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Jay forced himself to breathe, pushing the panic off. He didn’t have time to panic. Every moment he took to panic was a moment one more thing could go horribly, completely wrong. He had to act.

He dug his toes against the damaged hardwood floor, pushing himself slightly under the bed, feeling wood splinters stinging his flesh. He didn’t let himself hesitate, arm outstretched as he squirmed in the narrow space until he felt the ominous weight of Nyarlathotep’s ankh and grabbed it in one hand. His fingers curled around its cool, curved shape.

This was the thing he needed before he could do anything else—the world came before either of their lives, if it came down to that, and he didn’t want to risk touching the flute without having all four signs. Besides, Keziah’s advice was to grab it and immediately use the Sign of Nyarlathotep to summon him here, before the flute could get to him, drive him mad. If he went after it without this particular Sign, or if he waited and the Sign got pushed further away, out of reach, in all the chaos—well, he didn’t know what would happen to their world, let alone either of them.

Louis was screaming now. The sound was more in fear than in pain, Jay thought, but he wasn’t sure which was worse, not in the moment. Despite the madness inherent in all of this from the start, he couldn’t recall, in the moment, any time that he had seen Louis show fear. Something about it filled him with a near panic that he tried to hold off, breathing deeply as he tried to back up.

Jay found himself almost stuck, wedged in there, and he dug his fingernails into the gaps between the floorboards, scrabbling at it as he hauled himself backwards, inch by inch, until he was out from under the bed. Immediately he turned, whirling to face Louis, almost entirely obscured by the swarm of Byakhee. There was blood spattered around where the Byakhee were piled on top of Louis’s hunched form; Jay couldn’t tell how much of it was from Louis, couldn’t tell how bad his injuries were. Louis was still screaming, short, sharp little sounds, an almost childlike terror under the mass of horrific forms.

The sound of Dr. Archer’s coughing had cleared up, no longer muffled; it sounded as if he’d either managed to dislodge the temporary gag that Louis had made for him, or had swallowed it. Jay didn’t have time to worry about which it was; the man still had his hands bound and he was no threat for the time being.

Nyarlathotep’s symbol still clutched tightly in one hand, Jay pushed himself to his feet and had to make a split-second decision about what to do with the other, how best to hold off the Byakhee as he went to save Louis. His eye fell on the glint of the knife; it was an obvious choice of weapon.

But he wasn’t sure how much damage he could do to a hoard of Byakhee with a simple pocket knife. Enough, perhaps? Perhaps not. This wasn’t a situation where perhaps not could stand.

And Dr. Archer had already established an authority they would listen to. Jay dug around in his pocket with his free hand, trying to identify each Sign by feel in an instant despite the numb trembling of his fingers. They traced out that twisted triangular shape, and he gripped the Sign, yanking it out of his pocket, and held it out in front of him as he charged at the mass of Byakhee crawling over Louis.

“In Hastur’s name,” he yelled as he tackled the mass, shoving unspeakable shapes away with a meaty thunk of his body, his arm still outstretched like he was using a cross in a vampire movie—God, he wished it was that simple—”Leave that man alone! He’s the bearer of the Pallid Mask! The true Phantom of Truth! He speaks of the coming of the King in Yellow and will guide his path to the world!”

He was saying whatever came to mind, whatever he thought servants of Hastur might listen to, swinging that Sign around, his arm impacting those heavy, impossible bodies as they scrabbled now at him with insect-like limbs. Louis’ screaming had stopped, and Jay could hear him drawing sharp breaths. Jay crouched over him, almost straddling his curled form. One of Jay’s hands still clenched the ankh, his arm raised to protect his eyes from the claws of the Byakhee; the other held the Yellow Sign over his head.

It seemed like they were slamming into him less, clawing him less, so he kept babbling, though he didn’t know if the reprieve were due to his words, to his motions, to the Sign he held. “That man who has been commanding you is a liar! He wore the mask once, but now he is faceless. He speaks of the coming of the King only to uphold his own glory! Is he your master? Who is your master? Whose sign do I hold?”

Louis was relaxing under him, straightening out, tapping at Jay’s leg like a wrestler tapping out. Not too injured, then. Jay shifted, rising, as Louis began to sit up, trying to give him the space to do so without moving so far away those creatures could swarm back in.

