Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  In a general melee such as this, it would be hard to keep precision.

  Ordinarily, he would have been killing everyone he touched, but the lack of effect his magic had on them meant that killing them took more martial skill and muscle. So expediency required other options, all the while Joanne stood and watched.

  If he moved closer through the throng, then more of her minions would intercept him. If he circled around while denting metal and clinching necks, they moved to follow.

  “Do you always let your followers do all the work?” He called out over the latest bang where the side of his hand furrowed into the solar plexus of an armored being. The dent would push into its softer tissue and slow it down while he moved on.

  Joanne was concentrating hard, throwing out everything she had to keep the magic of Fenix at bay. If she faltered, he could turn around and slay her men with his evocations, such a display of skill in fighting alone was worth respecting, but with added magic, this man was most formidable.

  Like a juggernaut prancing among the dangers and laughing all the while, she could see on his features that he seemed to actually be enjoying himself!

  “Foul being!” she called back. “You will die this day, and your energy will serve to furnish us in our battle to defeat the evils of this place.”

  And oh, how she looked forward to that day when her host was equipped and expanded enough to truly take the fight out to the rest of the Prison.

  Their forays into Outsiders’ Town provided them enough Vitae to survive and limited the spread of the unholy abominations that arrived there. What she really needed was to get the manpower of the Festering Warrens and expand into all the territories controlled by monsters and creatures.

  Those were the real threats, a network of foul entities with auspice over most of the Prison.

  With them gone and the correct means to watch for more, she could be the driving force behind every convict's salvation or destruction as they arrived. She had dreamed of this goal since acquiring back her sense of self, her memories of who she was with her name.

  If only she had more recollections for the tactics and training, she could use to defeat this irksome man!

  Fenix watched the questions race across Joanne’s face in tiny tics and facial twitches. As fascinating as the psychology was it was also evident that she didn’t question her faith, just the means and risks she should take to meet it. And she wasn’t going to be edged into coming out to fight him alone.

  Wise on her part.

  He completed the last design, sigils burned into the stone in the correct pattern, the last of the group now spread out across the entire floor. With it the results of his enchantment spread exponentially, the heat was unable to escape to colder stone but remained captured, building up within the floor itself.

  While Fenix redirected a sword into the neck of another being and kicked a spear to impale a second, black and white mist ghosted around those beings who were dead, and the floor began to soften.

  Great heat and yet a matrix that held the stone together changed the floor into the semblance of molten rock. The first men to notice their steel boots glowing a dull orange on the soles called out to others. By the time the entire host was catching on the pain was burning through whatever served as socks and into their flesh.

  Many stopped moving, a mistake since their own weight then pushed them down to be swallowed into the floor feet first.

  Vast amounts of heat then filtered into the sides of their plate armor, ankles and shins started to cook and then burn them within their outer shells. Utter panic swept the ranks, beings pulled on their companions to get free, the clamor of steel rasping against steel as gauntleted fingers scrabbled on others shoulders.

  The smell of singed hair and flesh permeated the room; so many sources overlapping it became a relative pong, a strong scent.

  Joanne was also affected, where she had been standing, the floor was even melting; her lighter body and armor wouldn’t save her. Already she had thrown aside the heavy kite shield with a cry of alarm and dropped her sword.

  Even now the long steel blade glowed a dull red, only the very tip visible as the heavier hilt pulled it underground.

  “No!” she called with an edge of panic in her voice. “This cannot be. Your magic is stalled, ruined by my shield of faith.”

  Fenix stood calmly on a safe spot, the rock around him softened but he leeched the heat away easily.

  “It isn’t my magic doing this.”

  Slowly he stepped forward when one of the beings lost its balance and toppled, one armored hand reflexively dropping to stall its fall, then sinking up past the wrist in superheated stone. He put his foot down next to the soldier's hand and absorbed enough of the heat for the stone to harden, trapping him in that position.

  “Lies!” She glared at him, her face twisted in fury and those lovely blue eyes stark with anger.

  “Not at all,” he replied calmly, indifference filling his tone while he surveyed the chaos around him.

  The amount of fire required to melt the rock was prodigious that he also used that energy to carry shape and allow the stone to flow almost like water when he needed it to, that was tricky.

  For now, all he had done was cause it to melt.

  “The rock is melting because I made it so yes, but rock is rock and heat is heat. Your faith cannot stop you from being harmed by a crossbow bolt; you willingly risk yourself charging into a besieged city, even with burning oil from the walls. You are quite brave, or as much a fanatic as to believe that you will come to no harm physically if you hold true to your mission?”

  He got no reply, but she watched him, the look she sent his way could kill. But Fenix was all relaxed grace, moving like a panther among the toppling host, taking his leisure.

  “Your absolute shield of faith works extremely well, certainly long enough that mundane means will win out if you have enough numbers. But this is your end Joanne; you have no defense against the perfectly normal, even if it is created abnormally. You, your servants, you were lost when you arrived, you should have realized that. But now I am here to teach you this one final, very harsh, lesson.”

