Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  Fenix had moved over to the chain and crouched down to get a good look at the links. He hefted a pair in his hands, gauging the weight and material.

  “They don’t take heat well do they?” He asked.

  “No, they don’t. I’ve tried to melt them apart or weaken them, but my forge doesn’t get nearly hot enough. Best I’ve been able to do is make a single link singe a little.” The blacksmith set down the sword he had been sharpening.

  Fenix nodded, he moved closer then closed both fists over one of the links just behind the blacksmith’s knees. It looked comical with the large well-muscled being hunched and gazing over his own shoulder to see what was happening behind his ass.

  Between the closed fingers a sapphire glow spread, wisps of smoke started to seep from his hands and Fenix grimaced with effort.

  This went on for several seconds before the blacksmith started to say. “I told you, would have got myself out if it was that easy…”

  And then Fenix opened his hand to show the link he held had expanded and bent open. Soot scarred the hole where he had burned through the metal, the ends glowing white hot. Fenix quickly rotated the metal around with his hands so that it unhooked from the last ring set behind the blacksmith’s knee.

  “Thank you stranger, that is amazing.”

  Fenix looked up, closing his hands around the last link in the chain behind his other leg.

  “Why would a blacksmith end up in the Prison?”

  The man being smiled grimly. “I have skill at forging; let’s just say I was involved in some serious arms dealing. The kind that isn’t appreciated by certain powers.”

  Fenix raised an eyebrow at that. “In other circumstances, I would find a conversation with you to be quite interesting.”

  The blacksmith’s smile didn’t change. “Many do. In other circumstances.”

  A small ping sounded, and Fenix opened his hand to reveal this link was also cut through. He passed the loop around as well and freed the craftsman.

  “Yes, right then. Let’s get you out of here.”

  **

  The blacksmith moved well despite the hobbling he endured, that and the severe lack of manpower meant they escaped with only one more guard dying silently from behind.

  Fenix wondered at the relative shortfall of good soldiers, perhaps the best were with Joanne, but still, it seemed the lady was closer to defeat than most realized, or there was something else going on.

  At any rate, he got the blacksmith out and into the forest to re-join Convenient who happily volunteered to get the man being away safely.

  “Be careful Convenient; make sure to get him away properly. It won’t do to have him recaptured quickly. That would ruin the plan.” He wouldn’t refer to it as his plan; he had to be inclusive with the knight.

  “Aye lad, I understand.”

  The blacksmith gave him a strange look but followed Convenient away without any comment.

  Fenix settled in to wait.

  The next morning two red flags and an orange one were up the pole above the fortress, Fenix could only assume it was an urgent summons for Joanne to return. While he waited for her arrival, he considered his options and how prepared he would need to be to adapt.

  This wasn’t a situation he had direct control over, far from it, at best, he would be able to have some idea of numbers.

  Numerous soldiers in enchanted plate armor, led by some fanatical bitch with unknown powers whom no other person had ever escaped to tell of. Quelina had been clear about that, the sheer uncertainty of facing a being who had never let anyone escape was daunting.

  Then again, part of his plan was to ensure that Joanne could be far less prepared than she was probably used to. It would test whether cunning and guile were her handmaidens or whether she had some other formidable magic.

  If it was magic then he had to be ready, so he practiced all day and long into the night. Magical templates, sigils, runes, spells and more all came to him, his skill in them sound, but lacking depth. It took memories to bring back the complete understanding and not just the practice.

  So he meditated, attuned to events around him with part of his mind while going deep inside himself to dredge up everything he could.

  The following day passed in much the same manner, as did the next night and so on. It was in the middle of the eighth day that the mistress returned to her home, a small army of soldiers in gleaming steel armor marching behind her. He couldn’t see her in detail, but no one else would be wearing that pristine white cape and advancing at the fore.

  There must have been under a hundred of them, soldiers who lacked the numbers to protect her.

  So now he knew it would be tonight that he attacked. He felt ready, prepared. He had to be, if he couldn’t pull this off, then his life would end as well as his mission to escape the Prison.

  His drive to get out hadn’t faded at all. He had to be careful about this woman, Joanne. From what Quelina had told him, which was sparse but with enough detail that he had to wonder how she had come by it all.

  **

  Three millennia ago there was a group of lawful and upstanding deities who wanted to make more of a difference in the universe.

  Within the strictures governing the cosmos, which they were all sworn to uphold, they decided on a means with which to do so. They had the best of intentions, and as the saying goes, that was not enough, or perhaps they are the source of the saying.

  Who can know now?

  Law abiding, rule upholding beings such as these understood the need for universal order; it was part of their principles and in some cases intrinsic to their very Beings. So, unable to act of their own accord they scoured the rules and by-laws to find a way to make a real difference.

  Through some means, which by then had been written out of the cosmic charter, they managed to found an organization.

