There are a thousand different variations of what happened that fateful
night, which is rather impressive, given that roughly a dozen people are
even aware the event occurred. Quite a lot of the variance comes from
shifting the party guilty for allowing such an event to come to pass;
some blame the Internet; others, violent video games; and of course,
there are those who blame the Jews. Jew-blamers, however, are direly
untrustworthy by default, so we shall not discuss them here.
Were any of the dozen to know what truly happened on the shore of Hali,
in the city of Carcosa, they may very well simply hang up their blooded
athames and eldritch tomes of unspeakable horror--not to deny their
power, not to repent, but to avoid any sort of connection with the god
that got beat up by a girl.
* * *
Osaka squished the soft, fluffy sheets of her bed with her toes while
she waited for Chiyo to pick up the phone. The King in Yellow lay on
her bedstand next to the Ayu-Ducky, which itself sat on the Ayu-Clock
next to the Ayu-Lamp. The Ayu-Radio whispered a cheery pop song. The
Ayu-Conditioner hummed freezing air into the Ayu-Room. It was quite
peaceful for the room of the incarnation of the priestess destined to
close the book of the world.
On the other end, Chiyo finally picked up.
"Hi, Chiyo-chan!" Osaka said. "I'm heading to a place to hang out with
the new guy. Wanna come?"
* * *
Roughly two minutes before Osaka called, Chiyo walked ("bobbled" would
be closer, in tune with the rhythmic bouncing of her pigtails) into the
kitchen for a snack. She'd put the "school coated in mystery blood"
incident at the back of her mind, occupying the front with her
abbreviated homework and, at the moment, delicious cookies.
She opened the refrigerator and was greeted with a half-full gallon of
milk cooling in the fridge.
Chiyo gazed at the innocuous gallon. It sat like a little plastic
Buddah, amicable, wise, and (presumably) full of calcium, especially
compared with the willful and immature leftover fried octopus on the
shelf above it.
But Chiyo was thrust back to a few hours ago, with the milk turning to
blood at Osaka's uttered phrase. She decided to have juice with her
cookies, instead.
* * *
"No thank you, Osaka, I have ... homework." There was a little buzzing
sound on the other end of the line, as though the voice piece were
vibrating at a rapid, albeit gentle, pace. "Maybe some other time when
you aren't the Devil. Oh, sorry, I mean... when... gah! G'...g'bye."
Osaka scarce got a "bye" in herself before Chiyo hung up. She dialed up
Yomi's number, but Tomo picked up.
"Yo! This is the Jelly Rolls residence. Sorry Yomi can't come to the
phone, she's too busy putting on weight to answer the--HEY! OW!"
"STOP ANSWERING MY PHONE, TOMO! Ah--ahem. Hey, O."
"Oh, it sounds like you have a handful over there. Is Tomo over to
study?"
"No, she's here bec--HEY, NO. She's here because she wants to come
over, and she didn't want to walk all the way back to her house. And
also because she wanted to, you know. Be Tomo."
"Ah... okay. Do you want to come?"
"Somebody's gotta keep Tomo in line."
"Cooool. I'll see you at the place, then!" She hung up, then patched a
line to Kagura. Nobody picked up after three times, then nobody picked
up twelve times after that. After five more times she decided to try
the next person on the list.
Sakaki picked up.
* * *
"Hello? ... Oh, hi. ... yes, she's still here."
Kaorin had changed into a new set of clothes at her home, but wanted to
come to Sakaki's place anyway ("I need to get out of my house" was her
excuse). She lay on Sakaki's bed, looking at Sakaki's kitten posters
and hugging one of Sakaki's vast array of stuffed animals. She could
imagine herself being happier, but desperate, bizarre measures would
need to be taken to get to said plateaus of melty liquid joy.
Sakaki looked to Kaorin. "Osaka wants to know if you want to come with
her to the meeting place. It's with that guy who walked into class at
lunch."
Kaorin shook her head. "I don't wanna mess with that guy... I bet he's
the one that did it. He didn't look too healthy."
Sakaki nodded. "She'll pass. But I'll come with y--"
Kaorin sat bolt-upright. "I'll go too, Miss Sakaki!" she hoped she said
with a decent ammount of restraint (it came out more like "I'LL come
TOO, Miss Sakaki!").
