The corridor Wisp led him along by this point opened up on their right, an open space half a mile wide along all four sides of a square room.
The ceiling of that room was a few floors above, Fenix could see the openings of other passages all looking in. And some levels below, which if he judged rightly made the room a half mile high from floor to ceiling as well. But what was truly interesting was what was inside the room.
Two gatherings of energy, which was the only way to describe it because there was nothing material about them except they seemed more substantial than the rock he walked on. One was a pristine white and the other a black so pitch it sucked in the light and yet they were both stationary in the middle of the room side by side.
They flared, fluxes of power coming off one another in gaseous tendrils, like watching solar flares on a sun. But they never touched, the two different forms seemed completely primal in nature and power, and yet Fenix couldn’t even extend his magical perception toward them in any way.
They must be warded, and shaped somehow by the surrounding structure he thought to himself.
For all, he knew the palace and the labyrinth outside could have been one giant spell form wrought from lines and angles just to contain these two things. What lent credence to this was that the prison’s effect of white and black gas seeped in through the walls all around the sparks of energy, the filaments stretching out to be absorbed by the same color of the spark they matched.
The entire construct was old, old on a scale he had never felt before, older even than the Prison itself he felt.
It was fascinating, and he also knew that this was the business of the Warden and something he should not tamper with. His previous visit had taught him about it though, this effort on the part of the Warden, this was his plan.
“Ahem,” Wisp said out loud, what with no lungs to actually cough.
The floating gas was near an opening in the one wall, so Fenix joined it, and they entered the room beyond. It was small, he could have touched all four sides by stretching out his arms. Then it moved, the opening looking out at the sparks showed him the floors moving by as they went up, higher into the building.
“Interesting,” he said out loud.
“Isn’t it just?” Wisp commented happily, bobbing out when the room came to a stop in another room with a view down toward the leashed energy matrices. “The Warden borrowed the idea from a mechanical concept. He just made ours arcane, saving the need for stairs, which would break up the design.”
Fenix followed Wisp into the room.
It was wide and had a glass front where it protruded above the two sparks. On one wall, the head of the Warden stuck out, even larger than before.
“Fenix, good. Look at the opposite wall if you please.” The Warden’s voice created a deep rumble in the walls and floor like it was passing through everything.
He turned and looked at the surface opposite the giant stone head, into it was engraved the outline of a door, a high rectangle set with runes of gold and silver.
“That is the only way in or out of the Prison that does not get handled from the outside.” The Warden spoke. “I spend most of my time here protecting this room and that doorway, to make sure there are no escapes.”
Ah, so now we get down to it. The bargaining, to see what was going to happen next.
“I take it that the door doesn’t open easily then? I can’t just run right on through now?” Fenix took a step closer to the door, his senses playing over the surface and detecting the tingles of magical energy.
“Well no. But then you don’t really expect it to be that easy.” The Warden smiled.
“No Fenix, you and I have a bargain, one we made when you were in far better shape than you are now. And even then you would have been loath to challenge me in my own domain.”
He was right about that, never fight on terrain that’s good for your enemy if you can help it, especially not their own home or sanctuary. But even if it was on the most remote planetoid so far from the Prison that there would be no name for it in place and time Fenix felt the Warden could still best him.
A worthy challenge, for another day.
“Yes, of course. I have no intention of challenging you. You know what I really want.”
The Warden bothered him, instinctually, because it was ultimately able to stop him and he didn’t want to take the time to figure out how to try again later.
“I have brought you a gift, in return for my freedom.
It startled him when the Warden laughed, a rolling boom that carried great mirth and understanding.
“Yes,” the head said when it managed to regain control of its humor. “I’m sure you have, you seem to have thought this one through very well.”
The Warden gave a slight chuckle again before continuing. “I show you this door and my power so that you understand that there is only one way open to you. I will let you out Fenix, just as I did the last time when I stopped you from your very clever magical escape. It took you so long to develop that exit.
The Warden smiled, it was big, and happy. “When I stopped you I thought you would die trying to kill me.”
Fenix tried not to sound skeptical. “What happened?”
“You had shown me a weakness in the Prison, I offered you your freedom in return, and I closed off the weakness so that it could never be used again. But then you surprised me.”
Fenix could feel the stone face resonate, like some kind of bargain had been struck before, and he was still held to it despite not remembering anything. A magical bargain, one bound with a being this powerful, if it weren’t what he thought it was then it would be very bad.
“You asked to stay for a while longer before I freed you.”
Fenix blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yes. You finished your plans to warn yourself when you came back and prepared your next escape. You also made the bargain with me, it was part of your promise of what you would do on your return. The only way you had anything of value enough to count.”
“I must say, you do know yourself very well Fenix, not a trait that many individuals possess. Do you have any idea why I say that?”
