Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  The Primal Tree produced biological nutrients of various kinds, all of which were available in thousands of veins running through the root system. They fed like straws into the floating creature’s mouth, entwined with its blunt teeth, growing haphazardly within its very gums, and supplying everything it needed to feed on. The head wasn’t always entirely visible, cloudbanks and mist from the far side opposite the Primal Tree’s roots seemed to be a humungous fall of water throwing up spray on a massive scale.

  Fenix was somehow drawn to consider the enormous Being’s head. It was miles across and longer from the fuzz of spikes behind its head to the tip of the nose, which was barely visible from this distance. It would take days just to go from one side to the other over the nose, to travel up its head to the tip of the nose was probably a week or longer depending on how the terrain would look down there among hairs the size of houses.

  But still, he somehow knew that he would need to do it, make the journey. Perhaps it had something to do with memories still locked inside his skull.

  Once they had gone far enough, the moth led him back south, in under the canopy darkness, a world of twined roots that created their own hills and peaks or valleys. Within the perpetual twilight was the beauty of thousands of fireflies, natural inhabitants of the Primal Tree and part of its eon’s long life cycle.

  Within that dark space, he was introduced to their target.

  **

  It had the head of a hunting feline, like a puma or panther, powerful jaws, sharp teeth and saber like canines poking out from its blackened lips.

  The creature was a dark green overall, so dark as to be almost black, camouflaged well in the twilight lacework of roots and leaves covering the ground underneath the Primal Tree. It had four legs, jointed like a feline and tipped in claws of pure white that glinted when seen, usually briefly, by its prey.

  The intimidation came in when you realized that the animal was still so quick, so agile and yet had to move around several hundred tons of body weight. It was bigger than the entire fortress built by Joanne and still managed to flit about the root’s landscape without leaving much of a mark. Such strength was prodigious, the sense of balance and grace showed that it had immense faculty for athleticism.

  All in all, extremely dangerous.

  They observed it from afar, being of little interest since its natural prey was the enormously grown deer analog that seemed to be part of the biosphere. They watched it gorge on such a carcass, with a chest cavity left eaten out that they could have set up a scout’s camp in.

  “I’ll be honest; I didn’t think it would be quite that much of a challenge,” Fenix admitted to the moth. The soundless exchange was useful for staying hidden.

  “It is quite big isn’t it?” The moth replied with no hint of amusement.

  Fenix smiled grimly. “Oh yes, and made more interesting that you need it subdued alive.”

  “Well yes, of course, there is that. It’s always easier to kill something, no matter how big it is.”

  “Good thing I have an idea then,” he replied.

  “Your wings dust, you said it has a chemical effect, is it like a hallucinogen?

  “It is.”

  “Good then here is the plan.”

  After Fenix outlined it and the moth agreed they got to work. Overall, the plan went off without a hitch despite the few days’ effort it took to get it right. Fenix was pleased to be able to scheme and see the results again, even if in this limited way within the Prison. It unlocked more of his memories and skills, so it was well worth the effort.

  The idea was to get the beast into a pit dug to capture it, the obvious problem being how to lure or force the creature to run headlong into such a trap. That was where the hallucinogen came in; with the proper dose, Fenix was sure that he could get the beast to see and experience whatever he wanted. So he collected some herbs and plants, then made a fire as intense as only he could while harvesting the moth’s dust for several days in a row.

  He then set about formulating a decoction, concentrating the effect consistently after each attempt until he had a viscous paste to smear onto his arrowheads.

  “Your knowledge of alchemy is impressive.” The moth commented at one point.

  “The fact that you even know what the term means bothers me,” he had replied.

  The moth didn’t pursue the subject further.

  While the concentration strained through the silk filters he’d made from spider webs, Fenix dug a very deep hole at a location somewhat away from where the beast was roaming. Anything else that came close was easily deterred or killed; their Vitae added to his own.

  Once they were ready, he enacted the plan.

  Fenix fired arrows tipped with the new concoction into the beast, it was big enough that no single arrow would significantly harm it; he wondered if even the soft spots would take enough harm to be effective. Luckily, he didn’t need to find out; after three arrows, the beast was intoxicated and alarmingly anxious about everything around it.

  Fenix then executed spells of illusion, the haze of fire and color through light coming with an effort to his latent talent but something he could do. Or he could have done it better in the past.

  So many skills he may have, locked away.

  The preparations worked well, he was able to drive the creature through the root system of the jungle beneath the Primal Tree using massively sized replicas of the velociraptors from before.

  Ordinarily, it would have been able to tell the difference between a living being and the light and sound that Fenix created from magic, but with the drug in its system, the illusions seemed quite real. In short order, he herded the beast right into the hole where it collapsed exhausted against the rim.

  Then the moth took its turn, gently gliding down from the higher root it had been waiting on the creature landed lightly on the back of the beasts head. The butterfly proboscis unrolled, and Fenix then got some of his suspicions confirmed as to the lethality of the moth. The proboscis was in fact made of many smaller tendrils, each with a sharply pointed tip.

