Fantasia

Arc3: The Heir of Ardneria

Chapter12: The sage of Ardneria

After a tiring battle against Klaive, Roné lost his consciousness, Zolu was immobilized, Demetri was fighting pain to reach his younger brother, who struggled to save himself from the sage's cruel fist which was about to cast the mighty Yusseir's judgment on him.

But they were late, because the merciless spell landed on Juan and filled the whole temple with blinding light.

"Chastisement is served…" Klaive boasted waiting for his vision to get paired to witness the result of his magic.

But suddenly he felt it, his right eye was blinded! No he's not blind, Juan blotted it with his right leg…but how come Juan survives Yusseir's judgment? This magic is absolute! Nobody is capable of escaping death after the incantations are finished, but Juan seems safe and sound like nothing happened…this simply shocked everyone in the room.

Then he dropped the shepherd, because the judgment drained all his strength, he barely could keep his balance, and with a smash, Juan punched him in the guts, then he grabbed his belt and tossed him in the air to overtake him with a violent kick, Demetri and Zolu looked surprised, but anyone would do if they saw a skinny weak man like Juan beating a large muscular guy like Klaive with complete ease.

"Get the hell…out of him…Now!" Juan shouted while delivering a powerful uppercut that threw Klaive to the edge of the hole in the wall caused previously by Juan's fire breath, but he didn't let his foe fall, instead he grabbed him from his paw.

Klaive was barely following what's happening because his head was in immense pain, but he smiled when he saw Juan helping him preventing his fall, or is he?

"O' blessed light…the light given to the chosen one…shine…and fall from heavens…" Juan said summoning runes from Klaive's right shoulder.

Juan was casting Yusseir's judgment, no, it's more like he was forcing it to cast itself from within Klaive's body, events were getting weirder and weirder, because Juan doesn't seem to be conscious himself, for his eyes were totally blanked out.

After flooding the sky with light for the second time "Make this evil of your enemies descend to the deepest abyss… to be forgotten for the rest of eternity...I call you from above…Yusseir's Judgment…" were Juan's completion of the spell.

Klaive smiled at this moment, nobody knew why that is for this time…"Descend!" the closure was, hammering Klaive's body with golden light filling the village again with dreadful aura.

After the judgment was casted, the land under the temple trembled, as the five towers surrounding Ardneria returned to earth slowly, declaring the stop of the purification, Tsuki wasted no time and ordered the escaping citizens to ascend again fearing that the tunnel will crash and bury them alive.

Her fear was in its place, because the temple as well was descending in the ground sinking again to its original place, she quickly left her position and jumped scaling to the top floor, where she already found Nimmy helping Demetri to carry Roné and Zolu, while Juan was barely standing yet he was aiding Klaive to gain his balance, she quickly supported the defeated sage, but they were all late because the temple have drown deep within the solid land then everything went black.

…

"Where am I?"

"No who am I?"

"Demetri…Roné…Zolu…where are they?"

"Why can't I see a thing?"

"Am I blind?"

"Don't be silly, you are dead"

"Dead? How is that?"

"Yes you are dead, Klaive killed you remember?"

"Did he? But if I'd dead…are dead people blind?"

"It's dark, I never told anyone but I'm afraid of darkness"

"What am I saying? I can feel my hands…I'm not dead! Yes I'm on a blanket, my blanket! I'm just being lazy, I only need to wake up!"

This gibberish short conversation between Juan and himself was interrupted by his mother; he could tell that by feeling her scruffy hair, he opened his eyes slowly to see that Mel was sleeping while sitting beside him, and then he tried to sit ignoring the minor pain in his elbows.

"Juan! My boy! You are okay!" the mother said raising her head from his chest.

"Mother, where am I?" he asked after noticing that half of his right eye, torso, left arm and right leg were bandaged.

"You silly you are in your room!" she answered.

"Demetri! Roné! Where are they?!" he asked in a worry.

"Don't worry Lord Luffine saved you all" she calmed her son.

"Lord Luffine is alright?!" he asked.

"Yes, that ol' man sure is fine"

"And the others! I got to see them!" he said while pushing himself off the bed.

"Easy my boy, here I'll help you" the mother said aiding her son to walk.

After Juan wore proper clothes, and picked something from his pants, the son and the mother ascended the stairs, the house seemed empty, Juan was wondering how his brothers and friends are doing, he wanted to forget about Klaive and the temple so he didn't bring the subject up until he was out the house…

It was a surprise; a crowd of beastmen was gathered in front of their yard, it was unfamiliar because Rocux' family resided the farthest edge of the village where the houses were less, and what was more unfamiliar is that the moment the people saw the shepherd two beastmen approached him and carried him on the shoulders while two girls accompanied his mother to a fancy wagon.

"Mom, what's going on?" he asked.

But the mother answered her son by ignoring him and glaring through the window…

After minutes the wagon stopped, and the two of them descended followed by the guards, they found themselves in front of the great halls, at this moment Juan gulped as his mind kneaded an idea about where this is going to.

