Raymond stared at his hands and the long dagger they held. The blood still stained them, and sullied his clothing as well. “Must we always do such dreadful things to gain his favor? Believe me, I meant it when I said I wished to worship him, to serve him, ever since I saw that sign, but-”
“Your faith can’t be so weak. Not now.”
Maddie tried to be forgiving to his younger apprentice. 2020 had been a cruel year for the both of them, though Maddie had known worse times, an entire decade Raymond couldn’t have even imagined. Raymond was a young comedic actor who hadn’t worked on a play in over a year, ever since he joined Maddie on his quest. The young man had confided in Maddie, telling him that he had seen The Yellow Sign before it had reappeared on that news broadcast, in a series of dreams before he discovered it on buried digital links.
The actors first physically met through a Shakespearean theatrical company in New York, eventually deciphering that they had encountered each other’s handles on some underground DigiWeb forum related to The Yellow Sign. Raymond had told Maddie he found traces of news footage online, showing the same previously live event that uncovered the American Space Program’s discovery of The Yellow Sign on mysterious spacecraft. When Raymond had seen that footage, he was shocked to see the very symbol that had plagued him in cryptic dreams was proven to be real. The actor was inspired to investigate the symbol further, understanding that this information was strangely suppressed by the very agencies that had released the information.
Once comfortable that Raymond was safe, Maddie told Raymond of his work, and sent him a document of The King in Yellow play via DigiMail. Thus began a long, wondrous relationship, collaborations mixed with murder, magic, and mayhem. How fortunate they were to work this long together, evading the watchful eye of the law. Maddie thanked The King, his great deity whose ambassadors assured that Raymond was to be trusted and used in his operations.
Sometimes Maddie felt bad for inviting Raymond on this path, for possibly not describing how much would need to be sacrificed or given in order to gain the great deity's favor. They shared death together, and blood stained both pairs of their hands. They had brought suffering to many people, but the hell they endured was only an extension of The King’s power.
“Once you read the play,” Maddie continued, cleansing the sabre in his hands as he walked away from the circle, “you opened the gateway. You cannot stop now, and to cease in the great work would be to incur the wrath of The King. As you know, the show must go on.”
“I would never stop,” Raymond reassured. He placed his dagger on a nearby table and picked up a thurible, burning the charcoal inside of it before placing lavender leaves and frankincense clusters upon it. “Believe me. I am loyal to The King in all of my endeavors, Maddie, and I’d hate to disappoint you.”
“You have no need to worry about disappointing me. The King smiles upon artists and scholars. Remember that.” Maddie sighed as he picked up his ceremonial sword. The fool had a lot to learn, and he was as dimwitted as the clowns he portrayed in those classic plays. “Now, you set everything up. I’ll prepare myself. I’ll also need to check everything upstairs, make sure the blinds are drawn, that the doors are properly locked and the mirrors are turned to face the walls, unless we want to be disturbed.”
“Of course,” Raymond answered, returning to his tools.
This ritual meant a great deal to the both of them. That glorious May, the sun was in Hyades, along with Saturn and Mars as well. Though it was black down in that basement, accompanied only by the glow of candles, the outside world was glorious, bathed in Spring light, a sylvan scene illuminated even in those dark times. There in the protection of a beautiful New England countryside, a skilled magi and his learning apprentice dedicated themselves to a mighty task. Other artists, inventors, and eccentrics had been chosen throughout the past century, and centuries before, to bring The King’s Imperial Dynasty of America to fruition on Earth. In the end, human flaw brought the predecessors down, made them ruin their monarch’s plans. Ego, vanity, laziness, greed, so many vices of unworthy acolytes had stalled the full beauty their great monarch could bring to their world.
Maddie was confident that where those past, ignorant artists had failed, he and Raymond would succeed.
***
Maddie met The King in Paris.
From the first moment he opened the pages of The King in Yellow, that accursed play, he was held, transfixed. All of his life, he had performed in what he thought were the greatest plays, all of them Shakespearean, from Macbeth to King Lear, yet that play was beyond even the world’s most renowned playwright.
