The clutches of destiny never left, despite a change in path I sought best for a meaningful life. When I left Landor House, I believed that Clementine absorbed every portion and corner of my heart. Time madly spun from the years I spent there as a boy, and soon my heart opened to other aspects of the world, and the many vices and virtues it had to offer. The heart has four chambers and over time Clementine grew hidden away from all of them. My heart fulfilled with creationary designs, the praises of Quinn and my accomplishments, and the knowledge the world granted me. Clementine wrote often in sophisticated words and innuendos of her activities but the yearning of her spirit drained each time we spoke of mere mortal frivolities. I was free from a prison I naught understood existed for Clementine, for she was absolute in her release of me to pursue the outside world from Landor.

I ceased writing to her, first excused by the pouring amount of work. When that justification dried, I was left with only shame that I had not been able to encourage her sentimentalities. No amount of praise seemed to amount to finding that equality with my angel, and I never felt accomplished in my work that she would be mine. Love felt distant from my purpose although I pictured it as my destination, one that felt more like an intangible dream.

Quinn and I traveled to many countries and coasts and soon my apprenticeship evolved until I was my own master. The call for commissions never ended and while I grasped the knowledge and culture of these foreign lands, my work hungered for my own creation, undictated by the masses. Fear shrouded me when I would attempt to contemplate my first work of art and I stood frozen on a blank canvas, fearing my life would turn into accomplishing the tasks of others. Just as Clementine used to distress for us- following the paths others tread and now dictate us to pursue.

Despite it all, my desire to create buried my fears of insignificance as I stood in the Pollier Exhibition Hall surrounded by my first public portfolio amongst the masses of Crece. It was five years since working alone on my own portfolio and commissions without Mr. Quinn, ten since I last saw Clementine at Landor Hall. Private invitations were few- Quinn was forced into absence due to his declining health, a deterioration that I slowly observed the past two years- but the Hall was full of loud contemplation, gasps of reactions, and a conjured emotion of passion and disgust from the public that sought something new.

In these paintings, you would not find intricate landscapes or beautiful women who modeled for days, nor depictions of religious iconography in the light of which I was first trained.

Here, my creation was

“Ghastly”

“Abhorrent!”

“Orphic but profound!”

Once, I knew nothing- told I would amount to nothing. Yet I watched their eyes bulge and complexions whiten, and even as their disgust grew, they could not look away. Their minds could not comprehend the creation of distant dark lands, the infinite cosmos, the world out of reach of our mortal cognizance. My methods were uncharacteristic in starting with a black canvas, the textures building onto each layer of paint as if my creation would seize the viewer from the frame. The clean perfection Quinn taught me with art was wasted as the paint appeared so fresh it would drip blood on their expensive shoes beneath the frames. My creation felt alive and real, despite their depictions of things one would not find in mortal life. My work was grotesque with misshapen forms, animals that resembled human bodies, or gaseous planes of existence amidst poison and blood.

Pride flooded my veins, watching their stoic facades melt with each interaction of my paintings. The voids of worlds created in my work still did not fill my heart, nor the path of destiny that I sought. This pinnacle of achievements felt triumphant...but did not surpass that border of the effect of an everlasting and infinite design.

For a mere moment in Pollier Hall, I wanted to do as I always accomplished in this fear of unqualified existence: run away. Their reactions were astounding and everything I yearned, yet something else shook inside me- whether it was the anticipation of rejection or not amounting to the path I sought to spite God. This vulnerability I felt clenched at my ribs, threatening to shatter lest I stay and observe what was supposed to be my victory.

“The detail is utterly remarkable, a ghastly castle with black stars, a meaning beyond the surface of our existence. The uneven moon has an apprehensive presence that adds no light to his work- how strange! The shoreline and clouds almost drip condensation, oh how it reminds me of home.”

My heart leaped at the recognizance of the sweet voice I once knew, whose tone I would absorb from her written letters, whose countenance I had not witnessed in years. My angel had come.

“Landor House, you mean?”

A man stood beside my angel, their arms linked as their backs were turned from me to observe my latest work- Hyades. Clemetine’s maroon dress flowed down her hazel shoulders, flowers adorned in her hair and the trims of her fabric. Her reflection on the tile floor echoed her wonder and awe of my creation, perhaps so that she did not respond to her caller. She was terribly beautiful even if I only observed her mirrored figure on the floor, and redemption for my destiny narrowed closer than ever before.

