by Alan K Baker
‘Did you hear that, men?’ shouted de Chardin.
The Templar Knights shouted back that they did.
Once again, Titania vanished.
Once again, brief screams were heard as the darkness was illuminated by the ruby fire from Titania’s faerie carbine.
‘By God and all His angels,’ said Clairvaux, ‘what a fine lady!’
‘We’d have been in a deep ditch without her, that’s for sure,’ de Chardin replied.
In another few moments, the enemy’s gunfire had completely ceased. The resulting silence, however, was broken by a sound which made the Templars’ relief short-lived indeed.
‘What the deuce is that noise?’ demanded de Chardin.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Clairvaux. ‘I’ve never heard the likes of it before.’
‘Must be that infernal gadget – the Anti-Prism. Exeter must have switched it on!’ De Chardin turned to the rest of his men. ‘Come on, we’ve not a moment to lose!’
When the gunfire ceased, Exeter glanced up at the entrance to the tunnel leading from the sanity of Bond Street to this chamber of ultra-dimensional nightmare. Could his men have defeated the invading force so quickly? Could they themselves have succumbed?
What’s happening? he wondered.
Exeter turned away from the entrance and transmitted the last of the mental commands he had learned from the King in Yellow.
The Servitor complied immediately. Its hideous, writhing mass seeped through the air to a position directly above the glowing Anti-Prism, and from it sprouted five thick tendrils, like the legs of some gigantic arthropod.
The tendrils descended towards the five stone monoliths which surrounded the central pit. At the instant they made contact, the pulsating electrical sound grew yet louder, the yellow glow emanating from the tiles grew brighter, and the monoliths vibrated visibly, so that to Exeter’s eyes they lost focus, becoming hazy and indistinct, as if a sheet of frosted glass had suddenly been placed around them.
And then another sound came to Exeter’s ears, a sound he knew would haunt him for the rest of his days, in spite of the power and riches he was about to attain.
It was the sound of ten thousand screams.
It was the sound of the souls held within the Servitor being discharged into the Anti-Prism.
The five thick tendrils pulsated obscenely in peristaltic waves as the psychic energy passed through them from the Servitor to the monoliths, which then directed it in the form of five painfully bright beams of light into the centre of the hexagonal trapezohedron which floated in the air at the centre of the Void Chamber.
The screams grew louder and louder, until Exeter could stand it no more and threw himself to the floor with his hands clasped over his ears. It was useless, however, for that tormenting sound was more than the mere vibration of air molecules; it drove like a lance into his very soul, a single howl of anguish from a profane limbo – desperate, terrified, accusing, insane.
‘May God forgive me,’ Charles Exeter whimpered as he lay writhing upon the glowing tiles of the floor.
CHAPTER FIVE:
The Tunnel Opens
The entity known as the King in Yellow was glad to be leaving Carcosa. For ten thousand years it had fed on the minds and bodies of the planet’s inhabitants, and now the larder was almost empty. The population had dwindled from more than five thousand million to a mere handful, a few huddled dregs lingering on the surface of a blasted orb that had been drained of all animal and vegetable life. But the King in Yellow had taken its fill, and now it was time to move on to a fresh world, filled with ripe and unsuspecting minds and overflowing with the diversity of biological life.
The need for sustenance was not the only reason to abandon Carcosa, for the King in Yellow had heard the song of the Hyades and knew that the trembling stars were calling out into the galactic night for aid. Its ultra-dimensional mind had scented the Æther, and had detected the approach of its enemy, the biomechanical construct which had been half built, half grown in the aeon-long past by the scientific geniuses of a distant, dead world.
Their eventual understanding of the entity’s origin and nature had come too late for them, but they had created a legacy for the galaxy and a great inconvenience for the King in Yellow: a being capable of detecting, enveloping and destroying the invader from beyond space.
That world had been among the first upon which the King in Yellow had descended, and it had made a serious misjudgement in choosing such an advanced race on which to feed. Ever since that time, the entity had been careful to choose only those worlds whose science was not up to the task of offering effective resistance.
Carcosa had been such a world, for although it was well advanced in age, its civilisation had long ago passed through the era of great technological endeavour and had returned to the simplicity of a pastoral existence, its scientific advances abandoned and forgotten. Carcosa was thus at the perfect position in the great cycle of advancement and contraction which seemed to pertain on worlds throughout this galaxy.
And what a galaxy it was! What a universe! Plump with matter and energy and life! An infinite source of nourishment.
The King in Yellow had travelled to many universes upon leaving its own realm beyond the ramparts of ordered space and time, and it had found that most were either empty or contained matter and energy in forms which were unpalatable to it, for what it craved most of all was the delicate psychic energy of intelligent minds, and it had found them in abundance in this universe.
