I told the widow, with whom I now live as a man does with a wife, that it must have been a bear that attacked and mauled me in the forest. This version of events has become the universally accepted truth round these parts. Why would anyone assume it was otherwise? A bear. Of course a bear, and not anything else.
Your eyes bespeak your own mistrust, scribe. You think me deranged, an old man babbling nonsense in the last hours of his life.
I cannot reproach you for that. It is possible that that thing which was not a bear did not take just flesh from me, but a portion of my sanity as well. Who can say? Perhaps I am verily mad. Were some playwright to pen my story, which would he choose? Would he have me pursued by a bear, or by some misshapen, misbegotten monster? Which would be received better by those for whom he intended his work to be performed?
A story is only as credible as its teller, and only as acceptable as its audience deems. Mayhap I am a mere deluded fool, and this is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
As I make my exit from the stage of life, I leave it to you to choose. Truth or folly? Which is it to be, or not to be? That is the question.
The King in Yellow Stockings
Ed Fortune
When the Duke Orsino announced, “If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it; that surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die,” I have to admit, I laughed. Such a pompous, self-important man who loved himself above all others and could no more love another than he could love a mirror. I had been laughing at the Duke for some time, of course. The man had made rather a nuisance of himself to my lady’s court. I miss him terribly.
Little did I understand at the time that this was no grand statement of desire, nor the pretentious squawking of some bored noble who was venting his frustration at his inability to woo my mistress Olivia. None of us knew at the time that it was a summoning, a dire call into the wild cosmos, where things beyond our ken lurked and plotted events that would lead to the demise of us all.
The courts of Illyria were once a grand and special place. The dancing, the song, the plays; I hated it all but, by the Lord Almighty, do I miss it now. Maybe it has been my own fine sense of taste and disgust at unnecessary revelry that has saved my soul thus far, or maybe I am more deserving of torture than most. Now nothing changes, nor will it ever do so. Nothing will grow here, not love nor wheat.
And so I scratch parchment with quill in an attempt to relate to you how Illyria fell into this dark and unyielding temperament, to be lost forever more beneath the waves of ill-passion.
It began, as these disasters always do, with a stranger. The herald Cesario was new to Illyria. I pride myself on my spies and my sources, though if I were to be modest (as I often am, though I consider it more a vice than a virtue) I would admit that my spies are drawn from simple folk who are wont to tell elaborate tales for simple coin. Thus I took the far spun stories of Cesario’s origin to be simple hyperbole. The fair-skinned eunuch didn’t look like he had come from anywhere more exotic than the land of Messaline, although having kin in that blasted and vile land would be enough for any man to hide their origin. Had I only asked what he was a herald of then perhaps we would have all been spared. In hindsight, I should have been more cautious and listened to those in my employ more. Fool that I am, I had already begun my own obsessions, and the pounding of my heart had deafened the wisdom pouring into my ears. I had begun to dare to hope that my Lady Olivia had looked upon me with a more favourable eye than I had ever imagined. Little did I know at the time that I was being deceived.
I had frequently dismissed Sir Toby Belch, my lady’s uncle and a true cove and knave, yet long considered him an ally. He had seen off suitors to his niece in the past as a matter of course. Many of the fine men of Illyria had attempted to woo the Lady Olivia only to fall foul of Sir Toby’s kind and welcoming smile and an open bottle of wine.
At the time, I had concluded that the man was a drunk first and a fool second, but for a time he was a confederate of mine. Suitors would come and we would conspire to ruin the chances of any and all of them who came to pass. If a simple wrong-footing from me failed, then Toby was there with his repulsive habits of wine and song to lure the unwise into a ditch, where they lay ashamed and typically short of purse.
I could have put a stop to the practice, but I was so enchanted by my lady that I simply turned a blind eye. Well as much as I could; my distaste for the man was immense and he would often abuse the hospitality of anyone who showed him kindness.
He possessed none of the beauty of his niece, his face red and his hands yellowed. His body was a monument to neglect, as if he was slowly forgetting that he had anything but a belly, and a mouth and hands with which to fill it.
I should have seen the signs. I should have realised that when his friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek arrived that the man was merely a servant of a greater darkness. But how could I have known? I was never one for plays or merriment. And as I say, I was distracted.
A letter from my lady took my mind. I was led to believe that the Lady Olivia had affection for me. Love is a dagger often pointed at the heart, and I was cruelly wounded by this plot. I know now that it was no cruel jest. The letter bid me to wear yellow in a way that pleased Sir Toby’s dark master, rather than the Lady Olivia. Its instruction, and his cunning, led me to act the fool, and yet worse, lead me to forget who I was.
I am the famous steward of the Lady Olivia, the one named Malvolio; it was I who was responsible for her safety. Even if the letter was true (and it was not), I should have done my duty and protected her from all the suitors who sought to use the widow’s grief against her and plunder her wealth.