For a mere moment, I hesitated, tempted to leave her in the peace of her mind and companion. After all, it was I who terminated our correspondence, who abandoned the pursuit of her fellowship over the years. I watched as her arm unraveled from her companion, a ring reflecting the lights hanging from the ceiling. This was not shocking news, as her letters described married life and her disdain for such a prison. However, belief in one’s work was difficult enough also to know that Clementine married before my establishment of propriety and success, that our paths would no longer entwine as we once believed as children. I halted painting for weeks, knowing that her push in this direction of bettering myself led to our destruction, but over time I knew the bitterness in my heart conjured those words, and Clementine was not to blame for our circumstances. I was a fool then, and approaching the girl I once knew, foolishness followed.

“Oh, dearest Henry!”

She spun around, relinquishing her companion’s presence before she sprinted across the Hall floors to my arms. My face now reflected the gathering public, abashed and confounded, as my arms wrapped around her tightly. Before I knew it, a smile flooded my face and the weight against my heart suddenly lifted.

“Goodness, how handsome you are!” she exclaimed, stepping back to look at me, gloved hands cradling my face. “Henry, it is such a marvel! Your work!” I could tell in the earnestness of her eyes she also portrayed the wonders of our presence together, and it recalled me to the days when we would not have to speak words to understand the other’s heart. Yet looking into her eyes, they no longer glowed with the fire and passion of our youth, and her brown skin did not flush the same as before.

“Yes, quite...impressive.”

Her companion stepped forward, gaze soft yet his stance was tall and vigilant. “Patriarch Ellano- and my wife Clementine Ellano.” It was plain that just as he had little understanding of my work, I had no mutual comprehension of his title. Yet, it sounded as if my angel achieved well the path she was pushed towards by her family. She smiled gently in response yet her eyes imprisoned her ocean of tears. It was not happiness I sought in her gaze, but perhaps a mimic of my own sentiment of a wasted past. A strange sense of happiness and dismay dampened the air, a heavy blanket of emotion I could hardly fathom.

“Henry,” I affirmed, “although my work speaks of another name.” Truth be told, I had yet constructed an artist’s name and I still was never granted a surname of my own to claim. I was creative with paint, but much less so with words or thought. It was easier to identify with the name granted by Clementine rather than surmise my own.

“Well Henry, Clementine told me all of her adventurous child spirit,” he returned smugly. “Rescuing an unnamed boy from the savage ocean was the initial story she enjoyed relying upon our first introduction.”

“I had to appeal somehow to a man I met first at the altar,” Clementine jested, although her caught breath spoke otherwise. “Everyone else in your family was quite mystified by my stories.” My stomach was appalled at the idea that she married a stranger, and Ellano himself dismayed at her response. She retracted quickly, poised and regal in her pretense. The mask she created to wear in his presence disgusted me far beyond any art I could create, for mine was made of passion and hers of force. Shame returned at the thought that Clementine all this time needed a friend outside of her religious boundaries, and I disregarded her completely.

“What is the inspiration for your work if I might ask?” Ellandor questioned, distracting me from my inner turmoil. He glanced over my shoulder at the dozen other masterpieces along the wall, his eyes of judgement reminding me of the statue of God in Landor Hall. His perception was keen and sharp although through my disgust I developed a mischievous spirit to counter him.

“My hands guide the vision, for it is not of recollection nor my travels across the lands,” I replied honestly. “Not to say I did not enjoy my travels, but I was never fond of the landscapes of this earth. Rather, most of my work is unconventional. I start with black and some unearthly memories of design guide my limbs to create.”

“And here I thought ‘nightmares’ would produce a more sufficient answer,” he murmured. “It is quite appalling, Henry.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, although his remark was not complimentary. “I find that the state of the ordinary is not a destination I seek.”

“Nor the destination you shall find,” he agreed spitefully. I watched as he grabbed Clementine roughly in a manner of possession. “God will judge you accordingly. I perhaps entertained the desire of my wife to see an old friend but now I fear your brain is riddled with salt water and horrid thoughts.”

“Dear, you are merely exhausted,” Clementine whispered but found no resolve to complete her sentence. The mask of God clung to her face and I imagined it choking her identity and soul from her, reinstating a shell of my Clem before my eyes.