As it awaited the arrival of its Servitor, which would pump the Carcosan souls it had gathered into the Anti-Prism in the throne room of the Castle of Demhe, the King in Yellow thought of the million other Anti-Prisms which its avatars had seeded on worlds throughout the galaxy, and which would facilitate rapid transit between those worlds, and it pulsated in awful anticipation of the feasting to come.
Oberon and his faerie warriors followed the Servitor along the warped and twisted corridor leading to the throne room, noting with both compassion and profound distaste the remnants of the lake’s aquatic life which moved sluggishly through the tainted water. The misshapen swimming things paused occasionally to inspect them with distorted, gelatinous organs that might once have been eyes, before drifting away into the surrounding darkness.
What a mockery you have made of this once-beautiful world, thought Oberon, as he watched the poor creatures’ pained movements.
If by ‘symmetry’ you mean order, rationality and beauty, then we are in agreement, for they are things of which you clearly know nothing!
And do you come from one of those regions?
You speak in riddles, beast. What are you? Why have you befouled this universe with your presence?
Oberon sensed amusement as the King in Yellow replied, DIMENSION – MY DIMENSION. LONG AGO, BEFORE YOUR WORLD WAS EVEN A CLOUD OF DUST AWAITING THE GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE WHICH WOULD FORGE IT INTO A SPHERE OF ROCK, I LOOKED DOWN INTO THIS UNIVERSE, THIS LAKE, AND SAW THAT IT WAS BRIMMING WITH LIFE. AND SO I CAME TO GATHER THE FOOD WHICH FILLS IT SO ABUNDANTLY. AND BELIEVE ME, OBERON, I WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNTIL I HAVE EMPTIED THIS LAKE OF EVERYTHING THAT LIVES AND BREATHES WITHIN IT!>
They had reached a great arched opening, beyond which was the throne room, once occupied by the royal family of Carcosa, but now home to the tattered monstrosity that had brought death and madness and irrevocable ruin to that unhappy world.
And tattered it was, Oberon noted with disgust. Strangely ragged was the outline of the vast thing which squatted at the centre of the chamber. Strangely did the flaps and folds undulate in a hundred putrid shades of yellow. Truly did Queen Cassilda write of ‘the tatters of the king’.
For the first time, Oberon fully appreciated the fact that this creature hailed from beyond the ordered universe, that it was nothing which should be suffered to exist among the stars and planets, the light and the life, of known space and time.
I can see why they describe you as yellow, but I fail to see why they call you king.
I live and breathe and think, retorted Oberon. And I see you as nothing more than a foul disease.
We shall see, said Oberon, brandishing his carbine.
The Servitor moved quickly, but it was not to attack Oberon or his warriors; instead, it bestrode the glowing object in a far corner of the chamber. Instantly, Oberon swung his weapon around and fired, but he was too late, for the Servitor had already thrown out a gelatinous film to protect both the Anti-Prism and the five monolithic stone structures which surrounded it.
At that moment, Oberon and his warriors dropped their weapons and clutched at their heads as the sound of Carcosan souls being discharged into the Anti-Prism drove like an iron spike into their awareness, while the throne room glowed brightly with the energy being transferred from the Servitor, through the prismatic monoliths, to the transportation device. The pain, terror and anguish was an unendurable agony to them, and they dropped to their knees, their faces contorted, their eyes tightly shut.
The vast, ragged mass of the King in Yellow split apart like a pustulent wound, and as Oberon forced his eyes open and looked at what lay within – at the writhing tendrils whipping and curling around the frothing, bubbling nucleus that was composed of nothing remotely akin to matter – the Faerie King screamed with a terror and despair he had never known, had never even realised he could know.
The horror surged forward towards the Anti-Prism.
Slowly, painfully, Charles Exeter lifted himself off the floor of the Void Chamber and gazed up at the Anti-Prism. The Servitor had completed its task: the psychic energy of the souls it had gathered had been fully utilised by the device, which now appeared to be operating at full power.
It began to turn upon its vertical axis, slowly at first, but then rapidly increasing in speed until it became little more than a crimson blur.
The Servitor withdrew and crawled sluggishly to the edge of the chamber, and Exeter had the impression that it was dying.
Exeter staggered back from the whirling Anti-Prism and prepared himself to meet his god.
On Carcosa, the Servitor edged away as a perfect circle of darkness opened above the Anti-Prism in the throne room. Framed by a strange distortion of the surrounding water, it expanded to perhaps ten yards in diameter and hovered in perfect stillness.
Like a vast, rotten egg sliding down a plughole, the King in Yellow heaved its amorphous bulk through the opening and was gone.
Blackwood! called Oberon silently.
‘We’re here, Oberon!’ came the reply.
The Faerie King turned to see the three humans standing in the entrance to the throne room.
Shut your eyes! he commanded.
