A Pantomime of Deviltry and Debauch in Seven Acts

Tattered and stained parchment signs lead you through a maze of dark woods and damp leaves; a curl of opium smoke, black musk and floral perfume compels you through the darkness towards the firelight in the distance. The faraway wailing of a phantom calliope grows louder as you approach the isolated clearing, and creaking gates announce your arrival. Massive crumbling statues adorn the gates, depicting a surrealistic scene of cavorting imps, grinning demons, and heavy-lidded succubi. A huge neon sign hums and sparks, marking the entrance:

It flashes, “Carnaval Diabolique”.

It is midnight on the midway, and in the air, the scent of nighttime rain, ozone, and heavy summer blooms mingles with thick incense, and a disconcerting blend of sugar and brimstone. Black and orange banners flutter in sinister gaiety, snapping weirdly in the chill breeze as lightning slashes through the sky. In the gloom, the Carnaval thrums with life and unlife; the murmuration is low-pitched, punctuated by gasps, soft cries, and moans, and the smooth, resonant voices of the carnaval talkers, grinders, candy butchers, and pitchmen carry over it all.

A surge of warm, dark bodies buoys you along, pulling you past the crowded, candle-lit entrances to innumerable tents striped in bone white, blood red, pumpkin orange and twilight violet canvas. Through the shadows cast by the gaslamps and swinging red lanterns, you move through the ghoulish entertainment.

Before you stands a tent, striped in orange and black canvas. The tent seems impossibly large; its tattered black banners snap in the chill wind. The Carny Talker slaps his cane upon a bare spot on the canvas wall, and a huge golden mouth bursts forth from the fabric forming a gleaming fanged entryway illuminated by flashing white bulbs. An ornate sign unfurls above the doorway, and in a florid script it reads, “The Parliament of Monsters”. The Carny Talker grins at you malevolently, gestures at the gaping maw with his cane, and barks, “Step this way, my friends! Through this doorway you will find the most magnificent and mind-shattering marvels of the multiverse! Each and every one of these fantastic and fearsome freaks has committed their spirit, nay! — their very soul! — to an unlife of unrepentant sin and unwholesome debauchery! Not simply a common display of human and inhuman oddities, these are both the shunned and misbegotten children of nature, and those whose very visages show that they have willingly and – YES, eagerly! – walked the crooked path of turpitude! Their sins ARE their salvations, as you shall soon see, my friends, and these marvelous monstrosities present the tapestry of their depravity to you in all of its ghastly glory and sinister splendor! EACH is a Prometheus of perversity! THIS, and THIS ALONE, is the finest display of decadence and depredation in all the hells! Yours, for your education and elucidation, for a nominal entrance fee…”

He tips his hat, grins, and steps aside, gesturing for you to enter.

The flames leap from Priala’s body, touching the dry canvas walls, setting the 13-in-1 aflame. Squinting your eyes against the blinding bursts of light and motion, you see a sign on the wall that reads “TO THE EGRESS”. Staggering through the fire, you make your way out of the tent and back onto the rain-slick Midway.

A cluster of wooden wagons stands off to the side of the Midway, removed from the bustle of the dirt-caked makeshift street. A bonfire burns in the center of the lot, shining its light on a tattoo-covered woman. The images embedded in her skin writhe like living things, and the sigils that mark her glow faintly. She is filing her nails and smoking a cheroot while chatting idly with an impassive naked blonde who has been hoisted into the air by thick, gleaming meathooks. The blonde is pinioned; the blackened metal cables that bind her hang tightly from the branches of a massive grey oak. Her skin seems strangely translucent, and her veins and arteries are boldly visible. Two painted signs are propped, sideways, against the side of the tree:

THE ILLUSTRATED WOMAN

THE TORTURE QUEEN

The tattoo’d woman winks at you as you pass by. “Break time, honey,” she growls, as she blows a smoke ring in your direction.

Bedeck your locks (or snakes or horns or whatever you’re sporting up top) with scents gleaned from the Midway! Smell like you’ve stepped right off the platform of Carnaval Diabolique’s 13-in-One!