Louis lifted his voice, head tilted up. “Iä Hastur cf’ayak’vulgtmm, vugtlagln vulgtmm,” he sang, his voice gone calm again, as if he’d entirely forgotten that he’d been in terrified pain moments earlier. Though it sounded like babbling, Jay felt like he knew the meaning of it in a general sense, some sort of prayer to Hastur. Louis’ eyes met Jay’s, a bit wild, then jerked away as he looked for his knife, scrabbling to reach for it, still chanting in a sing-song voice. “Hastur cf’tagn, Hastur cf’tagn, Hastur cf’tagn…!”

The Byakhee were hovering uncertainly now, their wings flapping with a horrid, wet sound, and as Louis grabbed the knife he pointed it at them in threat, rising up to his full lanky height. Clawed injuries on his back and arms were bleeding freely, but none seemed too deep, and Jay pulled his glance away from Louis at long last, trusting him to have that situation covered.

Something felt wrong, odd. There was an additional flapping sound beyond that awful meaty clap of the wings of the Byakhee, like a flag blowing in the wind, cloth blowing in a storm, battered this way and that. The torn remains of the bed curtains and sheets were moving uneasily in a breeze that seemed more intense than what Jay could feel from the window or the displacement from the Byakhee’s flight; the ragged curtains in the window were flapping too, freely, reaching inward like the long arms of some horrible creature grabbing onto the walls, using it to drag itself inside, their shadows cast wide in tattered shade. His skin crawled as if the shadows had a tangible sensation as they passed over his body. Louis was still chanting, knife upraised toward the majority of the Byakhee. The Yellow Sign in Jay’s hand was growing hot.

Something was coming. He could hear the tatters of the king.

He heard a scrape, a drag, and he forced his attention away from the crawling shadows to look back to Dr. Archer. His hands were still tied, but nevertheless, he was shoving himself along the glass-strewn floor with his feet, not minding the damage it did to him, flopping and wriggling like a caught fish. His head was turned up, lips parted wide, struggling to reach something, to… catch something in that raw, open mouth.

Jay looked up from Dr. Archer and saw that the Byakhee that had been carrying the flute had loosened its grip. It hung from those many claws tenuously, beginning to slip, to topple to the ground, toward Dr. Archer’s open maw.

There was no time to think, no time for careful action. He needed a hand free, so he flung the Yellow Sign toward Louis—no time to pocket it—and threw his free hand forward as he dove over Dr. Archer, trying to catch the flute as it fell.

It slipped, hit his fingers and almost slid between them, but his grasping hand caught in the twisted, bored holes in its body, and—

—he was nowhere. He was everywhere. His feet were planted on nothingness and he was filling his own sky in a shapeless void. Black chaos swarmed around him, whirled around him, clouds in a timelapsed day, shadows in a nightmare, tatters of cloth on a beggar’s body, reeds at high tide caressing his limbs to pull him into the undertow. The flute was held securely in his hand, warm, comfortable, a perfect fit, and it said,

Put me to your mouth and play me and I can give you anything you want.

It said,

You have been lonely? Alone? A one of a kind person in a small town not meant for you? I can give you everything.

It said,

If you are alone I can crowd you with those who can remake the world in your image.

It said,

I can take you out of this world to give you a world of your own.

It said,

Who do you want to love you? I can make them love you, whether they are mortal or god.

It said,

Who do you want to cure? To fix? To heal? To ruin? To destroy? To remake?

It said,

I am creation, I am destruction, I am the dance. Play me and I can be your dance.

Jay’s lungs ached. His heart ached. His hands, his body, his mortal form, ached. His soul ached.

And he thought about what he wanted. And he thought about what he must do.

[In the comments, please submit:
1. What you think Jay wants.
2. What you think Jay must do.]

[Previous Day: Day 29. Next Day: Day 31.] 

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Still staying as quiet as he could, Jay grabbed Louis’s wrist. He didn’t grab hard, didn’t grab like he was trying to make Louis drop the knife—just getting his attention, looking up at him with wide, alarmed eyes, and giving a quick shake of his head.

Louis seemed to frown at him, brows drawing down visibly under the eye holes of his mask, and he gestured at Dr. Archer with a quick, irritated gesture.

