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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CARCOSIAN CUSTOMS REGARDING THE KING IN YELLOW RITUAL
Our chosen city stands alive on the bones of the sleeping Yellow King. A long time ago, the people of Carcosa prayed to this King for their prosperity, and He blessed them in abundance. The hills upon which our twin suns set are carved into His sleeping back, and the people who call them home shall always benefit from divine protection, insight, and good fortune.
In exchange, the first people of Carcosa took a collective vow. When the Royal family bears seven sons, and when the seventh son himself bears a seventh son, this child shall be born under the Yellow Sign and will be called the Little King. He shall be raised in piety; his mind kept clean and his every need met. He shall be the lamb of Carcosa, for when the Yellow King returns to lay flat the world, he will shield his citizens and usher them into paradise.
Avery knows these words by heart. They are the only written words he has ever been permitted to read, on a page torn from a larger text and framed in gold above his four-poster bed. Every night, his Governess Cassilda instructs him to recite it without looking and, upon his success, permits him to ask her one question.
Tonight, on the eve of his 17th birthday, there is only one thing he wants to know.
“Have they chosen my Knight yet?”
For his entire life, Avery has been sequestered inside the castle walls. The palace is structured in such a way that, though the outdoor facilities are numerous (encompassing everything from botanical gardens to a large court marked for various sports) the city outside cannot be seen beyond the large golden walls encircling the grounds. The fact that he must stay inside these bounds is an unquestionable one, but Avery has always known that, on his 17th birthday, he will begin to be taken on approved excursions to meet his people and see their prosperity.
For this, he will be assigned a Knight. Thanks to Cassilda, he knows that this Knight will be the same age as him, selected from the Royal Academy, and will have trained since age 5 in combat (fighting), politics (arguing), and honour (doing the right thing). He will have completed ten aptitude tests with a perfect score and taken a vow of absolute servitude towards the crown.
“Yes,” Cassilda says. “He was presented to the city this evening during the Royal Parade.”
“Parade?” Avery’s eyes light up. “They had a parade? What was it like?”
“One question only, Little King.”
Avery huffs. “Fine,” he says. “Can you at least tell me his name?”
Cassilda stands up from where she has been perched at the end of Avery’s bed, pulling up the blankets to tuck him in. He has learned not to protest her maternal instincts towards him – though she is a firm and harsh teacher, she is unflinchingly fair, and fills the space left behind by his biological parents, who are far too engaged with their duties to partake in his largely isolated life. She bows her head and bids him goodnight, walking towards the door in silence before turning back towards him.
“Derek,” she says. “His name is Derek.”
As much as Avery tries to soothe himself to sleep by counting the syllables in Derek’s name like sheep in his mind, by the time dawn comes he has barely been able to rest at all. The lack of sleep doesn’t discourage him from his excitement, and he’s dressed and ready to leave well before Cassilda comes into the room to escort him downstairs.
When she does, she pauses to take a long look at him. Avery wonders if she’s scrutinising the clothes he picked and is about to tell him to change, before she crosses the room and wraps her arms around him.
“I’m so proud of you, Little King,” she says. When she pulls away, there are tears in her eyes. She takes a small blue flower from her pocket and pins it to his shirt. “Make lots of memories. Enjoy it.”
Avery bounces on his heels, prompting a laugh from Cassilda and – even better – prompting her to take him downstairs. He doesn’t run, but he walks fast enough that she has to call for him to wait at the end of the castle’s many long hallways for her to catch up. Finally, they reach the grand staircase, which Avery moves to take a step down before realising that his Knight is right there at the bottom.
Suddenly unsure of what to do and with his heart beating rapidly in his chest, Avery looks back to Cassilda for guidance. With a smile and a nod, she gives him her blessing to descend the stairs.
He takes them two at a time, almost stumbling but managing to keep his balance all the way down. When he reaches the bottom, Derek genuflects on one knee before him at the exact moment that Avery reaches out his hand to offer a handshake. With an insistent smile and the confidence of someone about to meet the world that they will one day save, Avery does not retract his offer until Derek stands up and shakes his hand.
After doing so, he takes off his helmet, shaking loose his curls and offering a warm smile in return. “Happy birthday, Little King,” he says.
“I’m Avery,” Avery corrects. “And you’re Derek, right?”
“If you’d like.”
“Where are we going?”
“There’s so much fun in not knowing,” Derek counters, offering his arm. Avery immediately links his own through it, which clearly takes Derek by surprise. Looking behind him, Avery sees Cassilda miming that he should have laid his hand atop Derek’s arm instead, but it’s too late for Royal formalities now. Avery is too excited.
As they exit through the castle grounds, Avery bounces with each step. Having waited so long for this day, it dawns on him that he probably should have prepared a list of questions to ask. There’s so much he wants to know about the world outside and he doesn’t know if Derek has the same restrictions on passing along information as Cassilda does.
