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

by Julius St. Clair

  “We already know that we’ll at least reach Paradise,” he said with a wink.

  Catherine liked the way that sounded.

  Chapter 21 - Beautiful

  He walked alone.

  Through the stillness and the quiet of the meadow.

  Past the roses and bees, the lush foliage and the vibrant colors.

  He saw none of it.

  His eyes were open, but his vision was blind.

  For once again, he was by himself. In a new world, but with the same old feelings. Stuck in a place where no one understood what he was or what he had endured. No one knew what he had sacrificed…so others could live happily with their loved ones. The Yama and Delilah were defeated for now. The Kingdoms would get along for a while. Everyone was free.

  And yet he felt trapped. Imprisoned. Lost.

  “Where do I go now?’ he said aloud, stopping in the middle of the meadow. He didn’t know how long he had been walking but it felt like it had been forever. When would he come across another soul?

  “It depends on where you’re headed,” a sweet voice shouted out from behind him. Bastion turned to see a blonde haired lady in a bright green sundress, sitting among the roses. She was picking one up and sniffing it so hard that he thought she was going to end up with a petal up her nose. She turned and smiled at him. He waved back cautiously as she pointed behind him. He pivoted and nearly smacked his face into an old man’s chest.

  Bastion caught himself at the last second and looked into a set of familiar grey-blue eyes and a massive grey beard. The large man folded his two arms.

  “You were always quick,” he guffawed as someone tapped him on the shoulder. To his surprise, he turned to see the smiling face of his old mentor and friend. Though it wasn’t the person he wanted to see, a familiar face did lift his spirits.

  “Hey, Bastion,” James chuckled, putting a hand on the young Sage’s shoulder. “Heard you got us back into the fray. Thanks.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Scarlet muttered, coming up from behind him. Her long red-violet hair nearly smacked James in the face and he swatted it away like it was a swarm of gnats. Scarlet ignored him and looked at Bastion directly in the eyes. “I was actually enjoying the peace and quiet up here. Now I have to start sharpening my eidolon.”

  “It’s your soul, dummy,” someone groaned from behind Arimus.

  Arimus stepped out the way so Bastion could see a tall and lanky man, wearing a green dress shirt and black pants. His hair was long and stringy and his scowl was so brooding that Bastion felt depressed just by looking at him. “How many times do we have to say this?” the man replied, addressing Scarlet directly. She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.

  “Kyran,” Arimus laughed. “The life of the party.”

  “So this is Bastion,” Kyran asked, stepping forward to examine him from head to toe. “He’s short, he concluded.

  “But strong,” James replied. “And when the worlds merge, we’re going to need him. We can’t go on suicide missions this time. We die, and that’s it forever.”

  “Good,” someone shouted from the distance. “Because once was enough.” The source of the voice stood to his feet and Bastion recognized him instantly.

  “Zhou,” he whispered, and the Sage nodded toward him.

  “I hope you don’t mind hearing this,” James began, “but your job’s not really done. I mean, you can do what you want…but we could really use you.”

  “Of course,” Bastion said, grateful to have someone to talk to. Now this was more like it. This was tolerable. He might even enjoy himself.

  “How’s Catherine?” a red haired boy asked, walking up to Bastion. James shoved him aside.

  “Geez, Achan. I should be the one asking that.”

  “Well, hurry up already. I want to know.”

  “You’re acting like this is still a competition.”

  “Hey, you never know.”

  “Doofus, I married her.”

  “Yeah, until death do you part is how it goes.”

  “No you didn’t just say that.”

  “She’s fine!” Bastion shouted out with a laugh. “She’s good. She’s good…excited about seeing you actually,” he said, pointing to James. James stuck his tongue out at Achan who shook his fist in the air back at him.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Arimus said, clearing his throat. “I would love to hear more on what’s going on in the land of the living.”

  “Sure,” Bastion said, surprised by how nice it felt to be wanted, and not used. “I would love to.”

  “Hey,” James said, wrapping his arm around the young Sage, “and don’t worry about feeling awkward or anything here. We’re all equals.”

  “He’s stronger than you,” Kyran said matter-of-factly. “By a lot too. Hardly equals.”

  “I love this guy so much,” Chloe shrieked, jumping up to attack Kyran with kisses. He began running away and she gave him chase, giggling the entire time about how he was going to get smothered once she caught up to him. Bastion shook his head, wondering what he got himself into when his eyes stopped.

  It couldn’t be.

  There was no way.

  James followed his line of sight to see a young girl several yards away, humming to herself as she picked the thorns off of a rose.

  “How did these get here?” she muttered to herself as she cast them aside. When she was finished, she turned to look at Bastion. Her dark hair was blowing in the breeze. Her lacy white dress bobbed up and down at the tail. Bastion felt faint, but he didn’t dare lose consciousness. He needed control over his body.

  For how else was he going to kiss her?

  “Who’s that?” James asked him, and Bastion smiled at her warmly.

  “Oh her?” he laughed, his voice beginning to break. “That’s my girlfriend.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah,” he laughed as she approached him with a big smile on her face.

  There was an ache in his heart. But it was the kind he didn’t mind feeling.

