The Labyrinth
From its conception a labyrinth has always been a euphemism. A punishment for the guiltless, its mission was to trap occupants. However, as it was not a prison, it sought to do this without bars, doors, guards, or keys. The “prisoner” was to roam -- to escape or languish, to live or die -- by their own volition. Of course, this was purely illusion. The intention was for them be forever lost.
Where might you have encountered a Labyrinth in your own life?
Dead-end job. Addiction. Cyclical depression. Poverty. Unrequited love. PTSD.
Every region of Hell – right here, right now.
The peripheral maze of the Labyrinth had been equipped with all the decoration to evoke mortal terror. Blood soaked the ground like a particularly rainy Wednesday, and Benedict sloshed about it in his combat boots, reading the cautionary graffiti that begged him to turn back.
You want to know about magick, squire? Sure – I can tell you about magick.
But there weren’t never a “Beware of Dog” sign that kept Benedict Eden out of a yard.
“Muladhara,” the Guttermage expressed flatly, unabashed; and he walked on, even as the walls stretched up into the sky, smeared with the red of the more desperate of the dead.
First, you’ve got to declare yourself a Magickian. That’s it. The whole Initiation. Tell everyone, or don’t; I don’t give a toss of Darth Vornskr’s beard, nor the luxurious platinum locks of Darth Adekos. It’s the declaration, squire – It’s the opening up to the big karking picture and the terrors waiting along the periphery.
The sound of warping metal, of steel walls scraping along stone, shrieked by him. He did not turn, however, for he knew there was no exit anymore.
A path not
missing, but
never offered.
After you’ve become “Initiated”, like, you will reach a certain point. It could be today, it could be two decades from now, or, sod it, it could have already happened, back when you were just a wee lad, wiff crap on your fingers and those fingers in your nose who’d never heard nuffink nor never cared for any of all this “magick” rubbish.
“MOM!,” the voice was tiny, distant.
Muffled by a barrier that occupied infinite space.
“KIERON!,” she was a chubby woman, small, older. Collapsed against the maze wall, clawing idly upon it, her dress soaked in the pooled death on the floor.
Benedict noted that while her cheeks were stained with tears, they weren’t smeared with make-up.
“MOM! Where are you?!,” came the voice again.
“I’m here, baby, I’m here! I’m here!”
“Mom, please! I don’t know where I am. I’m scared.” The voice again, crying.
And his mother, her face fixing to split in half, as her words trembled under the weight of her strength.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’m here! I’m not going anywhere!”
This is because, luv, that an Initiation takes place outside of time. It is an Awakening that reveals itself over the full duration of your miserable life. And once it starts, it never finishes, extending forever in both directions
Pain shot through his chest, so sudden and jarring that he buckled in the middle of the hallway, slapping poor Mingus-Dingus against the granite. The head eagerly lapped at all the spilled blood.
You have always been what you are. The kicker, ennit, is trying to suss out just what the kark that means.
And sometimes, that means getting over yourself. Enter: Chapel Perilous.
Benedict grimaced, picking himself off the ground. The ethereal gore threatening to spill from his chest had become a source of sporadic and crippling agony, made all the more unbearable by Mnggal-Mnggal’s prophecy through dark, monotonous poetry, like the mad rambling head of John the Baptist hooked to a Text-to-Speech engine.
Now, if you’re in the dark, old son, I advise you ruddy well turn back now. This next bit requires preparation, like, and if you haven’t the tools, you’re not going to make it. There’s four of ‘em, elemental in nature – Sing along if you know the words:
The Sword of Reason, to cut through the rubbish.
“BENNY!,” he heard, instinctively reaching for his lightsaber. The shrill howl of a ghost beyond the walls. Had it been Avalore?
No. She was gone forever.
Mum? Dad?
Gone.
Gaz? Janey? The Mulch Slave? Mick? Heroin? Pastor Ron?
Roddy? No, he knew better.
Gone. All gone.
The Wand of Intuition -- to light the path, yeah? Lest you be lost.
The Guttermage took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaling
“Swadisthana,” in a cloud of smoke.
The Pentacle of Valor -- To stand your ground, like. To chase the demons away.
The little ball rattled with the spraycan of Ancient Sith Evil Black tucked away in his back pocket as he, unabashed, set his hand upon the ground and rose from his lurch, continuing deeper into the maze.
And the Cup of Sympathy….Bollocks.
This weapon had been neglected by Benedict, and the cost would surely be his heart. Without a glance, he passed by the howling woman, resenting her for the scalding in his chest.