It is my belief that Sir Toby’s machinations were ritual in design. For not only did I wear the banner colours of his secret lord, I was bid to behave in a way that was not in my nature. I sacrificed the things I that made me who I was, not only for the folly of love but for this dark force that lurked all too close to us all. Such behaviour would see me locked away, which is only right for those who have lost their minds. Only fortune’s fair smile let me escape such a mire, and only the scratching of a quill helps me stay clinging to what little sanity remains. I have my freedom, but only because my jailer was a fool.
It was I who let the herald into our court. My lady has often entertained the Duke Orsino; his position is such that our usual tricks have never been attempted on the likes of him. Fortunately, the man is such a narcissist that there was never any hope that she would fall for him. Cesario, his page, was another matter entirely.
Orsino’s herald was blessed with an illusionary blush of youth and seemed to have the ear of anyone he cared to talk to. He arrived in the strangest garb I ever did see; long robes and a pallid mask, his long arms covered in pale white silks. All of this was used to great effect; the mask a disguise to reveal the equally pale but alluring youth beneath. Little did I understand what the herald truly was.
My sources of course had too many wild stories to tell about this herald. That he was in fact a she. That she had survived a recent shipwreck and had lost her brother in the same tragic wreck.
An unlikely story, nothing human survives the shores of Illyria.
These were the least of the outlandish claims. Others said that he did in fact have a brother, a monstrous one who had indeed come from the sea but that the sea was also his home. Some said that the herald’s true name was Viola. Others claimed it was a more foreign name, that the herald hailed from the long lost land called Carcosa and was in truth its renegade prince, Hastur. Never dismiss anything as fanciful nonsense. It may well end you.
I pieced together the full deception. (Remember that I had drunk deep of the food and wine of love and was in my cups with misplaced passion.) Cesario (or whatever his name may have been) was playing a different game from that of love with both the Lady Olivia and the Duke Orsino.
To my lady, he was her pallid king. Though I was not privy to their private conversations, I feel t
hat the results were plain to see. Illyria’s finest beauty lay ruined by the promise of the exotic and the unknown, her wit and regard eaten away by promises and lies meant to confound earthly wit.
To the Duke, I understand the idiot simply fell for the fey herald’s mystery. His coy innocence and strangeness broke the bounds of brotherly love into something other.
He was once such a kind man, though a fool. As his humour changed, so too the city under his charge. The banners that bedecked its walls were replaced with a yellow sign; one that made your eyes leak to even look upon it.
It was then that the ague began. Men, strong as an ox, losing all sense of who they were and suddenly behaving as if they were someone else entirely. Elders who had spent their lives on this land suddenly forgetting the place they were standing and calling each street and river by strange and foreign names.
The Duke had changed, poisoned by the food of love.
It was the Duke who announced the play. A strange and foreign play, one that I had thought was banned (and yet I was too filled with the idea of grand romance to speak up). He was always one for song and dance but this was the strangest of plays. Illyria is not short of playwrights and actors; they infest this land like they do anywhere that allows a man to stand idle. Yet the performers came in their hordes, each to try out a role.
The bars along the docks swiftly filled as actors came to the Duke’s newly opened theatre to try out for this fantastic play. Never will I see a more ragged bunch; those who came to audition never seemed the same again, their eyes sunken, their faces slack. Rumours of disease spread like wildfire, of course, and then the docks were full again, this time with fine citizens looking to flee whatever ailment was coming from that awful playhouse.
The exodus began on the calmest of days. Illyria has never seen such a ragged fleet. Each and every ship filled with people, all leaving. The Duke, refusing to issue even a simple quarantine, had announced his new play ready and that the opening night would be that very evening.
I suspect that those with enough sense were urged to flee faster. Maybe had they not been in such a hurry, then fewer would have drowned. But few survive the shores of Illyria.
The waves were the size of mountains. Those of us who still had our wits, and had stayed behind, watched agog as the elements themselves struck out at those who had the courage to leave. I have never seen water move like that, lashing tendrils of spite and malice, ripping the ships apart and devouring them whole. The storm had a shape; something that looked to be not a bat, nor bear, nor squid, nor shark, but something all the more monstrous, lurking, titan-like in the darkness as a tempest.
I watched solemnly as the few who remained filed, one by one, to the playhouse, surrendering to the inevitable. I have not seen them since. I’d even welcome the presence of Sir Toby, but he was first in line to see the final play; this was his goal all along, to embrace the ultimate excess and be drawn into this dark madness of music and pomp which eats the very soul.
I returned to my lady’s court, to find it empty save for her. In her hand she held a pallid mask, and she wept openly into it, her wit stolen from her by this poisonous love. Cesario had fled to be with the Duke. The cad had suggested that she throw herself at the mercy of his brother. A strange foreigner with a stranger sounding name.
Still, I have always been my lady’s most humble servant. So, as my ink runs out and the scratching sound of the quill ceases, I will take the Lady Olivia to meet this brother, this stranger. This man, if that he be, named Cthulhu.
The Terrors of the Earth
Pat Kelleher
I
Gazing out through rheumy eyes at his three daughters, gathered courtiers, nobles and servants, Great Leyh’r, son of Bladud, son of Lud, King of the ancient Isle of Albion, sat throned in Troynovant’s Great Hall.
