Metempsychosis

Metempsychosis

By

German Bradley

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“Each Man is in his Spectre’s power Until the arrival of that hour When his Humanity awake And cast his Spectre into the Lake.” William Blake (1757-1827)

To Ardath Mayhar for her endless help, expertise and advice.

Prologue

T

he roaring of a nearby sea rumbled in Oeth’s ears like a dying beast. She went to a halt, almost breathless, and tried to look about the panorama, but her eyes searched in vain. The fogbanks and the darkness around didn’t give any clue to her whereabouts. Neither could she see the sky above nor the ground under her feet. Her hands, like a blind woman’s, fumbled for a branch, a rock, anything solid enough to give her safety in case she stepped on uneven ground. But only emptiness was there to grip. She had been on the run for weeks, always looking back; always feeling her sisters close, almost upon her heels, albeit invisible to her eyes. But now her aging body felt too weary to go on. Then, gusts of chilling wind began to blow, penetrating into her already numbed members, slowly driving the fog away. A landscape loomed ahead at last—a forest of Scot pines and Norway spruces stood high atop a ridge. She climbed. 1

German Bradley Her lungs fought against the aching efforts of her muscles and the throttling of her own breathing as she moved upwards. Desolation was the first word she thought of on beholding the cliff’s downward slopes. Everything lowered upon those ravines and forced her to remain still, holding her breath, defenceless and afraid of closing her eyes, hearing her sisters’ haunting voices on the wind, laughing at her solitude. But something made her turn her head back, as if she were being watched. Three shrouded figures were kneeling in front of the entrance passage of a gleaming fane about nine yards away. “No. It’s impossible. I can’t be here again,” Oeth said with terror-stricken eyes, as she realised she’d been running to her own death. “I’ve come back to Caer Vandwy!” she exclaimed, as the whole place became familiar to her again. She was back home indeed, back to her sisters’ lair. The temple stood on a rather rising ground, half-buried and entirely damp and overgrown with moss; bathed in a diffuse white light that gave the image of a cascade falling from nowhere. The whole building was a large group of upright megaliths, set stone-to-stone, leaving just a narrow passage as a unique entrance and a couple of flat slabs of stone as a roof. 2

Metempsychosis Suddenly the figures got to their feet and turned towards her, their dark blue tunics fluttering like rags in the wind. Androgynous faces appeared beneath their cowls—heavenly resemblance of inhuman beauty impossible to portray—and glared up at her with a tingle of indifference and coldness. She understood fate had already thrown dice, and she wasn’t young enough to fight it off. Her fate stood in front of her in the form of that temple, like a symbol of her future nemesis. Like ghosts, one after one, they walked, passing through her as if they went towards the precipice behind her. She felt them merge inside her, renewing her cells and molecules at frightening speed. Taut muscles padded bony arms and thighs, smoothing away all her wrinkles, bringing back steadiness to her tiring legs. But her body tingled and she felt drained. The universe seemed to burst inside her head, showering her sight with feverish red sparks, until utter oblivion blotted out her mind. **** Oeth’s driving force had transcended her body in a sort of astral flight, easily filtering her odylic self into the twilight stage between life and death. However, she couldn’t reckon the time she’d spent 3

German Bradley hovering there. She only had a sharply etched impression of its narrowness and warmth, as though she were back in the womb, back to a prebirth existence. “Welcome, fugitive.” A soft voice, or perhaps a whisper, rolled her up like a child’s sleep, induced by a sedative lullaby. “You see, you can’t escape your fate.” “Where am I?” “At home. Back where you once belonged. Open your eyes.” And so she obediently did. Everywhere her gaze went, a couple of colourless eyes gazed at her with gloating satisfaction from a huge, abhorrent face. Festering sores seemed to blister on its snotty, slimy skin, while countless smaller faces floundered beneath and stretched that skin with voracious plunges, trying to scoff at her. “Take a good look at yourself. See what your deeds have done to your flesh.” She felt as if she floated into the core of her master and god Gwyn, but she hadn’t seen her own form yet, a long young body that grew skinny and ancient-looking in a couple of seconds. “You’ve cheated your own breed, you bastard,” the master barked. “There’s no place in the Underworld for such betrayers as you.” “But, I—“ 4

Metempsychosis “Shut it, you fucking shit. The Gwyllions’ number one rule says that you shall not have birthing of your own, for they are born to destroy our breed and world. And you, what did you do? You’ve threatened our whole existence.” “Hear me, master, please!” “Oh, I know you didn’t mean it. I know you’ve come to find your way back.” “Master, I beseech you.” “Too late for pleas.” The swarm of small faces tore her master’s skin and shot out like chameleon tongues towards Oeth’s odic force. They gnawed her soul away into tiny pieces, annihilating and poisoning her original breath with every bite, just to belch out an entirely new and solidified force—a shadow of an extinct shade … the dead spit of her. “Find the offspring and spirit her off,” Gwyn said quietly to his new creation. “She’s too dangerous to be alive.” “I’ll do your bidding, master.” Gwyn’s eyes closed and all living signs ceased. The replica’s driving force found herself floating into nothingness, but for a second only. Transmigration had already called her back to earth.

5

PART I

Chapter 1

O

utside in the cold, in rugged terrain, Simon Wick slept as usual on the outskirts of Harlech, his hometown. “Freezing. I’m freezing,” he mumbled to himself, rolling and cuddling up to a rock, behind a lonely shrub. He had cradled his face in the cushion of the almost frozen grass. His eyes were still shut, but he was shaking. The begrimed skin of his face, head and hands was already blue. “Too cold to sleep,” he mumbled again and woke up, stretching his arms and legs. He sat on the grass and looked up to the sky as he blew into his dirty hands and rubbed them together so as to keep them warm. “Some weather, huh?” he said, scratching his hairless head. The sky was covered with grey clouds. The chilly morning breeze was making its way into his bones. “I’d better move.” But a huge yawn broke his soliloquy for a moment, and then: “It’s too cold here and I’m hungry. Yes, I’m hungry.” He tugged the collar of his old leather jacket upright and folded the lapels across his 6

Metempsychosis chest. The long distance he walked daily from the outskirts to the town had always kept the cold at bay. “Yes, a walk across the fields will do me good,” he said and started to move. His breath clouded in front of him. From time to time his stomach loudly complained at not having food enough to withstand his march, but the flocks and herds he usually came across on his way dismissed that need from his mind. In fact, he couldn’t resist the temptation of running after them for a while, until one of them got tired and sick of him, and his game finally backfired. By midday, the steep winding streets of Harlech met him and he began to loiter along, begging his pennies to get something to eat or drink. He liked that town. He’d always thought the clouds above smiled at him when they saw him there, and he greeted them too. He spoke to the air and joked with the bushes of any garden. Everything was alive in that town for him. Everything had a hidden world for him to discover. He liked to perch in the trees to scan the horizon and feel the breeze of the sea on his face. The trees magically changed their form in his head, turning into the masthead of the ship of his 7

German Bradley dreams. And when he climbed down he stood in the middle of a quiet street, waiting to be officially introduced to the court of the country in which he had just arrived. He liked the bricked walls of that town as well. He liked to see the beautiful light brown tarns and the fantastic creatures that sojourned by those lakes. They talked to him for hours and showed him indescribable things coming from the waters. Those creatures were his friends and the only company he had in his dreams. They lulled him to sleep when he felt weak and sad as well. But he couldn’t talk about his friends on the walls. There weren’t enough words in his uncultured vocabulary to voice the wonders he saw, and neither there were people to hear his stories. Although he realised people turned their irritated faces when he passed by, he didn’t care much. “They love me,” he said to every passer-by he saw and pointed to the walls. “They look after me.” But people never listened to him. It didn’t matter how loudly he shouted, it didn’t matter how much he struggled to find the right word, they just shook their heads and walked away. On that afternoon, his dirty old shoes took him to the captivating aisles of a pharmacy in the centre of town. His eyes and hands couldn’t avoid exploring the bottles, boxes and bags displayed on 8

Metempsychosis the shelves for the customers to buy. He loved opening them; he liked the smells that came out of those shining boxes and liked the sound of the plastic bags in his hands. “Sorry, chap,” said one woman dressed in white; she touched his shoulder. “I’m afraid there’s nothing here for you.” She took the boxes away from his hands and led him to the exit door. But suddenly his wandering eyes caught sight of a large mirror on his right. “Look how my eyelashes are growing!” he exclaimed, touching and lifting his long, illusory eyelashes. “That’s because they’re messing with me.” “Who’s messing with you, chap?” the woman asked him. “The creatures of the tarns,” he answered, staring at his own image in the mirror. “They look after me. They’re my friends, but they shout terrible things at me.” “Oh, yeah, of course.” The woman shook her head. “My skin needs a shower, don’t you think?” he suddenly said. His hands, head and face looked dirtier than he thought, covered with such a lot of filth it seemed to be his second skin. “And look at my trousers! They look really scruffy, don’t they?” “And you’re really smelly, chap,” said the woman, pressing her nose with her fingers. 9

German Bradley “Really?” “Off you go now,” said the woman again, once he was on the pavement. “But I wanted to have one of those lovely boxes,” he protested and pointed back to the shelves. “There are no boxes for you here,” spat the woman and walked into the pharmacy again, closing the main door behind her. “No boxes,” he muttered to himself while he made his way down the street. “No boxes, no bread, no fruits. Lies. Just lies. I know what they mean. This brainless son of Harlech is bothering again ... I’m always bothering here. They don’t want me close.” But the red velvet and the glittering gemstones and watches in a jewellery window drew his erratic attention. “Spare some change, please,” he begged, immediately after stepping into the shop. “Sorry, sir,” said a man in his early fifties, coming from behind the counter, “but we were closing now.” “But the door was open,” said Simon, surprised. “I was about to close it, actually. Sorry, sir.” And the man closed the shop to him. “But I like that watch,” said Simon, pointing to an expensive Swiss watch in the highest row of the window. “I’d like to see it,” he continued saying, 10

Metempsychosis while knocking at the glass of the door in order to call the man’s attention. He just turned his back to him and disappeared behind an internal door inside. The hours ticked by, and his stomach growled even louder. “It must be six or seven o’clock,” he said, massaging his belly, looking up at the clouds. He noticed a peculiar change in those clouds at first, and then the whole sky went suddenly ashen and the landscape below became deep red. The horizon looked oblique and distorted as well, as if extreme temperatures and pressure changed the visible perception and perspectives. Worlds of cracks and crags with dank and sinuous rills of waxy waters turned up at the end of the street, while whirls of greenish and purple tints turned into rays and spread to everywhere. Violent gales flattened grass and trees. The town was liquefying itself under his feet and sent him to the brink of a precipice, where the sky looked deathly but enfolding. The whole place was wrapped in haze and clouds of foam from a blustering sea, and he was standing there, with a mix of curiosity and innocence, at the threshold of a world that opened its most arcane corners for him to explore. “Simon!” a man’s voice called him from somewhere. “Oi, you deaf kid! Here, it’s me!” the voice insisted, and the town slowly began to come 11

German Bradley into sight from that fantastic landscape. “You all right? Visions again?” A fat man with ginger moustache and beard stared at him with friendly eyes. “There were rays everywhere.” The images he’d recently seen were still bright in his eyes. “It was a different place. The sky was different.” “Fortunately, I decided to come and have a look just in case you were in the neighbourhood,” said the man. “Sarah and me were already thinking you wouldn’t come for dinner this evening.” But Simon’s head was still in those fantastic images. “The sea wasn’t calm. It was down there.” He pointed down to the road. “Far away.” “You should go and see a doctor, lad,” the man said as they walked along a narrow street. “Those places and the creatures in your head are not doing you any good.” “No!” Simon protested. “They’re not in my head. They are here, hidden in this town, on the walls, in the sky.” “Okay, okay,” said the fat man by his side and changed the subject when they passed by a white Mazda parked in front of a terrace house. “Did you enjoy our ride to the village of Portmeirion last weekend?” “Yes, it was fantastic!” said Simon. The short walk had definitely brought him back and his eyes shone with delight. “I loved the beach and the 12

Metempsychosis dunes.” “Oh, that was Llandanwg Beach, to the south,” the man explained. “Yes, yes. To the south,” repeated Simon like a child. “Well, here we are,” said the man. “Let’s see what Sarah has for us this evening.” Both entered the house. “Hi, Simon, glad to see you again,” a gingerhaired woman greeted him from the kitchen. “James, can you show him the way to the bathroom and have him change his clothes, please? The dinner will be ready in a minute.” “Sure, dear,” answered James and turned to look at the beggar. “Well, Simon, here’s your chance to impress the lady of this house. Be a good boy and take all that dirt off your body and shave off that ugly beard and moustache. There are some clothes for you by the tub as well.” Simon just stared at James for a while and said: “You’re good friends. Great friends.” And a couple of tears escaped his eyes. “Less of that nonsense,” said James and pushed him towards the bathroom. “Hurry up.” The duck Sarah had prepared smelt delicious. It had been marinated and carved, served together with fresh cucumber, spring onion and hoi sin sauce all wrapped in twenty pancakes she figured out among her husband James, Simon and herself. 13

German Bradley “Lovely, isn’t it?” asked James, smiling. “Yeah, I love duck,” replied Simon fullmouthed. “Here, have some more wine,” said James. “Otherwise you’ll choke over your food.” Simon almost emptied his glass at one gulp. “Easy, boy. Easy,” said Sarah and laughed. “Sorry.” Simon cleaned his mouth with the hem of the table-cloth. “Have you ever thought about looking for your family in Chester, Simon?” asked James. “Family? I haven’t got a family here.” “Not here, boy. In Chester,” said James. “We know your mother came from Chester some forty years ago. I think she lived somewhere near the centre of town, didn’t she?” James looked at his wife. “I can’t remember, honey,” said Sarah, avoiding the subject. “I can’t remember I ever had a mother,” said Simon, looking at his already empty dish just at the time Sarah began to collect the plates and cutlery. “Not even a memory or a photograph after these thirty five years?” asked James. “Harlech is my home and you are my friends. I don’t need more.” “You know we have a guest-room here,” said James. “I don’t want to force you into doing 14

Metempsychosis something you don’t want, but you don’t really need to stay out in the cold.” “It’s late,” said Simon. “I must go to see them. Sometimes they invite me to see the stars.” “You can’t leave before the dessert,” said Sarah, coming back with a cheesecake topped with milk chocolate sauce, milk chocolate curls and dairy cream. “I know you love chocolate as well,” said Sarah, putting the cheesecake on a silver stray in the middle of the table. After dinner Simon Wick was another man. He had gone to wash his hands again and looked clean and perfumed in that clean second-hand shirt, jeans and jacket. His belly was full and his heart was happy. “They’ll love it.” He thanked them for the food Sarah and James had put in a paper bag for him. “And they love to see me dressed like this. You are good friends, you know. Very good friends.” “Take care, Simon,” said Sarah and kissed him goodbye. “Here,” she added, handing another small package to him. “Don’t forget this clotted cream fudge bar.” He thanked them again and walked away. Night had fallen again, and it was time for that homeless schizophrenic to go to bed in the open air. **** “You shouldn’t have told him about his family, 15

German Bradley James,” said Sarah, drying the cutlery her husband had recently washed. “Don’t you remember?” “I’m sorry, honey. I forgot it. Fortunately, Simon doesn’t remember a thing.” “Poor lad,” said Sarah and gazed at the ceiling of her kitchen. “I really don’t know what is worst: being a schizophrenic as he is or knowing he’s the son of an incestuous relationship between his mother and her younger brother.” “Maybe one thing led to the other, don’t you think so?” “Poor lad. It’s so unfair.” **** Summertime brought tourists to Harlech, all of them seduced by the beauty of Snowdonia National Park and the magnificent thirteenthcentury castle. There was a genuine environment of enjoyment in that season, and Simon felt touched with hilarity as well. “Morning lads, morning lasses,” he greeted every man and woman he saw. “Enjoy your visit.” One afternoon in particular, Simon helped some French tourists with their luggage and they, in turn, showed their sympathy for him with kind words and pocket money. He felt special, of course and different. He felt like someone really worthy in that town. Tourists had tipped him 16

Metempsychosis enough money to buy himself a decent meal and a couple of drinks in a pub. He wouldn’t have to beg his bread on that day. He would be respected like the rest. And so he merrily headed for a white, three-storey pub in Ffordd Isaf. “Beautiful,” he said, looking at the flowers that decorated the cedar green balcony of the building. “They are really beautiful.” He loved those flowers, those lovely red, purple and white blooms, whose names he didn’t know, though they held him still in deep contemplation, as if they were mesmerising fairies in disguise. But the sound of the tourists drinking under the umbrellas outside the pub, and the giggling of young girls in the midst of joyful cheerios, brought him back from his musing. As if he were about to enter an exclusive restaurant, he took a deep breath, pushed the entrance door and stepped in. It was pitch black inside and incredibly silent. A stale stench was suspended in that blackness and a loud buzzing seemed to come and go from inside his head. But as his eyes adjusted, he noticed he was in another place, built of stone with frescos painted on the walls. There were carved decorations on the archways showing representations of rituals held by men clad in tunics and victims bound to an altar of granite. Their eyes depicted a horror beyond imagination, though, beyond the sacrifice itself. 17

German Bradley Other paintings showed men and women eating human limbs or pieces of carcass in cannibal orgies. A marble beast looked alive under its stone flesh, watching over an inner entrance door that looked thick and solid enough to stop any possible invasion or escape. Simon shook his head in denial, but the place refused to go. What’s more, his clothes shredded free of his body, leaving him naked. In fact, an infinite abyss whisked his own body away. “Visions and dreams are real events, Simon, in another hour, in another space,” a whisper, coming from everywhere around, said to him. “Look into your soul.” Simon’s gaze fell on the door, and a figure began to take shape—a lithe silhouette that opened its arms in warm welcome. “Feel free to come in whenever you wish,” the whisper invited, as everything became real again.

18

Metempsychosis

Chapter 2 obody had seen Simon entering the pub. it never happened for the tourists drinking outside, sitting on the white plastic chairs, nor the habitués inside. “Been inside a temple! Been inside a temple!” he shouted with glee, keen on telling everyone the details he’d seen inside the fane. “They beckoned me in.” “Cheers for that, man,” said an habitué. “Round of applause to the lucky man,” said a second. “But let me know about your visiting day. Maybe that day I’ll guide you to the mental house myself,” said a third one, and general laughter burst all around. Tourists and locals had disappointed him again, pouring cold water on his excitement, soaking his scruffy clothes and body. Oh, if they only let him speak, if he could only express himself like the rest, fluently and clearly. His eyes were set on the pavement, in the grey

NActually,

19

German Bradley void of his own heart. He hesitated for a moment after looking around. Laughter had already ceased, and nobody seemed to pay the slightest attention to him. He’d already gone for them. “I’m nobody here. I mean nothing to them.” He bowed his head in defeat and began to walk slowly away to his refuge on the outskirts, as his fingers played with old crumbs forsaken at the bottom of the pockets of his jeans. **** “Welcome back, Simon,” said one of the three figures at the entrance of the prehistoric temple. “I’m really pleased to see you.” This time Simon was alone when the strange structure suddenly emerged at the end of Heol y Bryn. He had been mentally calling the images inside that place as he loitered in that street, but he would never have imagined that cromlech was actually hearing his calls. It was amazing, he thought and looked around to make himself sure, but the entire town had faded away. “You don’t speak much, do you?” the figure said. “I think so.” “Never mind. You’re with friends now. You’re free to speak or remain silent.” “You ... you look ... as dirty as me,” Simon said, 20

Metempsychosis a little afraid. “Oh, I see you’ve got a good sense of humour. We’ve always praised that, haven’t we?” The other two hooded figures nodded and waited to usher him into the temple. He had to force his way into the interior, but, to his surprise, they just slid themselves in without effort, like ghosts gliding through. The same scene of forlorn cults and rites appeared on the walls of the round hall, lit by countless torches, as he trod the floor of perfect polished tiles. It looked ageless, or perhaps constantly refurbished, he thought, and looked back, but he couldn’t find the place he’d passed through. In fact, there was no sign of an entrance. “Who are you?” he dared to ask. “We’re history, my friend. History written in legends that live in the wildest dreams of men.” “People say I have funny dreams.” “No, you don’t dream. Nobody does. Dream is just another legend we once taught your dunce race to keep us safe. No, my friend. Travelling through space and time is what you really do. In the astral flesh, but without proper guidance.” “They call me names. They say I’m crazy.” “It doesn’t matter now. You’re special for us, not for them. Let’s go downstairs. There are many things we’d like to show you.” Using a narrow flight of stairs in the middle of 21

German Bradley the hall, they made their way down through a maze of corridors and chambers of granite and Cairngorm stone. At last they got into the sumptuous main vault, finely hewn and surrounded by thick blue pillars. “This is like a museum,” he said, besotted by the statues of fantastic creatures without legs, carved in stone and wood. He was not afraid now, merely curious. He felt like a schoolboy in a dream come true. His hands touched everything and the stones brought memories into his mind, memories he couldn’t understand. He felt a sudden connection between those stones and himself. His friends, the creatures of the tarn, seemed to be inside those stones. His eyes scanned the vault again and again, eager to see more. He even envisioned his life there, or was it just a memory? He saw himself esteemed and worthy. “How do you like it?” “It’s great.” “Whoever enters here cannot go back in time any more, though. But I bestow the chance of leaving upon you.” “Don’t get you,” he said with a puzzled look. “Have you got a house in your world?” “No.” “A family perhaps?” “No.” “This can be your home and we can be your 22

Metempsychosis family if you wish to stay with us.” His host’s words had given him pause. These people showed what nobody else had ever felt for him. They understood and accepted his visions as real. They threw open a door in his heart, a hope that drew him towards his deepest ambition— people’s acceptance, to know who he really was and to know why he felt so comfortable there. “I want to live here,” he said. “Welcome to Caer Vandwy, then.” And the beings unhooded their angelic faces to him and smiled, contented. **** “Who’s that?” Gwyn’s disembodied voice cracked inside the head of one of those beings. “I’m not sure yet, master,” said Medana, the demon leader. “He looks like a human, but he has the power to open the crack of time.” “I don’t like intruders.” “I know, master, but he must be the gate we’ve been looking for. He can cross the barrier of dimensions, and he is so harmless.” A sly smile crossed the demon’s lips. “Beware, Medana, or you’ll have to pay for your mistake.”

23

German Bradley

Chapter 3

A

beast had already smelt its prey and skulked furtively through that primeval forest in the Iron Age. It looked for the blind spot of a lone wild boar and had managed to reach the animal’s flank undetected. It remained still, squatting behind a gnarled oak, trying not to scare the birds that trilled away on the branches above, waiting to make its final move. Not even the temporary shadow of the oak could hide the feral hunger that shone in its sullen black eyes. Its long, skinny fingers were camouflaged in such a perfect way that they looked like twigs at the end of its sap green branch-like arms. The rays of the morning sun had already broken through the canopy of oak and beech trees, showing the boar’s coarse, dark grey hair and the long reddish grey bristles along its neck. But the sun revealed the features of the beast as well, a sort of simian face with no hair on it. Dry, dull 24

Metempsychosis sap-green skin, massively boned with heavy brow and sloping forehead. As it slunk towards the wild boar, the outsides of its nostrils—single and triangular skull-like openings—opened and closed, excited by the mouth-watering smell. Its jaws, wide and ready, showed lethal fangs and sharp incisors, dripping saliva. But the haze still resisted the morning sunlight and kept the rest of the body of the beast almost out of sight. Then the boar raised its neck and turned its head to one side, as if it suddenly knew the predator was near. The beast sprang over its prey like a shot, however, and sank its fangs into the animal’s neck. Both creatures rolled along the wet, leafy ground for a while, amid the horrible squeals of the boar. At last the fangs of the beast clamped down on the animal’s very bone, turning its resistance into nothing more than twitching convulsions. The fingers of the beast worked like stabs, deftly cutting the flanks and flaying the hide of its victim while it was still alive. It took only a short time for the beast to swallow its breakfast, but at the end it always smacked of chagrin and rage at not being free, at not having what its pith craved for—human flesh. But when the night came its hunger ceased. Its body and animal instincts changed; its memory got lost in a black stupor that deadened all its senses except an unbearable pain that slowed 25

German Bradley down its heartbeats. It was time for its savage soul to pass into another body that waited, empty but alive, in a nearby clearing. It had always been that way, but the beast had never got used to it. How could a creature like this ever manipulate the hours so as to make its days eternal? **** And so the beast appeared in human form, crouched behind the trunk of an old oak. It was a young girl, not older than fifteen, dressed in a leather cloak that dripped with fresh grease. Her eyes flickered open and gazed into the darkness around, searching for a familiar sight. They had become accustomed to the night but failed to make out the place, every time her nightmares set her free. All of a sudden, distant howling and neighs put her on the look-out. She didn’t panic but hastened to climb up the oak tree and watched, carefully perched in a branch. A pack of ghostly dogs travelled in the middle of a luminous mist. “The Cwn Annwn!” the girl exclaimed. Once her mother had told her about Gwyn, Master of the Underworld, and his dogs. They came from the world of fairies and demons, a world her mother was not stranger to. “Beware of their howling, child, for it is an omen of 26

Metempsychosis death.” Unfortunately, her mother’s warning had come to her memory late. Too late, actually. The dogs were already beneath her tree, sniffing the ground around. The girl lingered in her hide-out and gave all her attention to their glittering eyes and red ears; to their fur, white as snow. Then, the sound of an approaching horse distracted her. “Don’t let their master see you.” It was an enormous, sturdy animal, as black as the bottom of a pit, with strong hooves and pasterns. It swished its tail and tossed its head from time to time and snorted, as if it wanted to show how annoyed it was its master hadn’t found a human soul yet. Oval gold plates covered its chest and thighs and a large gold plate, attached to the bridle, protected its forehead. But beneath that plate there was a skull with evil red eyes that made the girl shiver on the branch. Without a doubt, the most frightening image was the rider of the horse, himself. As he passed by, death breathed from him like ethereal smoke and rotted off the branches of the nearby trees. He scrutinised the whole place beneath the helmet he wore. It was so dreadful that she was paralysed with fear while her heartbeats thumped in her head and her hands got slippery with her own sweat. 27

German Bradley The helmet looked like the skull of a wild animal, and its forehead bone stretched down almost to his chest. Two large, ringed horns decorated it on either side and in its frontal part, two slanted slits formed the sockets for his eyes and a long, narrow slit cut the forehead bone in two, forming an opening for him to breathe. “I smell the sweat of something young,” his voice cracked. “Can you smell it too, Dormarth?” he asked the huge, red-nosed dog marching by his side. The girl hid her face behind the branch and lay still. She could feel those slanted slits searching for her. “They seek human souls. They can sniff their prey miles away.” Her mother’s words continued in her head as she kept her eyes shut. The whole place got unusually silent, and her heartbeats became too loud for her to ignore them. Despite her fear, she was burning with curiosity to know what was happening below. She slowly opened her eyes again. Dormarth and the rest of the dogs were just beneath her, sniffing the cold night air. Blood dripped from their muzzles, and some of them cast their eyes skywards, but it seemed there was nothing for them in that place. Her eyes looked for their master and his diabolical horse, but they 28

Metempsychosis were not there. As the pack made their way through the forest again, the girl heaved a sigh of relief and wondered about her mother. “Go, child. Go as far as your legs can take you,” her mother had commanded. “Run for your life and don’t look back. Don’t hear their voices.” Gwyllions from the land of the dead had tracked them for weeks. Gwyllions had separated her from her mother. But how long ago? How long had she been wandering over the forest she’d taken shelter in? Had she chosen the right way? She had no answers to those questions. It was just a blind escape leading nowhere. All she had now were nightmares, pursuing her night after night. Nightmares in which she saw herself as a beast that hunted any living animal it could find in order to stay alive and steal their wretched souls. Sometimes they were lucid dreams like prophetic images or revelations, besetting and torturing her young heart. Mental pictures that hid themselves within her gentle dreams, dazzling and filling her head with doubts. She made her way down the tree and started to walk aimlessly, thinking about her last frightening dream, her most thought-provoking one. She saw herself lying on the ground; motionless, trembling in her bones on the brink of a precipice, among long pikes nailed like fences 29

German Bradley along that brink. She saw monstrosities atop, twisting their bodies in defiant mockery, still alive, gazing down at her with their innards dangling out. “You’re living on borrowed time from a fate you don’t know,” the monstrosities shouted at her with disfigured voices. One of them, however, was her own mother. The sharp tip of a pike had pierced into her somewhere down her crotch and come into sight again at the sternum, leaving her motionless and naked. The girl sat on an old log in a clearing in the wildwood. The unbearable scene made her blood run cold as her heart thudded. Her face contorted into a mask of dread. She tried to scream but couldn’t. The wrath she felt at knowing herself unable to save her mother had choked her with despair. “Don’t fret, my child,” mother said in the wailing voice of grief. “It’s all over for me.” Her rotting mouth spat scraps of her own bowels, speaking in perfect Brythonic. “I’m sorry, child. I’ve set Caer Vandwy against you.” Even though it was a memory, she couldn’t help losing control. Her muscles were tight, her teeth clenched, the fine lineaments of her face altered under the light of the moon. “Beware. They’re close and will find you soon. But 30

Metempsychosis they’ll be in for a surprise.” Her mind was in turmoil, struck with her mother’s cryptic words. “You’re different. You’re matchless. They’ll see.” The girl had a look in a nearby pool and saw a haggard, death-pale face, an exiled girl who seemed to grow faster than usual and who searched for a sanctuary that only her visions could tell. But they didn’t help at all. They just kept crowding somewhere in her mind like an untidy code that demanded her solution, and nobody else’s. It’d been a long time hanging on to abstruse dreams. She longed for answers; she longed for her mother to explain why she had no memories of daylight, why she wore a new leather cloak every two nights, always dripping with fresh grease. Her dog-tired body stumbled across the forest, making tracks for civilisation. By dawn she’d already crept out of the woodland and saw a village beneath, on the other side of a river. Yet the sun began to peek through the branches above, taking her conscience away.

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Chapter 4

T

he village looked deserted and silent except for two wenches, who’d come out towards the river to fetch some water, and a flock of sheep that grazed in the pasture. But the eyes of the beast were fixed on the women only. Its sharp smell could still pick out the warmth of their woollen blankets stuck on their bodies and clothes. Once they’d reached the bank of the river and put their vessels down, they took their long checked frocks off and washed themselves in the cold water. That was the moment for the beast to attack, unheard, because of the splashes of their frolicsome bath. It’d already chosen the weaker of them. Like an arrow it hurtled upon the scrawny, ginger-haired wench from behind. Its fangs immediately closed into her jugular, letting her own warm blood wash her instead. She grunted and gurgled. Her hands flailed for the miraculous help that wouldn’t come to her, while its hands had already gone through both sides of her waist 32

Metempsychosis and grabbed at her ascending colon. As she slowly swooned, the beast felt the vitality of her soul filtering and merging into its, becoming one and stronger. But the other girl’s screeches had already shattered the still of the morning. The beast caught sight of her running away nude, towards the village, and knew it was useless to go after her. Not only had some men left their huts, they had converged upon her as she hysterically pointed back towards it. Now it was its turn to run. So it lifted its prey out of the water and rushed back into the forest. Cruel branches whipped at its face and body as it thrashed through the undergrowth, but not a grunt of pain came from its mouth. It was totally oblivious to those petty scratches. The beast stopped behind a wide tree and waited for a possible avenger to safe her life. But none came. Then, it perched upon the girl’s corpse and cut and split her skin as if it were a tender leaf. At her shoulders, around her neck, at her sides, and around her arms. With skilled plucks, it began to peel her, leaving her crimson flesh exposed, ready to cram that morsel into its mouth. It tasted for the first time what it knew was rightfully its own and dug into her corpse for the entrails, pulling and twisting them free, exquisitely juicy and slimy. Only in the afternoon, did the beast dare to 33

German Bradley venture beyond the river again. To its surprise, the village was still deserted, making it easier to go deep inside this time. It prowled and stalked until it got to the farthest hut. It smelt a pungent sweat as it went closer. It heard rasping moans coming from inside, and soft, slithering sounds as well. And when the beast crossed the threshold, its sullen eyes faced a nude couple grappling upon a wooden bed behind a cauldron and a burnt-out fire. Both were drenched in sweat, in pain and stuck into each other. The woman’s nails raked the man’s naked back, her legs crossed around his hips, as he moved on top of her with long and slow strokes. Suddenly, the man started a series of furious jabs that caused the woman’s hips to grind down onto the bedding. She started to cry and the thump of their slamming flesh became louder and louder. But the beast wouldn’t mingle with their business, let alone stop them. It would just take advantage of it. Its hands fell on their necks like two pitchforks: the left one hooked in the man’s nape and the right one nailed to the woman’s throat. And then came the slow passing of their souls through its breath. There would be plenty of time to peel and eat them afterwards. The passing of those souls into its body was the priority of the beast now, and it felt safe, safe as any other beast could be. **** 34

Metempsychosis

For two days the village of Caer Arianrhod fed the beast well. For two nights the girl slept like a rock in a sort of twilight zone. Her body was empty again but hidden beneath a wooden bed two huts away. She lay on the ground ignorant of the halfformed figures that cautiously crept and crawled around like ghostly shadows. Her eyes were blind to the creatures that climbed and watched at the top of the huts’ thatched roofs, to those that sniffed the air, slouched against the wooden walls of her temporary new abode. Her ears were deaf to the ghastly croons that blended with the people’s laughter out there at the centre of the village. Her reasoning brushed aside the demons that thronged together and hunched around their victims, pushing the raw meat into their drooling mouths when the orgies and the sacrifice were over. No, there was no way for her to know where she was. She only knew, after waking up and looking down at herself, that she’d draped herself inside greasy human skin, badly patched and laced with thongs all over her body—a shirt-like garment that fell like a skirt to her knees. At the dawn of the third day of hunting, a woman clad in a long blue tunic appeared at the doorsill of the beast’s hut, blocking its way out. There was something odd in the woman’s long colourless hair, something hypnotic in her red35

German Bradley rimmed eyes. Something made the head of the beast spin with wooziness, while her hands constantly moved in front of its face. “I feel you’re afraid,” she said in Brythonic as the beast tottered backwards, trying to keep itself apart from the dizziness and fatigue that now weighed too much upon its body. “Don’t be. There’s no reason.” It was a penetrating voice, albeit with a certain lilt. “There’s a place for you in this town. A place where I think you belong.” A gargantuan fist squeezed its skull. “Come along ...” And grabbed its lungs, clogging the air it breathed … “Follow me ...” … and its heart, until the beast succumbed like a tamed animal to the overwhelming order.

