Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  So over time, he had developed a good set of protections to keep him from meeting a sudden end.

  One of his tentacles delved into the pouch at his side and pulled out a mass of suppurating viscera which he threw to the creature in the corner. It had six legs, but was warm-blooded, with short matted fur, the muzzle of a hound, and the body to match, aside from the six legs and two tails.

  The creature was loyal to him, trained to alert him if any new smell came into the area. Khanton was not an able fighter, so the forewarning inevitably gave him a chance to prepare the various devices that protected him.

  He looked out of the narrow slit in the wall; the streets were well lit, as always. Attackers usually waited for the rain and nightfall to make a foray. So each time, he would arrive, check the strings and traps, feed his pet, check the streets, and consider his safety.

  A routine that had kept him alive, and one he would not be giving up anytime soon. A disciplined mind and a good routine ensured one’s safety, after all.

  It took a few minutes, but once he was done, he returned to the narrow slit of a window just in time to hear the shouts outside.

  “Fire! The equipment shed has caught alight!”

  As if things in the Prison weren’t hard enough, some slacker had to go and leave his mining lamp lit when putting it back on the shelf, where some other dimwit would knock it over!

  Khanton could scarcely credit most of these convicts with enough wherewithal to be criminals, and in this Prison, of all places.

  He was about to turn away from the slit when he noticed the torches on one side of the street were out. The darkness of the Prison night crept right up to the front of his home. He was canny enough to understand precisely what that would mean, and one tentacle was already reaching for the collection of rocks and glyphs he kept before his pet gave a low growl.

  Then the two lamps he kept to illuminate the interior went out—both of them.

  At exactly the same time.

  If he had a system that worked in such a way, Khanton might have pissed himself at that point. The very idea of being trapped in his own home with a potential threat lurking was enough to set him off.

  But he had the stones with their dangerous magic, and the room was full of snares and traps for those who didn’t know the place. He was always careful to check them, and they would prove more than a match for any convict.

  A small flame, like that of a candle, appeared in the darkness of one corner.

  Khanton could see that it hovered just above a dirty gray fingertip with a torn nail. He realized that the finger connected to a strong hand and a well-muscled forearm at about the same time as becoming concerned that his pet was not reacting.

  The hybrid hound was just sitting there, both tails wagging away as if greeting a newfound friend!

  “Hello, Khanton,” a voice said, dreadful in its intensity and depth.

  He turned back to the hovering light, his eyestalks quivering, but kept control over the mad impulse to screech out for help. He had to prove that he could defend against attacks, but none had been quite this surreptitious and scary. The others had been outright, blatant by comparison to this covert intrusion.

  He selected a rock disc from the pile he had picked up and threw it at the man behind the flame.

  The small rock flew true and hit the man squarely in the chest, but bounced off and landed in his lap. The man-thing was relaxed, sitting back in one of the chairs Khanton kept for visitors. Being a giant slug, he never needed a chair, but the humanoids did at times appreciate the furniture.

  A smile crept up the gray face with its rough white-haired beard. “They won’t work. None of them will. I replaced them with duds when I was in here before. I worked out all your traps, all the snares, and magic you have. A nice setup, really. I would be impressed in some ways except for how inexpertly you used them all.”

  Khanton swallowed.

  He did share with humanoids the possession of a throat, saliva—and a pulse. His hearts beat madly, and he thought he could hear a rushing sound.

  “What, uh, what do you want?”

  “I want you to be reasonable.” The little candle flame went out, then the lamps sputtered back into life.

  Feet padded across the floor and his pet went over to the man for a scratch behind the ears. His entire home looked exactly as he had left it that morning, not a single item out of place. If what this man said was true, he was a very careful being indeed.

  Which was even more terrifying for Khanton at that moment.

  The man-thing continued, “I want you to tell me everything you know about the teleport keys used by those beings, the Warlock’s servant Torn, the Seductress, and Old Man Page. I want you to tell me where to find them.”

  Khanton’s mind whirled with various thoughts of how to get out of this alive. Judging by the feral glimmer in the man’s eyes, he decided the truth would be best.

  “I am afraid that no one knows where Old Man Page resides, the Seductress is far to the south and surrounded by very many strange beings of different capabilities. Only the Warlock is close by, and Torn stays close as well, always ready to do his master’s bidding.”

  “Hmmm, a pity. Then I suppose you will need to tell me more about Torn and how to get his teleport key.”

  “I, I cannot, if I speak, the Warlock will do terrible things to me. Terrible.”

  The man got to his feet, carefully and deliberately.

  “The Warlock is not here Khanton, I am.”

  A knife appeared that was long and very sharp.

  “I wonder how many of your internal organs you can live without?” The man’s voice was amused, and the casual nature of his tone spoke volumes as to how he would go about it.

  “Although, I expect that after I remove two or three, you will be far less interested in the process than I am. So why not save yourself some excruciating agony and just tell me what I want to know now? Long term, it really is in your best interest.”

