Contents

Introduction

These Harpies of Carcosa — W. H. Pugmire

The Viking in Yellow — Christine Morgan

Who Killed the King of Rock and Roll? — Edward Morris

Masque of the Queen — Stephen Mark Rainey

Grand Theft Hovercar — Jeffrey Thomas

The Girl with the Star-Stained Soul — Lucy A. Snyder

The Penumbra of Exquisite Foulness — Tim Curran

Yield — C. J. Henderson

Homeopathy — Greg Stolze

Bedlam in Yellow — William Meikle

A Jaundiced Light at the End — Brian M. Sammons

The Yellow Film — Gary McMahon

Lights Fade — Laurel Halbany

Future Imperfect — Glynn Owen Barrass

The Mask of the Yellow Death — Robert M. Price

The Sepia Prints — Pete Rawlik

Nigredo — Cody Goodfellow

MonoChrome — T. E. Grau

Contributors

Cassilda’s Song

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink behind the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies,

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

— The King in Yellow, Act 1, Scene 2

Introduction

It started with a play, a play with the power to warp reality and the minds of those who dared read it. There was a mysterious stranger – Tell me, have you seen The Yellow Sign? – a Phantom of Truth wearing a pallid mask of lies, and a king, The King, dressed in a robe of yellow tatters.

These characters appear in the banned play The King in Yellow, set within a palace in the city of Carcosa, on the shores of Lake Hali. With black stars overhead, where “shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon” Carcosa is lit by twin suns that sink into Lake Hali only to rise again the next day. Heaven protect those that have fallen under the thrall of The King, those that have seen the Yellow Sign, seen beneath the alien god’s scalloped tatters, and know the secret festering behind the Pallid Mask.

The authors within this book know the secret, have beheld The Yellow Sign, and from their creative madness have spun eighteen tales written in tribute to their Yellow King.

Some of weird fictions favourite sons and daughters have put madness to paper within these pages: W. H. Pugmire, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris, Stephen Mark Rainey, Jeffrey Thomas, Lucy A. Snyder, Tim Curran, Greg Stolze, William Meikle, Brian M. Sammons, Gary McMahon, Laurel Halbany, Robert M. Price, Pete Rawlik, Cody Goodfellow, T.E. Grau and the late and very much missed C.J. Henderson, whom this tome is dedicated to.

Their stories take place in the past, present and future, across space and time and within dimensions terrible to behold. Here you will read stories of CIA deals with otherworldly creatures, a cult deprogrammer with a deadly secret, Viking marauders, the secret history of Elvis Presley, the psychological terrors of haunted minds, and more.

The King in Yellow Mythos (or Carcosa Mythos, as it is sometimes called) began in 1895 with a collection of ten short stories by author Robert W. Chambers, and was published under the title The King in Yellow. It featured amongst other tales four interconnected stories: ‘The Yellow Sign’, ‘The Repairer of Reputations’, ‘The Mask’ and ‘In The Court of The Dragon.’

The tales are linked together by three main plot devices:

A mysterious and cursed play in book form, banned since its release, called The King in Yellow.

A supernatural entity mentioned in the play also called ‘The King in Yellow.’

A mysterious symbol called ‘The Yellow Sign’ which is connected with the play and the King in Yellow.

Within the fiction, those that read the play often end up insane or possessed by evil. Many suffer their minds being blasted by the horrible tale the play reveals or are haunted and hunted to death by the play’s monstrous avatars. Those that find The Yellow Sign suffer just as terribly as those that read the play.

Over the decades since Chambers collection first appeared, many other authors have written stories featuring his creations, adding to the rich canon of King in Yellow tales. This includes author H.P. Lovecraft, a name all fans of weird fiction will be aware of. Here, for your reading pleasure, is a collection we humbly add to the canon of the Mythos.

Welcome to your personal apocalypse, in The Court of the Yellow King.

Glynn Owen Barrass, August 2014

smiled at the canvas on the wall, and felt the shadow of its artist at my left. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” I told the fellow without turning to him, not wanting to take my eyes from his painting. “I’ve never known buildings to look so... tattered. The city itself oozes of self-extinction, although how a city could commit suicide is a perplexing puzzle. There is not a trace of life, except for the two sirens in the sky; and yet they look so fantastic that one guesses that they may be mere figments of twisted dreaming. Look how they hang there in the air, horribly illuminated by the lifeless light of the twin porphyry moons, those globes of ghastly reddish-purple rock. Finally, our eyes take in the figure in its yellow robe, with its pallid artificial face and arms outstretched. I cannot comprehend why his hands should be so crimson.”