No wonder it was now illegal. The illegality of the text only encouraged Maddie to find it. Ever since the American Space Program brought back strange shrapnel from space with The Yellow Sign, broadcasting it globally nearly ten years ago, Maddie wanted to know exactly what that symbol meant. Where did it come from, who created it? Was it extraterrestrial beings that spray painted the damned thing on their ships, or failed human astronauts going mad in the vacuums of space?
Maddie’s search took him to the library, to the DigiWebs, searching for keywords like “Yellow Sign” and “Strange Marks”. Links upon links came back, and after weeks of perusing, he fell upon a secret, forgotten history. Wars. Seances. The Yellow Sign. The Pallid Mask.
The King in Yellow.
Many had worshipped him. People fell under his sway, entering some sort of divine madness, and all thanks to a play that had been mass marketed, sold internationally. Asylums were filled, suicides rampant. Governments began to ban the work, starting with the United States. But he had to find it, through those tomes of books. That decadent splendor remained with him since he found and read the play, guiding him without fail.
A book that destroyed all deceptions, revealed all hidden realities, each one revolving around, extending from, and composed of His Grace, The King in Yellow. The world was not as Maddie once believed it to be, not limited by mud and water, as constructed as the brick and mortar made by man. Nature was a charade, a farce, clay in the hands of beings beyond his comprehension. Through veiled language, representational characters, and staged scenes, the play described every aspect of existence as created and ruled by The King in Yellow. Few surmised what Maddie did, that every aspect of that script shed light on The King, always going back to him, from his feminine aspects to his masculine, his lighter properties and attributes to his most darkest components. Maddie feared the play, and adored it. The holy text opened worlds for him, sent him places in his sleep and deep meditations, moving aboard strange vessels and chariots through the stars.
Maddie remembered the first time he entered those strange worlds, confirming what he knew since he found that text, that The King was real. As his body slept, Maddie’s soul shot through the heavens at warped speed. Ushered to the constellation of Taurus, he met the mysterious ones, servants of His Majesty. Guided by those strangers hooded in yellow lights, he traveled on strange, enigmatic vessels that looked nothing like the naval ships and even the space ships found at home, far more advanced. He traveled along Lake Hali, seeing its strange, toxic purple waters under dark, foggy green skies. Cold, whipping winds stung his face as they rushed by like sprinting horses. Twin suns were anchoring themselves into the waters, far in the distance. Along those coasts, the animated skeletons of wolves ran alongside lynxes in wild packs, howling occasionally. Owls fluttered and hooted from rotting branches. Maddie saw wraiths of dead alien creatures wavering between the dead trees and colorful rocks, walking through gray grass as they worshipped the black stars overhead. Aldebaran and the Hyades embodied hell above them, penetrating the thickness of those lead clouds, and Maddie swore he could hear each shimmering star sing. All apparitions exalted the astral guardians with barbarous chants. For all time, they had and would worship those stars. They knew the dread, feared it, and respected it.
“Fear is respect,” one of the yellow hooded ambassadors had said, “and respect is fear. Fe
ar is the threshold of destruction. Destruction is creation, and creation is destruction.”
Maddie remembered the fright penetrating him, hearing that ancient one speak in his bastard English language. He knew, then and there, that they could hear his every thought, feel his every emotion, and he was at their mercy.
Further up the lake they went, until they reached the horrid necropolis of Carcosa. What a strange and melancholic city, with towering buildings made of material Maddie didn’t even recognize, reeking of carrion.
“Will I see The King here?” Maddie asked.
“No one sees The King. Not directly. You must be content in the ways you see him now. In everything you see.”
“And what about you? Can I see your faces, who you really are? Haven’t I worked hard enough for that pleasure?”
“You will not see us in our truest form.”
“Why not?”
“Because to see us would mean your ultimate destruction. You have work to do before you are granted that honor.”
