The darkening twilight lit up briefly as if from a lightning flash.
Seen from outside, the jumbled forest and bush vegetation glowed suddenly from the short-lived small, azure sun.
**
Later that night, Fenix was sure he now knew where the land crabs came from.
He had been tracking their fairly obvious movements through the undergrowth and followed them in toward what had to be their source. It was a spot on the plateau a few miles inward from the cliff edge to the north, and far enough from the first place, a prisoner could get onto the land mass that it would not be found easily.
The land crabs had left him alone after losing so many of their number. He spotted a few still following him, keeping him in their perceptions so that they knew where he was and where he was going. He didn’t mind, he hadn’t expected to get them all and knew it was pointless without dealing with the source.
It could choose its prey well and send out the small minions to do its bidding. That was smart. So was having a lair more than a day’s journey overland. By now he knew he was close enough to finish this. The attack had taught him, for that he was grateful. Now he wanted to overcome his enemy and take its Vitae for his own.
After all, that had to be replaced, continuously renewed.
Just as the Prison intended.
Another few hours and he had circled the lair twice, confident now of where it lay in relation to the land around him. He was eager to leap in, but he could do with the dawn, his patience and discipline told him to take every advantage, and sunrise would help, just as the sunset had.
The lair wasn’t entirely what he expected, not a cave or grotto or tunnels under the earth. This thing had constructed its home carefully.
It looked like a half square mile of the foliage had been broken down, torn up, and made into flexible, manageable sheets. The sheets woven together and piled on top of each other, forming a structure that resembled some kind of colossal nest. It towered over the depression it had been built in.
The top of it came up to the height of the trees around it, which was a good five feet above the level of its base.
It had been here for a while, too. The drying mud was naturally wrinkled all around the base except for the single entrance Fenix could see. Old rainfall had left brown dirt in the woven strands, nicely camouflaging the entire edifice in a brown and yellow coloring that blended with the scenery around it.
From afar, it would be hard to see, and up close, it resembled a pile of litter from the flora of the area.
Many people who encountered the gigantic mound would think it home to rodents or other small creatures and probably leave it alone. Even the overhang to the small hole that allowed the land crabs to go in and out was hard to find. Who in the Prison would have any need to crawl into a cramped space full of potentially dangerous creatures anyway?
Well, he did.
His other senses, now that he knew to use them perceived the flux of power as the sun began to set beyond the cliff’s edge to the west. The monolith stood as a sharp jab up into the darkening sky while the vortex writhed in relative complacency just beyond it.
It was time.
He stood from the hunter’s crouch that served as a seat while he waited. Then he stepped forward, slowly, in balance, one foot after the other in an unhurried stalk that still covered a reasonable distance with each footfall.
He knew the land crabs had been watching him, so a surprise attack was out of the question. Attempting to hide or sneak in would not help, either. The lair was well constructed and probably had many holes for the creatures to watch from.
So he was going to be obvious and see what they did in reaction, how intelligent was this controlling mind after all?
Fenix’s steps took him closer, the sense of anticipation growing within him, and a colorful depiction of other challenges flitted through his mind. They were followed one and all by the most recognizable face of the pale woman, her soft features, alluring eyes, small lobes which she had so enjoyed his nibble on.
When had that happened?
His own rounded ears heard the sounds of several things moving all at once, and it snapped him back from the elusive memories into the present. Land crabs scuttled in from all around, they swarmed over the ground, sometimes clawing over each other in their haste.
Dozens, then more than a hundred, then close to two hundred all climbed up onto the outside of the nest. They covered it, a collection of fleshy nodules that touched claw to claw over the entire surface.
Strange behavior, either they planned something or did not recognize how dangerous he was when he could disjoin their conjuration at will.
If they were going to gather for him so willingly, he would be happy to use the opportunity. Besides, he had a few stones to spare, and the enchantments on them wouldn’t last long enough for him to keep them for another rainy day.
He drew and flipped a rock at the nest. Where he stood, it was higher than him by double his own impressive height, and it spread to both sides as broad as a barn. The land crabs covered it so thickly, the material underneath was barely visible.
He pushed the pulse of magic required to activate the sigils from an open palm, it manifested as a small orb of light that streaked through the air and ignited the rock. Again the plateau forest was lit from within by the blast.
This time the results differed immensely.
The sphere of distortion engulfed the entire nest, big enough to fill the bowl within which the lair was constructed. It got all of them at once, pushed their matrices into overload and disconnected their physical form.
The entire lot began to disrupt at once, forms blurred, claws became insubstantial, muscular bodies turned translucent.
Then they began to merge, the energy released from them folded out in a hundred ripples to connect with and enhance the others.
The initial glow from his disrupting spell had faded, but a new light spread over the nest from each land crab that was undone, then flowed inward to meet a glow that was expanding outward from the inside.