I turned my head slightly and looked at the artist; and although his eyes were fixed onto his creation, I knew that he listened to my language. “Now,” I continued, “there is one minute glimmer of natural light, and yet it emanates from an artificial relic. Do you see it, there, in the corner of the canvas, like something dropped onto the road, forgotten and forsaken? Yes, the brass crown with its synthetic jewels. One feels that it sits in proxy for something more authentic. And that long knife sitting beside it looks so nasty, doesn’t it, like some implement designed exclusively for mayhem? The entire thing makes one shiver and wish for movement, for some shifting of starlight or some song of wind. But those obsidian stars in the painted sky do not crawl, of that I am certain; and the air of that deserted city, one knows, is dead and still. And yet – and yet, how captivating it seems, this painted image, how it tugs at the brain and makes one wonder how it would feel to weep beneath those black stars, to inhale the lifeless air. However did the artist come up with such an image, one wonders?”

“It’s from a play,” my companion finally spoke.

“Indeed? And where would one find this play?”

He did not hesitate in his reply, and yet he spoke as one who had lost his way in reality. “I read it in a dream. I read it aloud, and the dream took on solidity. I could hear the waves of the lake breaking on the shore, and when the wind arose I could hear the flapping of the tatters of the King, that flapping that should never be sounded. They had such a strange rhythm, and I tried to sing in accompaniment; but my mouth was dry and my voice was dead, like the lost city that festered all around me. God, the hard light of those twin moons, burning their essence onto my eyes. And when I finally awakened, I could still feel that acidic impression on my eyes; and the world looks weird, and its inhabitants look like puppets.” He then turned to me, smiled and chuckled. “Sounds completely kookoo, I confess.”

I shrugged and returned my attention to his creation. “The fantastic artist sees the world in singular ways, divorced as he is from the dull world of dreary reality. How far more creative and captivating, to live within a dream.”

He turned his gaze again toward the painting. “I really would prefer to live there, godless region though it may be. I wouldn’t have to pretend all the time. So, you like this?” He motioned to the canvas.

“Oh, yes,” I assured him, “for I long to live there myself.” Bowing to him, I walked to the door and exited the gallery. The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was a gorgeous bouquet of color. I stood there and admired the mixture of gold and mauve and amber, and I felt his shadow blend into my own.

“Are you an artist?” he asked.

“I exist within a realm of Art,” was my esoteric response. We walked away from the city, toward the hill that rose before us. It was early spring, and the trees that lined the lane were sweet of fragrance and delicate upon the eye. We had almost reached the apex of the hill when we encountered the murdered thing. The artist knelt before the feline corpse and studied it for a little while as the sun continued sinking; and then he removed the long knife from the cadaver and wiped its blade on a patch of clean grass. How deftly he handled the implement. Rising, he held the knife with hands that were clasped together as if in prayer.

We stood atop the hill and watched the death of day. He shut his eyes for a moment, and then he flinched as his body began to tilt. Sheepishly, he smiled. “Sorry. I’m feeling a bit faint.”

“When was your last meal? Your face looks haggard with hunger.”

He shrugged. “I’m an artist.”

Reaching into my pocket, I took out a folded piece of paper. “I don’t have any money on hand, but perhaps this will aid you.” Putting the knife under his arm, he took the paper and unfolded it. I do not think he understood the Yellow Sign traced onto the paper. Folding it again, he placed it in his bosom. The moon rose within the darkening sky, and we noticed the distant object that reflected the lunar light. “Ah,” I sighed, “it’s your brass crown. How golden it looks in this unearthly light.” We walked to it, and he bent to pick it up. “Yes,” I continued, nodding, “it is quite golden, and its diamonds are authentic. Will you don it, the golden diadem?”

How near the white moon seemed to the hill on which we stood. Its dull light shimmered on the crown as he lifted it above him and then placed it on his head. The leaves in one nearest tree began to rustle in the rising wind, and the branches of that tree began to sway. I could not help but warble.

“Atop the hill he makes his stand,

In wind that sings a saraband,

And we uncover

Lost Carcosa.

“There are no stars on this strange night,

Just one strange moon that sheds its light

Upon our dream of

Lost Carcosa.