Jay nodded, then sort of shrugged helplessly. Even if he could talk now, he wasn’t sure what he’d say. He’d heard just enough about Louis’s past to begin to put together a truly horrible image of Dr. Archer as the likely source of Louis’s scars—physical and emotional. Everything Louis had indicated about his predecessor painted the picture of a sexual sadist and abuser of the power he’d held over Louis. Jay couldn’t exactly blame Louis for wanting to kill him.

Or… perhaps, wanting to kill him again. Louis had been very sure that Dr. Archer had died, and Dr. Archer had implied that someone had hidden his body or otherwise conveniently ‘lost’ it. Certainly the injuries on his face were consistent with what might have happened if, say, a mask were peeled off someone it had become affixed to. Jay didn’t want to think that Louis was wearing the same mask—and certainly it was a lot cleaner than he’d expect from those… circumstances. But the evidence was pretty telling nevertheless.

Still, Jay was pretty sure he didn’t want to be party to a murder. Maybe it was deserved, and definitely this guy shouldn’t get his hands on the flute, but… this didn’t seem like the time or the place. It might be his own squeamishness—he was having trouble of thinking of reasons that he could give if Louis asked, beyond the risk that they might mess it up and have him sic all the Byakhee on them. But he still just didn’t feel great about the idea of witnessing a murder.

He didn’t know how much of that he was able to communicate with his plaintive look, his shrug, but after a long moment, Louis nodded. He tapped his chest over his heart, trying to communicate—what, Jay wasn’t sure. That his heart was calm?

“Well, Louis? I’m waiting for that hug.” Dr. Archer held his arms out, smiling, the muscles of his face stretching tightly.

Jay leaned up, quick, and gave Louis a peck on the cheek of his mask, then released his wrist, miming playing a flute. A last reminder to Louis of what they were here for. Beyond that, all he could do was trust Louis.

Louis didn’t sheathe the knife, and Jay held his breath as Louis approached the bed, sat on it next to Dr. Archer, and wrapped an arm around him.

His other hand placed the point up under Dr. Archer’s chin, making him freeze in place. “All right, Doctor,” Louis said. “You’re going to be very careful about what you say or do now, okay?”

“Or you’ll what? Kill me?” The twisting of Archer’s face was probably an attempt to be mockingly dubious about the possibility.

“Slit you ear from ear,” Louis said, in his calm, affable voice. “And kiss the wound goodbye. Jay, come help tear down some of his bed curtains so we can bind him properly.”

Jay let out a rough, unsteady breath, hurrying over to do that. The already tattered cloth tore easily in strips as he yanked it down, pulling the older man’s wrists back behind his back and starting to tie them.

“Who’s your friend, Louis? He doesn’t know how to tie a knot,” Dr. Archer said mildly.

Despite everything, Jay felt himself flush in embarrassment. “I’ve never had to before!”

“Letting my boy down. I see, I see.”

“Shut up,” Louis said, his tone still friendly. “Jay, wind that through the middle. It’s fine if you hurt him a little; it means he’s less able to break free if they’re definitely secure. He can’t feel much pain anyway.”

Jay did, winding the excess material through the loop he’d been making around both of Dr. Archer’s wrists, cinching them. “What now?” Jay asked, voice shaking a little with the adrenaline wreaking havoc on his body.

“That looks like it’ll hold for now,” Louis said, and Jay tied the ends off. “Now, Dr. Archer, what can you tell us about the thing you’ve had your minions looking for?”

To punctuate his question, Louis tapped the point of his knife under Dr. Archer’s chin, letting it dimple the flesh there just enough for a trickle of blood to drip down and further stain the collar of Dr. Archer’s white suit.

Dr. Archer’s muscles didn’t even twitch at that; he still kept smiling his grotesque smile in Louis’s direction. “I haven’t seen it, you know. All I know is it’s an item of power, meant to lure a certain power to it, bind them in lulled ecstasy. Those are creatures of ultimate chaos, not meant to serve our god—but if they can be turned to sing his praises, to dance and act out his coming, they can surely cause his arrival to happen at last.”

“You defile him,” Louis told Dr. Archer sharply. “Everything must be done properly, or it is not worth doing. With elegance, with refinement.”

