by Alan K Baker
‘I see,’ said Clairvaux.
‘Hopefully, however,’ Titania continued, ‘that situation will not prevail for long: once the Servitor has discharged its contents into the Anti-Prism, I will destroy it. Then, the only threat you will face will be that posed by your fellow humans.’
‘Got it, Clairvaux?’ said de Chardin.
‘Yes, sir!’
‘That damned thing,’ said de Chardin under his breath to Titania. ‘When I think of what it’s done to all those poor souls who lingered here, how it’s… consumed them. I’d like to take that wretch Exeter and feed him to the devil!’
‘I doubt you’ll get the chance to do that, Detective de Chardin,’ Titania replied. ‘And in any event, that’s not what we have come here to do.’
‘I understand, Your Majesty…’ He was about to say more but then merely shook his head.
Titania glanced at him and said, ‘What really bothers you is that our plan calls for us to allow the souls to be fed to the Anti-Prism. Isn’t that right?’
De Chardin nodded stiffly. ‘That’s right, Your Majesty. It seems a terribly callous thing. I don’t see why we can’t just destroy the Anti-Prism before the Servitor has discharged the souls into it. That would put paid to the King in Yellow’s plan to come to the Earth.’
‘It would. But you are forgetting two things: one, that the King in Yellow is unthinkably ancient and has seeded countless worlds with Anti-Prisms. If his way to Earth were blocked while he was still on Carcosa, he would simply pick another world to feed upon and continue his depredations in this universe for aeons to come, perhaps for all eternity. And two, the souls which the Servitor has gathered cannot now be saved; they are already lost.’
‘What do you mean? Would they not be released upon the Servitor’s destruction?’
‘They would. But have you given thought to the manner of their subsequent existence? If the human mind can be driven to madness merely by looking at the Servitor, what effect would being inside the creature have on it?’
De Chardin cast Titania an appalled glance. ‘I… don’t know.’
‘Nor can you begin to imagine. Believe me, Detective, once they have been discharged into the Anti-Prism, their suffering will be at a merciful end.’
They had reached the bottom of the stationary escalator, their footfalls echoing dully on the wooden cleats of the steps. Ahead of them, a long corridor stretched into the barely-lit gloom.
‘We’ll be terribly exposed while we walk along there,’ de Chardin muttered.
Titania smiled and said, ‘Wait here.’
She vanished in a puff of fragrant lilac smoke and a few moments later reappeared.
‘There is no one at the far end. If you move quickly, you can traverse it with little concern.’
De Chardin threw her a wide-eyed glance, then chuckled and turned to his men. ‘You heard Her Majesty. Let’s go – quickly and quietly!’
King Oberon stood at the mouth of the entrance and looked down into the unrelieved Stygian blackness of the castle’s interior. Above him, the Aurelius hung suspended in the thick murk of the Lake of Hali, its lights casting multiple halos upon its vast hull and superstructure.
He turned to the faerie warriors who stood beside him on the lip of the abyss. His mind sent a question out to them. Are you ready, my men?
We are ready, King! came the reply.
Then let us descend into this place, into its diseased heart, there to destroy the filth and madness that have made it their home. This world, once alive with beauty and light, has been mocked and abused for long enough, aye and more! The time of the King in Yellow is at an end, for we shall destroy all that gibbers and crawls within these chambers, so that our human friends can perform their duty for the sake of the Earth which we all love, though we no longer be its stewards.
We are with you, King Oberon!
Then make ready your arms, and follow me!
And with that, Oberon stepped off the edge and sank through the black water, into the pit.
For several minutes, he and his warriors descended through the darkness, controlling their movements with twitches of their wings, until presently their feet found solid stone, and they found themselves on the strangely inclined floor of what appeared by the light of their chest-mounted lanterns to be a wide, high-ceilinged corridor.
Oberon glanced up at the ragged, chimney-like structure through which they had descended. Away in the interminable distance, he could just make out the lights of the Aurelius, shining like a handful of sane stars in a firmament of madness.
He recalled the words of Carcosa’s Planetary Angels, the directions they had given him through the twisted innards of the castle, the route he and his warriors would have to take in order to find the throne room of the King in Yellow.
He sent another thought out to his men. This way.
With the warriors spread out behind him, their carbines at the ready, Oberon set off into the darkness.