“See how the moon divides its sphere

Into twin globes that mock and leer

Above the streets of

Lost Carcosa.

“Ah, double globes, grotesque, divine,

Evoke the ageless Yellow Sign,

Return of hearts to

Lost Carcosa.”

I moved in little steps to the music of the wind and clapped my hands as he removed the long knife from under his arm and held it before him. Reaching into my bosom, I removed what was folded there and held it before him, winking. He watched as I unfolded the pallid mask and fastened it to my face. I think he shuddered just a little as the moon began to darken and divide. I watched the division of those spheres and listened to the sound of their wings unfolding. He turned at last to face them.

“They come to adore you, these sirens of suicide. They come to take ye home. You hold the key. Will you plunge it into place?”

I danced toward him and hummed a little song, unable to contain my joy. His length of hair moved in the wind aroused by dæmonic wings, and his mouth began to hum in accompaniment to my noise. Lowering his eyelids, he raised the knife and thrust it into his throat. Shouting in ecstasy, I moved to him and caught his flow of blood with greedy hands. Somehow, he refused to fall. I stretched out my arms and offered my hands to the creatures of nightmare, and laughed as they floated to me and kissed my palms. Their attention was then caught by the wobbling of his body. Licking their moistened mouths, they flocked to him and caught him by each arm. Bending, I picked up the fallen knife and raised it to their blurring forms, as they blended again into one solid sphere.

ulls cried faint and unseen through a heavy morning mist that cast all the world in damp and dripping grey. Distant waves rushed foaming upon the pebbled shore, filling the cool air with scents of salt and brine. Here, where the river widened to meet the sea, the waters mixed in eddying whorls. Ripples lapped the muddy banks. Splashes sounded where fish leaped, or struggled in the nets and traps.

Wigleof led the way from one spot to the next. His little sons followed, lugging the baskets that would soon be filled with this day’s rich catch. They whispered to each other, joking, teasing. They were good boys and dutiful, twins, sturdily built, curly-haired like their mother. He loved them well.

At their home, a small thatch-roofed hut walled in wattle and daub, Wigleof’s sweet-natured wife Aelda would be hard at work, helped by their daughters and tending the baby. Perhaps later, she’d walk to the village by the abbey, to trade smoked fish for milk, eggs and honey.

Or she might send Aeldwyn, their eldest, who greatly admired the nuns – Sister Gehilde most of all – and spoke of joining their order. Wigleof had no objections to this, though he held a private measure of doubt for her reasons. If Aeldwyn thought the life of a nun was nothing but restful prayer, candle-making, clean robes of soft wool and hymn-singing, he suspected she might be in for a surprise.

He chuckled to himself as he hauled up the first wicker-woven fish traps. They were well-full with sleek silver-scaled bodies that flapped and flailed, gulping. The boys chattered eagerly as they opened and loaded the baskets.

Then they hushed, frowning.

“Father,” said Leofric, his tone unusually subdued, “what happened to this one?”

Wigleof looked at what the boy held in his small hands. The fish did not flail, flap or gulp. “That one’s dead,” he said.

“But what happened to it?” Leofwald asked, his tone also subdued.

Expecting to find nothing out of the ordinary, Wigleof took the fish, and frowned himself. An odd oiliness sheened its skin, and its flesh felt strangely warm. He had never pulled a warm fish from the river, or from the sea. Its eyes bulged, yellow-white and murky, rather than shiny black. It might have already been partially stewed.

Upon a closer-yet inspection, he found that its fins and tail were tipped with fine barbs curved like cat’s claws, and in its mouth were not teeth but stringy tendrils. Something about it struck him as altogether loathsome, unnatural, and vile.

Both boys gazed at him, solemn, waiting for him – their trusted father – to have all the answers. He found himself speechless. His mind was torn, half of it wanting to hurl the fish as far away as he could, the other half thinking to take it to the village as a curiosity.

It twitched in his grasp. He dropped it with a stifled cry of revulsion. Leofwald bent as if to reach for it and Wigleof drew him back. The three of them watched as the fish writhed and clenched.

“You said it was dead,” Leofric said.

“I thought that it was.”

“It’s trying to burrow into the mud,” said Leofwald.

“Father, I don’t like it.”

“No. Nor do I.”

The frightened tremors in their voices decided him. Wigleof seized a nearby branch, snapping it off so that the end came to a rough point. He drove this down into the fish, puncturing it through the gills, nailing its body to the river bank. Thin blood oozed out, almost more yellowish than red. The fish thrashed a bit more, then fell still.