“And who taught you that?” Dr. Archer retorted. “Besides, the stranger in the pallid mask, the messenger, is the one who is recognized as a chaotic force. So why can he not use the chaos that swirls around one throne to raise up another?”

“For one thing, that’s not you,” Louis said. He reached up, fingers curling white-knuckled in more of the bed curtain, ripping it down, then violently jammed the ball of cloth into Dr. Archer’s mouth. “Thank you. That’s all we needed to know. You can be quiet now.”

Jay shifted, his chest tight and anxious. On the one hand, it seemed like Louis had agreed not to kill him. On the other… “Maybe we should make him send the Byakhee some sort of message of non-aggression?”

“If he can communicate with them long-distance, we’re already in trouble,” Louis said. “If he can’t, we can use him as a shield to keep them at bay—”

And, as if summoned, a crashing, screaming force hit the window, poured through.

Jay flung himself across the bed, rolling to duck behind it and keep it between himself and the Byakhee as they swarmed into the room. As he rolled, he felt one of the four Signs he was carrying go flying out of his pocket as he rolled, though he wasn’t sure which one. He reached for Louis as he went, trying to drag him along, but missed as Dr. Archer surged up, shoulder-checking Louis toward the Byakhee before falling on his side on the floor himself, choking and gagging.

In a sudden panic, Jay crawled around the bed, keeping low. There were five or six Byakhee surrounding Louis, who had curled into a ball to protect his vitals. His knife had skidded away and glittered in the pale light from the window, among the shattered glass. No Byakhee had moved to help or arm Dr. Archer, who lay choking on the floor, jerking at bonds he wasn’t able to undo. Jay could see the Sign he’d dropped, Nyarlathotep’s ankh, under the bed, just out of reach; he’d have to flatten himself and press himself a little under to get it.

Two additional Byakhee flapped in the air, apparently watching the chaos unfold below, and one had a hideous flute clasped in its claws. It was a long, warped tube, full of holes that looked as though they’d been made from the inside out, as if by burrowing insects, and ended in a strange, uneven mass at the end.

Jay shifted his gaze in a panic: Dr. Archer, the Sign under the bed, the knife, glass, Louis, the Flute.

And for a moment he froze up, not sure what to do.

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.]

[Previous Day: Day 28. Next Day: Day 30.]

[Please read the instructions before jumping in!]

Jay nodded slowly. “I don’t see any reason not to take a look,” he agreed. “We might lose track of the Byakhee, but we can follow up on anything else later. So if you’ve got a hunch, let’s go.”

“A hunch… I suppose so,” Louis said. He squeezed Jay’s arm, brief and fond, then rose. “Come on, then.”

The two of them headed over to the house, Jay peering up as he went to see if he could see in through any windows to get an idea of what might be in there. But with the overcast, cloudy sky threatening a storm, and the broken windows making tattered curtains flap in the breeze, he wasn’t able to make out anything, only darkness waiting inside.

Something about the house made his hackles raise—anticipation, perhaps, or seeing a house that looked so much like the one he’d just inherited in such a condition of disrepair, but he didn’t say another word about it as they both headed to the front door. He hoped, perhaps, that it would be locked—though he didn’t think it would much matter if it were. The wood of the door had the tell-tale soft look of having rotted over time and exposure to water; it wouldn’t take much to break the door’s lock and head in anyway.

It didn’t matter. Louis tried the knob and the door swung open at once with a long, ominous creak.

They entered to find the place set up with old luxury inside: fancy old furniture everywhere, rotting lace hanging from tabletops, fancy silver vases and china out in the living room, to the left of the flight to the second floor. Jay started out that way to begin exploring, then hesitated as Louis moved, without hesitation, for the stairs. “Louis?”

“I just want to check something,” Louis said, his voice vague. Jay looked between the two directions—it might be faster if they split up, but if the flute was here, he didn’t really fancy Louis coming across it on his own. Not because he didn’t trust Louis—though who knew if the flute had some kind of One Ring like call—but because it was his responsibility.

Besides, there might be scavengers here too, or even Byakhee that had come in through the window, and he trusted their chances better together than apart.