The first thing he thinks of is, “How was the parade?”
“Hm?” Derek turns his head slightly towards Avery.
“Last night. Cassilda said there was a parade for you.”
“It wasn’t really for me. It was for you. They just brought me out to show who’d be escorting you around today.”
“What was it like?”
“Loud, mainly. I spent most of the time behind the scenes waiting for my big appearance,” Derek enunciates the final words with slight bitterness.
“What was that like?”
“Kind of terrifying, to be honest,” he laughs. “But it’ll be way more fun for you.”
They reach the golden gates separating the castle grounds from the city outside. Every other time Avery has been here, he has had to sneak away from Cassilda or his tutors just to sit and press his ear to the door, desperate to hear anything at all through the thick metal. And now, his hand is clutching the large, ornate doorknob.
“Do we need a key?” He asks.
Derek shakes his head. “Go on.”
Gripped with the electricity of excitement and nerves, Avery takes a deep breath and pushes open the gate.
It takes no effort at all. The hinge obviously has some kind of mechanical assistance so that, when Avery applies even the slightest force, it begins to slowly swing open. Immediately, the sound breaks through like a bubble has popped, flooding Avery’s ears with the swarm of a thousand conversations. Nothing in his life has ever been this loud or intricate before, and as much as he is fascinated by the newness of it, he still raises his hands to cover his ears.
“Too much?” Derek asks.
“Not at all,” Avery insists, smiling. He drops his shoulders and removes his hands from the sides of his face, taking Derek’s arm with both hands and stepping forwards through the doors.
A crowd lines the pathway in front of him. The sun is high in the sky and illuminates the people of the city in a way that makes them look like an extension of the castle’s golden walls, setting out a predetermined path for adventure. Part of him wants to walk slowly and spend hours speaking to each person, whilst another part is desperate to take off running and see just how big this wide world is.
Once the initial shock has worn off, Avery sees that the people lining the streets are operating various stalls, bartering and selling things like flowers, hot food, and clothes. Overwhelmed by choice, he allows Derek to guide him towards a table where two women are selling baked goods. In front of him, a man and his child exchange a handful of silver coins and receive two pastries piled with cream and fresh berries.
Avery’s chest briefly drops and he feels his face heat up as he whispers to Derek, “Do we need coins?”
“Oh no, Little King,” one of the women operating the stall responds. “Everything here is just for you.”
“There’s no way I can eat all that,” he laughs nervously.
“What humour!” The other woman chimes in. “As quick-witted as we were told, Little King.”
“How about one of those?” Derek points to one of the smaller pastries – a simple croissant with a light drizzle of chocolate. Avery nods, bowing his head in thanks as the women curtsey and hand over the pastry, wrapped in a lace napkin.
A few people push through the crowd, their arms outstretched towards Avery, but Derek immediately places himself in their path and redirects them away with a simple authoritative hand gesture. A strange feeling of shame settles somewhere new in his body, and Avery tells himself that he’s letting them all down; he always imagined he’d walk out into the world with enthusiasm.
He remembers everything Cassilda taught him about how a Royal should behave even in times of crisis, straightening his back and looking ahead.
The excitement from last night begins to return as Avery sees that people are now generally keeping a respectable distance and clearing a path for him to walk down. He keeps his head forward, pointing out anything that interests him to Derek, who diverts their path to allow Avery to go and look. Over the course of an hour, Avery receives gifts from the people of his city, all of whom refer to him as Little King and speak of him as though they have watched him grow up. A young woman gives him a bouquet of yellow flowers; an old man places a sheer cloak of gold over his shoulders. Everyone seems to love him and know him in a way that makes Avery feel very important and slightly uncomfortable.
Before he knows it, the sun has begun to set and he and Derek have reached the end of the line of people, where they cannot walk any further without walking out into a dense crowd. They turn back, and the journey takes considerably less time without having to stop to speak to people and graciously receive their handmade goods. By the time Avery is back within the castle grounds, he feels so exhausted he could collapse.
He yawns, and Derek says, “Did you have a good time?”
“The best,” Avery smiles. “I didn’t know there was so much out there. But I’m ready for bed now, for sure. When will I next see you?”
“In a month.”
“That long?”
“They’re the rules. I believe you’re supposed to spend the next four weeks reflecting on this excursion.”
“I suppose there is a lot to reflect on.”
“But first, a good night’s sleep. For both of us,” Derek smiles.
Cassilda is waiting for him at the palace doors, where he bids goodbye to Derek.
After venturing outside, Avery sleeps all night and for most of the next day. When he wakes, it feels like the events of yesterday were merely a dream, only cementing themselves into his reality when he looks over at his dresser and sees the flowers and clothes he’d been given by the people of Carcosa. But, like a dream, when he tries to picture any single moment from the previous day, his memory only provides him with the feeling of butterflies in his chest and disconnected flashes of separate scenes.
