Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  They had thin limbs, more like the branches of trees than humanoid arms and legs. The joints in the armor were not evenly spaced, one arm or leg could have different placements for the knee or elbow than another suite of armor standing next to it.

  According to the notes, they had no Vitae, and there were thousands of them, a serious obstacle to fight through for any convict.

  At least alone.

  With the impressive bow he held by his side, the skull bent back along the two solid ridges and the gap where the cartilaginous mouth had been was now open for the arrows. The intention behind the bow was to allow him a powerful weapon that consumed very little Vitae to be used, and it worked.

  He proved that by defeating the Warlock and Torn.

  The bulk of his power was then available for when he got to the palace at the end. Where the final steps of his past self’s plan came into effect.

  But no amount of preparation and gathering of Vitae would allow him to fight an army alone, not in the Prison that also reduced and leeched away the power of every convict. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be forced to struggle to survive, it was a punishment after all.

  He needed a super powerful being to proverbially ‘watch his back.’ Part of the reason why Old Man Page was chosen, although not the full plan.

  Page also had other resources which Fenix was counting on.

  Waiting at the arranged clearing above the hairs he was not entirely prepared for the arrival of a giant blue-skinned man with dark blue hair tied back in a ponytail. Muscular arms with golden bracers wearing only a short silk pair of toga pants.

  Behind the big blue being came an entire horde of humanoids and other creatures who all possessed the same vacant and avidly rapt attention for the blue man as was typical of Page’s following.

  There were hundreds of the things, and they were all emaciated and somehow just walking shells.

  If the mass of minions wasn’t enough, the blue man, who stood taller than Fenix by over twice his height, was obviously their focus of attention, for orders or any whim. Their rapt gaze followed every motion no matter how small, like a flock of small animals hypnotized and pointing in the same direction at once.

  Then the giant spoke in Page’s rasping voice, and Fenix was sure that the wizened old being had undergone a miraculous transformation.

  “Are you now ready at last?” It wheezed out, such vigor in the body and the handsome face belied the voice altogether.

  Fenix was tempted to look around for some source of illusion or ventriloquism.

  “I am. What happened to you?” He asked, instead.

  Old Man Page looked down at his youthful and powerful body.

  “This? Do you like it? My old form, it took me quite some time to gather enough energy to go back to it.”

  “It is, impressive.” He wasn’t kidding either, the blue body exuded strength and stamina.

  A potent protection emanated from the skin that seemed constructed of tiny blue metal cells. It was as if Page had powered up every physical aspect of his being, concentrating it into this slightly bigger size and retaining a massive quality of power, like making a mountain into a mustard seed but you could still carry it around.

  That was why Fenix did not have a lot of time, with Page able to absorb Vitae and energy from his victims, he became more and more powerful. Having been in the Prison longer, subjectively, than Fenix was this time around, he was also able to get stronger more quickly.

  An asset, to the escape plan, but also a danger to Fenix if Page chose to attack him sooner than planned.

  With something like the same thoughts Page asked.

  “What is the way out, man thing?”

  Page would tolerate him only so long as he had the secret to the escape, but he had to give the entity something.

  “The Warden runs the Prison, but he or it cannot always be here.”

  The rasping voice seemed honestly curious. “Why Not?”

  “As a being of great importance, selected to run the Prison or choosing to, it has other interests,” Fenix explained.

  “The Warden must have other things to do, without relying on administrators or servants it would occasionally want to leave because the Prison does not allow anything to be shared between this plane and any other. The very property of the Prison, that keeps us locked inside, would also keep the Warden from being able to come and go as it pleased.”

  “True.” Page grated out the word.

  “So, it must have a way in and out, and that way would be in the most protected area of the Prison.” Fenix pointed at the Emerald Palace.

  “Ah. Where no prisoner could get to it.” Page mumbled.

  “I had wondered why there would need to be any kind of fortress inside the Prison. I had come to realize over time that a floating house to watch the prisoners or other forms of observation could all be attacked anyway.”

  Page mused out loud, Fenix let it continue.

  “So a secure place would be needed, something from where to see the prisoners and what they did, if one wanted to watch the victims of their designs.”

  A one-sided view, colored by what Page would have done in the Warden’s shoes. Page was correct, but its assumption that the Warden wanted to watch the prisoners out of malicious designs was not necessarily valid.

  The Prison could as well be a box with no monitor inside, no one to look after things. No, this was a design, and a complex one. The ideas Fenix had been stewing on before finding his sanctuary were only confirmed by the notes he found there.

  The Echelon Prison was not devoted to the purpose of punishing convicts.

  “The Warden resides in the Emerald Palace when he is in the Prison. When he chooses to leave, he must have some kind of door or portal designed to be the only way in and out of here.” Fenix said.

  “Because the arrivals only drop you in.” Page nodded thoughtfully.

  There had to be more than one way in, Fenix was sure, but now was not the time to discuss that theory.