I paused smugly, my hands in my pockets as I gleaned about the room at the other patrons. Of course, there was the horror, the dread that my paint soaked onto each inch of canvas, the strangest of creatures. Yet I found that my visitors could not turn away from my masterpieces, drawn to their details and grotesque techniques in marvelous wonder and morbid curiosity. It is no surprise that Ellandor, a supposed man of God with his harsh critiques, would not enjoy his surroundings. Their acts of proper society encouraged bile in my throat, and I wondered with strange delight if my patrons did the same in front of my creation.

“There is bound to be at least one painting to your liking, Patriarch Ellandor. Or perhaps there are private quarters for Clementine to enjoy on her own time, surely you would entertain your wife’s wishes. You would not deprive her of some joy, no?”

Ellandor stepped forward to me, Clementine a speck behind him. Her cheeks drained to match the color of her dress, her head down to the floor yet I could see in her reflection she searched to find me there as well.

Would you not be a Landor should you marry? You would carry his name instead?

My words from the past echoed in mortification, watching my Clementine succumb to her greatest fear: a captive to man and faith. She could not meet my gaze, not as her husband tensed to tower over me and I continued to ignore his presence. His reaction to me seemed to reveal a knowledge of our shared history, perhaps it was that our meeting now intimated at the closeness we had shared that turned his face green with envy. I imagined my smile at his approach a small sliver of yellow, representing either my joy or pure insanity.

“I do not exist to entertain, and my wife does not alter what I see fit in the eyes of God. I see now where her childish thoughts originated from. Though I have pulled all those weeds from the flower bed, the sower of those by-gone seeds stands before me.”

“I see you are a man of the arts, Patriarch,” I remarked sarcastically, “as your poetry is quite compelling.”

“The word of God is often quite poetic, perhaps you should read the tomes in which they are written. You can read, yes Henry?”

The sting of his arrogance quickened with each pronunciation of letters, and while I am many things, readers, I am not a coward. I composed myself in breath and never parted my gaze.

“To comprehend the mind of a God takes a steward, hence a place of belonging- a church one might say! I would hate to pollute your halls of grace and pretense dominion with my revolting presence.”

Ellandor said nothing, but as he straightened and turned to Clementine his stature echoed the termination of any remediation between us. He looked to her for an explanation, one she gave freely with a masked smile.

“It is a day of celebration for Henry and we appear to be tampering with his good spirits.”

“So it seems,” he agreed. “We should leave him to his other guests and patrons, those willing to pay for such nonsense.”

A sudden fear gripped me at the conception of Clementine leaving once more, mainly from the consequences of my desired to challenge. I was a foolish boy once who did not speak nor fight, and even now my voice was not enough to confront the institutions we were bound to.

He nodded gently before grabbing Clementine to follow in his departure. Her soft eyes met mine before looking at the glorious crowd amongst my paintings. She was proud...oh so proud of me.

Still, I watched as she departed beside Ellandor, a man who stole her fate long before I understood what Clementine meant by our intertwining paths of destiny. I had little hope now that I would restore what should have been mine, for now I only desired to see her once more before God took her from me too.

I observed what I have always yearned for: a ceremonious display of my creation for those to gather and appall at the society they have partook in, to wash in riches and obtain what was rightfully mine without status.

Yet it all meant nothing.

Clemetine’s early cries for freedom had met foolish, deaf ears, and now she paid the price for my carelessness. I wish we had divulged a plan together, a foolish and childish plan that would have failed rather than my youthful ignorance displayed in my silence. The work of my life was the one masterpiece I seemed to have fumbled, as I did not listen to the early instructions my angel sought to bestow upon me.

The world was obsolete without Clementine to experience creation with, and while I was no means a gentleman nor a follower of societal principles, she belonged to someone else. It took a mere moment to see her once more to know my troubles were in vain, that creation without someone to share it with was pure oblivion.

----------------------------------------

Months later, a letter arrived addressed to my studio adorned with an amber seal. I shuddered that it might be another commission request as I was buried in occupation without a heart to continue. All my paintings from the exhibition in Crece were sold privately to enjoy or curated in the halls of those who looked down upon me, and they only wanted more. My pockets were overflowing, and my name spread across the continent, but my heart and desire for creation grew unimportant. Empty canvases were strung around my studio, some on easels and others tossed around waiting to be the chosen piece.