Cassilda has a list of prompts for him to consider. She explains that Derek will visit once a month and take him somewhere new, and the rest of his time must be spent in contemplation, where he must produce a handwritten document of reflections each week for submission to the Royal Elders who will oversee the eventual King in Yellow Ritual. To Avery, it sounds a lot like the homework he’d get when he was younger, but it’s not often these days that he’s asked to practice writing.
It’s hard to get the concepts down. Apparently, the elders want to hear his thoughts on things like The Nature of Community (1,000 words) and The Need for Role Fulfilment in a Prosperous Society (3,000 words). When Cassilda takes the essays from him at the end of each week, he receives no feedback – good nor bad – and no indication that his writing has even been read yet.
By the time Derek next visits, Avery is more prepared to take on the world. He’s also more prepared with what he wants to take from it – namely, he wants to get to know the man tasked with protecting him and showing him the city. In between writing his essays, Avery has been spending a lot of his time compiling a list of questions that he’s curious about.
How do you become a Royal Knight?
What sort of tests did you have to do?
What’s the city like for normal people to walk around?
What else is out there?
However, he doesn’t get a chance to ask them, because Derek takes him to a cathedral nearby the castle. Avery knows a lot about prayer, spending at least an hour per day in the palace church. One of the first things Cassilda ever taught him, before he even learned to speak or write, was the necessity of silent prayer in order to clear his mind and body completely. By now, Avery is an expert at entering the meditative state required of him to connect with his King, and it is not a state conducive to conversation.
He’s quite a bit let down by this, thinking that he could pray any time he wanted to inside the castle. It feels like a waste of his special monthly outing, but the moment he steps through the ornate arch and into the cathedral, he understands why he was supposed to see this.
The church inside the castle is simple. It’s a medium-sized room with a small wooden pulpit and rows of pews which are usually empty or occupied at the back by the castle’s personnel. Avery always sits at the front, in a seat that is constantly reserved for him, and closes his eyes in order to empty his soul in prayer.
But this cathedral is… beautiful. Each wall is separated into sections by large sheets of stained glass, depicting the Yellow King in all his glory. Avery has never seen images this detailed of the King before; he stands in awe as the sun hits the glass cloak and casts waves of fluid light across the room. The ceiling, which is higher than any room in the castle, is painted with a fascinatingly intricate mural of the King overlooking the hills of Carcosa as bolts of lightning land everywhere outside the city grounds. The pulpit is a carved marble statue of the King holding a book, designed in such a way that anyone who were to stand and give a sermon would position themselves in between God and knowledge.
The congregation seem to turn their heads as one when Avery enters, but nobody stands to greet him with excitement like the people at last month’s market parade did. Instead, they acknowledge him with a collective head bow before turning back to their individual prayer.
Derek leads Avery to a large font filled with a sparkling golden liquid. “Champagne,” he explains. “A Carcosian ritual.”
“I don’t know that one,” Avery says.
“Before prayer, it is custom for a devotee of the King to drink from the communal font. It is said that the alcohol clears the mind for contemplation and the bubbles allow for the prayers to reach the King in the Heavens.”
“I thought the King was sleeping in the hills below us?”
“Some people say he’s everywhere,” Derek says. “But customs are really just a way for people to give significance to doing something they’ve simply always done. Will you partake?”
Avery nods, accepting the small, tulip-shaped tasting glass containing exactly one mouthful of champagne. He sips it at first, but after seeing Derek swallow the whole glass in one gulp, he follows suit. It tastes sharp and expensive, and he’s glad he only had to drink a small amount to show respect to the customs of his people.
They sit in a pew towards the back. Avery immediately begins to settle into his body, identifying feelings and letting them drift away, starting with his feet and working up to his head. When he was a child, this process used to take hours – he’d always get itchy or distracted and have to start over – but now he can dissociate completely in no time at all. This time, however, he can’t focus, suddenly aware of the fact that people are probably looking at him in such an intimate moment with his King.
He opens his eyes, looking around to see that nobody is paying him any attention. Then, he looks to the side and sees Derek – head bowed, lips moving without sound.
Avery wonders what he’s doing.
Unable to stop himself, he taps Derek on the shoulder and asks.
“I’m… praying?” Derek says.
“You’re talking.”
“I’m not talking out loud. I’m talking to God.”
“That’s not how you pray.”
“It’s not how you pray,” he says, and then adds, “You’re special.”
But it’s too late. What Avery has internalised is this: You’re different.
He manages to ask Derek his questions next month. They’ve taken a trip to the flower fields on the outskirts of the city, where the blossoms stretch for miles. Derek tells him that the entire south of the city is bordered by fields like this, though the one they’re currently standing in is the largest in all of Carcosa.