Silence held.

They watched it warily.

It did not move again.

Silence yet held, a silence that seeped into Wigleof’s consciousness. The gulls, which had been shrieking their cries, had fallen mute. He could not hear the steady rush of the surf, a noise as constant and familiar to him as his own breathing. The moisture, which had been collecting on the leaves, making them glisten, dripping off in a soft wet patter, now made no sound. Nor did the water lapping along the shore, although he saw its regular ripples.

Each of his boys held him by an arm. He felt their touches, felt their trembling, felt them press close against his legs. They looked up at him with identical pleading expressions, but did not speak. Perhaps could not speak, just as he was unable to find his own voice to reassure them.

A stirring in the heavy, silent grey gloom caught his eye. Out on the river, a shadow appeared, mist-blurred and indistinct, then coalescing into a shape... a long, low, narrow shape that brought dread to his heart... a shape with graceful curves rising at prow and at stern, curves topped with carven beast’s heads... a shape, a ship... a ship with a single mast, from which belled a striped sail of yellow and white... a ship with many slim oars jutting out to each side... oars dipping and stroking in unison... the oar-blades slicing without splashing... the hull gliding in utter silence, water parting ahead of it and sluicing together in pale roils in its wake....

Terror welled up within him.

He should have fled already, run for the village to warn them, run for his house, for his wife and daughters, to take what valuables they could and seek refuge, seek safety hiding in the woods and the hills.

A Viking ship, a longship, a ship of pagans and killers from the savage north! A raid! Fire and plunder, murder and rape!

He should have fled already.

Yet he was unable to so much as move. The boys clung to him, quaking.

The oars rose and fell, rose and fell. Upon its oar-benches sat men in mail-coats, men in leathers and furs. Their faces were pale, their hair fair and stirred by the same wind that filled the striped sail, though no wind rustled the leaves on the shore and no wind tugged at Wigleof’s own hair or clothing.

A row of shields hung along the ship’s side. Round shields of lime-wood, some with rims and bosses of iron. Shields painted... painted not with horses or ravens, dragons or wolves... painted with... symbols? letters?

Wigleof of course could not read, but he had seen some writings. And if these were letters, they were like none he had ever seen. They were...

They were hideous, those painted symbols, those yellow signs. Hideous and horrible. Loathsome to the eye, to the mind, in much the same way as the strange fish had been. Unnatural. Vile.

The ship glided on. The oarsmen never turned from their labor. If they noticed the fisherman and his sons on the river’s bank with their fish-traps and baskets, they gave no indication.

At the stern, upon the steering-platform, stood a tall figure, wrapped in a long and tattered cloak of yellow leather trimmed with the jaundiced-looking fur of a far-northern bear. He wore a gilded helm with a lank yellow horse-tail for a plume, the coarse strands blowing about his shoulders in that same unfelt wind. His helm’s visor was made from ivory or bone, its aspect pallid and inhuman.

He alone among the men turned his head as the ship passed by. His gaze sought and held the three of them, there on the shore. Through his visor, his eyes seemed to blaze as black as the stars.

...as black... as the stars?

How could that be? That could not be. That made no sense. No sense at all.

Rising and falling, the oars cut the water. The striped sail swelled full from the mast. The yellow-cloaked Viking kept a thin-fingered hand curled to the steering-oar. He tilted his helmed head ever-so-slightly in wry acknowledgment, then faced forward again, faced the carved prow, faced upriver in the direction of the unsuspecting village and abbey beyond.

Skeins of mist whirled and wafted about the longship’s stern. It became shape again, shape and shadow. Then it was no more to be seen.

Wigleof blinked, as if one emerging from a dream. He glanced at the baskets and fish-traps, and saw that every last fish – even those not yet pulled to land – lay or floated lifeless.

Somewhere, very faint and very far, a lone gull cried a dirge. Rain began to patter on the leaves, in the mud.

The boys looked at their father. Both had soaked their breeches. Becoming aware of the clammy wetness at his crotch and thighs, Wigleof realized he had done the same.

The village. The abbey.

His house. Aelda and the girls, and the baby.

Raid, rape and plunder. Fire and murder and blood.

Those shields, painted with those yellow signs.

He crouched and put an arm around each of his sons. He hugged them tight to his sides, picked them up, held them to him. They twined their little arms around his neck, and buried their faces against his shoulders.

