by Brant Danay
Chariah's claws whistled to a sudden stop.
"Are you their father?" he asked the Cacoshaman.
"Their father I am not," the ancient one replied, "although their mothers were once concubines in my intergalactic harem. I'd have ripped their fetuses stillborn from the womb had I the chance. Now, they have perverted this paradise planet with their genetic sorceries, their twisted religions and their tantric abominations," the Cacoshaman rambled.
"Where are their mothers now?" Chariah asked the Cacoshaman.
The old yogi raised his totemic staff and pointed to two of the shriveled heads upon it.
"Come now, partake of more mushrooms. You've not fully healed yet," the Cacoshaman said.
"It will take more than mushrooms to heal these wounds, old one" Chariah replied.
"Well," said the ancient demon, resignedly, "do what thou wilt."
Chariah looked puzzlingly upon the elder, although his crimson eyes did not betray any hint of his perplexity. Chariah raised his claws into the air once more, this time bringing them down in a wide arc and slashing clean through the old demon's throat, decapitating him with a single blow. His withered head rolled through the mushrooms before coming to rest amongst the psilocybin he had so enjoyed.
The body of the decapitated yogi did not crumple or fall over, however, but maintained itself in the black lotus position, its spine as straight and its muscles as rigid as if he were still alive. Blood fountained from his severed jugular veins and carotid arteries in waterspouts and arching streams. Chariah caught the sacred crimson greedily on his tongue and imbibed it like elixir, drinking the spurting plasma like a starving vampire. Once the jetstreams of blood had been reduced to mere rivulets dribbling down the corpse's chest, Chariah retrieved the severed head of the Cacoshaman.
With one flash of his claws he removed the top of the demon's bald, ebony head, then emptied the brains from his sable skull. He set the brains aside for later, then began to carve and vivisect the decapitated corpse. The headless Cacoshaman continued to sit upright in the black lotus position even in death, even as Chariah excised large chunks of muscle from his skeleton and spitted his inner organs on his claws. He filled the Cacoshaman's skull with his own mutilated flesh, hot blood, and still-beating organs, then replaced the brain and scalp, bore a small hole in the back of the skull with one claw, and used the severed head as a pipe. Cobalt smoke tinged with veins of electric blue billowed from the eye sockets, nostrils, mouth, and ears of the Cacoshaman's head as Chariah inhaled its grisly contents. Finally, Chariah's wounds completely closed and healed, his body melting back together like shadows. The pain of his injuries was abolished as broken bones knitted and lacerations closed seamlessly into jet black skin without even the faintest of scars.
Several hours later, the regalvanized Necrodelic arose and departed the psilocybin gardens through an opening in the far wall of the cavern. His victim had been picked clean, as though by carrion eaters and scavengers. Not a trace of meat, flesh, organ, or blood remained. The Necrodelic left behind nothing of the Cacoshaman but a skull and a black skeleton, still seated upright in the meditative black lotus position, a totem staff of shrunken heads in one hand, a still-lit hookah in the other. The Cacoshaman's black phalanges remained joined around each fetish, forefinger to thumb upon black patellas, with black femurs, tibias, and fibulas crossed, black spine straight, black ribcage intact. As Chariah made his exit, the Cacoshaman's charred, sooty skull rolled slowly across the chamber, levitated into the air, and balanced itself precariously upon the tip of the Cacoshaman's spine. Still weeping smoke from its empty eye sockets and drooling liquid ashes from its rictus, the skeleton of the Cacoshaman meditated in its tomb of psilocybin, smoldering like a gruesome thurible.
32
The Psilocybin Labyrinth shimmered and crawled like a thing alive, the floor, walls and ceiling continually melting into one another as Chariah made his way through the spinning tunnels. Surrounding him were the dripping colors of the maze: magenta, indigo, aquamarine, cerulean, carnelian, carmine, rose, olive, saffron, and silver, flowing over and into one another with slow, hypnotic waves. There were colors the Necrodelic had never seen before, or which he had not previously perceived as colors, joined with the others in what seemed the Psilocybin Labyrinth's private, secret spectrum.