The energy turned a startling bright green, like a ripe lime, incandescent in places and growing stronger. The ectoplasm and magic of the land crabs joined a greater whole, which in turn consumed the physical matter of the nest itself as they combined.
A second flash went off on the plateau, this time green light flared through the trees, chasing shadows in mad dances over the landscape. He could smell tallow, the scent of melted candles, and burning hay.
When he could see the area once more, it was now filled not with the lair, but with a new creature, one as big as the lair had been, and far more mobile.
Grisly tissue wrapped in tendons and sinew connected black claws to an undulating body of segmented flesh. It looked soft, yet had a tough skin that belled outward and sucked inward randomly.
The movements were organic and fluid as if the entire organism filled itself with a continually moving liquid. The outline of it in the new night was quite clear to his eyes, which could see with only the smallest of light sources and in the darkest of situations.
He could not quite describe its overall shape, what it actually formed as arms or legs or tentacles. The new creation seemed to be a chaotic amalgamation of moving parts and deadly claws, unable to make up its mind as to how it should appear. That indecision, however, did not extend to its ability to move, nor to its animosity toward him.
One long limb came smashing around at him with claws protruded along the entire length, the corded mass was as broad as he was and a lot longer than he was tall.
His quick reactions got him up and over the sweeping limb, and he rolled to a crouch on the other side. Another rock flung at the being, a streak of power and the night ignited in a flash of blue energy. He uncovered his eyes to see that the creature was intact.
These bindings and conjuration were a lot stronger than the small land crabs it had used before. The sun had set, so that flux was not available, and he didn’t thin
k it would have helped. This conjuration and shapeshift had also used the physical material of the nest, a transmutation that incorporated the ectoplasm and the physical.
Impressive.
And quite deadly.
A second limb came powering down from above, forcing him to dive to one side where the first limb was already on its way back. He leaped over it to find a third and a fourth careening through the air to slap him in between their jagged claws. It underestimated his agility, though.
In mid-air, he flexed his powerful core muscles and flipped over, causing the arms to crash together right under him, puncturing each other and rending new wounds into the fleshy limbs.
The creature did not slow. The two limbs, now tangled together, swatted up at Fenix even as he twisted to get out of the way. A claw dealt him a glancing blow, enough strength behind it to throw him to the ground on the other side of the bowl from where he had started.
Such prodigious strength spoke volumes about what would happen to him if he were hit straight on. The wounds it had caused itself bled ectoplasm and then stretched over and healed.
Fighting this thing in a pitched battle would test his utmost limits, it would certainly be a decisive battle for one of them, and a colossal struggle if he were to engage it physically for very much longer.
But then, he had what he needed, the main body of the guiding intelligence in one place where he could get at it.
That it was two hundred times his size with multiple attacking limbs was not a problem, he had it right where he wanted it.
Now was the time to use his power, cut once at the right time, and be efficient.
Fenix untangled himself and got up, soil and dirt sliding from him, some of it still muddy from the recent rain. He could hear the stretches and groans of muscles pulling the thing around for its next flurry of attacks, claws crunched through the dirt or whistled through the air. Its smell overpowered the muddy soil that had got up his nose in the impromptu landing.
He watched it all slow down as his disciplined mind enacted the draw on his primal energies.
Fire blossomed between his palms, his hands up behind his head with the elbows bent as if to throw, the coruscating mass grew from a spark to a ball as big as his head. Then he did throw it, the power drawn from within him slid smoothly into the space occupied by the visible effect, and it arced up and over the creature.
Then the evocation went off. The ball expanded to twenty times its original size and came crashing down.
Fenix himself was already at the end of a quick sprint and leap to get out of the bowl when the entire area exploded.
**
In the aftermath, he moved quickly, the noise and light show would probably attract anything big enough not to worry about such an outpouring of destructive energy and eager to find a weakened victor.
It would not surprise him at all, considering the number of predators that were likely living in the Prison.
Nevertheless, he had won.
The bowl, which had contained the lair and the creature residing within it, was now a charred depression. The force of the explosion had knocked down trees and set bushes aflame right around the rim. The outpouring of heat had been prodigious, as much energy had gone into that as he could push, and he was quite pleased with the results.
The hunter had become the hunted and lost.
Fenix moved through the dried-out soot and ash comprising all that remained of the creature, whatever it had been, that had spawned the land crabs and likely been the end of many convicts before him. In the middle, he found what he was looking for, an unrecognizable husk curled up and desiccated among the ruin. Within it glowed the stone of Vitae.
His prize.
Triumph.
There was no other feeling quite like it.
A memory of lessons…
“You must be harder!”