  The organization was eventually named Arcadia, and given home on a floating asteroid magically granted air and buildings, rooms to live in, various sets of gravities and so on for population by many kinds of beings.

  Then they began to recruit for their wonderful new idea, an order of good Beings who would lend a hand on worlds where the deities and the universal law prevented any outright interference.

  There were millions of worlds that did not meet the very limited criteria required for action by Arcadia, but for each of those millions, there would be one or two that did. The group who had started Arcadia felt that this was a good start, and in the little things, after all, there may be a significant change to cosmic balance.

  That was what they hoped for, and indeed Arcadia performed far better than expected.

  Only the best and brightest, the purest and upstanding, were recruited, rigorously trained and thoroughly tested to be sure of no mistakes. Equipped with the means to determine the correct criteria, time and place to interfere in the developing situations on other worlds

  Arcadia became home to cosmic agents doing the work of good. They would arrive incognito among the populace of a society, merge with their culture and take a pivotal role in an event.

  The events were usually something minor but judged to be significant enough that they could set off a chain. Sometimes the agents of Arcadia would not have to do anything; they were just there and prodded the right beings into action or inaction.

  But always they would leave directly afterward, their way was not to guide beyond the event, just to ensure the event came out at least neutrally as far as overall balance was concerned.

  Before the end of the first millennium was up the agents of Arcadia recruited Joanne. They found her on some backwater world still not part of any cosmic alliance. She evinced all of the traits and virtues that the agents of Arcadia desired.

  She was tested and found worthy of starting the training. And in that, the beings of Arcadia failed miserably for being unable to foresee the most insidious of behaviors.

  Joanne was a complete zealot for the greater good, an extreme fanatic of the hig
hest order.

  Somehow in the next century of training, they still did not see it, they took her complete determination as a good sign. Her obedience for their laws and the way things were done seen as a rational mind encompassing their ideals and living up to them.

  She set entirely new standards among her classmates, exceeded all the expectations of her tutors, and exemplified what they wanted at Arcadia, and that was their downfall.

  To be fair, the main reason why they did not see it coming was that Joanne did follow their rules, to the letter, and proceeded to serve with honest distinction among their ranks. She took on the right missions, she made a few mistakes and admitted them openly, always a good sign.

  She was able to turn around many situations with her sheer implacable willpower and determination to see Good done.

  Joanne was diligently and honestly working to do precisely as they wanted because she believed they were right.

  It took a few centuries before the inevitable mission came to prove those she served were not living up to the high ideals they proclaimed. Zealotry was an insidious and facile demand, it required complete obedience to the cause and unshakable loyalty to the ultimate end. And in this one mission, of which the details are lost along with Arcadia, she came to understand that her fellow agents would not go far enough to see the ends met.

  Whatever it was that caused this, be it that they refused her actions to continue along a path that would bring injury or death despite a greater good or perhaps they argued against her actions as being too far seeing that she could not be sure.

  No matter what it was, Joanne came to see the light that she was the only of Arcadia’s agents who could be trusted to truly uphold the greater good.

  If their recruitment process had been less strict in required intelligence or perhaps the general ambiguity of training had not prepared their agents so well the Arcadians may have seen what was going on and stopped it.

  Joanne worked tirelessly from that time on to take over Arcadia, but not overtly, not in a way she knew would give them a reason to stop her, but in the ways that meant she attracted the like-minded to herself, building a power base capable of overthrowing the corrupt and failed leadership in one bold move.

  Another few decades on and she succeeded with a complete coup that saw the shining light of Arcadia dim and then bloom out brighter than ever. It was not bloodless, nor was it ever to be considered an easy rebellion.

  However it was successful and complete, with newly instilled beings in the positions of power and governance, all of them at least as committed as Joanne was.

  Which was to say, they were all zealots blinded to the end justifying the means, or beings who went along because she outshone them so much they could only hope to ally with her and have it rub off.

  The next few centuries saw a considerable increase in the relative successes of Arcadia and its agents. The number of missions did not actually increase, it was just that the rules and bounds accepted by the previous leadership were enforced with abject discipline. But the number of failures dropped dramatically, at least as reported by Arcadia.

  The higher powers who kept an eye on things took a keen interest in the turn of events.

  They were never blind to what happened, nor were they unaware of how Arcadia was being run. But on a cosmic timescale, the organization or Arcadia was still in its infancy, it could be expected to go through various changes as it evolved.

  They allowed Joanne her style of behavior until it became apparent there were discrepancies in how matters were being handled, how small things like ethics and morals gave way to ultimate results.

  Then these powers did the worst thing they could ever have thought of, they audited Arcadia.

  The premise was that they were on a fact-finding mission to determine how things were going and why. A complete and thorough investigation by independent parties into the affairs of Arcadia, and then their findings and comments.

  It was bad enough from Joanne’s point of view that they questioned her, her determination, her loyalty, and discipline, her absolute faith.

  It was worse that they then came back with suggestions—which she saw as criticisms—and some rulings on behavior and changes to the modus operandi.