Diaphanous was a color here, as were effulgence and mirrors. The gelid drops of mirror reflected distorted images of the Necrodelic as he passed, perpetually stretching, bulging, and rearranging parts of his body while drenching them with the ephemeral colors of the amorphous labyrinth, creating various combinations that were sometimes disturbing, sometimes tragic, sometimes frightening, sometimes absurd, sometimes disgusting, and sometimes religious.
The corridors spun faster and faster the further Chariah travelled, colors racing in mad orbits around the ceilings, walls, and floors. In the distance, like a vortex, a small opening in the tunnel continually changed color and shape, but never size, even after Chariah had been walking towards it for hours. He often lost sight of it in his twistings and turnings, but always seemed to locate it again later, though it remained perpetually unattainable.
The colors were simultaneously bleeding, raining, and melting around the Necrodelic. Chariah watched with hypnotized eyes as time slowed down, sped up, and sometimes stopped entirely. Observing the colors was sometimes like watching a year's worth of clouds in one minute, seeing them race across the sky in all their permutations and transmogrifications without having to wait for hundreds or thousands of days, or like watching the process of erosion over several millennia in mere moments, or the entire existence of the universe, from genesis to armageddon, in one second, as one singular, gigantic, simultaneous, infinite, amorphous mass.
The Psilocybin Labyrinth played with his tunnel vision, entire corridors shrinking around him to the point where he couldn't move and was trapped for several minutes, then expanding into the size of rotundas or colosseums until they were so vast that Chariah was constantly lost and wandered their changeling floors for hours. The tunnels often spun in place, leaving Chariah walking on the walls or ceiling for extended periods of time. Sometimes he would sink into the ground, as though a pool had opened beneath him, immersing him in the tides of the floating colors up to his neck, then raising him back to the original floor. Faces appeared in the dripping colors, moaning and chanting, before melting back into oblivion. Oracles opened in the ceiling and floor, revealing evanescent glimpses of distant futures and ancient histories.
Rainbows criss-crossed the air. Fungus Demons made entirely of psilocybin attacked. Many took on the appearances of Chariah's enemies, the Oneirophage, Morpheus Rex, the Tantradox, Democubus, Serpentikal, Spidratha, Pestilentia, Panzebub, the Cacoshaman, the Sadimancer, the Horned Ones, and even Satan himself, as well as numerous other beasts and demons he remembered from his billions of past incarnations and some he had yet to encounter in the wars to come.
Chariah struck down the fungoid homunculi with his claws, in brief parodies of his previous battles that were somewhat similar to past life regression, reliving wars both won and lost throughout the eons, releasing streams of blue blood to join the other fluid colors of the maze, and leaving in his wake piles of quivering corpses in the shapes of demons he had known.
A rich viridescence joined the changeling colors of the labyrinth, adding its hue to the rest. As Chariah continued on, the viridescent colors became more dominant, until they were half of the maze, interspersed like camouflage amongst the other shades. Chariah touched a patch of the emerald color on the wall. It felt thick, dry, and smooth, and was ridged with miniscule hooks. The entire labyrinth began to change shape as he felt his hand turn green. Further ahead, the colors ceased melting and began forming bright patterns of stripes, diamonds, and camouflage. The maze sometimes led the Necrodelic in circles now, sometimes elevating slightly, sometimes forming bridges over the corridors he had previously traversed, sometimes taking him in concentric rings or downward spirals
in a labyrinth that seemed to have been inspired by a pile of entrails and then constructed in their image.
Chariah halted, realizing that the labyrinth was not only reminiscent of spilled viscera. It was also similar to the coils of a snake in repose. The Necrodelic stopped and smelled the air. Venom. He examined another piece of viridescence on the wall, ran his palms over it, breathed the chemicals in it. Snakeskin. Chariah turned, hissing aloud as he bared his black fangs.
"Serpentopolis."
Cautiously the Necrodelic trod the spiral corridors, whose walls more and more took on the colors and patterns of snakeskin. Ahead, he saw sunlight and the silhoutte of two thin fangs. He walked along the passageway to the snakehead and looked beyond its open mouth. The first thing that caught his crimson gaze was the form of Serpentikal.