  “How do you know we can get through this door?” Page asked, his paranoid attention turned back to Fenix.

  “I do not.”

  “What?!”

  Before Page could lash out in anger, Fenix held his hands up to calm the entity down. As he did, the bow disappeared back into the pocket dimension he stored it in. Making Fenix appear to be unarmed and non-threatening.

  “Wait. If it is there, we will find a way through it, or find someone like the Warden who does know how to get through it. Even if we cannot open it, the other side will send someone through, and when they do, we use them to get out.”

  “Would the other side of this portal then not connect to a guarded place of some kind?”

  Yes, most likely, providing ample reason for our cooperation.

  “There is a small chance that the portal can let us out to different places, but I agree, probably not.”

  Page preened a bit that Fenix agreed with it, the entity had a big ego.

  “Which is why we need to both make it through, the best chance of getting through the Emerald Palace, to the portal and surviving the journey to the other side will need both of us. At which point…”

  Page interrupted Fenix, the grotesque voice of his rasping out the words.

  “At which point we will be free and can go our separate ways without concern that one of us will escape without the other.”

  Fenix nodded. “Yes.”

  Page looked up at the many rising steps with their population of the Warden’s guards.

  “Well, then, let’s get to it, shall we?”

  **

  They spent the next six days fighting over the surface of the plateau; each and every giant step formed by the peculiar landscape was hard won, ferociously on the part of the empty minions and with a calm detachment by the animated armor.

  The constant fighting slowed them down, and this land mass was one of the biggest to cover in distance.

  The long limbed automatons were numero
us enough to provide a perfectly viable defense against whatever the prisoners would ordinarily throw at them. Their sleek bodies were all slim in their bronze metallic outer covering and completely deadly in a tireless and efficient way.

  A few thousand prisoners would always be a challenge but nothing seriously threatening, except that in this case they were organized.

  Every one of the minions was of course something special; they all had unique abilities, talents that meant that a normal Prison would hardly slow them down. They moved with one purpose, able to attack as a group or split and direct themselves far out of sight with each other because Page could coordinate them.

  Through all of it, Page worked alone.

  Its body was as strong as or stronger than Fenix surmised. Capable of crushing a suit of armor in one blow it regularly sent others flying far off into the distance. And it seemed to be keeping to a humanoid shape, for reasons unknown other than there was no Vitae available in the Warden’s guards.

  But it fought, and well, untouchable, with no harm from any of the weapons wielded by the bronze golems.

  It could probably have been overwhelmed by the resisting army en masse, but for now, Page was quite clearly a force to be reckoned with, and the minions kept him from being attacked at all sides.

  For his part, Fenix conserved a colossal amount of energy and was also very effective using the bow. He would pull on the string, specially crafted to complement the energies of the bow itself, and a shard of sapphire light would appear stretched through the opening in front of the skull.

  An arrow of pure blue fire nestled in the air above his hand, with the sockets that had held the Beasts’s eyes aligned so he could aim.

  The glyphs and runes set into the skull had taken the longest time, but with them focusing and concentrating the wild energy Fenix carried within, each arrow was at least as powerful as one of his bolts of fire, and a fraction of the energy was used.

  He fired thousands, if not tens of thousands of them over those first days.

  Melting through the armor and destroying the empowering magic, felling the enemy in droves.

  The seventh day brought them to the steps of land now reinforced by Warden’s guards from the Emerald palace, choosing to make a stand on a tall step that served as both higher ground and a veritable wall.

  They complemented their ranks with archers of their own and shields with some enchantment protecting against most of the minions skills. Every one of the automatons looked very much the same as another, almost as if a mirage of an army defied them.

  They would have been forced into a delay, something like a siege of the wall, if Page hadn’t sent his small army in to suicide themselves in a great rush. He allowed them improvements, powers and Vitae for this one last effort.

  With claws and strange weapons, tentacles and weird magical powers they plowed into the animated armor ranks from above and the sides.

  If it was a sentient force, they might have broken and run, but the Warden’s guards stood and soaked up the punishment while Fenix and Page led a two-pronged attack at the raised step doubling as a wall.

  It took half a day of fighting but Page and Fenix got through in among the buildings where the guards would have to search for them. The powerful beings were able to take on the small groups of guards much more easily than an army.

  Having disappeared down different streets it was easy for Fenix to explore without Page, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but it probably wouldn’t take long if he was right.

  **

  There was dust everywhere, a fine green powder that filled the air and the lungs if you weren’t careful. It could hurt, it was gemstone dust after all, and any alchemist knew to be very careful with such a hard and sharp substance of fine granules.

  The Emerald palace’s walls were indeed made of marble and gold. Another resounding boom echoed among the narrow labyrinth that Fenix was now in, another wall breached by Old Man Page and his strength most likely.