36

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Chapter 5

T

here was an iron door ajar behind a couple of blue pillars all the way in the back of the sumptuous main vault. “Please, Simon,” said the one who seemed to be the leader of those androgynous beings. “Go in. The table is set for us in our humble dinning room.” Four bronze bowls, together with a jar and four silver cups gorgeously embellished with birds and human figures, were already on a big wooden table. Appealing geometric abstractions drew Simon’s attention towards the surface of that table, as his hands ran along the carved designs. Intricate knots and swirl patterns were there, below his fingers, enhanced with red enamel. “Sit down and drink,” said another being, showing him a form behind the table. “You must be thirsty and hungry,” said the third one as Simon sat. “Our food is coming.” “Oh, but we haven’t introduced ourselves 37

German Bradley properly yet,” said the leader again, once of all them had sat in front of him. “My name’s Medana, the Gwyllion chieftain in Caer Vandwy, and these are Mord and Llys, my loyal kith and kin.” Simon stared at their cold, colourless eyes and at their long, straight and also colourless locks. One by one, his eyes analysed the unruffled beauty of their square faces and their strong chins. The more he saw them, the more he thought their gender was female. “I propose a toast to the new member of our family,” said Medana, raising her cup. Her voice, now Simon noticed, had an asexual tone he found simply captivating. “To Simon Wick!” shouted Mord. “Down the hatch!” shouted Llys, and all of them swigged at the same time. The heady, emerald green nectar tasted like honey as it oozed into Simon’s throat. It quickened his heartbeat in almost no time and made him feel so giddy that he had to set his drink down to clutch the sides of the table so as not to fall. He tried to focus his sight on his hosts again but saw something different in those beings. Their expressions had taken on an ecstatic stupor, and at the same time a certain halo of savoir-faire. Images and strange feelings began to flicker in his mind. He saw himself in vibrant colours in another place. His whole body, muscles, flesh, 38

Metempsychosis bones and skin, looked like pieces of old and worn cloth that spiralled over a huge hollow tree trunk. He was not alone there, though. The androgynous beings were naked below, waiting for him by the tree trunk. Smiling. “Open yourself.” He thought he heard them. “Let us taste your fantasies; even the purest souls have hidden fancies inside.” The images vanished, leaving him in a puzzle for a couple of seconds. But Simon didn’t care for it very much. He was happy anyway. He was sharing his drink with those beautiful new friends. He had found a place to stay away from the cold. What else could he ask? “Here comes our food!” Medana exclaimed, turning her head towards the door. Two skin-and-bone men came in carrying silver trays with big pieces of meat on them. They looked really sick and could hardly hold the trays. Their ribs stood out clearly beneath the naked skin of their chests and bellies, as they laboured for each breath. “Just put the meat down on the table,” said Medana. “We’ll figure it out.” Without a word they stepped out of the room, after setting the food in front of the androgynous beings. Yet Simon’s eyes couldn’t avoid following them. “Don’t let their looks disturb this moment, my 39

German Bradley friend,” said Mord, pouring a few inches of the liquid into his cup. “But they need some food too,” Simon replied. “They are just lackeys here,” Llys explained. “Lackeys?” “Low rank servants who have their own food in another place in this temple.” “How big is this temple? Will I see it all?” asked Simon anxiously. “You will, my friend,” said Llys and smiled at him. “Time will come for you to see more.” “Stop chatting now,” Medana interrupted. “It’s time to eat.” The lack of refinement in their eating amused Simon a lot. Those androgynous beings attacked their portions with daggers and their own hands in the most uncivilised way he’d seen. He was proud of himself. He knew his manners were much better than theirs, but smelling the grilled meat and seeing the gravy slide down their wrists made Simon’s mouth water. So he attacked his own portion as well, following their savage way, and after two mouthfuls, it tasted wonderful, probably the finest meat he’d ever eaten. He continued drinking that emerald green nectar and started to feel odd, dizzy. The voices in his mind came back as those androgynous beings watched him. “Open yourself, Simon. Expose your innermost 40

Metempsychosis dreams.” He felt his eyelids heavy. He tried to focus on their gestures, but he could only see a blur that made him laugh. “This nectar is good,” he said. “Very good.” Suddenly he found his vision clearing, but to his surprise his androgynous friends were floating wraithlike around him and he was no longer in the dining room but in a small empty room lit by torchlight. “I think I’ve drunk too much, haven’t I?” “Open yourself, Simon.” He heard them again. “Show us your fancies. That’s what Caer Vandwy is for anyway.” He looked around and realised he was no longer sitting at the table but standing naked in the middle of an empty stone room. His androgynous friends continued floating around him, brushing their hands up and down his thighs. “Medana?” he asked. “Is that you?” There was no answer to his questions, but one of those Gwyllions materialised and slipped her arms around him from behind and brushed one of her legs against his thigh. “Does it feel good?” The one behind him whispered in his ears. “How do you like it?” Soft spongy flesh pressed against his back, radiating warmth. 41

German Bradley “This is the way we welcome a friend to our home,” said Mord in breathless tones and kissed him on the mouth. He kissed her back. A shiver passed through his body as her tongue slipped into his mouth. His skin tingled beneath the other Gwyllion’s hands. He began to suck Mord’s warm and wet tongue, as the kiss turned more ardent. His hands were on Mord’s waist, sliding slyly upwards—tangling a little in the fabric of her tunic—until they touched the underslope of her breasts. An overwhelming sensation began to grow between his thighs and inside his brain as well. Something totally new had stirred in him—a strong desire he felt he had to cloy. Yet he was afraid. Mord pulled away, slowly. “Good, Simon,” she said, staring long and hard at his groin. “Unlock yourself. Reach down into your darkest corner and pull your wild and nasty self out there.” He looked at himself and found his phallus had grown hard, aching out at him. Mord just smiled at him and stepped back. She unbelted her tunic and let it slide down to the floor. Simon’s heart shuddered. “I’m losing my mind,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on the white skin of her body, her swollen breasts and her flower-pink nipples, yet his desire almost vanished when he saw a limp but thick 42

Metempsychosis male organ dangling between her thighs. “Don’t be afraid of yourself, Simon,” said Medana, coming into view from his right. She was naked as well and ported a limp male organ. “We can be what you want,” she added and approached Mord and kissed her on the mouth. They fondled each other’s breasts in front of him. It was as if they wanted him to see the subtle change in texture of their nipples. The scene was electrifying. As he watched he started to feel tinglings and quiverings all around his body. His penis pulsed, pleading for attention. Then, a cool hand pressed gently against his bulging member. His whole body twitched in astonishment as uncontrollable tremors shot through him. “Does it feel good?” It was Llys who was whispering by his side, frigging him with a slow pumping motion. The fingers of her other hand slid into the cleft of his arse, finding their way into his sphincter. Simon couldn’t answer her. He was all moans and groans. He’d closed his eyes and another image came to his mind; a fantasy intertwined with his innermost desires. He saw how the whole room turned into a world of shadowy bodies, a crowd of female fornicators that indulged one another amidst dreamy murmurs of passion. Their hands ran up his calves, knees and thighs, 43

German Bradley dragging him down, like spirits willing to catch him and wrap him in their undreamed ecstasies. “They’re sluts, Simon.” He heard the Gwyllions’ voice in his head. “Actresses, ready to perform the forbidden acts and plays you’ve kept inside for a lifetime. They are giving themselves up to your desires. They are yours to abuse.” He opened his eyes again and looked down. His penis was more than erect; it was a mammoth shaft that swung back and forth like a pendulum as he moved among those bodies. Their hands were busy caressing their breasts or going down to their groins and parting their labia, exposing and offering themselves to him. “Be their master, Simon. Feel free to treat them as you want.” “This is like Heaven! This is Heaven itself!” Aroused and astonished at the real existence of his fantasy, he let himself go. He had found a hidden force that worked through and with him. It was like an enormous power and he was eager to exert that power on those women. “Go ahead, Simon. This is your heaven indeed.” He let those hands caress him; he let those mouths service him. His own mouth discovered the secrets of their spasming labia, his fingers met their voluptuous contractions, and his hands sank into the sponge-like tunnel of their pussies. He heard them sighing deeply as he forced his way 44

Metempsychosis into their cunts; into their arses, like a beast. He heard the obscenities they whispered into his ear; he heard them cry as they became his and something more powerful than a drunken frenzy of horniness burst inside him. “Take it! Take it! Take it!” he screamed on and on, totally numb and insane, lost in his own revolting and depraved fantasies. There was such a lusty rage in his eyes that those women couldn’t sustain his gaze.

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Chapter 6

“s

imon!” He heard a voice at the distance. “Simon! Wake up!” A hand was shaking him by the shoulder, forcing him to open his eyes. He looked around and saw Medana smiling at him by his side. The torches of the walls were about to die down. He looked around and realised the room was empty. He looked himself over and found he wasn’t naked. Instinctively, he touched between his legs and found him limp and unresponsive. But he was tired, very tired. He thought of telling Medana about his vision, his dream, his fantasies, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to disappoint his new friends. He didn’t want them to know he had found a whole new world inside him, a world of excesses and lust that inflamed insatiable appetites he didn’t know he had. He had deliberately excluded all other thoughts as well; he liked what he’d felt very much, and wanted to feel it again. 46

Metempsychosis “We need to change your dressing style, my friend. Come along.” He rubbed his eyes with his hands and yawned before standing. “Good food, wasn’t it?” he said, looking at the almost empty table. “And good nectar, too.” “Yes, it certainly was,” said Medana and walked to the door. On the table the trays, cups and bowls had gone. Only pieces of thigh and hipbones remained there amid dried-up gravy. **** “Now, look at yourself in the mirror,” said Medana, handing him a round bronze mirror with an image of the sun engraved on its back. “Is it me? Is it really me?” asked Simon doubtfully. “Yes, Simon. How do you like it?” A belted, dark blue tunic covered his body, and a broad gold necklace decorated most of his chest. “Where are my jeans and T-shirt?” “You won’t need them any more.” But Simon saw a thin portrait of his face in the mirror, an image as translucent as a ghost. He watched his hands and compared them with the solid surface and handle of the mirror. He looked back at Medana, standing behind him, and 47

German Bradley realised it was true. He looked like a ghost! His skin didn’t have the consistency of hers! “Do you remember how you came here?” Medana asked softly. “I was in a pub in Harlech.” “Did you happen to feel any physical sensation when we showed this place to you? I mean, were you cold or hot or something?” Simon looked back in the mirror and around that rustic dressing room and thought. “No,” he said after a while. “Have you heard your steps on the stones? Are you actually walking when you move across this temple?” Medana kept on asking as she stepped away from him. “Come here, Simon. Come and see.” He came closer of course, but Medana kept on talking. “Look at your feet. Are they walking?” To his surprise, he was not walking at all but floating across the room a few inches above the floor. He stopped to see his feet but couldn’t find them. There was nothing below his tunic. Nothing! “It’s your odic force that has travelled to our world, and I’m sure it has taken you to other worlds before. Astral projection, my friend. The Od is astir in you. You’re a natural projector” “I don’t understand, I don’t understand,” said Simon scared at not finding his body beneath the 48

Metempsychosis tunic. “Don’t distress yourself. You have an invaluable gift,” said Medana, caressing one of his shoulders. “You only need to master it.” “How? Where’s my body?” “We can help you do that.” “Where’s my—” “Back in Harlech, I suppose,” said Medana, walking by his side, one of her arms in his shoulders. “Will I see it again?” “Of course, Simon. Don’t fret. We understand your talent. We have some similar ones as well. Come with me,” she said as she guided him through a narrow crack on the wall of that room, just below a couple of burning torches. “You’ll become the master of your trips.” “But I—” He had suddenly remembered his fantasies and the physical urges he’d felt. “We’re in a whole new plane of existence. You’ll have to get used to it,” said Medana and smiled at him. “Come with me now.”

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Chapter 7

“W

hat’s this? Where are we?” asked Simon as he watched the attractive but intimidating landscape before his eyes. The crack had led them to an enormous duct of viscous shining flesh-coloured walls, lit with countless candles and set within a short distance of each other. “This is one of the passages leading to the Underworld,” answered Medana, descending a couple of steps on the only road they had to go through—a stone stairway, without banisters, that seemed to lead them down into nowhere. “It’s moving! This place is alive!” exclaimed Simon, his eyes fixed on the throbbing walls; he didn’t dare to move from the last step he stood on. “Yes, my friend. We’re inside the entrails of Gwyn, the god and master of this world. But don’t worry about that. He’s pleased to see us coming to him.” “Can he see us?” 50

Metempsychosis “Oh, yes. Always.” As they made their way downstairs, Simon noticed there were sharp bends in the stairway. In fact, the steps doubled back, descending into what seemed to be the very core of that living place. “Here we are, Simon,” Medana suddenly said at one of the bends. “Welcome to the odic chamber.” A small oval chamber with walls made entirely of bones and skulls received them behind an opening of spongy and slippery flesh. Four narrow furry beds were arranged on the floor, forming a sort of cross. Among them, a large fire burnt, giving a weird effect to those uneven walls. “From here you’ll sail through other dark worlds, caught into folds of time consigned to oblivion by your race centuries ago.” Simon just watched the flames and smiled, delighted. “Lie on a bed and open the doors by yourself,” Medana invited. “I’ll be guiding your trip.” He chose the bed on his left and lay on his back. His eyes followed the shadows of the fire reflected on the curved ceiling. “Make yourself comfortable,” said Medana in a soft voice. “Quiet your mind ... Still your thoughts.” Simon closed his eyes. “Relax your body ... Your face ... Your jaw ... 51

German Bradley Your shoulders ... Feel at peace.” Simon began to breathe slowly and deeply. “Yes,” said Medana. “Focus on your breathing ... Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose.” Then a black hole opened in time just in front of him. “Don’t fret, Simon,” said Medana. “I’m here, by your side.” They started walking a strange forest Simon hadn’t seen before, but Medana’s mere presence irrevocably changed the whole landscape there. Trees contorted and writhed. Grass turned black and grew in strange patterns all around them. Streams flew backwards. Faces pushed out of solid rocks and stones, opening their mouths, screaming in anguish. “What are we doing here?” Simon asked, scared. “You brought me here, Simon. You know where we are, you must have been here before.” “No, I don’t remember this place.” Simon looked around. There were fearsome creatures in that forest. They seemed to be waiting for them, ready for battle. “They want to kill us, Simon. What did you do to them?” “I didn’t do anything to them! I swear it. I’ve never been here!” “But they are angry with you.” 52

Metempsychosis The creatures came closer, wielding their monstrous and primitive axes and clubs. “You’d better do something,” said Medana. “They want us for dead.” “But what can I do?” “Use your talents.” Simon didn’t know what his talents were at all, but he remembered the voice that spoke in his head when his fantasies turned real: Be their master, Simon. He focused on his own odic force and spread like fog around that forest. The creatures had already charged at him. A piercing warping roar came out of his throat as his ethereal fog wrapped those fearsome creatures. He saw them fall to the blackened grass. Their skin split open below him. Their bones and muscles grew in impossible fashions. Every limb of them twisted and rearranged under his mental command. His mind was filled with images that had come true. One of those images showed him inside the body of one of those spawns. He returned to physical life as if he needed to complete some sort of unfinished education. He tasted the pain of his own wishes. He suffered the agonies he himself had inflicted upon those creatures. He had power over them, but his power scared him to death. It was too much, too glorious. There was a dark evil energy inside him which fed upon his visions and images. However, he felt he could command that 53

German Bradley power by instinct; he felt he could shape that energy into an expression of his will, and his will had been destructive. He was full of rage and trembling with fear. “Don’t be afraid of your awakening,” said Medana. Simon didn’t hear what she said this time. His odic force just absconded that nightmarish forest to sink into latrines of filthridden depths in which a great number of demons wallowed in primal ecstasy in another reality. Depths opened and drew him closer, making him part of the filth. “Would you like to get into those bodies as well?” asked Medana. “Would you like to live what they live?” “Yes. But there are so many of them,” said Simon, wallowing among those nasty and lunatic demons like a piglet in the mire. “You’re right. They’re as many as the emotions a man can hold.” Tiny worms came in and out of those demons’ ears, nostrils and mouths, as they laughed in a totally idiotic way. “Come on, Simon. Choose one and get into it,” said Medana somewhere in his mind. “They are your friends. They have so many things to share.” The energy grew strong inside him again and he let himself go, tumbling over gruesome silos where thousands of deformed faces folded 54

Metempsychosis endlessly into one another, showing him new and intense emotions he couldn’t control. He was blind to everything but the experiences that waited ahead. Every new image turned into new sensation that choked him, but Medana was always there, smiling and helping him control himself. And after a time of doubts and frustrating journeys, his training process began to gain its ends. His etheric body managed to waltz in and out of the most outlandish and sinister depths with carefree abandon, terrorising the very core of those infernal planes, using the weakest creatures in his deviant fancies. No formulas of magic or black arts could stop his power. He was a master in those realities. He had new visions of torture for those demons, new outlandish ways to keep them entranced in their own agonies. He had changed their anatomies. He had made shapeless masses and appendages out of them. He had even redesigned their realities, transforming their worlds into a labyrinth of walls of impossible height, condemning them to slowly move up and down those structures like slugs. He felt he was more than worthy among those creatures. He felt he could do so many things. He was held in the greatest respect in those planes. Those demons made him feel alive. “Well done, Simon. Well done,” the androgynous Gwyllions congratulated him all the 55

German Bradley time, but he knew they didn’t feel as comfortable with him as before. Something had changed in their eyes and he didn’t know what or why. It didn’t matter how many bodies he explored, it didn’t matter how many realities he broke into. They seemed not to care for it. **** “Are you having troubles, Medana?” asked Gwyn, ironically. “Is that little bastard too much for you to control?” “He’s not really learning from us, master. We’ve only been awaking a power he learnt somewhere else, from another master. We’ve been corrupting his soul, though, and we’ve found a pretty deviant psyche as well.” “How much do you think he knows?” “Enough to alter the Underworld itself.” “The offspring,” thought Gwyn aloud, his eyes wide opened. “Set a good trap for that bastard and leave his soul in the Reservoir. I’ll tear him apart myself.” “He might not be the offspring, master,” said Medana. “But he is a doorway through which we could escape this illusory time we have created. The silver cord that ties him to his earthly body is not broken. He’s got the power, master. He is our bridge to another time.” 56

Metempsychosis “You know there’s no escape if we don’t catch the offspring first,” said Gwyn. “And this one might be the offspring in disguise. So go now and do as I said. I want to see that bastard in the Reservoir.” “Yes, master.”

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Chapter 8

S

imon’s odic force had darkened after those projections. Its new colour showed the true nature of his essence. Naïveté had gone to give way to the hidden depravity he carried within. Harlech and the creatures of the tarns were just a distant memory, almost a dream. There was so much knowledge inside him now, so much to explore. He had the sensation he’d spent years among those dark planes, years in which he had found a reason to live, an answer to his being, and a delicious way to satisfy his carnal whim. “You’re making real headway, Simon,” said Medana. “Much more than we expected, actually.” “You’ve proven to be quite a remarkable creature,” said Mord. “We want you to take part in our rites here in Caer Vandwy,” added Llys. “Come along, Simon,” said Medana. “I’m sure you’ll like it.” And so they took him through a maze of 58

Metempsychosis corridors and overlapping passages where charred bones crumbled into dust. Every three or four corners, mounds of rotten corpses lay, blocking their way until the main vault revealed itself again and an unexpected holocaust welcomed him inside. Male and female carcasses formed an insane decor for that place, taking mutilated remains by fine art statues. Human candelabra hung on the walls like crucified bodies, torn apart below the ribs. The chests dried up like leather with no innards inside. Bodies were chained to the pillars; others were wrapped with their arms and legs bound to the back, as though they’d been used in an ancient bondage game before dying. “Oh, it’s so beautiful,” he said. “I hadn’t have imagined something like this yet.” He turned and looked for them with his eyes to say thank you but noticed they wore no tunics this time. Brightly coloured and embroidered shirts with leather trousers and furry cloaks fastened with brooches clad their bodies instead. They had also painted their cheeks and foreheads with lines and spirals of dark blue colour, and heavy gold neck-ring ornaments called torcs decorated their naked necks. “You’ve been walking in and out of the bodies of lower demons so far,” said Llys. “Have you ever imagined how it would be to 59

German Bradley invade the body of another living human being?” asked Mord. “Just look around. Would you like to transmigrate into the body of that woman?” Mord pointed to the altar in front of them. “Would you like to possess her?” asked Medana. “Possess her?” asked Simon, showing great interest already. “Yes,” said Mord. “Imagine how fun it would be to use the body of a woman.” “To impinge upon her mentally,” added Llys. “I’d rather like to take her life as a sacrifice,” Simon answered after a long pause. His eyes had gone back to the altar. The woman lay nude there, waiting. Her arms and legs were bound to horns jutted out from the polished stone. She looked relaxed, as if asleep. The Gwyllions looked at each other in silence. “Are you rejecting our offering?” asked Medana. She realised the trap she’d set was getting out of her hands. Having him enter a human body was the most effective way to imprison him and diminish his recently acquired powers. “Oh, no. I only said I’d prefer to taste her instead,” said Simon, walking towards the woman. He stood by the altar itself and stroked the woman’s naked flesh. “I’m sure she must be delicious.” His urge was growing inside. 60

Metempsychosis “But you could taste her alive, Simon,” Mord insisted. “You could feel how young and alive she is,” said Llys. “Her most intimate feelings would be revealed to you,” said Medana. Simon was glancing down at the naked woman; his ethereal hand caressed her skin. He started to fancy her in a more sensual environment. “But it’s all right if you want to taste her,” said Medana and turned to look at the others. “Perhaps this woman is not really attractive to him.” “Why, yes, of course,” said Mord. “We should have let him choose after all, shouldn’t we?” “There are many women in the village to choose,” said Llys. “Of course,” said Medana and turned to look at Simon again. “Here.” She smiled and handed him a silver dagger. “Go on, my friend, kill her. Let her soul come to us.” Simon held the dagger in his hands for a while and smiled. His fancy had gone. He was thankful for that chance, but he couldn’t explain why he had refused their generous offering. He just threw his hands up to the ceiling and the wide sleeves of his tunic slid down to his shoulders. The dagger gleamed in his left hand. “My own sacrifice.” Simon’s hoarse voice echoed in the vault like the dreadful gloating voice 61

German Bradley of a demented creature. “Let her soul go,” commanded Mord and the dagger sank into the woman’s midriff. Simon’s eyes rolled upwards, powerful veins bulged as the tendons in his neck tightened. He began to lose himself in a trance. The Gwyllions reached the altar and broke the woman’s bonds. She bent in pain, screaming and writhing. The dagger was still inside her body. She was slowly bleeding to death. A mix of madness and libido blazed from Simon’s eyes as he watched the woman’s soul passing into Medana’s body. Then, as if a force beyond his will preordained his actions, he saw himself inside the female body. He had flesh again, albeit he felt a little bit uncomfortable. He felt his odic force interlacing with that flesh, exactly in the same way he’d seen the lines in the intricate designs that festooned the temple. He suddenly understood the meaning of the Celtic configurations. It was the passage of the soul to another body that they had represented in their geometric patterns. He took off the dagger and the pain he felt reminded him of all those physical sensations he’d left behind. He heard the Gwyllions talk but it wasn’t words what came out of their throats. Loud hungry roars escaped their lips and thundered in that head like a storm. There was no way for him 62

Metempsychosis to understand what they said. He had never heard them talking in that way and couldn’t stand the sound of those slurred syllables and vowels. “Stop it! Stop it!” He pressed his ears with his hands so as not to hear those growls, but the Gwyllions just looked at him and laughed, making the bones of the woman’s skull crack under that language. Yet the Gwyllions’ voices ceased. There wasn’t enough strength in those female legs to keep the body up either, so he fell down onto the cold floor. Through the woman’s eyes he watched the torsos hanging from the ceiling of that slaughter-house. He watched them bleed and shine as they twirled on their hooks. Everything looked so fresh through those eyes that he could even hear those bald women moan as they strung by their groins, rib cages and necks. The woman’s eyes went back to the Gwyllions around. A state of absolute bestiality took over their features. They salivated. Their lips drew back from their teeth, allowing their saliva to spill out and run down their jaws. Suddenly, he felt a new sharp pain. Medana had stabbed her hands into the abdomen and ripped it open, tearing out intestines and kidneys through the opening between the legs of that body. And now the same force that had merged his odic form into the body took him back to his 63

German Bradley ethereal state, as he watched the androgynous beings lick the blood out of their hands like animals cleaning their paws. “You were right, Simon,” said Medana. “She tastes really good.” “Come on,” said Mord. “Join us.” Simon stepped backwards, scared and surprised at the same time. He wasn’t hungry for that woman anymore. The beastly sounds he’d heard still echoed inside him. “What’s wrong, my friend?” asked Medana, turning towards him. “Y-y-your voices. The whole place trembled. I felt the skull of that woman crack under the sound of your ...” “Human ears,” said Medana and laughed. “They are so primitive, aren’t they? It’s a good thing you don’t have to use them anymore.” “But ... Is that really your voices?” “To human ears, Simon,” said Mord. “Not to friends.” “Now, come here and eat,” commanded Medana. “Before her meat gets cold and stiff.” And he joined that feast of human flesh.

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Chapter 9

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here was no way to calculate the hours or days inside Caer Vandwy. There was no way to know how many men and women Simon had sacrificed to the god of his androgynous mentors, but every time they suggested him to enter a human body he had rejected their offering almost by instinct. As time went by he realised those human containers couldn’t give him the experiences and emotions he’d found in those infernal planes, inside the minds of those demons, inside his innermost desires. He missed them a lot; his powers had considerably diminished since he hadn’t visited them. He felt as if he were cast aside, as if he were a bit of rubbish that nobody was interested in. To his great disappointment, the Gwyllions hadn’t given him the chance to go back to the oval chamber; they hadn’t allowed him to sail through those marvellous planes. In fact, he hadn’t even seen them again in Caer Vandwy. They had suddenly gone, leaving him alone in 65

German Bradley that temple, alone, like a ghost, among those miserable lackeys. However, he had tried to find solace in his own world of excesses and lust, where he knew he was the master of the elements. His fantasies became real and he let himself go. The hidden force he held inside worked through him again. He summoned new fornicators to live out the secrets of his deviant lust, but something was missing there—Medana and her kith and kin. He couldn’t feel a thing without them around. His longing desire took the form of a lascivious demoness bearing Medana’s resemblance, but it wasn’t effective. It wasn’t the same without her. In the end he was filled with despair and his world of excesses vanished. Something new invaded his soul like an unbearable itch that made him quake with impatience. He needed to see the Gwyllion chieftain; he needed to have her near. It felt warm and strong in his spirit when he thought about her, but he couldn’t understand the reason of that uncomfortable feeling he had. He couldn’t understand why he sometimes found himself repeating her name on and on. **** “Well done. His aura is debilitating,” said Gwyn. The Gwyllions listened attentively. “The misery 66

Metempsychosis and sorrow of those human lackeys are breaking him down and the time he’s lived in Harlech is still fresh in his memory. But there’s something else.” The god paused and gazed down at Medana. “The daft bastard has fallen in love with you.” The god burst into laughter. “Oh, it touches my heart,” Medana mocked and laughed. “What are you waiting for?” asked Gwyn. “This is your chance to put his soul where it deserves to be.” “Yes, master. I won’t fail this time.” The Gwyllion chieftain bowed before the god. **** “Have you missed me, Simon?” asked Medana, sitting in a wooden armchair, which was part of a huge withered oak tree, in the middle of her chamber. A soft greenish light peeked through an opening on the stone ceiling behind that oak tree. There was a large bed of furs in front of her and two small and clear fires burnt on both sides of the wooden door. “I’ve heard you have.” There was a strange look in her colourless eyes and her voice was almost a whisper. “I…I…” It was the first time the Gwyllion chieftain invited Simon to her chamber and he didn’t know 67

German Bradley what to do. “Don’t be afraid. I missed your company as well. It’s not easy to find a soul like yours.” A fine emerald fabric barely covered her breasts, leaving the paleness of her skin totally exposed for him to see. Silver bracelets adorned her wrists and a set of rich golden earrings added colour to her long white locks. “Thank you,” said Simon. “I feel pleased here, but I sometimes miss travelling to those planes you used to take me.” “It was you who took us, Simon,” said Medana and stood. “It is you the one who can travel to any time, anywhere that piques your curiosity enough.” “You’ve schooled me well,” said Simon, looking at the wide bronze belt she wore low on her well-rounded hips. The length of diaphanous blue silk that belt supported couldn’t hide the Gwyllion’s beautiful thighs and legs from his curious eyes. “I must admit I miss merging into your astral self from time to time, though.” She smiled and approached him. “Oh, that’s, that’s an honour for me.” Medana stretched her pale arms and her large and rather masculine hands touched Simon’s shoulders. His astral self materialised under his tunic. 68

Metempsychosis “Do you fancy me?” The Gwyllion asked, slipping his tunic off. Simon didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t think. He was elated and scared. His eyes were fixed on Medana’s. There was a hungry look in those eyes. “Come on. Don’t be so bashful.” A weird urge stirred in him as Medana ran one of her hands down his chest. “I ...” “Don’t you like them?” the Gwyllion asked, baring her breasts. “Y-y-yes, I do l-l-like them,” said Simon unable to take his eyes off Medana’s areolae. “Come and taste them then. Come and enjoy my reward.” And so one of Simon’s hands touched the soft skin of her breasts for the first time; his lips followed afterwards, his tongue, his teeth. Medana’s hands fumbled for his skin beneath the tunic and her fingers sank into his flesh, causing him pain, making his appetite grow stronger. He sucked those breasts deep into his mouth. If felt strange at first, but he learnt to enjoy it soon, until a thick liquid oozed into his throat. He gulped it down. He was almost choked but he still wanted more. He wanted to continue tasting those hard knobs of flesh, but his mouth felt thick and his eyelids became heavier and heavier. Medana’s 69

German Bradley liquid scorched its way down his throat. It seared in his stomach, like acid, but at the same time he started to feel a pleasant warmth inside. He felt as if he were slowly bleeding to death. He felt weightless, and that warmth sensation communicated itself to his loins. Suddenly, he couldn’t feel Medana’s flesh any longer. He began to float in the air, but Medana was still standing down there, gazing up at him, smiling. He looked at his hands and realised he was ethereal again. “Oh, this is great! It feels so good!” he exclaimed, adrift in the air, but Medana didn’t pay attention to him. She was walking towards the door of her chamber. “It ... feels ... fan ... tas ... tic,” he said softly, almost to himself, as his eyes gave in to sleep. **** It was night time and his odic force was out again, flying the village like a bird. Here and there fires burnt and their flickering light poured over the faces of long-haired men and women with twisted red and oranges. They had gathered around a huge earthenware casserole set on one of those fires. His androgynous friends were there as well. In fact, Llys had lifted a man in her arms and walked with him towards the casserole. 70

Metempsychosis Simon descended and went through the flames of a nearby clear fire. He wanted to look at the things that took place in the village from another angle. He stood almost in front of that casserole, and the villagers came by, walking through him without even noticing him. Llys had thrown the man into the hot pot and the villagers dropped to their knees with worship in their eyes amidst the man’s shrieks. “Let his flesh boil in this Cauldron of Regeneration.” Simon heard her say. “His soul is eager to meet our master Gwyn.” The villagers just threw their hands up to the moonless night above and started to sing. “Let him fly away. May the sacred Gwibers guide his soul down to the Underworld.” Music came to Simon’s ears from the instruments of some country folks on his left, and the man’s whitish soul ascended from the boiling cauldron. A flock of winged serpents appeared from nowhere and flew around the village. The iridescent scales on their bodies and wings glowed in the night. The villagers didn’t panic. In fact, all of them grew suddenly frenzy and began to drink and sing aloud while the winged serpents above tore the man’s soul apart. “Let there be spree and revelry for his soul has met the all mighty Gwyn,” said Mord. 71

German Bradley “Wouldn’t you like to join them?” invited Medana, showing him the people of Caer Arianrhod. Men seized women and women seized men. They flung each other down on the wet ground and satisfied their desires right there, crudely and uncaringly, reminding him of his own fantasies. Other demons stepped out of the fires and joined that orgy. He had seen them before in the infernal planes. Some of them took either men or women and used all their openings; others took the Gwyllions instead, as if they made a parody of his own jabs. One disgusting creature reached out a hand and touched Medana’s face. She, in turn, pulled her tongue out so as to lick the creature’s nasty skin. Simon couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t understand why she was flirting with that thing. He saw her laughing, giving herself in to that inferior demon. “Don’t torture yourself,” she said, gazing at him. “Join us.” The creature had already exposed her pale breasts, lifting them in its hands. “No!” he screamed in a fit of anger, jealousy and frustration. “Leave her! Leave her, you filthy, scummy, bloody bastard!” But he couldn’t do anything to stop those creatures. There was no strength in him to move now. She was too intent on that teasing game to pay 72

Metempsychosis any attention to his words. Another demon had approached her from behind. It had forced her down to all fours and sank its repulsive thing inside her. “Nooooo!” he screamed again in vain. “She’s mine,” he said almost unconsciously. Deep inside his soul he felt so. “She means ... she means ... everything,” he said in a whisper. Metres away Medana squealed like a madwoman, pressing against that demon, jerking her hips to the creature’s rhythm. He watched in shock how that repulsive thing seesawed in and out of Medana’s buttocks. A sudden staggering pain, however, broke his state of shock. A vortex opened under his astral feet and he started to fall, to spin into sweet oblivion. **** Everything had changed when he regained his senses. His androgynous friends had turned into one indivisible being with shifting faces that guided him through some sort of spiral mist. He saw himself floating amidst nothingness. He saw himself as a living doorway through which the Gwyllions cheated time and passed into his physical body. He saw his body as well, lying in a bed in a far away hospital. He was a slave to them in that sort of dream, and he was used and 73

German Bradley abused. His odic force had been preserved in a state that would never grow old, that would never decay. “It’s been a game, Simon. A childish game.” He heard them say. “But after thirty years of romping, you’re not a good toy to play with any more.” Then, a horrible pain ripped into him, spreading his odic force wide. He couldn’t hold the tears that fell down his cheeks, and the pain went on. But suddenly, the roaring of a nearby sea woke him up. The wind against his face was like a relief. He risked a glance around and found himself impaled on a long pike on the brink of a precipice.