Neither of them struggled as he carried them into the river, wading deeper to the dark channel where a strong current swept toward the sea. Nor did they make a sound, even as the cold water closed over their heads.

The blinded monk had passed another bad night. His urgent wordless gurgles grew louder, into raving grunts and groans. Though his hands were swaddled in soft wool wrappings, he tugged at them, pulled at them with his teeth, until Sister Gehilde was forced to restrain his wrists with strong bonds.

At last, she’d been able to persuade him to drink a sleeping-draught, though the sleep to which he finally succumbed was shallow, and fitful. His head tossed. Low, guttural mumbles issued from his sore-scabbed lips.

Only when the sky began to lighten and the fog gave way to rain did the monk sink into a true slumber. Gehilde, her own weariness weighing upon her, drew a blanket to his shoulders. The bandage about his face had come askew, and with a murmured prayer she adjusted the cloth over the weeping wounds where once were eyes.

She stretched. She sighed. She rubbed her brow, and temples. For a moment, the thought of her narrow bed beckoned, tempting her with its promise. But day had dawned, if damp and dreary. The morning business of Marymeade Abbey must be done.

It had been built about the remains of a stone fort of the old Romans, moss-grown ruins, tumbled walls and archways, a few intact inner chambers with floors of tiled mosaic. From a hilltop, it overlooked the winding ribbon of the river valley. Behind it, beehive-dotted flower meadows and orchards sloped away toward the green farms and grazing lands around the village.

The nuns kept the bees, collecting combs and honey, making candles and sticks of colored sealing-wax. These were their main source of livelihood in addition to what they received from the church. They also brewed fruit-wine to sell and trade.

At any given time, some three dozen women called it home. Not all were sworn to holy vows; some were lay-sisters, widows or forsaken wives. Their father-monastery was St. Neot’s of the Stave and Crook, located further inland and upriver, some days’ ride away at Shepsbury. Twice monthly, or more often during holidays, priests would come from St. Neot’s to lead services, and supervise the running of the abbey.

And, when one of their monks might fall injured or ill, Marymeade was where they were sent to be tended as they recovered.

Monks such as Brother Oston, this poor and damaged soul. And Brother Camden, to whose room Gehilde now went. She found her sister there – Gamyl, her sister by birth as well as in their holy order. Gamyl was the younger, and of slighter frame. Otherwise they much resembled one another, with fine features, fawn-brown hair beneath head-coverings of white linen, and eyes the blue of ripe bilberries.

“How does he fare?” Gehilde asked.

Gamyl glanced up from where she sat upon a stool at the monk’s bedside. “He woke for a while, spoke for a while,” she said. “But he still does not know me, or himself, where he came from or where he is.”

Brother Camden, though gone to grey, had been a hale and hearty, vibrant man... jovial in his humor, stalwart in his faith. Now he lay stricken, the entire right side of his body gone feeble and frail. The right half of his face hung slack, those corners of eye and mouth drooping. Age seemed to have draped him in a sudden cloak of additional years. If not for the slow swelling of his chest with each breath, he might have been a corpse awaiting the shroud.

“He inquired again after someone called Silvia,” Gamyl went on, “then wept a bit, bade me be sure to remember to feed the cat, and...” She trailed off with an expressive, hopeless gesture at the monk.

“Did he take any broth or gruel?”

“Not much, no.”

They watched over him together a moment, each speculating on who this Silvia might be. Mother? Sister? Lost sweetheart from Brother Camden’s youth, before taking his vows?

Then Gamyl spoke. “How fares Brother Oston? I heard him through the night.”

The weariness settling onto her again, Gehilde nodded. “Worse than ever. I had to bind down his wrists for fear he’d do himself more harm.”

“What could have caused—?”

“It is not for us to wonder,” Gehilde interrupted sharply.

“But after Brother Rubert, sister, surely you must—”

“I must not, I do not, and neither shall you.”

They crossed themselves at the mention of the unfortunate monk’s name. He had come to their care from St. Neot’s greatly troubled, greatly distraught. After a time, he’d begun to regain both his senses and spirits... then went missing and was found in the orchard, a length of rope ’round his neck.

As she and Gamyl shared this conversation, Gehilde remained attentive to the quiet and orderly bustle of Marymeade’s morning routine. Now it was disrupted in a flurry of commotion. Voices rose in anxious queries. Footsteps slapped quick in the halls. Robes swished and rustled.