  The moth shoved these tendrils in a through the back of the beast’s skull, each tendril driving in at a different angle into the brain of the thing.

  Fenix watched in awe as the gigantic beast went still and then shuddered about violently, spasms wracking its body as the probes from the moth dug deeper into it. It made no sounds, no wail of pain or noise of complaint, but the grotesque lurching parody of motion continued while the moth drunk from the beast.

  The moth’s abdomen swelled like a tick, or a mosquito, draining vital fluids and all sorts of other material from the beast’s skull. Its organic sac expanded at a phenomenal rate, the moth worked diligently at getting every last bit of residue that it could before allowing the beast to die. Something it did kept it alive while the horrendous act of drinking up its brain, nerves, and spinal fluid took place, but when it finished the prison’s usual mist swept off the body, leaving behind only a drained husk.

  **

  The moth had then led Fenix in a hopping flight back into what had been the beast’s territory. It jumped from high root to root because it was so full and much heavier than it had been before.

  Deep under the tree canopy and close to the biggest of the roots the moth found a good hollow under one of the giant plants many appendages and began to spin its cocoon, all the while explaining to Fenix about the map he wanted.

  “You will find it on the northwestern tip of the plateau linked to the one we came from,” it said, the whisper of its voice broken occasionally as it focused on spinning around with the strands of material it was sticking to the root.

  “From the savannah with the baobab trees, those big ones?” he asked.

  He got the impression of a nod from the butterfly head, so innocent looking.

  “Yes, on the edge above the roots we used as a bridge to get here to the Primal Tree, travel north and follow the land mass around to the west. Keep going west; you will get a good vie
w down onto the misty back of the Prison creature as you follow the rim. You can’t miss the place; it is built like a small town with a wall on the outside.”

  “Who built it?”

  “I do not know, but they aren’t there anymore, or at least I can say there are no specific inhabitants. No one can get in, the gate is locked, but I’m sure you can find a way. I flew over once, and directly over to the biggest building, inside the tallest tower, I found the map. A great big table filled with sand that shifted over itself, some kind of magic certainly. The sand displayed the entire Prison layout in great detail.”

  The cocoon was coming along well, already the sides were up a foot all around, the moth then clung to the wall and began to scrape at itself, the motion like a caress except that the claws pushed hard at the outer layer of skin. With a bit of time it started to move, the outer covering sloughed off revealing a bright brown layer beneath covered in slime. A much softer skin, unprotected and ready for change.

  “Fenix,” the moth whispered while it worked. “That town, or village or whatever it was. It did have something in it. Something I avoided by flying over. Something that couldn’t get out to chase after me. I don’t know what it is.”

  He raised an eyebrow and was going to comment when the moth interrupted.

  “I know, I should have said so before. But honestly you are going to try anyway, and I didn’t think you would pale at the prospect of other danger. Not if you could help me with this beast at any rate. If you hadn’t been successful, then I wouldn’t have told you anything anyway.”

  It was right, and practical about it, too. The moth dropped its outer skin to the ground far below it and began to work on the cocoon again. Fenix spent his time cleaning out the inside of the shed skin and seeing about packing it for travel. It didn’t take long before he was ready to go, and he started to climb out of the hollow.

  “Oh, and Fenix?” the susurrus of the moth’s voice called out to him.

  He turned back slightly; the shed skin wrapped up in a bundle and tied with leather thongs to his back. It was, as promised, quite sturdy and remarkably flexible. If the creature wanted something else though, or perhaps if it were now going to spring its’ trap, this would be the time. He tensed in readiness for whatever was going to come.

  Its whispering rustle of a voice was humble as it said.

  “Thank You.”

  Fenix held there a moment longer, the silent pause as telling as if he had started in surprise. The giant butterfly moth kept spinning its cocoon, now up over the head of the being.

  It said nothing more.

  Something within Fenix stirred at the thought of his journey with the moth and a parallel with Convenient. He was certain that his journey with the moth had been for expediency, to get something for something.

  Despite the trite gratitude of the creature which he did not care to wonder if it was sincere or not, it did not matter.

  With Convenient it had also been expediency, but somewhere along the way it may have also become something else, something he could recognize as lacking here.

  But what?

  Fenix gave a curt nod and continued on his way.

  A Memory of Love…

  The city was not in ruins, such was a testament to the quality of its construction, all to enervate the worship of their rulers.

  The buildings sprawled, built up and outward to show off their majesty, lining a central colonnade a mile wide and paved in square stones of marble eight feet to a side. The raised escarpment upon which the city was built had a deep chasm on one side and two deeply quarried cliffs on a further two.

  The final side had been made to be defensible.

  Walls angled geometrically from one cliff side to the other over the roads that all led to this city. Each of the walls was four hundred feet high, with towers twice that high spaced in half-mile gaps along the top. Fortifications lined the tops of the walls, while inside they were hollow with slits to fire out at invaders.