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Chapter 10

A

n extensive valley of bowels met the beast and its beguiler, the replica, as they soared above a slimy and pulsating vastness of pale geranium colour. For a while, the only sound they heard was their own blood, throbbing in their ears. But then the valley began to breathe. Gushes of steam sent up a legion of forms into the air, which turned into a crooked face. “What kind of creature is this?” Gwyn’s voice cracked as his eyes watched the beast from everywhere, studying every corner of its mind, every organ of its body. “I hoped you could tell me, master. I found it in the village, eating our meat,” said the replica and moved backwards. The beast was enthralled by the countless faces that moved beneath the god’s skin. “It’s just a stupid thing,” said Gwyn, pulling a sardonic smile. “Not even good enough to be a slave. Leave it here. I’ll give it as a starter to these 75

German Bradley hungry Gwibers.” Gwyn’s eyes began to close, his face slowly vanished and the valley calmed down. “Off you go now, to the Forest of the East. My dog and I smelled something young among the trees. The offspring must be there.” “I’ll do your bidding, master,” said the replica and went away. **** The beast was alone in that slimy vastness. Its hypnotic trance had gone, but it felt a weird force stirring inside and a luminescence around its body as well. Actually, it came out of itself, out of its skin, which got shrivelled by degrees. It saw how its hands sheened, how every fingernail started to fork, turning into a couple of parrot-like claws. Its feet and toes were full of creased scars that traced straight and curving patterns on the insteps. The poor creature yelled with fright. It couldn’t understand what was happening to it. But its screams had called the Gwibers, which rushed at him from everywhere with open jaws. It saw them wield their spiked maces in their hands; their battle-axes and double-bladed knives, yet a sudden pain blocked its movements for a while. An electric twinge opened inside and controlled the joints of its arms and legs. The Gwibers 76

Metempsychosis stopped and watched, amazed at the new mutation that enlarged the arms of the beast and shortened its legs, forcing it to a simian position, while sabre-like bones developed from the sides of its claws. And then the beast understood and raised its head and growled as loud as its lungs allowed it to. Hate raged in its eyes, and the Gwibers’ charge began. Its sabre-blade bones rose and lowered, lopping off hands and heads. It leapt and somersaulted as it slashed and parried, making the wounded victims thrash in their own blood. Its claws found their ways into defenceless throats. Its dagger-sized canines grazed pieces of blanks and backs at amazing speed. Even though there were more than fifteen Gwibers fighting against it, the beast didn’t seem to be outnumbered at all—it was in control. A new force was ruling its acts, strengthening abilities it didn’t know it had. The beast was not a mere predator any more--it was a slayer that tore its enemies to pieces with an unbelievable expertness. It felt a thirst for killing that made its life worth living, a thirst that it didn’t seem to quench. A short break of calm came after the battle. The beast beheld its enemies’ heads, limbs and torsos spread over that pulsating landscape, as it panted and felt its arteries furiously pumping in its body. Its eyes were still filled with anger, though. Then, 77

German Bradley the whole place contracted and stretched in a succession of convulsive movements. More Gwibers burst through the holes displayed along the visceral valley, but their maces and axes couldn’t restrain the beast from its wrath. It merely retreated towards a stone staircase among fleshy folds on its right. There, the beast stood its ground and managed to break through the rank of its enemies without losing its swiftness and strength until the surviving Gwibers scattered and hid in their holes. The shrieks and groans of fury and death had ceased. Everything was silent again. Dead. Blood was the only thing that seemed to be alive. It bathed the corpses everywhere and streamed towards the draining holes, but it made no sound. The beast was drenched with blood as well, but it felt unusually strong, invincible, unstoppable. There was something extraordinary for it in that valley. It was a source of endless energy that came from the very walls and surface of that place. Then, after having some rest, the beast made its way upstairs through the hairpin staircase. **** Behind an iron door, the beast met with three barely dressed men who stood numbly against the wall of that chamber. It hissed at them and prepared its blood dripping sabre-blade bones, 78

Metempsychosis but they just trembled and screwed their eyes shut. Their necks, wrists and ankles were chained to the wall. “Go ahead. Eat them,” said Gwyn’s voice from the ceiling. “You must be famished after the battle.” The beast looked all around, ready for a surprise. “You fought well, by the way,” the god continued. “I liked what you did down there. You’ve proved to be a respectable opponent.” The beast hissed at the ceiling and moved his sabre-blade bones, inviting the invisible creature to fight. “Take some rest while you can. I’d like to see if you can get out of Caer Vandwy.” And the god spoke no more. The beast didn’t rest but ate the three men right there; its strength grew even stronger. It roamed the halls, a maze of corridors and chambers, and slew and ate every human being it saw on its way. It crossed passages and stepped into the main vault; its fierce growls shook the very walls of that temple, and the Gwibers’ crabby faces appeared again from the darkest corners with maces and axes at the ready. Its blades were prepared, however, rending, severing, cutting and levelling as it leapt and somersaulted with ever-increasing speed. The beast was in its element. Its growls 79

German Bradley filled the air and made the shrieks of the wounded Gwibers almost inaudible. The more it slashed and hacked the more its face widened in deadly delight. It was much more than a match for those enemies. But they were too many for it. They just kept coming from the walls like a living wave and their maces had already hit its back and head. Its body was already pocked with dozens of wounds, but it felt no pain. Sweat and blood blinded its eyes but it still stood its ground until a terrible blow sent it down onto the slippery floor. Suddenly there was a thickness in its lungs and a wild drumming in its brain. It smelled and tasted its own blood, which copiously fell from its brow. It could hardly see the dismembered corpse that lay in front of its eyes. The yells and grunts of the Gwibers sounded too distant in its ears, as if from the bottom of a deep tank. Then a dull blow on its spine fixed it to the floor. It tried to move, but it was somehow nailed to the slippery stones. Another blow hit its head, and the beast clearly heard the crack of its own bones. A hideous whine escaped its mouth as it slowly rose. Astonished and scared, the Gwibers stepped back. The spirits of all the human beings the beast had killed and devoured inside the temple and in the village converged and swirled around its body, healing its wounds and restoring its broken 80

Metempsychosis bones. With the blade of a rusty axe still in its back, the beast got to its feet and cut the nearby Gwiber in two. The reaction was immediate. The Gwibers’ onslaught resumed, but this time there was neither hate nor death in their eyes. It didn’t matter how loud they cried or grunted or how well they used their weapons. Fear was alive in their eyes and they knew they had already perished in its invisible arms. The torches had died down shortly after the last Gwiber fell but a dim mist rose from the corpses that lay on the floor and went all around the beast, protecting and strengthening the energy it had burnt during that long battle. Yet the beast was too exhausted to become aware of what was going on; the sleep-inducing mist made its eyelids heavier and heavier while its heartbeats slowed down. Its savage soul had departed and wandered through the passageways and chambers until it found the body that waited for it--a woman who lay on the floor of one of those small chambers. Spasms of white energy came out of that body and told the beast the woman was not human. But that body demanded its soul inside her, and that call drowned all the pain the beast could have felt. Its soul was willing to enter, willing to explore what there was for it inside that new and fascinating species. 81

German Bradley

Chapter 11

“H

elp! Help!” Simon screamed desperately, as the androgynous Gwyllions still floated around him like ghosts. His odic force was fixed on a long pike that bent forwards over a stormy sea. He couldn’t see his legs but a long silver cord, instead, that coiled around the shaft. “Help me please! Medana, Mord, Llys! Help me!” But it was too late. They had already vanished. “Don’t waste your astral strength. They won’t hear you in this place.” Someone shouted at him. He craned his neck and looked back. Many other pikes were nailed along that brink with monstrosities atop, contorting their bodies in what it seemed to be an endless agony. He couldn’t know what kind of creatures they were. He could only notice their eyes were sewn, but they seemed to see him anyway. They knew where he was. The way they contorted their rotten bodies made him sick. 82

Metempsychosis “What’s this place?” he asked in a trembling voice, as his astral body slowly began to feel a cleaving pain. “This is the Reservoir of Souls, a prison for the souls the Gwyllions have already used and discarded.” “No, something must have gone wrong,” Simon hastened to say. “We were supposed to go to a special place. They wanted to show me a special place.” “What a shithead you are,” the nearest creature laughed at him. “But you must have had something very valuable for them to be here.” “This is a mistake. Maybe a joke. I know they’ll come for me soon.” The pain he felt across his odic force was unbearable. The tip of the pike cut open and cleaved his entrails. He tightened his muscles so as to stop the penetrating tip, but it turned out wrong, worst. However his eyes couldn’t leave the long curved nails that came out of the monstrosities’ toes and fingertips. Their long, black hair glued to their dried wounds and their worn out leather protections that covered their shoulders and part of their legs. “They help none, you stupid stranger, not even themselves. They only get what they want and then throw you away like shit. And that’s what you are now. Shit, like all of us.” “No!” Simon exclaimed, his body involuntarily 83

German Bradley contorted on the pike. “They helped me a lot. They showed me things I had never seen. They taught me, they—“ “They just showed you what you wanted to see. They filled your soul with the crap you wanted to eat, and they enjoyed it.” “No, you’re wrong,” he spat, but wasn’t quite sure about who was really wrong. “They’ll come for me, you’ll see. Maybe I made a mistake and—“ “You certainly did, stranger. You certainly did.” “Medana! Tell me where you are! I’m lost! Get me out of here!” he cried out again and again, but the Gwyllion didn’t come and nothing changed before his eyes. The monstrosities just laughed at him, despite their torment. “They trained your astral self, didn’t they? They taught you how to go in and out of worlds and alternative realities. Use that knowledge, you shithead. Come on, release yourself! Show us we’re wrong!” Simon hadn’t forgotten his lessons and tried to follow every step accurately, but his astral body was still inserted in the pike. His knowledge and experience were useless there. “I can’t! I just can’t!” he finally said, considering for the first time that those creatures might be right. “But, why?” “Perhaps you showed them a way to escape their curse and leave this time.” “Who are you? Why are you telling me all this? Why are you making me doubt?” 84

Metempsychosis “We are the Wraiths, the ancient spirits that believed in those treacherous Gwyllions as much as you did.” “No! That’s a lie! You’re just telling me lies!” he blabbered. “Why don’t you ask the naked Gwyllion over there?” the monstrosity pointed to Simon’s left. “Her name’s Oeth. She broke the number one rule of her breed, and her kith and kin threw her here as punishment. She can tell you what they are, what they got from you.” The fourth Gwyllion, Simon thought. They had told him about another androgynous being, but they had always referred to that being like a myth, a legend. He looked up to his left and saw her but couldn’t recognise her androgynous featuring under the blood and wounds that festooned her body. “Is that true? Are you the fourth Gwyllion?” “The wraith is right. I was a Gwyllion but I’m nothing now. But I swear I’ll make them pay for what they did to my child and me,” she said in a wailing voice. “So ... you can ... take us ... out of ... here,” Simon said and tried to change his astral body into a position that could ease his pain on that pike, a position that could avoid the pike going through his breast-bone. “Nobody can, stranger,” the monstrosity 85

German Bradley interrupted. “Not even your Gwyllion friends.” The impaled creatures mocked and laughed, flapping their limbs, as if they wanted to show him how much pain he’d have to undergo hereafter. Yet Simon screamed his head off and gazed at the grey clouds above. It was blowing up for rain. “Pain. That’s what the Gwyllions are,” the monstrosity continued. “Pain and disappointment.” But Simon couldn’t understand very well what he felt deep in his heart. Something made him shiver; something hurt inside and it was much more painful than the pike. As the rain showered his astral self he saw Medana, Mord and Llys in his mind. They laughed at him, making fun of him in a series of funny plays that represented what he really meant to them: a stooge, a clown, a fool. “But I ... was their apprentice,” he murmured as the truth revealed itself in his mind, in his heart. “I ... admired them ... I just ... wanted to be with them.” “Oh, but this fool has fallen in love with them,” said the monstrosity with fake pity. Then, the whole place turned hostile towards him, taking on the aspect of a glowing inferno of greenish yellow and dark orange tints. Thunderbolts flashed everywhere and the lightning struck Oeth and the monstrosities as if they were lightning conductors as the rain fell on. However, there was no wind to lessen the 86

Metempsychosis scorching scars on their bodies. “Control your emotions, stranger!” the monstrosity shouted. “Stop them! Stop them!” But Simon’s emotions were too wild to control. The revelation he’d heard had unleashed chaos inside him. He didn’t know what love was, but it hurt, and the lightning striking his head, face and chest increased the pain. “I helped them ... find new routes ... to what they needed,” Simon lamented while his astral body smoked badly amid a rain that didn’t seem to touch him any more. “You’re a door,” said Oeth on his left. “That’s why you’re here. You showed them a way out.” “What did you say again?” asked the monstrosity. “They broke the curse. They escaped through this stranger,” wailed Oeth. But Simon’s resentment and sorrow had turned him deaf, and the lightning kept coming upon them all, burning and holing their already illproportioned forms. “The more you suffer the worse it is for us all,” moaned the monstrosity. “We’re all connected here, bound to your misery. It’s part of the punishment.” “Die, then! I don’t care!” Simon bellowed. His mind burst with images. “I believed in them.” His voice was softer now. “I wanted to be like them. I just wanted a family, a place where I could 87

German Bradley belong.” His eyes were fixed on the waves that broke on the cliff. “What a moron I was! What a trusting arsehole!” “Your sorrow doesn’t make you more special than the rest!” shouted Oeth, as the lightning strike made her body shake and jounce. “Every soul in this reservoir has a reason to hate and take revenge for what my breed has done to them.” As she spoke, Simon soothed his anger, and the thunderbolts and the rain ceased; the sky became grey again. “We’ve all been cheated, stranger,” the monstrosity continued. “We’ve been deprived of our most valuable treasures—our power and realm.” “Were you the nobles of Caer Arianrhod? Were you the kings of the Celtic tribes?” asked Simon in a low voice. “We ruled over the primordial chaos on earth before these time wayfarers came. We were chaos and there were no rules in our realm. But these pillagers came with their master Gwyn and deceived us, purloining what was ours, setting rules that tied us to this place that they called the Reservoir of Souls.” “How long have you been here, then?” asked Simon again. “A long, long time.” “But there must be a way to escape this place. Oeth must know a way. We don’t deserve this,” said Simon, holding out some hope of seeing himself free. “We can’t stay here forever!” 88

Metempsychosis “There’s nothing we can do here but feed our hearts on the hate we feel towards them,” spat Oeth. “But you are a Gwyllion! You know their secrets!” rasped Simon. “They took all my knowledge and power away when they brought me here. I’m a piece of shit now, stranger. We are a bunch of shit, armed with no other weapons than hate and revenge.” “I felt so good with them,” Simon said to himself as he remembered their androgynous faces and the time he spent with them in the temple. “How could I know they were so--?” “You meant nothing to them, stranger, nothing,” said Oeth. “Don’t torture yourself with memories. Hate and revenge is all you need now to deal with the pain.”

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PART TWO

Chapter 1

T

he light of the sun leaked through the window of the room, irritating the patient’s eyes, throwing him harshly out of his sleep. He twitched his eyelids and felt a slight pain. His vision was only a blur for a while but it got clearer and clearer as seconds ticked by. The fuzzy shapes became the machines he was connected to, the tubes and needles that ran into his arms, feeding him on something that looked like water. He tried to swallow, but his throat merely constricted. He noticed there was something on his face, too. It covered his nose and mouth and blew cool air into him. He cast his gaze around and saw a strange white room with a magical whitish light up on the ceiling. There was another strange object to his left. It shone like ice, but he was sure it was harder, much harder. A door opened and a young woman in white came in. She gaped at him and stood still and aghast in the middle of the room, as if she saw a terrible sight. After a couple of seconds she awoke to what was going on and, with wide-opened 90

Metempsychosis eyes, talked to a small black box. “It’s an emergency. He’s back,” the patient heard her say. “Please, tell Doctor Conlon patient number 32 has come back from his coma.” He’d recognised the language immediately. We’ve made it, he thought. This is Simon’s world! That’s his language! We’ve incarnated in his body! But the Gwyllions felt uncomfortable and imperfect in that body. “Everything’s fine,” said the nurse and gazed into a green screen above his bed. “Doctor Conlon will be with you in a minute.” The patient tried to sit, but the effort was beyond him. “You mustn’t do that,” said the nurse quietly, trying not to alarm him as she took the oxygen mask off. “You’ve been motionless and senseless for too long.” He couldn’t speak either--too much air choked him and his mouth and vocal organs didn’t do what he expected them to do. Then a bespectacled man, his hair completely grey at his temple, was in the room, albeit not alone. A group of at least six other doctors had entered with him and began to feel his pulse and check his eyes, lungs and heart. “This must be a miracle. His eyes seem to be normal,” said a ginger-haired doctor, who leaned over him, aiming her penlight at his still sensitive eyes. “Please follow my finger,” she said and 91

German Bradley moved her left forefinger to and fro like a pendulum. His pinprick pupils never once left her finger while she watched him carefully for a few seconds, and another doctor sought and checked the pulse of his wrist. She finally flicked her shining rod off and dropped it into the top pocket of her white dress. He noticed a blue badge on the pocket, too. It said: Carol Stern Ph.D. Glan Clwydd Hospital. “Can you hear me?” asked Doctor Conlon, handing the patient’s clipboard to Doctor Stern. “You may nod if you can.” The patient nodded, showing he understood. Doctors looked at one another, stupefied. “Can you remember your name?” asked Doctor Conlon softly. With some effort the patient managed to raise his right hand and grabbed Doctor Stern’s left arm. She gave an involuntary jerk and stood still, looking upwards as if she touched a live wire. Her mouth fell open and her tongue wriggled a moment in her mouth. Then: “S-s-simon,” she stuttered after a pause. “M-m-my n-nam-name is S-sim-m-on Wick.” Her voice was odd, with an asexual tone to it. The Gwyllions inside the patient couldn’t tell what those men in white really were. They could hardly know where they were. They needed time 92

Metempsychosis to study those new minds around them and the patterns of their ways. There was a great bustle amongst the other physicians. Everybody watched Doctor Stern, who seemed to be in trance. “Where do you live, Mr. Wick?” continued Doctor Conlon, studying the patient’s vital signs on the green screen above his bed. “Harlech.” There the bustle was again. Yet, the Gwyllions inside the patient picked some isolated words now. “... incredible ... “ “He’s using her as a channeler.” “ ... How long did you say?” “Five years.” “... it can’t be ... “ “Mr. Wick, we greatly appreciate your efforts at communicating with us,” said Doctor Conlon in a persuasive, soft voice as he did his best to control his nerves. “We know there must be a lot of things you would like to tell us, but you must be tired and so must Doctor Stern. Could you please let her go now, Mr. Wick? We can talk some other time when it’s more appropriate.” The Gwyllions then knew they were in control. They sensed fear and confusion in the minds of those men in white, so the patient simply took his hand off and the ginger-haired doctor woke from 93

German Bradley the trance. “You okay, Doctor Stern?” asked Doctor Conlon and hastened to hold her. “Y-ye-yes. But. I don’t know what happened to me. I was just—“ She looked tired and dizzy; her feet could hardly hold her weight. “Okay Doctors, I think it’s time to leave our patient alone for today,” said Doctor Conlon without hiding his worry this time. “Get some rest now, Mr. Wick. We’ll check on you tomorrow.” **** The wrinkle between Doctor Stern’s eyebrows had become a frown. “Tell me, Arthur. What happened to me in room 32?” she asked Doctor Conlon as they walked along the corridors of the hospital. “I remember I was checking the patient’s eyes, and then ... I lost track of ... I was turned off. My mind went blank. And then I sort of woke up and felt like a freak. Everybody was looking at me with that expression on their faces. What happened, Arthur?” “This is not easy to say, Carol, and I don’t even understand it myself. But the truth is that as soon as the patient grabbed your arm you ... you fell into some sort of trance or something, and in that 94

Metempsychosis state you ... Oh, Jesus Christ! You began to talk.” “I beg your pardon?” “It was not you, actually. I mean, I heard you. We heard you, but it wasn’t your voice at all. It was weird. It ... was the patient who ... who spoke through you, through your mouth. Oh, God, I know this sounds ridiculous, but ... it was as if he ... used you as a go-between.” Doctor Stern was speechless. Her colleague’s words had taken her breath away. “And that’s not all,” continued Doctor Conlon. “Do you remember he was admitted to this hospital in a coma five years ago? I think you were there, too, weren’t you?” “Y-y-yes,” said Doctor Stern, absent-mindedly. The word go-between was still stuck in her head. “Well, he’s been clinically dead for extended periods of time since then. More than six times, actually.” “Yes, I-I remember he was profoundly comatose,” she added, remembering. “I saw his fixed and dilated pupils once. No gag, no corneas. He was a goner.” “Exactly. And resuscitation took longer than twenty minutes each time. I remember it as if it were yesterday. His heart stopped beating and his temperature went down, his blood pressure dropped and became unreadable. However, in those lapses of time his brain was never damaged. 95

German Bradley His brainwave activity never stopped. What’s more, it was as if he were asleep. Dreaming. ” “What?” A wave of icy cold ran down Doctor Stern’s spine. “But that’s impossible!” “There weren’t other symptoms, Carol. No organ was actually affected. Can you understand something like that? I even gave him a CAT scan to see how bad he really was.” “Oh, my God!” Doctor Stern’s eyes were wide open and stared at her colleague almost without blinking. “Who brought him here?” she said after a while. “A police officer found him lying on a rugged spur near Harlech Castle. He asked some people about him, but they just said he was a schizophrenic. We never knew how long he stayed there unconscious before the constable found him.” “What about his family? Has he got any relatives?” “Nobody except a couple who took him in from time to time and gave him a bath and clean clothes. They sometimes fed him as well.” “Have you been in contact with them?” “No. They’ve never come to visit him here.” “What was his name again?” “Simon Wick.” Suddenly, Doctor Stern’s electronic signal began to screech on her lapel and she quivered. 96

Metempsychosis “Jesus! It gave me a jump,” she apologised. “I’m sorry, Arthur, I don’t feel well enough to continue my checks today,” she said, jerking out her words. “I know I—“ “I understand, Carol. Nobody can be prepared for something like that.” “My mind’s…” “Just go home and get some rest. I will take over for you today,” said Doctor Conlon as they entered the nurse’s station. “Thanks a lot, Arthur,” she said and filled out some forms. Then she said goodbye and walked to the lifts. Doctor Conlon lingered at the nurse’s station for a long while after the doors of the lift slid close, taking her downstairs and out. He was unsettled as well, immersed in his own doubts, and he tried to hide the fact that he was as scared as she. As a psychiatrist he had studied and dealt with a variety of psychological phenomena over thirty years, and he was well aware of the dark potentials of the mind. He had even induced automatic writing in some patients that suffered from split or multiple personalities, and those experiments had always worked well: the automatic writing had led to the roots of those patients’ phobias, obsessions and psychoses. But this case was totally different. His medical experience said he was about to deal with that 97

German Bradley shadowy no-man’s-land where psychology and psychical research shared a common frontier, and the idea itself scared him to death. He had no idea of this patient’s potentials, he knew nothing of him, but he knew what he had seen and heard, and he could almost ascertain this patient could control others and use them as mediums. How? That was something he had to find out.

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O

n the following day the patient sat awkwardly on the bed and felt for the first time the stiffness in his back and legs. He looked around and saw the machines had been removed from his room. There were just the white night stand to his right and the serum bag hanging from that mobile pole to his left. He wasn’t connected to it, though. The nurse opened the door and approached him, carrying a tray with a glass of milk and toasted bread on it. Quite meagre to weary himself with, but considering the time they’d said he’d spent without eating properly, it was a banquet. His hands weren’t strong enough to hold the glass. The nurse had to assist him with his breakfast but she tried not to touch his skin. The image of Doctor Stern’s trance still gave her the shivers. “Calm down, please. There’s nothing to worry about,” said the nurse. “You’re in good hands 99

German Bradley here. I won’t do you any harm. I just want to help.” After breakfast, and before leaving, the nurse opened the blinds of his window. “It’s a beautiful day out there,” she said and turned back towards him, smiling. “Now lie back and get some sleep. I’m sure that when you’re fine again this lovely day will stay right there, waiting for you. Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Nurse Dugdale.” **** Doctor Conlon arrived in the room about midday with two other colleagues and the nurse. The first thing he saw was a slight change on the patient’s face. It neither looked like a man’s nor a woman’s. Somehow he couldn’t determine the patient’s gender just by looking at his face. There wasn’t a logical way to explain that, either, but least of all would he want to call his colleagues’ attention or alarm the patient himself. “Good morning, Simon,” he said reading the time on his watch. “We have to continue our medical examinations today and we’ll go for a ride. Just another routine check-up. You shouldn’t worry about it. The journey will be short, I promise.” The patient tried to make himself comfortable 100

Metempsychosis but the pain was beyond him. “Take it easy, Mr. Wick. Take it easy. Lying in bed for a long time causes that kind of pain. You are following me, aren’t you?” The patient just gave a nod of approval while they trundled him towards another room. The journey was short indeed, but he had been able to hear a conversation that didn’t make much sense to him. Unintelligible words came to his ears while he was on his way to that new place. Some of them were easy to remember; others absolutely impossible. “... possible malfunctions of his brain.” “... taken from the P.E.T. scanning last year.” “The images! Yes! I remember the chemical and physiological changes I saw in those images.” “You mean the new Positron Emission Tomography scan?” “As the parts of the auditory cortex showed.” “Yes, the mesolimbic pathway involved in arousal and motivation ...” For a moment he thought they had realised who they were and the idea scared them out of their wits. But then the patient understood it was impossible—they weren’t that clever, actually. There was a big, white cave in that room. The men in white lifted him and put him on a narrow metal bed. Suddenly, the bed moved backwards and stopped. His face and his chest had entered 101

German Bradley the cave. His eyes just watched the strange ceiling above; he didn’t know what to do. “Don’t fret, Simon. Don’t fret,” said Doctor Conlon. “We need to see your brain. It won’t hurt and it’ll take just a few seconds, okay? Everything’s going to be all right.” He was right. It was short and didn’t hurt. It was just an intense light and a buzz passing over his face. Then the bed moved forwards and the nurse was by his side. The other two doctors were busy installing a strange device resting on three long legs in front of his narrow bed. “Don’t worry,” said Nurse Dugdale, giving him a stare of horror she hadn’t been able to hide. She had noticed something of course. Changes on the patient’s face, but his hand had stopped any further reaction. “You fancy knowing what’s inside my mind, don’t you?” The nurse had become rigid, seized by a spasm, but the muscles of her arms and neck twitched feverishly. The Gwyllions had already sent her into a trance and spoke to Doctor Conlon with one smoothly insistent voice. “I bet you want to see it all and put it in your papers. Yes, you’re dying for it. I can feel it in your mind. Why don’t you come here, then?” The Gwyllions invited. “I’d rather like to hold your arm instead. You’ll see how it is to be the guinea-pig.” 102

Metempsychosis “I didn’t mean to use you, Simon,” said Doctor Conlon. “I’m just trying to understand who you are. You seem to have an especial talent. A gift, a wonderful gift.” The Gwyllions just laughed in the doctor’s face and asked: “Did you ever ask me if I wanted to tell you who we are?” “You really don’t have to. Just tell me how you’re feeling.” “Evasive, aren’t you?” said the ones inside the patient, knowing they had got into a touchy place in Doctor Conlon’s mind. Their voices had turned into a chorus uttered for the most part in howling and whining tones. “Very well, Doctor. I’m playing your game.” The foolish inquisitive session was boring them to death. These humans were different from Simon. Worthless. “Fed up,” he continued. “That’s how I feel. I’m fed up with all of you. I’m fed up with this stupid place, but I’ll keep your little secret ... for now.” And after a short silence the patient released the nurse’s arm. Yet the nurse didn’t remember that session. The Gwyllions had washed the episode away from her mind. **** The medical staff involved in Simon’s case gathered together in Doctor Conlon’s office to 103

German Bradley study the results of the patient’s checks and scan at greater length. Their papers lay sprawled across his massive brown desk and the brain images were stuck on an already lightened whiteboard on the wall on Doctor Conlon’s left. “Without a doubt,” Doctor Conlon began, “There’s something incredible in this case. The results of the checks say the patient’s health is not affected. However,” he continued, pointing to the images of Simon’s brain. “This image of the outer shell shows disordered thoughts and overactivity in the limbic system, involved in emotion and memory, and the thalamus, which as everybody knows here, modulates the patterns of brain activity associated with thought and perception, as you can see are lit up, revealing our patient’s positive symptoms of mental chaos.” “Have you seen the changes in the patient’s appearance, Doctor Conlon?” asked Doctor Stern, interrupting the comments Doctor Conlon’s words had caused among her colleagues and the strange words they’d heard from the patient. “Yes, Carol. I have,” answered Doctor Conlon, after a deep sigh. “It’s a sort of teratological manifestation of hermaphrodism in an anatomical sense.” “His skin is soft and delicate,” added another physician. “His pelvis is decidedly feminine, his hips are wide, and there’s an abundant 104

Metempsychosis development of fatty tissue as well.” “Have you seen his eyes?” asked Doctor Stern again. “There isn’t an iota of emotion in them. But when I check them they seem to drill into my soul, as if he knew my innermost thoughts.” “This patient, my dear colleagues, mustn’t leave this hospital,” said Doctor Conlon. “If others knew of his ability to use others as channelers and communicate through them, this place would be full of gutter press and I suspect other hospitals wouldn’t try a real curative treatment on him. I think we’ll need both the help and the advice of an expert in psychical research in this case. The evidence is quite clear, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the strange things we’ve recently witnessed defy our rational, scientific explanations.” “Excuse me, Doctor Conlon,” said a young physician behind Doctor Stern, “but, do you really think we’re dealing with psychical powers here? I mean, we’re talking about a schizophrenic.” “Doctor Hughes,” replied Doctor Stern. “Something extraordinary and totally out of our knowledge must have altered the mind of this patient while he was in coma, while he was clinically dead. How many patients have you seen using members of the medical staff as channelers? You saw what happened to me, didn’t you?” “I see your point,” answered Doctor Hughes, 105

German Bradley “but what about temporary depersonalisation? The mind can play tricks on itself when faced with terrible situations.” “Doctors, please,” Doctor Conlon interrupted. “I see this discussion is taking us nowhere. Why don’t we wait for Doctor Dawe’s opinion?”

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Chapter 3

E

ven though none of Doctor Conlon’s colleagues had given much importance to the last words the patient had said through Nurse Dugdale, he couldn’t help but feel exposed to the general gossip. He had been having an affair with Nurse Dugdale for three months indeed. That was the secret the patient was talking about. But it was absolutely impossible for anyone in the hospital to know about it, let alone that patient. “How did he know it? How?” he said to himself again and again. Suddenly, everything had turned earthshattering for Doctor Conlon, and he felt desperate and embarrassed. “This can’t go on. It can’t be.” It had been a mistake, a terrible mistake, and he couldn’t go on with it, he shouldn’t, actually. So on that very night he determined to call their extra-marital relationship off. He drove to her house in Rhyl and seeing her husband was not in 107

German Bradley yet he let her know they should stop seeing each other, but he failed miserably. Nurse Dugdale had already sniffed out his intentions and in his own car she showed him how sweet and wonderful she could be. “We need to talk,” he said but Nurse Dugdale was busy unbuckling his belt, unzipping him on the back seat of his azurite blue Mercedes. “This is serious, Deidre.” Nurse Dugdale’s light brown eyes seemed to coquettishly smile at him, as her hand reached into his boxer shorts. Her fingers had learnt how to goad him quite well during those months. “I missed you a lot, Arthur,” she said, pushing both his trousers and boxers off his hips. His penis was already hard, unhooded. “We can’t go on like this.” “But your cock says all the contrary, darling.” Nurse Dugdale was already heeling off her shoes and stripping off her underwear and jeans. “Please, Deidre.” She had already sat astride him. Her hand rubbed his cock forcefully, until she felt his wetness in her palm. A groan escaped Doctor Conlon’s lips and she skewered herself upon him. “I love you, Arthur,” she said and leaned forward to kiss him full on the lips. “I need you.” Doctor Conlon responded to her kiss, lasciviously. His eager tongue explored Deidre 108

Metempsychosis oral cavity. His hands came up under her blouse, to her young breasts. “Oh, Arthur.” She squirmed and bounced up and down on his shaft, more and more vigorously, as he grasped her by the hips. The car began to rock on its axles and there was plenty of condensation on the windows. Doctor Conlon was at her mercy again and nothing else mattered. With her, he felt he was not a sixty-year-old man but a strong young stallion. He felt proud of himself. He could still satisfy the always unlimited desires of a young woman. “You’re the man I need,” gasped Deidre. “You make me feel like a woman.” She moaned and shrieked, keeping his self-esteem high. All of a sudden she stopped, though. She brushed a shock of black hair away from her forehead and unbuttoned her blouse. Her heavy breasts had already spilt over the top of her lacy clinging white-coloured bra. “I know you’ve been looking forward to having me in a different way,” she said, pulling herself upright, but grabbing his shaft at the same time. “I’m a virgin here,” she continued, guiding him to her anus. “But I want you to be the first and only to have me here.” With her hand still holding the base of his penis and taking advantage that his member was already drenched with his pre-cum and her own juices, she impaled herself on him, 109

German Bradley letting him slowly ease his way into her tight passage. “God, oh, God,” she moaned and bit into her lower lip as he adjusted his position and started his long, steady thrusts. “Oh, it feels so good,” said Arthur, trying to ignore the pain in his penis. The sensation was exquisite. She was too unique to just let her down, he suddenly thought amidst his thrusts. Their relationship had to go on. Neither his heart nor his body could tell her no now. She had twined her arms around the shirt collar and kissed his brow. Her mouth came down on his, raping his lips with her tongue. She was sitting motionless on his lap, letting herself go, letting him do the entire job. His body was sweating below the fabric of his shirt. In twenty five years of marriage he had never taken his wife anally, and he had tried. He had suggested it to her many times, gently, softly, but she had always said no. She hadn’t even gone down on him. “Oh, God!” she gasped as he pumped harder, snarling through his clenched teeth. “We’ve been looking forward to this moment, haven’t we?” “It’s too tight, honey. I’m going to come.” “Empty it in me. Fill me,” she said and dipped a hand between her legs in order to quicken her own orgasm as well. 110

Metempsychosis An almost burning spasm shot through Doctor Conlon’s groin, and he came, panting. “I love you, Deidre,” he murmured. “Even though I’m married I love you.” Nurse Dugdale said nothing. **** Two days later, in an unusual good mood, Doctor Conlon and Nurse Dugdale came to check the patient’s condition again. There was a different look in their eyes, much more intimate and warm, but all that warmth died away when they entered room 32. On the wall above the patient’s head, in large and shining crimson letters, a sentence made their blood run cold. STRAYING FELLOWS YOU BOTH “What th—” Doctor Conlon didn’t know what to say. “The patient’s asleep,” said the nurse, trying to be calm. “It looks like blood,” she added, staring at the letters. But then, just behind them, on the opposite wall another sentence appeared. I SAW YOU IN THE CAR “It’s blood indeed,” said Doctor Conlon. “But how could it be?” Nurse Dugdale turned to look at the patient and found him already awake, watching her with sinister eyes. 111

German Bradley “He knows,” she said and stood there trembling. “He saw us in your car. It was a mistake. It was a—” “Look at me, Deidre,” said Doctor Conlon, holding her arms firmly. “He knows nothing, all right? Nothing.” “But look at the walls! Look at his eyes!” “Forget the walls. I’ll wipe them off myself,” he said and took the nurse out of the room. But when they were just about to step through the door, something made him look back. The patient was sleeping again and there was no message on the walls, not a single stain. Nothing.

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Chapter 4

I

n spite of the traumatic experience and the pangs she felt every time she looked at the clean walls of Simon’s room, plus the fact that the patient was undergoing significant anatomical changes, Nurse Dugdale never let him know about them. On the contrary, she continued being a professional and tried to make him laugh or at least to smile. She acted naturally; as if she wanted to deny that paranormal occurrence ever happened, as if she wanted to get rid of the memory of that night of sex in Doctor Conlon’s car. “You’ll love Rhyl when you travel there.” She concentrated on talking to him about her hometown instead. “You’ll love the salty breeze and the cries of the seagulls. The weather is brilliant there. Haven’t you noticed my suntan yet?” she joked with him and went on. “Yes, it’s everything that’s lively and exciting about the seaside. You can go and do everything—the beach 113

German Bradley with those three miles of golden sands, shopping, pubs, the amusement park, the SeaQuarium. You can even go indoor surfing at the sun centre. Prestatyn has its share of thrills and spills as well: great beaches, remains of a Roman bathhouse, family fun centres,” she added and continued talking about all the places he had to visit when he were fine. “Have you ever built sandcastles? Oh, I know you’ll be a new man after this, Mr. Wick. Remember it,” she said. “And I’d be glad to be your tourist guide when that moment comes.” She had helped him to shorten those long hours in the hospital and had become a nice friend. However, the Gwyllions didn’t need friends but bodies, and that female vessel looked perfect for their purposes. One evening while the patient gently slept, Nurse Dugdale came in to fix his bed for dinner. She noticed he was in a state of agitation, probably a bad dream, that made her wonder whether to wake him up or let him have his sleep out. She pushed his bed up as slowly and softly as she could but the patient opened his eyes, unleashing an inhuman growl that echoed in the corridors of the third floor. “Calm down, Mr. Wick,” said the nurse. “It’s all over. The nightmare’s gone. You’re safe here in your room, in this hospital.” 114

Metempsychosis “It hurts.” His voice was a growl of different pitches as if three voices spoke as one. “Oh, my God! You can speak!” exclaimed the nurse. “I must call Doctor Conlon right away.” She headed to the door. “No! You’re the only one who can help me now.” “W-w-what a scary voice you h-h-have.” “It feels so awkward here.” There was an odd look in the patient’s eyes. They changed their colour to white, but at the same time they penetrated into her soul with an unstoppable force. “Help us,” the Gwyllions said. “What can I do for you?” asked Nurse Dugdale, unable to dissimulate her fear. “Come closer. We’ve got something to tell you.” She doubtfully drew herself near and stood by his left side. The patient grabbed her arms and stared into her eyes. There was a thin fog in his eyes, and then an endless deep red landscape that was a maze inaccessible to the eye. She tried to see the horizon in that scenery, but she found it oblique and distorted. Everything turned into a huge milky white face that gazed at her with allseeing, colourless eyes. She bravely strove against the Gwyllions’ evil force, but they entranced her, luring her to an impending emptiness, sucking her 115

German Bradley reasoning, her memories and her feelings. Another entity merged inside her, renewing her cells and molecules at frightening speed while her mind burst inside her head. Mord felt nauseated and startled inside that body. The memories and emotions of the soul she had recently engulfed flashed in her head and split into hundred of other tiny souls, revealing their own distinctive secrets and tragedies. There was an endless sourcing of knowledge there, a highly developed gathering of souls, but they didn’t seem to be aware of it. Fear, suffering and a constant feeling of loss blocked and distorted every one of them. Every tiny soul cried for help, but none of them could hear each other’s prayer. They were blind but eager to know what there was for them in the Gwyllion’s ethereal force. “There’s no more pain,” said Mord as those human souls slowly gave in. Mord would be the guiding hand for them, of course. The black messiah that would stop their suffering forever. “Come here, you poor little orphan things,” the Gwyllion invited, closing her eyes. “I am the answer to your existence, the Sleep Angel. Yes ... show me everything. There’s nothing to be afraid of ... Guide me to others. Together we’ll ease their suffering as well.” “Beware, Mord,” said Medana through the 116

Metempsychosis patient’s mouth. “Llys is sharing that body with you. She’s not prepared yet.” And released the nurse’s arms. “I will, Medana. I will.” Mord’s voice sounded a little hoarse for that female body. “Speak in the nurse’s voice. Do what she usually does. I’ve seen another body for Llys in her house.” The patient closed his eyes. “Off you go now. I need to sleep.” The nurse stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her. She still felt sick and her vision blurred a bit too, but anyway she managed to act naturally as she made her way downstairs to the parking area on the lower level of the hospital.

