A Season In Carcosa Read online

  The answer came back an hour later: O pilgrim, do not despair. Carcosa is permanent. I have been here for a hundred years or more. Carcosa endures because it makes itself part of death, which the world cannot. The King is in tatters, the Lake of Hali is in twilight, the Pallid Mask never changes. Life fades but death goes on forever. I think you are ready to join us. Bring what money you have, but send nothing. Go by train to Telford, where Cassilda will meet you with a kiss, tomorrow at noon.

  The train was late; he was afraid she would have gone. A cold wind was blowing across the platform. Clutching a weekend bag, he looked around. A young woman came out of the waiting-room and headed towards him. She didn’t match his mental image of Cassilda: her dark hair was too short, her clothes too modern. But what was he supposed to expect? Then her eyes met his and she smiled as if waking from an erotic dream. Without asking his name, she gripped his free hand and kissed him on the mouth. It was more of a kiss than he expected or deserved, and he was surprised to feel himself respond. It had been a long time.

  Still holding his hand, she led him down the concrete steps to the car park. A man was waiting in a rusty blue Metro. Cassilda opened the back doors and got in beside Stephen. “Welcome to Carcosa,” the driver said, starting the engine. He was aged thirty or so, with a checked shirt and pale cropped hair. The car turned away from the town, heading out between mist-wreathed fields. Cassilda leant back into Stephen’s arms and raised her mouth towards his. He’d heard that cults did this, used sex to win new converts. But frankly, what did he have to lose?

  As the road narrowed and the fields gave way to the bones of a forest, Stephen began to slip back in the cold undertow of pain and nausea. He reached in his bag for medication, gulped two different pills. Cassilda gestured towards her mouth. “It’s medicine,” he said. She shrugged. The driver was watching them in his mirror. On the dark trees, streaks of mould flickered like discoloured runes.

  “Are we going to the lake?” Stephen asked. Cassilda nodded slowly. “How long have you lived there?”

  The young man answered: “There is no time in Carcosa. The moon never changes.”

  “I’ve been here three months,” Cassilda said in a soft Derbyshire accent. “Hastur’s just jealous because he only joined us last week.” She gave Stephen a conspiratorial smile and rested her head on his shoulder.

  They drove on in silence. The forest thinned out at the edge of a derelict estate, identical grey blocks with sheets of metal nailed over their windows. A teenage couple with a pram crossed the narrow road in front of the car. The driver pressed on his horn. “Mindless creatures,” he muttered. “If I ran them down, who’d know the difference? Their world means less than the world of slugs. You haven’t told anyone where you’re going, have you?”

  “Course not,” Stephen replied. The question made him realise he should phone Claire at least, let her know he’d gone away. If there were phones wherever they were taking him. He didn’t have a mobile.

  The air seemed to thicken, like smoke with a flickering yellow flame somewhere behind it. Were his eyes giving way? The buildings were shapeless and blurred. It was too early for twilight. A crow larger than any he’d seen before, its plumage streaked with white, flapped unsteadily above the road. Then, suddenly, they passed a ridge and were heading downhill towards a lake whose surface was a metallic blue-grey. On either side was a burnt-out tower block.

  “We are lost in Carcosa,” the girl said, so faintly he wasn’t sure he’d really heard the words. The car shuddered to a halt where the road approached the stony lakeside. As Stephen opened the door, a wave of decay struck him. The clouds overhead were bruised with turbulence. Something brushed his face like an invisible wing, and sickness gripped his bowels. The other two walked on as he crouched by the roadside and vomited. Metallic runes flickered above the dark water.

  Looking up with tears in his eyes, he saw a twisted shape flapping towards him over the water, like a yellowish cloak with nothing inside it but with purposeful movement. He rubbed his eyes and the shape faded – but now he could make out smaller buildings on the far side of the lake, and people moving between them. A dozen or so prefab huts, and a thin white building with a steeple. There was something attached to the steeple, but from this side he couldn’t see what it was – only the framework of boards and scaffolding that held it in place. Then, just at the point when the hallucinatory cloak would have reached him, pain gripped his lower spine and the world became grey. The waters of the lake were churning slowly. The last thing he was aware of was the taste of blood in his mouth.