So he scurried up after Louis, glancing down at the stained stair runner. It looked worn down the center the most, as if feet had tread a path in it through sheer erosion over the years, and something about that made him even more uneasy. It reminded him of something, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

“Louis—” he began, but Louis was continuing with purpose down the hallway, not even glancing around, ignoring the office door, the attic door, the bathroom door, heading to the bedroom. “Louis.“

Finally, Louis glanced back. “Sorry,” he said. “I just have a feeling. I just want to check something quickly.”

He opened the bedroom door and went inside. Jay swore under his breath, his nerves frayed, stomach aching, and chased after.

The room was largely barren—unlike the downstairs, whatever dressers or tables or other things had been in this room had long since been stripped away, and all that was left was a large four-poster bed with tattered cloth hanging from it. Sitting in the bed, facing the window, was what looked, at first glance, to be an old man: thin, with long hair hanging ragged around his shoulders and falling forward to obscure his bowed face, his fancy white suit dirtied and torn. His skin, where Jay observed his hands clasped before him, had gone from caucasian white to a pallid shade, something that reminded him of insect larvae, maggots.

A second glance revealed that the man wasn’t as old as Jay had thought he was. His hair wasn’t fully gray—partially there, certainly, brown with streaks of silver, and with a proper haircut Jay thought he would look to be in his sixties at the outside, as far as Jay could guess without seeing the man’s face. For all that his head was bowed, his back was straight, and he sat primly, patient.

Louis made a soft sound, and the man’s face turned—or, at least, where his face should be.

It was gone entirely, the skin peeled away and revealing a sticky red mess; his eyes, too, had been gouged out or had been lost without the lids to protect them, simply holes in his face, though he nevertheless tilted his head as if looking them over. The muscles of his face pulsed as the man reacted to their presence, lips parting, tongue coming out to wet his lips. Those lips curled in a smile a moment later that, under other circumstances, Jay thought would have been polite, perhaps even friendly. “Who’s there?” the man called, his voice a bit creaky with disuse, but nevertheless still strong, even resonant.

Jay opened his mouth to apologize to the man—whatever else was going on, it was clear he lived here and that they’d broken into his house—but Louis interrupted, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders.

“You’re dead,” Louis said.

The man’s gaze—if he had one—snapped to Louis at that. “Oh, Louis,” the man said affably. “Yes, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But you must realize that death means nothing to an inhabitant of Carcosa. Were you to bury us, we would beg at the hearse and pallbearers to release us, and should they not, would claw at the inside of our coffin until eternity or the coming of the king. Were you to leave our body to nature in other ways, to toss it away or hide it somewhere it might not be found, we might have other options. I hope you keep that in mind for yourself when your time is to come, dear boy.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Dr. Archer,” Louis said, tone oddly neutral, hard to read. “Yet, if you’re here now in the flesh, are you not at risk? There are plenty of things roaming the lost city, sir.”

“Certainly, it’s possible,” Dr. Archer said, still friendly. “More can happen to me here than on earth. But I hope to soon return to earth again, just as the king shall return.”

“How so?” Louis had just the hint of sarcasm in his voice now. “Riding to earth on a Byakhee? Even if you could catch one, it would tear you to pieces.”

“Oh, no, they’re good children,” Dr. Archer said. “Better than most. They’re messengers of the king, and although it took some work to communicate with them, I’ve had some time to do so, you know how it is. I’ve made it so they recognize myself as a messenger as well, and obey me. Why, I’ve sent them on a task now to help our return to earth, though I could recall them if needed.”

“A task, Dr. Archer?” Louis lifted a hand, waving it, as if to see if Dr. Archer could see him, but the man gave no visible response. “Doing what?”

“Oh, I’m not sure you need to know that,” Dr. Archer said. “Just leave it to me, Louis, you know I’ll take care of everything.”

Louis put his finger to his lips at Jay, and Jay understood; since he hadn’t said anything yet, it was possible that Dr. Archer didn’t know Louis had company. He nodded, a bit uncertain about where Louis was going with this.

“Really. I’m desperately curious, Dr. Archer. Are they scavenging for food for you? You must live like a barbarian out here,” Louis said. “Though I don’t see how that would help your return to earth?”

