Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  The hall had no carpet, just the rough grain of the stone, not even polished or shaped into slabs or creases.

  Emerentia herself sat high up on the throne set on top of the hundred stairs in the middle of the room. Once, long ago, she may have been a different being, but the form she now held onto was designed expressly for her purposes.

  Long limbs with double-jointed legs that ended in the claws of a bird of prey. Wings like an eagle adorned her back, the large feathers and massive size of them trailed the lower ends on the floor even when she stood up straight.

  Her torso was that of a woman, but she wore a pleated skirt and blouse, over which fell long strips of hardened leather with embedded gems that contained spells.

  Her head was slightly elongated, the already austere features sharpened, nose like a beak, forward thrust chin, and a wide thin smile. Eyes of such dark coloring they were just about black within the whites, complementing her ebony hair worn long over her shoulders.

  Fenix wasn’t yet informed enough to judge how the relationships among the witch hags went. It was a complex set of interactions, both good and bad, stretching back over a hundred thousand years to where he guessed they had been formed. Several had been defeated and killed in the intervening time.

  How many they had started out as and how many were left was not common knowledge, he suspected that none of them actually knew either.

  That they were supremely dangerous was not in question but, chief among the group were about five who jockeyed for the top position. Currently, Aurelian was right up there and an obvious target, hence pretending to work for Her would be in Morgana’s favor, that she got an agent into Emerentia’s court.

  If today went as planned, then Fenix would be severely debilitating both Morgana and Emerentia for Aurelian, a setback that could last for centuries of conflict between the two.

  It was becoming clear to him how much time and effort they all spent plotting against each other and the cosmos at large. The kind of thinking that pushed Aurelian to start entire sets of events in motion on a grand scale that would see results millennia later, just to use as a tool in Her schemes when the right time came.

  He was so very special to Her because he reached proficiency and enough power to be of use so quickly. A hundred years or so compared with the thousands she usually worked over.

  Fenix walked around the court, making the right noises, being seen, sure to blend in properly or stand out where needed.

  Then he left surreptitiously through a side door for his real destination.

  **

  The long hallway had two cross sections and a door at both ends; each cross section a shallow space connecting rooms for the guards.

  Eight of the guards were on duty, studded along the walls at equal intervals while the rest were in the rooms.

  Aside from the doorway they were charged to protect, there was only the doorway into the corridor. Other than those two exits, the guards had no existence, flesh golems created for the express purpose of defense.

  When the outer doorway to the main structure, which they had never used, opened by recessing into the stone wall around it, they all turned to observe.

  Their modified and simplified thought routines identified the humanoid who stood silhouetted in the light from outside as excluded from the concise list of approved entrants. They did not hesitate; once identified, any threat was to be dealt with permanently.

  Flesh shaped into claws and barbed stabbing weapons, the flesh golems moved as one to approach the intruder who was obviously terrified. They did not have the consciousness to work through the possible scenarios; they existed only to destroy, and that they would do with extreme prejudice.

  If they had been able to break down a more logical response, they might have noticed that their intended target was in fact not there of his own free will.

  Behind the notable noble Fenix had a ball of blue fire whirling within the palm of his right hand, it had been building for some time now. With a quick thrust, he pushed the writhing mass into the victimized being’s back, the magical fire burning through skin, cloth, and bone with ease.

  From their perspective, the flesh golems watched the man’s face contort in agony and a blue coruscation of light erupt from smoldering and even glowing bits of his chest.

  They didn’t even slow down, their magical programming identifying the source as another being who also was not on the approved list and so they kept coming. Right into the explosion of fire that Fenix cast out from the ball of fire. The shaped blast ripped down the corridor, immolating the golems and leaving only soot stains on the floor and walls with a faint oily residue.

  Fenix walked in right behind the blast of air that rushed in to fill the sudden vacuum.

  His arms glowed where tendrils of sapphire fire tinged with the white heat of complete energy surpassing the limits of natural bounds.

  With his arms thus wreathed in the burning confluence, he could summon and emit bolts in rapid succession, which he did. In the crossing corridors, Fenix raised a hand, palm out in each direction, and as the remaining flesh golems came charging out, and he blasted them into bits.

  One after the other deep blue bolts of fire cascaded from the gray-skinned man into the advancing horde and destroyed them.

  In a minute or so they were no longer going to be a problem, the last golem fell with most of its upper right half reduced to charcoal edged smoking ruin. Fenix didn’t take the time to observe his handiwork; he had to get on with it. The moment the outer door had opened, the witch hag would have been alerted.

  He had very little time to finish up here and still get away. The door on the far end was subjected to a stream of fire, a sapphire stream edging the stone up to a melting point, despite the magical wards.

  He had figured out how to circumvent the spells on the outer door but had never had the opportunity to study the inner one. So this was the solution, just blast through it. With the contents of the room beyond earmarked for destruction, it didn’t matter if there was any spillover.