  The air was dank, little light got through the thick green walls and with the dust also adding smog to block the light it was a green hued place of shadows. The actinic smell of the Emerald dust combined with the distant sounds of battle made things seem surreal.

  When he referred to it is a labyrinth he wasn’t just describing a complex set of passages, it was, in fact, a maze of narrow walkways. Most of the booming was likely Page getting frustrated that he was unable to fit through. But Fenix had at least found that after several turns and twists his excellent memory allowed him to reconnoiter, there was a structure inside the walls.

  The actual palace, bulbous domes, and square courtyards all of the same precious rock.

  He was crouched near the corner of one wall that opened up to a killing space before the buildings, a perfect opportunity for any remaining guards to make a last attempt at him. But what bothered him was the complete lack of any, none in sight nor sound.

  So he was observing the open space, the close and far walls, every doorway, and window, for anything that might indicate a trap.

  He was not so unaware of his immediate surroundings that the sudden bulge of the wall above him went unnoticed, however. As soon as it moved, he ducked, rolled, and came up on the far side with a glowing blue arrow nocked and aimed.

  But the strange morphing of the stone didn’t extrude out into a warrior or creature, but instead, it was a face. A prominent face, and stunted, like someone only half made it from clay, broad strokes defining a brow, gaps for eyes, a long flat nose and full lips for a mouth.

  It was also higher than he was tall and wider too.

  It reminded him slightly of the giant stone heads he had seen on islands of some far off world. The entire head was only out of the wall to where its ears might have been, and it was as long as he was tall while also wider than his chest. When it spoke to him, it was with a deep resounding boom, yet somehow still contained within the small space of the passage.

  “Greetings, Fenix. Welcome back.”

  Well, he had known that he had gone this way before, so whatever had happened he should have made some kind of impression.

  “Hello, and who might you be?” He asked carefully, still extending all of his delicate senses around for indications of danger.

  The face’s lips turned up slightly at the sides, like an impression of a smile. “I am the Warden.”

  “I am honored.” Fenix still looked around, but if it was true, then this being was important.

  “And to what do I owe the honor of your presence?”

  The deep voice echoed with humor. “I like you, and we have met before. And I know where everyone is within my domain no matter how well they try to hide. So I came to find you since you have been still for so long. I’d like to invite you in, again.”

  “Again? You mean because you did last time?”

  “Yes, of course. It was unlikely that you would have all of your memories from before. We expected that, you and I, so we came to an agreement. I will allow you into my abode Fenix, and we will talk. But I cannot be seen outside with you, so please, do come in.”

  While he processed what the stone face had said it receded into the wall, leaving the surface as flat and unmarred as before. There was a distinct click from across the open space, further along, where a door opened from inside the building.

  Fenix shrugged, kept his bow at the ready, and went to go inside. The door slid silently shut and sealed into a solid wall behind him.

  **

  Fenix hadn’t expected to be invited in.

  The entry hall was marbled in white stone with golden veins, stretching away in both directions. The ease with which he had got inside was a counterpoint to the effort it had taken to fight up to the plateau, break through the walls, and then get through the labyrinth.

  Although, when he thought about it he had only encountered serious resistance while attacking with all the others. It did seem as if he was being led here all along, but why?

 
A gaseous blob came floating down the hallway from one end, it glowed slightly from within highlighting the play of what seemed like smoke contained inside. How it retained cohesion, he didn’t know, but it serenely came down the corridor a uniform five feet from the floor without bobbing or weaving at all.

  “Greetings, Fenix,” the strange being echoed the Warden, but in a higher voice with a clipped accent.

  It sounded, organized.

  “I am Wisp, and I will lead you into the palace proper so that the Warden can converse with you.”

  “I see. Why don’t we just do it here? He can appear anywhere correct?”

  “Ah, it is good to see that you still have your wits, mistrust, and canny questions about you. I was pleased to see you were not deprived or deficient in any way on your return. Yes, the Warden can appear anywhere but these exterior corridors are a bit close to the raging turmoil outside, and he prefers to show you something as well as talk. A more secure place, I’m sure you understand.”

  It bobbed gently in the air as if nodding. Fenix did understand, he had sought answers and strategically wanted to know the Warden’s capabilities.

  Wisp had answered and clearly told him that the Warden would work under his, or its, own terms only. So be it, perhaps the discussion would help shed light on his other questions, and just maybe his previous self-had been even more successful than he had thought.

  “Lead on.” He waved a hand at the sphere of gas.

  He followed Wisp through several corridors, some with turns, and others sharp corners, while all were uniformly empty. The inside of the building was every bit as much a maze as the outside, and defensible.

  The tall columns, plinths, and arched doorways made for excellent choke points, if the defending force so chose.

  Based on his innate sense of direction they must have been on the far side of the palace, close to where it rose up when the corridors changed. The white marble with gold seams transitioned into a completely flat silvery stone, a texture he had never seen before.