He hadn’t much a heart anyway.
Once more, the shrill cry of metal walls as the halls shifted, barring the path behind him.
Wind, Fire, Earth, Water. Wiffout these ingredients, you’re liable to lose your head. Fortunately for me, I’ve brought extra, right yeah.
Kill…
Consume…
Grow…
Benedict froze for a moment, recognizing the mood presenting itself in the rotted, disembodied skull he held by the hair in his left hand.
“Old habits -- I reckon we never really quit, do we?”
Kill…
Consume…
Grow…
The ground was littered in weapons and armor, varied in time period. Ancient spears alongside crude scatterguns, dark ages, throwback tech, another dark age, a renaissance, modern weaponry, yet another damn dark age, and some weapons we’ve yet to see, all strewn about on the ground together in this rubbish bin of history. Gold coins littered the ground, peppering he bloodied stone with the occasional reflective glint of the jade sun.
Kill…
Consume…
Grow…
“Yeah, mate, I got it,” Benedict muttered, nudging some futuristic murder claw with the steel-toe of his boot.
“Hey!,” called a neighbor; a stormtrooper, standing by a pyre of smoldering Rebel pilot uniforms.
“Hey, you!”
Benedict turned to face the trooper, his expression passive at best, livid at worst. He said nothing as the trooper approached, glancing down, and then slowing as he spied the aforementioned head in the hand of the Laughing Magus.
“You…,” he began in his tinny, robotic voice.
“You just entered the labyrinth, right? Yeah, I can tell…You don’t look as beaten yet…hah...Do you know where we are?”
“Manipura. And you’re in Hell.” Benedict extinguished his old cigarette, replacing it with a new one, his eyes finding more interest with his lighter than his audience,
“What makes you reckon it’s a Labyrinth, old son?
“What do you mean?”
So, if a “prison” isn’t a “prison” when it’s a “labyrinth,” then when is a “labyrinth” not a labyrinth”?
When you’re not going “out,” but “in.” Then it’s a…
“It’s a Yantra,” the Guttermage stated expertly, glancing back to the man as he pocketed his lighter. In the midst of a cloud of smoke, he gestured out o’er yonder, to the mountain central to the maze.
“You can tell. That there’s the bindu – bloody center of everyfing, that.”
The stormtrooper was audibly agitated, unsure why this was the conversation prudent to be having,
“What the hell does that mean? What do you mean ‘I’m in Hell’?”
“It’s like a mandala, difference being that, ravver than the galaxy, it’s just a Game of You. “ Almost as an aside, he muttered,
“As if that's a difference in the state we're in.”
Kill…
Consume…
Grow…
Benedict lifted Mnggal-Mnggal to eye-level, giving him the floor. He was making a point he saw important.
“Manipura,” the Thrice-Damned emphasized once again, as if the trooper should know what he meant.
“As above, so below and that. Boundaries, mate. Conquer the galaxy one planet at a time, yeah.”
The stormtrooper stared blankly, an easy feat considering the helmet.
Know the names, draw the lines, memorize the landmarks -- Guard yourself with them, from them. Dice 'em up, rearrange 'em. Trade them with your friends. Make new maps of Perdition. For there ain’t piss-all that binds Chaos like Order.
And should that fail you? Learn to improvise.
“laserbrain?,” Benedict withdrew his carton of cigarettes and extended a single one.
“What? What’d you call me?!” He took a step back, waving his hands in front of him in dismissal,
“No, I don’t smoke. Get that out of my face. What’s with all the riddles? Why can’t you just answer my damn question?”
Benedict shook his head in a charade of loss, slapping the trooper on the shoulder in a consolatory gesture,
“You’re lost.” He began to walk on.
“My loss?,” the trooper reiterated incredulously.
“That’s not what I said, squire,” he muttered, disappearing down the hall.
Kill…
Consume…
Grow…
Because if you can't adapt, mate...
The trooper attempted to chase after, hesitant in his steps to continue deeper into the maze,
“Look, just tell me where you came in!…Please….!”
Benedict didn’t look back, and the walls had begun to shift.
“Oh, alright! Well, kark you, buddy!,” the trooper shouted in vain, from somewhere in the Labyrinth. The familiar scream of the changing environment.
And the familiar form of his idol, Emperor Plague-Us,collapsed against the wall of a dead-end, an AR-15 in his hands…
Sooner or later, you’ll be dealt a hand you won’t quite know what to do with.
And a giant gunshot wound, splitting his face in half.
