The Feaster From The Stars (Blackwood and Harrington) (27 page)

echoed the voice contemptuously.

It was true, Exeter realised: what this feaster from the stars would do to the Earth and its people would take thousands of years. Exeter himself might live for five more decades; he would only witness the opening phase of the King in Yellow’s reign, but during that brief span…

No one ever cared for me. Why should I care for them?

CONSUME!
FOOD, RESOURCES, THE SWEAT FROM THE BROWS OF OTHERS. AND WHEN ALL NEARBY HAS BEEN CONSUMED, THEN TO EXPAND INTO OTHER PLACES, TO CONSUME WHATEVER IS THERE! THAT IS WHAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE, EXETER. A BLIGHT UPON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, RAVENOUS WORMS THAT WILL GNAW AWAY AT THEIR WORLD UNTIL NOTHING REMAINS. AM I ANY WORSE THAN THAT, BECAUSE I DO NOT HAIL FROM THIS UNIVERSE?>

But we are not all like that
, Exeter thought.
There is gentleness and nobility in the heart of man. There is the desire for truth and beauty. How can you judge us all by my example?

Exeter felt a sudden wave of fiendish amusement writhing through his mind.

When Exeter hesitated, the voice continued,

You would kill me if I did.

But you have power over me. You have influenced my thoughts for months. That is the reason I am here, now, in this place that should have remained buried forever.

That’s not true!

CHOSE
TO FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS AND GUIDE YOUR TUNNELLING MACHINE TO THIS PRECISE LOCATION, HERE TO UNCOVER AND REACTIVATE MY MEANS OF INTERSTELLAR TRANSIT. I FELT YOUR SOUL QUIVERING WITH GREED AT THE PROMISES I MADE TO YOU – PROMISES I HAVE EVERY INTENTION OF KEEPING.>

Exeter knew it was true, and now that the crucial moment was approaching, he trembled with the shame of it. The lies he had told himself had been laid bare by this thing from beyond the stars: the lie that he had no choice but to become the most powerful human being who had ever existed on Earth, and ever
would
exist; the lie that his actions were out of his control, that he had no choice but to do the bidding of the King in Yellow.

But it was too late.

Much too late.

And what if I were to turn away from you now?

Again, that hideous amusement.

Consequences?

You would leave me to be driven insane by it?

That… would be foolish of me.

AND
END YOUR DAYS AS A GIBBERING IDIOT FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR CONSCIENCE?>

Exeter sighed and closed his eyes. To his great surprise, he started to weep.

No, I will not.

In all his thousands of years of life, Oberon had never seen anything remotely like the thing which filled the passageway ahead of them. He had travelled to many worlds on the
Aurelius
, had witnessed many wonders and terrors on the orbs which rolled silently through the star lanes of the island universe which was home to Earth and Carcosa and a hundred billion other worlds, but never had he encountered anything like
this
.

Its shape was nearly impossible to hold in his mind, even though he was looking directly at it: the writhing filaments and pulsating lobes were merely the two most easily describable aspects of it, but there were many others which conformed to no words or concepts which had ever been conceived in this universe.

Oberon and his warriors fired their weapons again and again, and where the ruby beams struck the thing, its abysmal form sizzled and burst, disgorging loathsome, liquid miasmas which instantly recombined to form further extrusions, thrashing madly across the walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor.

How can we defeat such a beast?
asked one of the warriors.
We have never encountered anything with such resistance to our weapons!

Apparently in response to the thought, one of the pulsating lobes split apart to reveal a vast, slobbering mouth which began to mimic obscenely the movements of speech.

The word-impressions echoed suddenly through the minds of the faeries.

The King in Yellow!
Oberon thought.

We know what you are planning to do. We will not allow you to destroy the Earth, as you have destroyed Carcosa
.

My strategy is simple, fiend: I am going to lead my warriors to your throne room, and we are going to destroy you!

Their power has waned, such is their great age. But Earth is much younger than Carcosa, and we are much younger than this world’s Planetary Angels. We will prevail against you!