“Floristry is responsible for the majority of Carcosa’s income,” Derek explains. “This flower field alone employs over a thousand workers.”
Avery can see them in the distance, using large machines to plant and uproot flowers.
This section of the field, however, has been designed for observation alone, with a path winding through the blossoms. Some of the flowers are so tall that they obscure the twists and turns of the route, leading Avery into pleasant surprises like wildlife ponds and patches of fresh berries, which Derek tells him he won’t be shouted at for eating. It’s a perfect outing for the height of summer, and when they reach a small bench in an area shrouded from view by a circle of sunflowers, Avery sits down straight away.
He starts by asking Derek what the process of becoming a Royal Knight was like.
“You start on your fifth birthday,” Derek explains. “Some kids do it because their fathers are Knights, but others – like me – do it because the money your family gets for you enrolling is pretty significant. You enter an academy with other kids your age and they put you through all sorts of training. The idea is to get most people to drop out.”
“It’s that intense?”
Derek looks up at the sky as though he’s recalling a memory. “Yeah,” he says. “But every time someone else drops out instead of you, it makes you want to get better and better. Eventually, when there’s about fifty left, they put you through the actual Knight training course, where about thirty per year graduate.”
“And how did you get selected above everyone else for this?” Avery asks.
“Because I was the best, obviously,” Derek laughs.
“Do you get to do normal stuff too?”
“It’s pretty much all training and studying. It’s not like we can’t go out into the city and do normal stuff, we just don’t really have time for it. There’s a little garrison just outside the castle walls where we live and work.”
“Did you always want to be a Knight?”
“Like I said, it’s been my whole life. My family needed the money and I’m the oldest of three so it made sense to send me off for training the moment I became eligible.”
“It seems like a very big decision to make for money in such a prosperous city.”
“Well,” Derek considers his words. “Some sacrifices have to be made to keep Carcosa prosperous. For what it’s worth, it’s an honour to have been chosen. You’re a very pleasant person to be tasked with keeping safe.”
“See, I never understood that,” Avery leans back on the bench, tilting his face up to the hot sun. “I don’t get what I need to be protected from.”
“It’s not that Carcosa is a dangerous place,” Derek says. “Rather that you’re a very, very important person.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder what parts of the picture I’m missing. Cassilda tells me that it’s because there’s so much information out there that I’d have a much harder time keeping my mind clean if I had to sort through trivial things like politics.”
“Trivial?” Derek raises an eyebrow.
“I mean, it’s not like I need to know how to argue well when everyone seems to agree with me all the time. That’s what they teach you, right?”
It’s just a flash of an expression, but Derek’s face looks somewhere between angry and sad. Like there’s a great big point that Avery has failed to understand, and in doing so, he has driven a wedge between them.
Instinctively, he says, “I’m sorry.”
“Hm?” Derek says. “For what?”
“For being stupid. I know there’s so much I’m not allowed to learn.”
“I don’t think you have to be sorry for that. And I don’t think you’re stupid, either.”
Somehow, this reassurance means a great deal.
Every month, when he and Derek leave the castle grounds, Avery is taken to a pre-determined location where an event has been planned and there are people waiting for him. In his reflections, he’s asked to consider things such as The Gratefulness of the People (5,000 words), still receiving no feedback from Cassilda or the Royal Elders. By winter, a strange feeling of boredom sets over him every time he has to smile and wave at the expectant citizens awaiting his arrival at some sort of festival or exhibition.
The only thing he really looks forward to about the monthly visits these days is Derek. He’s Avery’s first ever friend, and although he’s spending time with him out of obligation to the crown, Avery can tell that Derek enjoys their time together too. He’s not as guarded as Cassilda is when he asks questions, and while he does obviously dumb down his answers, he has never once shown impatience.
It’s snowing, and Avery is wrapped in a thick cloak as he stands with Derek at the edge of a small row of market stalls. There’s an ice rink behind them and a band playing trombones for the festivalgoers to skate to. Avery is almost finished with the hot chocolate that Derek insisted is the best in all of Carcosa, and though everything is in place for him to be having a good time, he’s overcome with a sickening feeling of guilt.
Guilt because he’s bored. Because the whole city has turned out to celebrate the end of the year with him, and he’s just thinking about what he’s going to have to write in his reflections over the next month. Because he doesn’t actually feel any commonality with these people, and that worries him, because he knows he’s going to have to muster the courage to shield them from an apocalypse one day. And that worries him even more, because then he begins to question how he’s going to have to do that, and his mind feels very unclean very quickly.
“Want to skate?” Derek asks, shaking Avery from this thought spiral.
“I don’t know how to.”
“Neither do half of them,” he gestures towards the people on the ice, holding onto each other or the side of the rink for balance.
“What if I fall?”
“You’ll get up.”