Sakaki blinked, then said, "Oh... Kaorin decided she wants to come."
* * *
Osaka nodded, although she later realized (as the King in Yellow strode
through the parting, panicked crowd) that Sakaki couldn't appreciate the
gesture. "I'll see you then!" With that done, she decided to pass the
time. She reached for the book--then caught the sight of a neat-looking
shadow on the wall. When she was done contemplating weather it was more
of a bunny, a kitten, or some kind of vast, dimension-spanning octopus
with bunny ears and a kitten nose, it was time to head out.
* * *
Makoto marked the place of the Lost Door with the Dagger; its blade
stubbornly etched through the plain facade of the little ice shop; it
longed for something that bled. The ice shop/convenience store was They
Food Get!, and it was run by a guy who had as good a grasp on English as
a cane toad, but who 1) sold sugary processed snacks at grotesquely low
prices and 2) had the unusual luck of building near the most
devastatingly powerful leyline in the city. He was regularly visited by
scattered freaks from the Occult Underground, and had gotten so used to
magickal runoff he dismissed anything cat-sized or smaller as something
to wait out.
"Eleven minutes to go-time," Jin said, capping off a soda. The three
waited at the facade as the owner tossed out something that resembled a
toaster with legs, thuroughly stomped.
"Patience, Jin," Makoto cooed. "She is Cassilda. She can no more
resist her calling than the flame can waylay itself from burning..."
From around the corner came Cassilda, dressed brightly. "I'm not late?"
Izumi gave their Cassilda a bow. "You are infinitely punctual, dearest
Cassilda. It's to be expected from the elegant priestess o..."
Four others filtered in behind her--the glasses-girl, the hyperactive
one, the shrinking violet, and the steely athelete.
Jin looked at Cassilda, looked at the team that followed her, looked at
Cassilda again. "I said to come alone. Alone. Alone. I believe we
established that!"
Cassilda shrugged. "It sounded like a thing, so I thought... Why not?
They won't get in the way, will they?"
Jin turned to his own team and gestured, ending with a frustrated shrug.
Makoto said, "They are unlikely to obtrude. If nothing else, they will
be interesting participants in the third act..."
Cassilda perked. "Oh, that one's all fun and bloody! That's when they
bring in the Be... the Bee-ahk-ees to tear up those girls for--"
There was a terrible moment of realization, and the three felt a
terrible weight of destiny settle upon them.
"--Hastur, right?"
Thunder broke the sky, though the stars shone not minutes ago. Yomi was
the first to look up, and the first to get a disquietingly yellow drop
of water on the face. Moments later a curtain of yellow rain pounded on
them. "Aw, hell"! Tomo cried, and did what came naturally--flee into
They Food Get! The others poured in, the rain coming down so hard it
was nearly solid.
* * *
Osaka looked around at her friends. Yomi shelled out for a roll of
tissues to wash off on. "At least it doesn't smell bad," she said,
scrubbing her glasses with a cloth from her jacket. Osaka voulenteered
to go last.
"I'm sorry I made the sky pee," she said.
The three new kids seethed.
The most imposing one said, "You have evoked His name with too little
caution, Cassilda."
"Hmm?" Osaka said. "You m--"
The girl moved like an attacking snake, latching her hand over Osaka's
mouth. "Do not say His name again!" she hissed. Yomi jumped, Tomo let
out something halfway between a scream and a loud gulp, Sakaki jolted to
attention, Kaorin hid behind Sakaki.
"There are powers and fates binding His name. Tell me, in all the text,
how many times is the King in Yellow spoken of in the tome?"
"Hey--let 'er go!" Tomo stammered, adopting a fighting position, or at
least as close to one as she could imagine.
"Tell me," the girl said, slacking up just enough to let Osaka speak.
"Uh... three times?"
"A man may speak His name twice, though as you have seen, the
consequences are dire. The third whisper destroys the speaker. That is
why His name is spoken by three separate players. Understand?"
Osaka nodded, wearing an expression of faint, yet utter, panic.
"Then watch your tongue." She let go of Osaka's face. Osaka rubbed her
sore cheeks.
"You could've said it more nicely..." Osaka said. She looked to her
friends. None looked too happy.
