The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1 Read online

  "Joe Pulver exemplifies the cutting edge of the contemporary weird aesthetic. Brawling, erudite, visionary--his work possesses a ruthless intensity that binds a scholarly command of tradition with a blood and sweat blue collar ethic. No one does the darker side of surreal better than this man." - Laird Barron, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

  "The King In Yellow reigns over the labyrinthine crossroads between the grand indifference of the cosmic Outside, and the inner wasteland of the tormented mind, so it's no surprise to find Joe Pulver's saturnine face so frequently behind the Pallid Mask. Joe plies the fathomless depths of existential nightmare breathing music and poetry, and brings back strangely beautiful salvage. That he has so lovingly and deeply explored Chambers' bizarre pocket universe without destroying the merest scintilla of its mystery is ample testament to his painfully sharp craftsmanship and terrible wisdom." - Cody Goodfellow, Radiant Dawn

  "Weird fiction has no finer writer than Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. Audaciously original, in language as well as vision, his work is a treasure trove of unholy delight. How excellent to have his KIY stories in one glorious edition!" - W. H. Pugmire, Uncommon Places

  "For me, the only way to write an homage to another writer, or to work within their universe or with their toolbox, is to do so with an individual sense of vision and a unique voice. This is why my favorite homages to Lovecraft are by W. H. Pugmire, and why Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.'s Chambers-inspired works are so idiosyncratic and fascinating. Pulver's artistry is wholly his own, which makes it all the more compelling and brilliant when he is referencing the work of another artist. He could never not be the singular and remarkable, Joe Pulver." - Jeffrey Thomas, Punktown

  by

  Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

  Read The Lovecraft eZine, a free online magazine featuring

  Weird Fiction, Cosmic Horror, and the Cthulhu Mythos:

  www.LovecraftZine.com

  A Line of Questions copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 1999

  Choosing copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  Carl Lee & Cassilda copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  An American Tango Ending in Madness copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  Hello Is a Yellow Kiss copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  Chasing Shadows copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 1998

  Last Year in Carcosa copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  An Engagement of Hearts copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  Saint Nicholas Hall copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  A Spider In the Distance copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2008

  Under the Mask Another Mask copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  Epilogue For Two Voices copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  Yvrain’s “Black Dancers” copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  The Songs Cassilda Shall Sing, Where Flap the Tatters of the King copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2009

  Tark Left Santiago copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2012

  Marks and Scars and Flags copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2012

  Long-Stemmed Ghost Words copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  In This Desert Even the Air Burns copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  Perfect Grace copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  My Mirage copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2012

  Mother Stands For Comfort copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2010

  A Cold Yellow Moon (by Edward R. Morris Jr. and Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.) copyright Edward R. Morris Jr. and Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2012

  All other tales and poems copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2015

  This anthology copyright Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. 2015

  Front Cover Art by Robert W. Chambers

  Front Cover Design by Steve Santiago

  Graphic Design by Leslie Harker

  Published by The Lovecraft Ezine

  Formatting by Kenneth W. Cain

  Proofreading by Kat Pulver

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. No part of this ebook may be re-sold, given away, lent, or reproduced to other parties by any means. Reviewers may quote small excerpts for their purposes without expressed permission by the author. If you would like to share this book with others, please consider purchasing or gifting additional copies. If you’re reading this book and did not obtain it by legal means, please consider supporting the author by purchasing a copy for yourself. The author appreciates your effort to support their endeavors.