117

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Chapter 5

T

he sun was setting in Rhyl when the bluish green Vauxhall Frontera turned into the driveway of a brownish stone-walled house, far away from the coast and the main centres of the town. Nurse Dugdale cut the engine and got out of the car. Countless reddish, yellow and orange leaves covered the road and her garden. She stood by the side of her car while her gaze followed the feeble rain of leaves. The autumn breeze was blowing up for rain as the sun gleamed palely on the rim of grey clouds that slowly turned black. She inhaled deeply the evening smells. Oh, fresh, damp air ... But out of the blue, squeezing pains gripped her. She felt as though a heavy iron band clamped around the middle part of her chest, tightening. A feeling of disembodiment came upon her, leaving her above, watching her own body below dressed in cream trousers and light blue blouse beneath her black leather jacket. Mord 118

Metempsychosis had decided to leave for a while and watched that car and the streets in that strange, new neighbourhood. The Gwyllion felt lighter than the leaves around, but she was afraid and confused, still unfamiliar but enthralled by the sensations of that soul and its rudimentary human body. Then, the sound of a horn broke that floating sensation, and the above-itself quickly came down and returned to that female body. In a split second Mord found herself earthbound again, looking at a neighbour who passed by in his van, waving at her. She fumbled for the front-door key in her jacket pocket and saw flowers, still surviving the autumn weather, on each side of the doorway. Bright yellow Common Toadflaxes, pink Thrifts and oval purple-blue Devil’s-Bit Scabiouses were all together there. She put the key into the lock and went through, then briefly stood in the hallway and studied that new place. The house was somehow misleading and had nothing to do with the rather rustic exterior she had seen. The white light of the lamps gave more brightness to the ivory walls of the small living room. There was a fireplace on one side of the room, with a cast-iron top, back and sides. A couple of large green upholstered chairs and a sofa, had winged backs, and a burnt ochre closet with shelves full of bottles and glasses. It 119

German Bradley was nice inside, clean and tidy; pleasant and cosy. Mord looked at the shining curtains and tried to understand the meaning of those floral patterns in green, purple and sanguine, as the smell of fresh dinner came wafting from the dining room. “Is that you, honey?” A male voice asked from another room. “I arrived early today. I laid the table and decorated with flowers and candles. I hope you like it.” That must be Nurse Dugdale’s husband, thought Mord. “I cooked chargrilled chicken breasts in creamy Masala sauce with fresh coriander.” “That’s lovely, honey,” said Mord, trying to sound amused. “Does your cooking always smell that good?” “Come on, honey. Don’t pull my leg. This is my first time in the kitchen.” “I see,” said Mord in a low voice, realising she’d made a mistake. “It’s the fifteenth of October,” said the man, coming in with a broad smile on his young face and a couple of cups in his hands. “The fifteenth of October?” the Gwyllion asked. “It’s our lace-wedding anniversary dinner, honey,” he said and laughed. “I can’t believe you’ve completely forgotten it.” The Gwyllion didn’t know what to say. But her husband was delighted and smiled at her, 120

Metempsychosis absolutely in love with her, as if it were the first day. He came close and tenderly kissed her on the mouth. “We don’t want this special dinner to get cold, do we?” He kissed her again. “Happy anniversary, my love. I hope you still enjoy my company.” “Happy anniversary, my love,” Mord repeated, aping the man’s tone. “I’m really sorry, honey. I must have lost my mind. I still don’t know why I forgot it.” “That’s okay, love,” he said and kissed her brow. “That’s okay.” “I love you, honey,” said Mord. “I love you too.” After dinnertime, passion filled their homestead. The man’s mouth came down over hers and her tongue searched and gently rubbed his. Their mouths became demanding. She let him strip off her clothes as she unbuttoned his shirt and rolled away his jeans. Her pubic mound met him, erect beneath his briefs. “Did you know I’m totally in love with you, Deidre?” the man whispered in her ear. “Since that day I saw you at the hospital.” She stared into his eyes and stepped away from him. “Come along, sweetie,” he said and took her to the bedroom. She lay on the bed and waited for her husband 121

German Bradley to take his briefs off. He climbed on top of her and began to gently move into her while she dug her fingers into his naked back, urging him on. His teeth nipped her neck and her shoulders. He made her body shake with the force of his thrusts. Her thighs trembled; her breasts shook. She squirmed beneath him as they humped each other. She heard his snuffling grew louder, his body jerked upon her. She felt her whole body burn but she wanted to savour her coming orgasm a little longer. Yet her body’s bidding was stronger. “Aaaahhhh! I’m getting there myself!” she cried. “I can’t help myself! I’m going to explode!” “I love you,” he said. After their lovemaking, she opened her eyes and saw the man’s soul floating above in a sort of colourless energy pattern. Somehow sex had helped to separate him from his body. She watched him for a while, enjoying the mix of desperation and fear that surrounded that form above, until Llys got bored with that miserable aura and opened her mouth, finishing the transmigration of his soul. A wave of intense heat ran all over her, once that human soul divided itself and merged into her force. It made her feel as if she burnt from inside, but gained an extraordinary strength at the same time. “It’s just a short period of adjustment,” said 122

Metempsychosis Mord. “It’ll be over soon.” She stood to dress. “There are so many souls here, trapped inside themselves, so many individual memories that call me,” said Llys, delighted, rolling naked on the bed. “They want me to finish their suffering.” “You are their saviour now,” said Mord and laughed. “Show them the way. They’ll guide you to others. They are all connected here.” Outside it was already night and had started to rain upon the autumnal dead leaves. Mord walked to the window and gazed at the shining street. Shortly after, Llys stood by her side, completely clothed, and watched the rainy night. “Can you hear their voices?” Llys asked without taking her eyes off the rain. “They’re calling us.” “There’s a barrage of voices out there,” continued Llys. “Souls in need of a guiding light.” “Listen to those sneaky and conniving whispers,” said Mord, turning towards the opposite side of the room. “They are far away from here.” “I like the way they sound,” replied Llys. “It’s so tempting, so demanding.” “Don’t keep them waiting,” said Mord with a smile. “Such a willing flock of souls deserves more than willing shepherds, don’t they?” The rain was furiously pelting down on Rhyl at the time they left the house to get into the viridian 123

German Bradley Vauxhall Frontera. But it wasn’t loud enough to silence the souls’ demanding calls they heard.

124

Metempsychosis

Chapter 6

“G

ood morning Doctor Dawe,” James Boardman greeted a tall thin man in his forties dressed in white. “How do you do,” said Sarah, James’s wife. Doctor Dawe shook their hands and invited them to have a seat in his office. His little eyes studied them for a while. “I’m glad you came,” he said, sitting at his desk. “I hear you’re the only persons who knew Simon in Harlech. It’s really good to know there are some people to whom Simon meant something.” “Your secretary phoned us and said he had come back from his coma a couple of weeks ago,” said James, holding his wife’s hands on his lap. “She said you wanted to ask us some questions about Simon. She also said you are a psychic investigator and a psychiatrist,” Sarah added. “Yes, Mrs. Boardman, I am and I’ll be in charge of Simon Wick in two days time,” said Doctor 125

German Bradley Dawe, his fingers entwined. “I’d like you to give me some information about Simon; I’d like you to tell me where or how Simon used to live, for instance. What sort of things did he use to do? Did he have a job or something?” “He was homeless, Doctor Dawe,” said Sarah. “He had no place to call home in Harlech. I think the town itself was his home. He spent his days wandering up and down the streets and over the countryside as well. He was a lonely lad, but he was such a lovely human being. Nobody liked him due to his disease, though, you know. So he had to beg for a meal from time to time.” “I see,” said Doctor Dawe, taking some notes on a sheet of paper. “Tell me about his disease now. Did he have delusions? Hallucinations? Was his speech frequently derailed or incoherent?” “He had visions,” said James. “He saw things other didn’t. I remember I used to tell him to go and see a doctor, but he said the things he saw were real.” “Schizophrenia is the most tragic and mysterious of mental illnesses, Mr. Boardman,” said Doctor Dawe, leaning back in his black leather seat. “It transcends economic status, education, geography and even the lovingkindness of family. Sufferers usually hear voices and see visions, as you said, but they are not able to tell what is real from what is imaginary.” 126

Metempsychosis “He had imaginary friends,” remembered James. “Creatures or something like that.” “Do any of you happen to know how long he’s been suffering from this disease?” The couple looked at each other and said no. “Has he ever received any treatments?” “I don’t think so,” said Sarah. “His mother died when he was about five.” “Did he have any other relatives?” “His father might still live in Chester, but I doubt that’ll be a good idea.” “Why?” “Simon was the only child of an incestuous relationship between his alcoholic mother and her younger brother,” said Sarah. “Everybody knew it in the neighbourhood, of course. They’re always saying he was mentally ill because of that and the other kids avoided his company. They said he was cursed.” Doctor Dawe hastened to write and underline a couple of words in Simon’s family profile— alcoholism and incest. “Do you know how old he is?” he asked almost without looking at the couple in front of him. “I think he’s thirty five,” answered James. “And do you remember when Simon started to communicate through others?” Doctor’s gaze was intense now. “I beg your pardon?” James shot a glance at his 127

German Bradley wife. Sarah just replied with a shrug of the shoulders. “He seems to have the ability to control people as if they were mediums,” explained Doctor Dawe, his tone was emotionless. “I thought you might know something about it.” The couple was startled by that revelation. After a pause that seemed an eternity Sarah found her voice. “No, doctor, He never used anybody as a medium. He said his imaginary friends used to talk to him and take care of him, but ... isn’t that another symptom of his disease?” “Yes, yes, of course, Mrs. Boardman,” said Doctor Dawe, trying not to give much importance to his own question. “Excuse me, Doctor,” said James. “Is there any other thing we should know about Simon?” “No, Mr. Boardman. There’s nothing to worry about.” The phone suddenly rang and a female voice broke their conversation up: “I’m sorry to interrupt Doctor Dawe but there are two patients waiting for you here.” “Thank you, Judy. I’ll be there in a minute.” “Well, Mr and Mrs. Boardman, you’ve both been very helpful today. I appreciate your concern and all this information. I’ll keep you informed about Simon’s progress as soon as I see the patient myself in a couple of days. Thank you very 128

Metempsychosis much.” “Bye, Doctor,” said the Boardmans and left his office, but their expression suggested they were far from satisfied with his answer. **** Doctor Dawe continued thinking about Simon’s case on the following day. It brought him inevitable memories of another similar case in Hong Kong and its relation to the Triads, a powerful secret society in Japan that induces its followers to hypnotic spells during the initiation ceremony. He was studying the Chinese spirit medium cults when he knew of a young man who was with the Triads. His family said a demonspirit had taken his soul. He learnt Chinese people are firm believers that during the sleeping trance or when someone is under a hypnotic spell, the soul escapes the body and wanders abroad which allows disembodied, soul-fetcher spirits to enter that body and possess the man or woman in concern. Doctor Dawe knew Simon’s soul had left his body about six times during those five years he had gone into a coma. He also knew he was already in a coma when admitted to the hospital. Was it possible he were dealing with the same case now? What sort of entity had taken control of his soul? Had he ever been induced to a hypnotic 129

German Bradley state in Harlech? Mrs. Boardman had said nobody liked him there. It sounded like an interesting case, of course, but he had to see the patient first. **** On the following day Doctor Dawe’s attentive little eyes watched his new patient on the three screens displayed on the monitoring room counter of the psychiatric ward. But the more he eyed him the more he thought he must have undergone some sort of hormone therapy in the past. The bald man had fully grown breasts and the fat distribution of his body comformed more to female clothes than male ones, even beneath the loose, coarse pyjamas he wore. “Sweet Jesus,” said Doctor Dawe and tried to concentrate on the patient’s actions instead. The man looked at his new room with curiosity. A dark red stripe of glistening tiles, about three feet from the floor, seemed to absorb him. He ran his hands over it and looked at them afterwards, as if he wanted to make sure they were still clean. He looked at the cameras as well, but they weren’t attractive enough to him. “Did you have any trouble with the patient’s change today in the morning?” he asked the senior nurse by his side, as he started to fill out the 130

Metempsychosis patient’s clinical report. “There was no trouble at all,” answered the nurse, gazing down at him. “He just woke up while the orderlies rolled him along the corridors, but it didn’t seem to bother him.” “How old do you think he is?” he asked again, his eyes still concentrated on the writing. “I would say he’s about five years younger than you, Doctor,” said the nurse. “Yes, I was thinking about that, too,” he said and wrote thirty five in the blank next to the word AGE. He remembered Mr. Boardman’s information as well. It fitted really well with the patient’s appearance. “Did you see the nurse in charge of this patient today?” “You mean, Nurse Dugdale?” “Yes.” “Oh, Doctor Conlon is very worried about her. She hasn’t come to work for ... a week or so. Doctor Conlon himself has been checking this patient over the last week, and he said he’s been sleeping almost all the time.” “Any special pills for that?” “No need for them, Doctor. Doctor Conlon says the patient sometimes sleeps the clock round. But—” she interrupted herself. “Look, Doctor. Look!” and pointed to the screens. The man was sitting on the edge of his bed. 131

German Bradley With a yogi’s flexibility, he had lifted his right leg over his shoulder and put it behind his head. “Has he done this before today?” asked Doctor Dawe, visibly impressed. “Not really,” said the surprised nurse. The patient remained in that position for a minute or so, bending over and sitting up straight again. Then he lowered his leg and raised the other one to continue with that peculiar display of elasticity. But during his exercise, his eyes were wide open—almost popping out of his sockets, actually—and fixed on the wall in front of him. After five minutes, however, he stopped and his childlike curiosity returned. Doctor Dawe wrote down every little detail of what he saw. “I think we’ve got an athlete,” the nurse joked. “I think I’ll take advantage of this young fella’s good mood,” said Doctor Dawe and stood to his skinny six foot two. “It’ll do him good to see his new doctor and nurse are likeable enough people he can trust and consider as his friends.” He left the report on the counter and left the room. His nurse followed him like a shadow. “How do you like it, Mr. Wick?” asked Doctor Dawe, arriving in the patient’s room. “I think it’s bigger than the other one, don’t you think so? Oh, I’m Doctor Dawe and this is Nurse Walden.” The patient just gazed at them for a minute and 132

Metempsychosis turned towards the wall. “Do you like sports, Mr. Wick?” asked Doctor Dawe again, but the patient didn’t seem to hear him. “He isn’t really a chatty fellow, is he?” he said to the nurse and waited for a while. Realising the patient’s apathy towards them, Doctor finally said: “Well Mr. Wick, Nurse Walden will be back for your daily checking in ten minutes.” And they opened the door so as to leave. “N-n-nice m-mee-ting you, doctor.” An eerie voice suddenly spoke from inside, making Nurse Walden stop before she closed the door. “Did you hear that, Doctor?” asked the senior nurse, a little scared by the unusual tone of the voice. “It seems to come from the patient’s lips,” she continued. Doctor Dawe opened the door and hastened into the room. The patient hadn’t moved at all. He was still looking to the wall, but the temperature inside that room had dropped dramatically. “Already ch-ch-checking t-time?” The patient asked and turned towards them as he stood and walked along his bed. His eyes stared blankly at nothing. “N-n-no,” mumbled Doctor Dawe, taken aback, feeling a strange weight on his shoulders and chest. “I mean, yes. I ...” He was speechless, almost panting. His eyes just followed the patient, who moved like an autistic. “It’s wonderful!” Doctor 133

German Bradley finally said. “Simply wonderful.” The patient had spoken in the typical North Wales guttural accent! Suddenly, the patient stopped walking and turned towards them with an intelligent expression on his face, one query. “Is there any other thing you would like to say?” asked Doctor Dawe slowly. “H-hungry,” said the patient in that eerie voice. “I’m hungry.” **** The patient’s striking hermaphroditic frame remained in Doctor Dawe’s mind for a long while during that afternoon. Even though it wasn’t his medical field, he was as astonished as the rest of his colleagues. He had never seen anything like that. Surgery and hormone injections were usually the way in which a man or a woman would change his or her body. But in this case nobody had tampered with the patient at all. In a couple of weeks the case proved to be beyond anything the physicians have ever seen in that hospital, or in any other hospital. They had run a full-body scan as well and the images showed the patient’s anatomy was changing both internal and externally. His circulatory system was too developed. His thorax and pelvis were decidedly of feminine form. His body was richer 134

Metempsychosis and richer in fat and his skin became miraculously well groomed, delicate and soft. There was not even a thin growth of hair on his face, either. His mons veneris was rich in fat and prominent. His male genitals were well developed, but below his scrotum his labia majora touched each other almost completely! His labia minora had a cock’scomb-like form and projected under the labia majora. Doctors had found a clitoris as well, small and sensitive, and a virgin hymen. He had a delicate frenulum and a very narrow perineum too. His vagina was so narrow that the insertion of an erect male member would be impossible. There was even a uterus inside the patient’s body. It was about the size of a walnut, though, and felt through the rectum. According to the doctors’ examinations and reports, the patient’s abnormal physical conditions were congenital and therefore incurable. Some of them said his malformations depended on great hereditary taint, but they failed to explain the process itself. There was no information about his family. Simon Wick was unique.

135

German Bradley

Chapter 7

D

ay after day, and for two long months, Doctor Dawe’s little eyes perused every posture of his patient and every wry face of his. Everything indicated he was suffering from the catatonic subtype of schizophrenia. He often resisted all kind of instructions or engaged in bizarre postures and exaggerated mannerisms. A speech pathologist had been treating his speaking problems during that time, too; he had shown a genuine desire for co-operation. He had improved a lot, but then he began to obsessively talk about another time, another place. A non-existent village called Caer Arianrhod and a strange temple called Caer Vandwy. He spoke in a rambling, incoherent fashion, but Doctor Dawe had also noticed fear in the patient’s voice. A sudden fluster. Strange phenomena began to take place in the psychotic ward on the following days. For no reason lights went out three or four times a day, interrupting the daily activities and therapies on 136

Metempsychosis that floor only. The whole place was unnaturally cold for no reason. There was something in Simon’s room that made Doctor Dawe nervous, but he didn’t know what. The inexplicable weight he felt on his shoulders became heavier and heavier as days went by. During those periods of blackouts, some nurses had seen Simon walking down the corridors, even though the cameras showed he had never left his room. They had also felt that weight and a soft pressure on their backs, above the lumbar regions. New messages, sinister and brutal, appeared and disappeared on the walls of his room, too. WE’LL HAVE NO MERCY ON ANYONE “What does this mean, Mr. Wick?” asked Doctor Dawe, picking up and showing him the Polaroids an automatic camera had managed to take at the moment the crimson letters were still visible. The patient just trembled in his bed. WE’LL DRIVE YOU INSANE Of course the patient had never left his bed and there was no wound on his body that could say he was using his own blood to write those messages. Was it just another manifestation of his paranormal powers? Doctor wondered. YOUR SOULS ARE OURS “Is there anything troubling you, Mr. Wick?” asked Doctor Dawe, pretending not to be 137

German Bradley impressed by the phenomenon. But the patient just kept talking about souls and sacrifices. He said he had also talked to other patients there. “They are sad and angry,” he said. “They want to come with us.” After a month his mental condition got worse, but the paranormal phenomena ceased. He said he was a Gwyllion and groped across his room for invisible things. There were voices in his head as well, crying out for help. Thoughts piled one on top of each other and made his mind race. Doctor Dawe decided to treat him on Clozaril, Risperdal and Geodon. Those antipsychotics targeted the dopamine-flooded regions of his brain, softening the volume of the voices in such a way that they fell completely silent after a month. “There’ll be no more unpleasant visions, Mr. Wick, no more voices waking you in the night,” said Doctor Dawe, and his patient smiled at him, thankfully. But the voices didn’t disappear. The doses of medication he had taken had made his brain react in peculiar ways. He said he felt his veins bulge on his face, arms and legs. His skin burnt with a scorching heat that made him scream in pain, forcing him to tear his pyjamas off so as to give himself relief. Doctor realised the patient’s behaviour was turning extremely dangerous, both for himself and for the rest of the 138

Metempsychosis patients in the psychiatric ward, so he had to strap him down to his bed. “It’ll be safer for you this way, Mr. Wick,” Doctor said. “You’ll be better soon.” But the patient just laughed it off. The Gwyllion inside him played her role well, making the Doctor think he was insane. She wouldn’t lay herself open to suspicion that way. She would be able to ferret about beyond the hospital’s farthest boundaries. Her astral self would be able to go to the looming mountains she’d already seen in the twisted minds of the inmates. **** The journey began on that very night, after midnight. Medana tried to make herself comfortable under the straps that restrained her body, closed her eyes and relaxed. Her breathing and heartbeats got slower and slower. A whooshing noise came to her human ears. Her brain activity went on at such a deep level that the surface electrodes on either side of her brow didn’t pick it up. She began to feel weightless. She was out of that pathetic human body and floated on the darkness of her room just below the ceiling. She looked at herself and was pleased to see she was a sort of wisp of smoke. Her astral body had also kept its original lemon yellow colour. 139

German Bradley She drifted around the room for a while and then moved through the wall into the corridor. Her astral body split into eight different lemon yellow clouds and passed through doors and walls, dropping in on eight inmates’ rooms. She saw their beds and how they suddenly woke up. “Fear ye not,” she said to every one of them. Her brightness hovered in front of their faces. “God hath sent his messenger to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings.” In a fit of blind faith the inmates fell on their knees and prayed to their God for the miracle they saw. “God hath sent me to lead thee to the Garden of Eden. Take my hand, brothers and sisters, for blessed art ye amongst men.” She offered her ethereal hands and the foggy souls of those unhinged men and women stretched themselves towards her. Hand-in-hand and two-by-two, they travelled with her, willing to leave their petty bodies and afflictions below. “Cast off your slumbers and open your souls to me, the Sleep Angel, the Harbinger of death.” She had already seen in the minds and souls of those inmates they strongly believed in that portent of doom. She had followed the myth and had them see her as a figure dressed in a flowing gown. It had worked splendidly well, of course; she had become an angel for those mental folks, an 140

Metempsychosis angel who had come to tell them it was time to die. She took them to the south, to an unlocked bothy she had mentally built at the top of a mountain whose name she had read from the mind of one orderly—Cadair Idris. It was a dimensional pathway for those souls, a shelter and meeting point for the rest of the Gwyllions, built of bronze, gold and crystal. Darkness and silence was all around. The lemon light of the shelter and the Gwyllion’s itself were the only guiding signals for those human souls. Medana was contented. She had read their minds over that gentle trip and had found they thought she was a heavenly being sent to show them a way out of their misery. They trusted her. They loved her. Yet she had felt doubt in one of those loonies. “Are you really a messenger from God?” She heard the thought, as the rest began to get slightly worried. “Don’t be afraid of your current state,” said Medana to persuade it. “Don’t be afraid of the place we’re going to. Such a pure soul as yours cannot have fear.” He voice was soothing, convincing. “Here they stand,” she said, showing the gleaming doors of the shelter. “The gates to the Land of the Blest.” And the doors opened, bathing those souls in that loving, restful light. 141

German Bradley “It’s a trick!” the fearful soul shouted. “This is not the gate to Heaven! She’s a deceiver!” But the rest of the souls had already entered the mountain shelter and its doors were almost closed. “Go back to the hospital! There is no Paradise there!” the soul kept shouting, but there was nobody outside the shelter to hear its desperate cries; nobody except the Gwyllion, and she had already found out he knew exactly what she was. “You’re not an angel. You’re a demon, a deceiving Messiah,” the soul spat. “You brought us here to eat our souls away! There’s no affection in you, there’s no concern!” the soul continued saying as it flew backwards in shock. “You’re a clever creature, aren’t you?” answered Medana and smiled. “I see you’re not that insane after all.” “Go back! Go back!” the soul cried out on and on. “Don’t listen to this humbug!” “The black sheep of always,” said Medana with a malicious glee. “You can’t do anything to avoid the feast we’ll have inside. It’s just a dream for them, a mere dream.” “They ... are ... innocent,” the soul juddered and sobbed as two other lemon yellow lights floated on its left and on its right. “There’s a blind faith in those souls, creature,” said Medana, “deviant and athirst. Perfect for our 142

Metempsychosis needs.” The lights then moved forwards and disappeared through the doors of that shelter. “Tonight, they’ll see the glory in the depths of our essence,” she added, “and will rise like loyal slaves into other bodies in our time. But you shall remain here, wandering over this mountain, watching us lead a parade of willing souls. And you shall cry and you shall weep, but none of them will hear.” The Gwyllion followed the others into the shelter, and that pallid smoky soul stayed outside, condemned to be a sort of conspiratorial witness of a massive and fatal transmigration it could never reveal. **** Eight patients were found dead in their rooms on the following day, the first eight in a series of unexplainable death.

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t was nearly fifteen past eleven in the morning when the Vauxhall Frontera pulled up at a parking space almost in front of Llanberis Station at the foot of Mount Snowdon. Nurse Dugdale and her husband got out of the car and looked up at the blanket of cloud that covered the summit. “It looks like it’s going to be a nice day today, doesn’t it?” she asked her husband and laughed as they walked towards the ticket office. “Two tickets, please,” she said to the man behind the window. “Do you want single or return, madam?” “Single, please. Two single tickets,” she said and handed him two twenty pound notes. “Here’s your change. Eight pounds. Thank you.” “Excuse me,” she interrupted. “What time does the next Snowdon Mountain Railway leave?” “You’re in time for the train, madam. It leaves in five minutes.” 144

Metempsychosis And there it was, the charming little train with a small dark brown engine and only one red and white passenger car. Some tourists were already on the carriage, taking pictures of the interior and themselves; others preferred to be depicted beside the passenger car, together with their wives, husbands and children. None of them paid the foggiest attention to the young couple who got into the train, not even to the black tinted shades they wore. Everybody was keen on seeing the valleys, the rolling farmlands and the wild moorlands. Some of them just talked and laughed. “Autumn is a risky time to visit Snowdon,” said an elderly woman to a friend of her age sitting by her side. “You can have clear blue skies one moment and it can be pouring with rain the next.” “The train takes an hour and a half to cover the 4.54 miles to the summit,” explained a father to his son. Then the engine started to huff and puff and the power of steam was greeted with applause and admiring ohs. But the couple didn’t speak a word. They just took in the scenery with indifference. Neither the rugged mountains nor the lakes or rivers were important to them, not even the occasional Peregrine falcons that flew across the railway tracks. They just waited, with their long raincoats on. “Is this your first time?” asked a young girl, gazing at the white smoke that came out of the 145

German Bradley steam engine. “Yes, it is,” said the man. “But we’re no train enthusiasts, really.” The girl said nothing but kept herself at a distance. Close to the top of the mount the train entered the thick cloud the couple noticed from below. It was so thick that they couldn’t even see their hands in front of their faces. “It’s time, Llys,” said the nurse, and the man nodded to her. He stretched his arms out and gripped the throat of the nearest elderly lady, pulling her head apart. So fast was his attack that the lady couldn’t even scream. His fingers had easily sunk into her flabby flesh as his companion broke necks with frightening dexterity. Women began to screech and men fought against the thin air, unable to see their aggressors. Yet their time came as well, and their souls flew into the deadly core of the Gwyllions. No human being survived, not even the train driver. Drenched with blood, the couple ripped the flesh of the corpses effortlessly and wolfed their prey until nothing was left on that train but bare bones. But the power they got from those souls, and the others they had gobbled in Rhyl, had made them forget what they really were, what their 146

Metempsychosis mission was. Those human souls wrapped them in their exquisite grief and made them feel like saviours in their countless inner realms. The demons moved into bodies they had never thought a human creature could make up. And, like toys, they let themselves go through the tempting and intoxicating sensations that took over their wills.

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week went by and the news about the dying flew. The victims’ relatives had gone to the press, T.V. and radio stations to let everybody know about the suspicious circumstances in which their beloved ones died in the psychiatric ward of Glan Clwydd Hospital. The Boardmans tried to visit their friend many times, but the hospital staff denied their visit again and again. As an aftermath, the authorities of the Department of Health and Social Security began to investigate the kind of service the psychiatric area had been giving to each patient lately. They weren’t the only ones, though. Inspector Detectives Hull and Keel had been called to investigate and interview all those physicians who might have been involved in the cases of the patients concerned. Doctor Dawe started his own research as well. He recorded every session with Simon Wick and decided to analyse the whole case through a different perspective. He couldn’t 148

Metempsychosis explain why, but he was suspicious about that patient and his possible connection with the tragic events that taken place in the hospital. “Yes, Gwyllions and Gwibers keep the people of Caer Arianrhod under their thumbs. They’ve taken over for years and years. But they don’t have absolute power anyway. They are cursed. We are cursed.” “Could you tell me what Gwyllions do?” Doctor heard his own voice on the videotape. “I’ve told you. We rule over Caer Vandwy.” “Right. But, what about the Gwibers? What do they do?” “They are the god’s slaves. They follow his rules.” He had preferred to watch the sessions at home, alone so as not to interfere with the official investigation in the hospital. “Gwyn is our god. He’s the hunting god of human souls, the master of the infernal dogs. Oh, I miss his presence in the temple. I miss his presence here.” At least the names he’d heard on the tape had certain individuality. It wasn’t the typical list of demons he had been so used to hearing. No. It was local names what he heard. Welsh names. “And how did you come here to this hospital?” “We just passed into this body. We escaped.” “But why did you escape here?” 149

German Bradley “To save these suffering souls.” Doctor Dawe then selected another excerpt. “It feels good in here. We like it.” “You mean the hospital?” “We like this age in your world. We are free here. We like to hear the calling of the souls.” “But you really can’t leave this place. You don’t even dare to open this door.” There’s a strange logical sequence in the patient’s story, thought Doctor Dawe as he pressed the stop button, not the typical schizophrenic talks that usually lead the patients into depression and despair. There’s a purpose here, he thought again and kept on watching. “The others have gone. They are out there. Free.” “But you can’t escape, can you?” “Oh yes, I could escape if I wanted. I can do that.” The patient’s tone had darkened. “Really?” And after a pause. “Could you tell me how?” “We have our ways.” The patient’s chuckle raised the hairs on the back of Doctor Dawe’s neck, while the previous sentence echoed in his head. “I could escape if I wanted ... escape if I wanted ... escape ... escape.” 150

Metempsychosis What’s he trying to say by that? Doctor wondered. Does it have anything to do with the dead patients? Little by little fear gained control of his thoughts. “Jesus, I’m getting as barmy as this patient,” he mocked himself. But he knew that sentence revealed more than a simple mental state. “No, no, no. It’s too much,” he denied his thoughts but couldn’t avoid fear. “Human souls are so tempting, Doctor.” But Doctor Dawe couldn’t go on. His hands were already shaking. Something in the patient’s story and the strange lemon yellow glow he’d seen through the surveillance cameras, both in his room and along the corridors, made him think this man knew about the mysterious deaths in that ward. Simon Wick or whoever was in his body was bilocating himself. He had no proof, though. It was just that glow he had seen leaving the patient’s body almost every night to float along the corridors and get into the rooms of those who were found dead on the following morning. He had a copy of those videotapes, but he hadn’t said a word about it. Who would believe in his story after all? It was too much even for himself, an experienced psychic investigator. Anyway, some nights the glow was just the blink of an image superimposed above the patient’s head. He couldn’t talk about that! It was 151

German Bradley crazy! But he talked about an age of fantastic creatures and gods, Doctor Dawe continued thinking, and that age could be no other thing than a feasible hint to consider over this research—Welsh mythology. There was another thing to consider, however. The patient had said he could escape if he wanted. Didn’t it mean he’d developed an unconscious skill to control his breathing and heartbeats to experience astral projections? He’d read about some mystic monks from the East who travelled throughout the world in ethereal journeys. The coma-beat of their hearts was like the tick-tack of a hypnotic inner clock that helped them leave their bodies, enlarging a silver umbilical cord that joined them to their wayfaring spirits. Or perhaps, after his out-of-body experiences, this patient had undergone some autoscopic hallucination where he saw himself in another time. What if he was not a man but a demon like the case of the young man who was with the Triads in Japan? He knew the dangers of out-of-body experiences as well. He knew sometimes a patient’s consciousness might leave his body and might be unable to come back, allowing another entity to jump in and possess an unoccupied body. But the fact was that the more theories he had the more confused he got, so he turned off the video player and the lights of his 152

Metempsychosis house. It was already ten o’clock at night and he had to be back in the hospital very early in the morning. **** In less than five days of searching different sites on the web containing information about Welsh mythology, Doctor Dawe found enough material that supported his patient’s story. Obviously, his descriptions had been magnified and distorted due to his mental condition. He must have overheard a person talking about Welsh folklore back in Harlech, Doctor thought, and the story impressed him in such a way that his unsound mind created an alternative world or age, as he said, where fantastic creatures acted out his own fantasies. The sites confirmed Gwyn as the lord of the Celtic Underworld, as the hunting god of human souls and king of devils and fairies. The Gwibers his patient had so much talked about were actually one single Gwiber—a winged serpent that dwelt in the rocks of one of the seven wonders of Wales, a waterfall called Pistyll Rhaeadr on the Powys/Clwyd border. There was a seventeenthcentury drawing on one of those sites as well, and it showed a village called Caer Arianrhod supposedly located half a mile off the coastal 153

German Bradley hillfort of Dinas Dinlle. According to legend, the whole place had been swallowed by the sea as punishment for its people’s witchery practices, which coincided with the blood-spattered rituals the patient had described. Arianrhod was a beautiful goddess associated with a constellation known as Corona Borealis and with Adam’s first wife—Lilith. But he couldn’t find any information about Caer Vandwy. Doctor Dawe’s suspicions grew stronger and stronger and his mind ran wild. Simon Wick couldn’t be one of those 250.000 schizophrenic people living in Britain, but if he were, something evil and out of this plane had possessed his soul and body and killed through him, in the shape of that mysterious glow. But then, a word broke the train of his thoughts, calling his attention back to the screen of his computer. Gwyllion. He read it once, twice, three times and felt the patient’s etheric body in his house, in his studio, reading with him. He heard that sinister chuckle of his. “Evil fierce fairies of the mountains, and loyal followers of Gwyn. Pre-Celtic people believed their spirits could possess the bodies of human beings during sleep.”