"Let's just go, Osaka," Yomi said. "I don't like these kids and
whatever the hell they're doing." She glared at their acquaintences,
who returned with glares of equal sentiment.
"We need her for a single action, and we can let her free with nothing
but bad memories behind us," the tall one said.
"C'mon, it won't take a minute," the thin guy--Jin, Osaka
remembered--said. "And speaking of which, we've only got two 'til it
goes down."
Yomi said, "O, it's your choice. We staying or leaving?"
Osaka fretted. "I... I guess it's no problem, if it just takes a
minute."
"We're coming with her," Sakaki said. Her voice was strong, cool, in
control--unbreakable.
* * *
If this goes on for much longer, I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown,
Sakaki thought.
* * *
"Fine," Makoto said.
"Then let's hurry this up," the glasses-girl said.
Fools, he thought. They are as food for worms.
* * *
The eight shuffled out the back exit. The owner of the store (his
nickname was Ray) briefly noted the number of kids that left. He
figured the five semi-freaks had their marbles together fairly well.
The would-be magisters probably nothing more than overblown Bosnians
with a fancy tome.
He looked out the storefront and saw a thick yellow rain pouring down.
"Huh," he thought, "'s been a good two weeks since that happened last."
He looked back at his magazine.
* * *
"You have the book?" the big one said. Osaka handed over the tome; he
grasped it and tore the paper off the cover. "Thank you," he said,
feigning sincerity and failing at it pretty badly. He turned to a small
X cut into the wall of the building, pressed the book against it, front
cover facing outward.
There was a sign on the front--a set of three curved hooks, bright
yellow. Their arrangement burned the eye.
The three placed their hands on the book, below the sign on the cover.
The teenager drew something from a pocket--a long, thin dagger.
Silently he thrust the blade under all three of their wrists.
"Ho-lee shit!" Tomo cried.
"What in hell?!" Yomi stammered, edging away from the three.
"Ow," Osaka said, rubbing her wrist in sympathy.
The blood trickled from below their wrists--caught mid-drip as though
seized by something apart from gravity--and flowed into the wall. All
three of the new ones chanted. "Ia! Ia! The Yellow King, f'tagn!
Ia! Ia! The Yellow King, f'tagn!"
Kaorin grabbed Sakaki's wrist and pulled. "Come on, we have to go, it's
getting--"
A door appeared.
There was no door; there was a door. The door was lined with red, and
the door was caving in--
"Yomi, I think we're screwed," Tomo said.
"You know, I think we are," Yomi said; she'd been trying to run for a
good ten seconds, but her feet felt hammered to the floor. Space seemed
to dialate.
"What's happening?" Sakaki said, trying to look around, found it
painful, like tryign to push against a crushing wind.
"Ia! Ia! The King in Yellow! Ia! Ia!
"Oh, this can't be good," Osaka said, and the door became light, and the
light reached out to touch, to steal them--
* * *
For a time, there was a sea-sick nothingness, and then a hard slam, like
a poorly-aimed jump onto concrete. Osaka felt a rattle in her bones,
and opened her eyes--she scarce realized she'd closed them--and saw some
place wholly new.
It stretched before her as far as the horizon, a vast, baroque city,
caught in some architectural void between Victorian and
turn-of-the-century modern. From this high up (she realized she was,
indeed, extremely high up, and standing on a great balcony with not even
a guardrail to lean against) she couldn't see individuals in the
streets, but the streets seemed to lurch and roil like an anthive onto
which water has been poured. For all the life that teemed below, there
didn't seem to be any life. There was some quality to the bland
non-scent rising from the city, carried on the meat-freezer-cold winds;
it smelled like a great many things alive but not living.
"This city," Osaka said, with trademark insight, "smells like people
that need hobbies."
She heard footsteps behind her.
"Like... bug collecting."
She turned, expecting the three.
"Never knew a bad-tempered bug collector..."
The three weren't there.
There were three children, though, about Chiyo's age. They wore
Victorian clothing, or, more accurately, a Victorian-clothing-fetish
version of Victorian clothing, all ribbons and lace and frills; with all
the layers and dangly fobs they wore, Osaka wondered how the girls could
move, much less sashay in a vaguely intimidating manner across a
painfully clean floor.
"Are those heavy?" Osaka asked.