  The Sage Saga continues in:

  The Sorcerer’s Ring (Book #1 of the Seven Sorcerers Saga)

  Now available for preorder HERE

  Novels by Julius St. Clair:

  Fantasy:

  The Last of the Sages (Book 1 Deluxe Edition)

  The Dark Kingdom (Sage Saga, Book 2)

  Hail to the Queen (Sage Saga, Book 3)

  Of Heroes and Villains (Sage Saga, Book 4)

  The Legendary Warrior (Sage Saga, Book 5)

  The End of the Fantasy (Sage Saga, Book 6) is now available HERE

  The Sorcerer’s Ring (Book #1 of the Seven Sorcerers Saga) is now available for preorder HERE

  Obsidian Sky (Obsidian Saga, Book 1)

  End of Angels (Angel Story, Book 1)

  Angels of Eden (Angel Story, Book 2)

  Fire and Water (Angel Story, Book 3) is now available HERE

  Supernatural Thrillers:

  The Deadly Ones

  Stricken (Fleetbook #1) is now available for preorder HERE

  Science Fiction:

  Upgrade (The Androids Trilogy, Book 1)

  The End of Us

  If you enjoyed this story, please leave an honest review HERE so that other people may experience it! Thank you so much!

  Check out my website!

  http://juliusstclair.wix.com/juliusstclair

  Join the mailing list for free e-books and future updates!

  juliusstclair@yahoo.com

  An Excerpt from the Fleetbook:

  STRICKEN

  Now Available for Preorder: HERE

  [Contains some graphic violence and brief strong language]

  Chapter 1 – Playing in the Snow

  A silence hung in the air, as if the winter chill had frozen the very oxygen she breathed. She couldn’t hear the crunch of her footsteps on the hard snow, or the sickening crunch of steel against brittle, rotting bone. She simply moved her body like it was in a dance, and carried out her task
as easily as doing household chores.

  She loved the thrill that came from using daggers.

  It forced the wielder to get in close, and to be precise. Mistakes meant wounds, and when facing the Stricken, wounds often meant something far worse than death. She found it thrilling to escape death on a daily basis. She felt alive.

  A gust of cold air blew through her long flowing hair, and she found herself scowling for a second. Based on the lack of substance, there was no doubt that it had been a breeze, and not one of the dead as she had immediately thought, but even so, if she were ever in a state of panic, a breeze could be mistaken for one of them, and she might make a wrong move.

  She would cut her hair as soon as she got home, and her daughter’s as well. The girl had grown far too fond of her—

  1.) Her daughter!

  Her head swiveled to the right, her hair slapping her across the eyes from the sudden turn, and as her strands fell from her vision, the scene played out before her, as if in slow motion.

  Her daughter was handling herself well, but not well enough. Because of her short stature, she had forgotten that she would often have to jump up in order to subdue her predator efficiently. A crucial thing to remember.

  Samantha’s eyes widened as her daughter missed the tall man’s right temple and instead hit the nape of his neck. It was enough to gain the Stricken’s express attention. He reeled under the sudden weight plunged into the side of his neck, but it stopped him only momentarily. Once the dagger was removed, the Stricken grabbed Alex by the hair and yanked her toward his wet, dripping jaws. Startled and afraid, it was as if Alex had forgot about the dagger in her hand. Samantha—

  1. Grabbed and ripped her daughter away, leaving a chunk of her hair behind.

  2. Sliced through Samantha’s hair with her dagger, freeing her.

  3. Turned and walked away.

  Alex screamed and clutched her hair, mixing the Stricken’s flesh into her hair. Samantha instinctively swatted her daughter’s hands away with the butt of her daggers and then turned to the dead man before her. She hadn’t wanted to make it personal. It was supposed to be a training session and nothing more. Take out a few of the lingering dead and then go back home to make breakfast.

  But it was personal now. She could no longer feel the icy chill brushing up against her skin. It was just the fire that surged through her veins.

  She slammed the daggers into the sides of the Stricken’s head and then ripped them from his temples quickly. The Stricken’s body quivered and then crumpled into the snow, where the other six laid.

  Samantha glared back at her daughter, wiped the tainted blood off her blades in the snow, and then began walking home. Alex ran her fingers through her hair, feeling pieces of the Stricken strewn throughout the strands. She took a deep breath and looked at the back of her mother’s head.

  1. “I might be infected,” she said quickly.

  2. She said nothing

  Alex immediately pivoted her feet and leapt up into the air, slamming her dagger’s blade into the side of the Stricken’s temple. The Stricken shuddered and crumpled to the floor, falling down next to the other six they had slain earlier. Breathing heavily, Alex glared at her mother.

  “If I had two daggers, I could have gotten the job done,” Alex said. Samantha’s eyes smiled.

  “If you didn’t lose my best one, you would have two,” her mother said flatly.

  “We could get or make another one,” Alex said, but it was apparent from the way her mother’s shoulders relaxed that she was done with the conversation. Her mind was probably on the next training session.

  “Let’s head home.”