  That was what broke her at last, that the very higher beings she served, that claimed to serve the ultimate goal of good and right, had questioned and found her wanting. With truly zealous narcissism, she believed it could not be her fault, and she could not be found wanting or lacking in any way.

  The obvious answer was that these beings, of such great age and wisdom, had also become corrupted by their age, their time, or whatever reason she could make up for their weakness and downfall.

  Her great belief in them shattered and reformed around the core of her zealous nature, that the ultimate good was still pure. It meant that no other authority mattered except for herself, that she was the only one who could be a force for good, and those of her followers who did not question.

  Arcadia became a new place then, a terrible force that acted on the perceived best intentions of the rules that had started it.

  Unfortunately, the deities who founded Arcadia could not intervene, by the very rules they had circumvented to create it, Arcadia must exist aside from them with no direct control. And so they could only watch in grief, tears, and not a little awe as the birth of their great dream fluttered and evolved into a shining light of doom.

  No longer did their rules hold sway, nothing could prevent drastic interference, now anything was accepted, so long as the Good outcome was assured.

  The plentiful atrocities and crimes that occurred during this period were kept on record; they were needed for the trial, after all. Arcadia operated mostly as before and saw to their tasks correctly and concisely.

  But where Joanne was involved, or her most direct minions, it was usually always an indescribable farce, finding worlds and tearing apart the perceived evils on them with no regard for short-term consequence.

  People died, whole races were sometimes lost in the crusades that followed, by the cosmic rules they could not directly interfere in even these events until they reached a certain threshold. One of the founding deities left that region of space entirely because it could not bear to witness the corruption of all it had strived for.

  In Joanne, their dream of a just order that could help others in the strictest of principles with the highest of hopes was dashed and lost.

  The trial lasted for almost a full galactic year in the part of the multiverse in which it was held. Joanne refused to admit to any guilt and made a persuasive argument, backed by utter conviction, that her actions were correct.

  The court would frequently devolve into a moral debate, ethical conundrum, and philosophical sophistry. Such was the effect she could have, such was the core of her belief stronger by far than those who judged her.

  But judge her they did and found her and those who followed her to be guilty.

  With her immediate cultists, Joanne was sent to the Prison, the only place where she could be of no danger to anyone else except for the other inmates.

  A full decade before Fenix met Torn, Quelina and Old Man Page at the arrivals platform she was already remembering and rebuilding.

  **

  Nightfall brought with it the prison’s pale planar light, the swirls, and haze from the interaction of divergent energies seen as brief flashes, like a parody of stars.

  Fenix crept through the space carved from the forest around the lake where he swam and followed his route from three nights before, up and over the wall. Except that this time there was no sentry, no guards paced the walls, no soldiers in full steel waited for him or even seemed to be outdoors.

  It was not a comfortable feeling, entering into an enemy stronghold and finding it absent of any resistance, even the tacit resistance of watchful eyes.

  Obviously, to Fenix, that meant that she expected him. At the very least, she knew that someone was coming; someone had engin
eered her swift return and wanted her here. So she was inviting him in with all due alacrity.

  The sheer confidence in the tactic made Fenix smile.

  But it didn’t spur him into being overconfident, he knew, some gut instinct, that to be hasty when your enemy was proud would be a mistake. He had to avoid showing his hand, always maintain the deceit that he was far less than he appeared.

  That way every asset could be a surprise in his favor.

  He took his time, searched the outer walls by sight and sound, and judged them clear and moved inward, scouring the outer buildings. There was not a soul left anywhere he searched, at last ending up with only the main building to scout.

  But even there the rooms were empty, the armory bare, and the barracks neat and tidy. He realized then that she could be waiting for him in only one place, the one place she would feel apt in her own deluded mind.

  The cathedral interior had been designed to let sunlight in through the circular windows set up high on the walls. Light from the colored glass painted a variety of hues across the floor, and from the ceiling beamed down a particularly bright light. A column of white as if from the midday sun of the Prison drew the eye to the figure not so surreptitiously posed within it.

  Shadow cast beneath her, Joanne of Arcadia was waiting for him.

  Fenix circled quietly among the outer ring of pillars, the cathedral room was large, and once he stepped out, there were no pews or other furniture to serve as cover. He considered her appearance carefully, head to toe. Joanne modeled herself perfectly for the role.

  A white satin cape complemented the ensemble of shiny steel boots, chain leggings, and a breastplate of the same burnished silver as the small pauldrons the mantle was clipped to.

  Her head was bare, allowing the sandy blonde hair, clipped short to the scalp, to wave freely in the moderate breeze.

  Sheathed at her side, a sword with a steel hilt and handle wrapped in tan leather seemed incongruously large against her slim figure. If she was five foot five, it was a lot, the emanation of her fanaticism made her appear much taller and larger of stature. But Fenix was not so easily affected by such things.