When they drew closer, Osaka saw each of the girls was held up by
strings in the rafters. Puppets? Girl-sized puppets?
That giggled like obvious horror movie villianesses?
"Villianessi?" Osaka wondered.
"Cassilda is to be dressed for the King," one of the puppet-girls sang.
"Cassilda is to be very proper for the King," another said.
"Cassilda should be happy, she should," the last one said.
"You can call me Ayumu, you know," Osaka said. "Or... Osaka. I can
take an 'Osaka.'"
"Cassilda must be getting ready soon," the first puppet-girl said.
"Cassilda needs to meet her destiny," the second said.
"Cassilda needs to meet the King, she does," the last said. The three
danced around them, guided in long, dreamy strokes by unseen puppeteers.
Their heads gently bobbed, their mouths unmoving and wide painted eyes
unblinking. They were the perfect balance between beautiful, eerie, and
annoying.
"Okay. I'll go with you... but just please don't do that
speaking-like-that...thing. Please." Osaka followed the drifting
puppets, wondering what was going on and how she and her friends would
get out of this one.
* * *
"So, we seem to be stuck in another universe," Yomi said, "and it's one
that's reasonably hostile." She looked down at the swarm of monsters
piling around the bookshelf she and Tomo climbed up. They resembled
alligators crafted from scroll-parchment, scissors, and shark's teeth,
and cloistered around the library's floor.
"Yeah, I think you're right," Tomo said, edging along the bookshelf and
going for the door set into the ceiling a few inches above her head.
"Hey, maybe this is the kind of alternate universe you can rearrange
with your thoughts!" Yomi held a hand to her temple. "Okay... think
hard. Imagine ... something helpful." She thought of the door sliding
down the wall and becoming parallel with them, the papergators lighting
on fire, a medium-large flamethrower...
A tiny spark of flame danced on one of the papergators. The door inched
a little bit towards them. Tomo furrowed her forehead muscles and made
a little "uyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyu" noise.
"That's not helping, Tomo."
"Maybe it is."
"It would, if it wasn't too busy being entirely unhelpful."
"Shuddup."
* * *
Sakaki looked around and saw nothing.
Blackness surrounded her in every direction.
She stood on something that felt like ground, and she was breathing
something that seemed to be air. There was light enough to see by, and
see that there was limitless slightly gray blackness everywhere. She
paced, paused, stopped, sat. She wondered what she could do.
She closed her eyes, imagined her friends. Imagined a little something
to keep her company, a cute little kitty she could pet while waiting to
be found. She believed in them... but she didn't want to be lonely.
Not here, in this place.
When she opened her eyes, there was a cat ambling towards her.
"Blert!"
It was a little calico kitty with big welcoming eyes. It ambled to her
on stubby legs, wagging a stubby tail. It disarmed her completely; she
got on her knees and waddled over to the little kitten. She got to just
outside arm's reach, then carefully bent in, stretching out her hand.
Maybe this one wouldn't bite. If she imagined this one here, maybe
it'd--
Her hand got around an inch from it before it twitched and became a
thing of thorns and tiny, edged teeth.
She scrambled back.
The thing ambled forward.
Sakaki got the feeling it was going to be a long night.
* * *
Makoto orchestrated the shades. The shades were images of men and
women, stock figures mindlessly reveling until Black Midnight. In
Carcosa it was always one minute to Black Midnight, save when He came,
and so the mindless parties of the shades never ended, save at the hands
of the King in Yellow. They could not be controlled or waylayed from
their celebrations, but they could be made to celebrate in functional
ways.
Now they revelled in a way that arranged the ballroom in geomantic
spleandor, the perfect stage for the play. They needed only the lead
actress, and the shades of Carcosa would fill in their roles as rote as
the breath they pretended to breathe.
"Will she go through with it?" asked Jin, watching shades of women in
gaudy dress dance in yawning loops. "Maybe she'll bug out."
"I think not," Makoto smirked, willing generic music for generic beings
to dance to. They first came through the Lost Door a year ago; they had
time to perfect working their will on Carcosa. It was only their
adherence to the King in Yellow's dream-logic that let them work such
broad changes, and only because their wills were stronger than
reinforced castle walls. "She is a dreamer; couldn't you see it in her
eyes? How she's always looking slightly beyond what's in front of her?