  Not consequently at any rate.

  The door succumbed to the barrage in short order and melted down, the edges glowing a white hot and sludge pooling around his feet. Fenix casually walked through the mess and into the room beyond.

  It was square on the inside, with a depression in the middle that held several floor to ceiling cylinders. Inside them, people floated in a slightly mauve-tinged fluid. All of them curled up as if they were babies inside massively oversized wombs.

  He had the time to confirm if this was what he expected it to be so Fenix went over to a table set up before the cylinders.

  On it were notes in the archaic script of Emerentia’s own hand, a dialect and writing he had deciphered during his stay. They detailed the experiments and growth of various subjects with respect to their improvement on magical prowess and overall capability with the general addition of notes on their suitability as hosts or more.

  That determined this was the experiment he was to destroy, the loss to Emerentia’s progress in this line would hamper her for centuries, apparently. The destruction of this much of her most cherished work should drive her to retaliate against Morgana, and the rift between them would be filled by conflict and distract the two from being of a nuisance to Aurelian as well.

  He knew all of that, but he did not quite understand the with hag’s preoccupation with superior beings.

  Magic had a cost, despite being a universal energy and one that could be gathered from every living thing, many a non-living thing too in fact if you could use that negative form.

  The cost could come from any number of results depending on the spell or type of magic employed, and Fenix could understand that for beings as long-lived as the witch hags their extended lifespans, never mind their enhanced bodies and existence, had to consume a large amount of power alone.

  But to think that exploration of an enhanced body with different connections to the cosmos would provide them an existence mor
e in tune with the natural flow of energies was ambitious. Although, they lived long enough to try to work it out, and work out how to develop a being who could be taken over by their own consciousness.

  He sometimes wondered if they were even material anymore, really.

  Aurelian was mostly an impression on reality; Her existence extended through multiple dimensions behind what you would see as Her humanoid form. Perhaps in attaining that state of being they had all lost something, something they needed to better affect the world or something they now lacked, instinctively searching to recover it.

  Whatever it was he knew that this room was valuable enough to deal a massive blow to the enemy of his master.

  So he destroyed it all, eagerly and with passion; after all these decades he would be able to return to Her triumphantly, ready to receive his reward.

  Day 64…

  Fenix returned to the clearing he had agreed to meet the old knight in a few hours later, having perused the various armaments left behind in the fortress and deciding that most would simply weigh him down.

  He took a few smaller items, not one to skimp on good supplies, and left the rest for any scavengers willing to lug the heavier steel about in the hopes of finding a buyer somewhere in the Prison.

  The arms market inside this place was about to be flooded with excellent goods.

  He was met with a most unanticipated scene.

  Convenient lay on his back on top of one of the various large rocks scattered around the forest, his own sword impaled through what looked like the region of his waist. Judging by the amount of blood that had already poured out of the stump of his right leg below the knee he had been there for some time.

  Barely a trickle of the critical fluid still seeped from the wound.

  He knew the old man was alive only because he hadn’t shriveled away, like those who died in the Prison were wont to do. So far, he had no indication that anyone who died would go differently. That the old knight was in such bad shape and lying prone wasn’t the biggest surprise, it was the being who stood behind the rock and looked down with such glee that was.

  Old Man Page, as blue as the sky and still as wrinkled as a crone.

  “Come closer,” the wizened creature spoke, its guttural wizened voice easily carrying across to him, though it was at least a hundred feet away and he was still hidden in the brush.

  Several wasted looking flunkies of different races hovered around the clearing in disorder, vacant stares watching the blue being itself for their next orders. Fenix didn’t like his chances against an unknown foe but if he had to fight Page, then so be it, he had a lot of Vitae from Joanne’s forces, and he’d use it to survive this fight as well if he had to.

  Fenix stepped out into full view, an arrow knocked to his bow.

  Another surprise had waited for him, Convenient opened his one remaining eye, he looked at Fenix through the swollen eyelid, blood dried around it from a gash on his forehead. The old knight shifted the fingers of the hand on Fenix’s side of the rock he lay on, the side away from Old Man Page.

  Hand signals, those again of his people.

  The signals were clear if stunted a bit more so by pain than before, and they told him to bide his time and not to fight, not now.

  He didn’t know if the old fool had a plan or simply took it upon himself to be gracious and chivalrous again, giving his own life for Fenix’s. But either way it was likely thought out and practical, he didn’t relax the tension in his bowstring, but he did view the scene with a different point of view.

  For a moment there, he may even have been willing to fight for Convenient, what a strange notion.

  He wondered at the very idea of it as he slowly moved closer.

  “So do you have what I need, dark fleshy man-thing?”

  The question brought him up short, but not because Fenix was affected by the raspy malicious voice, but because the question seemed sincere. He had no idea how to respond to that, even his devious mind couldn’t come up with a witty response. It must have shown on his face because Old Man Page nodded to itself.