  “Drink this.” The man leaning over him was himself. Stephen took the offered glass of tawny liquid and swallowed. It was cognac, a delicate flame in his mouth. His body remembered the pain and he swallowed again, then a third time. The man took his empty glass. It wasn’t his double, Stephen realised, though the resemblance was striking: a balding man in his fifties, with a narrow face and steel-framed glasses. The fire was spreading to his throat and chest. He was lying on a narrow bed, in a tiny room with plasterboard walls and an electric fan heater. Another man was standing beside the head of the bed, looking down: the driver.

  “Don’t worry,” the older man said. “You’re in Carcosa. We can save you. When you can stand up, we’ll take you to the King. And at sunset, he will perform the ceremony of the Pallid Mask.”

  “Is he an Elvis impersonator?” Stephen asked.

  Hastur twitched angrily, but the older man smiled. “No, Elvis was an impersonator of him. I’ve read your messages, I know you’re in trouble. But we’re prepared.”

  Stephen closed his eyes and pressed his hands together, as if praying. But in this place he didn’t know the words. His fingers brushed his dry lips. “Is Cassilda here?” he said. Neither man answered. He opened his eyes. “All right.”

  “Do you have money?” Hastur said. Stephen reached for his wallet and handed it over silently. It contained four hundred pounds, all he could take out before his next salary payment.

  They left the hut, the older man supporting Stephen and Hastur walking behind. They were close to the edge of the lake, which stirred restlessly. Dense clouds of blue-green algae hung beneath its dull surface. The air seemed denser than before, harder to breathe, and the clouds held motionless flakes of darkness.

  From this side, he could see that the white building held up a twisted yellow shape, a rune or abstract design he remembered from the website. It was hard to look away, but his guide was leading him to a caravan parked opposite the chapel. Hastur knocked three times and waited.

  The door opened. “Come in,” said the King. He was a tall, slightly hunched man wrapped from head to foot in a ragged cloak. Stephen thought it was made from pieces of other clothes – an army uniform, a priest’s vestment, a surgeon’s gown, a business suit – crudely stitched together and dyed or sprayed with a vivid yellow pigment. He must be wearing something black underneath, since the tears in the fabric revealed only darkness.

  The interior of the caravan stank of incense and alcohol. Its walls were papered with newspaper stories, but in the dim light of two candles he couldn’t read the headlines. The table was covered with books, newspapers, empty bottles and other objects. There were only two chairs; the King gestured to Stephen to take one, then sat down facing him. The other two men remained standing.

  “Welcome to Carcosa,” the King said. He filled two shot glasses from an open bottle and passed one to Stephen. “Tonight you will see the Pallid Mask. You will hear the Hyades sing. And as the black stars shine over the lake of Hali, you will be redeemed. And you will dwell among us forever.”

  The other two men chanted something in a language Stephen didn’t know. The King raised his glass and drank, and Stephen followed suit. The drink was also new to him: a spirit that tasted faintly of smoke and decay. It numbed his mouth and filtered through his gut like a wave of stillness. Within seconds, the world seemed clear and without pain. He gazed through tears of relief at the King’s narro
w, immobile face.

  “Bring me the Pallid Mask,” the King said. Hastur stepped through into a back room and returned with a small leather suitcase, which the King placed on the table and unlocked. It contained two objects wrapped in yellow cloth. The King carefully unwrapped the larger bundle. His fingers were thin and very pale. He held up the mask and passed it to Stephen. “Feel the weight of it.”

  The mask was not plaster. It was carved from marble or quartz, with crystals twinkling in its pure white surface. A young woman’s face, with perfect features; the eyes and mouth were shut, the nostrils filled in. Stephen’s hands were barely strong enough to lift it. Around the edge were a number of small holes, crusted with dried blood.

