Cassilda's Song: Tales Inspired by Robert W. Chambers King in Yellow Mythos

by Allyson Bird

  Did she remember that, a strange thinning of the worlds between, and her own voice in the middle? She didn’t remember, didn’t not remember. This doorway was a mistake, a subtle torment, a way for the King to show her she’d never succeed, a way to torture her with her own failure, not her greatest failure—that belonged to the writer and would that she could go back to that moment and push him from the window, erase his lies before they fomented in his mind—but a failure that drove daggers into her heart.

  But she did this for him, for her, for Carcosa, and she would make him remember what he’d forgotten.

  She took several steps forward and pinched her arm again, savagely so, twisting the skin until a tattoo of raised blood appeared. Ahead, the once-Cassilda winced and rubbed her arm.

  Was then now and now then? So many doorways, so many whens, so many men and women and words and inside, she was a circle of knots and nots.

  The scholar’s chin lifted, his gaze swept the auditorium, and his face, his eyes, were his own. Fool she might have become—fool, or blind—but she was not a fool in that moment, at least. He was nothing more than what he appeared to be: a chance.

  Another pinch, another wince. Knots could be undone; circles, like words, could be erased, rewritten. She moved closer. She would break this when by giving him the truth now and all at once, giving him over to Carcosa and saving herself the false hope. Or she would drag the once-Cassilda elsewhen and save them both.

  The walls of the auditorium began to shift, running as if a painted landscape doused with water or solvent, the colors smearing together. The air distorted, wavered, and the floor pulled her feet in, halting her steps and trapping her there. Below her, a doorway opened and she floated within the changing space, the sides too far away to touch. Time righting itself, ejecting her from this when. Already, glimmers of sun peeked through, and a wooden fence surrounding a village.

  No, no, she had to at least warn her, to tell the once-Cassilda not to trust him. She threw back her head and raged at the ceiling, but only in her now did the sound emerge, a sound of despair and madness (We have all laid aside disguise but you.) and she slipped deeper into the gaping doorway.

  The once-Cassilda turned her face to the room; Cassilda reached out a hand, willing her to see. She opened her mouth to shout once more, but the doorway pulled and pulled and pulled. “Remember, you must remember,” she cried, knowing that once-Cassilda would not.

  Then she fell.

  Guest, Writer, Chamber:

  There had never been a time without doors.

  Cassilda had never been confined by dungeon or moat, going where she would from the moment of her inception.

  (Beginnings balanced on the edge of the known galaxy, a star condensing itself, splitting in two the way a cell would, twice but no more. Energy channeling downward, into one planetary body, into one body without flaw, the stars pressed black beneath eyes—her eyes, these too would become a doorway. Into Carcosa, that which she was named Before.)

  The worlds—Carcosa and every single one beyond—were never not her playground, Cassilda moving between them as easily as mortals moved between rooms. A tap, tap, tapping upon a chamber door, the entrance of a raven—or was it? So many had been mistaken about her. The form she assumed rarely mattered, until the sundering, until all was rewritten and changed.

  The Soul selects its own Society—

  Then—shuts the Door—

  A mortal woman named Emily had written those words—but so too words wherein she claimed to open every door, not knowing where dawn would come. Doors were problematic that way, whether open or shut; Cassilda had made them thus, long ago, and knew dawn for a lie.

  She did not take a lover until the end—the first end, and she often wondered at every end yet to come, that if she had not stooped, if she had not allowed herself the need of such a thing, if all would have been preserved, nothing forsaken. But she had watched the mortals at play, had never wondered what it would be to take one of them, so had created her own plaything.

  But such a creature—much as herself—once given form and function sought to reach beyond what it had arrived as; such a creature sought to be its own entity, no matter that pleasures of the flesh with one such as Cassilda were satisfying and rewarding both. Cassilda watched this creature surpass the plans she had for it, him. He strained at every limit, much the way she had (the way she would), until his fine and buttery robes ran down his body in tatters.

  “Don’t,” Cassilda said.

