by Brant Danay
The Oneirophage likewise healed himself through the bounty of fresh corpses, plunging the Umbilicus into the skulls and faces of those who had not been destroyed by fire or excessive mutilation, those whose bodies remained intact enough for him to plunder their insides. Imbibing their final dreams and death-visions through the Umbilicus, the Oneirophage strode through the mass grave like a mortician, performing autopsies with his sorcerous straws until he had regained his strength and vigor and every lesion, puncture, bruise, and broken bone in his serpentine body had disappeared as though it had never existed.
As the first rays of dawn approached, the four demons gazed around, observing and enjoying the aesthetics of genocide. None of the exterminated animals would become the Jh'a'vyraa. Several more species were now extinct. The population of the universe had dwindled yet again, and the end of time drew inexorably nearer.
They walked amongst the fields of corpses for a time, before coming to the edge of a cliffside upon the steppes.
"What now, ophidian one?" asked the Necrodelic.
"I have long desired to visit the Hanging Gardens of aphrodisia," the Oneirophage responded.
"And I the Drug Topiary," spake the Necrodelic. "We should do so before the planet is destroyed."
"Farewell then, Necrodelic."
"Farewell, Oneirophage. When next we meet, it will be in battle."
The Oneirophage and Hydraman then headed south along the cliffside, while the Necrodelic and Cerberus walked north. As Dzandra rose and unveiled the yellow morn, the Oneirophage transformed into Morpheus Rex as he slithered along the ledge, his dark silhouette morphing from serpentine to hominid, so that he traversed the horizon on a cobra's tail one moment, and on two legs the next, with his nine-headed ally following behind. Chariah and his hellhound were black figures traveling in the opposite direction, indistinguishable from their shadows as they marched, the last vestiges of night in the bright light of the topaz dawn.
36
Chariah could taste magnetic fields and feel them pulling on the iron in his blood as he stood at the north pole of Elasvai. The raw magnetism raised the blood to the surface of his flesh and began to pull it through his pores in miniscule droplets, a woundless bloodletting. His long black hair crackled visibly and audibly with electricity, as though it were a nest of eels, or as if an incubating phoenix were about to burst from his brain in fiery rebirth, having used his skull for an egg like a parasite.
The entire sky was filled with aurora borealis, a scintillating display of gleaming blues, purples, pinks, golds, silvers, and sparkling whites, cataracting and fountaining in endless, evanescent formations. The curved wall before him was a similar phenomenon, an eternally transforming spectrum that flowed into itself, perhaps a reflection or refraction of the aurora borealis. Or, perhaps, the aurora borealis was a reflection of it. The radiant walls rose so high into the air that he couldn't tell where they ended and the skies began. He ran his clawed hand through the wall of pure psychedelia before him, the dripping amorphous mass of colors. His hand disappeared inside the strange substance which was both liquid and light, passing through it like the hand of a ghost or an astrosome. Inside he felt the heat of a womb, the spikes of an iron maiden, and the shape of a skull. He withdrew his fingers from the shimmering barrier, glancing around for some type of door or entrance. There was none.
Placing his left hand now into the curving, ephemeral walls, Chariah began to slowly circumnavigate the Drug Topiary's continuous rampart, which seemingly had neither origin nor terminus, ingress nor egress. As he walked, his hand floated through a myriad of sensations, both pleasure and pain, sometimes simultaneously. His hand disturbed nests of vipers, scorpions, and fetuses; passed through waterfalls, ocean spray, brooks, and ponds; submerged itself in witches' cauldrons, pools of boiling acid, and volcanoes brimming with hot lava. He passed his hand over decaying corpses and fornicating lovers; over freshly wet battlefields and mattresses; and through fire and the flaming river of Phlegethon to snow and the icy cold of river of Cocytus. He plunged his hand into the fanged mouths of creatures that wanted to devour him, the freshly spilled entrails of sacrificial victims, and the cold phalluses and vaginas of the dead. His hand tore gently through spiderwebs and placentas; slipped in and out of handcuffs, tourniquets, and gauntlets; was given swords, battle axes, maces, and morning stars; was severed completely and later returned; was immersed in pits full of writhing maggots and razor blades. His fingers were cocooned by butterflies, suckled by younglings, masturbated by Mother Chaos, tortured with thumbscrews, severed by guillotines, and bitten off by Satan. Finally, Chariah's hand passed over his own body, the exact form, shape, texture, and temperature of his flesh and musculature, and wherever he touched the tactile simulacrum within the psychedelic wall, his external flesh could feel the touch of his palms and fingertips, and he could see visible black handprints and small red scratches appear upon his body whenever he did so.