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ook!” exclaimed Senior Nurse Walden, having lunch with other nurses and doctors at the cafeteria of the psychiatric ward. “We’re on TV again.” Doctors and nurses stopped eating and chatting in order to heed the newscaster’s words. “Six more patients died this morning on the neuropathology and orthopsychiatry floors of Glan Clwydd Hospital. In spite of the fact that authorities of the Department of Health haven’t found any kind of irregularity in the procedures, food or drugs administered to the patients during the last four months, the Chairman of the Board of the Hospital, Ph.D. James Friedman, had decided to temporarily close the institution.” “Did you hear that?” said one of the doctors sitting at the table just below the TV set. Yet Doctor Dawe didn’t say a thing. His mind was elsewhere. He couldn’t avoid shaking in his shoes. 155

German Bradley He had seen the glowing shadows casting out from the patient’s head last night. He had seen them forming a sort of glowing smoke that went downstairs, probably to those floors, but he had lost it there. Those floors didn’t have surveillance cameras. “You okay?” asked one physician next to him. “Yes, I’m fine,” he said with his eyes fixed on his salad. Something in his head told him Simon Wick was not really a patient. He was almost sure that Simon was killing those sick people there. He could even see him in his room, rubbing his hands with insane delight and chuckling. But the news went on. “Detective Inspector Ben Hull, heading the investigation, had this to say, “The autopsy results showed a sudden respiratory arrest as the only cause of death so far. But the strange thing is that none of the patients were actually connected to respirators or any other kind of similar equipment.” “More news on what has been called the Silent Death Outbreak after the break.” “This is terrible,” said Nurse Walden in anguish. “It must be some sort of unknown virus,” said Doctor Stern by her side. “That’s impossible,” answered Doctor Conlon. “It would have killed you and me and all the medical professionals involved in those cases.” 156

Metempsychosis As the other physicians started to exchange their opinions, Doctor Dawe suddenly stood and walked towards Doctor Conlon’s table. “Can I talk to you, Doctor? There’s something I’d like to share with you about Simon Wick, the channeler patient, do you remember?” “Sure. Have a seat,” said Doctor Conlon. “I’d rather like you to come with me to the monitoring room of the psychiatric ward instead.” But the newscaster was already on the screen. “Police have arrested more than fifteen young people, men and women, who wandered barefoot around the streets of Rhyl, beating drivers and pedestrians and breaking into the shops of the White Rose shopping centre and the Library and Art Centre. They all had blank expressions on their faces, as if they were into a deep trance. But once in the police station, all of them, without exception, suddenly died. “Locals and tourists have also been found, roaming around Llyn Gwynant and Llyn Trawsfynydd or walking through the woodlands of Dolgellau in North Wales. They haven’t died yet, but they look like zombies, and the police officers haven’t been able to make them speak or eat. What’s going on in North Wales? What’s killing our people?” **** Once inside the monitoring room, Doctor Dawe closed the door behind them and turned on the video player after inserting a tape. 157

German Bradley “There!” exclaimed Doctor Dawe, freezeframing the image of the video and pointing to a faint ghostly glow on one of the screens. “Can you see it?” He rewound the tape a little in order to play and freeze-frame it again. “Yes,” said Doctor Conlon, narrowing his bespectacled eyes. “It looks like vapour or something like that.” “Now look at the whole sequence,” Doctor Dawe said and pressed the play button. “It’s moving!” exclaimed his colleague. “It’s going downstairs!” “This is what is killing our patients, Doctor Conlon.” “What?” “Let me show you another footage.” Doctor Dawe changed the tapes. The image of the patient’s room dated October 10, five past midnight. “This is the night when the killings began,” said Doctor Dawe. “There it is, the same glowing.” “Why, yes,” said Doctor Conlon, watching the image carefully. “Look where the glow goes. Look how it splits itself into those eight smaller wisps of smoke.” “Are those ...” Doctor Conlon just followed the glow through the screens and couldn’t believe his eyes. “Yes. Those were the first victims. The patients 158

Metempsychosis we found dead in that morning.” “Are you trying to say that Simon Wick killed them?” Doctor Conlon asked; his face showed disbelief. “He’s not Simon Wick, Doctor Conlon. He’s another thing. I can’t tell you what he really is, but the thing inside his body has something to do with all this madness we’ve seen on TV I’ve analysed my sessions with this patient for weeks. I have recorded every one of them and I’ve found out he’s telling the truth. He’s telling what he really is because he knows we would never believe in him. He’s unhinged, he can spit it all out, right into our face, and he can laugh at us as well. He’s safe here. Nobody can touch him in this place. It’s perfect for his purposes.” “And what do you think those purposes are?” asked Doctor Conlon thoughtfully. “I don’t know yet, but I’m sure there’s an evil spirit inside the man you see on the screen.” “Oh, please, Doctor Dawe. I know you’re the expert here but, haven’t you noticed those alpha waves on the screen as well? That’s a sleep disorder, isn’t it? An exaggerated brain activity,” said Doctor Conlon, as if his colleague wasn’t talking seriously. “He’s a schizophrenic with some paranormal powers, of course but, a killer? I really think you’ve been working on that patient too much, Doctor.” 159

German Bradley “Can’t you see it? Can’t you really see it?” asked Doctor Dawe, pointing to the screen. “The thing inside that man is not a schizophrenic. It has got a hidden plan and it’s working with the precision of a Swiss clock.” “What about the other killings? I mean, Rhyl, Snowdonia. Did he kill them as well? Come on, what’s that plan?” “What if there’s more than one entity inside him? What if they’ve already found a way to pass into other bodies?” “You’re scaring me, Doctor,” said Doctor Conlon, looking down at the glow on the screen and back at him again. “What are you going to do?” “I’m going to change the rules of his game,” said Doctor Dawe and left the room. He had already made up his mind. “I’m going to prove you all there’s an evil entity inside that man—a killer,” Doctor Dawe shouted along the hall.

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here’s Simon Wick?” Doctor Dawe had decided to change his strategy. He would no longer regard the man in front of him as a patient but as an alien entity. “He’s here,” the patient said. “You’re talking to him now.” “No, I mean, the real Simon Wick, the owner of that body, the schizophrenic who came from Harlech, where is he?” “Oh, the apprentice,” said the patient and raised his eyebrows. He stared at him with wide eyes for a second and said: “He’s enjoying our hospitality.” “Does Gwyn have his soul and spirit?” asked Doctor Dawe, trying to sound as natural as possible. “Not quite,” answered the patient suspiciously. “Why are you so interested in him? Did you know him well?” That was the proof Doctor Dawe had been 161

German Bradley looking for. He was talking to someone else, not Simon, and this entity was trying to protect itself. “Maybe,” Doctor lied, trying to see where this session would take him. But the patient just smiled and stared at him. “The question is,” continued Doctor Dawe, “why did you take his soul? Why did you possess his body?” “It was available.” “Could you explain to me what you mean?” The patient’s eyes just looked at the wall, but he didn’t say a word. “Take your time,” said Doctor Dawe, but the patient had gone suddenly silent; he didn’t seem to hear him. “Okay,” Doctor began, “why did the other Gwyllions leave you here? You’re not alone here, are you?” The patient just gazed into the ceiling and opened his mouth, letting his saliva to drip from his tongue as he rocked in his chair. “Stop pretending, Gwyllion. I know your game and I’ll find a way to make you pay for the patients you’ve killed,” Doctor Dawe spluttered through clenched teeth as his anger rose. “Your cause is lost, Doctor,” said the patient, without looking at him. “Simon belongs to another world. There’s no way for him to come back.” “You killed him, didn’t you? You killed him, exactly in the same way you killed the other patients in this hospital,” spat Doctor Dawe. 162

Metempsychosis “What do you know about these creatures, Doctor?” asked the patient, opening his arms as if all the patients of the hospital were right there in his room, listening to him. “Every creature in this place is a living door to a fragment of our reality. I’ve been hearing them cry out for help since I entered this broken body. They all think you have the key to open their doors and unleash their souls, but you don’t speak their language.” Doctor Dawe had a hunch that that devil was poking fun at his naivety. He knew evil spirits didn’t have concern for people’s feelings or desires, but at the same time he felt like a priest who didn’t have enough faith to face the Devil. Suddenly, it seemed to him his investigation made no sense. He was dealing with something beyond his reasoning. He had broken the number one rule of parapsychology—he hadn’t been careful enough to treat this case. He had involved himself too much. “You’re right, Doctor Dawe,” said the patient. “You’d better forget all this. Keep yourself sane.” And he laughed at him. “This is not your field, Doctor. Honestly, it has never been your thing at all, has it?” Doctor Dawe was astounded, aghast at the devil’s mental reading. “H-h-how? How do you know that? You’re ... reading m-my mind,” Doctor muttered and began 163

German Bradley to tremble in his chair. The main reason why he had become a parapsychologist was due to the creepy and traumatic experiences he had had with a devilish creature when he was a small boy. His memories went back to the time he was 9. The door of his bedroom suddenly opened again in his mind and that unforgettable, stunning red face turned up. The creature’s eyes fixed on his, as it grinned with hideous delight. He had even given the creature a name—Harlequin. He had started to investigate the whole paranormal phenomenon since then and had reached a high degree of excellence at the University, but he could never cope with the real cases he studied afterwards. Harlequin had debilitated his soul. It was always alive in his soul. “Your soul is calling me. It demands to be unleashed,” the patient smirked. “Listen to it, Doctor. Listen.” “Shut up, you devil! Your game is over!” Doctor barked. “Good,” said the patient unimpressed. “You’re trying to open your doors.” “Stop it, you bastard!” His anger rose to fever pitch. “They’re almost open now. Keep trying. Release your anger and frustration.” “No!” Doctor screamed and took off at a run, fleeing from that room and the entity, fleeing from 164

Metempsychosis the paranoid truth he should never have sought. But the patient’s voice kept talking in his head while he ran downstairs towards his car. “We know each other and where we are from. The connection has been settled.” “Get away from me, you devil!” Doctor screamed. “Get away from my head!” “But this is what they feel, Doctor,” said the voice. “You’ve been trying to find it out since you graduated, haven’t you?” “No! I’m not hearing you! I’m not hearing you!” “I’m just showing you how it feels. I’m just opening the doors of your soul. I hold the keys, Doctor. Can you hear them tinkle?” And the voice finally ceased.

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n spite of the fact that Doctor Dawe had decided to quit his job at the hospital, his last talk with the Gwyllion hadn’t left his memory at all. He’d already crossed the line of sanity and walked on a territory he scarcely knew from his medical perspective. He was at loose ends and didn’t know what to think. Now he knew there was a time that ran parallel to ours; he knew that demons were here, taking souls at will. He began to imagine gruesome gods opening pathways wherever they wished. He saw himself surrounded by the faint glow he’d seen in the entity’s room. He saw the patient’s face in that glow, looking on with delirious laughter. He began to think this time was unreal and his fantasies went even further. He visualised the ancient village that one day disappeared beneath the sea. He saw its citizens, its fabulous beasts and mythical places alive and confined to a time that never changed. He was so enthralled that he 166

Metempsychosis suddenly found himself in an ancient forest that seemed to have no end. Everything was as plain as day, but he couldn’t see the sky above. It was cold and it smelt damp. He found himself sitting under an oak tree on an isle in the middle of a pond. It was a beautiful place, albeit a bit dreary, but he couldn’t tell how he had got there. Then he stood and began to walk ... on those waters! He could see the bottom of the pond as he walked—a tapestry of leaf and olive green grass grew down there. It was incredible, like stepping on crystal. Every time he looked down into the pond, his reasoning drifted away in that quietness. Splashes of water broke the stillness of the place and forced him to look back. Three androgynous creatures, dressed in rags, looked at him with infinite hate as they approached. Doctor Dawe realised he was in danger and took to his heels, but the creatures dogged his steps and the trees slowed his escape. Then, the forest was no more. He found himself at the edge of a cliff, and the creatures were already on him. He fell on his stomach. His eyes, however, were fixed on the shimmering sea of olive green waters that wore down the rocks. A whistling sound came to his ears, and he felt himself rising up, floating above his body. “How is it? How can I be up here, looking 167

German Bradley down at myself? I feel like a feather.” “The door is open now,” said a voice somewhere in front of him, and the creatures appeared. “Your soul is ready to enter our world.” “Oh, my God! I’m dead!” “Oh, no Doctor. It’s just the transmigration of your soul.” The creatures’ mouths opened to an impossible width. Doctor Dawe felt as though propelled into darkness, but once inside he was no longer aware of himself.

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he hospital had turned into a pandemonium. Tiredness and stress were so much for Doctor Conlon that he literally collapsed into his bed as soon as he got home every night. His flesh tones had an unhealthy pallor. He had even fainted in the hospital twice. He was both mentally and physically exhausted. He couldn’t even dream, but when dreams did come to him they were as confused and shocking as the reality he lived in the hospital day after day. One night it was different, though. He dreamed of blood rains that soaked his body and dyed his clothes and skin deep ruby red; he dreamed of snowdrifts and he saw himself running into them. He heard voices and laughter in the cold air. He was seeking a place to be safe, but found none. Unconsciously, he pressed close to his wife Beryl, by his side, but he couldn’t feel her body. He wasn’t part of himself anymore. He was above, seeing his sleeping body below, on the bed. 169

German Bradley A lemon yellow glow presented itself in his bedroom, next to the door. A glow that burned the air around. Then an androgynous figure came out of that light and its colourless eyes studied him intently. There was something in its hands but he couldn’t see what it was. “Come Arthur. Come to me,” the figure lulled him. “I’m the Sleep Angel that has come to protect you.” It walked towards his bed and gazed up at him. There was a large isolated mountain in those eyes, and he seemed to be transported there somehow, to a small shelter at the top of that mountain. There were other eyes watching him there, hidden in curling clouds. A huge abhorrent face. “Would you like to know what became of Nurse Dugdale, Doctor?” the figure asked. “Would you like to know where she is now? Come, then. Take my hand. I’ll take you to her.” “Do you know where she is?” asked Doctor Conlon in anguish. “Can you tell me? Could you take me there?” Suddenly, he found himself inside that very shelter, bathed in a dazzling yellow glow. Moans and pants came to his ears as his eyes adjusted to the light. There was a peculiar iciness to the place, though, an iciness that reminded him of the hospital and the inmates. The walls were higher than he thought. Countless silver forms hang from 170

Metempsychosis the thick beams that carried the weight of that shelter. Doctor Conlon beheld those forms for a while and realised they were not just forms but people, transparent bodies of people! Yet the bodies were not complete. Most of them had no head; others were bizarre configurations impossible to classify. “Help us,” he heard them say. “Please, help us.” “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “It was true. Doctor Dawe was right. These are souls. Human souls. You’re ... you’re demons!” The androgynous figure didn’t answer. “Where’s Nurse Dugdale, you bastard? What have you done to her?” “Here she is, Arthur,” said the demon, presenting the thing it was carrying to him—a transparent female head. Nurse Dugdale’s head. “Oh, my God! What have you done? What have you done to her?” “The question is: what have you done to her, Doctor,” said the androgynous demon, caressing the head it had in its hands. Meanwhile, another demon, a clone of the one who was talking to him, was thrusting itself in and out of Nurse Dugdale’s body near the opposite wall. “Don’t stop, Arthur. Don’t stop,” said the head in the demon’s hands. There was an ecstatic expression on it. Through her closed eyes Nurse 171

German Bradley Dugdale’s head seemed to tell him how much she enjoyed the things the demon was doing to her body. She hissed his name on and on, as the demon’s index and middle fingers parted her lips and slipped into her mouth. “Your little bitch has been missing you a lot here,” said the demon and laughed. “But Mord’s taking good care of her needs.” “Nooooo ... !” Doctor Conlon screamed and pressed his chest with both hands. He could hardly breathe and the pain in his heart was more and more intense. “Arthur! Arthur!” He heard a voice by his side and opened his eyes. His wife Beryl was trying to wake him up. Doctor Conlon heaved a sigh of relief. The nightmare was over. He was back in his bedroom, with his wife. “Are you all right, darling?” Beryl asked. But there was another voice hissing in his bedroom—the demon’s voice that spoke to him only. “I’ll come back for you, Arthur. I’ll come back soon.”

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Chapter 14

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hat used to be the family fun centre of North Wales has now become a death-ridden town where nobody dares to sleep at night. “More than twelve people, men and women, had been found dead in different areas of the coastal town of Rhyl. “Police discovered another dead man in his house yesterday night, bringing the death toll to thirteen in two months. “The body was found in the living room, and had a bottle of whisky in his hands; however, the motive for these serial deaths is still unknown. No drugs or violence was found in any of the houses and there’s no relationship among the victims, either. But rumours have it that there is a certain connection between the demises here and those at Glan Clwydd Hospital four miles away. “This is Helene Feger for BBC Choice Wales. Wales Today.” “Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Doctor Conlon in 173

German Bradley distress and turned off the TV set. He was at home in Abergele, and his shift at the hospital had finished late. That had turned into a nightmarish routine that lived with him every single day for two months now. He watched the news as frequently as his work permitted, but only to make himself sure the things he’d seen in the hospital wouldn’t turn into public matters. As he drank his usual tumbler of whisky, he couldn’t stop thinking of Nurse Dugdale. Poor sweet lass, he thought. She lived in Rhyl and hadn’t come to work in the hospital for about a month. Probably she was one of those victims, he thought, although her name hadn’t appeared on TV yet. She hadn’t said a word since the last day he saw her, and he felt a bit responsible for that. He had been ringing her mobile phone but it was off. He had even phoned her house, just in case she were ill, but nobody answered or replied to his messages. He phoned the nearest medical centres many times, but they hadn’t seen her there. Finally, he had no other choice than to call the police, and so the nightmare began. A curse had fallen upon Rhyl and the hospital. He was sure about that. Patients lacked total command of their senses and doctors had lost control of them. Pills couldn’t keep the worst of them at bay anymore. How or when had the curse started? None of them were 174

Metempsychosis totally sure, but it had got into their nerves and minds ever since. “What’s going on, Arthur? You haven’t been yourself lately,” asked his wife when both of them were in bed. “Nothing, Beryl. It’s nothing.” And he turned his back to her. “I’m not stupid, Arthur. Something really horrible must have happened to you that you won’t tell your wife.” She was right, and he had never been good at lying, not even when he was secretly dating his nurse. “You wouldn’t believe what’s going on in the hospital, Beryl,” he finally said to his wife, as if he wanted to find relief in his confession or a miraculous reason not to go to his work next day, or at least to understand the impossible. “You wouldn’t believe it, honey. You wouldn’t believe it.” “What is that thing? Stop torturing yourself, Arthur,” said his wife. “An accident? An operation that didn’t end well?” “Some things are beyond a doctor’s capacities, honey, beyond what a human being can do. Oh, God, it’s like descending into Dante’s inferno. We’ve made our own circle there.” “Does it have anything to do with those deaths on TV?” 175

German Bradley Doctor Conlon just nodded. “Oh, my God!” He looked into her sweet blue eyes and tried to find the strength to tell her the horrible truth. “We found them dead in their beds,” he started. “On all the floors, like a plague. Their hearts just stopped beating sometime in the night. I’m not talking about patients with heart troubles or respiratory arrests. They weren’t even injured! They were young and stable, patients who were supposed to leave the hospital in a couple of days! And ... psychiatric patients as well.” He had progressively lowered his voice. “A lot of them.” “You’re a good doctor, Arthur, the best they could hire. I know you’ll find a way to stop all those sudden deaths. I know you’ll find the reason why they died. Don’t give up,” said his wife tenderly, kissing and hugging him, as if he were a child. “I’ve tried, Beryl. All of us have tried a hundred times, but we have nothing. They died in their dreams. That’s the conclusion we came to. But that was the beginning only,” he said and made a long pause while the offensive smell from the hall of the hospital came suddenly to his nostrils. “If you could only smell the stink that wafts over the hospital,” he said and clenched his fists. His wife just hugged him tight. “It used to be so clean,” he started again, but 176

Metempsychosis kept silent. It was too much for his wife, too much for himself. In his mind, he saw the walls of the hospital covered with that repulsive dark brown plaster, which was no other thing than the patients’ own shit and piss, running along the already puddly floors. He saw them naked, drenched with sweat, unmindfully moulding shapeless figures with their shit or simply eating it. Foam dripped from their mouths as they copulated on that filthy floor. Their inhuman strength gave no rest to their rams. There were neither squishy sounds nor groans; their eyes looked into nothingness. “The media heard about it, of course,” he said in a low voice, “but fortunately they hadn’t seen a thing.” But he couldn’t continue. Tears were flowing from his eyes. “He was right. He knew this was part of a much bigger plan or scheme. He tried to tell me about the thing inside the patient but I ... I never paid attention to his warnings. He told me ... he told who was killing our people, but I ... I wouldn’t listen.” “Who knew it? Who are you talking about? If you know who’s doing this you need to report it to the police at once.” “No, honey,” said Doctor Conlon, wiping his eyes. “Nobody would believe what Doctor Dawe told me that day. The police didn’t even believe me when I showed them the videotapes and that 177

German Bradley lemon yellow glow.” “What glow? I don’t understand you,” said his wife. “Oh, God. We’ve failed and your wrath has fallen upon us,” he lamented. “Please, Arthur. You’re scaring me to death.” “Demons, Beryl,” said Doctor Conlon in a low voice. “There are demons here, killing, taking human souls.” And he bitterly cried again. “Why have you forsaken us, my Lord?” he prayed while his wife listened in silence. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He looked up at her. “I had a sceptical standpoint at first, of course. Years and years of traditional background aren’t hard to forget, but this ... this has broken down everything.” “Y-y-you said once that that Doctor Dawe was a psychic investigator,” she dared to say after a while. “Don’t you think ... he knows how to deal with ... this?” “He’s gone, Beryl. He’s a missing person for the authorities. But I’m sure the demons took his soul, as they tried to take mine as well.” “What?” The sting of remembrance still hurt in his soul. “That infernal glow visited me last night in this house, in our bed,” he began. “The demon said it was a journey and took me in the air to an isolated mountain shelter.” He made a long pause before continuing. “There were other people there as 178

Metempsychosis well—human souls I guess. I don’t know.” “Oh, my God, Arthur. I ...” His wife was in shock. She moved her mouth but no sound came out of it. “T-t-that d-d-demon is here,” she finally managed to mumble. “No, honey,” said Doctor Conlon, holding her trembling hands. “It’s not here now, but it will come for me soon.” He and his wife burst into tears and clung together on their bed. He hadn’t been able to tell her that he had seen his lover on that journey; he hadn’t found the strength to tell her he had been cheating her for three months. Now it was too late. He couldn’t feel his wife’s warmth any longer. He had suddenly become a spectator who watched his own body and his wife’s resting in each other’s arms in his bed. “Oh, my God, Arthur!” He heard his wife’s words, but he couldn’t reply, albeit he understood what had happened to him very well. “Arthur! Arthur! Please!” He heard her again and saw how she desperately beat on his chest, rubbing his arms and legs in vain. “Don’t leave me, Arthur. Please!” He saw her giving him mouth-to-mouth and remembered he had taught her that method of resuscitation while they were still going steady. But then the glow of the demon dazzled his vision and he knew he wouldn’t come back. 179

German Bradley “Good bye, my love,” he mumbled. “Forgive me. Pray for my soul.”

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PART THREE

Chapter 1

A

wareness returned to the woman after a long deep sleep. She found herself lying on the cold floor in a small chamber. She was not alone, though. Ragged beings sat in a circle around her as though they perused her body, waiting for a sign. Their straggly hair hung about their shoulders, hiding their faces under the flickering beam of the torches, but not the glowing of their vermilion and wicked gaze. Dusted lumps of flesh were spread all around. Sinew and connective tissue. Chunks in advanced stages of decay. Carrion and rotten meat—the relics of an old massacre. “W-w-where am I?” The question stammered itself in her mind. “That’s not important now,” said her mother’s voice somewhere in her head. “They’ve come to say thank you.” “Mother? Where are you, mother? Are you alive?” “Don’t fret. They’re on your side.” 181

German Bradley A mental chant seemed to come out of those ragged beings. “Our land is drained, our frames look pained, Her hand is nigh, her realm shall rise. Dowch rwan ar fy ngair.” “You’re the seed of a banned but miraculous deed.” She heard a voice in the middle of the chant, as they came closer and closer. “You survived. You killed them all.” Now their faces were clear to see—narrow and sharp, with big, slanting, rather almond eyes. Always glowing, always wicked. Their mouths were extremely small—maybe they couldn’t even eat—and their cheeks hollow. “They are the Wraiths, the ancient spirits of chaos trapped in the Reservoir of Souls,” said her mother’s voice. “Somehow you’ve made their astral selves free and they have come to guide you back to me and them.” She stared at them glassily. I must be having some sort of vision again, she thought. This must be another bad dream. “In wrath she’ll come and clothe herself, In hiding she dwelt, but in primal chaos she’ll reign. Dowch rwan ar fy ngair.” 182

Metempsychosis “Oh, yes,” said the same voice in the middle of the chant. “We understand your confusion. It’s not easy to survive after such a long and deep sleep. It was a hard trial, but there was no other chance.” “I don’t understand.” “You’ve been reared without knowing what you are, child. You don’t know the bloodline running through your veins.” Although their thoughts lacked aggression towards her, the fierceness of their mien showed a boundless hatred. She was sure the malevolence and venom of these beings were absolutely matchless. “You are matchless,” the voice continued. “This is just our guise—the mirror of your own hate, but not complete yet.” “But why am I here?” “You’re here to experience revelations of yourself; to sever the ties with your Gwyllionian past.” “There shan’t be any more nightly wanderings, my child,” said her mother in a throaty voice. “I’ll make you see how it was from the beginning. “As you well know, I was formerly a servant of Gwyn, the god of death, and a wayfarer who trampled the world of man in my endless quests for souls and living flesh.” As her mother mentally talked to her, the images of creation flashed, accurate and vivid, inside her mind. 183

German Bradley “In the beginning the world of men was our playground, and we built a fane for ourselves in one fold of the Underworld. It would connect both the world of men and ours and we called it Caer Vandwy. From this temple we wandered through landscapes of greenery, ice and water and rode the clouds that scudded across the sky, infecting that world with illusions which men mistook for a paradise. Then, the Beaker folks turned up and the Celts came later. Our god was glad. He had many souls to hunt and we had plenty of bodies to use and eat. In their ignorance, men thought we were priests who could bring their illusory gods closer, and they called us Druids. We gave them what they wanted, of course, and more. Much more. Their whole existence became a fantasy. They lost their supernatural roots, but our foolish fancies caught us as well. They were too perfect, even for us, and we became prisoners to our own creation.” New images seared the woman’s brain, as she looked down to the lumps of rotten flesh spread on the stone floor. In her head the four original Gwyllions spoke their names for her to hear: Medana, Llys, Mord, and Oeth. “In order to escape the prison we’d made I went against our most sacred law. I knew all our foolish fancies would be destroyed together with this fold in time, but I had a plan to take my sisters and our god to a shelter called Tawë in the core of the Underworld. Time was short, though, and you were born and they thought I was a betrayer so I had to hie myself 184

Metempsychosis eastwards, towards the forest in which I gave you birth. Yet Gwyn knew about your birth and sent my sisters to hunt us down. Then, we had to take different ways and they caught me and took me back to the Underworld where the slaves of our god tore my soul apart, creating a new being, a clone of myself. She was a beguiler, so she would eventually find you some day. But they didn’t know they could never control you. I had made a unique species out of you, my child. A beast only equal to Gwyn himself, which would destroy his slaves, the beguiler and my own sisters as well, to establish the primordial chaos again.” The woman sensed the truth and it shocked her to the tiniest roots of her nerves, but it escaped when she tried to make sense of it. “But then all these ...” she said, looking at the pieces of flesh. “I killed all these?” “The beast within you did it, my child. And now I need you to come to me.” “But where are you now, mother?” she asked. “In a reservoir of souls, impaled beneath those abasing pikes you’ve seen in your dreams. I’m waiting here for you to complete the ultimate task.” “What task?” “Everything must change, my child. You are unique.” “But I don’t understand,” the woman said, quivering. “Just come here, my child.” “I’m afraid, mother.” 185

German Bradley “Come, child. The Wraiths will show you the way.” The woman looked around and wondered how she could escape that duress. She didn’t even know if she was unique, as her mother had told. She doubted she had energy enough to break down those walls. She could neither spring nor fly towards the ceiling. Her mother’s revelations had been so shocking that she was paralysed, there in the middle of those beings without knowing what to do but feeling a strange power coming from inside her. “This is an illusion, a game you’ll have to learn to play from now on,” said a voice from those ragged beings. “Look. On the floor. There’s a tile big enough for you to fit through. Imagine it’s there. Imagine it turns into a watery tile. Look— look at the liquid gap yawning at your feet. Can you see it? Can you see your reflection in the pool?” She did her best and concentrated and after a while. “Is ... this ... possible?” she asked, without believing her eyes. It was amazing. Her mind had created a door of solid tiles. “There it is! You’re right!” she exclaimed. “Touch it.” She squatted and sank her hands into the water, splashing it over the floor. 186

Metempsychosis “Go. Take us. The ultimate revelation is down there.” There was a blank look on her face but no hesitation in her purpose. Then, with tight fists, she jumped into the watery tile.

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Chapter 2

A

lthough she felt stifled and needed air, a feeling of self-abandon overcame her resistance. A force guided her route as she sank into a light blue ocean. But suddenly her sensations changed. There was no underwater current. She felt the wind against her face as if she were under a magic spell. The swaying of the sea-weeds became the rustling of Scots pines. Then, thick scrolls of fog surrounded her, swallowing everything. She floated and smelt the cold perfume of death like an incense for the accursed scene that abruptly showed up before her—the nightmarish vision of her mother’s soul and her agony. In awe she looked at her mother’s grisly face. Her colourless eyes made cold creep over her. The whole impalement area was hostile towards her, taking on the aspect of a glowing inferno of yellow, dark orange and sepia tints. The pikes were no longer stiff but turned into huge and threatening snakes that descended upon 188

Metempsychosis her with their pierced prisoners atop, as if those monstrosities wanted to have a better view of her. “It’s time to lay claim your domain,” they shouted as the pikes began to split, and other repellent creatures glared out at her from the cracks. “Our land is drained, our frames look pained, Her hand is nigh, her realm shall rise. Dowch rwan ar fy ngair.” Their chants and roars became a crescendo, an almost deafening clamour. She pressed her hands against her ears, but the clamour was not a matter of hearing. She searched her mind for silence and found that the monstrosities actually shouted from inside. She felt their souls fighting for freedom as the pikes went straight again and burnt in her mind. Sparks danced around their bodies, healing their wounds, turning them into the ragged beings she had already seen back in the illusory chamber. And, like dead animals, the monstrosities fell to the ground. “It’s time, child. The Wraiths and I are ready,” said her mother and opened her arms. Her body started to melt. Like a thick slime it dripped down the pike to finish like a mass of blisters on the 189

German Bradley ground. However, her soul floated around her daughter’s head and turned into a sort of spectral cortège of creatures beyond description that sniffed her face. “Let me in, child. It’s communion time. The rebirth of my powers inside you shall end this world to start a matchless one--yours. Breathe in deep, child. Let me in.” “But, I ... No, this must be another dream. This can’t be real!” said the woman, in shock. “Trust me, child. Let me in. This is your true birth.” “I’m scared.” “Don’t be. Just look at me and breathe in.” The woman finally did so, and her mother, together with the ghostly companions, disappeared inside her as though she were ethereal dust. Two mighty and flaring forces gathered into her core, giving birth to a primitive lady that infested the night-time air with her loathsome odour. Inevitably, a sudden concern got hold of the Wraiths. They looked into her eyes and lost track of the time. “They are my heritage, child. The Wraiths you see will be the architects of your world and the fighting force against the Gwyllions and Gwyn,” said her mother inside her. “But I must sleep now. The power is waking in you.” The dark regions beneath her skin opened themselves to the Wraiths’ curiosity. They saw 190

Metempsychosis neither eyelashes nor eyebrows on that face but thick rooty veins that swelled above those huge eyes, stretching and sundering towards her ears. A mass of black dreadlocks sprouted from the woman’s head and interwove with those veins, forming the real frame of her sharp, narrow face. “It’s the Nameless Mistress,” the Wraiths said and bowed before her, as she warped time and space, redoing the elements. She was changing the molecular composition of matter; she was taking everything back in time, even a human soul that embraced her legs as if it were a suppliant slave. “She’s spiriting us back to our earliest element,” said one of the Wraiths. “And she is taking the stranger as well.” Simon had found himself free in the middle of that chaos and tried to hide his face between his ethereal arms and the Mistress’s legs. “What is this?” asked The Mistress, looking down at Simon’s soul. “What is this human thing doing here?” Her powerful sight had already entered Simon’s emotions and memories and she had seen hate. “He doesn’t belong to us, Mistress. He was just another prisoner to the Gwyllions. His name’s Simon Wick,” said the leader of the Wraiths and looked skywards. Above the Nameless Mistress’s head, a new sky glowed under the flashes of the lightning. Huge black clouds crashed and thunder 191

German Bradley rolled by and the rain began to pour down on their heads, preparing the ground for the new life she was about to bring. “You want your body back, don’t you?” asked the Mistress again, reading Simon’s needs. “It’s in your world, isn’t it?” She had already seen that human soul was not an enemy of hers but an ally. That man shared the same feelings with her—hate for the Gwyllions. “Go then. Go back to your world, Simon, and take revenge,” said the Mistress to the soul at her feet. “I can’t, my lady,” said Simon and looked up at her. “I don’t even know how I came to this place.” With only one movement of the Mistress’s hands the rain ceased, but the dark clouds still hung above. “Of course you don’t, Simon Wick. You’re inside me now. This is my mindscape.” And the Mistress moved her hands again. A huge and almost impenetrable forest of primeval ferns, conifers and cycads stretched all around, and a bad fog came down to the ground, making Simon’s astral self feel lost and more confused in that unfamiliar place. The Mistress had suddenly vanished in the fog. “Don’t move, Simon,” he heard her say. “I’ll show you the way back to your world through a silver cord.” And there it was, floating before him, stretching 192

Metempsychosis and sneaking through the fog. “Go, Simon,” said the Mistress’s voice. “Bump into your destiny.” A heavy rain began to fall upon that forest, as Simon’s odic force anxiously followed the silver cord. “You shouldn’t have let him go that fast, Mistress,” said the leader of the Wraiths. “He might tell the Gwyllions about you. They have their ways to make a human thing speak.” “Don’t worry, Hiraethog. He won’t be able to take revenge on the Gwyllions without my help,” said the Mistress. “He’ll come back to me. You’ll see. He’s a valuable ally.” The rain flooded that forest and took the whole place even farther back in time, until the spirits of the chaos began to design her new mindscape.

