transporting the wizards to their respective homes. That was the battle that had driven him to swear his false oath; he was hardly likely to forget it, but in the red haze of the sword's power and the flare and shadow of spell and counterspell, he had not seen clearly the faces of all the wizards.
'I believe I recall the incident,' he said.
'I thought you might,' Shandiph said. 'I hope you bear us no ill will for our attempts to kill you; it seemed at the time to be the only way in which untold destruction might be averted.'
'I have wondered, since then, who you might be, why you chose the time you did to attack me, and why you made no further attempts after your initial defeat,' Garth said in a tone of polite curiosity.
Shandiph glanced at Chalkara, then replied, 'As for who we were, it doesn't matter any more; our organization was destroyed. The survivors of our conflict with you were scattered, and the wars that followed prevented all attempts to regroup from succeeding. We had attacked you in hopes of halting the onset of the Age of Destruction, which was heralded by your acquisition of the Sword of Bheleu. We made no further attempts after our initial failure because there was no reason to, even had our organization remained intact; you no longer had the sword, and it was obvious that, whatever your part in it might have been, the Age of Destruction had already begun. Eramma was destroyed by civil war.'
Garth nodded, though he thought to himself that the destruction hadn't been very complete.
'Chalkara and I fled here, hoping that Ur-Dormulk, which has lasted so long with so little change, would remain safe. We had not expected to see you again. Your arrival was something of a shock-most particularly when you professed to be seeking the Book of Silence.'
'And that,' Garth said, 'brings us back to the original question. What do you know of the Book of Silence?'
'Little enough. What do you know of it? Why do you seek it?'
Garth shrugged. 'I agreed to fetch it for an acquaintance of mine. I assume it's a book of magic of some sort.' He saw no reason to give any unnecessary details, but he could scarcely claim complete ignorance.
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.