“Sister Gehilde!” That was Magrin, not a nun but a short and stocky widow who served as a kind of gruff but well-meaning mother-bear nursemaid to them all.

Gehilde hastened from the room, Gamyl close behind her. In the abbey’s main chamber, which they used as their common space for dining and sitting, the tables had not yet been set for the fast-breaking. Nuns and lay-sisters crowded in, wide-eyed, looking alarmed and frightened.

And with good reason.

Vikings.

Vikings, pagan sea-raiders, attacking the village below.

Through the fog and rain, they could see nothing of it. But they heard the shouts and screams, and the brief clash of battle.

Aeldwyn, the fisherman’s daughter, had brought the grim news when she fled her family’s house down by the shore.

“Mother told me to run, to take Wigla and the baby and get far away,” the girl said, gasping for breath. “She went to look for Father and the boys.”

The baby, red with indignation, fussed and squalled in a bundle slung across Aeldwyn’s back. Little Wigla, a pretty child with long curls and freckles, began to sob.

Everyone looked then to Gehilde, their abbess. Weary though she was, she cast it aside at once. She barked swift instructions to Sister Udela, bidding her fetch the treasures of their humble church – a silver crucifix, an ivory cup set with garnets that had been a gift from Alfred of Wessex, the bronze-inlaid reliquary containing a clump of straw from the manger in which Christ had slept, and their holy books – and for the others to gather only their most prized possessions.

“Meet by the well-stone,” she told them. “There is a tunnel there, through the old Roman bath. It leads to the hut in the orchard. Magrin, you know the way.”

The stout widow nodded.

“Go, then, and hurry! Aeldwyn, you and the children go with them.”

“Our mother—”

“Would want you to be safe. Go with Magrin.”

The rest scurried to obey. Their lives of humble piety and simplicity here meant that they had little in the way of belongings. It would not take them long.

“What about you?” Gamyl asked.

Gehilde shook her head. “Marymeade is in my charge. The monks are in my care, and they are in no fit state to be moved. I will plead for them.”

“The Vikings will surely kill them where they lay!” Gamyl protested.

Remembering Brother Rubert, who had damned himself by taking his own life, Gehilde softly said, “If that is God’s will, then so be it and let it be a mercy.”

Gamyl raised her chin in a manner Gehilde knew all too well from their girlhood. “I am staying with you,” she declared.

There would be no arguing. Gehilde smiled and squeezed her hand.

Soon, the others had gone. The abbey was empty but for the four of them: the two ailing monks and the two sisters.

No more sounds of violence reached their ears from the direction of the village. They could make out a dull glow that might have been the smoldering fires of thatch-roofed houses, but nothing else.

Out of the grey fog and rain, the Vikings appeared. They came in a line, round shields held before them as if they expected to be met by armed men.

A wretched, despairing moan slid from Gamyl’s lips. She covered her mouth, then murmured through her fingers. “Gehilde... their shields... do you see?...”

“I see,” said Gehilde, touching the rosewood cross she wore on a cord around her neck and sending a silent prayer to the blessed Virgin.

“They are the same that Brother Oston would—” Gamyl could not go on.

Brother Oston, however, had lacked yellow paint. Or indeed any paint or ink with which to inscribe the hellish symbols. It had not stopped him. Nor had the absence of his sight, just as the tearing out of his eyes had not stopped him from seeing the marks... the words. With gruel, or blood, or excrement, he’d etch them upon the walls. When prevented from doing that, he’d claw them into his own skin, gouging wounds and scars.

“Do not look,” Gehilde, shuddering, told her sister. “Do not look at their shields. Do not look at them.”

The Vikings came closer, came to the abbey’s very door. There, they stood and waited. Their faces were corpselike. Their eyes were empty, and dead.

Another emerged from the mists. This one did not wait at the door but crossed its threshold undaunted. He was tall, with a cloak of tattered yellow leather sweeping from his shoulders and a yellow horse-tail as the plume of his helm. The contours of a visor carved from ivory obscured his features with a pallid mask, but for glittering eyes like dark jewels, or shining black stars.

“You have three monks here,” he said, in a voice that rasped, the voice of a dry desert wind. “I want them.”

“We have only two,” said Gehilde, straightening her spine. “And you may not have them.”

“Two?”

“The third hanged himself.”

“Pfah. He was weak.”