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Chapter 3

S

imon’s journey back was long and tiring. His ethereal form moved along the silver cord with the skill of an amateur climber. He could hardly slide himself through that long, dim passageway between planes full of hundreds of withered stems and roots, which endlessly stretched forwards and backwards, above and below the cord that guided him. They had also been guiding cords once, which connected different realities for thousands of human and inhuman wayfarers, but now those routes had been forgotten, and some of them even crossed his own guiding cord as well, making his advance harder. Here and there he saw dark forms caught along those dried up roots. Perhaps they were other souls that tried unsuccessfully to cross that space a long time ago. Now they looked like parasites perpetually glued to those rhizomes. He looked down at his own form and realised it was marred. There was a big hole in the middle of his astral 194

Metempsychosis body and many other smaller ones in what had to be his arms, head and waist. His colour was different too. It had turned into a mix of orange and yellow. He was aware of his energy filtering through them and that he might not get to his destination, either. The Gwyllions had managed to lessen his vital force to a point they knew he would never escape their world, and the single act of remembering them had brought their hideous voices and laughter back to his head. “It’s useless, Simon.” He heard them among the laughter. “You won’t make it. Your energy is not enough for your trip. No soul escapes us, Simon. None.” But his determination and hate were stronger than those ghostly voices were, and he moved on, faster. The cord looked brighter, too. “Look at your aura, Simon. It’s broken. You’ll end up like the rest. Dried and glued to illusory and rotten roots.” “You won’t play tricks on me again, bastards,” said Simon and moved even faster. “We wouldn’t be so sure if we were you,” the voices replied, but then a couple of large lemon yellow hands seized the silver cord some yards ahead of him and tugged at it so hard that it broke, sending Simon’s astral body down into that dimness, while his ethereal hands flailed in order to grab at any stem or root. He failed, however, 195

German Bradley and continued falling and screaming. His astral eyes stared in awe at the silver cord, which became thinner and thinner, as he fell until it disappeared from his sight, blocked by hundreds of stems and roots. “Bastards!” he screamed. “Filthy rotten bastards!” But the expletives didn’t help much. He had to find a way to reach the stems above but he didn’t know how. He felt so weak, the colour of his odic force was so pale. His energy had almost gone. “Good bye, apprentice.” He heard the androgynous demons say amidst their laughter, but the word rang a bell. “Apprentice,” he repeated, and thought. And then everything was clear. They taught me ways to travel on my own, he thought. They said the energy must be canalised to create a safe route to any destination. Energy is everywhere; I only have to wake it up. “I have to think back,” he said. “I have to concentrate on the words and movements they made.” Slowly at first, the images of the androgynous demons’ rites turned up in his head and he saw their gestures and heard the vibrating keys that called the energy towards them. He began to mentally voice those keys, and his astral self changed its colour into grey and the holes in it were healed. The energy grew strong inside 196

Metempsychosis Simon’s odic force. His astral eyes watched how two long arms stretched up to his right and left, reaching for the last roots that lay above. And then, those forgotten guiding cords lightened up and the energy spread through the others, changing their colours into their original bright silver, making them gently move in that seemingly endless passageway. They were all active again; ready to take their users wherever they wanted to go. He only had to find the one that would take him back to earth. Still focused on the energy he had gathered, he began to ascend while his large arms slightly touched every single stem or root so as to get some information from them. They were the cosmic routes that told him where they came from or went. The choices were opened to him. Hundred of other realities waited for him at the end of those cords. They eagerly called him and showed him wonders he’d never imagined or seen in his entire life, but the memory of the treacherous Gwyllions made him block all those tempting alternatives. His own hate towards them helped him to find the only cord that led him back to earth. **** But Simon found a way back to a different place. It was neither a hospital nor Harlech, as he thought. 197

German Bradley At least not the town he knew. It wasn’t even a house or a street but a silent and steep valley set among mountains and forested slopes. There was no sound in that valley, however, and the shadows of the evening began to draw curious forms on the slopes. “I don’t remember this place,” said Simon and looked down to a knoll of wet ground just below his almost invisible astral body. “Someone’s been digging here,” he said and looked around. “Just here.” His eyes looked for a cottage or a village, but it seemed there wasn’t any sign of civilisation in miles around. He was completely lost. The daylight began to fail and he didn’t know where to go. Have I mistaken the route? he thought and started to move forwards to the highest summit of those mountains in order to have a panoramic view of his whereabouts, if he could identify something in the night. And there he saw lights down there, miles away to his left. “It’s a village,” he said happily. “They’ll tell me where I am.” He rushed down the slope, eager to know whether he was back in Wales or not. But as he approached, he noticed his sight had played a trick on him. It was not a village what he had seen but a big, two storey house with all its lights on. Bushes and cypress trees decorated the main entrance to that whitish house. He could see a sign to the left as well, just before a large 198

Metempsychosis cypress. Dolffanog Fawr, it said. There were people inside the house. Tourists who looked really happy and laughed and toasted while eating their dinner, but Simon couldn’t hear their voices. In fact, he could hear no sound. Yet he needed to know where he was, so he went to the main door and tried to reach up for the bell with his hand. What he saw made him dart backwards with a scream. His hand had passed through the wall. It had just faded away from him after touching it! “I’m a spirit,” he said and lifted his hand, trying to study it under the light of the bulbs. It looked too transparent for him to see, however, even though he knew it was there. “I am a spirit,” he said again and stared back at the wall. He moved to it and let his arms pass through. The wall wasn’t there. He couldn’t touch it but he didn’t let himself be caught by the effect. He stepped into it and kept moving instead. In a trice, he found himself inside the house, more precisely, in a welllit hall. This is a hotel, he thought and approached a small wooden desk on his right. There were many flyers on display with tourist information about a lake called Tal-y-Llyn and the place itself: Dolffanog Fawr in Tywyn, at the foot of Cadair Idris Mountain. Simon’s astral body tried to have a look into 199

German Bradley one of those flyers, but his hands simply got lost into the furniture. “Where is Tywyn?” he asked. “Where is Tal-yLlyn?” he insisted, entering a dark empty room which seemed to be the reception, but his form couldn’t touch anything. Disappointed, he left the room and moved towards the dinning room where he had seen the tourists talk. “Could anybody tell me the way to Harlech?” he asked. But none of them seemed to hear his voice. “I need to go back to my town,” he tried again. “Would anybody help me, please?” His words were still unheard and the tourists’ indifference began to exasperate him. But suddenly, their conversation came to a halt. He saw both women and men were almost shivering with cold. Some of them stood and left the table to rub their legs and arms with their hands; others just went to the fireplace, blowing into their hands. Simon couldn’t seem to figure out what was going on there until he looked at himself and saw his naked arms and body. “I’ve got a body again!” he exclaimed, watching his skin. “I’ve canalised the energy of this place. I’ve materialised myself!” But a woman’s scream broke his beatitude. “What the hell is this bloke doing here? he 200

Metempsychosis heard a young man say. “He must be one of those psychotic killers,” said another one, grabbing a knife from the table. “Can you see me?” asked Simon elated, moving towards them. “Stay back, you bloody bastard,” said the man with the knife. “Don’t even move a bloody muscle.” And pointed it at him. “Come on, Sam. Ring the police! There must be others outside.” Sam then hastened to dial the numbers. “I just want to know how far I am from Harlech,” Simon insisted and tried to come closer. “Don’t move any closer, you demon,” warned the man with the knife. “Or you’ll say your arse goodbye in this very room.” As his anger grew, Simon felt a sudden wave of heat that changed the colour of his spectral skin. He understood it was useless to talk to them sensibly: women were beside themselves, men were as scared and aggressive as some of the human victims he had killed in Caer Vandwy. Time was short, however, and he had no idea where he was yet. He needed to go further if he wanted some result. So he concentrated again and voiced the keys he’d learnt. His whole body became slowly solid and alive. He could hear and feel the touch of his hands in his skin. He could see the tiny hairs on his chest, but he wasn’t able to hear his breathing. 201

German Bradley “Please hurry! We don’t know how many others could be outdoors.” The man’s urgent tone on the phone brought Simon back to reality. He had to be quick; he had to find his body soon. “One last time,” spat Simon, coming up to the man with the knife. “Where’s Harlech?” And grabbed his neck with his hands. The man just stabbed Simon’s abdomen and ribs as many times as he could, but the attack did him no harm. Simon’s odic force couldn’t feel the blade. His hands were already suffocating the man who was already seeing red. “Stop it, please!” said one of the women. “I’ll tell you where that town is. Release him, please!” “Speak woman!” he said, his hands still clasped around the man’s neck. “Ha-ha-harlech is to the no-no-northwest,” mumbled the woman. “Just take the A487 until you get to Dolgellau. Then take the A496. It’s a coastal town.” “Thank you,” Simon said, and the man’s neck cracked under his hands.

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Chapter 4

T

he Mistress had already broken the equilibrium of her mindscape. She had turned into the Cauldron of Regeneration itself. The forest she had temporarily brought into being had already gone beneath a great flood but the fog was still there, partially hiding a new sea and its waves of scarlet foam. “I always thought you were cleverer,” Gwyn’s voice cracked, his huge face started to take shape in that sea of scarlet foam. “Gwyn! How kind of you to come.” The Mistress’s voice was sheer irony. “What do you think you’re doing, bitch? You think you can alter the Underworld? You think you can come up against me?” The god’s face rose from the sea and solidified in front of her. “It’s already happening, Gwyn. This is another time, a time nobody would ever write about. Just look around.” 203

German Bradley Monstrous serpents disturbed those waters and weltered in the depths, changing the currents of that sea while winged ones flew above amidst the fog. “I can only see it’s time for you to die,” said Gwyn at the time a pack of black ghostly dogs came out of his mouth, bounding forwards towards her. Instinctively, the Mistress raised her arms so as to protect her face, but a couple of dogs clamped their jaws over her arms, lacerating her flesh. Another dog gnawed at her stomach, shearing through skin and muscles. The charge had knocked her onto her back, shrieking as other two dogs fastened their sharp teeth in her thighs. She didn’t try to defend herself, though. Blood erupted from the vicious wounds, bathing the dogs, inflaming their hunger. Their master, Gwyn, looked on and smiled. But suddenly the dogs began to twist and writhe so as to escape her. Their glittering eyes shone fear. The bluish skin of the Mistress’s body began to absorb their bodies, devouring them, using their own vital energy to regenerate her wounds, which seemed to heal at an accelerated rate. And the Mistress sat on the ground—flawless. “You’ve sacrificed your loyal pack for nothing,” she said and stood in front of Gwyn. “They live 204

Metempsychosis inside me now, you see? And so will you.” The god was about to reply but the Mistress was faster. Like a lioness she sprang, throwing herself right into his mouth. The god’s horrible set of drooling teeth tried to impede her entering but it was too late. Huge stains of burnt umber, sienna and light brown colours met her inside the god’s cavity as she felt a continuous expanding and contracting motion. It was his own mindscape and thousands of protozoan glows moved there, as if lost in an endless sea. They cried out in pain. The air was intoxicating. All of a sudden, an intense red glow covered all that vastness and a revolting creature turned up and charged at her. It had four arms and one single leg; countless chains came out of its shining skin, like snakes. Its deep-set and colourless eyes shone no other thing that an infinite hatred towards her. “You cannot win in here,” the creature said as its four hands darted forwards, closing around the Mistress’s arms. “You’re nothing here.” It’s Gwyn, thought the Mistress. It’s Gwyn’s soul itself! But the god’s soul squeezed and pressed her limbs in such a way that she could neither think nor react. She felt her energy was being sucked from her. A mind-numbing agony swept through her as the pressure got tighter and tighter. Her bones began to splinter and she felt 205

German Bradley she had no strength to fight Gwyn back. The god just glared at her, his eyes shone triumph this time. She tried to get loose but it was impossible. The god was drying her up, stealing the powers she had received. She felt like dying but at the same time Gwyn had managed to connect himself with the memories of a lost child. “Yes.” She heard the god’s distant voice. “Let me see it all. Let me heal the wounds.” There was a small child inside the duskiness of a hollow tree. Her body shivered; tears and blood flowed from her eyes. She was dressed in greasy furs. Something within her controlled her body and mind at intervals, but she didn’t know what it was. Suddenly she heard her skull crack like the shell of a walnut. A deep rough voice spoke through her. “She’s mine,” the voice barked. “She’s got nothing to show you.” It was the Mistress’s other half, the beast, that was still fighting against Gwyn somewhere in that redness. “I see you’re still living inside her,” Gwyn spat, squeezing the Mistress’s body even tighter. “I remember you quite well.” The girl in the Mistress’s memories cried and her mind whirled in confusion. She had developed a sort of guardian fiend or something to keep her 206

Metempsychosis childhood safe. A beast that had helped her become what she was; a beast that had broken loose. “I’m not inside her now,” said the voice through the unconscious Mistress. “You’ve brought me out of her. Can’t you see me? I’m here, waiting for you.” Gwyn’s soul stopped pressing the Mistress’s body and turned so as to see the owner of such defiant voice. A sudden gleam flashed across that redness and descended upon one of the god’s arms, chopping it off with brutal accuracy. Gwyn’s mouth yawned open in a roar of rage and pain and threw the Mistress away. He wasn’t quick enough, though. He couldn’t see the almost ghostly simian figure that moved around him. He couldn’t even see the gleam that went right through him, slicing his skinny belly. Another roar of rage and pain escaped the god’s mouth, and his mindscape began to pulse, bringing the Mistress’s senses back from the shores of death. As she floated adrift in that redness she realised those protozoan glows were the true source of the god’s power—the souls of thousands of creatures which were still trapped inside him. “Help us, please. Help us.” She heard them scream inside her head while the beast kept on slashing his skin. The God’s blood fountained from his wounds, but he looked unmindful. He 207

German Bradley was blind and numb with hatred for that unstoppable beast. It was too fast for his eyes. “You haven’t long to go, Gwyn,” said the Mistress, floating above him. “The blades of the beast are infected. It’s not just cutting your skin and muscles but spreading a disease that cannot be cured. You shouldn’t have peered into my memories. You shouldn’t have brought the beast out of my past.” Gwyn’s skin began to split and erupt with glistening boils. His eyes bled and he could hardly move. The beast, however, continued mangling its victim beyond recognition until the god’s soul tore up. The whole place began to tremble and open itself. The protozoan glows turned into other conformations—human and non-human forms presented themselves, dissolving and reforming, as the god convulsed and screeched in agony. Fissures appeared all around that cavity. “Help us, please. Help us.” The imprisoned souls wheeled around the Mistress, as if they knew she had the key to set them free from that torment. She felt their suffering and terror; she couldn’t avoid feeling sympathy for them. They had suffered as much as her mother and the Wraith. They deserved to be released. However, she felt too weak to let them in. “I’m draining away,” she whispered. “You’ve 208

Metempsychosis got to crowd into me. I’m ... not strong ... enough. Crowd into me.” She could only see a blur in front of her, but she felt their invading waves in her, inside her veins, expanding through her system like a plague that gave her back the powers the god had stolen from her. They filled all the cavities of her body and soul, regenerating her molecules. The beast had joined them as well and helped her. She closed her eyes. A confusion of senses and emotions muddled her brain. She cried out in pain. The energy inside her now was too much for that container. It demanded a way out; it demanded a final revenge. An indescribable brilliance came out of her and covered everything. Thousands of souls had left the Mistress and the beast inside her to do their final work. Their revenge had turned into canker that slowly ate away both the god’s mindscape and his reign. Soon, neither Gwyn nor his Underworld existed any longer. The sea was there again and a new mass of land emerged from that sea, from that new plane of the Mistress’s mind. The souls swam free in those new waters and in that new sky. They felt contented to inhabit there and were willing to change and transcend. **** Meanwhile, the Wraiths began to spread their 209

German Bradley chaos throughout that land, turning it into a huge, gloomy pit with thousands of rough and large stones, here and there, lit by pale geranium lights. An intricate series of membranous canals slanted and twisted upon themselves, connecting every one of those megaliths at the bottom of those pits. It was the Mistress’s city, and an impressive edifice, resembling a cathedral, was in the middle of it. Every single buttress and pinnacle was made of living flesh and stretched down to a bottomless size. There were also traceries and mullions made of thick carved brownish bones and profiles of fantastic creatures in bas-relief all around the edifice to see. Those beasts had been frozen with their souls held in thrall to the spirits of chaos. Others just stood in flat surfaces of stone, like simple gargoyles which eyes lit those depths, as if they were modern streetlights. The portals on the cathedral façade were adorned with dreadful tympanums representing demonic creatures tied to crosses, their flesh scraped with iron combs. Other creatures had been placed between two wheels with sharp points, only to be sawn asunder afterwards, while impossible birds fed on the dismembered bodies. But those figures were neither sculptured nor craved. They were alive! Condemned to endure their punishment endlessly. Inside, the nave was lined with soaring 210

Metempsychosis columns garlanded with countless skulls and bones. Three huge rose windows lit up the transepts showing the image of The Mistress surrounded by her loyal Wraiths. Candles stood on non-human skulls on the main altar, their lower mandibles were missing but their upper jaws gripped horizontal bones. They all formed a sort of pyramid, one skull above the next in three vertical rows of six. The candleholders were set into skulls as well, in a circular arrangement of ten, each skull at the end of one arm of the chandelier; each carefully balanced on non-human pelvises. Chains of bones connected them to the central column of the chandelier. Outside, upon the dome, the image of the Mistress again, carved in stone, overlooking the entire city, dressed in shoulder-length gauntlets, a tattered skirt and a bra. Beyond the cathedral walls, there was a ditch from which a small forest of dark blue foliage rose from a swampland; beyond, the empty city. But far away, on the outskirts, the rocky walls of that pit stood as high as the sky. Yet that city wasn’t meant to be a ghost town. A stream of astral fluids gushed through every canal, flooding every rough and large stone on its ways. The Mistress then mixed those fluids with mud and created sturdy swine monsters, armed with axes and crossbows, that roamed the entire 211

German Bradley city and viciously fought against each other so as to keep their fighting skills at ready. The Mistress was not satisfied, though. She felt like a prisoner in her own world. She had no power to leave her reality unless a skilful wizard opened a crack from outside, allowing her to spread her mindscape through other planes. She longed for the Gwyllions to be under her feet as well. She wanted them shut in the sickly stinking air of the dungeon beneath her cathedral, or probably she would throw them down to the oubliette--a tiny dungeon within the dungeon which scarcely has room to breathe let alone to move. She wanted them to suffer first before killing them, but she felt dubious of Simon. The Gwyllions could do away with his astral self easily, and in so doing she would lose the only chance she had to take revenge on them. “I feel discontent in this vault,” Hiraethog, the leader of the Wraiths, mentally said after entering the cloverleaf-shaped vault of hers. “Is there any trouble with the city? Anything you’d like us to change?” “It’s not the city, Hiraethog,” answered the voice of the invisible Mistress. “It’s Simon. I’m afraid he won’t make it.” “I always thought it wasn’t a good idea. One of us should have gone with him. He needed guidance.” 212

Metempsychosis “No. He had plenty of that already.” “But, do you really think we should depend on him to take our revenge?” “He is the only one who can open this city from outside. You know that, Hiraethog. He can unlock the pit.” “So everything we’ve done here is useless,” said the leader of the Wraiths angrily. “It’s worth nothing without that miserable stranger, is it? You didn’t set us free to depend on such an inferior soul as his, did you?” “He’s our most valuable ally now and we must help him find a way back if he survives.” “Why?” asked the furious Wraith. “We can unseal this pit, too. We can travel to other realities, we can bring all sort of creatures down here to keep them at our feet if we want.” Fires raged in the Wraith’s vermilion eyes as his ragged body paced the empty vault. “But that wouldn’t take us where the Gwyllions are, would that? That wouldn’t sate my thirst for vengeance.” The Wraith stopped pacing and remained silent for a while and said: “Oh, I see. I know what you mean.” Hiraethog kneaded one of his cheeks. “He’s an instrument, isn’t he? And you’re going to use him.” “No,” the Mistress roared. “He’s not a thing at all. He’s a unique soul, the only way in we have to 213

German Bradley the encoded plane of human existence. He is a born warlock but he doesn’t know it, of course. He was born in an already dead world. He was born to travel through time and space. He has the power to close and open doors. But it is still dormant inside him. Only hatred can stir it up again. Hate and revenge.”

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Chapter 5

S

imon’s unsubstantial form had reached his hometown at last, but it looked a little bit different from what he could recall. It was smaller and deserted. The colours of the walls had lost their pristine bright, and the grass had grown where it hadn’t before. He looked for familiar places but he felt like a stranger. How long had he been out? He couldn’t know. It just seemed too long anyway. Doors, windows and walls went through his airy body as he moved through his town, but his physical body was nowhere and there was no signal of the Gwyllions either. Old memories crowded in upon him as he saw those houses and streets. For a moment he wanted to stay there longer. It was wonderful to be in town again, but a mighty force propelled him backwards to the silent steep valley among the mountains he’d reached when entering the earth. It didn’t matter how far he went or how long he wished to stay in one place; the force always 215

German Bradley pulled him back, sucked him back to that valley, as if that lonely place wanted to tell him that he belonged to there. He put his mind to the vibrating keys he’d learnt and tried to canalise the energy so as to get rid of that drawing power, but it was useless. The force was stronger than he was. It must be the Gwyllions’s power, he thought. They had brought me here. But his reasoning had no sense. He hadn’t seen or felt the Gwyllions at all. I’ve travelled in vain, he kept on thinking, they must have gone away to another world. I’ve made a mistake. I’ve come back too late. Simon had seen a date that clearly showed him how late he was— 2004, ten years since he last walked the streets of his town. Unmindful of his tribulations, the daylight set once more to give way to the most silent and forsaken nights he’d ever had. Yet one of those nights he saw something different at the top of one of the mountains around. There were faint lights there, many lights, indeed: blue and orange and lemon yellow, too. Souls they were, souls like his, that gathered together to be not alone, perhaps. And with that comforting idea in mind, he set out towards them. The howling and yells of those souls greeted him, as he got closer. There were hundreds of them, screaming their misery off while entering the gleaming doors of that shelter made of stone. 216

Metempsychosis But he sensed a presence among those suffering souls. It was watching over them—it was the Gwyllions. Simon moved stealthily around so as not to be detected and entered the shelter through the chimney pot. An indescribable yellowish white brilliance dazzled his odic eyes at first, but little by little he began to distinguish other colours: indigo, orange, and magenta together with grey and green tints. Other lights. Countless human souls had gathered together inside that shelter to live out their misery. A mass of crystalline bodies rubbed themselves against one another, bound to a new filthy game imposed on them by the Gwyllions. Translucent limbs move all around those undulating bodies, trying to satisfy an urge that won’t die out. Other incomplete souls had been fastened to Y-shaped beams and watched the scene. Four or five souls danced around three forms of lemon yellow colour. The androgynous bastards, thought Simon. They are here, feeding on those petty human souls. The dancing souls were worshipping and adoring them, of course. The Gwyllions felt contented and yawned in such a way that two entire souls disappeared inside them. More souls hastened to take the place of those dancing worshippers in the middle of the shelter. They 217

German Bradley seemed to be willing to dissolve themselves inside those bastards. The scene reminded Simon of his own feelings towards Medana. Now he understood how daft he had been, how naïve, how wrong. But not anymore. As the Gwyllions’ forms materialised, Simon noticed there was something odd in them. They were broken. The breaches in their auras were so large that seemed to split them into three or more parts, yet they didn’t even seem to notice it. They were drunk, intoxicated, and just swallowed those souls without knowing the more they ate the bigger the breaches became. They laughed and let themselves go, reeling around the room as the brilliance went slowly down. This is my chance, Simon thought. The stupid bastards are totally drugged. His unsubstantial form moved closer, trying to avoid a direct contact with them. “Say your arse good bye, you bastards,” he muttered, canalising his own energy and the one he was taking from those other souls, which still danced in that place. However, they already knew he was there. “Look!” said Mord, calling the attention of her sisters. “Do you see what I see.” She looked straight into Simon’s eyes. “It’s Simon. I’m having a vision of Simon. Can you believe it?” “Yes,” said Medana, “I’m seeing him, I’m 218

Metempsychosis seeing him. This human souls are great,” she continued and turned to Llys. “I’m seeing something else, too,” said Llys, casting her eyes somewhere behind Simon’s form. “There’s a dome. An edifice. No,” she corrected herself. “It’s a city. A city in the bowels of a pit?” While the Gwyllions wondered at the visions they saw, Simon’s astral form changed into a long whippy silver snake and passed through every breach of them, binding them like a thread that passed through the eye of many needles. He passed through them once more and tied them with his astral knots. He pressed them hard, as he coiled himself around them. “It’s not a vision,” said Medana, gasping for air. “The apprentice is here.” “Do you remember what you did to me at the Reservoir of Souls?” Simon asked, squeezing. “It can’t be!” exclaimed Mord, unable to fight against Simon’s press. “You can’t be here!” But the Gwyllions’ energy was already escaping them through their breaches, making that snakelike representation of Simon even thicker and stronger. “It’s time to pay,” said Simon, suffocating and twisting their forms in such a way that the souls they had already ate broke free and remained floating adrift in the air. Yet the mighty force that 219

German Bradley controlled the length of his movements pulled him back towards the valley again, spoiling his vengeance, destroying the snake he had designed. “No!” he screamed, trying to fight that magnetic force, but it was useless. He was unsubstantial and weak again. In a second, the Gwyllions flew down there and converged around him while their lemon yellow forms got brighter. “So you escaped?” asked Llys, swirling around him. Her eyes filled with anger. “How did you escape our prison, apprentice?” asked Medana, scrutinising his form. “Who made you so strong? Was it sheer hate?” As she spoke, Simon realised her power hadn’t abandoned her at all, but they got considerably weaker. “Did you come to finish us?” she continued. “Oh, yes. Revenge is in your eyes.” Simon couldn’t take his eyes off the open breaches of her. Inside them, spirals of light began to move towards him, reading his thoughts, and suddenly came to a halt a couple of inches away from his form. “You came from something else as well, didn’t you?” said Medana and looked down to the wet ground below him. “Your body, your beloved container. It’s just here, buried down there, 220

Metempsychosis together with other containers from the hospital. Do you want to have a look?” The spirals changed their way and dived into the ground, opening it wide enough for him to see the rotten corpses that lay there in that grave with no name. “Thank you, Simon,” said Medana. “It was good while we had it.” And all of them roared with laughter. “You bastards!” Simon screamed and got as stiff as a rod. There was a mix of sensations inside him but he managed to keep his sight and mind fixed on the shelter at the top of the mountain. Piercing sounds escaped his lips, as he raised his hands to his ethereal face. One by one the human souls he’d set free in the shelter floated down towards him, answering his call. The Gwyllions were perplexed and watched the souls descend the mountain. With the impassivity of a spiritual master, Simon began to handle an invisible artifact, which slowly turned visible in his hands. A crossbow it was, with no arrows or bolts. “Impressive trick, Simon,” said Medana, trying to show the Gwyllions were still in control. Simon didn’t answer. He just raised his right hand and one of those souls came quickly towards it and turned as thin and straight as a ramrod. He took it and placed it in the grooved support of his 221

German Bradley weapon, aimed it at Medana’s face and shot it almost at the same time. Yet with a sardonic laughter, the Gwyllion broke into thousands of tiny pieces before the arrow touched her form. Simon kept shooting a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth arrow in succession, but the Gwyllions had already turned into specks that changed their forms into stakes, darting towards him, nailing his astral body down to the ground in which his corpse had been buried. “That was a nice try, Simon,” said Medana, materialising by Simon’s side together with the other Gwyllions. “But we need more than an apprentice’s sheer tricks to be defeated.” “You bloody bastards!” said Simon, trying to get rid of those stakes. They were too deep in the ground, though, and he didn’t feel strong enough to change the evil energy they had been loaded with. “I won’t be your prisoner again,” Simon challenged them. “I saw you up there at the top of the mountain. I saw what the human souls are doing to your system. They’re fragmenting your odic forces. They’ll finish you soon and you won’t even notice it. They are my true avengers!” Many souls had come down and floated over Simon, withdrawing the stakes. With every stake they had in their hands the weaker the Gwyllions got. The androgynous demons had put all their energy in those pointed lengths, but now it had 222

Metempsychosis become a part of those souls. “They can’t do that!” wailed Mord, pointing at the floating souls. “They have no power!” “You’re wrong, you bastards,” said Simon, rising from the ground. “They have much more power than you think. Look.” The energy they had taken from the Gwyllions had already changed the colour of their souls into dark grey; their odic forces had turned into horrible things, and moved towards the Gwyllions. Simon remained behind them, singing the keys that altered the energy of that valley, summoning even the corpses buried in that ground to assist him in his revenge. They besieged their enemies and wrenched pieces out of their fragmented bodies to increase their sudden force, yet the Gwyllions knew better and broke themselves into thousands of tiny parts. “Don’t let them go! Don’t let them go!” Simon shouted to those helpful souls, but off the Gwyllions went inside a sudden cold circling current of air that took them up to the top of the mountain in a trice. “They were so close,” said Simon, watching how that magical whirlwind swathed and swept the shelter away, leaving not a single debris behind. He had found his loathsome enemies by fluke. He doubted chances would strike twice on his side. “I’ve lost my body,” he said and gazed 223

German Bradley down at the ground below. “What am I going to do now?” “We’ve lost our souls as well.” One of those souls had interrupted the train of his thoughts and lamentations. “Where are your bodies?” asked Simon. “Maybe you can go back right away. I gave you energy enough to do so. You’re free.” “Dolgellau,” said one soul. “Betws-y-Coed,” said another one. “Llangollen,” said a fourth. “Rhyl,” “Machynlleth.” “Porthmadog.” Even though he didn’t know where those places were, he realised how much the Gwyllions had taken during all that time. Probably they were in control of the whole country. “Are you still connected to your physical bodies. I mean, could you go back to them if you wanted?” Simon asked. “They cut our cords,” said the soul from Llangollen. “They said we wouldn’t need them anymore. We would be safe with them.” “Bloody demons! They cheated us out of our bodies like bloody lambs!” said the soul from Machynlleth. “Have you got anything to do with them?” asked the soul from Rhyl. 224

Metempsychosis “I was cheated as well,” said Simon. “A long time ago.” “But you’re not like us,” replied the soul from Llangollen. “You have powers like them.” “Yeah, you do,” said the one from Rhyl. “You can fight them. Why? Where are you from? Perhaps you’re another kind of demon, aren’t you?” “I was a man,” said Simon. “A very different man who used to live peacefully in Harlech. Then, almost without knowing, I met those bastards and here I am, like you, with no chance to have my physical body again.” “But you have powers,” said the soul from Machynlleth. “You can use it to help us find ours and get yours back as well.” “Mine is rotten and buried right here,” said Simon and his eyes went down to the ground. “But I won’t cry over spilt milk anymore. No more. I’ll get the way back to the Mistress and I’ll come back again and I swear you all that I’ll slay them with my own hands.” “Are you from Heaven?” asked the soul from Llangollen excited. “Have you seen the Mother of God?” “Not quite. I don’t even know which side the Mistress is on. All I know is that she’s going to help me.” “And are you going to help us?” asked the soul 225

German Bradley from Rhyl. “Take that for granted.”

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Chapter 6

“W

hat sort of living or non-living thing is Simon?” asked Mord, enraged, once the whirlwind had dissolved, leaving the three Gwyllions at the dense woodland near the village of Betws-y-Coed. “We never taught him those tricks,” she said and turned to look around. “We certainly didn’t,” answered Llys. “He was supposed to be a door, a mere door.” “Perhaps we’ve just stirred a power he always had inside,” said Medana in a tone that clearly showed her disturbance. “What do you mean, Medana?” asked Mord, but Medana didn’t reply. She was absent-minded, examining the sky above and the calm waters of the river Llugwy. “The day is dawning,” she said. “We have to move up to the hills. Humans are already waking up. The densest areas of the woodland will keep us safe and strong for the day.” They found refuge among the walnuts, firs, 227

German Bradley junipers and cypresses that grew all around but Mord and Llys insisted on the same question. “What sort of power did we teach that poor worm?” asked Llys, looking right into Medana’s eyes. “I think there’s a catch in it somewhere.” “Yes, there is a catch indeed,” added Mord and turned to gaze at Medana. “You sure you didn’t teach him any other thing?” It was clear they were more than worried about what they were dealing with and a little bit afraid, too. Simon had put their almost endless lives at risk. “We didn’t teach him anything,” spat Medana. “We just helped him to remember.” “What?” asked Mord, demandingly. “He must have remembered what he is, what it was hiding behind that dunce man,” answered Medana as though contemplating the infinity. “No human creature can escape the Reservoir of Souls; no human creature can activate the silver umbilical cords in the transporting zone. Nobody but a wizard.” “A wizard?” asked Mord and laughed, refusing to believe in what she heard. “But it was us who brought that fantasy to men.” “He was born with the gift of sorcery, but he hasn’t developed his whole potential yet,” said Medana, trying to avoid the rays of a pale spring sun. “So we’ve got to track him down and cut him 228

Metempsychosis out,” said Llys, hiding herself from the sun as well. “What are we waiting for?” “We can’t,” said Medana and gazed at the trees. “You know we can’t. Our powers get weaker in this reality during the daylight. There’s a connection between this plane and his powers. He may summon the magical laws at any time in this plane and we would turn into his slaves.” “It can’t be,” said Mord, looking everywhere as if she wanted to find a way out in that woodland. “How?” “He’s angry. He hates us to death. Those are the elements that are opening his powers. Hatred overcomes grief and insecurity.” Mord and Llys just looked at each other without knowing what to say. “We’d better not meet him again,” continued Medana. “We’d better go back to the Underworld. It wasn’t a good idea to escape our master and protector. The humans we once knew have already disappeared in time.” “But we had never had these kinds of souls before,” replied Llys. “We had never tasted such qualities as these. These souls are unique, Medana. They are so willing to be ours, so naive. We can’t leave this world. We’ve already got used to it. Our master would never forgive us.” “Yes,” said Mord. “We can’t go back to the Underworld.” 229

German Bradley “Can you just see where we are? Can’t you see what we really are in this land?” asked Medana, showing her sisters the beautiful landscape around. “We created this world out of a fantasy and now we can’t even walk the streets under the daylight.” “We are creatures of the night, Medana. Don’t forget that,” said Mord. “Our element is darkness and the hopes and dreams and desires we get from the souls in our trips.” “We’re getting weaker here,” said Medana. “It doesn’t matter how many souls we can get. They are cutting our powers. We must leave.” “You wanted to break the curse, didn’t you?” said Mord. “You wanted to escape Gwyn’s hands. Well, it’s done. We made it. And we’re not going back, are we?” “The sorcerer was a door, Medana,” continued Llys. “It opened itself for us to come through. If we come back this door would not be there again. We must stay here. We must find a way to make ourselves stronger. Perhaps we should devour more souls, perhaps we should change the rites, perhaps we haven’t adjusted ourselves to this reality.” “Perhaps you are too drugged or foolish to see what is happening to us,” said Medana, moving to the darkest place among the trees. “You’re afraid of him,” said Mord with despise 230

Metempsychosis in her voice. “That’s what it is. You’re afraid of a worthless apprentice and now you want us to escape his tricks too, but I’m not going anywhere. I will hunt that worm throughout this land and you’ll see what we really are.” “Yes,” added Llys. “You’re right, Mord. I’m not leaving this place either. We have tricks to play as well.” “So, Medana,” said Mord. “Are you with us or against us?” “We belong to one another so I’m on your side, but I’ve got the feeling that we are jumping into our own doom.” “It’ll fade away when you see his soul torn apart,” said Mord, tearing the air with her ghostly hands, as if it were an invisible sheet of paper. **** Knowing that Simon’s soul was bound to the ground of Tal-y-Llyn Lake, the Gwyllions decided to go back there and finish with him for good. But to their surprise, Simon wasn’t there and neither were the corpses buried in that ground. “He’s getting stronger,” muttered Medana. The other Gwyllions weren’t there to hear her comments, though. They were busy scrutinising a new shelter they’d found at the top of Cadair Idris and at the top of all the mountains around 231

German Bradley Dolgellau. “Somehow he’d managed to get rid of his own physical bonds,” said Medana once she had reached her sisters at the shelter. “But what did he do with the rotten carcasses?” “They must be here inside these bothies,” said Llys, pointing to the gleaming shelters around. “He must be trying to find a way to reunite them with their wandering souls.” Then, a flash of lightning broke the night, glowing all around and hitting every shelter at the top of the mountains. Long fingers of lightning converged above, forming a dome of light, which turned into a puppeteer’s huge hand. As those long electrical fingers moved, the souls that were inside each shelter flew away towards the centre of that palm and slowly turned into burning snakes with heads of ram and long, bony arms and claws ready to tear the Gwyllions up. “This time you won’t be able to escape.” A voice spoke inside the demons’ heads. “This time you’ll pay.” The snakes opened their mouths and shot themselves forth, straight into the Gwyllions. But an apprentice in sorcery wouldn’t touch them that easily. As soon as the fangs of the snakes closed upon countless places on the Gwyllions’ astral skin the demons turned into statues of ice, freezing the reptiles that got pasted to their icy bodies while their energy transmigrated into the 232

Metempsychosis demons. Yet that was just the beginning. The statues melted away, leaving three female creatures depicting the most untamed hatred in their faces that Simon had ever seen before. Their long greenish manes floated behind them as they climbed up to his electric hand, sitting on enormous wailing Ceffyl-dwrs in the form of bluish goats with eyes like balls of fire. As the female creatures atop them approached, a gale of icy mist came out of the snouts of the goats, swathing the hand and putting out the lightning, which they modified and turned into a new source of energy for them. Simon was imprisoned again; this time inside the Ceffyl-dwr Medana was sat on. “To the lake,” commanded Mord and her goat galloped down the air fast. “Take him down into the lake. There we’ll dine his soul until not a single piece of him is left.” **** An unbearable pain brought Simon back from the unconscious plane. One of the goats was furiously curvetting upon his chest and he couldn’t do anything to avoid it. Dark brown seaweed kept him motionless at the bottom of that dim lake while the eyes of the beast seemed to dance above him, speaking to his mind. 233

German Bradley “This is the end for you, apprentice. Your luck is over.” He screamed in pain, albeit he couldn’t hear his voice. He tried to get rid of that Ceffyl-dwr, but he wasn’t sure if that was only an idea instead of a real action. He saw how his astral body turned into pebbles on that submerged ground, and the beast unmercifully crushed him with its hooves. The other Ceffyl-dwrs came up in a second as well, hastening to devour those pieces until nothing of him was left but a tiny stripe of chest together with his arms and his head. This is the end, he thought and the whole scenery began to fade away. I’ve been a fool. After a couple of bites his arms disappeared inside the mouths of the goats, which, in turn, melted into their riders’ form to become the androgynous Gwyllions again. Llys raised his head from the bottom of the lake and studied it for a while. “Kill me, you bastard,” said Simon in a voice that was scarcely audible. “Take food on this soul.” But he couldn’t voice any other word. He was emptying himself into the cold realm of Llys’s soul behind her eyes. He was changing the last amount of energy he had into a poisonous indigo glow, meant to eclipse those cheating demons forever. “Don’t eat that soul!” screamed Medana, 234

Metempsychosis throwing Simon’s head away from Llys’s hands. “It’s a trick! He’s turned his last power into a sort of disease!” The violent impact of Simon’s head against the sharp rocks on the bed of the lake broke his absorption and sent the indigo glow of energy away, like tiny fine rays that faded into nothingness. “What are you doing?” He heard Llys hiss. “You’re spoiling the coupe de grâce.” Confused as he was, finding himself almost buried among a wet bank of seaweed, Simon realised the androgynous demons must have made up some sort of isolating chamber or something for there was no water there. “We’re about to fall into his trap.” He heard Medana’s voice somewhere behind. “If anyone of us devours his soul he will take control of our will!” “Bullshit,” said Mord. But then fear fell upon Simon. A couple of hands took hold of his head and roughly raised him until his eyes met hers. “Too many human souls have already intoxicated your thoughts,” she said, turning her eyes to Medana who was by her side. Her eyes came back to him. “This is the point of no return.” The pressure he felt on his sides was too much. He began to lose consciousness. He tried to fight the pressure back, clenching his teeth as hard as he 235

German Bradley could. He knew that was his end, he knew he was just a lamb in those hands, waiting to be slain. “I failed you, Mistress,” Simon said at the time he drew his parting groan. The last thing his eyes could see was a long silver cord that snaked down to him, as if it welcomed a beloved friend to take him to the other side, to a world he was sure he’d never been to before.