“Our,” Dr. Archer repeated. “No, well, recently, something’s been moving out there. Through space, through the sky, making their way to earth. And there’s something here that is tied to them. It’s a big city out there, you know, and I but a poor old man who could not explore the whole thing myself, but I have had them looking in my stead, and I think we have it all figured out now. Perhaps you have arrived just in time, my boy.”

“I’m sure I have.” Louis pulled his other hand out of his pocket, holding a switchblade knife. “And I’m glad of it. I have missed you, Dr. Archer. I’ve spent so many years alone, regretting so much. I’d like to make amends, and be here for you in your hour of triumph. Would you allow it?”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Dr. Archer murmured.

“I always knew you had it in you to manage something like this,” Louis said. His voice had warmed, fondness suffusing it as he sighed, thumbed open his switchblade, and added, “Ah, jeez. Let me come over and hold you properly, you terrible old man.”

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.]

[Previous Day: Day 27. Next Day: Day 29.]

[Please read the instructions before jumping in!]

Jay squeezed Louis’s hands again, reassuring. “Okay,” he said. “That sounds good. Let’s count out the main city of Carcosa and the palace, then. If they’re heavily occupied, someone would probably have found it, like you said. Let’s discount the lake for now, too, ’cause… well, if there are other things living down there, same deal, and besides, I can’t think of how we could explore it anyway.”

“So that leaves the abandoned city?”

“Or the forest,” Jay said, “but I feel like the abandoned city… just feels more likely. If it’s a city made of cities lost to time, it makes sense that lost things might end up there.”

Louis nodded. “It’s as good a place as any,” he agreed. His fingers wound between Jay’s, clasping his hand tightly. “Let’s go, then.”

They headed toward the ruins, quickly passing under the damaged archway that had once been the entry to the city. If there had been a name on the plaque that still sat on the stone archway, it had long since been worn away; what was left there now was simply a rusted mess.

To either side of the path lay small cottages, similar to those he’d seen in the city of Ulthar, but with the bricks partially collapsed, the thatch rotted, smelling of wet decay. It was clear even this short a distance in that there were far too many buildings in this town to search each one as they came across them. This was a city, after all; it could take hours just to walk from one side to the other, let alone looking through each house on the way. And if, as Louis implied, all lost cities and towns ended up here, it might back onto another larger area—Jay wasn’t sure, but tried not to think too hard about it if so.

It was better to walk some of the streets and see if anything gave some kind of tell as to where to go. They walked briskly, looking around them as they went, watching for any signs of something different. Rarely—maybe once every twenty minutes—one or the other of them caught sight of hunched figures picking through the foundations of some building or another, scavengers of some kind looking for any goods that hadn’t yet been picked over. But since none of them appeared to have found anything, Jay and Louis steered clear.

More often, they saw strange creatures flying overhead, criss-crossing as if looking for prey. They had fat bodies, membranous wings, beaks, many dangling webbed feet. Looking at them made Jay’s pulse race, his heart squeeze in his chest, so he tried not to pay attention to them, and hoped they paid even less attention to himself and Louis.

And he tried to remember anything Aunt Grace had said about running away from monsters in dreams. Anything that he could use for a tried and true method to get away from those flyers—or the more mundane scavengers, or any other pursuers he hadn’t yet come across or hadn’t yet noticed—if they came after him.

But nothing came to mind. She’d always tried to save him, he thought, from the more terrifying things in her dreams. And even if she had said anything, this wasn’t the Dreamlands anymore. They’d only just used the Dreamlands to transition to this place, to dread Carcosa. His dream abilities, weak or not, were useless here.

After just under an hour of walking, they found themselves leaving behind the abandoned old village that they’d been walking down the main street of. The houses became fewer, though he could see more up ahead, and the cobblestone path turned to cement.

“Thoughts?”

“We should press on,” Louis said. “The first area is the most picked-over. It’s still more likely something would have been found in the last while.”

“I agree.”

They continued walking down the cement street into a much more modern abandoned town—but also much smaller. From where it began, he could already see the city center; it could have been a town in Massachusetts still, not unlike Kingsport. There was a tall white church, a grain silo, an old general store, a pub, and numerous houses. All were immediately obvious as abandoned, their windows blown out, lawns overgrown, paint peeling and wood decaying, holes in their roofs. Further along, he could see more buildings, additional houses, possibly a school.