“The others are ill,” she said. “Ill unto death.”

“They have done you no harm.” Gamyl stepped up beside her, chin again defiantly raised. “And harming them will do you no good, whatever your evil intention.”

“Leave them in peace,” Gehilde said. “Leave this place in peace. This is a house of God, and you are not welcome here.”

The man laughed, and it was the scrape of a spade upon stone, the grind of bones in a grave. “They have looked upon that which should not have been seen. It is for their own sakes, and yours, that you stand aside.”

“Looked upon something?” echoed Gamyl. “Are you saying that’s what brought this misfortune on them? That’s what left Brother Camden brain-stricken, what drove Brother Oston to his state, what made Brother Rubert take his own life?”

“As I said, he was weak. They are all weak. Cowardly, and mad.”

Gehilde shook with anger. “You come here, nameless and face-hidden, and call them weak? Call them cowards? For shame! Take off your visor, then! Show yourself unmasked, if you have such strength and courage!”

“My visor?” He removed his helm with its horse-tail plume and met her gaze with his blazing black eyes. “As you see, I wear none.”

Or perhaps it was not anger that shook her. Perhaps it was terror.

“No visor...” said Gamyl in a high, fainting whimper. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She clutched at Gehilde’s sleeve. “Sister... he wears no visor....”

They put their arms around each other, held tight in a trembling embrace, as the tall man in the cloak of tattered yellow slowly advanced.

Gehilde kissed Gamyl’s brow, then leaned her own against it.

“Pray, sister,” she whispered. “Let us shut our eyes, and pray.”

He stood atop a rise as the day waned, as the sun sank like a fiery bauble in the west. The rains of previous days had passed, leaving clear the skies now darkening to woad, indigo and violet. The first few stars – white, and sharp – glinted in the gloaming.

Before him was a scene that, upon first glance, looked both peaceful and pastoral. Sheep grazed across the hillsides. Geese waddled, honking, to and from ponds where a few swans sailed with necks arched regal. Smaller birds darted from the bushes and whirled above the trees. The town spread in amiable clusters in front of the monastery’s gate, the tanneries set further off.

Sheep, yes, sheep, a great many of them... the wool and mutton secondary to the main industry here, which was the making of fine vellum from the sheepskins. The monks had endless need of vellum. And for goose-feather quills and pots of ink in many colors, for blotting dust, for sealing wax. They needed leather for book-binding, gilt with which to emboss and stamp.

The monks. Yes, the monks. The monks of St. Neot’s of the Stave and Crook.

The monks who busied themselves long hours, bent squinting by candle-light or the little flicker of tallow-oil lamps. Reading. Writing. Copying. Transcribing and translating. Adorning their calligraphy with glorious illumination and illustration.

Somehow, and to their sorrow, they had come by a tome of dire potency and power. Had the thief who’d stolen it sold it to them, unmindful of what it contained? Did they think to learn from it? To add its lore to the writings of their kings and saints?

Whatever their reasoning, they now paid the price.

Witness the monks who’d read from those pages. Who’d sought to make copies of the manuscript, perhaps to send to all their churches, add to their libraries.

Witness the one called Brother Oston, who had torn his own eyes from their wet sockets to spare himself having to see another word, only to find to his horror that he could not unsee them even then! How, in his madness, he’d shouted them, reciting passages until his fellow monks could bear hearing it no longer! They wrenched wide his jaws and severed his tongue at the root. But even then, blinded and dumb, he’d written the words, drawn the symbols and the signs.

Witness Brothers Camden and Rubert, one left shattered of mind and body, the other driven to the worst of sins.

And now, witness this scene... so pastoral and peaceful...

Upon first glance.

Further glances showed that all was not as it seemed or should have been.

The sheep roamed the hills unshepherded, at an evening hour when they belonged safely sheltered in their sheep-byres. The honking geese likewise went untended, nary a goose-girl to be seen.

In the town, light shone in but few windows, and smoke curled from fewer chimney-holes. No peasants trudged home from the fields, or from the woods with faggots bundled on their backs.

The monastery’s belfry, a square structure of tarred timber and hewn logs, was silent. Its bell had not tolled for vespers. No robed and tonsured figures moved about within St. Neot’s walls.

The tall man who stood upon the rise, the tall man in his tattered cloak of yellow and helm with horse-tail plume, nodded with grim satisfaction. He raised one pale, thin-fingered hand and gestured his warriors to follow.