  “Must,” he said, for if a thing were forbidden, he knew it to be twice as sweet.

  He, like she, would not be confined, and she wondered—oh she wondered—if she had not made him, had not elevated him to her side, if all could have been avoided. For when he moved beyond her side, when he crowned himself King and his power washed like scalding water across the world of Carcosa, across Cassilda (which he now called her), she knew they had surpassed anything they had known before. They had been built for such things.

  She let him go, knowing uncertainty for the first time, and watched this newborn King prowl through Carcosa and beyond. He took Earth for his lover then, reveling in humanity the way he once had her, and Cassilda, beneath the twin suns, stood alone as she had at the beginning of all things. She cut a door through the world and into another and emerged into a room she had not expected. An office, piled with books and papers, an office that held a man and only a man. Mortal, his beating heart calling to her in a way nothing had before. It was a song, her song, and she reached for it.

  The man looked up, as if he had heard her, but he could not see her and would not unless she wished it. Cassilda held to the shadows and did not breathe, only watched him as he returned to his work. As his heart beat on. Cassilda closed her star-pressed eyes and let that heartbeat fill her, until she overflowed, until she believed again, but when she returned to beloved Carcosa, she found the new King not alone, but with a mortal man all his own, a man whose heart pounded fiercely as the King showed him the wonders of the city.

  “It could not be,” the man said.

  “It was,” the King said.

  His tattered robes slid silent over the floor as he led the man deeper inside, to the place Cassilda stood, the door newly closed behind her. The King’s eyes narrowed, but he did not ask, giving her only a slanted smile as the mortal man trembled in his wake.

  “A guest,” the King said.

  But Cassilda knew otherwise.

  The Scholar, Chapter III:

  She refills the scholar’s glass. Not enough whiskey to knock him out; enough to make him relaxed, pliable. They’re sitting together on his sofa, the pillows set aside. She’s taken the measure of his character in many ways: conversations, the silence between, sex. The latter to cement his devotion—a small subterfuge, yet one without malice—men can be easily led.

  He has a sense of rightness about him; this she clings to. His words grow thick and she takes a deep breath, leans close.

  “Can I tell you a story?” she asks, and even now, even after all this time, her voice still holds a quaver. Such a small thing, to tell a story; such a grave matter, to right a wrong.

  “You can tell me anything. You know you’re safe here, right? You’re always safe with me.”

  She knows he wonders about this; he catches her peeking out the windows, darting glances over her shoulders. He’s caught her standing in the doorway between the hall and his bedroom, running her hands along the frame, contemplating the solidity of the surface, the immutable nature of wood and nail and paint.

  He thinks…what does he think? She’s not asked, but she can guess. An abusive spouse, something mundane, but no less the terrible for it. She’s traced wards on his skin, the shape of the Yellow Sign before it, too, was corrupted. She’s hinted, heavily, spoken in circles (always circles), in ciphers, in small magicks of syllable and tongue. He listens, nodding all the while, but he keeps faith in the concrete, the real—as nearly all of this time do—although she’s caught
the light in his eyes, the wonder, and knows it won’t take much to turn it into belief.

  She keeps her voice low and starts at the true beginning. He raises his eyebrows once, twice, then his face stills as she pours her story into him. She wants to tell him everything—the rest of the words push, they shove, intent to be free, to have it done with, but she holds them back.

  “And?” he says, when she pauses.

  She takes his hands, holds them palm-up—the skin is bare, not even a shadow of the Yellow Sign.

  “No more tonight,” she says. “Please.”

  She lets go of his hand and looks away, knowing he will read this as unease and yes, part of her is uneasy, but part of her thrums with anticipation, and he touches her arm.

  “I’m glad you told me this.”

  She pushes his glass into his hand and when he drains the contents, she fills it again. He dozes and she helps him to bed; when snores fill the room, she peels back the sheets. Uncurls his fingers and checks his palms again. Nothing there. She closes her eyes, touches fingertips to his temples, feeling for a shadow, a shade, of Carcosa, but there’s nothing. She inspects the soles of his feet, the skin behind his ears, beneath his testicles, and everywhere in between.