  He stopped a few feet short of her reach, even if she had her sword he didn’t want to take too many chances.

  There was only one thing he wanted though, and he could see the realization dawning on her face even as burned flesh spread up under her armor and the chain links began to flow down into the stone. The amount of pain she must have been in aside, he wanted her to think.

  Glacial belief did not crack and break without reforming; a zealous nature was built on a foundation of unshakable understanding about how the world must work.

  For Joanne, there was never any way to lose, no way to be defeated that could not be overcome. When she arrived in the Prison and regained some memories, it was not her mistakes and repentance she focused on.

  No, it was that she must still have a reason, a purpose.

  That purpose always aligned with her core belief, and her core belief provided her own magic the means to create an impenetrable defense. But always, always she had worked with others, those who could aid her fight in return for her protection.

  She watched all of these men, her host, sinking into the floor, dying around her. They were utterly helpless to save her, and she utterly helpless to save any of them.

  She had made a mistake.

  That the mistake was tactical, or her arrogance, or that she had not been observant enough and practical enough to adapt to Fenix was not her primary concern. Perhaps the influence of the amnesia that prevented Joanne from relying on centuries of success to fuel her profound belief that she could do no wrong helped at this point.

  But whether it was that, or if a tiny chink finally opened like a flower blooming, Joanne suddenly realized that she was not infallible.

  The idea, the concept, the flood of realization that came with it, was snuffed out, along with her life, as soon as Fenix saw it happen. That single po
int of doubt, the tiniest flicker of possible understanding was all he wanted.

  Absolute prote4ction faltered when absolute conviction cracked.

  The stone of the floor shaped itself into long thin spikes, hundreds of them thrusting upward through anything above them, be it material, metal, or flesh, they speared up.

  Fenix looked around at the fallen host, shriveling bodies that gave off the Prison mist, contorted around lances of stone. Wisps of regular smoke drifted off the tips where blood and bone cooled against the upthrusts of penetrating death, the heat now leaving them when he released his concentration.

  In front of him, the body that had been Joanne was impaled from behind, through her back to prop her up with her arms spread and her face toward the light coming from the crystal in the ceiling.

  Her final repose that of open reverence to the ideal only she could see. Her body took a moment longer to waste away, the blue eyes that had judged faded into white and rotted in their sockets.

  Just like everyone else Joanne became nothing more than a remnant of her former self, no way to tell her apart except for the pristine white cape she had worn, now burned and debased in a pitiful mound on the floor.

  A Memory of a great task…

  Orange pillars rising eight hundred feet high embedded on the top of the flat mountain by runnels of the same colored rock.

  From above it looked like a gigantic pair of chicken feet, complementing the number of birds and other avian creatures that flew around them. Nestled on top of the widely placed pillars was the giant aviary, it looked like a stone hut, an A-frame roof peaked above walls with so many small ledges they resembled wood.

  The entire structure was steeped in enough menace and dark energy that it haunted the dreams of seers and clairvoyants throughout the nearby cosmos. Relatively speaking, nearby, covered quite a lot of worlds.

  This structure set atop its mountain on the broken and barren world conquered by the owner housed the court of the witch hag Emerentia. Also known as the Mother of harpies, Colletta Dementia, Pollika of Agnrat, and Baba Yaga.

  This creature was not like his mistress, who wore Her true name proudly, daring anyone to use it or utter it and summon Her interest.

  This witch hag hid behind various monikers, a dozen or more names for the same being, of which none were her true given one. Of course, he would feel that she was inferior to Aurelian, it was a given that since he was here for his mistress, he would have little good to say about Emerentia.

  Fenix flew up through the sky on approach to the giant stone edifice; his blue flame easily drove him through the air. None could take part in the witch hag Emerentia’s court if they could not fly in some way.

  It was part of her lording the experience over lesser beings, the first requirement just to get into her presence. After years of training in various emotions, he had grown from strength to strength.

  Flying was an effortless byproduct of the things he could now do with the Blue Flame of Intensity.

  He hoped to one day acquire even greater mastery, but for now, She had deemed him ready for the task he had been fashioned for. To infiltrate and cause upheaval among the witch hags required great manipulation, and significant power to even make an attempt to pull it off.

  If he failed or was discovered, he would most likely die, if not be kept for prolonged enduring torture. He knew that, but he was prepared. Hundreds of years of breeding among his kind, the decades of training under her severe tutelage, the final touches are done.

  With Aurelian’s approval had come Her avid interest, one She had strongly hinted would improve once this defining task was completed. As Her agent he excelled, this seemed to enthrall Her, to excite Her, that at last, She may have one powerful enough to treat on a closer level.