Maddie hushed from that moment, realizing that he was too close to overstepping his boundaries. That was how many previously chosen servants had failed, allowing their egos to overstep the edicts of The King, feeling entitled to mysteries beyond their comprehension. No, he would not pry; he would follow, and listen.
Docking their ship, the yellow ones took him through the city. They showed him the great monoliths, the mighty architecture, and horrendous roads. Black skyscrapers, with sharp peaks, served vigil over the cracked streets. A macabre populace of wights and other dead creatures slithered through the alleyways like serpents, heads low and ashamed. They were antisocial to each other, far removed even in their gatherings, lost in the demanding worship of death and chaos. No one’s presence in Carcosa could override the desolated, isolated feel of the dark metropolis. This was truly a ghost city, ruins that stood tall as an arena of devastation, and Maddie realized with dread that he was the only living thing there.
Everywhere, The Yellow Sign stood proudly, shining, forever reminding the denizens of who owned them. The King’s castle was most frightening, its turrets corroded in mismatched black and yellow, The Yellow Sign flying proudly from black flags atop sharp, coned towers stretching to the sky. Within that dark building, the ambassadors took him to the grand palace, and Maddie even saw the doors of the throne room. He didn’t have to ask if they could be opened.
From the outside of the throne room, Maddie was lead down a long hall, taken into a meeting room. The yellow hooded beings took him to a long table with The Yellow Sign sprawled upon its top.
They all sat. Maddie waited patiently as the beings looked back and forth to each other, speaking in their ancient language. Who knew what they were discussing, secrets they didn’t even share with this selected acolyte from Earth.
Finally, one of them spoke. “You have been granted the privilege to see our world. To enter the city of Carcosa, to enter the royal palace. With your loyalty and humility, The Imperial Dynasty of America will be realized. Your world can know grace, under a united world, ruled by The King in Yellow.”
“Your world has been ruled by your inadequate race for too long,” interjected another. “Fragile minds, infantile egos, men bent on greed, prejudice, and power. They don’t understand fear, or respect truth, feigning religious values that they use to control and subjugate people they see as being beneath them. Very few people on your planet understand their self worth.”
“The fear of The King in Yellow shall be placed upon them. All of them. As we have done in many worlds past, in many ways, for endless decades.”
“But why can’t The King in Yellow come on his own merit?” I asked curiously. “Why does he need someone as low as me to help him realize his kingdom on Earth?”
“The veils of illusion are thick in your world,” one answered. “Your planet, like many, is light years away, lost in the darkness of mundane ignorance. Through the ancient arts, you can uplift the veils that keep us separated. You can part light years of distances by milliseconds, as easily as you can travel in your dreaming. You can bring the reality of our King and His Kingdom to the people of your planet.”
He had won The King’s favor. Maddie would come back to Carcosa many times after that, his sleep relieving his soul of his body, allowing him to travel with the aid of the yellow servants. He followed them, and listened, agreeing to the tasks they set aside for him to do.
After seven macabre, demented years in Europe, bonding with The King and doing his bidding through many a blood sacrifice in France, Italy, and Spain, Maddie came back to the States. Never did a fear of getting caught enter his mind—The King was beyond forensic science, detectives, and the law in general. Maddie conducted his great work without interruption. He would do anything to make his monarch physically manifest in that world, to destroy the illusion of the false reality with which most humans ignorantly consumed themselves. Soon, they would all cower, all tremble in fear at the decadent splendor of the Pallid Mask. They would shake, scream, and remember, united in unison by the divinity of pain.
***
Maddie placed the weighted diadem upon his head, golden and shimmering with diamonds. A powerful accessory, that crown, one that few were humble enough to wear. Maddie had to remember, even as a chosen servant of The King, he could never be The King. Wearing this physical accessory was a privilege, not a right, and he wore it for his God.
The fine silk white robe bearing The Yellow Sign came next. On Maddie’s frail, saturnine figure, the opulent robe looked quite bulky on him, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t wearing the grand clothing for himself, and he would remain humble.