Fenix thought about it for a moment.
“Because I knew I would be back, and in a different way from last time. The Prison would have evolved while I was gone and with my return, I would be able to help it settle back into a normal ecosystem, a system of survival among the inmates with greater and lesser beings vying for the privilege of supposed rule.”
“I expected to return and fix the changes I made from my first arrival, and somehow this helps you while I still try to escape again.”
“Indeed.” The Warden looked down on him without any expression, useful that, blunt features and no telltales.
It waited for him.
“You know that I brought you Page, that it is my bargaining chip?”
“Yes” Drawled the Warden.
“The battle among the convicts, the drive and passion push the overall energy level immensely. The direct struggle, this actually helps our work here, an occasional uprising was always magnificent to energize the place, and the sparks once more. You have done that now, for which I find you useful.”
“Oh, don’t worry; I’ll be glad to kill Page for you,” Fenix spoke idly, his mind working through the various options. I knew that you would need Page dead. He disrupts your work here because when he kills, the energy you need doesn’t come to you, it goes to him.”
“Correct.” Rumbled the room around him.
“Will you tell me more about our deal?”
“No.”
“So you brought me up here to show me your work and the door to impress upon me why I have no choice but that I still get what I want?”
“Exactly so.”
“I can live with that.”
**
Page was quite frustrated, and It wasn’t sure how to deal with it either.
Somewhere, in a dim recollection garnered from among the
memories Page had reacquired It knew that It had felt this way before. But before It could also vent that frustration on adoring worshippers, relishing in the act or acts It meted out.
Now the only target for Page’s ire could be the gray skin, who was nowhere to be found.
It had been led here on the promise of escape, which It was sure could be managed with the power and might of Its superior being. However, Page had yet to find an opportunity to bring Its full force to bear. The light snacks taken from other convicts during the battles had been enough to keep It well nourished.
Such lesser beings should know their place, many of them had struggled against It.
That was why Page had been sure to collect and brainwash them when they arrived; afterward, they were so…independent. It found that unsightly in the extreme, how those suited only to be servants could espy or endeavor to be more.
Even the gray skin, intelligent creature that he was, would have to learn his place.
Once he got Page out of here, of course.
Perhaps that would be Its new method of cultivating servitude, that service was the value you held to your god and if you did not, could not or would not serve then you had no value and would be food.
Yes, that sounded splendid, encouragement to be of value cultivated among the ranks while also proving the correct place for all.
It found the very idea to be brilliant, perhaps it had toyed with it in the past, who knew, when Page got out It would surely remember everything. And then it could piece together the information from the gray skin and Its own complete plans into a new whole with which to conquer the insipid godlings who had condemned it to this place.
Hmmm, such idle musings were pleasurable.
Old Man Page, in Its healthy and robust body, restored to a considerable amount of godlike capacity, or so it thought, was interrupted mid-daydream when one of Its underlings got killed. They were inside the passages behind columns edging the courtyard It finally found itself in.
The vacant husks of Its last servants fought well, with a strength and stamina that made up for their complete lack of independent thought.
Capable of forging ahead through a rain of arrows, they were nevertheless not going to excel as warriors. Although they could react and fight with astonishing speed they worked best in large numbers, numbers it would have to replenish once it got out, far too many had fallen in the days of battle.
This one died as the former being’s head was reduced to smoking ash by a hazy blue bolt of fire.
Page had seen many of those bolts just recently, and the time had seemingly come for a reckoning. It had hoped for this, a good reason to kill and absorb the essence of the gray skin, he would make a most satisfying meal.
It was sure that the irritation of the pale skin with the burning blade had been mostly because of the gray skin, not that Page would have done differently. It made sense that the gray skin would look after his investment, Page would do the same.
But that the gray skin was so impudent as to even attempt to control and manipulate Page, that It would not condone!
Further anger was generated as more of Its minions disintegrated in a flurry of attacks hidden behind the columns. One after the other they were shot through the head from above or below, brief glimpses of an athletic humanoid form slipping through grabs, under swiping claws, and keeping just out of reach of the implements wielded by the husks.
As the gray skin passed, they died, each and every one shot dead through the empty shells of their heads.
He would pay for this, all of this, and everything else Page had endured in the Prison. Some small part of Page wondered what would have happened if Fenix had not survived the arrivals area, but It squashed that little voice with furious vehemence.
“Hello, Page.” The voice came from Its right, among the fancy columns.
It realized that the last of Its minions had fallen, they were alone.
**
Fenix calmly walked out into the center of the courtyard, his steps slow and sure as they punctuated what he was saying.
“You see Page, I realized something. I realized that in this Prison, this strange place of very strange beings and even stranger events I found something I never knew I didn’t have. I found a friend, the only friend in my entire life, something I didn’t even know how to have and yet I found it here in this most unlikely of places.”