  “Ha, not yet it seems. So you have yet to recall. Do not tarry clever man-thing. I will not allow you to explore and work it out for yourself forever. This, this is just a taste of my impatience,” It gestured with a blue-skinned hand at the mess that had been made of Convenient.

  Fenix was still at a loss as to what to say, but in the pause Old Man Page seemed to be satisfied with the silence. He gurgled something out in a tongue that Fenix did not understand and the vacant wretches all moved to follow the thing out of the clearing.

  Its voice whispered back through to Fenix as it left.

  “Do not tarry, I wish to know if our bargain bears fruit. Your presence incites me to impatience, I do not enjoy that.”

  He could only stand there and shake his head as the implications of the blue things madness roared around the possible scenarios. It was Convenient who interrupted his cascading thoughts, the whirls of almost remembrance.

  “Fenix, it speaks for its own selfish needs, but it is correct, you must continue on.”

  The rasp in the voice told him the man was in dire straits. As if the look of his injuries wasn’t enough. He took a quick assessment around the clearing before moving closer to listen.

  “What happened?” He asked, lowering himself to a knee so he could be closer and hear clearer.

  Convenient smiled, gaps in his teeth now bloodied and blackened.

  “I know that you ask to learn about your possible enemy and not for my own sake my friend. And so I will answer in that vein.”

  The old knight coughed, blood splattered across the already dirty tabard cloth.

  “Do not underestimate Page just because of the form he wears, it is a façade, likely one he will throw off when necessary. But do not think any form he shows you are his true material self. It can drain your Vitae with, but a touch, parts of itself can move with supernatural quickness and fasten onto you.”

  “If you let him touch you, you will die.”

  Convenient directed a hard stare up at Fenix, reinforcing the words.

  “Do not mistake me, his touch is as dreadful as anything I have ever experienced, the more so because it comes with the sapping of your own strength. I am only here because he wanted me alive for when you arrived, otherwise I would be dead already. He has toyed with me for pleasure; most of these wounds were after my defeat.”

  Fenix glanced down at the sword thrust through his pelvis, then lower at the missing leg. Innumerable gashes, tears, and rips also covered the man.

  “I am impressed that you lived through this.”

  “Hah! Thank you. From you, that is high praise.” He coughed again, more blood welling up to seep from his mouth.

  “But I do not have much time, and I must explain some things to you so that you can complete your journey.”

  A hacking fit wracked the knight for a moment, severe enough that Fenix thought he might snap the sword.

  Convenient made several signs with his fingers; they covered many different things, all of them useful in a battle with comrades. Proof that he was trusted with Fenix’s secrets.

  “One of you. That was what I said,” Convenient wheezed, blood burbling out of his wounds.

  “And I meant it, quite literally. You and you alone are the only one of your kind I have ever encountered, and I have been grateful ever since to count you as a friend.”

  Fenix must have looked puzzled because Convenient smiled.

  “I met you before, within this Prison, and you taught me the signs, the signals of your people. You set me the task of watching out for your return and aiding you when you did.”

  “I did what?” Fenix asked incredulously.

  The blood seeping from the leg stump was slowing even more; Convenient didn’t have much time.

  “You must find your home, your own fortress where you worked on your escape before. Find it, you instructed me to tell you that within the sanctuary you built wi
thin the Prison you would find notes, details about your previous time here and how to escape once more. And information on the lost plateau, which you must also find.”

  Convenient coughed, the rasping a lot more evident now, his lips were tinged blue.

  “You still have much to do my friend. Go, survive, endure and remember, it is the only way.”

  Fenix raised his eyebrow at being called Convenient’s friend, no matter what their history might be.

  Surely not?

  “But where is it, where is this sanctuary I built?” Fenix asked instead of tackling that thought.

  Convenient shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “I do not know, all that you told me I have told you. You always intended that your future self should struggle; to regain your memory, your skills, you must work to survive. If you cannot remember who you are, then you will not even survive your own escape. And it was critical to you that you be prepared for when you escape this time. I don’t know why, but you had to do something, something that would send you back inevitably.”

  The very idea was ludicrous that anyone would do something to be sent back here?

  But before he could ask anything further the old man, Convenient, died.

  Wisps of black and white fled the corpse as it shrunk down around the sword that impaled it. The last words he had spoken rung in Fenix’s ears for a good bit of time afterward as he considered the implications of what the knight had said.

  Sometime later, the gray-skinned man stood up and regarded the sword that remained in the stone. He raised a hand to take the handle and then hesitated.

  He wasn’t sure what he would do with it even if he could pull it from the rock, perhaps it was better this way, the monument unnamed and unmarked, to a good man’s grave.

  **

  Practitioners of medicine, particularly those who accounted themselves as students of anatomy would have found Fenix’s martial practice a fascinating example.