Without a prompt, Ouest and Sthast both bowed before the Regent Giallo, but their failure to kneel sparked a wave of disapproving chatter throughout the courtiers. The great form strained its neck and peered at them through unseen eyes. When it spoke, it was not in a language Ouest recognised, but he understood what the words, which tasted of ichor and dust and decay, meant. “What fools dare to come unbidden to the Carcosan Court, wearing such masks as these?”
Ouest bobbed his head, respectful but defiant. “We wear no masks, milord, and we come, not at your bidding, but in response to the will of our own Lord, who sends to you this precious boon in hopes that the enmity between you shall no longer rage.”
There was an inhuman noise, the sound of something that wasn’t quite real laughing. “After all these years, my half-brother sues for peace. He sends two Terrans, a man and a child of Yig, to do his bidding. It has been millennia since I last saw the Serpent Lord. I was there when the Q’Hrell punished him for refusing to bond with the Shining Trapezohedron. He didn’t understand that he had been created for just that purpose. His crucifixion was a wondrous thing to witness.” The thing on the throne paused, then added, “Despite all their power, the Q’Hrell are so fearful of becoming singular. They want so much to know what would happen, what they could become. How goes the war against them?”
Sthast spoke, proud and defiant, “The Q’Hrell still lie, dead but dreaming, and Nodens still roams free, warring against us where he can, though with the loss of the Great Machine around Altair, their power is diminished. The black crystal remains theirs to do with as they wish.”
The gloved hands floated forth and gestured to Ouest. “It must be unbearable, Man, to know that your creators have abandoned you, that they have the ability to raise you up, to make you so much more than you are, but have chosen not to.”
Ouest bowed his head. “My people have found new Gods to serve.”
“And so, we come full circle. Tell me, what gift does the Sepia Prince think can possible ease my vendetta? The Yellow Sine is not so easily dismissed.”
“My Lord, the Sepia Prince seeks to end the conflict through union. He sends to you His greatest possession—His only daughter”
The lid of the great, ebon sepulchre slid back slowly and a great, noxious smoke poured forth, spilling over the sides and roiling over the floor of the chamber. The crowd inched back against the walls, but Ouest and Sthast stood their ground and let the green fog envelop them. With each passing second, the great lid retreated and more of the mist seeped out. Ouest inhaled deeply and let the glowing, green aerosol fill his lungs and permeate his being. Behind him, the tomb had opened fully. From the swirling mist emerged a hand—grey-green and boneless, with vestigial suckers lining the palm, it was more of an imitation of a hand than a real hand. It was large, massive, nearly the size of those possessed by the King in Yellow, but it was, at the same time, slender—delicate, even. With a slow sense of determination, it grasped the edge of the casket and helped raise its owner into the royal chamber.
Ouest and Sthast fell to their knees and, together, announced the arrival of their charge: “Behold the Lady Cthylla!” The thing that crawled out of the mist was as human or humanoid as the Ythill that bore the ruler of Carcosa; a great, tentacled head surmounted a lithe, feminine body with full, robust breasts, a thin waist and wide hips atop two sculpted legs. Like her hands, these features were merely an imitation, an attempt, by something that was not even an invertebrate, to mimic the flesh and bone structure of a woman. The result was surreal and terrifying, and exacerbated by the strategic placing of swirls of gold, in imitation of a sense of human modesty. She leapt from her sepulchre and, with the aid of two massive, tentacular wings she landed, in the space between Ouest and Sthast.
It took a moment for the demi-thing to find her footing, but only a moment. Ouest suspected that it was only he that actually noticed her transition from predator to a demure maiden with a bowed head and large, pleading eyes. It had taken years to train her in the art of such body language and Ouest suppressed a smile as she slinked forward, her breathing exaggerated and her chest heaving rhythmically. Her voice was the dull, howling roar of a black smoker bellowing out of the abyssal plain. “My father sends me as envoy, my Lord, to parlay for an end to the aggression that lays siege to our home. He asks that the Yellow Sine be withdrawn, the integration made whole, and the reputation repaired.”
The King in Yellow roared up out of his throne. “You ask much on your father’s behalf, my niece, and you offer what in return, yourself? What makes you think that I would be interested in such carnal offerings?”
The Lady Cthylla widened her eyes and strode forward. “You are the King in Yellow, the avatar of Hastur.” The court murmured as she spoke the unnamable name. “But under those robes, beneath the crown, you are still Ythill and all such creatures still have certain…needs.”
The Regent’s tattered robes fluttered as he rushed to meet the Lady Cthylla at the base of the throne.
“You know the Prophecy of Cassilda?” His disembodied hand leapt out and grasped her by the throat.
She nuzzled her head against his chest and murmured an affirmative.
If the thing beneath the veil could sneer, then it did. “Then you know that my service in this place makes me immortal. Only beyond the mists of Demhe am I vulnerable and taking leave of these halls is something I have not done for more than a thousand years. Even then, if I were to be mortally wounded, the mantle would merely find a new host, a new Ythill. And I assure you that the vengeance my successor, Uoht, would wreak on the Sepia Prince would be legendary.”
The retainers of the great court of the Carcosan Imperium shuddered, as if a cold wind had blown through, and the Lady Cthylla laughed once more. “It is true that the throne cannot be empty, a singularity must reside, and should the mantle of the King be somehow divorced from his crown, the universe itself would bend to fill the void. The Kings of the Yellow Sine would be deposed, relegated to cosmic memory, and Uoht, the Pallid Masque, would be free to roam the cosmos. So, let us assure that nothing untoward ever happens to you, my liege.”
Cthylla leapt forward and embraced the Yellow King, let her great appendages and cilia dance around and beneath his robes. She blossomed and enveloped him in the coils of her terrible form. The King moaned, but whether that moan was from pleasure or from the sudden realization of what was happening, none could rightly say. The lady was dragging the King backwards and, entangled as he was, he could gain no leverage to resist her. As they inched back, the shoggoth move forward and tilted the great sepulchre, so as to better receive them both.
Cthylla’s tentacles reached backwards and gripped the edges of the ebon box. The victim bellowed as the maw of the tomb grew closer, but another set of those grey-green pseudopods wrapped around the King’s head and muffled his protestations. In an instant, the two figures were suddenly lost inside the mists that still seeped from the sepulchre. The lid slowly slid forward and, with a grinding finality, closed with a gasping hiss.
The members of the court cast their eyes about in anticipation, but while they waited for one of them to become King, Sthast and Ouest put their own plans in motion. Ouest withdrew a scalpel—a small thing, really hardly a threat at all to the entities that prowled these halls. He looked at his companion and whispered, “I’m sorry.”