  Fenix alighted on the outthrust ledge, the complement to another one on the same platform grafted to the side of the structure. He dissipated the driving force of his flames but left wisps sweeping in and out of visibility around him. A reminder of his power, necessary in this place, with its sycophants who would jump on any sign of weakness.

  He passed the winged sentries with their differing heads and tall bodies shaped and constructed to suit Emerentia’s needs.

  Four decades it had taken just to get into her ranks, the subterfuge and outright conflict involved had barely taxed him. His own sense of time, manipulation, cunning use of character against character, all had served him well. He rose through the ranks on the pretense that he was trying to curry favor, to become one of Emerentia’s trusted servants.

  In the fifth decade, he had taken direct action against possible advantages to Emerentia, having worked his way into the higher ranks it was time for the second phase of the plan. In subtle ways, he destroyed or banished the fruits of labor for beings in the witch hag’s service, those making achievements.

  Outright acts of sabotage, while still maintaining his cover, still trying to wean himself up the ladder of prestige.

  The plan worked, he got the attention of those concerned with such things. It would take centuries to actually be important enough to be of value, to earn the trust of such a being.

  But to earn her suspicion was easy, the sudden and typically violent ends those who crossed her died with as proof of that. But Fenix had played a much more intricate game; he had gotten her attention in the only way that would ensure he was placed where she could keep a constant eye on him.

  Through thorough investigation and a deep understanding of the situations involved among the witch hags, it would come out. Fenix was performing acts that directly benefitted Aurelian, well-hidden and subtle maneuvers betraying a great spy, a covert operative of consummate skill.

  Emerentia took the bait, she promoted him, still slowly but beyond the reach of others at the same level, to rise up and eventually lead him into her court.

  He played along; with every promotion, he would damp down his activities, learn the new playing field, and then take more actions. A long and challenging play that tested all of his capabilities, but it was worth it.

  Eventually, he came to the aerie, joined her court, and was able to enact the final stages of the plan. That alone took years of accepting the false information he had to act on, taking in the counter operations of the others at court who also tested the limits of what he could discern as truth.

  Over time the operation became such a convoluted back and forth among the various nobles ordained by Emerentia that he could finally make more “mistakes.” Fenix was able to drop the ever so subtle hints and the occasional message to his true mistress. Using Aurelian was part of the ploy, that it was true did not mean it could not be used as the bait.

  Emerentia would never believe that an agent as well situated as he was could so easily give away the actual affiliation.

  So the plan moved into allowing Emerentia to determine that he worked for Morgana. Creator of the Fey, designer of the first primal blades, seeker of virtues, and lastly, the great destroyer of hope. Emerentia and Morgana had clashed many times on different worlds; it seemed fate always drew their plots together where interference was inevitable.

  While dealt with politely the two appeared to be playing some cosmic game with a scoring system that spanned countless lives.

  Fenix walked through the wide twisting corridors, past doors sealed with the structured glyphs of locking and the spells of the occupants. No one treated the place as safe; that would be naivety that sparked an immediate sense of weakness.

  And to be weak here was to be removed or enslaved by another. He had quite enjoyed the machinations inherent in this place.

  Morgana was known for her double manipulations, her careful actions of setting up agents and events while then appearing to work against them and herself. Fenix’s strategy was to work against Morgana while acting as Aurelian‘s agent and occasionally letting other information slip through channels that could, and according to Emerentia’s paranoia, would reach Morgana.

  Making him so attractive
to the witch hag that he had to be kept close, and watched.

  And so his rise to high status allowed him access to the court, where his every move was detailed, and every action observed. Just the way he had planned. It couldn’t last; the overall scheming would be allowed to continue for only as long as Emerentia found value in it.

  She would not let her most devious, and long-standing efforts be thwarted by such an agent as he represented.

  She wanted to use him as a double agent or destroy him once she learned enough.

  And that was fine with him; the past two years had seen the buildup of a grand scheme against one of Morgana’s own. He had been allowed to find out about it, given just enough of a taste to investigate more, to see if he would take the bait and reveal himself.

  He had been smart, quietly worming his way into the circles who would know of such things and learned more than they expected.

  He knew that they were preparing to move against him by now, ready to snatch him up for interrogation if they could capture him alive. The constant backstabbing environment, the ploys, and deadly prospects, where everyone vied for power and would happily resort to lethal means if they could get away with it. He had been protected from none of it, making him all the more impressive to Emerentia.

  But he knew, the time was coming and rapidly where his potential usefulness would be at an end. So he was to act, to deal the one final blow to drive Emerentia right into a conflict with Morgana, an outright one that neither would be able to control correctly.

  By forcing them to act sooner than they would ordinarily Aurelian would come out superior, able to gauge and act on her own plans against the two.

  He emerged out into the court, a central hall setup within the warren of rooms and tunnels that filled the building. Inside the hall burned braziers with a circumference of sixteen feet each, the spicy scent of incense spilling out while the crackle of coals was offset by the general murmur of thousands of voices.