“Alright then. Sure,” Avery smiles. He allows Derek to lead him to the edge of the rink, where they are handed a pair of skates each. The moment he puts them on, the concept of balance falls away from him, and his feet can’t support him the way they normally can. He clutches onto Derek’s arm, fearful of taking immediately to the ice.
“You can do it,” Derek encourages.
Avery steps onto the rink, grabbing the handrail with one hand and keeping firmly attached to Derek with the other. Derek himself seems to be having an easier time, putting one foot in front of the other and pulling them both slowly across the edge of the ice.
After a while, Avery finds his confidence and begins to mirror the movements of Derek’s legs. At first, he overshoots it and almost falls into the splits, but Derek catches him at the last minute and hauls him back up.
“That’s it!” He says. “You almost had it. You just have to believe you can do it.”
This encouragement spurs Avery on to realise that falling wouldn’t even be that bad. All around him, people are falling over and laughing about it, and they have people who will stop and help them up. He trusts Derek to do the same, should he need it.
With this in mind, he stops holding onto Derek’s arm and simply takes his hand instead. The cold winter wind against his cheeks makes him realise that this is the fastest he has ever moved in his life, carried across frictionless ground and steadied by someone far more skilled than him. He lets out a genuine laugh, and Derek squeezes his hand, and for a brief moment, he feels clean again.
Soon enough, it’s his 18th birthday. When Avery looks back, he can see just how much he’s experienced in one year compared to seventeen prior, but he still feels unsatisfied by the depth of the world. He’s made his mind up to ask Cassilda tomorrow if Derek can start taking him to places that feel more… real. Like taverns or side streets – places where you can wander aimlessly and decide for yourself who to meet and talk to. He feels equipped to broaden his perspective without dirtying his mind in the process.
Tonight, though, his priorities lie only with Derek and Carcosa. He knows in advance where he’ll be going – right into the centre of the city, where a party is being thrown just for him. Cassilda has prepared him an outfit of overlapping yellow fabrics, handstitched with symbols and lace patterns and adorned with real flowers.
Just like she did on his 17th birthday, she hugs him before he leaves. Then, with both of her hands on his shoulders, she takes a long, loving look at him.
“Enjoy it, Little King,” she says. “It’s your moment.”
The pathway towards the city centre is alive with light. Lanterns hanging from the trees and street signs guide him and Derek towards the statue of the Yellow King at the centre of Carcosa, which is decorated like a maypole with long, colourful strands of fabric. There is music in the air and champagne by the barrel. Unlike the first time he left the castle, people here do not overwhelm him – he’s more used to the presence of others by now, and they keep a respectable distance, wishing him happy birthday but never pulling him away from Derek.
Avery thinks that this is the best of his outings yet.
He expresses as much to Derek, who offers a sad smile in response. They find a little seating area next to some stalls selling hot soup and fresh bread, choosing a table far away from the general crowd of people. Here, the music is a little quieter, allowing for the natural sounds of night and stillness to be heard in the distance, across the flower fields and beyond Carcosa.
“I’m going to ask Cassilda if we can see each other more often,” he says, reaching his hand across the wooden picnic table to hold Derek’s. “Even if we don’t go out anywhere. I think it’s fair to ask if my friend can visit me at the castle say, once a week? What do you think?”
Derek says nothing, looking down.
“Would you… not want that?”
Before Derek can respond, the conversation is cut off by the appearance of two people who seem to have come not from the crowd, but from the empty space around it.
A man and a woman, dressed in plain clothes unlike the brightly clad partygoers. They stay silent for a moment before the woman steps forward desperately, falling to her knees at Avery’s eye level and reaching out to hold his face with both hands just as Derek unsheathes his sword and prevents her from doing so.
But this does not dissuade her. Unafraid, she pushes Derek’s sword aside, which clearly surprises him, and when her hands land on Avery’s cheeks, he doesn’t feel overwhelmed or uncomfortable. Something tells him that this is forbidden, and that it is okay. He closes his eyes as she whispers, “Avery,” before Derek pulls her away.
Avery is about to tell Derek that he knows this couple mean no harm when three uniformed officers approach from behind and clasp their hands on the shoulders of the man and the woman. Restraining them with what looks like a lot more force than necessary, the police march the strange man and even stranger woman away.
It takes a moment for Avery to process that all of what just happened took no longer than ten seconds.
“Did you know them?” Derek asks.
Avery shakes his head. “I felt like… I knew they meant no harm.”
“I don’t have the luxury of making faith-based assumptions like that. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“I’d have been annoyed if you tried to. How come the police were here too?”
“They’re everywhere,” Derek says. “Especially at events like this.”
“Why?”
“Just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
“In case they’re needed.”
Avery watches the crowd, but he can’t see where the couple went, nor can he see any other obvious police officers. They’re all just a blur of people, dancing and eating and talking and so connected to each other, so far away from him.