"This is a place where those who sleep can do so forever, drifting on
night's fancies, willingly lost. Her friends might rebel... but surely
they will be swept aside. Their minds are weak, their souls dim. They
will be lost in this place."
He cut the thread of mind that conjured the ballroom's music; the band
picked up where they'd left off, and the shades danced into
self-indulgent madness once agian.
* * *
I, Osaka thought, as the puppet-girls dragged the second layer of her
voluminous dress over her head, am so totally tired of this place.
It was superficially pretty, but lots of things were superficially
pretty. She hung in midair, strung up on long silk cords
non-threateningly wrapped around her shoulders and legs. The
puppet-girls draped her in jewlery and finery, sang an unnervingly
cheery song, and acted reasonably politely. But the whole thing--the
shiney dressing room, the big otherworldly city--it had a distinct
feeling to it.
She thought about what the feeling was.
She thought more about what the feeling was.
She wondered if an angle that looked obtuse could behave acutely. And
if acute angles were, in fact, cuter because they were tiny, or if
obtuse angles were cuter becuase they were big and less pokey.
Hollow. That's what this city was, what the puppet-girls were. She
frowned. The whole thing felt fake, like a cardboard cutout background
that, surely, some director in the past thought would be convincing from
his end of film history until the world was absorbed into the expanding
sun's hellfurnace. It was painstakingly crafted, endlessly detailed,
but the whole effect was like an overdone paper napkin--vaguely pretty,
utterly disposable.
"Uh, doll people?" Osaka said.
"Cassilda's asked a question?"
"Cassilda's asked a question?"
"Cassilda asked a question, she has."
"I have a real bad itch, but I can't get at it 'cause my hands are..."
She jiggled in the strings. "This-y. Very this-y."
One of the puppet-girls scratched around 'til Osaka nodded. At least
they were good scratchin' bots.
"Where are my friends?"
* * *
Tomo and Yomi inched their way to the door in the ceiling and popped in.
On the other side was a mirror image of the library they'd just left.
There were still papergators, save they swarmed on the ceiling, and the
floor the two girls walked on was a match for the ceiling they crawled
through.
"So, gravity-reversal-zone?" Tomo asked.
"Just like in Sonic the Hedgehog," Yomi sighed. "Think you can run a
loop-de-loop?"
"If I think hard enough, I'm sure I can!"
"Yes, because we've gotten a lot done so far by wrinkling our forehead
muscles. And stay under the bookshelf, just in case gravity screws up
and the floor gets righted again." Yomi stooped though the gap between
the bookshelf and the ceiling/floor.
"Hey, what if gravity catches up, and the bookshelf crashes down?
Wouldn't that squish you like a bug?" Tomo walked alongside Yomi, just
outside the shelf, at a brisk pace.
Yomi pondered this, then popped from under the shelf and walked next to
Tomo.
"Coward."
"Shut it. What about that project you told me about? The thing
that'll, quote, 'totally focus our super awesome mind magic
powers-spelled-with-a-"z"'?"
"Okay. Let me explain it: we look at somebody, and we tell ourselves,
'I want them to X. X is what horrible bloody brutal thing we an' do to
'em. And we think about it, and then it happens. Burning time!"
"How long did it take you to come up with this grand plan of psychic
power?"
"I been goin' over it about a few hours."
"This is a big deal for you, this, uh, deadly evil alternate universe."
"It's not that evil!"
"What about kidnapping Osaka? What about the black sorcery? And what
about the papergators? Look at those things and tell me that's not the
product of some diseased mind."
"Wait, 'papergator'? You mean the scrollsnakes?"
"Those are alligators made of paper. They look like alligators.
They're flat. Snakes are more round."
"Those are scrollsnakes and I'll stand by it 'til the day I die."
"Which may be today, incidentally."
"I'm in cautious denial!"
"Yeah."
"An' what was that about me thinkin' this is a big thing?"
"You don't seem to be panicking or screaming or bending over and weeping
or, you know, doin' the 'I'm stuck in an evil alternate universe that
blasphemously ignores the laws of physics' dance."
"Eh."
"Huh."
"You're not, either."