  To my field guide, fingerpost, and inspiration,

  Robert W. Chambers,

  with my deepest respect.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction by Rick Lai

  A Line of Questions

  Choosing

  The “Carl Lee & Cassilda” Trilogy

  Carl Lee & Cassilda

  An American Tango Ending in Madness

  Hello Is a Yellow Kiss

  The Last Few Nights In A Life Of Frost (Original “unpublished” version)

  Chasing Shadows

  Last Year in Carcosa

  An Engagement of Hearts

  Cordelia’s Song (Previously unpublished)

  Saint Nicholas Hall

  A Spider In the Distance

  Under the Mask Another Mask

  Epilogue For Two Voices

  Yvrain’s “Black Dancers”

  The Songs Cassilda Shall Sing, Where Flap the Tatters of the King

  The Sky Will Not Fall (Previously unpublished)

  Tark Left Santiago

  Marks and Scars and Flags

  Long-Stemmed Ghost Words

  In This Desert Even the Air Burns

  Perfect Grace

  My Mirage

  Mother Stands For Comfort

  A Cold Yellow Moon (by Edward R. Morris Jr. and Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.)

  Afterword by Pete Rawlik

  Introduction

  The Restoration of Carcosa

  by Rick Lai

  The throne of Carcosa was deserted. The Imperial Dynasty of Hastur had been forgotten. The Lake of Hali had been polluted by Cthulhu's half-brother. The unspeakable interloper had even stolen the name of the royal capitol. The black stars screamed for the birth of a prophet to restore the reign of the Tattered King. The cry was first answered by the Scribe of the First Murderer, but this great work would only be fully completed by the Regulator of Ruination.

  The previous passage is intended to be an allegorical representation of the pivotal role of Joseph Pulver Sr. in the preservation of the Carcosa mythology of Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933). In The King in Yellow (1895), Chambers had taken names from the works of Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) and used them in an entirely different context. Hali, an Arabian sage in Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" and "The Death of Halpin Frayser," had his name bestowed on a lake on an another planet. Similarly Bierce's desert city of Carcosa was transplanted to the same extra-terrestrial realm. Hastur, a god in "Haita the Shepherd" was transformed by Chambers into a place that was either a city or a constellation. In the new Carcosa mythology, Hali was a cosmic Hell where drowning had replaced burning. The Satan presiding over this monstrous domain was the enigmatic King in Yellow. A verse play bearing the demonic despot's name circulated on Earth and drove its readers into insanity and death.

  H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) discovered The King in Yellow in 1927. Besides a brief mention of Hastur, the Lake of Hali and the Yellow Sign in "The Whisperer in the Darkness," he did nothing with the Carcosa lore. Lovecraft borrowed a totally different city created by Chambers, Yian from the "The Maker of Moons," and re-fashioned it into Yin (The Fungi from Yuggoth) and Yian-Ho ("Through the Gates
of the Silver Key"). Viewed in their entirety, the connections between the work of Chambers and Lovecraft are fairly minor.

  August Derleth (1909-1971) decided to incorporate Carcosa more thoroughly into the Cthulhu Mythos, a term he coined to describe the artificial lore which had haphazardly evolved from Lovecraft's stories. Cthulhu, Lovecraft's most famous creation, was a member of a god-like alien race known as the Great Old Ones. Assuming falsely that Chambers had portrayed Hastur as a god like Bierce, Derleth decided to make a new addition to the roster of the Old Ones. Just as Cthulhu was imprisoned on Earth in the underwater city of R'lyeh, his half-brother Hastur was incarcerated beyond the stars in the Lake of Hali. Although mentioned occasionally in Derleth's stories (e.g. "The Return of Hastur"), the extra-terrestrial metropolis of Carcosa receded into the background. Completely ignored by Derleth were the King in Yellow and the play serving as his corrupting gospel.

  Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) had gained fame by writing a sword and sorcery series whose protagonist corresponded to the Biblical Cain. His short story, "The River of Night's Dreaming," anthologized in Stuart David Schiff's Whispers III (Doubleday, 1981), was the first post-Derleth story to divorce Carcosa from the Cthulhu Mythos and return to the original concepts of Chambers. After reading the play entitled The King in Yellow, a woman escaped from an asylum. Lost in the fantasy world of Carcosa, she became a harbinger of death. Wagner would return to Carcosa in "I'll Talk to You Again," which first appeared in Dark Terrors: The Gollancz Book of Horror (Gollancz, 1995) edited by David Suttton and Stephen Jones. Wagner's only other Carcosa tale was a compromise with the Cthulhu Mythos in which an unnamed monstrosity extended tentacle-like appendages from within the Lake of Hali while the King in Yellow reigned in Carcosa.