  The slow rise up the only approach to the city was protected by eight of these walls, each one wider, thicker, and more impressive than the first.

  Around the escarpment were more walls, all of them curving inward, with great pillars topped by more towers. It would take any engineer or a military architect many years to work out how to siege a city built like this one. These beings, who had created this one, had spent centuries in labor to construct an edifice insurmountable by any foe.

  A bastion for their people, their ruling class even, the protection of these citizens being of paramount importance.

  Fenix could well believe that these people should be paranoid, especially as She knew of them well enough to give him the exact coordinates for the portal he cast to bring them here. Aurelian joined him on this foray, exactly why he did not know, but it told him much about Her trust in him that they brought no others. After arriving in the central square with its smashed portal arches, he came to understand why.

  They stepped on the ancient bones of the many dead littering the portal square, his hard leather boots cracked many of the skulls, so old they broke like old clay. Aurelian even took some pleasure in crushing the bones; he could tell because Her bare feet did, in fact, put weight behind them, reducing the detritus underfoot to fine dust wherever She walked.

  It was an impressive square; the portal arches were silver, tarnished by age now, with the deep-set gems and glyphs still visible, if only barely. Set along the mile-wide road into the city center the portal square was a mile and a half to a side just back from the main thoroughfare. From its raised position, he could see the steps that rose up on all four sides allowing wide swathes of dust covered roads to lead up into it.

  “Come,” She spoke gently, and made Her way out of the square and toward the main road. He saw in her expression that She wanted to share this with him. It was odd, and he contemplated while they made their way. She was usually not so open and casual with him. It had all changed since his last success at Her greatest task.

  Her demeanor had become, caring.

  On the marble road, he found even more bones, but these were interspersed with armor, steel plates, exotic weapons, and massive shields.

  He observed the number and placement of the ages-old corpses, considered the numbers and carefully looked around at the sizeable buildings around him. This road rose slowly toward the impressive palace, built up as squat flat-topped pyramids overlooking the chasm beyond.

  But behind, he turned to observe the walls, and it was immediately apparent that they were cracked through in various places. It was clear that this city had fought a battle of defense, and lost.

  Breaches in several places along each wall could be seen clearly with their height and massive girth. Especially as their walk brought them to rise higher than the buildings along each side of the road, the extra height allowed Fenix to see the barren plains beyond the walls.

  As far away as it was, his enhanced sight could make out the furrows of warfare, the old spots for camps holding a siege. The city had not fallen easily; such scars on the ground that lasted centuries were only made by a sincere commitment to the battle.

  She was showing him something, something important, even if he did not yet know what that was. They came into an open rectangle of marble flooring just before the hundred steps that rose up between the pyramids.

  Fenix could imagine the leader of these people, an emperor or king, a supreme ruler of some kind, looking down into the square where troops would assemble in a parade. Now it was a boneyard where a final stand had been made.

  Between the broad road leading here, the walls, and the contents of this parade ground, Fenix estimated there had been millions of people in the city, and most of them had been soldiers. A fighting retreat had come up the road, in the final moments of the city’s existence as a home, many thousands of warriors dying as they fought to hold back some enemy.

  Lastly, here in this courtyard with three miles in length and one and a half in width they fo
ught their final stand. The layers of bones and armor covered the floor, forming a whole new crackling and crumbling carpet over the marble far beneath. So many lives, so very many of these soldiers who had died to defend their ruler.

  It was highly impressive that these people had commanded such obedience.

  Aurelian led him further up, the stairs had their own coating of long-dead beings, much of the heavier objects had blown down to form a pile at the foot of the stairs while archers and perhaps even spell caster’s corpses lined the avenue going up.

  They entered the third pyramid at the back and once inside continued to more stairs that wove back and forth up the inside.

  The scenes within had changed; now it was probably the ruling family found dead with personal guards in clumps around defensible doorways.

  Luxurious clothing that withstood natural decay could still be seen around haphazardly bent limbs. Whoever these people had been, they were once humanoid, the dust of ages settled upon them with as much disinterest as time showed all failed species.

  She brought them out onto a wide balcony set at the highest point in the final pyramid, overlooking the city it gave an impressive vantage point. As far as he could see, Fenix could discern the neat streets and wealthy buildings spreading outward to meet the walls with their various layers.

  From here, the crowds would be gathered in squares situated for the best view up at this balcony so they would be able to cheer their rulers.

  A massive stone bowl centered at the back of the balcony could be filled with oil and lit to provide a beacon far out over the plains beyond. Set in front of this bowl, closer to the balcony railing were some chairs of marble, centered among them a great throne inlaid with precious metals.

  She went over to the throne; stepping around the tall back, She trailed a hand through the dust covering it. Without the fire for warmth, it was cold up here, not that either of them cared. Fenix let out some of his fire to warm himself, and She just carried on in any weather, such was Her existence.