Outwardly, he bore the stately manner of a King of Albion. Inside he howled like a man condemned, beating at the confines of his cell, unable to escape his fate; a fate thrust upon him by Divine Right of Succession and the Blood of Albion that ran in his veins.
He had seen some fourscore years, threescore of those upon the throne of Albion, the previous score in the company of his father, King Bladud, and his dark obsession, of which the rule of the kingdom was but the least of it.
Leyh’r felt the ineffable yoke of his office press down upon him like the years on his back that weakened his sinews, agued his bones and misted his sight. If he could bear it a little longer he might yet do some good, even though he must still carry the heavier portion of that burden alone toward death.
For lack of a son and heir he was forced to cleave his kingdom between his daughters, lest his eldest daughters’ husbands, Albany and Cornwall, fall to war over it.
Leyh’r stirred on his throne, his voice echoing from the high vaulted ceiling.
“Know we have divided in three our kingdom and desire to publish our daughters’ several dowers and divest ourselves of rule, interests of territory, and powers of state. Which of you, should we say does love us most? Goneril, our eldest born, speak first.”
Expecting her and her husband to inherit all, Goneril quickly tamped the flash of anger in her eyes but her gaze continued to smoulder with resentment as she spoke; each honeyed word weighed and valued for the revenue it would return.
“Sire, I love you more than any child loved a father, more than eyesight, air and freedom. I love you as much as life itself.”
Leyh’r knew the ill disposition in which she bore him and did not blame her. He rose and turned to the large tapestry map of Albion that hung on the wall.
“Of these bounds,” – he pointed at the map – “even from this line to this, we do make thee lady.”
The brief glint of avarice in Goneril’s eyes, before she and Albany bowed their heads, did not go unseen by Leyh’r as he turned to his next eldest, so much like himself they often had their differences.
“What says our second daughter, our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak.”
Regan bowed, the hint of a sly smile on her face imparted toward her self-satisfied sister. With time to think, her answer was well-crafted and fashioned to appeal to the old man’s vanity.
“Sire, I am made from that same spirit as my sister and consider myself her equal in all but this; she falls too short of the love I bear your Highness and that only in your love do I find happiness.”
Leyh’r nodded, satisfied. “To thee and thine I give this ample third of our fair kingdom, no less in space, validity and pleasure than that conferred upon Goneril.”
But guilt roiled in Leyh’r’s belly like a venomous distillation, for he knew that in claiming their thrones thus they had damned themselves and their descendants, as surely as the Blood of Albion ran in their veins, too. Yet he had another daughter.
He turned to his youngest, his beloved Cordelia, Coeur de Leyh’r, the very object of his heart, and his determination almost faltered for she was too much like her mother. Her nature was so far from doing harm that she suspected none. For her, though, there would be nothing. Cordelia would never sit upon the throne of Albion. He had sworn it, even though to do so meant that it would cost him her love and that he would never see her again.
The thought raked afresh the memories of his wife’s death.
That he should lose a wife, a queen, and they a mother, that he should now so lose a daughter. But he knew Cordelia’s faults, though they were slight, and had crafted this very stratagem to catch her and her alone. Nevertheless, the words almost turned to ashes in his mouth as he spoke.
“And now, our joy, though our last and least, what can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.”
Cordelia, fretted, her hands worrying at her girdle, her voice the cautious song of a sparrow after a storm: “Nothing, my lord.”
“Nothing?”
She met his gaze, her eyes imploring him not to do this to her. He had seen that same look in her mother’s eyes once and, broiling in shame, he lo
oked away.
Cordelia stepped forward, appealing to him. “My lord, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. You have begot me, bred me, loved me, and I return those duties back as are right fit. I love your majesty according to our bond, no more, no less.”
He felt bound upon a rack of fire and that if he let his tears fall they would scald like molten lead. Yet he could play his part as well as his other daughters had played theirs.
”So young,” said Leyh’r, aghast, “and so untender? Better thou had not been born than not to have pleased me better! By the sacred radiance of the Sun, and all the mysteries of the orbs from whom we do exist, I hereby disclaim all my paternal care, kinship, and propinquity of blood. Your third I part between your sisters and hereby banish you my sometime daughter. Four days I give thee to provision yourself against the world and on the fifth I grant thee safe passage to Gallia, never to return!”
Bewildered glances flashed between Regan and Goneril as if they would speak up. “Come not between the dragon and his wrath!” warned Leyh’r in a low growl. Cowed, they stood in silence and said nothing.
Cordelia looked at him in shock, her face caught between hurt, confusion and betrayal as he stripped away her very world, all she knew and all she thought she knew. It was the ghost of a look that had haunted him all these years.
He wanted to gather her into his arms, tell her he was sorry, that he loved her, that he was at the mercy of greater forces and all that he did, he did to spare her. Instead, he turned his face to hide the welling tears and flung out his arm.
“Go. This shall not be revoked!”
Cordelia fled the court, her sobs echoing round the hall. Perillus, one of Leyh’r’s councilmen, may the gods bless and favour him, followed after.
Leyh’r’s priest, Skalliger, stepped forward from his station behind the throne. “Royal Leyh’r has spoken. The session is over.”
Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu Page 26
