With the books arranged just so on the dining table, I began the great work of piecing together the legacy of The King in Yellow, from the origins of Chambers’ masterwork in the tales of Bierce to the more recent works of Derleth, Lupoff, and Carter.  But the further I dove into the dusty books, the more frustrated I became.

It didn’t make sense.  Not in the expected ways, but in contradictory ways.  Was Hastur the name of the King, the city, or the formless horror at the bottom of Lake Hali?  And my annoyance lay as much with the authors as the stories they penned.  The arrogance of Blish, that he would pen his own pale imitation of the play!

Cassilda's song wound through my head, unbidden.  Was the sickly yellow haze of afternoon sunshine a manifestation of the King’s robes enfolding the world itself?  Did the fault lie with me, too jaded by the modern age?  Nay, nay–

“Neigh to you too, ya brony-ass motherfucker.”

I blinked, and swirling mists lapping at basaltic shores became humble paper and ink.  I turned to see my roommate, Jace, eating an apple.

I rubbed at my eyes.  “That was out loud, was it?”

He ambled closer with a smirk and flipped a book to see its cover.  “‘The King in Yellow,’ huh?  There’s something for you to do, write an MLP/Yellow King crossover.”

“It’s been done.”

Jace nearly choked.  “Bullshit.” 

“I shit thee not.  Existential dread pairs well with the ponyverse, and far better hands than mine have penned the gamut from surrealist horror to surrealist comedy.”  I gestured vaguely at my laptop.  “Hells, half of those stories are better than half the trash I have in front of me.”

Jace frowned at me.  “Then why–”

“Because there has to be something [i]here![/i]”  I slammed my fist on the table.

There was a pause, then Jace said, “Is this you trying to find religion again?”

I sighed.  “Probably.”

“Look,” said Jace, “Instead of working yourself into a tizz over nothing, why don’t you come out with us tonight?  We’re making the usual rounds, it’ll be fun.”

Dulling my senses with cheap swill in the presence of strangers was hardly what I called fun.  “Pass.”

“Rachelle will be there,” he wheedled.

I froze.  Rachelle’s presence changed everything, though we were little more than strangers to each other. Hers was a timeless beauty, as though her features had been wrought from to purest marble, adorned with–

“Oi,” Jace said as he snapped his fingers in front of my nose, “quit doing that ‘staring into the middle distance’ thing. Girls hate that shit.”

I shook my head to clear it.  “Right.  Let me go put on some decent clothes.”







The evening progressed slowly, with me half-listening to the droning ambient music echoing through the tavern as though from within a deep well.  I stared at the fireplace, nursing a stout, mind fogged.

Suddenly, Jace seized me by the shoulders, hauled me over to Rachelle, and said, “Have you met Tom?”  Whereupon he promptly vanished back into the crowd, the bastard.

Rachelle favored me with a faint smile.  “I believe we’ve met once before.”  Her accent, though faint, was as unplaceable as it was intoxicating.

My innards turned to sludge.  “Ha, yeah, at the, uh, the place.”  A thousand curses whirled through my mind.

Her smile widened, but before she could respond, a voluptuous young woman appeared and tapped her on the shoulder.  “Cassie, come here and help me pick a song.”  She, too, vanished into the throng.

A chill ran through me as Rachelle turned to join her friend.  My touch upon her arm gave her pause.  “Wait.  I thought your name was Rachelle?”

Her nose crinkled.  “Rachelle’s my middle name.  Sarae and I have been best friends since childhood, so she’s one of the few who know my first name.  She knows how much I hate it, so she teases me by calling me Cassie.”

Cold dread clutched at my heart and began to squeeze.  “So, Cassie is short for something?”

Her bashful shoegaze would have been adorable, had I not been terrified.  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Oh, I doubt I will.”

Her eyes met mine, and her face was an impassive, pallid mask.  “It’s short for Cassilda.”

I closed my eyes, for I did not need them to feel the King in Yellow draw wide his tattered mantle behind me.