Chalkara asked, "Who is this acquaintance?"

"A wizard, of sorts," Garth replied.

"The wizard who took the Sword of Bheleu from you after the battle?" she persisted.

Reluctantly, Garth admitted, "Yes."

The yellow-gowned wizard exchanged glances with her companion.

The archivist broke her long silence and remarked in a slightly querulous tone, "I wish I knew what you three were talking about. What battle was this? Who is this wizard, and what is the Sword of Bheleu?"

Shandiph held up a hand. "Patience, Silda. Let us speak a moment longer, and I will explain it all to you when I can." He paused, and the woman settled back into her silent discontent.

When he was fairly sure that Silda would not make any further protest, Shandiph went on. "Garth, this wizard-the one we saw two and a half years ago. Is he the King in Yellow?"

Silda gasped. "The King in Yellow?" she blurted.

"Silda," Shandiph said. "Please!"

The archivist stifled another outburst. When order was restored, Shandiph repeated, "Is he the King in Yellow, Garth?"

The overman shrugged. "He's an old man who lives in Skelleth. He told me his name once, but I've forgotten it; it was hard to pronounce."

A glance around the table made it plain that both women were now struggling to keep from shouting at him. Shandiph sighed. "I wish you were more cooperative, Garth."

"My apologies, wizard, but I am not here at your convenience, to be interrogated as you see fit. You are here to answer my questions, are you not? That was the overlord's instruction."

"I know that. I'm sorry. This is very important, though, and very dangerous."

"Why?"

"Because of what the Book of Silence is, damn it!"

"Perhaps if you were to tell me what you believe it to be, we would both gain," Garth replied. This verbal sparring, each side trying to get the most information in exchange for its own, was beginning to annoy him, yet he was not about to end it by telling all he knew. Were he to do so, the wizards would have no reason to reveal their own secrets.

"It's death," Shandiph told him. "It's the end of everything."

One expression that was the same in both species was that of skepticism, and Garth looked openly skeptical.

"It's the totem of death," Shandiph insisted. "You know that the gods each have their unique devices; you must know it. You were the chosen of Bheleu. the one who bore his totem, who was to be his mortal incarnation."

Garth gave a noncommittal nod. "Go on," he said.

"I am no theurgist, no expert on dealing with the gods, but an old friend of mine was; he died in the hills outside Skelleth. He had no protective spells that could defend him against the Sword of Bheleu, though he knew what it was. He explained it to me, and I have studied further since then. Each of the greater gods has a period of ascendancy, an age in which the balance of power is tilted in his favor, and those things that please him are prevalent in our own mortal realm. Each of these ages has its particular herald, someone who wields the totem of the dominant god or goddess. When an age ends, the servants of the waning deity perform a service for the representative of the ruler of the new age, as a symbol of the shift in power. We are now in the Fourteenth Age, the Age of Bheleu, god of destruction, as you know only too well; you are Bheleu's chosen representative, though you have, with the aid of a power I do not pretend to understand, refused that role. I am not aware of the circumstances, but according to theory, a representative of P'hul must have done you a service of some sort, to mark the beginning of this era and the end of the Thirteenth Age, ruled by P'hul, goddess of decay."

Garth nodded. The cult of P'hul had, in fact, spread the White Death in Dыsarra when he had asked, in a fit of madness, for the city's destruction.

"Now, you see, the King in Yellow is the undying priest of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken. It is a safe assumption that he will be the chosen avatar for the Final God when the Age of Death arrives. That means two things: he must have the totem of the god of death, and a representative of Bheleu must perform a symbolic service for him. Do you not see, then, why we cannot permit you-you in particular-to deliver the Book of Silence to the King in Yellow?"

Garth remained skeptical. "It has been scarcely three years since the Thirteenth Age ended; that is hardly an age."

"No rule is known that limits the length of each god's age, either maximum or minimum. Perhaps your refusal to accept your role, welcome though it is, has cut short the Age of Bheleu."

"Why are you so certain that I wish to take the book to the King in Yellow?"

"I saw that old man who took the sword, Garth, and felt something of his power. Who else could it be?"

Chalkara made a suggestion. "You do not trust us, Garth, but Silda, here, has heard of the King; let her describe him, and we will let you decide whether it is he you serve."

Garth was quite well aware that the Forgotten King was also known as the King in Yellow and that he was exactly what the wizards said he was, but the overman found himself wondering what the archivist knew. He would welcome any new information that might help in his dealings with the old man.

"Speak, then, archivist," he said.

Silda looked at each of the three in turn, then said in a precise voice, "The King in Yellow is a legend in the most ancient histories of Ur-Dormulk. I know of no connection between him and any deity, nor of any connection with a book, or with overmen, or anything else you have spoken of, save only destruction and death. He once ruled an empire from this city, long ago, when it bore another name; one version called it Hastur, another Carcosa. His origins have never been explained; in the very earliest records and even earlier myths, his presence is accepted as an ongoing thing since time immemorial. The legends are all vague as to who or what he was-many seem to assume that any reader will already know-but it is clear that he could not die, and that he was an object of terror throughout the world as these historians knew it. His visage was said to hold death or madness for all who met his gaze.

"Although he was once a king in fact, and a king whom emperors served, he gave up his throne to a successor who founded the ancient Imperial dynasty that the founders of the present Ur-Dormulk overthrew centuries later-yet it was said that in time the King would return and reclaim his rightful place, and when he did, the stars would fall and the earth shatter. He disdained all trappings of royalty and went about the world in scalloped tatters that were a strange shade of yellow-hence the name, the King in Yellow. His servants wore black. This is said to be why the lords of Ur-Dormulk wear black and the people of the city shun all shades of yellow."

Silda paused and shook her head. Chalkara glanced down at her yellow dress, and Garth was uncomfortably aware of his custom of wearing black armor.

Silda continued. "Such a bare recounting of the facts known to me does not convey the essence of what I have read and heard concerning him. Throughout all the city's recorded history, from times so ancient that we cannot interpret the dates and on until the chaos of the Twelfth Age, the shadow of the King hangs like smoke. In every account of tragedy he is mentioned, and in descriptions of more pleasant times there is always an air of foreboding associated with him. In the wars of the Age of Aghad, the city was sufficiently disrupted so that the continuity was lost and the myths forgotten among the public. But there can be no doubt that, before that age, the tales of the King had persisted, at least among the learned, for more than ten thousand years. This, despite the fact that no historian or storyteller ever dared set down anything but veiled hints as to his true nature. I had thought that no one now alive had ever heard of him, save myself; that only in the ancient books and scrolls was he mentioned-books and scrolls that no one but me has read in three centuries or more. To hear you three speak of him as if he were alive today, as if you had seen him..."