Page’s blue face crinkled in puzzlement but it didn’t do anything, not yet.
Fenix squinted up at the sunlight streaming in from above.
“I have to fight you now, I have to actually kill you and then escape. But you see there is a difference between killing you and most every other act of murder I have ever committed except for one. I’m not going to discuss Her with you of course, but I did want you to know.”
The realization had been long in coming, Fenix was glad that his past self had always intended the death of Page to be his leverage out of here. The Warden needed a convict to kill a convict for the Prison’s purpose to stay intact.
Page had absorbed so much of what the Warden wanted, that white and black essence, that if he were simply killed and the essence lost, it would set back the Prison’s purpose. Fenix did not know the exact details, but he was happy, actually happy, to be the instrument of Page’s demise.
Fenix looked up into the eyes of the demented entity.
“I want to kill you Page, because you killed my best friend.”
**
Many times stronger than Torn and much, much faster Page went for Fenix as the last word left his mouth.
The entity was not interested in cutting him short, it barely understood what Fenix was saying, but it was out of patience. The force behind a volcano narrowed to the point of Page’s fist slammed through the intervening air with a sonic boom.
Fenix met the fist with both hands and caught it.
Emerald shattered under his feet, the walls to either side caved in, and the blowback alone whipped up a maelstrom that carried away the emerald shards and dust with enough speed to decapitate an average person.
His body was limned in blue fire, head to toe his talent cloaked him in the energy of that pure aspect of life. Fire was used to survive, for many the many things that fire gives and can take away it is a symbol for a reason.
Fenix embodied fire, and with this embodiment, became an avatar of the potent fundamental aspect of the cosmos. Under his direction, Fenix’s store of Vitae disappeared all at once, absorbed and transformed into the energy he needed.
To throw it all into this final battle.
His hair loose, the white shining in sapphire highlights, Fenix pushed down, taking Page’s fist with him and then swept in along the side of the forearm. Cobalt blue enervated into electric life streaked along his limbs as Fenix crashed his elbow down against Page’s arm.
The bigger, taller entity snapped to the floor with a crunch of breaking emerald.
Surprised but unharmed Page had to get up before he could locate Fenix again, who was already on the move. Among the pillars and out of sight, the gray skin was still visible as a burning glow, could still be felt where he radiated such heat that the air wavered through the entire courtyard.
Page stretched his other arm out, the first coming up from the ground all bent out of shape, and it crossed the distance to the pillars and swept from side to side. Like a blue tentacle, the limb crashed through the columns of emerald and shattered them into flying splinters of lethal shrapnel.
From out of the cloud flew Fenix, on a flare of blue fire, right into Page’s chest where the impact caved in what amounted for Page’s body and then sent it flying back to shatter the pillars on the other side of the courtyard.
Two things puzzled Page.
It could not understand why it was that Fenix did not stick to him like any other being he touched, and then drained of life. The other thing which bothered it explained the first thing, Page was hurt.
Not by the attempt to break its arm, nor by
the blow which had sent it through emerald with shattering force. The emerald shards were about as effective in harming Page as the weapons of the bronze guards had been.
That was to say, complete ineffective.
No, Page was sore where he had touched Fenix and where Fenix had, in turn, touched him.
Its skin was blistered and peeling, the outer layer which was usually used to latch on and consume the substance of a living being burnt away before it could work.
That was most frustrating.
Healing itself and setting the concept of healing to its subconscious, Page got up and stepped through the emerald rubble. There ahead of it stood Fenix, wreathed in an aura of sapphire flame, a flame that burned and purified, the flame that protected Fenix from even Page’s unique gifts.
This was not going to be easy, which frustrated Page even further.
The blue being strode forward, growing larger with each step until at twice its original height Page brought down both fists to reduce Fenix into glowing pieces.
The gray skin had other ideas.
Sidestepping and grabbing at Page’s wrists, digging deep with callused fingers far stronger than they appeared, enervated by magic, Fenix flipped Page over with its own momentum. More emerald broke, crumbled and shattered as Page came down on its back among another part of the courtyard.
Page shook its head, noting that this was a different circumstance than it had found itself in, inside the Prison.
But from before, from when Page had been ignominiously defeated and sent here.
More frustration, enough frustration to move continental plates.
The residents of the Prison had never seen Page angry, so angry that it put everything it had into punishing what it felt was responsible for causing it to be angry. Only the original population of worshippers had seen Page angry.
That anger, the righteous wrath of their God, was what led them into such subservience in the first place. A global population living without hope under the ever-present threat of annihilation from a malicious infant of a deity who could throw a tantrum and crack their world in half.
Convict Fenix Page 49