Dropping the bow, Fenix drew two daggers, long enough to be shine in the sunlight they were just too short to count as swords. The creature with the tentacles had little choice, however, but to pay attention to the weapons, no matter their stature.
Because Fenix became a whirlwind of possible death.
Reflections glittered from the daggers as they played light around the two combatants. Fenix struck, and struck again, multiple times, only to have the blows diverted by the push or pull of a tentacle.
He avoided being touched by the suckers beneath the upper part of each limb, assuming that they could do harm to him and that ignoring that possibility could be deadly. Instead, the suckers latched on to the blades themselves, the sheer metal proving as good a purchase as any other material.
The tentacles flipped and twisted, releasing the blades to throw the daggers off course.
With other tentacles whipping back at him Fenix found his superior weapons skills and supernatural speed sorely tested by the creature. No comfortable victory here, this one had been chosen to lead the guards because it was also dangerous.
Fenix relished the challenge, especially so soon after his ignominious defeat at the hands of Torn, and being rescued.
Convenient plodded his inexorable way through the three other guards who focused on him rather than the twisting maelstrom that was the lethal combination of Fenix and their leader. They stood no chance, the old knight overmatching them with skill where they had speed, strength to strength, and where necessary the magic of his weapon.
The man took blows on his armor that left no mark and changed his stance not at all.
The whirl and twirl of tentacles switching past and around him pushed Fenix hard, to his limits and beyond. The physical limits he had to, needed to stretch back into the shape he should be in.
He needed to be good enough to escape.
Whatever the creature of tentacles was, it was not inexhaustible. Midway round one of the multiple blocks and strikes they exchanged Fenix got the slightest opening and drew dark inky blood.
The creature’s tentacle flinched back, the movement a reflex from the pain and so slight, so small in among all of the roiling action going on, that only a master could take advantage of it and follow through.
Fenix was a master, even if he did not yet have all of his faculties back.
The tentacle flinched back midway along its length, which pushed back against the closest one that was about to try and slap Fenix in the face. Because it did not, he could react to the tentacle which had just grabbed onto the other dagger with a sucker.
He pulled on the dagger, lengthening the tentacle and brought the free dagger around and down to sever the last foot of the limb. The creature hissed in pain, an autonomic reflex pulling all of the tentacles back to itself to escape.
Without pausing Fenix stabbed both daggers into the arm sockets of two other tentacles, in and twist and then out again. More of the inky black blood spurt from these fresh wounds and the creature shuddered.
The spasms rippled the tentacles that could still move uncontrollably and Fenix stabbed a dagger into one of them, pulled it out so that it was taught and snicked it off halfway with a slash. Rinse and repeat the process with more black blood flying out over the ground, and the creature collapsed between a spreading circle of sliced off limbs.
It was over.
Ever efficient Convenient was looting the black and white mists of his kills for the stones of Vitae. Fenix’s own kills he held in his other hand and held out for Fenix when he turned around.
“Do you like seafood?” Convenient asked after considering the disintegrating corpse.
**
Once they were past and traveling south, they kept an eye behind them, but no one followed.
They were careful to check the trail ahead, where Convenient knew there were teleport stones, just in case Torn tried an ambush. But it seemed the Warlock eventually recalled the convicts to the mines, and Torn as well.
There was ample time for discussion.
“How is it you have your weapon? Should it not have been taken from you before you were sent here?” Fenix asked at one point.
“Oh, this sword? It is a part of my soul, it could never be separated from me. It took a while to remember it, but once I did, the sword returned to me, along with my armor. It looks to have seen better days, but then I think it reflects the state of my mind and self, don’t you?”
“Uh, sure.” Fenix really didn’t know how to respond to that one.
Convenient gave his yellow toothy smile. “I imagine that if I regained all of my memories, I would look quite magnificent. Quite different from my paltry appearance now.”
Fenix gave the old man a smile. It seemed to be what he expected because he smiled back.
It may well have been true.
Fenix’s own memories provided more of his innate skills and magic the more of them he recovered. Who knew quite how deficient most of the prisoners were just because their minds had been erased.
This was a special Prison, after all. Ordinary beings did get sent here, but also extraordinary ones.
“Do you know what you were before coming here?” he asked.
“Some kind of knight, on some kind of crusade. It was vital at the time that much I have remembered. But, of course, something went wrong. I find my mind avoids exactly what, but I think that I got quite angry at betrayal and killed some people very important to me. It even stopped my great quest. A failure and betrayal, more than enough for me to seek out my penance.”
“You mean to say you are here by choice?” Fenix couldn’t believe anyone would go that far. Nobility was one thing, but that idea bordered very closely on stupidity.
Convenient glanced at him slyly. “No, my friend, I don’t think so. I think I had an offer when I was already seeking penance, and this was one of the options. And I think I chose this as a just and rightful punishment compared with what else could have been done. A great wizard counseled me, someone, I respected. But I cannot be certain of the events, of course. I remember other swords, and knights, a table too I think, a special one.”