  He passed it back to the King, who had already opened the second bundle: an electric screwdriver and a plastic box of screws. The King refastened the bundles and passed one to each of his acolytes. Then he looked across the crowded table at Stephen, holding his eyes for a long moment. “The world is poisoned,” he said. “Nothing of value remains. Time to go.”

  The sun was setting as they waited outside the chapel. More people came from the huts and the ruined towers. They were all cheaply dressed and looked sick or troubled, but given strength by a shared expectation. The algae blooming in the dead lake seethed with a mysterious energy. The air was close to freezing point.

  Three slender figures emerged from one of the nearest huts: teenage girls, possibly sisters, dressed in long coats. They glanced anxiously at the King, who tapped his watch. “Sorry,” one of them said. “We were practising.” Stephen wondered if they were the Hyades. The King walked up the steps to the chapel door and took out a large key, then waited.

  Finally, three more people joined the congregation: two men flanking a young woman, who appeared to be heavily drugged. Despite the chill she was wearing a sleeveless white gown. As they slowly approached the chapel, he realised the girl was Cassilda. Her eyes tracked across the congregation, from face to face; he looked away. Her minders helped her climb the stone steps to the chapel door. At that moment, the sun’s last rays caught the Yellow Sign and made it writhe. The King twisted the key and pushed open the heavy door. Cassilda’s guards took her through the doorway after him. The Yellow Sign faded with the daylight; black waves crashed on the lake shore. One by one, the people of Carcosa stepped into the chapel.

  Beyond the Banks of the River Seine

  By Simon Strantzas

  i have read all the books about that time, but they are all wrong. There is no one who knew Henri Etienne as I did, certainly no one in all of Paris. We were both students at the Conservatoire, the finest musical school in all the world, where we had met in our first year and had become inseparable. The man people whisper of in the shadows of concert halls bears little resemblance to the boy I had once held dear. This is the way of things, I suppose. Few truly know those they idolize most. Perhaps, this is best.

  Henri and I were rivals over everything; two composers always at odds, albeit friendly odds. Or so it seemed to me. But I imagine it would, as I was his better in virtually every way. I do not mean for that to sound as vain as it must, but if this chapter – my final confessional – is to serve its purpose and cleanse my soul, then I must be completely honest. Compared to me, Henri was pale, destined for nothing more than performing in one of the small bars along the Left Bank where he might earn little more than enough to scrape by. It was not that he was unpractised or undisciplined – he was the sort who put many long hours into honing and refining his craft – it was that his proficiency was never more than average, and his playing rote and unemotional. He was no better than the automaton I’d once seen at the Musée Grévin, one step above a music box with its carved wax fingers and clockwork piano. What I am trying to convey is that the boy was not in the same league as I, and that only made his company more charming to me.

  His sister, Elyse, was a different beast all together. Never in all my years before or since have I laid eyes on a woman so near perfection that even the all mighty himself might be expected to cast a second glance. Elyse was a dream. An angel. And I wanted nothing as much as I did her. Wanted to feel her heat against me. Wanted to show her the sort of passion only a man on the verge of success might be able to provide. And yet, despite all my wooing, she remained resolute against me. I was not an ugly man – my mirror assured me of that – and I was not without means, so her dismissals were very much a surprise. They were illogical, based I was sure on no more than the whims of a woman, and they only made me want her more. I knew she must love me, and that it could only be for her brother’s sake that she refused to admit it.

  What charmed me most about Henri was his drive, his perseverance to best me at something, anything. He would take quite a ribbing from me in class and with friends, always second to my performances. Perhaps we were rough on him, kept his nerves raw, but it was only from love. I enjoyed having him with me. He could always be counted on for a humorous glower when I dared played the keys of his wounded pride. It seemed to motivate him, though, something for which he should have thanked me. Though perhaps not in retrospect.