  Khanton’s round eyeballs on the ends of their stalks did have lids, and they were open very wide in fear as he stared back into the calm, deliberate gaze of the man.

  Khanton told him everything he could.

  **

  It had hardly been much of a challenge; the yellow slug hadn’t even been able to put up much of an intellectual fight, let alone a physical one.

  Granted, Fenix had been thorough in his preparations, getting in the house earlier, watching the guards, setting a fire for distraction, then sneaking in while everyone was busy. Getting out had also been easy, no one sought to bother Khanton during the night.

  So he had rendered the slug unconscious and crept back out, and now was well on his way to the nearby set of ruins where Torn stayed. Khanton had been quite clear on describing where they were and confident that Torn would be there, with the teleport key.

  It seemed the Warlock provided one of the keys to Torn so the goat man could accomplish various errands. It lent credence to the possibility that Torn was created by the Warlock.

  Fenix had briefly considered that perhaps acting in a rush wouldn’t be a good thing, but then he also figured that allowing the Warlock or Torn to prepare would make it much harder. With Khanton unconscious, there would be no warning for hours, enough time for him to get to Torn, kill the goat man, and take his key.

  That would avoid a confrontation with the Warlock, who would be a superior problem.

  He had let Khanton live because there was a possibility that either Torn or the Warlock could detect his death, the Vitae or the mists. Something like the way the enforcer had tracked him down in the Warrens perhaps, effective as a means of honing in on inmates who broke the rules.

  An excellent way to keep an eye out for problems before they started. So no, it was better not to announce that he was killing anyone until he got to his primary target.

  Fenix hurtled through the night, covering a great distance in a short span of time. The ruins Khanton had described and the directions
there were clear. Apparently, Torn did not enjoy slumming it with the other convicts in the mining town, especially not when he was entertaining himself in some way.

  Khanton had been disgusted at the creature’s activities, but then he was so strange a being himself that Fenix didn’t really know what to expect the “entertainment” to be.

  **

  An hour and a half later, he found out. The ruins were where Khanton promised they would be, somewhat reinforced, but mostly left in the disarray of centuries past.

  The Warlock’s manor was much further to the east, close to a full day’s journey. These ruins had been built by some other set of beings, a circular pattern of columns holding up plinths, which in turn had flat slabs of rock mounted over them as ceilings.

  At least that was what they had been at one time; now most of the plinths had fallen down along with the ceilings, and many of the columns just stood lonely sentinel in their ordered spacing.

  At the center was a pantheon, at least that’s what Khanton called it. Sixty-four columns per side, squared-off spacing, each column five feet wide and spaced six feet apart. The pyramid serving as a roof that they supported was intact except for one corner that had broken off into rubble.

  It was there that Khanton said Torn stayed when he had to be near to the mines, there was a teleport stone in the old gardens outside so Torn could quickly get anywhere he was needed. It was something like his own residence, compared to that of his master’s.

  It was close enough to get to the bridge over to the Warrens on foot if necessary, and the mining town wasn’t that far away. But it was just over a quarter of the way to the Warlock’s stronghold.

  Fenix had sprinted the whole way over, intent on staying ahead of any possible alarm.

  As to what Torn’s entertainment was, it turned out to be one of the most basic of all things, sex, with a woman. Well, a female at any rate. Her cries echoed out past the overgrown bushes and plants within the sets of circular stone columns.

  The night lit up by the sound of enjoyment in her tone; very well faked, indeed. Part of Fenix’s innate magic allowed him to tell true passion from the contrived.

  A strange, but useful, aspect of his powers.

  His inner flame could read mood and emotion, which was how he had been able to tell the extremes of Khanton’s reactions and play on them. This woman who was crying out in abandon was a consummate actor.

  He snuck closer through the bushes and hedges, all wild and grown past what had been neat rows many years before. He made no sound, his pace careful and deliberate, and his footsteps steady on each new planting by his balanced approach.

  The central building was lit from within by torches spaced on every fourth column. The firelight carried the tinge of pine resin with the smoke.

  Apparently Torn was quite confident that he could not be threatened in this place, and did not want to have his activities observed by guards. Fenix peeked around a bush with succulent green leaves, the night around him made him almost invisible, especially compared to the well-lit interior.

  And Torn was thoroughly distracted anyway.

  Giggles issued from the other two women, interspersed with the lusty cries from the one riding him. Torn was on his back on top of a stone plinth, perhaps it had once been an altar, although why that would be in the Prison Fenix had no idea.

  The horned head of the goat man moved beneath the firm buttocks of a purple-skinned woman.

  She sat on his head, Torn’s large hairy hands supporting her off the floor.

  One of the giggling women sat on Torn’s chest, sharing the joke with glances and smiles at the one which was settled over the very hairy waist and legs of the goat man. The one he had on his head clawed at the sky-blue skin of the middle one’s back, while she stroked his stomach with long claws at the end of three-fingered hands.