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Chapter 7

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imon felt his thoughts and feelings disperse, like gas. He was moving on astral thick fluids that sped down through a series of membranous canals. Here and there he heard or thought he heard horrible squeals, but the force of the current carried him too fast to see what was happening up there on the ground along the canals. He just rolled along those pale geranium slippery fluids, unable to feel their wetness until the stream suddenly swerved, casting him out into a rocky segment on one of the banks of the canal. He didn’t know how long he had been travelling along that current. It had to be a considerable time by judging the dizzy feeling he had in his head. Everything was turning around and he couldn’t figure out where he was, but something told him he was not inside the Gwyllions’ souls. The sole idea gave him some peace of mind and he closed his eyes, until his head stopped spinning. Then, he opened them 237

German Bradley again and looked. Due to the position of his head on the ground he had only one field of vision in front of him—a strange cobalt blue forest some yards away. But the sound of footsteps behind him made him forget about the forest. A long growl and a kick on his nape told him he was not among friends. His field of vision had changed. He could see a swine monster coming near him with a metal mace in his hands. “Don’t you dare to touch him,” shouted a voice from behind the beast. “Or your stinky existence will finish as a living decor in the main chamber of our Mistress.” “But it’s just a piece. His head is not even complete,” the beast protested, but there was no response to its petition. So the swine monsters stepped back and lowered its head, allowing Simon to see his saviour. His narrow face and his straggly hair, hanging about his shoulders, looked familiar to him. Yes, Simon remembered. That was one of the Wraiths he’d seen with the Mistress when she took them out of the Reservoir of Souls. Yes, it was one of those spirits, and he was watching him with those wicked vermilion eyes of his. Simon tried to say something that let the Wraith know how grateful he felt of being back in the Mistress’s world, but no word escaped his lips, no 238

Metempsychosis word except his own thoughts. “It’s good to see you again, stranger,” the voice of the Wraith thundered in his head. “Our Mistress has been wondering about you as well. Let’s go,” said the voice and both raised over the small forest to the grey sky above, to the dome of the Mistress’s impressive cathedral. **** “Don’t fret, Simon,” said the Mistress’s voice, albeit he couldn’t see her. He was floating in a comfortable but blinding greenish light. “You’re inside an energy field that is restoring your fragmented head. You were lucky, Simon. They almost finished you there.” Simon tried to explain what had happened and how frustrated he felt but the Mistress interrupted him. “Don’t say anything. I can see it all in your mind.” Like flashbacks, the images of the past events began to swiftly display themselves in front of him. Fear and rage came back to him as he lived those moments again. This time he was learning about himself. He was a witness of his own grandeur. He had powers the Gwyllions hadn’t taught him. Those powers came from inside. They came from himself. 239

German Bradley “As you can see you’re not a simple human soul, are you?” said the voice again, but he couldn’t see the Mistress yet. “You hold powers that have always belonged to certain beings, few chosen beings that we call warlocks. Yes, my friend, you’re a warlock whose powers have remained ignored in your physical plane. They taunted you with visions and afflicted you with voices of other creatures that craved for a guiding hand. They grew in the mesolimbic pathway of your human brain since you were a child, but they finally unveiled themselves during your astral projections.” “But the Gwyllions—“ “They just used your psychic powers to escape their world and time. They tried to corrupt your soul but they did you a great favour instead. Now they’re lost. I’ve seen in your memories that the souls they feed on are actually deadly venom for them, venom that is ruining their auras and powers, although they don’t seem to understand the true effects and aftermath of it. What’s more, they’ve become addicted to it and always ask for more. That’s a good point on our side, isn’t it?” Simon’s mind was blank. He couldn’t think properly. That was a revelation he didn’t expect to hear. “Don’t worry, Simon,” continued the voice. “The energy field you’re floating in is giving your 240

Metempsychosis astral body back. It’s almost complete now, actually. But that’s not all. I want to reward you for your bravery. Without knowing who you were you flew back to your physical plane and tried to take revenge all by yourself. That means courage, my friend, and hate. And for that courage and hate I’ll give you a new physical body.” Then the greenish light went off, but the comforting sensation remained. Simon found himself floating inside a round chamber that had only one door and no windows but it was lit anyway. He could almost count every tile on the floor and the symbol drawn upon it. It was a sort of compass with no cardinal points. There was a figure in the middle of that compass, but he couldn’t determine what it was. He looked down at himself and noticed he had a body again. It was foggy and shining. He had arms and hands and felt the energy running through him as if he were born again. A couple of long tendrils came down from the ceiling of that chamber and caught his astral lips, pulling at them. A gasp of horror escaped him when a tiny mass was already in his mouth, pushing and getting itself into his new body, covering his astral figure with flesh. He felt stiff for a moment, but his physical senses awoke. His body was red-skinned, festooned with long strand-like appendages of his own new flesh hanging out of his wrists, waist, back, head and 241

German Bradley cheeks. “Welcome back, warlock,” said the voice of the Mistress at the time a huge fantastic mirror appeared in front of him. And with a mix of horror and fascination, Simon saw himself. There was a tall strong creature on that glassy surface, a wrestler with a dreadful hairless face. His eyes were minute and his mouth was drooling, showing a horrible set of teeth. “What do you think about that new shell of yours, Simon?” asked the Mistress. “Does it measure up to the anger and hate you’re feeling?” Simon said nothing. He was enthralled by the details he had found on his new skin. His eyes devoured his reflection in that mirror. Suddenly, the body of a woman standing behind him reflected in that mirror. She was as tall as he was, and wore a long black dress fashioned in a black-laced vest cut that let him see the bluish grey skin of her generous cleavage and part of her arms. Her black dreadlocks looked like an extension of that dress and highlighted the weird beauty of her face, a beauty that made him gape at her. “Thank you, warlock,” The Mistress said with an oh-so-subtle smile on her mouth. “That’s very flattering.” She had read his thoughts but that simple fact had made him feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. 242

Metempsychosis “Think about the Gwyllions instead, and your vengeance,” said the Mistress with that smile of hers still on her mouth. “Don’t let your mind stray.” He couldn’t avoid it, though. His minute eyes roamed over her body, as if she were using magic on them. “Have you seen enough?” she said all of a sudden, breaking that pleasing spell. He lowered his head but kept on looking up at her. “You need training, warlock. You’ve seen what they can do even with their defences down.” Simon just growled. The Mistress hadn’t given him a voice or maybe he had forgotten how to speak. It didn’t matter anyway. She was reading his mind. “Yes, you have a fierce look and fiery eyes as well, but you must be much more than that. You must be lethal.” Having said that she walked away and turned her back towards him. As she approached the centre of that chamber, her hands raised to her head and grabbed one of the thickest dreadlocks and pulled it off. Once inside the compass painted upon the tiles, she put the braid softly on the floor. She pulled a second one off, and a third, and stood at a certain distance after leaving them inside the symbol. She started to move her hands, as if she were modelling invisible figures in the air. 243

German Bradley The braids began to change. They were no longer hairs but indefinite mounts of raw tissues and muscles that shone under the strange light of that chamber. Those mounts of flesh evolved into three familiar beings—the Gwyllions. A growl escaped Simon’s lips and he fixed the Mistress with his minute eyes. He couldn’t understand why she’d brought her enemies there, why she had betrayed him. “Don’t get me wrong, warlock,” she said. “I just want you to show me your talents.” But Simon was too stunned to react. Snake-like growths came out of the Gwyllions’ hands and grasped him tight while the floor under his feet turned into a marsh. New tentacles came out of the mud, swathing and dragging Simon down. His tiny eyes enlarged as he saw his own end coming. The strength of those tentacles was beyond his power. He was already gasping for air. “Enough!” the Mistress shouted and the marsh turned into solid tiles again. The tentacles had gone and so had the Gwyllions. There was nobody else in that chamber but the Mistress and Simon himself. “I transferred your soul into that frame you’re in now,” continued the Mistress, coming closer. Simon lowered his head again, avoiding the Mistress’s eyes. “A creature that lived and evolved inside me since I was a child. I didn’t have 244

Metempsychosis memory of this beast and neither did it but it was part of my essence. Now, I gave that part to you to increase your powers, but I see I’ve been wasting my time with you.” Simon uttered a loud growl of complaint and frustration. He wanted to speak but it seemed it was beyond the bounds of possibility. The beast he was in couldn’t articulate a word. He kept on growling, though. He wanted to express how alien he felt inside, he wanted to show by growls that he didn’t expect the Gwyllions there. “That’s precisely the point, warlock,” the Mistress said, reaching out and touching his face. “You must be prepared. The Gwyllions have still countless ways to destroy us.” Teach me then, Simon seemed to say from inside that beast. “There’s nothing to be taught, warlock. Just do what you did back there in your plane. Use the energy of this place. Let the power rise. Let the anger grow.” A nestle of snake-like roots came out of the Mistress’s hands and curled themselves around Simon’s face. This time, however, Simon knew what to do. He didn’t offer resistance despite the pressure he felt in his head. He just relaxed while absorbing the energy that radiated from those tentacles. In fact, they became part of his own skin. But there was more. Simon’s hands had seized the 245

German Bradley Mistress’s arms and in a couple of seconds his skin began to suck hers, as if his arms were the tubes of a vacuum cleaner. The Mistress opened her eyes in surprise and glanced at him, but before he could realise what had transpired she vanished in front of his eyes. But he wasn’t alone there. The Gwyllions had come back, whirling around the chamber at amazing speed. As they revolved about him, the wall, the ceiling and the floor blended until the whole landscape was lost to view. Simon suddenly found himself in the clearing of a forest of cobalt blue foliage. Then, the tree barks opened around him like portals of wooden caves and the Gwyllions came forth from the duskiness, holding long and thick chains ending up in metal heads covered with spikes. They took their time while they made a circle about him in silence, keeping themselves at a distance, out of the range of his arms. There was no need of words. The darkest formulas of evil shone in their colourless eyes and spread through that unearthly forest. But they dulled his mind as well, leaving him motionless in the middle of that circle, as if he were a defenceless lamb. Simon’s tiny eyes just focused on the golden torcs the Gwyllions wore around their necks. They were alive and raised their dragon-like heads, hissing. Then, their maces began to whoosh over his head, fiercely 246

Metempsychosis descending, time and again, closer and closer, seeking his body. Simon warded them off by instinct only. The power of those mental rituals didn’t allow him to do more. But then again, one of those androgynous demons made a mistake. A mace had just fallen some centimetres away from its target, breaking Simon’s mental block. The ground trembled under that whopping impact and the metal head of the mace sank into the dank soil, but its owner couldn’t get it out. That was the chance he needed to make his move. In a trice, he stretched his left arm downwards towards the mace and the strands hanging out of his wrist shot out like chameleon’s tongues and wreathed themselves around the chain and pulled them back. So fast and surprising that action had been that the Gwyllion didn’t have time enough to loose its weapon and fell on its face. But the whooshing sound of the maces hadn’t stopped. The Gwyllion was still lying on its stomach, looking up at him with those mysterious colourless eyes and a dark smile on its lips. Simon neither turned around nor looked up to the fatal mace that was already descending upon his head. He just stood there, motionless, and opened his arms. A light green brightness covered his body just at the time the mace went through him, as if he weren’t a thing of substance but mirrors. He had activated a shield of magic, which had turned 247

German Bradley his whole body out of sight, even to himself. The spine of the lying Gwyllion cracked and blood spattered. The pikes of the mace had sunk into the flesh of that androgynous body, but no sound had escaped the demon’s mouth. Then, the shield of magic faded and Simon lifted his gaze again, surveying the forest around him. It was deserted. The sneaky Gwyllions had flung off and probably spied and waited for him behind the tree trunks ahead. But a subtle change on the ground drew his eyes down towards the corpse of the Gwyllion and the maces. They were fading away like smoke! Little by little Simon began to understand what was really happening there. They’re using me, he thought. This is just a game. I’ve turned into the entertainment of both these Gwyllions and the Mistress herself. He clenched his fists and kept them tightly closed. He growled and opened his mouth, as if he wanted to cut his enemies into bits with his teeth. He was flying into a rage but he felt mighty as well, strong, unbeatable. He opened his hands again and lowered his body until his hands touched the wet ground. He let the power of the earth become one with his as his eyes gazed the moist ground. In his mind he saw he was part of that soil and his skin slowly changed into mud, stones and leaves. In fact, he had turned into ground and roots and moved like a huge wolfish 248

Metempsychosis mole in search of his prey. Every living organism in that forest told him about the fugitive Gwyllions. The knotty roots led his way until he could almost see that demon standing on the surface, just above him. He could hear its blood pumping in its veins and felt its fear. The prey was his. It was just a matter of coming out and catch. And so he did. Stones, mud and undergrowth blew up as Simon suddenly emerged and turned into the redskinned creature again. The Gwyllion turned in surprise and Simon’s hands grabbed its face while the strands of flesh that hanged from his cheeks rushed into the demon’s eyes immediately after. A loud sharp cry escaped the Gwyllion’s lips as its body lost consistency and turned into a dry, hollow piece of skin, which Simon gulped down at one bite. The skin tasted like leather. The smell of burnt wood and a cracking noise among the trees ahead made him forget the Gwyllion’s salty taste. Simon moved from behind the tree trunk and looked around. His tiny eyes easily found the disturber that had spoiled his moment of glory. The third Gwyllion was setting the forest on fire and a huge worm raised among the flames, spewing acid onto him. However, Simon’s senses told him that was another thing of mirrors and remained unafraid. His powers were growing again. He was full of energy and all his 249

German Bradley strands shot out and coiled around the worm, squeezing and drawing it closer to him until the illusion vanished under his power. In a second, the whole landscape blended and Simon found himself back in the chamber with the Mistress. “Well done, warlock,” she said. “Well done. Did you like my replicas? They were almost real, weren’t they?” Simon reached out and tried to touch the Mistress with his hands. He wanted to ask why, but only a deep growl in his chest escaped his lips, as usual. “It was part of your training,” said the Mistress stepping back, avoiding the contact. “But don’t worry. It’s all for now. A couple of Wraiths will take you to a comfortable chamber where you can get some rest. Sleep well, warlock,” finished the Mistress and turned around and walked to the door. But she didn’t open it. She just passed through it, as if she were a spirit while two unfriendly swine monsters came in to escort him to his chamber. **** A big juicy piece of raw meat waited for him on a heavy wooden table in his chamber. His mouth watered and his belly rumbled. He sat in a row and attacked his portion fast with his fingers until 250

Metempsychosis he was full. Once he had finished he noticed there was a jar of fresh water by his row and drank it, letting out a loud belch at the end. The furry bed behind him turned into an attractive invitation after a while and his minute eyes willingly gave in to slumber.

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Chapter 8

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ime had finally come. After twelve moons of intensive training with those unreal creatures the Mistress had brought into being for him to hack them off, Simon was ready to set off on a journey back to his human plane. “Things have come full circle, my loyal Hiraethog,” said the Mistress to the leader of the Wraith by her side. “We must settle this the only way it can be settled. The Gwyllions must pay.” She gazed at him with a frown of rage as she closed her hands into fists. “We have the most powerful weapon and ally on our side. Look at him. See how proud he is of himself.” Simon walked at a short distance behind his Mistress and the leader of the Wraiths, proud of being a matchless warrior, proud to hear the squeals and growls those hundred swine monsters uttered in his honour while he, Hiraethog and his Mistress passed by. “But he’s not one of us,” said Hiraethog. “Do 252

Metempsychosis you really think he’ll be loyal to us? Can we be sure he won’t follow his own cause?” “His cause and ours is one,” the Mistress replied, and looked back at him and the contingent of Wraiths coming after him as well. He was amazed at the anger and hate he saw in the eyes of the monsters, on their intimidating faces. “Alliances often shift after wars.” The monsters stood all along the road, on either side, raising their maces and crossbows, giving a salute. Some of them stood on the rough and large stones; others cleared the road ahead for the Mistress’s army to pass. “He and I have been given an unimaginable power,” the Mistress continued. “We could break each other into pieces if we wanted. We could also rule a world of our own if we wanted; without any god’s help, but the spirit that moves us and gathers together is much deeper than revenge and hate. I feel there’s a secret answer to our beings in our power, but above all this, I’d like to know why I feel he is my soul mate.” The leader of the Wraiths remained silent. Behind them the cobalt blue forest had already vanished, but the cathedral was still high and magnificently evil. “We’ll come back, warlock. Victory is ours,” said the Mistress, noticing he was looking back. 253

German Bradley “We’ll come back with the Gwyllions’ heads in our hands.” Simon looked ahead again and realised they were almost on the outskirts of the city. The impenetrable rocky walls of that pit were just in front of them as a symbol of their own confinement. “This is it,” said the Mistress. “The road back to your world and our vengeance is beyond these walls. We’ve got to pull together and join our powers.” Simon gazed at the rocks ahead with staring eyes and the air got suddenly colder. Smears of light began to drip from those boulders, like stains of some sort of cosmic liquid. Simon’s left hand went to his brow and pressed his fingers into his red flesh. His eyes never left the boulders. A sudden sharp noise came from the rocks and the smallest stones began to fly, one after another, over Simon’s head, opening a hole just in front of his eyes. He felt as if his hands and his entire body were burning from inside, burning with the energy he was taking from those primal elements: stone and earth. He stepped forwards and reached out his hands so as to touch the rocks. There was no resistance. Stone had turned into rubber, allowing him in, stretching itself for the rest to enter. It was dark inside. Borders between worlds 254

Metempsychosis were always dark, but the Mistress took over. She had opened her arms. A long and shiny silver cord jutted out of her belly, unfolding for miles and miles until it disappeared in the darkness ahead. But the cord was not solid. It was just a cord of light. “Come here, my loyal Wraiths,” said the Mistress without taking her eyes off the cord. “I’ve found some suitable susceptible bodies for you. Come here, one by one, and let this cord of light guide you to Simon’s plane.” The leader of the Wraiths was the first who obeyed her order and let the light pierce his chest. A grunt escaped his mouth, though, and took him away into the darkness in a flash. The rest just followed his example. Simon felt his flesh almost alight with energy that spread everywhere, lightening the dark emptiness. The strands of flesh that hanged from his body seemed to have life of their own. They had shot out towards the Mistress’s body, wreathing themselves around her until both bodies dissolved into each other to become only one ethereal being of light at the end—a long silver cord that slowly died out amidst that brightness.

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Chapter 9

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he Wraiths couldn’t avoid feeling a little awkward inside those peculiar vessels. The Mistress had transferred their essence to mortal shells that seemed to be in a catatonic state. “Open your eyes.” The Mistress mentally commanded. “This is the place. This is Simon’s town.” On watching their new vessels, the spirits of chaos realised they had been moved into secondhand bodies. The Gwyllions had used those bodies before. They had sucked most of their energy, but the range of perception those fleshy organs could offer was still undamaged and their own unearthly strength stirred the enormous potential that resided in those minds. Their senses had become acute in such a way that nothing seemed to be in hiding from them. A whole world of other spirits and souls drifted in turmoil everywhere, like a community of ghost within empty rooms and walls that couldn’t hear their 256

Metempsychosis torments. “Rise, my loyal Wraiths,” said the Mistress again. “The Gwyllions are close.” Even though the Wraiths had woken up in different areas and in different bodies, all of them received the same mental messages. The Mistress was their only guide in that plane; they would be lost without her. But then the spirits above them noticed their presence and came closer with those curious and ethereal eyes of theirs. “Are you spirits as well?” They asked, gazing at their eyes, gazing at their bodies. “Are you trapped down there? Would you like to float around with us?” “Who are you?” The Wraiths asked back, rising from their beds or from the very floor. “We used to live in those bodies. These walls were our homes.” The eyes of the Wraiths began to scrutinise the dwellings they had woken up in. Every corner and ceiling was wreathed with cobwebs. Every piece of furniture, every curtain and even the floor itself looked dusty and damp. The food they saw on the tables was already stale and mouldy. There was no sign of life there at all except the ghosts above and themselves. “What happened to you?” The Wraiths asked again. “The Gwyllions,” said the ghosts. “They keep us here, endlessly wandering in this intermediate state of 257

German Bradley sorrows. They didn’t want our souls. We are not valuable for them. Not like the rest.” “Where are they? Can you tell us? Can you show us?” “They are in a valley,” the Mistress interrupted, “amidst a rugged mountain range. A place called Cwm Nantcol. There’s a great number of walks, rambles and woodland trails there. Use the ghosts. They know the place well.” “Can you show us this town?” asked the Wraiths. “Sure,” said the ghosts, “but it’s not a nice sight now. Turn the knobs of the doors clockwise and you’ll see.” Empty cars and rotten corpses jammed the roads as the Wraiths walked towards the centre of town where all of them had arranged to meet the Mistress. The air was cold and stinky. The whole place had been devastated by those treacherous demons. Harlech had become a ghost town where life could no longer be found. “Death has spread everywhere,” said the ghosts and remained silent during the rest of the stroll. That was their way to show respect for those who had found death in the Gwyllions’s hands. Empty cars and bikes; dusty shops and restaurants together with some flickering lights drew the Wraiths’ attention while they headed for the centre of town. 258

Metempsychosis “This is the downtown,” said the ghosts on arriving. “Who’s that you’re waiting for?” they asked again, floating around the contingent of Wraiths. “You’ll see if you stay here long enough,” said Hiraethog, the leader of the Wraiths. “Can you tell us the way to Cwm Nantcol?” He continued. “We know the Gwyllions are there. We’ve come for their heads.” “Have you already clapped eyes on their whereabouts?” “We’re not alone here.” “But they don’t want to see us there. That place is forbidden for us. It’s their Reservoir of Souls.” Then, two mounds of mud and roots rose from the ground just in the middle of the Wraiths, taking the shape of two tree trunks wreathed with thick roots. “They don’t have to know you’re going with us.” A female voice came from one of the trunks as a couple of roots outstretched on either side, as if they were arms. The whole weave of roots began to change into tissue, bones, tendons, muscles, and finally skin. A beautiful bluish grey skin. The other mound had changed into a different form, however. A red-skinned wrestler which was as tall as the woman. “Who are you?” asked the ghosts, moving back in fear. 259

German Bradley The Mistress just opened her arms, as if she tried to embrace all those tormented souls. A warm bright light slowly came out of her chest and bathed them in its comfortable lambency. “They won’t even see you if you come to the light,” said the Mistress again, moving her hands, inviting them to get inside her chest. “Are you another Gwyllion? Have you come to devour our souls?” There was terror in their ethereal eyes. They were afraid of getting closer. They knew the Gwyllions’ tricks very well. “I am the only chance you have to put your tormented souls to rest,” said the Mistress, forcing them to meet her cold gaze. “You don’t need us. You already know where they are,” said one of the ghosts in an arrogant tone. “But we’ve got to eat first,” the Mistress growled as her face began to disfigurate. It was more than that, actually. Her face was absolutely disproportionate. In a second, her mouth grew into a bottomless yawn and closed in on the ghosts like a huge wave of darkness. It was the warp spasm of hers that unlocked a part of the energy that lay within her dark soul. But in two ticks, she warped back and the gape closed, swallowing her victims. Her face showed her mystical beauty again and her body opened itself as a wormhole in the space, showing the final destiny she had prepared for those wandering souls. They were 260

Metempsychosis back in the city, back in the cathedral. Their souls had passed into comfortable larval forms enclosed in hundreds of small oval cells all around that tall, octagonal lobby the Mistress had built at the east wing of the cathedral. They were new servants of hers, waiting for a breath of eternal life. Eight oak columns supported the ribbed vault and the central glazed lantern that lightened the room in golden tones. There was no other light there and those yellow tinges could hardly show the walls, covered with carved bone reredos. “No more delays,” said the Mistress as the wormhole sealed itself. “The Gwyllions are still in Cwm Nantcol together with other souls in pain.” And so, all the contingent of Wraiths--still in human frames--together with the Mistress, mentally projected to the valley and disappeared. **** Simon, the wrestler, didn’t go with them, however. There were so many memories for him in that place; so much pain. The whole place was asking him to stay. He saw a small boy walking down the streets. It was he. He wore no shoes and looked so fragile in those shorts. He was looking for something. People shouted at him. He heard them calling him names. He felt the hostility against him but could find the reason why. He 261

German Bradley was crying his heart out. Then he was somewhere else. He was on the shore of a beautiful light brown tarn. There were other children there as well and fantastic creatures that played with them. And the memory of the creatures’ voices came to his head for the first time. “Don’t cry, boy. You’re not a waif and stray here.” For some reason he couldn’t understand, his mind had suppressed those voices for years. “You were born an adept in the black arts. Don’t fight with your heritage.” “How did I get here?” Simon heard the boy ask. “There are no barriers between our dimension and yours. You control the force with which the molecules cohere. You can lose your material form and you can take it back again.” Those words meant nothing to the boy he saw by the lake, but they had become a revelation in the wrestler’s mind. “There’s no place for you among the human race. They could never see or understand the true nature of yours.” His human self was still alive inside him, bringing back those old feelings to his almost hardened heart: voices, laughter, faces. Visions of himself wandering the streets, begging affection from door to door, but getting none at the end. All those images mixed in his head bringing him distress. The creatures were right. His memories clearly said there was nothing for him in that 262

Metempsychosis place, nothing worth remembering. “But there are others, my boy, for whom you are a prodigy.” Simon understood he had to turn the page. He had to finish his mission and bury his past for good. He had never been the nutty one. Perhaps he was never a human being but a beast imprisoned in a human frame; a beast in search of itself. One last time, he looked around to see the corpses that lay in the streets, and he felt contented. Harlech was infected with plague and all those who had made fun of him once, all those who had turned their irritated faces so as not to see his ugliness were dead, even those who wished they’d scratched him from their town. Then the weep of a man drew his attention to a nearby house. It was the first sound he heard in that town and his well-trained eyes and ears made no mistakes. It was a stone house with broken windows. The wooden door was ajar and greyish with dust. He pushed it open and entered. There was no sign of life inside. The whole place looked dusty and damp and the weeping sound came from a room on the right of the hall in front of him. The door was opened. There was a fat and scruffy man with ginger moustache and beard kneeling on the floor. A ginger-haired woman dressed in a nightgown lay on the floor by 263

German Bradley his side, dead. The man lifted his face and gazed at him. “Kill me,” he said. “Take me where she is now. Don’t let me here.” Simon didn’t even move from the threshold of that room. “Kill me,” he asked earnestly again. “I don’t want to live without my Sarah, my ... beloved Sarah. You took my wife away from me. Why didn’t you take me as well? Why?” Bored by his whining Simon moved towards the man and seized him by his neck to silence him. His recent memories, however, flashed before Simon’s eyes. The curtains of the window were slightly drawn. She’d come back from the bathroom and was getting ready to go to bed when a yellow light came in from the window. A beautiful angel appeared in front of her. “Fear ye not,” the angel said. “God hath sent his messenger to speak unto thee. I am the Sleep Angel. Open your soul to me.” “The Sleep Angel?” she asked. “Have you come to save us?” “Open your soul.” But she resisted the temptation and didn’t surrender to that divine invitation. The angel took her soul by force anyway; he wasn’t an angel, of course, but a Gwyllion Simon knew well. The wrestler let go of the man’s neck, and the images vanished. 264

Metempsychosis “What are you waiting for?” said the man. “Isn’t my soul good enough for you? Are you already full?” Simon looked at the man for a while. He understood his suffering but there was nothing he could do to help him. There was no way for him to take him where his wife was. There was no way for him to explain him the Gwyllions were the ones who had taken his wife’s soul. So he just shook his head at him and left him with his grief. “Come back!” He heard him shout. “Come back! Finish your work!” Simon gazed at the mountain range ahead and started to walk, listening to the man’s desperate cries. He hadn’t come to kill humans. He hadn’t come to stop their pain nor bring them new illusions. He had come for something else. The weather was different there at the mountain range. Seasons were topsy-turvy. The sky was sepia and greenish yellow; the ground dark orange. Grey clouds massed. The whole scene revealed its pain and familiarity to him. There were hundreds of human souls impaled on long pikes all over the hills. He could hear their silent screams in that new Reservoir of Souls. He could see their ethereal forms twisting in endless agony. Without a doubt, that was the finest symphony he had ever heard. Probably the Mistress and the Wraith were already there, 265

German Bradley waiting for him to join the feast. Yes, they were moving onwards in the woodlands. It was time to set himself up as the beast he was.