Louis and he took a break when they reached the city center, sitting on the porch of the general store. “Thoughts?” Jay asked. “I mean, the church is suspicious by virtue of… I don’t know, being a church in this place.”

“Mm, maybe,” Louis said, distractedly. “But I think that’s more suspicious.” He pointed to a house.

Jay turned to look, then ducked, trying to hide his face as a number of those horrible flying creatures soared past low overhead, flying quickly, chattering to each other in a horrible tongue and moving with intent as they followed the main street themselves, further down. Louis covered Jay with an arm, tugging him closer, and Jay swallowed, waiting for his heart to calm.

“They seemed agitated,” he managed, when he could. “Moving in a group like that. We could check that out, too, if… I mean, if you thought it was safe.”

“I don’t know if it is or not,” Louis said. “I think those may be the Byakhee. Creatures summoned to perform tasks, so it’s possible they had some purpose. Though, many of them live around Carcosa and Lake Hali, I’ve heard, so they might be a wild flock. They can be injured or killed, but…”

“Can also injure or kill us? Yeah,” Jay said. “So should we go after them? Or look around here instead, in the church or maybe the store?”

Louis hesitated. “I really want to check that house out,” he said finally. “Something feels… wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Jay looked at it again. “It looks like a lot of the houses in Kingsport, like yours and mine. You find it suspicious because it’s familiar? I guess it is weird that a part of the lost city looks like it could be somewhere like Kingsport.”

“No, I mean, there are plenty of ghost towns in Massachusetts,” Louis said. “So that part’s not surprising, exactly. Because it’s familiar… it could be that, perhaps. But that particular house looks exactly like our houses. Don’t you think it’s suspicious? Miss Evans stole something, and we came across a place that looks exactly like the place she had lived.” And then, as usual, that intensity faded, replaced with some kind of disinterest. “Well, you’re right that it’s a common enough architectural style, and there’s no reason for it to be there in particular. It’s up to you. If you want to follow the Byakhee or explore some public buildings, I’m fine with that.”

[Please suggest an action in the Comments!]

[Previous Day: Day 26. Next Day: Day 28.]

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Jay lay still for a long moment, hesitating. He was ready to go, he was determined to go, but who to take?

Camden and Hannah were out; he liked Camden well enough, but he barely knew either of them, and didn’t want to drag them into this mess. Ashesh was out as well—while Jay intended to summon him once he’d found the item, and was very sure Ashesh could handle himself, he didn’t exactly think he’d feel more protected if he took the Crawling Chaos along as a companion to help be his touchstone to sanity and humanity.

Which left Louis or… well, or Ulthar.

Ulthar was, ultimately, a cat. Maybe a strange, dreamworld cat, but he could get hurt or killed—had been hurt when Jay had encountered him. And the whole warning against killing a cat of Ulthar wouldn’t exist if, well, they couldn’t be killed. And going through the door meant they’d be going physically, so Ulthar’s injured foot could be a problem, too.

Still, he felt that Ulthar would protect him, just like he’d protect Ulthar. Ulthar was a sense of comfort and home to him. If he took Ulthar with him, then he’d always, always be able to touch into his sense of humanity, of the desire to protect and love something smaller and better than himself.

And then there was Louis.

Louis was… well, his lover, apparently. His friend, he believed. Someone who had chosen to step out of his role in order to help Jay with his goals, someone who seemed to need tenderness and kindness in his life. Louis could consent to this journey and provide commentary, thoughts, insight. There wouldn’t be any dependence there, just an educated second opinion from someone he was pretty willing to trust.

But on the other hand, Louis wasn’t entirely well. Jay had already seen Louis struggle with emotions, disassociate, retreat into apathy. And there were the issues with Louis’s god on top of things. If Louis was to be Jay’s touchstone, he would need to be Louis’s, too. He knew that.

Jay took a deep breath, and made his decision. Louis at least deserved the right to choose if he wanted to come along. If he chose to, then Jay would take him. If Louis didn’t feel ready, Jay wouldn’t demand—and that’s when he could see if his weird alien cat wanted to tag along.

He shifted, nudging Louis, who stirred, eyes flicking open behind his mask. It had slipped down into the usual—likely more comfortable—position while he slept.