They obeyed him without hesitation as he hurried across the chamber and seized the sheet of green linen which Blackwood was holding. Then he turned and, unfolding the sheet, made for the Servitor which was undulating slowly near the entrance to the tunnel through space. He offered one end of the sheet to one of his warriors, who took it, and together they rose upon their wings and covered the sanity-blasting form of the Servitor.
Instantly, both it and the sheet vanished from view.
Blackwood, Sophia, Castaigne, said Oberon. Open your eyes and come forward.
‘Where is the Servitor?’ asked Sophia as they entered the throne room.
The object I asked you to bring is the Cloak of Invisibility, one of our most precious artefacts, Oberon replied. The Servitor is still here, but you are now shielded from its aspect, even from its outline. You have your weapons?
In reply, the three humans unslung their Maxim machine guns, which had been specially adapted by the technicians at Station X to fire explosive rounds in an underwater environment.
Oberon held up his hand. Do not fire yet, for we must time this perfectly.
He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind across the nine hundred trillion miles of space separating Carcosa from Earth. Titania, my love, are you ready?
I am ready, my husband, Titania replied.
She and the Templar Police were standing on the floor of the Void Chamber. As soon as they had descended the ladder leading down from the entrance, two of the Templars had moved to apprehend Charles Exeter, who was standing still, gazing up at the wildly spinning form of the Anti-Prism. He didn’t seem to notice their presence until they seized him by the arms. As they did this, they took care not to look in the direction of the Servitor, which now squatted, unmoving, on the far side of the chamber.
‘Charles Exeter,’ said Detective de Chardin, ‘I am arresting you in the name of Her Majesty for the crime of treason against your country and your world…’
He hesitated as Exeter began to laugh.
‘You arrest me?’ said the railway magnate. ‘Very well, arrest me. I assure you that you will be releasing me from your custody very shortly, once the King in Yellow has drunk your soul!’
‘Yes, well, we’ll see about that,’ de Chardin replied, glancing at Titania. The Faerie Queen nodded, and in a loud voice which echoed around the Void Chamber, he said to his men, ‘Ready your weapons and take aim!’
The Templar Knights, who had taken up positions around the Anti-Prism with their backs to the Servitor, raised their Maxims.
De Chardin looked again at Titania, as a perfect circle of darkness appeared at the centre of the Void Chamber…
Oberon, she said. Give the word.
FIRE!
Oberon’s command was directed both to the humans who stood beside him in the throne room of the Castle of Demhe, and to Titania, who relayed it instantly to the Templar Knights.
Simultaneously, Blackwood, Sophia, Castaigne, de Chardin, Clairvaux and their men all fired at the two Anti-Prisms.
On Carcosa and on Earth, the crystalline structure of the twin devices gave way beneath the onslaught of hot lead.
The Anti-Prisms shattered, and as they flew apart, their jagged fragments hurtled through the throne room and the Void Chamber and embedded themselves in the walls, and it was only the elevated positions of the devices which saved the humans from being cleaved into a hundred pieces.
And as the Anti-Prisms flew to destruction, a sound came
to the ears of human and faerie alike, and all who heard it believed it to be a scream of rage, or perhaps terror, or perhaps a combination of the two, as the entrances to the tunnel between worlds collapsed and flickered out of existence, sealing in that which was in transit between them, excising it utterly from the ordered universe.
CHAPTER SIX:
Back to Earth
The bright glow from the tiles containing the Yellow Sign gradually faded, casting a sullen crimson pall, like the embers of a dying fire, over the Void Chamber.
Although the scream which had briefly emanated from the tunnel between worlds had been cut off, it was replaced by another: a high, keening human screech, which came from Charles Exeter. Titania glanced at him and instantly understood the reason.
Exeter was still facing the Servitor, and although the creature was now all but inactive, its purpose fulfilled, still it stood before him, and with the King in Yellow gone from the universe, Exeter’s mind was undefended against the ultra-dimensional horror of its appearance.
Charles Exeter had been driven insane.
‘Is that it?’ said de Chardin. ‘Is the threat to Earth gone now?’
‘It is gone,’ Titania replied.
The Templar detective glanced at Exeter. Still held tightly by the two policemen, the railway magnate was drooling, whimpering and gibbering quietly to himself.
‘Poor wretch,’ de Chardin muttered, shaking his head. ‘One can’t help but feel sorry for him – in spite of what he had planned.’
‘It is to your credit that you do,’ said Titania. ‘What will you do with him?’
De Chardin shrugged. ‘Well, it’s most unlikely he’ll be able to stand trial now. I suspect he’ll have to be incarcerated in a suitable mental institution – probably Bethlem Hospital. I suppose there’s a justice there – albeit poetic rather than literal – in that he will be in the same place where poor Alfie Morgan is confined.