  “Fine,” Alex replied. She looked back at the dead they had left behind. As she watched the bodies stain the ivory white snow, she felt a deep sorrow well up within her. Whenever she saw a thing of beauty, it never lasted long. And perhaps that was what her mother had been trying to teach her all along.

  To appreciate the beauty…but prepare for the ugly.

  Was that it?

  Alex glanced at her mother. Silent and thin, but using an excessive amount of clothing to make herself appear bigger, Samantha walked with a fake limp along their lightly snow-covered footsteps, giving off the illusion of weakness.

  Alex ran her fingers through her hair and felt pieces of the Stricken strewn among the strands. Grimacing, she walked behind her mother, thinking about how easily she could now be exposed. Her lips parted.

  “I might be infected,” she said.

  But she said nothing.

  “Mom!” her daughter screamed, dropping her dagger and grabbing the Stricken’s decomposing face in a panic. As she applied pressure to her attacker’s jaw, flesh began to fall off and onto her fingers, making her grip slippery. She felt the jaw bone underneath and clutched it with all her might. Feeling as if she could keep it back for a moment, she turned her head and screamed once more.

  “MOM!”

  She couldn’t see her mother, but she heard the loud crunches in the snow cease. She turned back to the creature, now only a few inches from her nose, and she screamed for her mother again. Samantha turned around and sighed loudly, watching her daughter struggle for a moment.

  “If I save you, you will come to expect it,” she said.

  “I won’t expect it if I’m dead!” Alex shrieked, so furious that she shoved the Stricken backwards, taking its jaw from him. A mix of fluids and unidentifiable flesh fell from the gaping hole in his face and he stumbled in front of her, trying to gain his footing. But Alex had already taken advantage of him. She picked up her fallen dagger, leapt a foot into the air, and plunged it into the Stricken’s head, ripping it out from the right side and taking chunks of its brain with the motion.

  Samantha’s face was void of emotion when her daughter turned to face her. She knew she had to say something, but she was unsure of what…

  “You did well,” she said finally.

  “Now you are stronger,” she said.

  She decided to say nothing

  Samantha stopped in her tracks. And all Alex could see were her mother’s steady breaths. She couldn’t be tired, for her mother’s stamina was nearly god-like in her eyes, and so there could only be one other reason she was breathing so heavily.

  She was upset.

  Alex swallowed hard and waited. She refused to speak again.

  Samantha turned to look at her daughter with a distant gaze. Her face—expressionless.

  It was her mother’s face. She found some comfort in the granite rock staring back at her, for it was preferable to anger. Still, Alex didn’t know what she wanted, and the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, making the cold less bearable and therefore stealing away more and more of her attention. They couldn’t stand there forever.

  “I might be infected,” she said again. Her mother nodded and parted her chapped and callous lips.

  “Good,” she said with the voice of God behind her declaration. “Now what do you do?”

  Alex’s eyes darted away from her mother’s, searching for the answer.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Bandage the area?”

  “Wash my hair.”

  Her mother’s chest swelled as her jaw clenched shut, as if an invisible muzzle were attempting to keep her reply imprisoned, but there was no point in fighting her.

  There never was.

  “You’re not sure?” she snapped, spitting the words back in her face. “We’ve talked about this many times.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alex pleaded. “I—”

  “—you wash your hair,” Samantha relayed to her once again. “You want to make sure the virus is as far away from you as possible at all times. It matters little that you don’t have wounds now. They will come, and when they do, it is best that you are clean and at optimal health. Do all you can to keep yourself safe.”

  “I forgot,” Alex mumbled, but her mother shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes closed, as if to shield herself from the travesty b
efore her.

  “You worry me,” she said softly. “You lost your knife…and now you are forgetting basic hygiene. There is nothing more to say.”

  “Mother—”

  “GO WASH YOUR HAIR!” Samantha roared, her voice echoing across the valley.

  Law had been declared.

  They headed back to the cabin in silence, and Alex was barely aware of the wildlife around her: the redwoods and cedars shaking off their pines whenever a squirrel jumped from one branch to the next, or a bird descended to drop off another essential for its nest. Life—as it often did—stopped when her mother was cross with her. And it was like she didn’t even notice. It was like Samantha didn’t even have an inkling as to what her daughter was feeling.

  It’s funny, Alex thought to herself. She knows everything, except how to be a human being.

  As soon as they entered the cabin, they went their separate ways—Samantha to the cypress table top, and Alex to the ancient, aluminum basin.

  Samantha sat down hard in her chair, wood scraping against wood at her feet. She glanced over at her daughter for a moment, just to confirm that she was cleaning herself properly, and then she cast her eyes to the grooves in the finely sanded wood at her fingertips.

  She was boiling on the inside. To the point that the cabin itself surely had to fight in order to retain the heat. A part of her wished it would all go up in flames. Then she wouldn’t feel…like a complete jackass.

  Her daughter didn’t need to be snapped at like that. Not the one person she loved in this godforsaken world. Alexandra didn’t deserve it. She was still a child.

  But Samantha knew she couldn’t apologize either. Call it pride. Call it foolish. But it was fact. She had never had to apologize in the past for all the atrocities she had committed. Why did she have to now? Why did she have to now…