The End of the Fantasy (Book #6 of the Sage Saga) (5 page)

“I didn’t feel your lips,” she said. “But I did feel a flutter in my stomach. I have emotions. I feel terror and excitement, happiness and all that. But when it comes to contact, I might as well be a rock.”

“But you’re such a cute rock,” Bastion said with a smile. Lily smirked.

“Ah, so you’re getting better at the flattery, huh?”

“It comes natural,” he said, making his Sage robe disappear.

“Well, you’re certainly in a good mood,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Are you still on the whole, ‘I’m stronger than you thing?’”

“So what if I am,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

“But at least some good came of this,” Bastion said, looking around them. “It means that we can train together. I can go all out.”

“Weren’t you listening?” she said, tapping the side of her head. “You’re still stronger than me.”

“But you can subdue me when I black out. That’s crucial for my growth, because I can’t control what I’m doing when that happens. That’s where I start making mistakes. I have to train so that I can unleash the full scope of my power without losing my consciousness in the process. In the past, anyone I trained with were pretty much defeated once I blacked out. Lakrymos was the only one to get past it, and when that happened, I felt like I had a greater chance of winning, simply because I could harness my energy and abilities.”

“So how often are you thinking of training?”

“Every day,” he said. “All the time. As much as we can. I don’t know when we’ll have to intervene with the other Kingdoms’ affairs. I want to be ready.”

“Then let’s get to work,” she said, chuckling to herself. “Ready for round two?”

“No,” Bastion said as his Sage robe draped over him. “But come at me regardless.”

Lily ran toward him and Bastion clenched his fists. He had to gain control of himself in the heat of battle. It was the only weakness he could perceive, and he was sure that the moment his enemies discovered it, they would exploit it every time they fought.

“They’re catching up,” Talia said as she looked above her. Pockets of dirt was drizzling from the ceiling as they ran along the Prattlian tunnel. High above them, the sounds of muffled footsteps were heard, no doubt the army of Yama, making sure they closed off their prey’s exits.

“If we keep going, we’ll hit Allay,” Zhou said. “You think they want that?”

“We might not want that,” Catherine said.

“Are we still protecting Allay?” Sway said with puzzlement in his voice. “I thought we were on our own, and what they did wasn’t our concern.”

“Easier said than done,” Catherine sighed. She turned to Marie. “What do you think?”

“I think that we should let Allay handle themselves for now,” she said. “It’s best, given how little of us there are, that we attack the Yama when we can gain an advantage. Right now we’re on the defensive. We need to be able to take them by surprise.”

“I agree,” Zhou said, but Catherine didn’t feel so well on the stance.

“If only I still had the stone,” Catherine muttered. “I could search for answers.”

“I have an idea,” Marie replied. “Though I’m not sure you’ll want to hear it.”

“Go ahead.”

“What if we do the unthinkable? Go to the Yama homeland? The assumption is that their major forces will be here, fighting the Kingdoms, while we, as a small tactical force, can seek answers and possibly a weakness. Then we can come back here and enact a more informed plan.”

“We have no idea where the homeland is,” Sway said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Marie said. “We know they have a base of operations out there somewhere. We just have to find it. You saw that army out there. They certainly didn’t appear to be illusions. And with how many there were, Orchid would have had to increase her strength exponentially.”

“I like the idea,” Catherine said as they continued to run. “But the Yama aren’t going to just let us change course and leave us alone. They’ll follow us, and at some point, they’ll realize where we’re going.”

“I know,” Marie said. A silence hung through the air until Zhou began laughing to himself.

“Oh yes,” Zhou chuckled. “Good old distraction. We have to do what Arimus did, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Marie said. Catherine sighed and thought about the group behind her. She didn’t want to, but she knew the deed had to be done. They were already so small, and now they would have to part with at least one more.

Zhou, Marie, Talia, Sway, Daisy, and herself.

Marie was no fighter. She was out by default. Talia was great at analyzing situations as they unfolded and a decent warrior as well. Sway or Daisy would have to be a distraction, but they were also young and inexperienced. Someone would have to stay with them as a guide.

“Zhou and Sway,” Catherine replied suddenly.

“That’s sexist,” Zhou laughed, and a laugh escaped Catherine’s lips as well.

“Any objections?” Marie asked. Sway and Zhou didn’t say a thing.