They moved wraithlike through the town. Only frightened, snarling dogs opposed them, readily dispatched with a spear-thrust or swung axe-blade. The smith’s forge held just a bed of ashes. The bread-ovens were dark and cold. Rats capered in the granaries.

Here and there were indications of looting and swift departure. Several of the buildings sat abandoned, empty and forlorn. Those that still seemed to harbor life did so with a furtive doom and resignation, as if the people within huddled behind barricaded doors, gripping useless weapons while they waited for the end.

Once, a haggard, naked crone spat curses from a doorway, then plunged a knife into her scrawny belly and ripped it sideways so that her entrails bulged out, glistening. They passed her by, and left her where she fell.

The gates of St. Neot’s were open.

Crow-picked corpses littered the outer yard.

Fly-crawling corpses littered the inner halls and chambers.

Some, like Brother Rubert, had hanged themselves. Some had taken their own lives in other ways – veins cut so that the blood pooled thick, or with cups from which poison had been drunk still clutched in death-rigid hands.

Others had turned their violence outward. In the dormitories, several monks lay suffocated in their beds. One had been stuffed headfirst into the kitchen hearth, held there as he roasted. Another had been crucified and emasculated. There were bludgeonings and stabbings, drownings and strangulations.

A few yet lived, if such could be said to be living. They crawled, mad and cackling, mutilated. They rocked back and forth, slamming their heads into stone walls. They wept. They laughed. They wallowed in their filth, eating of it.

“Finish them,” said the man in the tattered yellow cloak.

His warriors obliged.

It was no battle, merely butchery.

As they saw to their deadly business, he saw to his own.

He went from one room to the next until he came to the library with its long lines of desks. Ink pots had been spilled. Books were scattered. Most of the candles had burned down or gone out; one had tipped and it was a wonder that a fire hadn’t started.

A sole dead monk sprawled on his back, eyes and mouth agape in final shocked surprise. An aestel, meant for following a reader’s place, had been put to different purpose... the slender wooden rod of its pointer had been driven into the monk’s throat, the enamel and crystal handle jutting like a strange ornament.

And here... here were sheets of vellum, manuscript pages, copies and translations half-finished. He collected them, studying each, tossing aside those of no interest to him and keeping the rest.

He noted the beautiful work, the lavish illuminations of rich and brilliant color. He noted the cunning illustrations done along the margins – a crown of diamonds and gold, a corpse-cart pulled by dark horses, a pure white lily with a beam as of sunlight shining from its heart, black stars blazing in a dome of sky, a disheveled cat with a slim pink ribbon serving as collar, the towers of a city rising behind tormented moons.

Gathering them into a pile, he rolled the pages together, tying them with a length of yellow cord. This thick scroll, he tucked through his belt, and drew his cloak to conceal it.

Next he searched among the scattered books, indifferent to bibles and scriptures, gospels and homilies, the writings of the saints and disciples. At last, partly hidden by the dead monk’s outflung arm, he found a slim volume bound in leather more ancient and tattered than that of his cloak.

His long, pale, thin fingers folded around it. He picked it up, turned it over. There on the front, stamped in gold, faded and worn, was a familiar sign... the same sign his men bore on their shields. He traced it with the pad of his thumb, dry skin hissing against skin even drier.

Summoned, his warriors returned, weapons dripping. They brought no other plunder, had not looted the monastery of its silver, just as they had not ransacked the village or town.

He thought briefly of the women, the two sisters, the nuns. So brave... strong and willful... the elder of the pair most of all. Perhaps he should not have spared them and left them to their abbey. Perhaps he should have brought them along.

They might have made fine queens.

But, no.

He had what he’d come for.

Soon the shields hung again along the ship’s sides. Soon the oarsmen took up their oars and the striped sail belled in the wind. The carved beast’s head at the prow faced away from the land, the one at the stern watching the shore recede.

A gradual, sighing mist engulfed them as they lost sight of the rocky coast, as the ship leaped and crashed in the waves over the cold grey sea.

Then the mist changed, changed and warmed, became steam. The water flattened, smooth as glass, burnished as a mirror.

Overhead, blazing black, shone the stars. The hot, fuming lake stretched out vast on all sides. Fish flickered in the depths, the barb-finned and hair-mouthed fish of Hali.

And the longship sailed on, toward the far horizon, where the towers and spires of a great city rose behind tormented moons.