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Chapter 10

“S

tray souls are moving in the woodland.” Mord warned her sisters, as she came out of hiding behind a boulder in the hillside. “They’re down there in the valley,” she continued, pointing to the trees and bushes below. She had been the first androgynous demon that saw those human men and women coming closer. She had sensed their presence just a second before. “They must be from out of town,” said Llys, descending upon the boulder, following Mord’s finger. She had been sailing around the pikes, giving the impaled souls the once-over. “We left nobody alive around here.” “Wait,” said Medana, skimming along the ground, among the pikes, but only to soar in front of an agonising soul. “I can’t feel their souls. I can’t read their minds. I don’t like them. They’re not like these.” And looked at the tortured creature. 267

German Bradley “Just let them get closer,” said Mord again with a dark smile. “They’re so many. Plenty enough to feed all of us.” Those men and women had already left the valley and the woodland behind and started to climb the hills. “They’re getting closer,” said Mord and started to climb one of those pikes. “They look so vital.” “They don’t seem to know what fear is and I still can’t feel their suffering,” said Medana. “Their souls are voiceless, but their featuring rings a bell.” The Gwyllions’ chieftain descended as well, and her eyes went down to those human specimens that had already begun to shin up. She moved her hands in circles, trying to cover the whole area in which the human creatures moved. And then, in less than a minute, the hillside turned into a mire and a gauzy fog wafted over the area without concealing the souls that started to sink into the muck. “Help! Please!” The women cried in despair, as they saw how the deep mud swallowed their legs, waists and bellies. “I don’t want to die here!” a man cried out, trying to keep his eyes, mouth and nose away from the mud. “There’s a family waiting for me at home,” an old man screamed while trying to grasp some invisible branch in the air. 268

Metempsychosis “Hold on Emily!” another young man cried. “Hold on! I’m coming to you!” But his young wife had already vanished beneath the mire. And so, here and there, men and women succumbed beneath that deadly swamp amidst shouts and wails of agony. The Gwyllions just looked on, from a ridge almost at the top of the hill, sitting astride their Ceffyl-dwrs. Their broad smiles widened and the eyes of their mounts seemed to light that foggy landscape. “Can’t you feel that lovely suffering yet, Medana?” asked Llys by her sister’s side. “Oh, yes,” answered the Gwyllions’ chieftain. “Their human minds are fully open now. Furiously calling us. It’s time to reap their souls,” she said and spurred her goat. The enormous bluish goats responded to their master riders on their backs, and streaked down the hill. The ground below vibrated under their hooves and the Gwyllions’ colourless hair and dark blue tunics flapped in the wind. Large scythes appeared in their hands, slashing the air, as they charged. But those victims apparently trapped into the mire showed their true colours as soon as the first chops cut off the heads of the first human victims. One by one, the heads rolled down the hillside, deadening those deceiving wails of agony. Vermilion balls of light left those human frames, 269

German Bradley climbing into that sepia sky to transform into what they really were—the spirits of chaos. “Retreat!” Medana screamed, bringing her goat to a halt, looking skywards. “It was an ambush! They’ve baited a trap for us! Retreat!” Above her, countless monstrosities, with sewn eyes and worn out leather protections, hovered over the reservoir like a plague of flies. They seemed to look on and smile while the Gwyllions below couldn’t believe their eyes. The Wraiths wouldn’t remain up there as mere onlookers, however. Their arms shot forwards and their rotten fingers grew ten times their size, turning into long hairy black-and-yellow-striped spider legs whose tips ended up in gleaming stings. Despite their moments were jerky and spasmodic, the Gwyllions managed to evade those legs again and again, sliding and lopping off those impossible fingers with their scythes. But that plague of Wraiths swept over them, smiting down all they could reach, driving the Gwyllions back to a certain point in the middle of the pikes. Fear was no longer on the Gwyllions’ faces. They were already drenched with the Wraiths’ blood and their eyes widened into a deadly delight at the sight of a dozen corpses sprawled around them. The enormous Ceffyl-dwrs defended their masters as wells, springing out towards the Wraiths and kicking their rotten bodies in the air. 270

Metempsychosis Blizzard spouted from their mouths, as they went after them in that greenish yellow sky. Many Wraiths perished in flight, in that blizzard, but many stings viciously pierced the goats’ brows as well, right between their horns. The creatures pitched back in the air, as if lightning jolted their brains. Their riders toppled down from their backs, and the Wraiths’ stings continued hammering away at the goats’ quivering bodies. Once on the ground, the riders watched how the Wraiths tore and devoured the flesh of their loyal mounts, as if they were a pack of hyenas. A sudden quake, however, deflected the Gwyllions’ attention from the killing above. Something rose from below their feet at the time the pikes around turned into snakes and hissed at them. This time the Gwyllions’ dark strength surged through them and their scythes were lost to view. Arrows of fire flew from their palms and burnt the scaly skin of the nearby snakes, and the souls they had imprisoned too. Yet the thing beneath their feet had finally burst into view in the middle of those wails and shrieks. It looked like an old oak trunk, covered with living roots that moved in twists and glides all over that thick stem. “Stand your ground, sisters!” screamed Medana. “I’ll chop up this trunk myself!” An axe appeared in her hands, and her lips 271

German Bradley drew back from her teeth in a grimace at the time she made her first stroke. “Your tricky axe is useless, Medana,” said a female voice from inside the trunk. But the Gwyllions’ chieftain didn’t seem to heed those words and neither could she see the roots dashing towards her at high speed. She was blind to everything but rage. And the tree trunk turned into flesh and skin, and the Mistress opened her arms to show Medana her warm bright light. “Gaze on me, Medana. Gaze on your death,” the Mistress growled, as her eyes met the Gwyllion chieftain’s. Her mouth grew into an impossible and abysmal yawn that closed in on her. In a tick, the Mistress’s mouth closed and her face regained its proportion and beauty, but Medana was no longer there. She had crossed a wormhole in space and now she found herself somewhere else locked in an octagonal lobby. Mord had looked the scene askance. She had noticed the Mistress reeled for a while and her light was still warm and bright on her chest. So, without thinking twice, she separated the Mistress’s head from her body with a single swing of her sharp scythe.

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Chapter 11

T

here was a sudden change in the heavens. The clouds had gone. There was neither sun nor moon; however, a cold grey glowing filled the sky. The ground below was grey as well, and silver, but the tree trunk, which had swallowed the Gwyllion chieftain, was bleeding. Even though not all the Wraiths had witnessed the moment when the scythe had severed the Mistress’s head, all of them had heard her earsplitting wail. Time stood still. The battle stopped as well, and the bleeding tree opened itself like a portal to show the octagonal lobby inside the Mistress’s cathedral. Medana was there, suspended in the air. Long and strong tentacles had manacled to her wrists and ankles, spreading her arms and legs, as if she were bound to an invisible cross. She tried to shake off, but those tentacles seemed to be made of iron. Mud came out of her mouth, nostrils and ears, and her eyelids began to close. She was 273

German Bradley having difficulty in breathing. She was dying, actually. There was a general sense of panic among the Wraiths; they couldn’t believe their eyes. Few metres away, and almost in front of their vermilion eyes, the Mistress’s head lay on the ground with her lifeless eyes wide open. The two remaining Gwyllions took full advantage of that diversion, and flew away in disorder towards the town. They didn’t care for their sister, of course. They didn’t care for anything or anybody but themselves. But they hadn’t reached Harlech castle when a strong magnetic force made them go up, as if a huge invisible wall were just there in front of them. And up they went. “What are you doing?” asked Mord. “Why are we ascending? What’s your plan?” Mord was sure Llys had activated her powers to take her to a safer place, but couldn’t see neither the dimensional paths nor the holes in space and time in that grey sky. “I don’t know,” said Llys, as they ascended at high speed. “I thought you had a plan. I’m just following you.” And they continued climbing, but there was a limit in the firmament for them. They had got to a point where an invisible ceiling didn’t allow them to reach any further in the heavens. It was an 274

Metempsychosis invisible barrier or a magnetic field perhaps that forced them down and back to the valley. Mord and Llys looked at each other. They seemed to be under a powerful spell and felt a cold flush course through them. There was confusion and disbelief in their gaze and the whole sky began to spin. They descended at such a speed that their eyes could hardly squint at another rising mass down there on the ground, a mass that slowly turned into a fantastic wrestler. Tendrils rose from that wrestler, and flew in search of those falling demons, as if they were living snakes ready to give them their most deadly welcome. A hideous growl escaped the wrestler’s throat as well, like a loud crash of thunder. Mord’s eyes enlarged with fear at the sight of those tips. She saw faces there: Gwyn’s, Oeth’s, the Wraiths’. “Don’t look at them!” Llys shouted by her side. “It’s only a trick! An illusion! They can’t hurt you!” But it was too late for Mord. She had already produced a long spear of light that started to open a wormhole in time and space. She was fighting the illusions with illusions of herself. “No!” cried Llys, but the wormhole had already bloomed like a grandiose flower in front of them, in the middle of nowhere, and they were falling right into it. A weird vapour concealed their view as they 275

German Bradley entered their own dimensional portal. They were not falling any more, but floating. “What sort of world is this?” said Llys in a low voice while Mord’s eyes looked for something familiar in the middle of that foggy space. “I don’t remember we’ve ever trampled this land,” continued Llys, her feet touching solid floor. “You’re right, Llys,” said the voice of a woman somewhere near her. “You’ve never come to my place before.” Long roots came out of nowhere and enwrapped Llys’s wrists, forcing her to spread her arms, raising her body high inside that octagonal room. More roots coiled themselves around her ankles, forcing her legs into an inverted V position. Vapour began to lift, and every detail and angle revealed itself in that room. Medana was there, as well, of course, almost in front of them, in a state of suspended animation. Her head was bent over her chest. Her colourless hair was just a lifeless cascade that concealed her face. But they were not alone. A tall woman observed them from a corner of that lobby and smiled. A primitive and hostile force came out of her. “The three treacherous Gwyllions are here,” she said and laughed, “in my cathedral.” The Gwyllions just looked at their limbs and followed the roots to their true origin—the bluish276

Metempsychosis skinned woman. Every tendril, every root and tentacle came out of her head, as if all of them were part of her own hair. “Who are you?” asked Llys, defiantly. She didn’t have the slightest idea about who that strange woman was or why they were prisoners to her. She was afraid as well. That bluish-skinned woman exuded such a strong and threatening power that made Llys think she was back in the Underworld with her master Gwyn, but the roots around her wrists and ankles broke her back to reality. “You must be a creature of the Underworld,” she dared to say so as to try to persuade her. “We belong to the same master. Why are you doing this to us?” The woman came up to her and gazed into her eyes. For a second, Llys noticed something familiar in those eyes, something that belonged to the Gwyllions only. “Simon!” the woman said. “Come and see your former masters here. They’ve gathered together and can’t wait to see you again.” “Simon?” asked Llys, surprised. “Is he alive? Do you have him here?” The woman just moved away without saying a word. The tiles she had stepped on an instant ago cracked and broke as something big started to emerge from the floor. A muddy dreadful hairless head, mounted on strong shoulders, tossed and 277

German Bradley wriggled while clots of mud and tiles crumbled away from it. The creature’s minute and malevolent eyes focused on Llys and studied her intently. Its mouth drooled, showing its horrible set of teeth. In astonishment, Llys and Mord watched how that enormous thing worked its way out of the earth and rose before them with all those strands of flesh hanging out of its wrists, waist, back, head and cheeks. “They don’t look that arrogant and fierce now, do they?” said the woman again, showing him her prisoners. The creature bent over the androgynous demons and growled. “Who will be the first, Simon? Choose the one you hate the most.” The creature turned its head and looked at the woman. “Come on, don’t be coy. I know you’re dying to kill them. Your heart is shouting their names, but I can grant you only of them. Choose.” But the creature’s falter and hesitation had given precious time to the captive Gwyllions. They knew what they were dealing with now, and that knowledge had reassured their dark powers immensely. The humiliation of knowing they were in the grasp of a lower enemy had made their hackles rise. Ear-piercing wails escaped their 278

Metempsychosis throats at the time their astral bodies left their physical bodies and passed on between the creature’s and the woman’s side. Pale purple lights filled their empty eye-sockets, as they soared up, like ethereal eagles, almost to the central glazed lantern that bathed the room and made their own astral bodies almost invisible under those pale golden tones. But they turned abruptly in the air and looked down. Their luminous sockets had focused on the astonished woman below. A sudden flash of electricity sent out an intense brightness, which turned into a rain of small and solid spines that fell and dug into the woman’s face and eyes in less than a second. Resounding bawls and shrieks burst from the woman’s lips while her dark blood was dripping from her countless wounds. She could no longer see. The spines had already disintegrated both her pupils and her eyeballs. She desperately tried to draw them out of her skin, but there was magic in those sharp pieces of bone, and the more she pulled them out the deeper they sank. The woman’s energy was running wild all over her body and the whole place quaked. Her whole body had turned into a mass of violet and silver colours that grew larger and larger, sending out flashes of forked lightning. Her energy could no longer bind her patterns nor form her shape. The tentacles that held the Gwyllions’ bodies had 279

German Bradley turned into thin fog that slowly faded away. The bodies fell full length, like remains, but Medana’s began to move. She tried to stand but she looked too weak. The small oval cells in which she had kept the wandering human souls she’d found in Harlech had broken up, releasing their precious load. The Gwyllions hovered in the air, watching those miserable souls. They looked like defenceless moths, looking for the protection of the woman’s aura, skimming and flitting around her blinding mass. There were so many of them, and they were so afraid. **** A terrible roaring escaped the lips of the creature below. Suddenly, the red-skinned wrestler had mastered his own responsiveness again and lifted one of his arms, allowing the strands in his wrists to shoot up towards the demons that swerved around the columns above. But his attempt to swathe them failed. The Gwyllions had somehow guessed what he would do and swiftly moved downwards at one swoop. He followed their zigzagging movements but his strands failed again and again. The Gwyllions flew like flies in the air and laughed at his shooting skills. “You’re so predictable, apprentice. Even in that 280

Metempsychosis powerful guise you’re dwelling now,” said Mord at the time her sister opened her incorporeal mouth and spouted another rain of spines at his body. Those pieces of bone seemed to be alive inside the wrestler’s flesh. They were like bits, drilling his nerves and bones. He saw the gleaming violet and silver mass that lay on the flagstone floor. That used to be his Mistress, he thought. She had given him a new body. She had made him her ally. She trusted him, but now she was dying. He had to do something. He had to save her. “So your Mistress is actually our betrayer, isn’t she?” Mord said, entering her body again. “Oeth.” The wrestler tried to move but a new wave of nails sank into his skin, covering every single pore of his. “Where is her offspring?” asked Llys, back in her body too. “She was the only one who could set Oeth free. I’m sure you know where she is.” “Show us,” continued Mord. “We are looking forward to meeting her.” Despite the agonising pain of the bits inside his body, the wrestler managed to walk a couple of slow steps towards his Mistress, but the androgynous demons blocked his stumble and remained standing there in the middle of his way. He gazed into their colourless eyes and growled. Their evil forces had already entered his flesh and 281

German Bradley ran through his arteries. In a couple of seconds his whole system was invaded and examined by those demons. He felt them in his brain, in his memories, in his pain. They took him back to the Reservoir of Souls. And they knew. “Oh, Simon,” said Mord in a sweet tone. “You were never good at keeping secrets.” Another voice spoke in his head, though-“Don’t listen to them. Remember what you are.” It was the Mistress’s. “I’m dying, warlock. Let the power rise. Let the anger grow. Don’t fight it off. Help me! Help me!” He closed his eye and offered no resistance to the bits that bored hundreds of tunnels through his flesh and bones. He let them in. He let the Gwyllions’ baneful minds in as well. He understood he didn’t have to confront their powers but merge his with theirs. He just relaxed and opened himself to his enemies. The more he revealed the harder it was for them to leave his own sorcery. He let them explore the maze of his mind. He let them see the fantastic creatures of the small mountain lake. He showed them he was associated with the Mistress in such an intricate way that the Gwyllions felt they had been caught in her very core. And they found out what he was—a warlock, a nebula. A microcosm that squeezed and absorbed their powers and living force to the last drop. And that cloud of gas and 282

Metempsychosis dust merged with the Mistress’s aura, forming a new magical frame—a ribbon of energy that connected all times and all dimensions. There was only one central nucleus in this ribbon that filled the void with streams of high-energy charged particles. There was a confusion of yells, whines and growls in that nucleus, but, in the middle of that bombardment of energy and screams, a female voice spoke: “Can you hear the shrieks of their souls?” It was the Mistress’s soft voice that was communicating with his mind. “They’re cursing us, warlock. They’re cursing themselves, but they are not alone there. You absorbed the remaining of their master as well. Look, warlock. Look what you’ve done. Stare at the nucleus.” His eyes fixed on the centre of the nucleus and saw a diffuse mass swirling there. A huge and milky white face with all-seeing eyes slowly spoiled its form and turned into thin froth that finally vanished in a black ocean of calmed waters. And the shrieks ceased in the wrestler mindscape. “It’s over, Simon. We got our revenge.”

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Chapter 12

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ittle by little that ribbon of energy began to disappear and Simon opened his eyes. Perplexed, he found himself lying on the soft, mulch-covered shore of a familiar light brown tarn. By instinct, he looked at himself and found as well that his red flesh was covered with spines. He didn’t felt pain, however. In fact, he felt incredibly warm and protected there. “It’s time to use the power you hold.” A low voice spoke from the lake, and Simon turned his head and looked in its direction. A fantastic creature was rising from the glass-still surface. “There’s another being in need of your power now,” the creature said without moving its lips, but approaching him. “Don’t abandon her. Don’t cast her aside. She needs you now.” The creature’s long and spongy fingers began to draw out the spines from his flesh. To his surprised, there were no stains of blood on those spines and he felt no pain either, but there was an 284

Metempsychosis overwhelming energy running all over his body. Healing his wounds. “Everything you see and feel in this place is actually inside you, Simon,” the creature spoke again, and for the first time, the wrestler looked at its tiny head intently. He saw its black eyeballs and orange pupils. He saw its antennae and its crablike mouth. “We live inside you,” continued the creature, while others similar to it rose from the lake’s depths and helped him with his spines. “We’ve been there with you before you dropped out of the cosmic tank.” Simon growled loud and pushed the creatures away. He couldn’t think. His thoughts were in total disarray. He was unable to understand what the creature was saying. “You wanted to know what the world of men was like,” the creature continued. “You went down there in search of a body, material body. You longed for living the experiences mortal people usually live. You yearned for affection and the weakness of the flesh. You wanted to know things such as: pain, love and fear. But what did you find at the end? What was there in the world of men? Lies, illusions. Discouragement and rejection. Chimerical emotions made by the Gwyllions.” Once again, Simon’s human past came back to his memories, like a revision that brought him distress. He saw other visions there as well. Blurred shapes and shifting patterns of lights and gases. They were other entities and forces similar 285

German Bradley to his; other microcosms charged with energy and infinite power. Who are you? The inevitable question rose in his mind. Why are you helping me? “We are your fathers warlock. The sowers of life and, masters of sorcery,” said the creature’s voice. “But that’s not important now. You must bring the Mistress here. She’s dying.” The Mistress, Simon suddenly thought, and uttered he a low growl. The memory of her body covered with spines was still fresh in his mind. But didn’t know how to get back to the cathedral. He didn’t even know how he had come to the tarn! “Your dimensions are intertwined. Both of you are connected. You were meant to meet each other.” The wrestler remembered the nebula, the nucleus. The creature was right. He and the Mistress were one single being. “Turn your head, warlock, and look to your left.” And there she was, lying motionless on her own blood, some metres away. He growled again, this time in anger, and found himself by her side. Perplexed, he looked down at her and back to the place where he had lain before. He had neither walked nor stood! He had just wanted to be near her and he was just there, knelt by the Mistress’s side! “You’re not bond to the men’s physical laws here,” 286

Metempsychosis the creature said once again. “It is your mind and thoughts what rule your actions now.” The wrestler held one of her hands and gently started to draw the spines out from her arm. He didn’t want to see her that way; he didn’t want her to suffer. He wanted to see her bluish skin flawless and undamaged again. And flawless her skin became. All of a sudden the spines on her body had gone and she looked as young and fresh as the first time he set eyes on her. There was no trace of injuries or wounds on her skin. Nothing. But her face was eyeless and she still lay inert on the ground. “It is more than wishes what she needs now,” the creature’s voice said again. “She needs your energy. She needs your life-force.” And sank into the calmed lake, leaving him alone with the Mistress. He growled and shook her by the shoulder, but nothing happened. Suddenly he thought that maybe the water of the lake could have the force she needed to be restored. And water poured down on her body and face, but nothing changed, either. Grief enwrapped his whole system and soul, as he began to think of what she had done for him in the past. He saw that comfortable greenish light that bathed and restored his astral body in the cathedral. He saw his own new body and grunted 287

German Bradley his grief. He felt he had failed her expectations. He had spoiled her plans, and hadn’t been able to defend her from harm. His grunts grew deeper and louder, as he held the Mistress to him in a tight and warm embrace. The landscape began to change around them, but he couldn’t notice it. His mind was fixed in the memory of the nebula, the microcosm that had absorbed the Gwyllions’ force. He let himself float in a ribbon of energy that seemed to come out of his own body. Hundreds of protoplasmic masses started to rise from that ribbon. Tides of energy flowed from the very core of his soul towards the bluish body in his arms. Then there were no landscape, ribbons or tides. Everything had mixed and combined in such a way that was impossible to tell who was who or where was what. Everything had suddenly turned into sheer engulfing energy, until the Mistress spoke. “I knew I could count on you, warlock. I knew it.” **** The Mistress had survived indeed, and rested in the wrestler’s strong arms. She felt grateful and safe in her cathedral. She had said she missed her home and asked the wrestler to take her back. And there she was, looking at her saviour, irradiating her unhealthy beauty. 288

Metempsychosis “We have made them pay,” she said, looking at the corpses of the Gwyllions that drifted in the air like substantial ghosts. “It’s time to tell the good news.” She looked up at the wrestler again. “The city is waiting. The primordial chaos has been established again.” She stood and walked towards one of the windows of that chamber and opened it. Outside the sky was light magenta and the Wraiths flew in large circles both around the cathedral and over the city. The air was cold and fresh. The enormous rocky walls were still there on the outskirts, but the Mistress knew they weren’t impenetrable any more. She could hear the growls and squeals of the swine monsters below, on the rough and large stones. She heard the impact of their maces on the ground as well. They had already seen her and were eager to know who the victor was. “Bring me their heads,” the Mistress commanded the wrestler without turning to see him. Her eyes were fixed on the magenta sky. One by one, and with his own hands, the wrestler tore the Gwyllions’ heads away with one tug. He carried them, in a cluster, by their hair and approached the Mistress; he growled and handed them to her. “Show them to the rest,” said the Mistress, passing the heads to the flying Wraiths. “Spread the news. Let the swine monsters see their faces 289

German Bradley before they guzzled them.” She saw them flying away and said without turning to the wrestler: “There’s something I need to tell you.” There was sadness in her voice. “You’re an extraordinary warlock, Simon. Of course you already know that,” she frowned, struggling to find the right words. “You were endowed by nature with the gift of eternity,” she said quietly and glanced at him. “You’re undying, immortal and my loyal Wraiths and the swine monsters down there are waiting for another ultimate act of magic of yours. They want you to open the portals that communicate my city with other realities. They want you to let them go to establish chaos on the human plane again. The illusions are over. Humans must return to their primal state—the only state for them, anyway— and the Wraiths must regain their realm.” The wrestler was stunned. The gift of eternity? Immortal? He repeated on and on in his mind, but he wasn’t sure of the real meaning of those words. He gazed at the Mistress and his own past suddenly crystallised in her colourless pupils. The images of his multiple experiences and incarnations followed one another swiftly and in chronological order. Every emotion and feeling associated with them was re-lived as well, at once, with one mental glance. He had been a human being before and a non-human flying creature as 290

Metempsychosis well. He had lived in so many seas. He had transmigrated into so many forms; he had battled so many wars. He had his own temple once. He had seen worlds appear and disappear. All the happiness and sorrow of an infinite life displayed their secrets before his eyes. The Mistress was right. He had seen himself at death’s door a thousand times, but he could not die. There seemed to be no power to crush him. No force could do away with him. He was a seeker, an eternal pilgrim in search of the most meaningful need of his soul—acceptance and the complete knowledge of himself. He was a unique warlock who was above good and evil. The Mistress blinked and the images dissolved, but those memories remained imprinted in the periphery of his mind, understanding dawned in his eyes. “You could finish me off now, if you wanted,” she said, her voice brittle. “You can sweep this city away and turn it into your temple. Our fate is in your hands, seeker. But my people trust you, and so do I.” The wrestler bowed. He would never do that to her. He had found his true identity through her. He would never betray her. The sight of those headless bodies on the floor, however, reminded him of the true betrayers they had dispatched. The search was over. 291

German Bradley “What should we do with the bodies?” She had read his mind. The wrestler nodded to her and thought: those are the true betrayers, Mistress. Those were your enemies, not me. He looked down at them and slobbered. “Oh, yes. We’ll eat them together, of course, in honour to our durable alliance, but as I said before, the city is waiting for you to open the portals, and you must be dressed according to the occasion.” The wrestler bowed his thanks. “I’ve got the right clothing,” she continued. “Gaze on me, warlock. See what’s in my mind.” Two pieces of garment materialised in her thoughts and floated almost in front of her. A sort of greasy and rudimentary waistcoat and a long loincloth. “The raw material is available at your feet,” she said. “You only have to flay and sew it,” she added, pointing to the corpses. “Use your hands, Simon. Take pleasure in doing it with your own hands.” The wrestler grunted and bowed. His fingernails turned into sharp blades that started to cut and take the Gwyllions’ skin off. He fastened the loincloth around his waist first, using the straps of flesh he’d flayed from the Gwyllions’ legs; then, he put on the waistcoat and stood for 292

Metempsychosis his Mistress to see him. “The greasy blood-stained skin of the Gwyllions looks good with your skin, Simon. Very impressive.” She heard the squeals and growls of the swine monsters outside and turned to look at the city. “Don’t keep them waiting, Simon. They want to see the victors. Come on. Let’s take our food with us. We can share it if they want.”

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German Bradley

Chapter 13

I

t was the feeling of being centre stage what made him feel so good when walking the city by the Mistress’s side for the first time. Both Wraiths and swine monsters made him feel important, almost like a hero, and he loved that display of recognition and admiration. Wherever he went more and more creatures wanted to be near him. They wanted to touch his skin, those long strandlike appendages of flesh, and the greasy clothing he wore. He saw their devotion and respect in their eyes, but there was more than that. He noticed an unquestioning confidence in those eyes, a confidence that gave him a sense of supremacy. His sole presence seemed to ennoble every creature by his side, and the Mistress knew it and smiled. “Welcome, Grand Magus. Welcome,” he heard them growled, as they offered the skulls of the androgynous demons to decorate his loincloth. He growled with them, of course, and fed on the 294

Metempsychosis Gwyllions’ flesh as well, but the Mistress spoke. “I promised you a victory and a victory we had. I promised you this city wouldn’t be another place of confinement but a door to myriad of realities.” The whole city thundered under the growls of its inhabitants. The wrestler began to walk. “This warlock is here to show us those realities. This seeker is here to make a matrix out of this city.” The wrestler had already reached the centre of the city while the Mistress rose her arms and pointed to the sky. The whole landscape darkened. A vast spasm of white light came out of the wrestler’s extended arms and swiftly expanded across the city and crashed into invisible walls at the four cardinal points. The wrestler had turned into some sort of energy generator and the Wraiths watched him with wide eyes behind the Mistress. The swine monsters, in turn, dropped to their knees and worshipped him as if he were a new god. The portals finally opened like huge windows that showed other time, other dimensions, and the Earth. “There they are my loyal Wraiths,” the Mistress said. “The world of men is open for you to design at will. Go my friends and build chaos again.” “Thank you Mistress for allowing us to set off 295

German Bradley on this journey,” said Hiraethog and bowed. “But we want you to know this city will always be our home.” The Mistress smiled and watched them fly away like a flock of large bats. The Earth was calling and they were eager to show their power. She saw them entering the world of men and the land went back in time. Clouds got thicker and the whole atmosphere turned denser. Cities and their technology disappeared beneath the Wraiths’ wings. Dark threatening forests and caves came into view instead. Here and there, deserts spread their barren mantels and prehistoric structures rose, setting the right time for those barbarian humans to live. Fire, leather armours and carts was all the knowledge they needed. The Wraiths controlled the natural laws on Earth. But even though she knew they were powerful again, she couldn’t help feeling sad because of their leaving. They’ll come back. A sudden thought came to her mind. You know they’ll come back. She turned and saw the wrestler was behind her, looking at her. “I know Simon. I know. Besides, the swine monsters have decided to stay here, aren’t they?” In fact, those fierce-looking guardians of the city hadn’t moved from where they stood. They were looking at their Mistress and the warlock next to her. She had created them to protect her city, and they wouldn’t change their mission. 296

Metempsychosis Aren’t you afraid they might get bored living this monotony? The thought came from the wrestler. Warriors need hostility. “And a proper battlefield as well,” she added and moved her arms. Obeying her mental commands, the rough and large stones turned into extravagant, twelve-sided towers that rose to a dizzying height. Five bridges joined one another at every one of those twelve sides, forming a maze of narrow flyovers and underpasses that waited to be explored. Then the Mistress stretched her arms to the north and a horde of nasty biped beasts, half humans and half jackals, came in from the open portal. The low sound of the horns echoed everywhere, raising the alarm. In a second, full-throated roars and growls mixed in the air, and the two armies rushed at each other, swords, maces and axes at the ready. They adore combat, the wrestler thought, beholding the bloodshed. Both swine monsters and biped jackals fell from the bridges above like tree trunks. Swords and axes pierced their lifeless bodies, but the Mistress’s monsters could not die. They rose again from the dead, stronger than ever, and continued fighting, climbing the towers in search of the invaders, offering their trophies both to their Mistress and the wrestler himself. “They adore you, Simon,” she said and wheeled to walk back to the cathedral. “You 297

German Bradley already belong to this city. You know that, so you don’t need to go, but if you really want to ...” I would be pleased if you let me stay. The thought came fast from the wrestler’s mind. “It’s good to know that, warlock, because I’m thinking of having a child with you.” They were about to push the cathedral doors open when the wrestler’s memories flashed in front of him, on the wooden surface of the doors. On impulse, he looked through the volumes of his eternal life, trying to find some remembrance of him as a father or as a mother, but he found none. “There’s always a first time.” His memories vanished when he turned to look at the Mistress. He was scared. He didn’t know what to say. Nobody had ever asked him something like that. Had she fallen in love with him? “I don’t know what love is, Simon. I only know that we belong to each other and I need company here. Your company,” the Mistress explained, mildly. “I want to know what to be a mother is like.” The wrestler was puzzled. His tiny eyes looked at the Mistress, but he couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. “Am not I attractive enough to you?” the Mistress smiled. There was a burning intensity in her eyes. “Don’t you fancy me?” 298

Metempsychosis She got closer, her hands began to feel the softness of his skin. They had already entered her cloverleaf-shaped vault, near the furs she used as bed. The wrestler was trembling, but couldn’t help grunting when she touched his most sensitive parts beneath his loincloth. He had already tasted the joys of carnality before, albeit it had been totally different. “I do want to feel the weakness of the flesh,” she said, pushing him down on the furs. “Let me see what you have there.” Kneeling down upon his thighs, the Mistress whipped his loincloth off and watched his limp cock for a while. She could even hear the wrestler’s heart thumping fast with anxiety, although he didn’t seem to know what to do. He just looked at her, mesmerised, as she undressed in front of him and bent over him. Her fingers gently massaged his cock and a gasp escaped his lips. She slipped her lips over his glans and swilled her tongue around that head, pumping her hand up and down the base of him. The wrestler groaned and grimaced down at her. It seemed to him as if she had surrendered herself to his cock, honouring and worshipping him as if he were the divine male principle she had been looking for, and the whole idea made his member grow inside her mouth. He felt the Mistress’s hot breathing through her nose, and his cock turned as hard and 299

German Bradley thick as the branch of a tree. She tried to take in as much as she could manage as one of her hands grabbed his hairy arse and the other massaged the soft skin of his scrotum. His balls evaded her fingers as she grasped at them. Unconsciously, his hips began to push and buck upwards, forcing him deeper inside her mouth, causing her jaws to stretch to their furthest extreme. And she met his thrusts with her throat, pulling him all the way into her, holding him there while she rubbed her face over his groin and played with his balls. “I like this big toy of yours,” she said, after letting go his oversized cock. The wrestler was trembling, though. There was a new mix of feeling inside him. He was going mad with lust for but he also felt an intimate, emotional connection between each other full of affection. “Don’t worry,” she reassured him, kneeling down upon him. “Just let yourself go.” She dipped her hips and felt that thick monster part her lips. Every muscle in his body quivered when he felt the pressure of her thighs against his flanks. She leant over and down, clasping his thighs between hers, tightening and pulsating her vaginal muscles to keep him hard inside. She gently kissed his chest and his nipples for a while, as he felt an enormous energy ascending towards 300

Metempsychosis his brain, opening up his psychic centres to bring him to a higher state of realisation. She stopped kissing him and lifted herself. She started to work her hips up and down on him, letting him sink all the way into her engorged passage. But the energy he felt inside and the urge itself was too much for him to control. He grabbed her and held her still, thrusting against her deeper, harder, until none of them could go on. Their copulation result was immediate. Her breasts became larger and the big areole turned tawnier and tawnier. Her belly swelled, like an enormous balloon, irradiating an inner purple phosphorescence that bathed the whole chamber. The skin of her belly was translucent. A sluggish humped form moved inside her. “I’m having our child, warlock,” the Mistress said, trying to ignore the pain in her belly and legs, but the grimace on her face betrayed her. “Don’t worry. You needn’t do anything,” she gushed. “I just want you to see it. I want to feel you near.” Suddenly, contractions told her time had come. The wrestler waited, silently. He was still mesmerised by the sight he saw. “It’s coming! It’s coming!” She blew and puffed fast. She cried out in pain and laid herself flat on the furs, in front of him, parting her legs, allowing him to gape into her sex. A pulsating slot of 301

German Bradley swollen dark purple lips that clung together, hemmed in by a pelt of black hair. A big naked nodule crept from its sheath, like the head of his own erection. She gripped the furs and pushed amid furious shrieks that seemed to echo everywhere. Her labia started to split, expanding to a size the wrestler thought impossible for her pussy. Then, the humped thing pulled through that cavity, almost tearing her flesh. A stench came out of her sex at the time she shat that purple bloodstained shapeless form with limbs that could be either arms or legs. A horrible yell came out of that thing and a couple of empty and lidless eyes stared at its creator. “Isn’t he beautiful?” the Mistress asked and sat on the furs, reaching down, inserting one of her hands into her pussy. The wrestler growled, alarmed at the fact that she might shit twins. “I’m just cleaning myself,” she said, getting the rest of the placenta out of her body. The new-born thing was creeping towards its father, looking for his protection. “He needs you,” said the Mistress, mopping the after-birth from her inner thighs with the fabric of her own dress. “Hold him in your arms,” she invited. “Feel how warm he is.” The wrestler did as he was told, and a purple 302

Metempsychosis light began to move beneath the skin of his son, which rolled and turned over in his arms like a little animal. The creature’s long tail coiled around the wrestler’s neck. Its heartbeat slowed down and its breathing became deeper and deeper. Its eyes rolled into the back of its head and disappeared. Nothing could disturb the slumber of that newborn thing, not even the roars nor the smell of death coming from the battlefield outside. The wrestler stood, walked to the window, carrying his son, and looked through the pane without glass. The atmosphere was dense with the souls of hundreds of beasts that had died in the battle. They passed by, floating in the air, looking for a place to go, searching for a guiding master. In the wrestler’s arms, still asleep, the mass swelled and writhed beneath its almost translucent skin, and those wandering souls flew to meet it. The mass was calling them, and, one after another; they heard that request, obediently entering its skin. “He’s found his food,” the Mistress said, delighted. Outside, the battle had ceased. The victorious swine monsters celebrated and ate the bodies of those jackal invaders. They thanked their Mistress and the Grand Magus for the feast they had given to them. Inside the cathedral, Simon just watched the mass in his arms and felt proud of the gift his 303

German Bradley cosmic fathers, the creatures of the tarn, had given to him. He turned to look into the Mistress’s eyes but there were no images of his previous lives in those colourless pupils. He saw a huge puzzle floating in the cosmos instead; its pieces were spread all over like stars in the firmament. As she put those pictures together he realised that puzzle represented his own future. But there was one final missing image in that future ... “Could you show me the missing image hidden in your mind?” The Mistress’s voice made him blink and he noticed she was not alone in that chamber. His cosmic fathers had materialised just behind her! “What is in your mind now?” One of the creatures asked. The image was too clear for all to see. Simon’s eyes were fixed on the Mistress who smiled in front of him. She was the answer to his questions. She was the creature he would live the rest of his eternal lifetime with. “Well done,” said another creature. “This is the place we wanted you to find. This is the spouse you were destined to meet. Your lineage shall remain unbroken for all eternity. For both of you were seekers who lived on borrowed times from a fate you’re about to understand.” “We are all pawns in this universe,” said the first creature, staring at the mass in the wrestler’s arms. “Even the threads of our own existence have been 304

Metempsychosis manufactured and preordained by beings we’ll never be able to see. We are all seekers, as well, and none of us can make the journey alone.” For the first time in Simon’s life everything began to make sense: he had found a family of his own in the Mistress and the son he was carrying in his arms, he had found his true home in that city and had met his lineage as well. Now he understood he’d made a mistake by living in the world of men; there was no happiness among men, there was no way to find acceptance in a world eaten with the false illusions and hatred of an ancient god. “Come, Simon.” The Mistress’s voice brought his thoughts back to the chamber. His cosmic fathers had already gone. “Leave our child in the bed and take my hand,” the Mistress invited him. “Your woman is willing to know what love is. She’s eager to feel her husband again.” He held her hand and let himself guide out of that room. Now he knew who he really was and where he had to stay.

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About the Author

G

erman Bradley is a dark fiction author and selftaught oil painter. His personal experience with the occult and his fascination for dark rites and cults of ancient mythologies has given him the background for his writing.