“We’re coming up on a set of exits,” Talia said. “Are we doing this now?”

“Might as well,” Zhou said, coming to a stop. The rest followed suit and Catherine immediately leapt into his arms, giving him a big hug. “Hey, hey,” Zhou said, “I’m not dead yet.”

“You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Dying in the heat of battle is a great honor.”

“You sure you’re up to this?” Daisy asked Sway. She hadn’t said much since Languor, but now she was worried about losing one of her former classmates. He was the only one that still gave her a sense of home. Without him, she would be among the Master Sages—those that had clicked and befriended one another through countless conflicts. What would be her place without another novice like Sway by her side?

“Don’t have a choice,” Sway said, shaking his head slowly. His dreadlocks hiding the pain in his eyes. “It has to be done. You might be called to do the same at some point.”

“I might not want to.”

“You know better,” he said, giving her a quick hug. “It’s what we signed up for. Besides, you’ll still have the opportunity to win this for everyone. Learn a lot about these bastards. Take them down and don’t let our deaths be in vain.”

“Hey, let’s not talk about death just yet,” Zhou said, placing a hand on Sway’s shoulder. “I plan on killing them all.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you managed such a feat,” Talia laughed, giving Zhou a hug. “Oh wait, no you didn’t. That was someone else.”

“Ha. Ha,” Zhou said with a dead expression.

“Need to go, guys,” Marie said as the rumbling overhead began to slow down. Zhou nodded and Sway gave him a shrug of his shoulders. Though they each showed that they were ready for battle, neither were looking forward to death.

Catherine and her group kept running forward as Zhou and Sway started climbing the small ladder to their left, leading to the outside. Zhou punched the door above him—a circular outline in the dirt—and he ended up sending a Yama flying into the air. He heard many of the footsteps surrounding him beginning to come to a halt, but there was little time to assess the situation.

Zhou leapt from the ladder and out into the open, finding himself in the middle of the Langoran forest and surrounded by the enemy.

“Hi there,” Zhou said, unsheathing his eidolon and summoning his bronze Sage robes. “I’m here for the party.” The Yama began yelling and rushing him, but Zhou was already making his move. Rolling into the nearest Yama, he began swiping at their legs, making the soldiers fall into each other and cluttering the ground. Zhou grunted as he barely parried a blow to his back.

The Yama are strong, but in large numbers they are manageable. They get in each other’s way.

That’s when he heard Sway cry out in pain. Zhou turned around to see Sway being grabbed by his dreadlocks and forced onto his back. The momentary distraction was all the Yama needed to stab him through his left side, right in his ribs. Zhou decapitated the Yama that attacked him and then continued swinging blindly.

It was a winless battle, but a necessary one.

*              *              *

“And therefore,” Zain’s advisor read, “we request your assistance post haste. We fear that by the time this letter reaches your borders it may be too late but even so, we will fight until there is not one citizen or Sage left at our disposal. We will be resilient, and wait for your help, in which we will then be able to vanquish the enemy before us, and continue the age of peace that we have enjoyed in these past few years.”

The advisor put the letter down and looked at the eight men before him, sitting at the long table in Zain’s recently declared “War Room.” Nothing much had changed in the old meeting hall, just the title. But even so, the atmosphere had undeniably been changed. The weight that hung over Zain and his most trusted advisors and warriors seemed to get even heavier upon the letter’s final words.

“What a joke,” Zain scoffed, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. “Seeker doesn’t sound like that at all.”

“We’ve never heard his voice personally,” Oin replied, drumming his fingers on the table.

“I’ve had over a hundred reports describing him,” Zain replied. “On how he spoke. They even gave me a few demonstrations. This man,” Zain stopped to poke a finger into the wood. “This man…he is trying to pull something.”

“Allay is asking for our assistance,” Bein said, the advisor who read the letter. “And we have been allies with them since Thorn’s defeat. If the Yama—”

“It could be a trick, did you think of that?”

“I know that the Yama in Languor were illusions, but—”

“And it’s not conceivable to think that that Sage isn’t doing it again? Using illusions to turn Allay against itself.”

“It’s not impossible,” Bein said sheepishly.

“I don’t want to give them aid.”

“Let’s say it is true,” Lopin spoke up, one of Zain’s best fighters. “What if the Yama, the real Yama…have arrived?”

“What does that change?”

“It means that they will come after us eventually.”