“I don’t have any other friends,” he blurts out. “That’s why I wanted to see you more often.”
“Avery,” Derek says gently. “It’s not that I don’t want to. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had, too.”
“Then what?”
“It’s… this is the last time.”
“What?”
“This night. This is the last time we’ll see each other.”
“No – why?”
“Tomorrow you’re going to have to enter an isolation period. You won’t be allowed outside, nor will you be allowed to see anyone. Even Cassilda. You’ll be completely alone in preparation for the King in Yellow Ritual.”
Avery feels his throat collapse in on itself. “What?” He chokes out.
“I’m so sorry.”
“How long?”
Derek looks down. “Seven years.”
“No. No – I can’t. I can’t do that. Derek, I can’t do that. I can’t be on my own for that long. Did you know? All this time?”
“I took a vow of silence. Even now, I’m not supposed to be telling you. But I can’t… I can’t lie to you. I’m so sorry, Avery.”
“Do you know what the Ritual is? Do you know what will happen to me?”
“No,” Derek says. “I swear I’d tell you if I did, no matter what the cost.”
“You didn’t tell me this.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t care,” Avery shakes his head, as if in disbelief at what he’s saying. But he repeats himself, standing up from the table. “I don’t care. Take me home. I want to go home.”
Derek holds out his hand, but Avery refuses to take it. He ignores the music, the crowd, the lights. He looks out into the dark and imagines the flower fields, imagines running through them and making it to whatever is on the other side, imagines taking Derek with him and forgiving him.
But he can’t do any of that.
As they reach the castle gates, Avery asks, “What will happen to you if they find out you told me?”
“I imagine execution,” Derek says, matter-of-factly.
Because of this, Avery does not let himself cry. As much as he hates Derek right now for his deception, he does not want him to die. And maybe even hate is too strong a word, because he spends the whole night awake in the dark, regretting that he didn’t make the most of their last night together.
When morning comes, he doesn’t ask Cassilda for extra excursions. She wakes him with a sorrowful expression on her face, instructing him to dress in a long, silken robe. When she explains to him that he must undergo a seven-year period of isolation in order to wholly clean his mind, it doesn’t take any effort at all for him to let out the sobs he has been holding in since last night. He falls forwards into her arms, hoping that she will take pity on him, but she simply holds him up and allows him to cry.
Soon, two Elders appear through the doorway and, with no kindness or compassion in their grasp, place their hands on his shoulders and walk him through the castle. As he passes by the rooms, he bids each one goodbye. There is so little that he knows about the world, but he can imagine that seven years without it will detach him entirely from everything he has come to understand. He’s terrified but cannot resist.
This is his destiny.
As he is led to a small room down a long staircase, Avery repeats the words framed above a bed he will no longer get to sleep in. He shall be the lamb of Carcosa, for when the Yellow King returns to lay flat the world, he will shield his citizens and usher them into paradise. Whatever is required of him, it has great significance. This knowledge keeps him from protesting as he is left in the room, and the door is shut behind him.
When measured in steps, his prison is around 22 square feet. It houses a single bed with a thin blanket, a shelf of books, and a small bathroom area. Food is delivered through a slot at the bottom of the door, but the schedule is unpredictable, making it difficult to tell whether he’s eating breakfast or dinner. The only window is little more than a slit at the top of the wall, too high for Avery to see through. With seven years ahead of him, he tries to keep himself sane by scratching a tally mark into the wall for each day that he measures with the setting and rising of the sun, but he sleeps so much to pass the time that he soon loses count. By his marks, it should have been six days, but it feels much longer.
He tries to hold off on reading the books. There are seven of them, which means he’ll be able to read one per year if he wants to keep them new. He lasts ten more sunsets before plucking the first from the shelf and seeing that the pages are blank.
This revelation makes him cry, and the crying lasts for much longer than ever before. Avery cries, and sleeps, and wakes up crying. He ignores the food delivered to him, letting it congeal before it is removed through the same slot by hands covered in armoured gloves. He imagines that whoever is on the other side of the door, tasked with looking after his practical needs, doesn’t want to risk him going crazy and stabbing them in the hand with a fork. Which is a fair assumption, because Avery is so bored and angry that it absolutely could drive him to violence.
Instead, he imagines that the person on the other side is Derek, fulfilling his duty to protect Avery until the end. This thought sustains him for a while, offering him a reason to eat a little and move around the room to avoid his muscles wasting away. He fantasises that the door will open one day and Derek will tell him that seven years have passed, that he has served his entire life’s quota of penance and now they can go and see the city on their own terms. In all of these desperate imaginations, he forgives Derek without hesitation.
The façade of comfort falls away the moment Avery reaches for the hand delivering his food. Briefly, he manages to grasp it, and he feels instantly that it is too small to be Derek’s, and the person to whom it belongs pulls away in a way that Derek, even bound by his sworn duty, never would.