"Well..." Yomi pointed up. "To be fair, we've only seen about two
rooms, and one of them being an exact mirror of the other... not that
impressed."
"Where are we going?"
"Damned if I know."
"Great."
* * *
Sakaki looked the monster in the eye.
The monster inched forward.
Sakaki inched back.
Sakaki looked the monster in the eye.
The monster inched forward.
Sakaki inched back.
Sakaki looked the monster in the eye.
The monster inched forward.
Sakaki inched back.
Sakaki looked the monster in the eye.
"Are you going to keep this up forever?" the monster squeeked.
"Yes," Sakaki said, "Unless you're not going to bite me, or, uh, mangle
me." Her expression softened. "Are you going to bite me?"
"I so totally am," the monster said.
The monster inched forward.
Sakaki inched back.
* * *
"Miss Sa-ka-kiiii!" Kaorin screamed, gunning down the hallway from the
thing that stalked her. She didn't even know if she was running in the
right direction, and, worse, found she cared less and less. There was a
monster here, and the dim lights of the skull-candles were only good
enough to light the shape of the hallway. She couldn't even see her
hands, much less the thing chasing afer her.
She just wanted to stop running, to catch her breath.
She wanted to bury herself in Sakaki's arms and never let go.
The thing moved--she could not see it, but felt it do so--and it slashed
her leg, barely missing her tendon. She fell, felt the greasy stone
beneath her... and let a sobbing whimper leave her lips. She rolled
against the wall beneath a skull-candle, curled up against it with her
back to the outside.
"I don' wan' die," she whimpered.
She felt the thing rise behind her. It breathed like it had water in
its lungs. "Here you will. Forgotten and alone."
"I... I have friends..."
"They are trapped here. They will be consumed. They will never
remember you."
"But..."
"You will be forgotten. Everything shall be forgotten. Your world will
be brushed aside like ash."
She felt it lift her up by her collar. She heard its joints crack, its
arm stretch, and it pressed her back against the wall, near the
skull-candle. She could see a wormlike white arm press from the
darkness.
"You can't even work your will in this place. Have you not even a
dream?"
"A... dream?"
"There's nothing you want. Nothing you could ever wish for. That's why
you can't do anything."
She listened.
* * *
The puppetutes descended from the ceiling of the Grand Ballroom,
carrying Cassilda dressed in her greatest finery. The three waited for
her, each with her divine vestiges: Izumi with Cassilda's scythe,
crafted from pearl and weighted with a silver blade; Makoto with her
Crown, a twisted golden tiara set with flowing yellow rags; and Jin with
The King in Yellow, its Yellow Sign freely borne.
They waited as the puppetutes set Cassilda down with utmost care. She
wore the strangest expression of desperation and worry.
"You have my friends all scattered around? All of 'em in danger?"
Makoto stepped forward. "They are peripheral. They are chaff, cleft
gently from the wheat."
Izumi stepped forward. "You're all that matters in this place. You are
Cassilda, beloved of the King."
Jin stepped forward. "You will remake the world, make it beautiful.
The others can only dwell on its ugliness and blindness."
Cassilda spun, taking in the ballroom, the dancing shades and the clocks
all set a minute to midnight. "But... they're my friends, and you're
just... and what, what's this about the world?"
Makoto rose his offering to her. "The King in Yellow will make the
world born again, as he sees fit. It will be beautiful at last, as
Carcosa is."
Izumi rose her offering to Cassilda. "If you follow the play, you--"
Cassilda interrupted. "I am really, really tired of the
this-guy-speaks-then-this-guy-then-this-guy! Those doll-things did it
and it really got on my nerves and I really just want to get my friends
and make sure they're okay and leave!"
Izumi stood, gripped her scythe as though she were ready to use it.
"Act through the play. The world will be recreated. If the King sees
it fit, your friends will make it."
"But..."
* * *
"--if it wasn't for that squid, I'd'a never got into high school." Tomo
stopped, crossed her arms across her chest, and smirked.
"If I just walked in on this conversation," Yomi said, "I think my brain
might implode."
"Ah, beautiful context."
A papergator fell to the floor.
Tomo swallowed, loud. "Uh... would that be a, uh, bad sign?"
More papergators fell. Others scrambled down, suddenly aware,
hungry-looking.