“There’s no guarantee of that. The Sages are the ones with the grudge. The Sages are
always
the ones with the problems. The world may be better off without them. You know what, yeah,” Zain said, sitting up. “Think of how our Kingdom was before Catherine and her Sages came for the stones. How prosperous we were.”

“Have you forgotten about Thorn already?” Bein said. “If they hadn’t come, we would have been annihilated by his hand, and the same can be said for these Yama.”

“I swore to never help Catherine again.”

“This isn’t Catherine. This is Seeker requesting our help.”

“And I’m saying no,” Zain said. “Unless you can all give me a compelling reason to act, I say that we take care of our own for once. Have you taken a census among our fighting youth lately? We lose our young ones to the Sage Academy every month. They are promised grandiose ideals and dreams fulfilled when nothing can be further from the truth. They learn that at the Sage Academy they are looked down upon and there are no classes that cater to the Langoran way. Yet they don’t return to us, and why is that? It’s because they are too embarrassed. What Langoran would return here after choosing to spend so much time with Allayans?”

“If we had an Academy, perhaps that would remedy the situation.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to build,” Oin said. Others nodded their heads.

“And that’s what we need,” Zain said. “I think we’re ready for a change. In order to preserve our culture and our future, we need to start working toward a common goal. I am tired of having our people look at the Sages in awe. It’s disgusting. Given the proper training, we can be more powerful than they.”

“I think that with the right moves, we could become the dominant Kingdom,” Bein said. “Allay holds that title now, but it’s only because of their role in the Thorn fiasco. With the controversial changes in leadership happening in Allay, people are beginning to doubt that Kingdom’s decisions. This is a time for us to step in.”

“Then it’s settled,” Zain said with a smile. “Our next step is to begin formulating a plan that will transform our Kingdom into the dominant power it was always meant to be. The people won’t enjoy the labor at first, but once they see the rewards, attitudes will change. In the meantime, begin fortifying the walls. Close the gates to outsiders and send a message to Allay: assistance denied.”

“With pleasure,” Bein replied. “And might I say, that is an excellent decision you have made.”

*              *              *

Bastion winced in pain as his arm was torn from his body. He wanted to cry out and tell Lily to stop but he fought the urge. He had endured worse, and he was sure he would again. Lily took his other arm from him and this time his eyes shot open in alarm. He kicked at her instinctively but all he did was lose his balance. He fell onto his butt and tried to wriggle to his feet but Lily stepped on his chest.

It was only then that he realized that he might have made a mistake. If Lily…was the enemy, this was the moment in which he would die—when he was helpless and weak. Perhaps it was foolish to trust her so quickly. And why had he in the first place? A few kisses and kind words? A bat of the eyes and some time spent together? Bastion tried to tell her to stop when she suddenly stomped her foot down onto his throat. He gagged and began concentrating on the energy he had left.

It was supposed to be a simple training session. To increase his tolerance to pain and find the limits of his abilities. But that all wouldn’t matter if she killed him right now. He was stronger than her in general but not by a whole lot. At the moment, she had the upper hand in all areas. He was at her mercy.

And for the first time he truly thought about what death would be like for him. Would he find the peace he longed for? Would he open his eyes in Oblivion? Did such places exist at all or were they merely tricks? Illusions? Strange dreams and visions? He had heard the stories, but he wasn’t sure about it himself. There were reports of loved ones being taken up to Paradise. The whole ordeal with Thorn had been a big deal. Heck, the whole quest for the stones of power were to prevent the loss of Paradise. So if those two places didn’t exist, what truly awaited him in death? And more importantly…why was he already accepting his fate? Why wasn’t he fighting against Lily?

The foot removed itself from his throat and Bastion gasped for air. Lily put one hand on his shoulder and another on his waist, and then she awkwardly lifted him to his feet.

“You need to heal those wounds,” she said, her eyes darting back and forth at where his arms used to be. “You’re taking too long. I don’t want that to become permanent.”

“You didn’t…” he rasped as he began concentrating on the regeneration. “You didn’t kill me.”

“Why would I do that?” she cried out in shock. “What’s wrong with you? If you thought I was capable of doing something like that, why did you let me hurt you so badly in the first place?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” he replied, his two arms mostly formed at his sides. They were like two fleshy logs, solid and proper in width, but lacking the muscles that qualified them as “arms.”