Oberon’s warriors looked at him, and then at each other. The King had not mentioned the Anti-Prisms on Carcosa and Earth, and such was their faerie nature that their inner thoughts were shielded from the enemy.

continued the King in Yellow.

You know of that?

Not as dearly as if I were to allow you to hold dominion there. I will find a way to make amends, even if they involve my own exile or destruction
.

Then allow it! I promise you, you will find our efforts to defend our world most amusing!

You do me a disservice, Yellow King, for I am neither cruel nor stupid enough to bring humans to this place. Their sanity could not withstand it; they would suffer the same fate as the poor wretch whose mind was destroyed by this Servitor’s counterpart on Earth. No, you will have to deal with us of Faerie, and us alone!

Allow us entry to your throne room, coward, and we will show you what we think of your intentions.

The slobbering mouth of the Servitor stretched wide as it produced a sickening parody of laughter.

And with that, the foul protuberance that had pretended to be a mouth withdrew into the heaving mass, and the Servitor retreated along the corridor.

As Oberon and his faerie warriors followed, he sent out a single thought across the Æther to Titania:

Make ready, my wife, for we are about to enter the throne room!

Nine hundred trillion miles away, the Templar Police were advancing steadily along the tunnel, moving close to the walls so that they could take advantage of the regularly-spaced boltholes and entrances to maintenance corridors, should they come under fire again, while Queen Titania walked along the centre of the rail bed.

The darkness was no impediment to her, such was the vast superiority of her eyesight to that of the humans. She could see right to the end and into the distant Void Chamber, where something appeared to be glowing faintly.

Suddenly, she paused, and de Chardin glanced at her softly-glowing form.

‘Your Majesty,’ he whispered. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, Detective,’ she replied. ‘I have just received a message from King Oberon. He and his warriors are about to enter the throne room in the Castle of Demhe. We must hurry!’

Exeter had heard the shots echoing through the tunnels.

They are here!
he thought.

said the voice of the King in Yellow.

But the Void Chamber is about to be attacked!

The mediumistic substrates in Exeter’s brain flared to life, just as they had done when he summoned the Servitor to his apartments. He felt their strange power seeping through his mind, like hot ink through blotting paper, as he called a different set of unpronounceable words into his awareness and transmitted them towards the centre of the Void Chamber.

As he did so, he felt a stirring of the air behind him, and a sound as of something vast heaving itself into existence.

The Servitor had arrived, carrying its cargo of screaming souls.

Exeter shuddered as he felt his mind strengthening under the influence of the King in Yellow. He gave the briefest of thoughts to fleeing the Void Chamber and the horror and madness that were about to be unleashed upon the world… but there was nowhere to flee to, and Exeter strongly suspected that, were he to do so, he would be among the first of those who would fall victim to the ravenous appetite of the King in Yellow.

As he completed the mental incantation, Exeter looked around and saw that each of the bas-reliefs of the Yellow Sign carved upon the thousands of tiles lining the Void Chamber had begun to put forth a sickly, pallid glow.

He looked down at the centre of the floor, watching in horrified fascination as a circular section, perhaps ten feet in diameter, glowed brighter than the rest and rapidly became molten. Like melting wax, the tiles were transformed into a liquid mass which quickly sank into the resulting hole.

Exeter backed away and watched the walls of the Void Chamber warp and twist – while simultaneously remaining perfectly still – to accommodate the ultra-dimensional mass of the Servitor, which approached the edge of the steaming hole.

A maddening, pulsating hum, as of some vast electrical generator, began to thump through the chamber. Exeter felt his bones vibrate with each pulse and put his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to shut out the hideous power of the alien noise.

Something pointed and red began to emerge from the hole at the centre of the Void Chamber: a crystalline spire which surged with a strange interior movement, and whose surface flickered with blue-white arcs of energy.

Exeter gasped and took another few steps back as the spire became a long, slender multi-sided pyramid. As its emergence continued, he saw that its form was mirrored in an identical inverted pyramid beneath – livid red, stirring strangely within, its surface caressed by the crackling arcs of incomprehensible energy.