Her voice invigorated him and demanded more from him all the time, even as the serrated metal whip fell to draw another laceration across his flesh. The exquisite pain was a counterpoint to Her entreating words.
To grow, to improve, always to be more, to strive.
“Now, do it,” She commanded.
Upside down and hanging from a chain, his ankles shackled together, he clenched his fists above the iron manacles that held them. He focused, the exercise deliberate, concise, meant to coincide with the flagellation.
Fire burned from within; his blood caught alight and seared closed the fresh wound. Scar tissue formed in an instant to match the ones he already had.
“Good.” Her hand caressed his upside-down face, Her voice whispered its seduction into his ears.
His own blood, burning and pungent, filled his nostrils.
“The humanoid form can take only so much. But we will develop yours. Harden you, toughen you from the outside in, as your upbringing did from the inside out. When we are done here, my beautiful boy, you will be so much more than you were.”
The promise fed his desire, Her words pushed him to work harder.
The whip fell again.
**
A cavern filled with candlelight, each tiny flame a spark against the darkness, each singular bright point of light without fuel.
Fenix sat in the middle, legs crossed, and the stone cold beneath his bare skin.
His focus, his mental discipline, created the flames, up to four dozen now after months of effort. Months of Her enthusiastic reinforcement of diligence and capability.
He controlled each tiny flame, the smallest he could make and as many as he could conjure spaced all around and above him. The exercise one of multiple control points and delicate balance between the air within and the energy required to sustain them.
He was calm and collected until She spoke.
“Prepare yourself.”
He grasped each tiny flame with an iron will, without increasing any of them in strength or power. She pushed his limits, demanded his obedience so that he could improve.
Then came the drizzle, a slight fall of water, enough water in every drop that it could put out any candle in enough hits.
For every flame that was doused he would pay, and dearly.
**
Slaves, a multitude of beings from a diverse set of worlds, each one bought or captured in battle, every one of them expendable.
Not that he cared, the requirement was not for him to know them as individuals, but to know them as living things. The ones up on the elevated and lightly angled tables were cut open, skin peeled off, organs spread for view.
He learned of them, the biology, the strengths, and weaknesses, the makeup of every available sourced being so that he would be informed.
She instructed him, pointed out the specialist organs for creating anything from venom to a specific acid or viscous liquid to build nests. The retractable claws and compound eyes of beings he might never see again, but which related to others he may well have to face.
Reproductive organs, reproductive capabilities, what they could or could not ingest safely. The years of his time spent recovering from the lessons were spent growing his mind.
And his knowledge would be tested, the memory of what She taught must be retained or he would fail Her. He would never accept failing Her, She had become more than his teacher, She had become a being to aspire to.
Such was Her grand example.
Day 27…
There were a few times in his life that he had felt as frustrated like this, at least he had that impression.
Without his memories, it wasn’t that easy to tell, but he could be sure he rarely got as frustrated as this. The cause of Fenix’s bout of pique was the vista spread before him, as resplendent as it may seem to a general observer, for him it drove home exactly how much more he still had to do.
He had taken a few days to explore the Prison some more, having decided that urgently seeking out conflict was something to reserve for another time. Enough conflict found him regardless, wherever he went, there was always something r
eady to try to take his life.
It kept his stock of Vitae quite full.
First, he had taken a look at the land mass across from the plateau where he had encountered the land crabs. That particular bush-covered area had been teeming with other creatures, all of whom rushed to fill the gap he had created by killing off the land crab progenitor and opening up new territory.
The additional land mass was more of a savannah, studded with copses of trees and small ponds bubbling up from underground.
Being at least as big as the previous land mass, it had taken him two days to travel the worn path leading through it. Some minor encounters aside, it had been an uneventful journey until he found the stone fort blocking the bridge to a forested land mass drifting below this one.
That the fort had been guarded was even more interesting, a squad of six beings, all humanoid and dressed in full plate armor.
Fenix had stayed back, not wanting to attract their attention, and observed the place for that night and most of the next day. Two men traveled up from the forested land mass and relieved the ones on duty. Otherwise, nothing else hinted at who they were or why they had such a construction in the first place.
Then the vortex had begun to swirl, the planar sky beyond darkened and ephemeral clouds which had nothing to do with rain formed around the portal. Fenix gathered that this was the herald of new arrivals and would continue until the prisoners were deposited on the platform.
The guards at the stone fort took little interest, and their activity didn’t change, so he left them and traveled back to the monolith.
Despite the time it took to get overland the vortex of energy had not yet stopped, the glows and power increased, but nothing too impressive happened with the clouds.
Fenix’s assumption that there would not be a powerful prisoner was confirmed four days after the vortex became active. A spout of energy exploded down, washing ectoplasm across the black marble platform and, with it, over a dozen new prisoners in sackcloth.
Convict Fenix Page 12