This brings a whole new wave of grief to Avery. He stops sleeping in the bed, simply lying on the floor of his cell, drifting in and out of consciousness. Some part of him knows that this is exactly the state that the Royal Elders will be aiming to induce in him, but another part – a much larger part – has forgotten how to care. It must be easier than existing in this liminal hell to just empty himself entirely in preparation for whatever the Yellow King needs him for.
Perhaps years pass like this. It’s like someone else is piloting his body to eat just enough to stay alive, but his mind is completely elsewhere. He is not comforted by thoughts of Carcosa or Derek, rather kept in the haze of yellow nothingness behind closed eyes. In it, there is a strange sense of peace, a thick pause in which he barely even exists. The idea that time may be passing at all does not comfort him, nor does it disturb him.
The only thing that brings him temporarily back to himself is the presence of a little white mouse in the room. At first, he notices but does not register its sounds, and only places it as a tangible thing when it crawls onto his face, brushing its tiny whiskers against his nose.
It tickles and itches like fire. It’s the first sensation Avery has experienced in a long time, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. When the mouse shows no sign of fear, Avery brings his hand up to pet it.
And just like that, he has a small reason to live.
Every day, the mouse appears, sniffing around Avery’s legs and waiting for him to toss down chunks of bread from his food tray. Over time, it stops leaving through the cracks in the walls and just sticks around permanently, nesting in the unused blanket on the bed and coming out at night to make comforting scurrying sounds. The presence of another living thing in his enclosure brings Avery back to himself somewhat, opening up the closed areas of his mind that allow him to assess the passage of time. His hair has grown significantly, and he’s a lot thinner than he was. He makes quick work of biting his fingernails and even attempts to move, though he only manages to crawl a few paces before collapsing into a breathless state of atrophy.
He names the mouse Algernon and comes to think of it as a friend as dear to him as Derek once was.
One day, Algernon crawls onto Avery’s lap and, with a shudder, stops moving.
Avery knows that three days pass because he stays awake and counts the sunsets the way he used to when he was first locked in this room. Algernon has never been this silent and still before, and as his body cools Avery realises that something truly horrible has happened to him. He knows, somehow, that Algernon will never move again.
Is this what is going to happen to him?
He tries to prepare for it. He lays as still as he possibly can, keeping his breaths so shallow that his chest barely moves. Eventually, he figures out how to survive on such little air that it doesn’t look like he’s breathing at all. He keeps his hands flat on his stomach and his eyes closed.
The meditative state that he enters is one of distortion. He keeps hearing scratching in the walls and loud bangs from above him, but every time he forces himself back into his body, the sounds immediately stop. There’s a deep, swelling pressure around his eyes, like he is pushing his fingers into them, creating sickening patterns that swirl into obscurity whenever he tries to put a name to the mental image that they create in a thousand shades of yellow and red.
Eventually, nothing feels like anything anymore.
When the door opens, Avery does not move. He has heard the door open a thousand times in the endless creation of his own mind, but this time it is followed by the sound of footsteps and the strange, painful feeling of hands hoisting him up into a sitting position. Before he can open his eyes, a silk blindfold is placed over them and tied at the back of his head. He is guided to stand but falls immediately upon trying to place any weight on his feet. Instead of hitting the ground, however, he lands in a chair that is then lifted off the ground, swaying as it is carried back out into the world.
For the first time in a long time, Avery feels something. Fear. It settles across his whole body as he thinks of Algernon and the way he just stopped moving suddenly and randomly. Did he know what was happening? Did he crawl into Avery’s lap for comfort, or out of habit?
Avery wishes Derek were here to hold his hand.
He is carried for a while before the chair is set down and the sound of a door opening precedes the feeling of wind. The beautiful, unfamiliar feeling of wind in his hair, reminding him of ice skating with Derek and soothing him as he leans into it. When his blindfold is removed, he sees that he is atop a tower just outside the castle walls, looking down on the largest crowd that has ever gathered before him.
On the rooftop with him, five hooded Elders stand around a golden block with a dip in the middle. The two responsible for guiding him here march him out of the chair and firmly push his shoulders down until he is kneeling, and somehow Avery knows that he is supposed to lay his head down. His neck fits perfectly into the groove in the cold metal.
He feels his body shaking, buffeted by the cold wind and the terror lighting up his every nerve. When the Elders begin to speak, their voices are so loud and clear that they seem artificially amplified beyond the sound of the air and the crowd below.
“Glory be upon the Yellow King. Peace be upon Carcosa.”
One of them bends down to address Avery directly. “Each of us will say a line, which you will repeat after us.”
Avery would nod, but he cannot figure out how to move. He just looks up and offers a blank expression, though he cannot see any response beneath the hood.
The first Elder speaks. “I stand and give my eyes to you.”