  Satisfied he is, as yet, unmarked, she rocks back on her heels, not ready to allow a declaration of victory, but unable to hold in a smile.

  The Lost:

  Cassilda spilled from the doorway, shading her eyes against the sun. All around her, trees and the smell of water and earth, birds and insects and leaves rustling in the breeze. No hum in the air of electricity or engines, no steady rush of car or bus or train. Not the very beginning, no, because she heard voices and the thud of tools against wood, but a beginning enough. A new world.

  These people knew not of Carcosa save in snippets of dreams, in glimmers of sunlight on water, in the long shadows cast by fire, but she knew them. Oh, yes, Cassilda knew their kind. Children of men who took what they wanted from whoever they wanted. Who brought death and disease and destruction. Selfish and entitled, proclaiming themselves kings and gods, remaking the world in an image of their own design, never mind that the world was large enough to hold all designs and should hold them all, for who could say which was the greater? What mere human could hold such power? Their clocks held such a brief time, yet they insisted on owning the whole while she was relegated to the mindplace of forgotten things and broken queens.

  She despised them, despised that she needed them, that they were responsible for this need. Pressing a hand to her chest, she stilled her thoughts and her rage. (Too much rage and was it her own or the false Cassilda’s?) Filled herself with purpose instead and made her way to the tall fencing they’d built around their village. She inverted the air around her, shielding herself from view, as she sidestepped the man guarding the entrance.

  Wooden houses sat around a central courtyard; some of the houses were being dismantled while belongings sat in bundles off to the side. Leaving then, leaving to spread their poison righteousness and their illnesses elsewhere. She would give them her story, let them carry that as well on their journey. She passed women cooking or mending torn clothing; children playing with wooden toys; men unmaking structures built not so long ago. The wail of a baby pierced the air, not long after, the faint strains of a lullaby. From the cut of their clothes, they were a simple people; from their eyes, she knew they’d tasted fear more than once. Perhaps this state of fear would serve her well, would make them strong enough to bear a little more without breaking.

  A hand to her chest again. The false Cassilda rippled beneath her skin. Drawn to something in this place or these people or the sound of water touching the shore? No matter. She would be quick. She rounded the back corner of a house and there stood a man wiping sweat from his brow, an axe in his free hand and a pile of wood by his feet.

  She let him see her, see her as she was meant to be seen, not the way others wanted. A true queen, the true Queen. His eyes widened, but before he could speak she grabbed his hands, brought her mouth close to his, and breathed her story into him. His back stiffened, his eyes rolled to white, and his body shook. She held him tight; no time for patience or caution. A thin line of spittle ran from one corner of his mouth.

  If he was strong enough to carve a place in this world, he should be strong enough to hold her story. She poured the rest into him, watched it play across sclera in a tableaux of what was and what would be. (But inside her, the false Cassilda burned and hated and refused to acknowledge that her place was manufactured, manipulated—a monstrosity.)

  His body jolted and a quavering moan escaped his lips. No, no, no. (The false Cassilda smiled.) The Yellow Sign bloomed to life on his forehead and opened, revealing a spray of black stars against a dark sky. Cassilda released his hands, shoved him away, as piece by piece, he tattered (“Shreds of paper, that’s all you are,” the false Cassilda said) and fell into the hole, fell into Carcosa. She smelled the sulfur of the tainted lakes, the stink of air gone wrong. When the last piece of the man disappeared, the Yellow Sign hung in the air, mocking, before it winked out of sight.

  Cassilda balled her hands into fists, blinked away the sting of unexpected tears. She would take another and then another, down to the youngest babe, until one of them proved strong enough. She heard the laughter of the false Cassilda, heard her speak.

  “Song of my soul, my voice is dead,

  Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

  Shall dry and die in

  Lost Carcosa.”

  Carcosa was not lost. It was not. And was it the voice of the false Cassilda reciting the words or her own? She didn’t know, couldn’t tell, and was the hand on her chest pressing in or pressing out?