“I would call it strange but that my own memories are still a jumble I can make little sense of so far,” Fenix replied.
“Do you know why you are here yet?”
He shook his head at that. “No, my memories of that have not returned. All I have are things I have done to become better and improve.”
“They will return in time. I, myself, am most curious.”
Fenix looked at the old man carefully. “Why?”
Convenient stopped and turned to face him. “Because it may well lead to many of the things I seek, and answers to years old questions.”
“Is that why you helped me, to learn my tale?”
“No.” Convenient set off again.
“I helped you to repay a debt, one I earned within this Prison when I had lost myself and was going to die from the most insidious of things. Apathy lost to myself without my memories or purpose, I was ready to die. Either by a tussle with some others, or I was just going to sit around and die, forlorn that I had no direction. My debt is that I was given a purpose and a way to make amends for my life, in here of all places.”
“That sounds like quite a tale.” He gave the statement the tone of a question.
“Ah yes, it is. But I cannot tell you. I’m afraid it is part of my oath still.”
A pity, but Fenix didn’t press the strange man. Whatever it was, it was of aid to him now, and he could appreciate that without needing to know the details.
At least until that diverged from his plans.
**
They followed the long piece of land with the trail leading them south, around the higher land mass with the volcanoes and mountains.
Ash clouds, venting gases, and the miasma of heat rose up like a barrier between them and the north, while lower down, where they traveled, it was only temperate.
The trail was mostly bar
ren, there being very little water. The next land mass before the Outsiders’ Town had some greenery on the open plains.
Convenient said that some convicts managed to escape and live there, although they didn’t last long between the non-humanoid creatures and raids by Torn looking for spare Vitae. It was not a comfortable place.
The water was sulfuric and the ground saturated by the constant lava effusion falling from the land above. Not that anyone needed food or water to survive, but the conditions were poor enough that when added to the other factors, it was even less safe than the north.
The two men avoided confrontation by sticking to the path and traveled all day and night, always on the move so they would not be a stationary target. The southwestern land mass and its mountain spires grew in size, and then they passed it off to their right as they followed the trail now curving back east.
Toward Outsiders’ Town.
Convenient explained that the land mass was even more inhospitable. Sitting directly south of the mountainous region of lava fields, it was a barren and lifeless land. Unlike the volcanic area, it did not sport lava fields and spouting geysers.
There was even a river, although it was murky and stagnant, not quite average water most prisoners would use. In fact, if you stuck your hand in this water, it may well be eaten right off.
Among the sulfurous ground mist, divergent river, and its wayward streams lived the beings who did not require humane conditions. They were the entities from other planes, more dominant ones over the physical plane where everything intermixed.
An Outsider was an entity requiring no air or specific environment, and was mostly, by nature, a magical entity in the first place.
All convicts of such types were sent directly to Outsiders’ Town if they did arrive from the usual vortex they would likely fight, and most convicts didn’t stand a chance. Kept too long away from their home planes, most of these creatures digressed, lessening to pale shadows of their former selves.
It was here that Quelina had made her home, and her business.
The strangest of beings made for exotic attractions, once appropriately trained. They had little else to do in the Prison except fight to survive. So the Seductress found her own niche. Being an Outsider herself, she could survive the area, and she had an alliance of sorts among those different beings.
At least enough to let her be and help her on occasion if required.
Convenient left Fenix to skirt around the top of the land mass of Outsiders’ Town. The old knight was far too human, some race Fenix hadn’t even heard of, to fit in there, let alone survive for very long without exhausting his own Vitae.
Fenix didn’t have too much trouble. A slight itch in the nostrils, but otherwise his body adapted well. So with a promise to wait for him at the forest teleport stone, Convenient left him to go after Quelina.
Only sometime later did it occur to Fenix to ask how Convenient would travel there.
**
It took half a day’s travel to get to the crescent bowl set into the mountains where Quelina lived.
The directions were clear, and the mountains dominated the landscape in that direction. On his way over, Fenix caught sight of some of the strange beings who inhabited this land mass.
One was a tall figure dressed in rags, hobbled by chains wrapped around the calves and knees, with more chains tied across and manacled to keep the arms hugged close to its chest. A loose cowl that did not blow off from the wind hung over a head that hunched between shoulders of brown tattooed skin.
The strange being moved slowly due to the chains restricting its movement.
Short steps and a swaying motion seemed to shroud it in perpetual misery.
He once saw in the distance a pair of flying creatures either playing or battling on top of some hills. They would arch up and dive at each other to fall down behind the horizon. He would have sworn one was a sphinx and the other some kind of humanoid lupine with raven’s wings.
They fought all of that day until he passed out of sight of them.