The ophidian behemoth's cobra hood protruded from the streets and buildings of Serpentopolis, looming over the rebuilt snake civilization, which had been thoroughly repaired and augmented with additional levels. Chariah stood on the high balcony of one of the snakehead turrets, gazing at the back of Serpentikal's skull. The labyrinth below him was a mass of tangled coils, forming the writhing streets, alleyways, and bridges of the city. The Necrodelic swept his gaze around in a horizontal semi-circle. There were other snakehead turrets and parapets across from him, some of which revolved upon their own necks. Balconies and eyries were built into the upper levels as well. To the far right, its extracted dungeon levels wrapped in serpent coils, was the prism palace of Phantasmagorika, towering over all. Its foundation was level with the crown of Serpentikal's hood, now that its dungeons had been torn from the ground like a behemoth's tooth and accompanying nerve. Its heavily guarded drawbridge, currently raised, formed the lone passageway between Phantasmagorika and Serpentopolis, leading into the snakehead towers. The entire castle had been transplanted, psychedelic moat and all, onto this living monstrosity. The revelation was an instant one for the Necrodelic, for he had known the manner in which the dream-eater had survived and escaped Grystiawa, and similarly slipped from his own black clutches in the Omnibeast and fled into outer space. Chariah was gazing at this moment upon the Oneirophage's saurian spaceship.
Chariah refocused upon the head of Serpentikal. The giant serpent was engaged in combat with some unseen foe, its hood flared and fangs snapping. Occasionally, the great monster would strike, and Chariah caught a glimpse of the green cords that bound him to the ship, flexible so that the serpent could attack but indestructible so that he could not escape. The tethers looked to have been made with living anacondas and boa constrictors.
An arrow whistled past the Necrodelic's head as he observed the Serpentopolis. Serpentman archers had taken up positions in the snakehead turrets directly across from him, which had rotated to face the intruder. The serpentmen were firing upon him with crossbows as well as bows and arrows. Their missiles were coral snakes, black mambas, and asps. Chariah sliced the venomous vipers in half with his claws before they could strike him fang-first and inject their poisons into his flesh. With his right palm he launched a volley of fireballs over the coils of the Serpentopolis and into the parallel towers, destroying the serpent archers one by one, knocking them backwards into the open mouths where they perched or toppling them in flames to burn in the streets of the city.
The jaws of the living snakehead turret which Chariah stood within began to unhinge. Chariah climbed out of the aroused snakehead just as its jaws crashed down in an attempt to impale him, its throat spasming in anticipation of swallowing its wounded prey whole, to capture and deliver him through its esophagi to the unknown depths of Serpentopolis. The Necrodelic emerged from its mouth and alighted upon the crown of its head, then began running across the ophidian turrets, leaping from snakehead to snakehead until he reached the front wall of the city. He turned and ran across the towers of the front wall in the exact same manner, then jumped high into the air and landed upon the hood of Serpentikal.
The ancient First Serpent had been reanimated through voodoo and served as the figurehead of the Oneirophage's saurian spaceship. The scar of its decapitation was still fresh, like a diamondback pattern encircling its throat, and the smell of embalming fluids was pungent and overpowering. The gargantuan zombie hissed and swayed as Chariah knelt atop its skull, but could do nought to harm the Necrodelic in its current position. It refocused, instead, upon the struggle at hand, as Chariah watched from above.
The giant worm which had devoured the Tantradox and its conjoined sharks had burst from a mountainside cave and was trading head butts with Serpentikal. Its blind head was bloodied, and several of the fangs which ringed its circular mouth had been knocked out or blasted down its gullet. Still, it continued to thrash and lower its head like a battering ram, striking Serpentikal about the face and chest, its tail hidden inside the cave from which it thrust.
Serpentikal's mouth was dripping with blood, but he had clearly asserted himself as the dominant warrior in the brutal combat. His cobra strikes bashed the worm against the rocks of the mountain, his fangs tearing into its segments, sometimes catching between them and peeling them off like a rind, leaving exposed and bloody tissue behind. The worm was already filled with gallons of venom. Its defeat was imminent.
Serpentikal unleashed a fury of head butts upon the vermian behemoth, in rapid succession, nearly driving it back into the cave. The serpent lord caught the great worm in his mouth and began shaking it from side to side and pulling it from its lair. He retracted his cobra head, and dragged the entire length of the worm from the mountain, throttling it like a rabid hellhound.