  Joseph Pulver Sr. would largely avoid such concessions to the Cthulhu Mythos in his own tales of Carcosa. Not that Pulver has any distaste for the Cthulhu Mythos. His landmark novel, Nightmare's Disciple (1999), successfully combined Lovecraftian deities with both the police procedural as well as the psychological horror fiction pioneered by Robert Bloch. Nevertheless, Pulver feels that the original vision has been drowned out by the intrusion of Derleth's Hastur the Unspeakable. In order to adopt Chambers to the modern age, the Great Old Ones were cast out of the Lake of Hali and expunged from the historical archives of Carcosa, The King in Yellow owes subservience to no other horror.

  Shifting away from the 1890's, Pulver unleashes the malignant influence of the verse play called The King in Yellow on a modern day American audience. Many readers of the play become serial killers who could easily have stepped out of the pages of Robert Bloch. In fact, some of these serial killers prey on other serial killers. Whole roomfuls of people massacre each other under the spell of the monarch of Carcosa. The waters of Hali overflow with the souls of the butchered.

  The play deludes individuals into assuming the identities of its characters. Pulver skillfully utilizes the names of the play's cast conceived by Chambers: Cassilda, Camilla, Uoht, Thale, the Phantom of Truth etc. There are also a few additions to the cast from other sources. Pulver's borrowings include Cordelia, a personage introduced by Vincent Starret in his poem "Cordelia's Song (from The King in Yellow)" (Weird Tales, April, 1938). Pulver also introduces women named Cynara from "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae," a poem by Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), and Alanna who shares her name with the dark nymph from Arthur Machen's "The White People." There are also the enigmatic Xandes and Sianith, who are solely Pulver's creations.

  A couple of characters from Robert W. Chambers are rebooted by Pulver in the twenty-first century. In Chambers' "The Repairer of Reputations," Dr. John Archer was a benign asylum director murdered by a former patient. Wagner's "The River of Night's Dreaming" featured a chronologically later Archer running an asylum. A murderous escapee from Archer's custody described the psychiatrist as a sadistic maniac conducting brutal experiments on his patients. The story concluded with the appearance of an apparently benevolent Archer, and the reader was left wondering whether the psychiatrist was libeled by a lunatic formerly under his care.

  Pulver has his own version of Archer. If this is the same Archer as Wagner's, then the fugitive inmate was telling the truth in "The River of Night's Dreaming." Pulver's Dr. Archer is a maniacal megalomaniac in the tradition of Dr. Caligari. This Dr. Archer has embarked on a monstrous quest to provide a scientific explanation for the Carcosa Syndrome, the reason why a obscure French play drives people insane.

  Also appearing in Pulver's further work is Boris Yvrain, whose name is a modified spelling of the ill-fated Boris Yvain from Chambers' "The Mask." Like the earlier Boris, his near namesake is a sculptor. The current Boris has an agenda far different than his tragic predecessor.

  Occasionally, Pulver relaxes his rule regarding the strict segregation of the Carcosa mythology with the Cthulhu Mythos. You will find two such examples included here. Pulver is an admirer of Richard L. Tierney whose poetry and fiction combine the worlds of Derleth, Chambers and Bierce with the sword and sorcery of Robert E. Howard. In "The Seed of the Star-God" from Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones (Chaosium, 1997), the King in Yellow (called Sakkuth and the Golden King) is a vassal of the god Hastur (called Assatur). Starting with The House of the Toad (Fedogan and Bremer, 1993), Tierney created an intriguing dichotomy in his Mythos fiction which there are two cities called Carcosa (sometimes referred to by the variant spelling of Karakossa). One metropolis is on Earth (the Bierce version) and the other on another planet (the Chambers version). Pulver's "Choosing," a tribute to Tierney, concerns the terrestrial incarnation of Karakossa.