  The actress had green skin, complementing the array of colors.

  If Fenix hadn’t been sure that no hallucinogenic was present, he would have put the entire scene down to a fantasy of illusion. But his spectral sight told him there was no magic at play, save that brought about by the exchange of currency in the form of Vitae for services rendered by physical interaction.

  While he enjoyed the sight and hoped to meet these women again at some later stage during his stay in the Prison, Fenix didn’t need the complication.

  If the women died, and they were tied to the Seductress Quelina or another dominant player, then it could mean trouble. So he had to get them out of the way and still maintain an element of surprise with which to catch Torn unaware.

  The goat man had impressive stamina and was not likely to tire of his play anytime soon, so Fenix wasn’t going to wait out the conjugation of the four beings.

  **

  Originally, he had been four or five separate convicts, this much Torn knew.

  Which ones, their crimes, who they had been, none of that was known to him. His master had amalgamated their bodies in some sort of bizarre combination of biology and metaphysical conjuring that had resulted in his birth as a walking corpse.

  Apparently, something to do with the unique nature of the Prison had helped the process.

  Torn didn’t need Vitae, but the Warlock did, and Torn drew his strength and power from his master. Hence the tithe on any and all Vitae in all things flowed to the Warlock. But after a few years, Torn had been provided an allowance, a portion of the Vitae to use for his own desires.

  It had taken a few years and some awkward conversations for him to recognize his passions and how to satisfy them.

  The cruelty, torture, maiming, and killing came easily, although the Warlock curtailed his excesses in those regards. They apparently needed the workers, and the Vitae from such meager offerings wasn’t worth the loss of work effort from the convicts.

  Torn only engaged in such activity because it pleased him, the Vitae was as dead to him as any other stone or rock. But when he learned that he could spend it, and on such lovely things, then it had taken on some meaning.

  The latest expenditure of his small supply, which he added to with a judicial killing or two on occasion, was comfortable atop him right now.

  Torn enjoyed the variety offered by Quelina, her strumpets and whores were as diverse as any inmate could hope for. There was a female for everyone, and for everyone an enticement from the Seductress.

  These three were some of his favorites.

  And how they loved him as well, their pleasure taken from his body, his application of knowledge gathered from the years of experimentation with others. These three enjoyed him the most, they loved how he touched them, and how he made them feel. Even when he drew blood, he did it in places that elicited the most pleasure.

  He had come to think that they appreciated him, loved his desires for the enjoyment that he could give, unlike other inmates they spent time with, those who paid for their pleasure.

  But Torn was also interested in the ladies’ pleasure.

  He worked at it, painstakingly learning the correct way to do things. Despite his general existence as muscle for the Warlock, and he had no illusions about that, he also knew that he could be a sensual delight.

  For these he had with him tonight it was an obvious enjoyment, their cries echoed into the night and shared in his prowess. The voracious appetite with which he learned to pleasure these women had delighted them and brought them back to Torn time and again.

  Even now he could feel the sensation building to a climax—his own and theirs—shared as always when they let him orchestrate their activities.

  That was when the first arrow ricocheted off his horn, just above his eyebrow and ever so close to drawing blood from the lovely whore whose delightful treats he had his face buried in. He roared, a muffled sound from between her thighs, but one that got their immediate attention.

  Suddenly afraid, she fell more than leaped to one side.

  Torn was already rising up, the weight of the other two nothing for Torn’s strength. They
too toppled, although the recipient of his manhood was less easily divested; she had to first push herself off him and went over in an ungainly sprawl that showed off many of the things he so enjoyed about her.

  Another arrow honed in, this time it bit into his chest, or would have if he were any minor inmate. The arrow impacted and even pressed into the skin a little, but there it stopped and fell to the stone floor, not a nick or drop of blood in evidence.

  Torn’s keen eyes had followed the arrow’s flight back to the source but found nothing, a third arrow marked the presence of the attacker, but whoever it was kept on the move.

  This arrow also did not penetrate, hitting him and rebounding as he flexed his muscles in anger. The interruption of his nightly festivity was unforgivable!

  A fourth arrow was easy to see as it came directly in at one eye, the iron arrowhead poking hard into the eyeball before the entire thing fell away with all the momentum expended against him.

  He roared with pure, unadulterated fury, a colossal sound that echoed through the pantheon, chasing itself between the columns and causing the women to huddle together in fright. That one had hurt a little, enough that he actually noticed it.

  The sheer audacity that another prisoner would attempt to kill him with a bow and arrow!

  The very idea was insulting, enough so that his voice was laced with venom when he called out. “Come out! Come and face me with a real weapon, fool! Your paltry attacks will not harm me. Come out that I may show you how to die!”

  The answer surprised him. Another arrow, but this one glowing with fine lines in patterns he may or may not have seen the Warlock use at some point. When this arrow hit him, it exploded with a burst of concussive air that nearly staggered him and heat that swept over his skin and charred some hairs.