  A woman in a dress the color of drying mud stepped into view; her gaze moved from the axe and the wood to Cassilda and back again. Cassilda closed the distance between them with long strides, placed her hands on either side of her face, and shoved her story into the woman’s open mouth. The woman shuddered, the Yellow Sign appeared on her cheek. Cassilda shrieked through a clenched jaw, didn’t wait to see her descent into Carcosa.

  All around her, the world turned grey. She was dimly aware of hands on skin, of Signs and holes. A baby crying. A child striking her with a stick, shouting, “Let go of my Mama, let go!” Black stars and screams and her story again and again and again.

  The grey faded and she stood outside the fence, her chest aching, her shoulders heaving. Silence clung to the air. An unspeakable silence. She did not have to enter the village to know they were all gone, and while inside the false Cassilda was still and silent, she radiated a grim sense of satisfaction.

  I did not do this, Cassilda told herself. I did not.

  Even if the other had guided her hands, her hands had done the work. So be it, she thought. She would not shed tears for them; she would not allow herself the guilt and the sorrow. The burden of her failure was enough.

  On a nearby tree, someone had carved a crude C into its trunk; the blade of the knife still embedded in the wood. Someone then, had thought to reveal the truth, had time enough for this? She grabbed the knife from the tree and plucked a word from the air, from the echo of a man’s panicked shout, a man not knowing who or what had descended upon them in such fury: CROATOAN.

  She carved the rest and let the knife fall, and then did what she’d done more times than she could count: she cut a doorway into the air and moved on.

  Guest, Writer, Window:

  He walked through the doorway and Cassilda followed, close enough to be mistaken for his shadow, and the young man, who wished so badly to make his mark upon the world, shuddered. Cassilda took pleasure in that, she couldn’t not. He looked at her the way he might a serpent, something wild that he might not control no matter how he tried.

  Be nice, the King cautioned her in the language they shared, but nice had long since fled and Cassilda did not care for this man—the one she had made, nor the one he had brought. Both were darkly handsome and comp
elling, but Cassilda felt certain she had made a grave error (impossible, her mind whispered, and yet).

  The young man stood at the window, which might also be a doorway Cassilda knew (even now she ached to push him through, send him on), unable to tear his gaze from the strange skies outside. Cassilda watched him watching the sky, the way his eyes took everything in, the way he held his breath as if he were having to convince himself he was only dreaming.

  “Strange is the night where black stars rise,” he said as she watched the same black stars reflected in his eyes. “And strange moons circle through the skies,” she murmured in return, and those moons, countless and colored in shades he had never seen before, seemed to rise by her command, heavy enough they might drop out of the stars altogether and roll to rest at her feet.

  “But stranger still is lost Carcosa,” he said, and before Cassilda could fly at him, push him through the window and send him into the depths of a Carcosa that was not lost

  never lost—those people screaming in torment, her letter carved into a tree and the shriek of a child—

  the King came to stand between them, guiding the young man effortlessly from her side, as if he knew—of course he knew, born of her mind and hands, surely he knew the worst things that simmered inside her. She stood rooted at the window, knowing this was the moment. The young man would ask about this world and the King would tell him and they—

  song of my soul, my voice is dead—

  Not yet, Cassilda thought.

  She followed them, sitting nicely beside the young man, gifting him and the King a smile she had not worn in years. She allowed this smile to settle upon her face as easily would a mask. She was warm and not cold; she was living yet and never dead or silenced. The men talked and Cassilda slid her hand into that of the young man. He was unbelievably warm, to the point it almost hurt to touch him. So alive, filled with such hope despite the danger he found himself in. None had come back from this place, at least none sane.

  When at last the young man looked at her, away from the glowing visage of the King, Cassilda held to her smile, allowing it to deepen. It was sweet there, a full bottom lip and a dimple because once, this young man had seen such a girl, a girl he longed to kiss; he wondered how his mouth might fit to her own, if she would dislike his mustache, and how her trembling hand might unfasten his high collar. Cassilda smiled this smile at him and felt the tremor of his hand in hers.