As he followed the twists and turns of the corridor, his feet treading lightly upon the crumbling and flaking stone of the floor, his wings augmenting and correcting his movements in response to the sudden, strange currents which periodically pulsated through the surrounding water, Oberon thought of how dearly he would have liked to take this business out of the hands of Thomas Blackwood and the other humans. Had he been free to decide, he would have led his warriors into the throne room and destroyed the Anti-Prism himself, while Titania did the same on Earth…
But he was not free to make such a decision: he was bound by the Covenant he and his people had made with the universe in the distant past, when the first light of civilisation was stirring in the mind of humanity. No human could truly understand the Covenant, its origin or the need to maintain it – although one day, in millennia to come, humanity itself would be required to turn over stewardship of the Earth to those who would come after.
Oberon recalled the teachings in the ancient texts of Faerie, which told how the Planetary Angels of Earth were born along with the world, how they began their existence not as fully fledged beings, but as motes of potentiality surrounding the molten sphere of the newly-formed world; how they gradually took form and substance according to universal principles of which only the Theosophists had an inkling and evolved, over the course of long epochs, into the great race to which Oberon belonged.
He recalled how he and the others of Faerie had watched the rise of humanity to intelligence and civilisation; how they had been contacted by the Primal Mind of the universe; how a great communion had taken place, during which they were made aware that it was necessary to transfer stewardship of the planet, to leave it in the hands of human beings and retreat to the Realm of Faerie, there to pursue their own destiny.
This they had agreed to do, promising to refrain from interference in the affairs of Earth, save when the planet was in direct and imminent peril. Then, and only then, would they be permitted to act, and at such times, their actions would be limited to helping the humans to save their world, not to saving it themselves, for Earth was now under the stewardship of humanity, not Faerie.
This was the Covenant, the promise they had made to the Primal Mind of the universe that they would observe the guiding principles, the fundamental cycles of eternity, upon which all planetary life was based.
Blackwood had once asked Oberon what would happen if the Covenant were broken, and Oberon had given him a look which made him wish that he had not voiced the question. The truth was that if the Covenant were ever to be broken, if those of Faerie were ever to usurp the role of stewardship and take matters out of humanity’s hands, the great cycle would be undermined, thrown out of equilibrium, and the resulting imbalance would bring chaos and destruction upon the Earth and all who dwelled there.
Such were Oberon’s thoughts as he and his warriors moved through corridor after twisting corridor, through chambers transformed by alien chaos into bizarrely angled travesties of what they had once been, across the yawning mouth
s of pits leading to yet deeper regions of the castle from which imponderable moans and rumblings emerged to trouble their minds.
We are close now, he said to his warriors. Be alert, for the King in Yellow will not lightly give up his plans for the Earth.
No sooner had he sent this thought than a great shape stirred in the darkness ahead, a shape which filled the corridor with writhing filaments and obscenely bulbous lobes. The thing surged forward as Oberon and his warriors lifted their carbines to their shoulders and fired, and by the intense ruby light of their discharges, they saw something that would have driven a human being to screaming madness, and as he fired his weapon again and again, the Faerie King was glad that he had told Blackwood and the others to wait on the Aurelius…
Their weapons drawn, de Chardin and the Templars moved quickly and silently along the dark corridor. Titania had once again moved ahead to make certain that no one would be there to meet them when they reached the far end. When they did so, they found themselves in a large, dimly-lit hall from which several more corridors branched off. The entrance to one was blocked by a wooden barrier bearing a sign which read:
TUBE LINE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
LONDON UNDERGROUND STAFF ONLY
PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT
The Templars moved past the barrier and into the corridor, the floor of which was strewn with plaster dust, workbenches, pieces of tile and the other flotsam of building work. Walking slowly, his revolver at the ready, de Chardin winced as their boots crunched faintly on the dust.
A sudden movement at the far end of the corridor, and a shot rang out.
Sergeant Clairvaux grunted and dropped to his knees as de Chardin took instant aim and let off two rounds. Two other Templars rushed to his side, their own weapons raised, while a third bent over Clairvaux, preparing to drag him back to the safety of the hall.
‘It’s all right,’ said the sergeant, wincing as he sat up. He drew aside his coat to reveal the dent in his cuirass; the bullet had struck the cross etched upon the steel. ‘Once again, the Lord has protected me.’ He snatched up his revolver from the floor where he had dropped it and let off a couple of his own rounds.
‘Queen Titania!’ said de Chardin. ‘Can you…? Where is she?’
Titania was nowhere to be seen, but a mere second or two later, the far end of the corridor was illuminated by several bright flashes of crimson light. The Faerie Queen then emerged from out of the gloom ahead and beckoned to them to join her.
‘Are you injured, Sergeant?’ asked de Chardin as he helped Clairvaux to his feet.
