling tankards all over the place as they scrambled away to the farthest walls into the shadows. They were clearing the floor for a fight.

  Roevash pulled out all the authority he could muster in his voice and stance. He hoped to calm the crowd or at least dissuade them from violence.

  “I have
been searching for my brother who disappeared in grief of our mother's death,” Roevash tried to explain, knowing that they didn’t care what he said anymore. He prayed for some small sign of empathy from his former companions but there was none.

  “Stand down, men!” A shout came from behind them as a door opened behind them.

  “There will be no cure found fighting among yourselves,” yelled their captain as he quickly stepped forward out of his office, quelling the oncoming riot.

  “Clean up this mess!” The captain ordered into the commons, “or you will find yourselves permanently assigned to latrine duty.”

  The captain then addressed Roevash. “It may be true we thought Edhellen long gone, but come now,” with a serious face he motioned for Roe to follow him, “even wizards continue to walk among us.

  “You are no pure-blooded, are you elf,” a stocky crude-looking man spat the last insult.

  “My sire was human that I grew so.” Roe’s fist slammed down hard. Leaning over menacingly, his good eye, insanely widened as he glared at the recoiling man.

  “Tall enough to end the likes of you!” he growled under his breath. None could deny his look of malice.

  They couldn’t know the sadness he felt at this show of human ignorance. Roevash was fixed on the man as he tied his scarf back in place covering his ears away from prying eyes.

  “There… is this good enough for you!” He glared out at all their sullen faces as he stomped away into the office. They had no idea how close they’d come to finding real pain, as the men moaned; picking up the mess and righting furniture.

  Captain Ferric was always know to be a fair man, even under tough circumstances. He had taken Roevash aside into his office, not just to stop a brawl, but to speak candidly.

  “It was only a matter of time that you would be forced to reveal yourself to us, soldier. You are an impressive fighter in my regiment, but I have been here a long while.”