He also had to stay humble in working with the apprentice The King had picked out for him. How hard he had to suppress that judgmental side that wanted to scream against having a partner, let alone Raymond. Maddie found Raymond dull, ignorant, and slightly depressing to deal with. He was often having to remind Raymond to set up the proper tools, how to abduct their victims, how to murder them, et cetera.
In training Raymond, Maddie’s own practice and training was brought into question. For the near decade he had scoured through Europe, learning of occult practices and operations from books and other skilled experts, he had secretly devoted himself to The King in Yellow. If the esoteric organizations he had joined knew how he had used his very training for blood rituals and deadly sacrifices, he doubted any of them would have been pleased with how he used his occult education. Their opinions didn’t matter to him. Only The King in Yellow’s divine favor mattered.
The time was right for the ultimate ritual, where Raymond and Maddie’s skills would truly be put to the test. Cruel Taurus spread its deviance overhead, the sun highlighting the constellation with exuberance. That stubborn bull, its hidden darkness flowing through those stars of the Hyades and the Pleiades, ruler of spring, lazy in appearance yet boiling to the brim with madness and demonic principles. The constellation was home to The King, his gaze silently ruling at its heights from the ends of April to the beginnings of May, The Yellow Sign strongest in this time period.
Fully clothed and prepared, Maddie walked out of his dressing room. His robe dragged as he moved towards the basement, the diadem surprisingly heavy on his head. The crown had been forged ages ago by worshippers of the yellow, the robe only a few centuries old and surprisingly preserved.
Maddie’s hand opened the basement door. He could smell the incense so strong in clouds of reverence, the darkness pervading. Down the stairs he descended, his mind focused, passions cast aside. Only The King consumed his thoughts, the strong smells of rotting flesh and slaughtered human meat ignored.
Finally, Maddie reached the basement floor. The candles burned bright as Raymond sat atop the corpse in the circle of other cadavers, his head swooning back and forth, The Yellow Sign drawn beneath him. The bloody circle stained around the corpses was creating a variety of symbols that came and went like the ebb and flow of the moon, inscriptions that disappeared as
soon as they were formed.
Maddie cringed as the blood turned yellow, resembling rich piss. The smell of gore intensified, vibrations of dread awakened throughout the room.
“Come forward,” Raymond said in a voice that wasn’t his own.
Maddie recognized one of the voices of the Carcosan ambassadors, one of the yellow beings from his soul travels. He stepped forward, opening, his head lowered as the crown shined upon his head.
“Kneel,” said the voice, as Maddie just reached the outside of the yellowed circle.
Falling upon one knee, Maddie continued to look at the floor. He shook in the wave of desolation rushing at him like freight trains, the entire room possessing a flaxen glow.
Foreign chants started to spew from Raymond, whom Maddie now realized was as dead as the corpse under him and the bodies surrounding him. Light enveloped Raymond’s body as he spewed those alien mantras. More chants joined in unison throughout the room, and soon, eleven more lights appeared, surrounding Maddie, standing taller than human heights were fathomable.
After a lost track of time, kneeling there and hearing those gothic voices, the chanting stopped. Silence followed for only a moment, before the yellow being possessing Raymond announced, “a new age has dawned upon your planet. For centuries, The King has devised to expand his dynasty here, a world that has always been secretly under his control. Now, the veils are removed, and his might can be established beyond the physical illusions that have blocked his full potential.”
Underneath that horrid dread Maddie felt, an even greater feeling of accomplishment and pride couldn’t help but to burst forth from his heart. He had done it. Succeeding where others had failed, he had ushered in a new era. The King’s might, his grand reign, would be felt throughout the corners of the Earth. Mankind would bow and know the significance of The Yellow Sign. Their eyes would turn to the stars of Taurus and know the true ruler of that infinite expanse called space, the planets and inferior stars held within it. Heads would fall, downcast in humility and shame, hands extended in praising prayers, hearts pulsing in constant, unending trepidation.
Within Stranger Aeons Page 17