He broke a law of his clan's, he returned to the village after being banished without permission from the sage, the sage! He attacked the sage! This can mean only one thing; he's going to be executed! But what about the others? His brothers, Tsuki, Nimmy, and Zolu, are they already executed? No it can't be, his mother told him that the former sage saved them, but what if she was lying to him? Anyway he prepared himself to this before trying to save the clan, but still…he's afraid.

His mother noticed his stress, so she grabbed his hand smiling until they were in the great halls, they walked between two lines of people watching them, Juan looked left and right, he saw that everyone he knew was standing there; His father, the librarian, some shopkeepers, shepherds like him whom he used to deal with, his twin brother (he thanked God that he's still alright despite his heavily bandaged stomach), then he looked to the other side to see Tsuki held up by Nimmy, Zolu and by the farthest side a cigarette's flare and that was Demetri.

Despite the relief he felt upon seeing them alright, but the look on their faces didn't give him any hope, he started hearing heavy beats on the drums he didn't hear before during his first trial, he assumed that these drums are announcements of execution, he never been in an execution before, and he never wished to be! But it's alright, because his clan was fine, or so he convinced his frightened mind.

"Juan Rocux…Ascend!" the sage's voice called, and so the young man had to obey.

He mounted the solid stairs of oak, and blinked with his eyes because of the heavy light, but he managed see the three elders standing behind Luffine and Klaive who had his head down.

"We…" the sage was about to speak but Juan interrupted him: "Please your honor, spare their lives, they were following me! I take full responsibility over the whole thing! And Demetri, he was trying to fix things so please don't kill him, your honor you see…" Juan said in panic while kneeling.

But everyone laughed deeply, whilst their voices echoed across the halls the old sage signed with his hand summoning silence, Juan at this moment lost every string with reality, he didn't understand anything, what's this? Why is everyone laughing at him? Is this a dream? No it's not, he still can feel pain through his leg, he was lost in a whirlpool of stressful thoughts.

But this all stopped, as two girls gowned him with a loose white cape of fur, he was about to ask but Luffine had a word to say, and so everyone looked toward him attended:

"Brethren Ardnerian, we are gathered today to witness the second change in the leading family of our honorable clan, today my son Klaive Luffine will pass the leadership that he didn't deserve to someone whom I trust to be worthy, to the child whose heart was so pure to attempt to save someone like me, whose wisdom surpassed those of his age, and whose power surpassed the might of the beasts…please hail with the name of our new sage Juan Rocux!" the old man boasted, followed by cheers from every single person in that room.

Juan is crowned as a sage! This is something he couldn't believe, his mind was still stolen by surprise whereas people grabbed him and carried him in joy to the outside shouting with his name, he looked down to see his friends joyfully applauding, then he moved his eyes a bit farther to witness his older brother leaving in silence, and Klaive walking away from another way.

"Stop!" he shouted ordering his clan people to put him down.

And as he wanted, he stood in the middle of literally everyone in Ardneria, people were looking at him waiting for the first words of their newly crowned sage, while the young sage just discovered that he got stage phobia, he stuttered while words struggled to leave his throat but seeing his brother disappear encouraged him, so he closed his eyes and started talking:

"I am your sage…right?" he asked to discover the stupidity of his question a second later, then he took a deep breath and calmed down, he mounted a pedestal near the hall entrance and faced the crowd:

"As a sage there are few things I want to declare, first I want to ask you if anyone has anything against me being the sage, I'm totally ready to give this title back to lord Luffine if you don't like this " he asked but nobody seemed to object.

"Good then, the second thing I want you to consider is that, I want you all to forgive two persons in our clan; the first one is…Klaive" he said driving the attention of both Luffine and his son.

"No you can't do that! He deserved what he did!" Luffine objected.

"No he doesn't, I don't know if you believed me or not, but Klaive wasn't in his full mind back then because I trust that something was manipulating him!" Juan declared while pulling a small statue from his pocket remembering the weird voices he used to hear whenever Klaive is close by.

The statue resembled to a fist size caterpillar with two demonic horns for antennas -Juan noticed it materializing right after he made Klaive cast Yusseir's judgment on himself so he picked it out of curiosity theorizing that this what he really heard and not Klaive-

"I don't know what this is but I'm sure that it was affecting Klaive's way of thinking" Juan added.

Then his tone turned a little sad while turning toward his parents: "And the second person I want you to forgive is…Demetri, I know that most of you don't know his motives but Demetri was after me and Klaive the one behind the whole purification, but despite he was able to escape and leave you to your doom, he decided to return and save the village…so after you I remove the banishment order over Demetri Rocux and he's free to enter the village whenever he wanted to"

This somehow planted happiness in his mother's broken heart, joy in his brothers', and pride in his father's but there's still one last thing that filled Juan's head at that moment…

"And finally… (He starts dropping tears heavily) as a sage, I want to know… (he took a deep sniff) the full truth about…me" he asked while wiping his face.

Each one looked at the other in confusion but five; Luffine, Rocux, Mel, Klaive, and Demetri, the latter couldn't stand it and approached his brother and gave him -For the first time in his life- a long embrace, until the little brother felt warm drops watering his locks.

"Mother, father, I can no longer keep this lie sorry, but I have to tell him" and so everybody's attention was captured to hear the story of Juan…

To be continued