I opened the letter in trepidation but despite my imagination, I never considered the power of words to destroy me.

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Clementine was dying.

My Clementine requested my presence and even the Patriarch Ellandor urged me to follow through with this demand, for it was not her writing I recognized on these pages. For a man disgusted in my presence, his words dripped with despondency for his wife, and while I could murder him alone for such desperation for a soul which was not his to own, I thought only of her. The violence I felt as a boy, imprisoned but empowered by a mere rifle, startled me as I read his words. Despite my anger, there was an impression that my presence was the turning tide to sway her spirits, and I was resolved to rescue her from the ocean of death.

It took almost two days of uninterrupted travel to arrive at Lorndol Hall, the residence of the Ellandor family for thousands of generations. Quinn often spoke of the great religious families when we were commissioned for such art, although I knew him not to be a believer himself. Creationists of our current state of the world looked to nature and to God, but it was only a mirror of God’s work, not something purely of their own design. All my brain recollected of the Ellandor family was their extreme wealth and status across the continent. The carriage rode across rocks and dirt to the entrance, a grand spectacle of architecture on the crevice of a hill as the horse struggled to hold for my departure. Stepping out, I half expected the family home of Landor with ocean landscapes and the smell of wet earth, but the terrain was barren and dreary. There were grasslands cut to the shortest stalk, no trees nor sign of life. Birds did not chirp nor sing and the wind of any breeze was flat, unmoving. Despair followed me inside the Hall, replacing the coat that was removed from the attendant, latching onto my body as I feared I was too late.

The Hall was miraculously decorated far beyond Landor House nor any residence I worked in, with paintings amongst the ceilings depicting the battle of angels and demons, the expensive tile beneath my feat mirroring this strange sentiment of good against evil. A chorus of wonderous harmony followed me, echoing louder than our footsteps as I followed the attendant up the grand marble staircase. I felt justified with a small disdain that their world around Lordnol Hall was dying, yet with their wealth and privileges their place remained a stored cache of wealth never to be seen unless invited. It was as entering Heaven with the trepidation of judgment, and yet it was not God I found at the landing but Ellandor and several priests. They spoke in whispers at my arrival, yet Ellandor sought my eyes with a pale countenance. His hair was whiter than before, skin older as if he had aged exponentially. Fellow artists spoke of the nature of stress upon the body, yet I had naught seen a case as terrible as mine enemy.

Without a word, he led me silently to Clemetine’s private quarters, hand on the door helve before he regarded me with great terror.

“Bring her back to sanity.”

Despair clutched harder at my skin, clawing and gnawing my insides as Ellandor shoved me inside, the door firmly closed behind me. I could hear the door lock firmly behind me as if I was now trapped with some ferocious animal. The grand bedroom was decorated in white sheets and the aroma of burning herbs, as if they were prepared to remove her presence from this space, erase her entire being from existence. The window held a resting area beneath, the stack of books I easily recognized as hers scattered and torn pages scattered amongst the wooden floors. A soft buzzing attracted me to the sun-bleached flies dying, desperate for freedom from this room as they suffocated.

“Henry.”

The croak from the air turned me to the large bed against the north wall, a weak arm outstretched from the white sheets. Her wedding ring was removed, and the crevice of its undeniable presence burned into her tan skin. I held no regard for her sickness or ailment as my hand took hers strongly, resting my body on the edge of the bed before removing the sheet that covered her.

Her smile shone above her grotesque image, her skin melting off her like a mask removed from a performer. My breath shook as I examined her, patches of redness surrounding her skin and neck, her fingers cold and parched in mine. Her illustrious hair that glowed underneath the ocean breeze and mist of her home was now brittle and colorless, a lifeless brown turmoiled against the sheets. The skin around her eyes sunk farther back, her nose no longer the pointed adorable structure of her divine face. It was no wonder they attempted to mask the death in this room with white sheets and religious iconography, as my Clementine was the image of pure Death.

“Clem,” I started in disbelief of her decomposing body before mine, but it was her soul that seemed more alight than ever. I feared perhaps this was a nightmare or that it was only her ghost tied to this mortal realm, inhabiting a body that reeked of salt and rotting earth.

