16: Subdermal

There are doors at lower levels, leading out to lower and lesser platforms, with dwindling monuments to every level, until I am left with the sight of a web of walkways that connect the pillars, and converge on perhaps the largest of the many-domed buildings, which sits atop a peak over the mountain range split by the surging green rivers- which I can now identify as originating in frothing geysers close to the peaks. The ramp ended, I can only walk the path, allowing it to guide me into the basilica.

I stop once to give my feet a rest, and look down upon the mountain range, noting where the massive stalactite I emerged from meets a particular peak, past which I can see more of the acropolis’s founding pillars. Below me I watch as around one of the pooling points for the foul viridian substance, a plethora of creatures gather. I recognize the brutes from the marsh, the needle-mouthed bugs from the march, and the white-robed creatures from inside the buildings, as well as a few I don’t recall. Reddish things whose many limbs seem to part and fuse back together without reason, whose bodies often lack heads, hands, or symmetry. I also see things that slither and squirm, with many tails and wings with confounding holes. Resting still, I watch as they plunge themselves into the substance and dissolve, becoming one with it. Ever more come to be dissolved.

I rise from where I sit and begin again, engaging with my chosen path with little enthusiasm. Once in a while, I see apparent monasteries nestled in the mountains, and watch as creatures approach the pools, hesitate, then turn and embark to these tan obelisks, and enter. None seem to leave.

I come upon the grand basilica and rest my hand on a set of bone doors so tall and wide that I do not doubt I might never hope to open it. Carved into its surface is a depiction that rivals the magnitude of the monasteries below. The carving depicts an impossible number of persons my size writhing in pain, grasping at the cracks in the ivory that depicts them; as if these are true wounds to their flesh. I raise and press my hand to the cheek of one of these petrified individuals, and become suddenly aware of every ache and bruise in my body, of the battle fought between my flesh and the silicone planted by the ichor, the war to reject the Porcelain that does not let go. I pull my hand away, and the sensation subsides. I suppress a gasp of fading agony, and turn my head from the doors, finding that within the base of the left door is a more manageable entrance, a seamed section roughly three feet wide and seven feet tall with a handle in the middle.

To this alternative I shuffle, and pull firmly. Rather than swinging open, the section pulls directly outwards, and I find a niche on either side into which I might fit. Again I feel apprehension at trusting myself to a mechanism, but not wishing to cross back along the walkway, or attempt to scale the mountain, I crawl into the channel, and wedge myself away from the outer edge. After a pause, the section slides back into place, and I am made to wait until my eyes adjust to the dim light they cast. I see that across from me is a new niche that lines up with mine, and continues towards the other side of the door, so I entrust myself to this, and crawl through.

On the other side I find a foyer that is fit to match the doors, and exits of various sizes leading in different directions. The walls are ornate, being of a dark gray with shimmering golden mortar. The air is tinged with a smell like honey and peach, and a dissonant choir echoes from all of the passages. I cross the marble floor slowly, my eyes keyed in on a passage that matches the dimensions of the doors through which I have passed all this time. Above hangs a tapestry woven from enough thread to suffocate an army.

This piece proudly depicts a bloody war, in which two forces compete and vie. On the right is a uniformed battalion of men, but monsters too; beside some officers stand tall things with white fur and blue horns, with rows of sharp teeth and claws. Here too are giant insects, things of orange chitin and blue blood, with thick shelled chests and three fingered hands. Sparsely sprinkled in this regiment are strange translucent things that walk on two legs, but have fingers like octopus legs, and heads like jellyfish, with simple holes for ears, and four glimmering eyes.

To the left is a force that is somehow more familiar to me. Here I see those creatures that have hounded me since my arrival. The surgeons and red-robed porcelain women surge to meet the infantry, supported by robots holding advanced rifles. Angels clash with jets of advanced make. Bone brutes and striding harvesters trouble tanks and jeeps, and wreak havoc on clustered troops. In the background I see what appears to be warfare in space, with metal ships pierced by giant sinewy tendrils. And above all is the dark figure wrapped in black light, floating weightless over the spectacle. He is backgrounded by what seems a moon or near planet with red and black essence seeping from its edges in a malevolent corona. All this I absorb, then pass by as I enter the passage I have chosen.

After many turns, and many downward cycles, I enter a small balcony in a sort of coliseum, high above an oval stage where a troupe of the porcelain women dance- performing a high-energy ballet with many leaps and dangerous gymnastics. Their glossy white bodies are bare, reflecting harsh blue and yellow lights from overhead with every high-velocity twirl. The crowd is rowdy but mostly enraptured, and begins to applaud and hiss as one of the lead dancers breaks off to lead a surgeon to center stage. The remaining dancers encircle the slow, grunting creature, and begin jabbing at him with hooked knives, tearing what sparse scraps of skin he has to offer. Enraged, the surgeon lashes out and grabs one of his torturers, cracking her wrist and forcing a shrill scream through her mouth. A laugh ripples through the audience. The others back away as he rakes his claws sadistically across her chest. The captive screams again, this time portraying rage over pain, and swings her knife through his throat, producing an arterial spray that sends the crowd into hysterical howling and whooping. The surgeon drops his prey and stumbles backwards, flailing his arms and barking, before the doll kicks him over and drags her knife through his gut over and over, prompting a standing ovation. I have nearly made up my mind to leave the spectacle through an ornate bone door opposite the one I used to enter, when the lights dim, and the performers drag the gurgling carcass offstage.