"Yeah. RUN!" The two ran, Yomi zigging in one direction and Tomo
zagging in another, as the swarm of papergators flooded from the ceiling
to the floor.
* * *
Sakaki looked the monster in the eye.
The monster inched forward.
Sakaki inched back.
The monster looked Sakaki in the eye, twitched, and grew, gaining long
and striding legs, an elongated and deadly-looking maw, a sting-bearing
tail. It did not roar, but it whispered with a rasping voice like a
leper's.
Sakaki crawled to her feet and ran, the beast hot after her.
* * *
The thing pressed its worm-hand tighter on Kaorin's chest.
"Carcosa can be changed. But one must wish for something with more
longing than any dim-souled specie as yours could hope."
Kaorin thought of Sakaki. How strong she was. How brave. How quiet
she was, and understanding.
"You don't have the power. Nowhere near."
How they won the three-legged race together, how she had trouble untying
their shoes.
"Best to let yourself fade away."
How she was trapped here, too. How there was something like this
chasing after her. Playing with her. Stealing away her strength,
sapping her bravery...
"Best to let yourself be food for Carcosa."
* * *
"You'd have to wish, Cassilda," Jin said. Osaka's brain buzzed in a
thousand different directions. She never had to think this hard or this
fast before, not with so much on the line.
"But for what?" she pleaded, backing away from the advancing three--and
found herself pinned against one of the clocks.
"Just for them to be here. You'd have to wish hard, though."
Osaka closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, balled her fists. She
screamed, "I wish my friends were here!"
The girl scoffed. "Like that'll..."
* * *
The papergators swarmed, bearing teeth. Yomi and Tomo stood back to
back, spinning, trying not to let their guard down. There were
thousands of them, and more were coming, with sharp shark's jaws and
empty gemstone eyes...
And suddenly they were slipping through the floor.
* * *
"...work."
The glasses-girl and her friend fell out of the wall, crashing into a
group of shades. "Oh, crap, ow!" the one with swept black hair yelled,
"With the big hair ornaments and the earrings!"
"What in hell?" Makoto barked.
* * *
The devil-thing was almost on her--Sakaki could feel its teeth gnash at
her back--and suddenly she was falling, and she was sure she was going
to die, here, alone, when she smashed into a wall of over-dressed men
and women.
She pushed herself out of the crowd and saw she had suddenly come to a
ballroom, a big one, like in old movies, and--
Osaka!
Osaka was here, at the head of the ballroom, with the jerks surrounding
her and Tomo and Yomi peeling themselves out of another pile of
over-dressed men and women, and there was noise--
And the tall guy of the jerks uttered something, and everything went
silent.
* * *
Cassilda's eyes went blank. Not meandering, not gently off-set, but
blank. Makoto thrust his hand into her chest.
"I hate to do this. But you are a hazard to our cause, Cassilda, until
you start cooperating. I have placed upon you what the sorcerers of the
ancient world know as a geas. You shall follow the commands of the geas
until you have satisfied its requirements. You shall play the act of
Cassilda, from act one scene one to the final bloody massacre. You will
recite your lines perfectly. You will complete our commands and summon
the King in Yellow under our control, and we shall sweep aside the old
world. When we have set the King unto the world, you are released."
Cassilda stared.
"Do you understand?"
She nodded.
"Good." He withdrew his hand and gingerly placed Cassilda's Crown upon
her head. Izumi placed the Scythe in Cassilda's right hand. Jin set
the tome into the crook of her right. "Then, let it be so."
The black-haired girl scrambled. "Let her go, you--"
Makoto uttered a command word. She was halted; the girl in glasses,
too. The tall one with long black hair froze, horrified, unable to act
against the geas he'd placed upon her.
All that was left was the play.
* * *
"You will die."
Kaorin thought of Sakaki.
Sakaki needs me.
"And I will kill you."
She heard its hand rush.
She lifted her right hand, and snatched the thing's thrusting limb. It
was easy, like catching an underhanded pitch.
A sign burst on her forehead, lighting up the tunnel. The bearer of the
blade was a wormy thing, pale and soft. She crushed its arm rather
easily. Its dagger fell.
She smiled.
"Oh..." it uttered.
She twisted, and slammed the bastard five inches deep in the stone.