“Oh Henry, you have come! Rejoice in this, for now, our path is laid,” she grinned, attempting to sit up. I assisted her in fear that her shoulder socket would burst, my hands touching her skin. Oh, how I wondered how she would feel against me, never imagining her to be lifeless and upon death’s door when I was granted this fate.

“Dearest Clem, please tell me that Ellandor has resorted to physicians rather than a fate of prayer,” I whispered, clasping her hands into mine and kissing them.

“His God can no longer touch me,” she affirmed, the strange grin distorting her solvent face. Her pupils were darker than I remembered them, blacker than the base for all my paintings. “I am left to only thee, the small boy I plucked from the ocean.”

“Clem, I am a painter... a boy from nothing in which now I do not deserve your kindness, for I disregarded your letters and attempts of contact of my own shame and standing in this world-”

“Henry, we were never of this world, of this place of mortality in which mankind has destroyed with promises of power and suffering.”

She rose higher, as if to kiss me upon my lips, the air growing colder in my presence as if she yearned for the warmth of my body. Her fingers traced my jaw and chin, sliding down my skin gently in admiration and pure love. Tears sprung to my eyes at the mere gesture, pain ushering me in my shame to know that Clementine had likewise loved me all this time.

“I am free!”

Her words failed to reassure me.

“Clementine, you are dying,” I returned despondent.

“No! I followed the path, I saw where it led. I discovered it as a child along my horse, riding away from what I was instructed to follow. The vision showed me you, my Henry... and where we would be together, and here I stay waiting for you to come. Come! Join me in splendor, Henry. You have tasted it and seen it in your work! I saw it in your masterpieces, drowning in agony was the creation in which we sought! Come! For we are close upon the hour and I have called for more to witness the arrival of the King!”

Confusion flooded me, misery clinging once more as a frightened child, a child drowning in open water grasping onto what little light fastened to him. My angel was mad, lost to some insanity beyond my comprehension nor of her husbands, of any faith of God that remained desperate to save her.

“Clementine, I do not understand-” I peered over her shoulder to her nightstand, and while I was often a foolish boy of little comprehension, clarity struck me harder than the waves of the ocean.

Upon her nightstand adorned with sheets and dripping candlewax, sat the King in Yellow. The play that plagued our earth, twisting insanity into the minds of all- or so it was spoken. When I learned to read and write under Quinn, several tutors spoke often that not all knowledge was wise to dissolve into our fragile minds, that being which the King in Yellow in its anonymity was strictly forbidden. Those who read it were often never heard from again, and I recognized that this perhaps was Clementine’s final attempt to fight against the institutions that bound her.

“Oh, Clementine,” I whispered in defeat. “What have you done?”

“What I was destined to,” she responded angrily, almost prepared to pounce from her bed. “What we are drawn to since the dawn of our existence, what I saw for us. I knew the decision for us to part from my family home would be painful, to leave you to find yourself amongst the masses with your talents...it has all led to this, Henry. This very moment is when you must wipe the ocean salt from your eyes and understand the clarity of our struggles on this earth are nothing compared to where we belong.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat, my lungs shaking as I searched out the window for some distant distraction. The barren landscape went on for miles, and for the first time, I yearned to see the ocean near Landor House once more. To return to childhood and its struggles, my acceptance of my role of servitude. To live in the denial that I had Clementine even in my worthless state.

Yet here she was, proclaiming once more this sense of destiny in which inwardly I sought and confuted. Despite her honesty and youth of spirit, I knew she was dying, and this book had only hastened the decline of her mind.

“You are almost there Hastur... I know you have seen it,” she whispered.

“Seen what? What did you just call me?” I asked.

“Carcosa... our home,” she smiled. “Don’t you remember? When I pulled you from the ocean, you could not even remember your name. Only that it started with an H. Had I known then what I know now...witnessed the shores of Hali as you had! Yet your paintings reminded me...the twin black stars amongst your spired landscapes, every painting! Your memories are there in your first creation...awakened now as I, Cassilda, call you to continue your design upon this world!”

I could not deny that my heart stirred at her names, astonished yet bewildered at the familiarity of them. Despair left for a mere moment in her speech, the light seeping into the corners of death in this room, her bright halo once returning the first I was reborn of the salt and ocean-

No.

It was her urgency and yearning which I sought all my life that now spoke to my heart...not this false destiny or dream of children that strung us along life apart from each other. I could see her eyes grow wide in apprehensive danger that I was slipping away from her grasp for the final time, and the pain in my heart grew as I sank beside her once more. I touched her skin fervently, my fingers on the nape of her neck as I felt her dead hair fall and tangle in the folds of my hand.