‘No, sir, I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘Knocked the wind out of me – that’s about all.’
‘Good man. Follow me.’
The Templars hurried to the far end of the corridor, which ended in another junction. On the floor, they saw three lumps of something charred and smoking, like joints of meat that had been left in the oven for far too long.
‘Our attackers?’ said de Chardin.
Titania nodded.
‘Good grief,’ he muttered, casting an appreciative glance at the faerie carbine at Titania’s side. ‘I’d had my doubts about the efficacy of that thing…’
‘I trust they are now laid to rest, Detective.’
‘Indeed, as are my doubts concerning your stomach for a fight, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Your Majesty.’
The other Templars glanced at the carbonised residue of the three gunmen who had ambushed them, then at the beautiful and delicate Faerie Queen who had destroyed them without a second thought, and then at each other.
‘You are forgiven,’ she said. ‘Now, we must make haste, for these were sentries, and the exchange of fire will have been heard.’
‘Good point,’ de Chardin nodded. ‘Come on!’
They moved swiftly to the end of the corridor, which gave onto the Tube Station’s new southbound platform. At first glance, the place appeared to be deserted, but Titania was taking no chances. She rushed out onto the platform before de Chardin could stop her and immediately was struck by a hail of bullets from several more sentries who were hiding beyond the platform’s edge on the rail bed.
De Chardin and a number of his men cried out in sudden anguish, fully expecting her to be torn to pieces by the gunfire, but the bullets bounced off her armour and clattered harmlessly to the paving stones. Even those which struck her head, de Chardin noted incredulously, did as much damage as butterflies alighting upon her perfect brow.
Titania spread her gossamer wings, and in a movement so swift that the Templar Knights could barely follow it, she flew over the edge of the platform and down to the rail bed. Her faerie carbine flashed again, there were the briefest of screams, and a pale blue smoke began to rise into the air.
After a brief glance each way, she beckoned to them once again.
As they entered the platform, Clairvaux whispered to de Chardin, ‘I’m starting to feel somewhat superfluous to requirements.’
The detective smiled and nodded, but his smile faded when he saw the expression on Titania’s face as her supernaturally sensitive hearing picked up the comment.
‘Do you mock me, Sergeant Clairvaux?’ she said in a voice which seemed to be simultaneously as quiet as the patter of rain and as loud as an exploding mountain.
‘Indeed not, Your Majesty,’ the Templar replied as the colour drained from his face.
‘You are anything but superfluous,’ the Faerie Queen continued. ‘I am getting you into the Void Chamber, but that is all I can do. Once we are there, the task of destroying the Anti-Prism will be yours, and yours alone. Do you understand?’
‘Without a doubt, ma’am.’
‘And don’t call me ma’am.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Very well. Follow me.’
The Templars jumped down from the platform to the floor of the newly-excavated tunnel.
As they made their way carefully through the hot, cloying darkness, de Chardin whispered, ‘Queen Titania, may I ask a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why are you wearing armour, when you are clearly impervious to human weapons?’
‘My armour is not a defence against anything that humans could make, Detective.’
‘Then you really are risking your life to help us?’
‘My life?’ she echoed, as if the notion confused her slightly. She gave a brief, tinkling laugh and shook her head. ‘How little you humans understand.’
De Chardin thought of pursuing the matter but decided against it. Instead, he said, ‘Well, at any rate, I would not like to be on the receiving end of your anger.’
‘No, Detective,’ she whispered. ‘You would not.’
The time is approaching, thought Charles Exeter, as he stood alone upon the strangely-tiled floor of the Void Chamber.
He had forbidden his men from entering, knowing that they would be far more use out in the surrounding tunnels and corridors. They would prevent any meddlers from interfering with what was about to happen, and in any event, when the Servitor appeared to perform its function, they would best be elsewhere, for only Exeter’s mind was shored up by the presence of the King in Yellow.
His advent upon Earth is imminent, thought Exeter, his heart suddenly beating hard with the knowledge. I am about to betray my species and bring irreparable ruin upon my fellow men.
They are… they are my fellow men!
It was true, Exeter realised: what this feaster from the stars would do to the Earth and its people would take thousands of years. Exeter himself might live for five more decades; he would only witness the opening phase of the King in Yellow’s reign, but during that brief span…
No one ever cared for me. Why should I care for them?
But we are not all like that, Exeter thought. There is gentleness and nobility in the heart of man. There is the desire for truth and beauty. How can you judge us all by my example?
Exeter felt a sudden wave of fiendish amusement writhing through his mind.