Chariah had completely circumnavigated the psychedelic barrier and found no sign of entrance, because the entire wall itself was an entrance, something which he had been unable to previously perceive. Once imbued with this knowledge, Chariah stepped directly through the glimmering ramparts, and into the Drug Topiary.
Inside, the floors were comprised of the same psychedelic substance. He could sink into it like water, wade through it like quicksand, or walk over it like terra. Before him were towering topiaries of opium poppies, sculpted into demon and animal forms, copulating, giving birth, battling, meditating, and dying. As he began to feast upon opium and poppy seeds, the sculptures began speaking to him in mantras and languages he had never heard before, their mouths moving from inside the scenery.
Cerberus had followed his master through the psychedelic entrance, and had wandered to a pool of elixir, which he now lapped up from a transmorphing shore. Chariah knelt beside his familiar and cupped the elixir in his hands, then raised them to his lips. The elixir tasted like dew and sunlight and sugar all at once, and filled his body with a cleansing, purifying sensation, healing wounds that he didn't even have. In the center of the pool of elixir was a stone fountain forming the shape of a succubus, whose eyes wept the elixir, whose lips salivated the elixir, whose breasts lactated the elixir, and whose vagina menstruated the elixir.
Walking north, Chariah found himself alongside a river of black nepenthe. He drank some and was filled with liquid darkness, as though his entire body had been hollowed, drained, and filled with outer space. He crossed a bridge of frozen cocaine with skulls sculpted into it and came into a triangle of white sand, a desert of cocaine. He breathed his scorching breath atop its surface, creating a fine layer of black and inhaling the intoxicating stimulants, then dipping his claws into the glistening grains of coca and raising them to his nostrils, breathing in pounds of the numbing drug, his heartbeat accelerating with its effects. He walked through the white desert with Cerberus at his side, leaving two trails of footprints in the powdery cocaine.
The entities in the opium topiaries were beginning to move, some aging and dying. Chariah came to serpentine topiaries of ganja, wherein every species of serpent writhed and struck. Some spoke to him as he devoured their brethren. He could smell their venoms, even taste them on his tongue. He could hear them slithering and hissing, feel their snakeskin on his flesh. He suckled upon the hair of maternal gorgons, drinking their poisonous milks. Curving rivers of soma splashed the psychedelic shores. Chariah followed to where they intersected with a straight stream of red wine, and drank from it, as well. Where the rivers of soma and wine met in swirling roseate confluences was where both tasted the best, and had the strongest effects. Chariah gazed down the river, and saw fountains of elixir at both ends. He could still see himself drinking at the first one, his perception of time distorted so that he watched himself cupping the elixir in his hands as Cerberus lapped up the clear liquid beside him.
Heading south, Chariah followed the crimson river of wine to a triangular desert of powdered opium. He p
artook of the brown sands just as he had the cocaine, scorching its powdery top and breathing the smoke, then dipping his claws in it and inhaling it raw.
Chariah could feel the pull of Elasvai's magnetic field again, drawing the blood from his pores in small beads. Hemathidrosis had begun, as well, and his pupils were alternately dilating and constricting, sometimes synchronously, sometimes not. He walked through four sections of the Drug Topiary, each a near reflection o£ the others, the main difference being that two had straight rivers of nepenthe and two had wine, with the circular river of soma running through all, and two contained deserts of cocaine, while two possessed sands of opium.