“Tell me what I must do,” I lied, soothing her softly. Her smile returned once more, the gleam of hope reflecting from her gaze.

“Read it, Henry...open the pages for once you do, there is no return. Your mind will stop at nothing to complete the works of us, our story! Read it and you shall know the truth.”

I nodded slowly, kissing her forehead gently before allowing her to rest. Her success in driving me towards fate softened her resolution and she accepted the peace that came with sleep. I watched her for several minutes, my gaze frozen on her in fear that they would avert to the rotten book on her stand. I could feel the force of the bound skin of the pages, calling to me as I looked over her decomposing features. Every bone and fiber in my body rejected this path, my heart also knowing it was rejecting Clementine for the last time.

My heart screamed as I turned and walked to find the door unlocked and departed from the room of decay, not even looking at Ellandor who waited patiently outside. I fled down the stairs, needing to remove myself before that book somehow landed in my hands. The heavenly choir was gone but rather a chaotic arrangement of instruments played the cacophony of my departure. There were no musicians in sight, there was no one but a servant, Ellandor and I.

“Henry, wait!”

The attendant paused near the front door, blocking it as Ellandor approached me from behind. His earnestness in my presence sickened me, his pretense for her care and well-being a marvelous spectacle for his servants and men of God.

“You have done this,” I hissed, pointing at him. “Poisoned her beyond the grasp of me that she felt no choice but to find peace in the insanity of that book. You trapped her here, imprisoned by this God and her family!”

Ellandor scoffed at the accusation, bewildered by such a statement.

“Watch your tongue, boy.”

“All my life I watched my words and thoughts. I followed the path that followed in hopes Clementine would be there at the end...and you stole her from me!”

Ellandor paused, altering his stance before he shook his head.

“That is what this is about? You will not help her because you think that are owed her presence? A woman of great status and wealth and you believe that as a stable boy or even a painter could sustain the happiness that you sought?”

He stepped forward towards me, but I held my ground and tongue.

“It is not I that keep her here, but Death and the devil that she sought in your paintings. She noticed something in them, something familiar that she sought that damned book! It is you, the beast of depravity amongst this mortal realm that caused her to stumble, to search for answers beyond faith. And now when she asks for reprieve, you shall not give it to her?”

“I cannot give her what she asks,” I affirmed. “You shall not convince me otherwise. There is no help that I can offer to save her from this fate, only can I live with the resolution that she made this choice and will live with the consequences forever.”

I turned away from Ellandor, motioning the servant to open the doors but he remained stoic. His old decrepit face reminded me of the statue of House Landor, of God awaiting my departure from his realm.

Judging me...always judging me.

I am a man of life and creation...and again, I felt the sting of violence to tear this man apart. For in the end, we are nothing more than our violent arrival upon this earthly plane, a carnal flesh that seeks blood when the body’s heart and soul withdraws.

“I have seen your fate, Henry...” Ellandor started, “the same way that Clementine was gifted to do so. She was...is, quite gifted Henry. Yet she always observed a fantasy of fate where I am pragmatic and aligned with God, seeing it for plain truth. You are running away.”

I scoffed to mimic his approach to this conversation, and yet I could not deny his words as I stopped to turn back to him in bitter reproach.

“You ran into the ocean from something...an entity lost to time and yourself. When Clementine spoke of your fates to be together, you departed for the painter in hopes that you could be the man to provide for her. You left her for me...I did not take what was not rightfully mine. Now, there is no choice left but to follow the path that you divulged in fear that you will amount to nothing other than mediocrity and an undistinguished existence.”

The truth stung like a blade to the heart as I turned my head over my shoulder to peer at him. For once, the word of God spoke into my soul, acknowledging that inner voice I understood all along: that I was nothing. Whatever I was before, this Hastur that Clementine spoke of, it meant nothing. I was reborn into the same cycle of poverty and shallow existence to serve those higher than myself, and in my desperation to seek above which I was entitled to, Clementine was the punishment for my crimes.