She took his blade, and did what came naturally.
* * *
Osaka stood at the head of the makeshift stage, the scythe borne, the
book borne, with a horde of empty men and women staring at her, ready to
be excited. The three guys stood before her. Her friends were frozen
behind them.
To finish this would end the world. Her friends were captured, Kaorin
was still lost.
She thought of the girl's warning, barely; the spell cast on her
screamed directions, kept her in line. She tried to run her mind along
its grooves, feeling for a weakness. She found one.
The geas didn't keep her from screwing up before she started the play.
"Hastur," she said.
"NOOOO--" the tall bugger howled--
The clock clicked forward. Midnight chimed.
The door to the ballroom exploded open.
The King in Yellow crept in.
It was tall. Very tall. It towered three times Sakaki's height, and
Sakaki was around 5'7". It was too tall, too thin. It wore yellow
tatters, thousands, draped across its form, concealing everything but a
simple, featureless white mask. It crept forward on a vast, sweeping
skirt; it was silent, save for the gentle sweep of its reaching tatters
and the weeping of a sudden gust of wind.
Beyond its size it carried menace beyond anything any of them had seen.
It crossed half the ballroom, the shades crumbling before it. It
crossed Osaka's mind that her nod so many hours ago would be fully
unappreciated by Sakaki. It then crossed her mind that yellow could be
an amazingly unattractive color on a giant horrible monster. Then she
realized she was thinking her own thoughts without having to force them.
And Yomi, Tomo, and Sakaki were moving! The tall bugger was flailing
and screaming and sounded like he was trying to cast a spell to bring
the thing under control.
The King in Yellow sent a tatter of its skirt flitting out. It smashed
the kid's throat, picked him up, and tossed him into the clock-face
above the stage. He fell from the face and landed with an unnerving
crack.
The other two bowed, whispered fevered prayers.
I have been summoned, the King in Yellow declared, and I have found my
callers wanting.
It lifted its right arm from its side. A long, spike-tipped limb
crunched out of it, extended, became as a whip. There will be a
punishment.
Sakaki ran between Tomo and Yomi, frozen now in horror. "Monster!" she
yelled, "If... If you're so great and powerful here... then... show us
your true face!"
Osaka hopped from the stage, wondering if Sakaki had any idea what she
was doing.
* * *
I have no idea what I'm doing, Sakaki thought, staring down the King in
Yellow.
* * *
I wear no mask.
It sent its limb crashing at Sakaki, a great serpent capped with a
spear's blade, winding, too fast to dodge--
The ground in front of Sakaki shattered, and a flash of gold. The
tentacle went flying, parried by something. Dust and debris rained from
the destroyed floor; when it settled, Kaorin stood, feet balanced on
either side of the hole, a golden symbol glowing on her forehead, and a
sword bigger than she was balanced easily in one hand. It was one
mother of a sword, resembling the three-way love-child of a giant sword,
a giant axe, and a giant flying-V guitar, made of a bright golden metal
inset with achingly intricate design and set with a single blue
gemstone.
In Carcosa, a world of empty images and rote celebration, it was the
only thing that seemed truly vibrant and beautiful.
What, then, is this?
"I," Kaorin said, voice wavery but powerful, "am the Winsom Knight of
Raspberry Heaven, Kaori! This is my celestial blade, Dagger of Heaven.
I have exalted on high to defend my truest love from your rending
talons, foulness from beyond the stars!" She brandished her blade at
the titan.
"How long have you been waiting to say that?" Tomo asked.
"A while," Kaorin whispered out the side of her mouth.
The King in Yellow beheld her, contemplated her.
A low, condescending laugh echoed from the demon-god.
This should be entertaining... if fleeting.
To be concluded.
Bonus 4-Koma:
Nothing to Worry About
Panel 1: Chiyo asleep in her room, but stirring.
Panel 2: Chiyo wakes up a little.
Chiyo: "Mmmph. I ... I wonder how the girls are doing."
Panel 3: Kaorin with her blade drawn, standing before Sakaki, with Yomi,
Tomo, and Cassilda-Gussied Osaka behind her, and tentacles of the King
in Yellow lashing out at them.
Panel 4: Chiyo goes back to sleep.
Chiyo: "Ah... I bet they're fine."
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