Chariah watched the battle unfold, noting with some astonishment that when the worm was pulled wriggling from the mountainside, it possessed not a tail, but another head, identical to the first, like an amphisbaena. Yet another Siamese twin mutation. The battered worm vomited blood from both its spiked mouths, drenching the mountainside with crimson. Serpentikal continued to shake it between his fangs, his paralyzing agents finally taking effect in its large, amphisbenic body.
As the worm was being thrashed about, it vomited the still living Siamese twin sharks amidst a cataract of blood. The conjoined selachian monstrosity fell to the rocks below, bouncing down the mountainside before landing on a stone promontory far below, where it twitched about violently, shuddering and spasming from the lack of water it required to survive, flopping around in the deadly air for several minutes before finally lying still.
Serpentikal had bitten clear through the giant worm, and thrown it into mid-air only to catch it by one of its heads. He engulfed it with his entire maw and sank his fangs into its segments, then began to sucking on the worm's head, inhaling its muculent and sanguinary insides and its fourteen beating hearts as though through a giant, living straw. When he had succeeded in exterminating the beast and had drank its insides to his satisfaction, Serpentikal spat its corpse contemptuously onto the mountainous terrain several thousand feet below.
Chariah watched all this with drugged fascination, still feeling the effects of psilocybin as well as the smoked flesh of the Cacoshaman. Once the melee had ended, Chariah surveyed the gore from above, searching for augurs in the patterns of bloodstains.
A familiar voice broke his concentration as he enjoyed the ensanguined mountainous vista from the observation tower of Serpentikal.
"A dream, Necrodelic. Nothing more. Nothing less."
Chariah turned to see Morpheus Rex seated upon a throne carved from a single prism, high atop a dais in the shape of a pillar that had arisen from the roof of Phantasmagorika. The Dreaming Predator reclined in thoughtful meditation atop the towering, shimmering pillar, like a Satanic serpentine stylite. He was positioned directly in front of the sun, forming a partial eclipse in his image, like an idol or an omen, or both.
Morpheus Rex stood up and spread his arms wide. Sunlight flickered off the prisms beaded in his hair, shimmered on the prisms inlaid upon the white gossamer robe he wore, gleamed from the three-foot tall prism-inlaid crown upon
his head, and flashed from the Prismscepter he held in his right hand.
Pondering the dream eater's statement, Chariah found it laden with multiple meanings. Did Morpheus Rex refer to his new spaceship, his relationship with the Necrodelic, or reality itself? Was he commenting upon the Necrodelic's experiences in the Psilocybin Labyrinth, or perhaps his commune with the Cacoshaman? Had he proclaimed his own solipsism, or that he no longer believed in Chariah's existence? Was he telling the Necrodelic what he desired from him, either freely given, sacrificed, or taken by force? Or was he just pretending to be the king of some strange realm in his perverted imagination (which would explain the royal raiment and regal accompaniments surrounding him)? All this and probably more, Chariah determined, for forked tongues always spoke in double meanings, and dreams were a language filled with symbols and archetypes.
The susurrus of Morpheus Rex's voice fluttered through the air again. "Welcome," he hissed, gesturing to Serpentopolis and Phantasmagorika with one sweeping motion as he christened his newborn spaceship, "to the Metasaur."
The Necrodelic burned Morpheus Rex with his crimson eye contact, even as Morpheus Rex hypnotized the Necrodelic with his kaleidoscopic eye contact, two positronic forces. The heat of Chariah's stare caused Morpheus Rex's robe to disintegrate, and his crown to melt, which the Dreaming Predator then cast aside. Morpheus Rex mesmerized the Necrodelic, intensifying the chemicals already pumping through his system. They stood thusly joined by eye contact before one another, held together by merging beams of Hellfire red and kaleidoscopic rainbow, across the vastnesses of air, labyrinths, height, and distance separating the two of them.
Both demons launched themselves into mid-air simultaneously, leaping over the hundreds of feet which separated them. Like magnets, they drew each other into combat with spiritual gravities. The Necrodelic leapt upwards in a straight diagonal angle. Morpheus Rex stepped from his precipitous dais to free fall downwards at the exact same angle. They converged in mid-air at a point equidistant from both Serpentikal's skull and the Dreaming Predator's zenithal throne.