The attendant opened the door and I departed willingly without a word, my carriage and driver remaining patiently. Lordnol Hall’s large metal doors closed harshly, the echoing of its lock continuously playing in my mind on the return home. I sat with each stumble of the horse on the uneven roads with the idea of painting my Clementine, the only creation that would not be shown ceremoniously or sold. In attempt to dream of her face the way I knew it to be I remained haunted in her besotting appearance, dripping in red paint or blood as she yearned for me to answer the call. The imagery blended to the point I could not defer the time she appeared herself nor as a child in otherworldly beauty. All that was left of my angel was a rotting corpse of flesh, her heart incessantly beating in hopes I would alter our destinies.

She spoke of this King...and in my limitless mortal power, I accepted there was no part I could play to save her. The doors echoed once more with each of her words Hastur come, drowning her out my eyes rested on the one sound I could always recall to memory: the incessant beating of ocean waves on the Landor shore.

I awoke sharply from these nightmares, yellow light streaming into the black carriage harshly. I covered my eyes to find the carriage had stopped, the driver opening my door to flood the yellow in once again.

The local bookshop shadowed before me, the busy streets awake and alive with the continued existence of us ordinary people. Several prints of my paintings were sold here, but alas, I had no completed work nor recollection of why we arrived. The shop recently opened this day and even the bookseller eyed me curiously through the clear glass windows.

“Why are we here?”

“You asked me to drive you here, Sir.”

“For what?” I asked, but he did not respond because he did not know.

As the morning yellow sun seeped into my eyes, I knew why I was here.

In my dreams, I might have asked for this destination of fate to arrive. A choice made not by what was expected upon me, or thrust my own life into a future of success and status.

This was a choice to make for myself- to live without Clementine forever or perhaps be lost together in madness. Ellandor was right. My acceptance of his words overnight transformed into the challenge Clementine fought all her life, and I had to now take her place in this provocation.

This tumultuous moment in my history was defined by the action that I took, not those paths I sought to please others or receive praise from those who looked down upon me. Ellandor’s context for warning me of fleeing my soul’s purpose may have been incorrect, but as I stared at the shining glass windows of the shop to see my reflection in the carriage, I felt the utmost certainty of who I was.

I was something other than this mortal form existing for the purpose of others.

The world around me was satisfied with their tasks and daily troubles...each man and woman walking to their next destination with neither glee nor despair- only pure acceptance. They waltzed past me without a word nor acknowledgement and I did not mind.

I nodded at my driver, departing from my shadowed black carriage and into the yellow light as I went inside and purchased a copy of The King in Yellow. The shopkeeper advanced to the back storage to find it, relinquishing it to me without question or concern. Despite the slight sorrow in his eyes as I paid him, there was that fascinating glance of aghast horror...as if he was looking at my paintings. It’s that taste of something so new and grotesque that you pause to announce it aloud- my god, this is wretched- but then your curiosity sets in and tries it again and again and again…

Perhaps we are all mere creatures of curiosity on the path to freedom, even if it means losing what sanity we have left.

The shopkeeper did not question me as I left but I could tell he eagerly waited to see what was to become of me.

I returned to my studio, the empty canvases now adorned with my past work. I examined them with the book in my hand, admiring the spires of my castle, the yellow sun glowing behind them, the twin stars in the sky...all this hidden in my great work as Clementine motioned. I grabbed the pamphlet of my first public showing my painter’s name on full display

“Behold the works of Hastur, mastered under Quinn, in his first public showing titled The Yellow Sign.”

My name was already seen, although there was no recollection of me writing this title in my initial submission to the Department of Arts... A sudden calmness washed over me, merely as I stared at the book in my hand. Could one go mad by merely touching it? Was it not the words of this strange play stage that evolved the minds of men and women alike? This did not answer how I wrote this name down, let alone that Clementine might know of it. Oh, Clementine...

I sighed dreamily, closing my eyes and imagining her not as the way I might, but as she was now. Her deathly countenance emanated warmth, my hand caressing her face. The sunken skin of her cheeks fell onto my hands, my fingers pulling them apart from her flesh, removing the mask to replace it with another.

My eyes opened, my throat desperate and thirsty for resolve, my fingers curling around the pages of the King in Yellow as my head, once full of ocean water and blind faith, opened to the words of madness inked across the collection of parchments. I found naught insanity nor death as Clementine discovered, but that was through the eyes of a mortal man.

I found Hastur- the Emperor of Emperor above all Kings- I created myself.

All I needed was my bride