The sculptures in the walls of ganja plants and opium poppies were different, of course, and he could see, hear, feel, taste, and smell all the characters in the scenery, and their stories. He was now sweating sperm along with blood, creating a pink mist and raining infinitesimal droplets of carnelian as he walked. There were four fountains of elixirs altogether. Whereas the first had been a succubus, the one across from it had been an incubus, ejaculating the elixir. The third had been a hermaphrodite, releasing alternating jetstreams of elixir from its twin genitals in mid-air. The fourth was asexual, an androgynous deity devoid of genitalia who spouted the elixirs from the crown of its bald head.
Now within the labyrinth, the Necrodelic entered a spiral maze of morning glory, belladonna, and lotus blossoms, in every imaginable shade and hue. As he journeyed through the spiral maze, there were also several plants and flowers which he had not formerly perceived as drugs, but when he ate them, or lit them and inhaled their perfumes, he discovered that they really were and always had been. From the tranquility of hyacinth to the sexual rush of roses, the battle-strengthening effects of Venus fly traps to the near-death experiences of asphodel, Chariah felt as though must have eaten one of every species of plant in existence within the last hour.
Chariah made his slow, circular way toward the center of the gardens while sweating dreams and listening to far-off music. He ate white lotus and green lotus, and even the deadly black lotus which killed all but the most enlightened of demons. There was pink and purple and blue lotus too, and sweet berries full of psychoactive chemicals.
The spiral maze wound through the entire gardens, with rainbow bridges that parted the nepenthe rivers, soma rivers, and rivers of wine to the side as he passed. Gateways took him through the walls of ganja and opium, which along with the lotus were now coming alive at a frenzied pace, the demons and beasts carved into them now taking on their own colors and becoming more and more three-dimensional. Chariah spiraled toward the center of the Drug Topiary on a series of curving paths, until at last he came to its nexus.
The Tower of Panacea was a shimmering beam, whose light itself was a drug. Chariah stepped inside it, and it slipped over his body like a garment. Its heat was a drug too, seeping into his flesh. Now, the Necrodelic sweated his very soul. He realized that he had lost Cerberus somewhere within the gardens. The Tower of Panacea held him directly over the north pole of Elasvai. His long black hair began to raise and whip around him like a living entity. He could feel his entire circulatory system as clearly as he felt his face or hands, could feel the blood itself pumping through it, could even count each individual blood cell, if he so desired. He looked down and he could see all of his black inner organs. He watched the slow yogic breath of his lungs, the beating of his heart, the chemical production of his liver, the black sperm forming in his testicles, the electrical activity of his brain, and the dilations and constrictions of his crimson eyes as they gazed forth upon themselves and his exposed insides with psychedelic X-ray vision and drugged fascination. He could see all three layers of his essence now as well, could see beneath the physical flesh and organs to his astral body on its silver cord, and below and within that astral body his black and evil soul.
The Tower of Panacea drew the Necrodelic upwards now, upwards through its swirling spectrums, its harmonious music, its sensual heat and sexual light, high into the air, so high he had no idea how far he had traveled, sweating blood, sperm, dreams, and ectoplasm, until finally he found himself levitating over the entire Drug Topiary, spinning slowly in mid-air like a star, looking over the psychedelic labyrinth he had conquered.
He could see clearly now the ancient symbols in the Drug Topiary, which had magnified and elevated his spirit to its zenith, and which made the psychedelic gardens as deadly as they were mind-bending. The amorphous psychedelic wall was more of a vertical moat, although parapets and turrets rose, crested, and fell along its surface like the waves of an ocean. The four fountains of elixir corresponded with the four points of a compass within the ramparts, one west, one east, one south, and one north, and formed the shape of ankhs. The sculpted poppies formed a square wall within the circle, and inside them were the triangular deserts of cocaine and opium. The walls of ganja formed a diamond, intersecting with the walls of opium. The rivers of wine led from each fountain of elixir, converging at the very center of the topiary, just below the Tower of Panacea, and formed the shape of a crucifix. Half of those rivers were black with nepenthe, however, and these churning atramentous streams of psychological salves and memory repressors formed a swastika, branching off in all four quarters to form sable brooks that cut through the walls of opium poppies, watering, drugging, and eroding them simultaneously. The rivers of soma formed a pentagram, with the first level of the spiral maze of lotuses encircling it. The spiral maze curved inwards thirteen times, until reaching the Tower of Panacea, upon whose zenith Chariah now floated.