  The other exception herein to Pulver's schism with the Cthulhu Mythos is "A Cold Yellow Moon," a collaboration with Edward R. Morris Jr. This is a wild novelette in which the premise of Stanley Kubrick classic science fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1988), is transformed into an alternate universe steampunk adventure. Besides the King in Yellow, "A Cold Yellow Moon" features Lovecraft's Miskatonic University and the Zhou Texts from Nightmare's Disciple.

  As demonstrated by "A Cold Yellow Moon," Pulver excels in the construction of hybrids combining cinematic and literary works. ''Last Year in Carcosa" is a homage to Last Year at Marienbad, a 1961 French film by Alan Resnais in which the occupants of a hotel inexplicably reenact the same scenes from their lives throughout eternity. "My Mirage" deals with the premise of a famous real-life director filming The King in Yellow. Which version of The King in Yellow? The real book by Chambers or the diabolical play? I shall leave that determination to the reader.

  Some of the stories collected here have connections to other works by Pulver that lie outside the framework of his Carcosa fiction. Noir City, briefly mentioned in "Hello is a Yellow Kiss," was the setting of "Midnight on a Dead End Street in Noir City" from Blood Will Have Its Season (Hippocampus Press, 2009). "Epilogue for Two Voices" alluded to "the banquet of the spider," a ceremony that is the subject of "Le Festin de L'araignée " from Portraits of Ruin (Hippocampus Press, 2012). Dr. Archer and his asylum played a large role in The Orphan Palace (Chômu Press, 2011), but Pulver doesn't consider this novel part of the King in Yellow series. There are no references to the Carcosa lore, but monsters from the fringes of the Cthulhu Mythos make their presence known. Similarly Cynara from "Blood Will have its Season" appeared outside the context of the Carcosa mythology in "Now (a parade)" from Portraits of Ruin.

  Pulver was one of the authors who contributed to Peter Worthy's Rehearsals for Oblivion - Act I (Dimensions Books, 2006), the first anthology of original King in Yellow fiction. When Worthy didn't produce any further volumes, Pulver stepped into the vacuum by editing A Season in Carcosa (Miskatonic River Press, 2012). Unlike Worthy who allowed the occasional foray into the worlds of Lovecraft, Pulver forbade the inclusion of any octopoid bathers in the Lake of Hali. A future anthology of King in Yellow fiction by female authors, Cassilda's Song, is being prepared by Pulver.

  Nearly a year after the publication of A Sea
son in Carcosa, the True Detective TV series debuted on American television. The first season was surprisingly about two detectives pursuing a serial killer with ties to the King in Yellow. The storyline was closer to the fiction of Pulver rather than Chambers.

  The time for exposition is over. Turn the page and enter the sanctum of Joseph Pulver Sr., the earthly avatar of the Phantom of Truth. What did you say? No, Joe's not like that Phantom in Webber's musical. That fellow had his features behind a mask. This Phantom will slowly strip away the masks which hide our true nature.

  The secrets of existence await in a feast of desolation. Prepare to dine.

  A Line of Questions

  “Is journey’s end beyond the endless crashing waves,

  or the turn?

  Is it in the house of ruin?”

  One traveler on the road to yearning asked.

  The girl with eyes only as deep as a mirror

  turned to him.

  “I see only rare colors in the shadows of

  Dim Carcosa.”

  Her pale smile was full of quiet departures.

  She opened her umbrella—

  Beneath it, the Milky Way was a whirlpool of crystal tears.

  He walked off

  to hunt in lake-mists rising—on the murmuring breeze—

  like the frayed edges of once elegant draperies.

  “Which broken mystery comes next?”

  she asked, changing her tongue.

  “What comes after the lost song?”

  the next in line asked.

  “The fullness of dense fog and final sunset.”

  “I’ve lost Day in unfamiliar wind.”

  “Dissolution’s endless melody is always breathtaking.”

  “Farewell, Remembering.”

  “Goodbye, Day,” the oracle replied,

  as she turned to face the next

  unmasked, tattered

  stranger.