I linger and watch a small, caped figure emerge from an opening in the floor, and look out across the gathered onlookers.

This being is particularly hideous, being sewn together out of tanned leather pulled tight across what rigid structures lie within. If she possesses bone structure, it is not anything natural. Her jaw is asymmetrical, one of her arms is longer than the other and has more fingers- the other is four thumbs and an index- one of her eyes is so much lower than the other that it distorts her nose, and her chest has protruding lumps that suggest her ribs are all different sizes. Her cape too is leather- made from skin as I now realize- and long triangular scraps hang from her waist in a gruesome skirt. Her voice is beautiful as she is not. Pathogen’s tones were surely soft and sedating, but this newcomer’s crooked throat produces a voice so rich and gentle that I cannot but breathe a sigh of relief.

“Hello, you filth.”

She says it as though it were a term of affection for a lover, spoken across a pillow in the moments after the saffron light of dawn has been eroded.

“I’m so glad you could join us for the show today! Just think, instead you could be getting your eyes gouged out and your marrow sucked. Why, you could be having holes drilled through your teeth, or be getting dragged through molecular acid, or even refurbished with shiny white skin!”

I feel as though she is looking at me when she finishes this term, and I turn to exit through the door, but find that both are admitting a cluster of the marchers from above, their cottony faces all damp and clinging.

“But you joined us today, instead of all those other things, and for that, I’m so, so grateful; because today, we have a special guest!”

I am about to plunge into the crowd behind me, when a pair of clawed feet grasps my shoulders, and hoists me not at all gently into the air. I look up and strike at the feet, drawing only a blood-curdling screech from the winged, many-faced thing that has me. I hear the crowd murmur and shuffle as I am brought down and dropped in a heap before the creature on the stage. With her long arm she grasps my hood and drags me to my feet, then dusts me off.

Up close, she is even more hideous, some of the tanned hide that makes up her skin-suit is wrinkled and cracked with age, unhealing gashes betraying glimpses of a black and shiny thing within. Her teeth are as ill-fitting as the rest of her, some are bestial and crooked, while others are ivory and neat. Her breath is mild and flowery, however.

“Welcome to my coliseum, dear thing. I’ve been expecting you.”

She grins and faces out to her audience, but I am kept from running by the presence of the thing with leathery wings and canvas-like skin that looms over me, its frowning mouths whistling breath.

“Toxin welcomes all to her menagerie! The meek, the mighty, the beautiful, and the obscene! Even things like you, rare as you are.”

All around the edge of the stage I see the porcelain women standing, their sleek bodies poised as though prepared to pounce. I notice that many have fractures and cracks in their faces and limbs, and the imperfections have been sealed with gold. Much of the silicone of their torsos has also seen repair with a gray rubber that eases the contrast between the black and the white. Their red eyes do not waver from the ringleader’s – Toxin’s – face, awaiting her instruction, it seems. She turns to me.

“Come, let us have some fun with you, dear thing!”

All at once the women rush in and begin shoving me, this way and that, tearing at my robe and lacerating my face with their fingertips. I sway to one side and am grabbed by the arm, then the other, and feel a sharp hot pain as something cracks into my back, a whip or lash of some kind, who’s ragged edge stings terribly and causes my vision to blur. I wrench free and struggle to take three steps away from the mass of cruel laughter. The top of my robe has fallen to shreds that sway and double over the lower half, still supported by the waistband cord. I fall to my hands and knees and continue to shuffle along, faintly aware of uproarious applause in all directions.

“So delicate! What a treat you are!”

The silky voice, despite not having changed at all, now seems to me worse than any of the terrible sounds I’ve yet experienced, a slow-spinning auger in my chest. I attempt to come to my feet, but am kicked in the back, along the rugged wound, and fall on my face, warmth spreading outward as my blood seeps out. My center begins to feel cold.

“Oh, but dear, not nearly long-lasting enough. You’ll be lost to us before we’ve even disemboweled you if we’re not careful.”

She speaks as though she is pitying a romantic evening being canceled, and her finger crooks under my chin to look at my face. My sight blurred, her features are only a smear, a crooked soup of a dark splotch here and a wiggling fuzzy shape below it.

“Tsk. This won’t do at all. I had such high hopes for you.”

Her disappointment is a knife paring away my skin, my eyelids, my ears. I feel as though I might never inhale without sobbing, if I survive. As my senses dim, I see a twisting shape around her, a writhing mass of spectral worms all stemming from her chest. Through one of the gashes in her leather skin I see something glistening slithering up and down. I blink, and find that her face is crooked in a different way than I remember, as if her cheekbones attempted to heal and were broken from another force in another direction. I can no longer hear through the fog of pain and blood-loss. My sense of balance tells me I am rolling to the side. All at once, everything is brighter, and I am falling.