Avery’s voice is quiet and croaky with disuse. “I… stand and give my eyes to you.”
The second Elder takes over. “One by one.”
“One by… one.”
“Shadowed shore.”
“Shadowed shore.”
Avery’s head begins to ache, a feeling which quickly swells into an impossible pressure that threatens to split him in two. He grits his teeth, trying to close his eyes but finding that he can’t. He can only stare directly down at the sun hitting the golden block, emptying his mind of all thought.
The fourth Elder steps forward. “Carcosa is corrupt,” he says.
Avery opens his mouth to repeat the words before it hits him, like a flash of lightning, that he recognises this voice.
Derek.
“What is this?” One of the Elders gasps, making a move towards Derek, who dodges with ease.
He continues talking, addressing only Avery. “Most of the people in the city are suffering, but you were never allowed to know that. Carcosa isn’t prosperous at all.”
Once again, Avery tries to move but cannot even raise his head. From this angle, he can’t see what is taking place, but he hears a scuffle and a scream that fades away into the distance below.
“Derek?” He shouts.
“I’m still here,” Derek reassures. Avery sees a flash of metal, accompanied by a scraping sound and then a squelch. The crowd erupts as another body drops from the tower.
“The seventh son of a seventh son?” Derek continues, still fighting off the Elders. “Your parents aren’t royals, Avery. They’re so far down in the lineage that they’re just normal people. You were taken from them when you were just a baby.”
Avery manages to move his hands, pushing up from the golden chopping block and falling to his hands and knees. The last remaining Elder bends down, roughly gripping Avery’s chin and desperately grunting, “Don’t believe these lies! Keep your mind clean!” before the end of Derek’s sword emerges through his chest.
Avery vomits onto the ground in front of him. Immediately, Derek drops down and places a hand on his back.
Against his will, Avery flinches. “What are you saying? Why are you doing this?” He begs. “It was almost over. I was almost done.”
“They were going to kill you, Avery,” Derek says, glancing towards the door leading back into the castle. “The King in Yellow Ritual calls for your death. They want to use you as a vessel for that thing.”
“So what? That’s what I’m made for. To save all those people.”
“All those people are going to die anyway! Anyone who stays in Carcosa is as good as dead, me and you included. They’ve started the Ritual now, and it can’t be stopped. Anyone who wants a chance at living through this has to get out of the city.”
“This isn’t right!” Avery protests. “I’m supposed to save them. I’m supposed to die so they don’t have to!”
Derek closes his eyes and furrows his brow in a mixture of desperation and frustration. “I don’t have time to explain to you how corrupt this system is, Avery. I’ve spent the past seven years figuring out how to undo the damage I did by participating in it and leading you directly to this. That… thing… the Yellow King – it doesn’t deserve a vessel. They only wanted to give it one in exchange for power. Not peace, or prosperity, or anything good. Just power. Plain old greed and power.”
“I don’t get it,” Avery says. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to explain it to you. They didn’t raise you to have a clean mind. They raised you to have a naïve one.”
“Shut up!”
“Avery, please. Please. You can’t die here. I promise, I’ll explain everything once we’re out of the city, but right now you need to just trust me. Do you trust me?”
“No,” Avery says. “I don’t trust anything anymore.”
“Not even yourself?”
“Especially not myself.”
“Then we’re at a crossroads,” Derek urges. “Because you don’t have any other choices. Either we die here or we try to make it out.”
Avery pauses. He looks up at Derek and, though the passage of time is evident in the scars on his body and the bags underneath his eyes, he still sees the face of his only living friend. “We?” He questions.
“I’m not leaving you again,” Derek explains. “It’s your choice, but you’re making it for both of us.”
“I don’t want you to die,” Avery says, quietly.
He hears the footsteps of people marching up the stairs to the rooftop and knows that he can’t second guess his decision now. Derek motions towards a rope dangling off the tower – clearly a pre-prepared escape route – and helps Avery towards the edge. He lifts him, positioning him against his hip and tying a second length of rope around them, keeping them tethered to one another as Avery wraps his arms around Derek’s neck and holds on.
He doesn’t look down as Derek guides them all the way to the bottom. The people below don’t even seem to notice their descent. They’re too busy either weeping, screaming, or staring wide-eyed at the yellow sky, where the clouds are crackling with electric life. Avery immediately understands that what has been done here cannot be undone, and as much as he wants to die with Carcosa – with his people – he cannot do so in front of Derek without being able to prove that he’s dying for something.
A horse awaits them, patiently and well-trained, at the bottom of the tower. Derek helps Avery onto its back before getting on himself, positioning Avery’s arms around his waist and holding the reins. As lightning begins to pierce the ground around them, Derek spurs the horse onwards, trampling through the flower fields and into the great unknown.
Avery turns back to look only once. Carcosa burns behind them.