A Sword For Gold

Chapter 22 - To Bring Back

"Why, father?!"

Baros was fully right to be furious with his father, Balin. Not only did his father choose to pledge his allegiance to a woman whose desire was of pure evil, but he also knowingly and willingly betrayed his own son and his friends, his acts causing Baros to feel backstabbed and double-crossed. He could not understand that from his father, either. Alyria Desolas wanted to lay waste to the world and everything it held dear, to destroy everything that had been established and to eliminate life, and all of its meaning. There's no way, he thought, that his father would ever stand for that.

"I always thought you lived an honest life, father," Baros spoke, looking down upon his father, who could not bring himself to look his son in the eye, with his son staring him down with eyes full of fury and disappointment.

"You always scolded me, beat me, even, whenever I would steal," Baros recalled, "You were an honest stableman who took care of horses for a living? You never let any act of evil or malice enter your head! What the hell happened to you, for goodness sake?!"

No answer. His father remained silent, keeping himself in a curled up state in his makeshift wooden cell, his eyes refusing to dart away from the white sands that he had been staring into for what seemed like an eternity and a half.

"You taught me decency, father!" yelled Baros, tears beginning to form in his eyes, "No matter how much I despised you and mother, you never failed to teach me how to be a human! You taught me how to treat a woman, how to treat Vaelia Martel! You taught me what is right and wrong, despite my hard, thick head that always hated my parents! You taught me to be a man of decency, father! Are you telling me that you have been a hypocrite all this time?!"

Again, Balin Delvis remained silent.

"Or, did something change you?!" asked Baros with probably the most pivotal question in his one-sided conversation with his father. It would have been easily missed, but Baros was quick to notice his father's hands clench into fists the moment he had uttered that last question.

It was then that it dawned on him, why his father had become like this.

"My mother..." Baros uttered ever so softly, but just enough for his father to hear, "Her death has something to do with that, doesn't it?!"

At last, his father looked up at him, finally finding the strength within himself to look his son in the eye and give an answer and provide clarity. It was that much, that he could do at the very least to clear things up for his son. After all, his son was right that he hadn't always been like this.

"Indeed, it was because of Catherine's death," Baros' father finally answered, albeit with a genuinely regretful tone in his voice.

"When your mother got sick, I searched all around Dazolece for a possible cure to the corruption of this land," he continued, "I even put in a lot of work and time at the mines so I could earn enough money to continue taking care of your mother at her precarious condition. Everything I did just was not enough. Despite all my efforts to take care of Catherine and keep her alive, she succumbed to the land's corruption, dying in my arms."

Baros was rendered silent. He did not know what to say, nor could he decide whether to try to console his father's pain or not.

"Imagine that feeling, son," said Balin, "In her dying moments, Catherine told me to place my head on her chest because she found peace in that, and I did my best to hold back my tears, and I really made sure that my head was not putting weight on her chest to make it easier for her. Imagine it, son. Catherine kissed me upon the forehead as I heard her heartbeat slowly and steadily declining, before she finally succumbed to death's icy cold grip."