The Night of the 31st - Moonsday - The Streets of Alastair's Stand and Beyond

Captain Raido glanced at his dying fire, and shivered. It was cold. Probably ten degrees of frost outside. He rubbed his arms and paced about the room to keep warm. His eyes unconsciously avoided the desk, where a sealed message waited. The strange yellow wax with which it was sealed had unnerved him. Most things unnerved him these days.

Things had not been right since the day of the attack. The town had not been right. Raido himself had not been right.

No sleep.

He turned toward the table and picked up the message. He did not recognize the twisted lines of the seal, but it was addressed to him. As he broke the seal, the clock on the mantle struck twelve.

--

Outside, the New Year revels were just beginning. Despite the cold, the night was clear and the sliver of the moon that was visible cast a pale glow over the city. Here and there, little groups of people made their way quickly to the homes of friends, or public houses for the beginning of the revels. The mists which had plagued the city for so long seemed to have abated, content to settle outside the walls.

Otto Vander closed the last shutter in his shop and stepped out into the cold. It was near midnight, and the sounds of laughter, singing, and toasting were coming from up the road, at the Righteous Rest. Since that halfling and that girl had taken over, it was mostly the domain of those new Pathfinders. Otto breathed into his closed fists as he prepared to lock up the shop. He would not be intruding on their celebrations tonight - folks said that they had a lizardman who ate people raw. He didn't like the idea of spending a night drinking with...that.

''Nope! It's the Drunken Dragon for me tonight!''

Otto excitedly turned the key in the lock and was about to hurry into the market when he paused. Something was odd. At first he couldn't put his finger on it. Then he realized that it was silence. Silence all throughout the city. Not a laugh, not a song, not a dog's bark, nor a baby's cry. Utter silence.

Something caught his eye in the sky, a yellow flash. He looked up, and there, high above the world...he saw Him. The King. The One Who Laughs Eternal. The Lord of Carcosa. Yellow he was, and empty. A hollow cloak of yellow, tattered and empty - utterly empty. Empty of all love, of all life, of all hope, of all joy. But full. Full of malice and wickedness, and dark knowledge, and full of horrid beauty.

Otto saw. He knew. He knew the truth. It was always this way. His hope had been a delusion. He turned his eyes back to earth, and from his throat there erupted such a shriek of laughter and despair as had never been heard on the streets of that city. It was followed by another, and another. He tore at his clothes and began to rush up the street, half dancing, half crawling. When he reached the main thoroughfare he was joined by another like him, and another, and still another.

More and more came from every part of the city, laughing, dancing, screaming, and burning - torches were in their hands, and they burned and tore at the stone and wood of the city, and at the flesh of those unhappy passers-by who seemed unaffected.

--

"Sir! Sir! Come quickly! There's a riot, sir, in the city!"

The corporal banged again on Captain Raido's door. "Sir! If you please! The people are tearing themselves apart out there! Sir!"

When there was no answer, the soldier cautiously placed his hand on the door and pushed it open. It met with resistance, but the corporal managed to push it aside. There, to his horror he found Raido, slumped against the door. He appeared to have collapsed against it as he tried to exit. The room was otherwise just as it always was - no sign of a struggle.

He pulled the captain aside and shouted into the dark hallway, "Hoy! Someone! Get help! The captain's been injured!"

Clutched in Raido's hand was a piece of paper, the broken yellow seal still visible. the corporal took it from Raido's hand, but found the page blank. As he peered at it from each side, he yelped as something grabbed his arm - Raido's bloodshot eyes stared at him from the ground, his hand gripping the corporal's arm with a vice-like grip. "He's here...it was the Yellow Sign...he's here..." Then with a look of utter terror, Raido fell back onto the carpet, dead.

The corporal looked again at the paper, and in the half-light of the dying fire, a strange, inhuman smile across his face.

''I see. It is the King. He is here.''