The Necrodelic gazed down and saw the corpses of those that had come before him, for pleasure, enlightenment, or both, and had died within the Drug Topiary. He observed their deaths, their accidents, overdoses, suicides, and murders, observed the processes by which their flesh and souls became the topiaries in the gardens. He located Cerberus, lapping up wine and growling at phantoms. He saw himself at every point he had traversed, a continuous black entity illuminating the path through the maze, Chariah after Chariah after Chariah, an infinity of Necrodelics. Chariah breathed in the serenity, and when he exhaled, the Drug Topiary underwent an incredible transformation. Every plant, every flower, every leaf were all lit by his pyromantic breath, but instead of bursting into flame, they kindled like hemp in a pipe.
The garden began to move and each section began to raise up, like the pieces of a puzzle box, forming a tiered ziggurat with his soul at the top. The walls of opium and ganja multiplied into the thirteen stories of a sacred temple. The rivers of nepenthe, soma, and wine became waterfalls, flowing over the levels of hemp and opium gardens to the fountainous pools of elixir below. The deserts of opium and cocaine became pyramids, gigantic crystal monuments of purest white and deepest black. The spiral maze became a spiral stairway, winding upwards until it reached the top of the ziggurat, and energies of every color curved upwards as well, like a serpent uncoiling, the kundalini of the Drug Topiary, which caused Chariah's kundalini to rise up over his head and strike the universe like a cosmic cobra.
Chariah crossed his legs now and rested his palms upon his knees. His third eye fluttered open, and he watched as the entire Drug Topiary coursed and flowed with cycles of energy, waterfalls pouring down the sides of the ziggurat and being replenished by the towering fountains of elixir, the white and black pyramids sparking with electricity and raw power. He hovered in outer space, directly over the north pole of Elasvai, the aurora borealis splayed majestically beneath him. He had never felt so tranquil, so real, and he knew now that he must attain the Jh'a'vyraa not only to save his soul, not only to avoid eternal torment in Hell, but to experience this same nirvanic pleasure forever.
The Necrodelic's seven black chakras whirred as they spun in place, as he himself spun, meditating in mid-air, and then the black chakras began to spin out from their energy centers and into orbit around Chariah like seven planets, rotating on their axes while he spun at their center like a sun, radiant, effulgent, filled with gravity and
power to illuminate and balance his solar system.
Mother Chaos flew to the Necrodelic then, for he had penetrated the astral plane with his physical body, and alighted on his lap, perfume mingling with smoke, damson lips kissing black. She embraced him around the neck with her arms and wrapped her thighs around his back, fluttering like a butterfly and lowering herself upright onto his rigid phallus, her lotus position entwined with his, and they made love in the yab-yum position atop the ziggurat, liquid purple flowing from her body and liquid darkness flowing from his, in yet more rivers down the pyramid, double helixes of shadow and light, growing wider and wider, swelling as though with flood, until their purple and black energy poured down the Drug Topiary in one continuous ocean, which was eternally returned to them by the fountains of elixir.
They made love beyond space and time, in one continuous orgasm that lasted for eons. Finally, after an infinity of nirvana, the Dark Orgasm came, blinding Chariah, cloaking his senses, spinning him in shadows through the voids and vacuums and abysses of the cosmos, and when he awoke once more outside the Drug Topiary, he had attained greater enlightenment and blacker evil, and new powers that would manifest themselves in the days to come, making him more demonic, more lethal, and more genocidal than ever before.
37
The Oneirophage, Hydraman, two gorgons, two lamias, and the corpse of the Constrictress rode inside the mouth of Serpentikal unto the south pole of Elasvai. Through the aurora astralis they soared, the prism palace Phantasmagorika catching the shooting beams of light in its own shimmering spectrum and creating brand new colors to burst from the night skies. Rainbows arcing all around, Serpentikal flew through kaleidoscopic tunnels and over iridescent bridges to the Hanging Gardens of Aphrodisia.