  Because of our friendly rivalry, he would pore over every task, practice it incessantly, fixate on achieving the truer performance. Where I might play adagio, he would play presto. A minuet I had written would be countered with an quartet from him. Each work of mine was responded to, each with a fury of playing hitherto unknown to any of us who knew him. Henri’s hands would tremble before every performance and even my laughter was not enough to calm him. “You mustn’t goad Henri, Valise,” his sister would plead, to which I would only laugh further. “It’s all in good fun,” I’d say, and her sweet porcelain face would twist, and then she would invariably spit at me. Is it any wonder I was so smitten? We would watch Henri play, and while the rest of the room focused on his dancing fingers I could not bear it. It pained me to see them drawing such lifeless notes from the ivory. Instead, I studied his face and the flop of hair that would slide over his brow moments into his performance; or at his flushed skin, sweated with concentration before reaching a boil as he wordlessly realized what he was playing was a failure. In these instances, he would inevitably look to me and Elyse, and each time he did I saw defeat had already claimed him. He would not stop playing, but it is a given that once doubt infects a performer’s mind, it spreads like a cancer. Inevitably, he would stumble, the first in an increasingly tumultuous cascade of errors, ending in muted polite applause. Often, I would find him after these performances weeping discretely. Forever soft as a lamb was my good old Henri.

  At the end of the day, though, my friendship with him was more important to me than anything else save my own career and, perhaps, his sister’s hand, and I did all I could to guide him by my example, providing to him a bar by which he might measure himself. Once, while we celebrated too much the sale of one of my compositions, he drunkenly confessed that were he to ever best me, and were he to do so in front of Elyse, he might die a happy man. I treated it as the jest it surely was: with a laugh hearty enough to fill both our mouths. His glower did not falter, which only charmed me further. His sister, however, treated it with far more weight. “We can no longer do this. Please, leave us to our misery,” she said one day as I stood across from her in the October courtyard, but she knew I could do no such thing. Henri was my dearest friend, and she my future betrothed. They would have me in the life until the end of it came.

  No one was more surprised than I when Henri decided to write a concerto. I asked him about it only once, and he replied, “I want to finally show the school what I am capable of.” I shook my head. “You needn’t prove anything to them, the ignoramuses. Don’t feel as though you must compete. What’s that M. Ouillé says in our Orchestration class? One must know one’s limits.” It seemed as though he were compounding injury, the way he begged for comparison against me. Only the year before I’d had my own piece performed at the Elysées Montmartre, and received raves and exaltations from all quarters. Candidly, I
was told word of the composition made it as far as the préfet of the Conservatoire, François Chautemps, and he requested a copy of the sheet music so he might inspect my craft. There was no way to be sure this was true, of course, but it did not seem so out of reach, especially then. I hoped my success might inspire Henri to do more.

  Not long afterward I found myself circling Montparnasse, looking for a woman whose name I’ve long forgotten and instead noticing Henri moving along in a vacant haze. I called to him, though it didn’t seem at the time he heard me. Instead, he slipped into a small paper shop on the corner that until then I had thought was closed and unoccupied. It seemed reasonable, given how dusty the volumes in the window were, and the number dead flies that lay among them, half-consumed by dermestids. I followed Henri inside, my lady friend forgotten, and was confronted by claustrophobic walls of ancient bound theatrical scripts and other ephemera. I did not find Henri immediately. Only a small Indian that stood behind the counter, his head wrapped in frayed scarves. His eyes looked yellow and wide as they stared at me, his lower lip curled in a rictal frown. He pointed a skeletal finger at me, but said nothing. It was enough to unnerve me, and I wished to leave but could not. I had to find Henri. I would not abandon him.

  But it turned out I did not need to. He appeared from the warren of stacks, his eyes swimming with joy – or if not joy then something else, something more powerful. I knew immediately the forecast was dire. He accidentally dropped the bound script he held upon seeing me, then sputtered and stumbled as though caught doing something improper. I looked down, as did he, at what he had dropped, but neither of us spoke, as though in tacit agreement we should pay it as little heed as possible.