At another time, he observed that one of the markers he was using to judge his distance was not moving, and Fenix began to wonder if he was making progress—after all, the mountains did get closer. Then he realized—the massive stone he was checking against was itself on the move, on a path at an angle that would take it past him as he got closer to the mountains.
After some time, he got a better look at it.
The base of the rock lifted and dropped in segments. Cyan fire and vapors escaped when the blocks raised and stepped forward. Slowly, ponderously the giant edifice plodded its way over the land mass to a destination only it knew.
These and other such beings he saw. Some he could identify, others probably trapped inside his memories or things that even he did not know. Some gave off a sense of age that defied explanation, so old they may have been around long before the Prison itself, and were still trapped here.
But then, they didn’t appear to have the drive necessary to seek escape, complacent, in their own way, to live out eternity as prisoners.
A memory of discipline…
The Empire of Hellican was as long-lived as it was self-serving.
The vast expanse it controlled within the cosmos was ruled by ministers and kings who all ultimately bowed before the Arch-Emperor himself. Thousands of citizens under their rule died each year to provide the life force that extended the vitality of the Arch-Emperor’s family and closest friends.
The Empire of Hellican was ruled through a recipe of five parts influence, four parts fear, and one part malicious application of magic.
Under the great continent-spanning Imperial palace, with its eighteen walls and seventy-foot gates, lay four underground levels paved in bone flagstones. Under all of that, the caverns were filled with the necropolis of the Imperial necromancers, where powers over death supplied a permanent workforce.
Undead labored for the good of the Empire in every menial task, from construction, sewerage, and cannon fodder, to armed forces for as long the animated dead could last.
Slavery was reserved for the servants of the highest, since a corpse, even with the best of preservatives, could offend a royal nose. Fenix was one such slave, having been caught in battle, a ruse he had taken to with much chagrin, he was first assigned to the cleaning duties of the royal court.
The test of his masters, most importantly Her test, started with the insinuation of Fenix into the Empire of Hellican’s Imperial Palace.
Every fiber of his being rebelled against the plot, but within that was the lesson She wished him to learn. How to not only survive by force of arms and power in the arcane but to use his mind to control his baser instincts. A lesson he sorely needed, or so She told him.
So he took to the task and determined to exceed Her expectations, to show Her his worth and, most importantly, prove it to himself.
The walking dead were not used in the Imperial Palace. The miles-long hallways were kept clean and free of even a speck of dust by the army of living slaves. Some members of the court never traveled far enough through the palace to meet others with whom they communicated. Imperial gardens the size of small cities required horses to move through them. Sometimes the journey to deliver messages from one part of the palace to another could take days.
When not utilizing magical means, of course.
It took Fenix months to work his way up to kitchen duty, to learn the routines and the schedules to be that useful. It took him another year to be good enough and trusted enough in his servile behavior to get allocated further inward, to the royal family itself.
Even then, he was considered fit only to serve the youngest, the latest of the brood who had yet to even start living.
Ingratiating himself with the children brought him to the attention of their nurses.
Judicious application of his wiles and his more masculine attributes got the nurses to recommend him to the lowest of the wives, who in turn were quite pleased and well pleasured to
make use of him. For another two years, he served them regularly, always at hand, never an awkward hour, available for their every whim from food to bathing to more physical matters.
His opportunity came at last when one of them made the thoughtful comment that one of her most recent visitors should never walk the earth again.
When that visitor was found the next morning hanging from one of the immaculately sculpted centuries-old oak trees that shadowed part of one garden, she was very pleased. That he had recognized the need, performed the deed, and not been caught, as a slave, was most valuable.
Over the next few months the work got harder but for him a lot more satisfying in some gruesome ways.
Deaths multiplied quickly. The court of the Empire of Hellican was full of deceit, treachery and cunning maneuvers. It was during this time that he got perhaps his most laborious practice of all, to know when to kill and when not to. To understand the political intrigue behind a required murder and be able to speak about why it should or should not be done.
He most enjoyed the how. How a body should be found and where, how they should die, and who should die with them.
But Fenix also learned the why of it, and that the why gave much credence to the how. It was easy to just gut someone, but to gut them and frame them were lessons he had in theory, and those were much more complex.
His ability to elaborately stage the framing of other servants or nobles, and his keen intelligence in ferreting out the right way to elicit a death, even if it was not by his hand. The need to remain completely unimportant and not seek his own power through these deeds. Another great lesson overall.
He became practiced and adept, so much so that he was finally granted audience to the eldest daughter of the Arch-Emperor, an eminence all to herself.
**
The rooms were ludicrously well appointed, platinum lined every edge and accentuated every design.
The sheer wealth on just a single jeweled goblet would sustain even a wealthy family for a generation. The size of the room was in line with the rest of the palace, big enough to hold court in, but this one was only for private audiences.
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