“Jay?” Louis murmured.

“Hey, can you wake up?” Jay asked. “I know it’s early—” The clock said it was around dawn, though the sky outside seemed too dark for that, thick with what he hoped were clouds. “—But I’ve got the key now.”

“The key?”

“To go find that flute—” Jay quickly summarized everything that had happened when he’d gone to the Library, making sure to leave no part out. It only seemed fair that Louis be able to make this choice as informed as Jay himself was.

“Ah,” Louis said, when Jay was finished. “Then, who are you taking?”

Jay swallowed. Don’t take it personally if he won’t, he told himself. Saving the world now for the eventual coming of his god might be Louis’s goal, but that didn’t mean he would be willing to invest in it beyond having granted Jay a Sign. “I was wondering if you would be willing to come.”

Louis tilted his head, watching Jay with a strangely intense curiosity. He took a long moment, thinking through it, then finally nodded. “I’ll come,” he said. “Now?”

“I really don’t want to put off saving the world in case, uh, I put it off too long.”

“Fair,” Louis said. He stretched, a gorgeous picture as the blankets rode low on his hips, then rose to pick up his clothes from where he’d dropped them. “Let me get cleaned up and ready, then.”

“Of course,” Jay said, relieved. “I have to too, you know?”

He did. Uncertain what sort of weather to prepare for, he put on a t-shirt and jeans, along with a jacket. If it was too hot wherever he went, he could at least strip down a little. If it was too cold… well, he imagined if it was arctic level, Grace would have warned him.

Once he’d dressed, Jay sat on the bed again and petted Ulthar, who let out a sleepy mrrp and thumped his tail, but didn’t otherwise move. He pulled out his phone, hesitated, then sent Camden a text. They’d started to become friends, and he thought that if something happened to him, if he weren’t able to come back, Camden would want to know.

Hey man, hope your volume is off so I don’t wake you. I’m briefly leaving this world, to try to find something that should keep us from being invaded by horrible extraplanar beings. I’m hoping I’ll be back, but if I vanish… well, if the world’s still here, I’m leaving a spare set of keys buried under the bush to the left of my front door. I have a cat now, so please come in and feed it. Thanks for watching out for me, hopefully I’ll be able to laugh this off with you in person later.

Yeah, that about covered it. He sent it, headed out to bury his original set of keys—the ones that were only the front and back door, not the set Ashesh had given him—then came back in and rounded up the Signs from the various locations that he’d stashed them.

By the time he was done, Louis had finished in the bathroom and was waiting outside the office for him, patient. Jay came up, leaning up to give him a kiss on the masked cheek, treating it like his real face. “You ready? Nothing you need to take care of at home?”

“…No. I don’t have anything that will be affected if I don’t return.” Louis seemed to take a moment to decide if that was depressing or not, then just shrugged at himself. “So let’s go.”

Jay led the way downstairs, to that strange mysterious freestanding door. The Signs he was carrying were warming in his clothes; he could feel them, pulsing like something living. In return, the same marks around the lock were shifting as if alive, squirming.

“I know,” Jay murmured at it. “But I’m not going to use any of you.”

He took out the key that Grace had left him, and inserted it in the lock. Then, before he turned it, he reached out behind himself, offering his other hand to Louis. “Hold on, okay?” he said. “I don’t know if it’s fine for us to walk separately or not as we’re going through the portal, but I don’t want to risk it.”

Louis slid his hand into Jay’s, holding snugly. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Jay turned the key, hearing it click. Then he took hold of the doorknob and turned, opening the door. A swirling, misty void was within, looking cold and uninviting. For a moment, Jay couldn’t make his legs move.

And then he shook himself, squeezed Louis’s hand, and stepped through.

He found himself in an unfamiliar cottage house, directly facing an enormous painting of a black city, broken and repaired with gold. He didn’t even take a moment to look around, not wanting to get distracted. Grace had told him she was going to put him in a place in the Dreamlands that was right in front of a the portal that would take him to the world where she’d dropped the Flute, and so he pressed on, trying to enter the painting as if it, too, was another misty void. He pulled on Louis’s hand, making sure that they went together.

They entered it. The passage was soft around him, then grew firm, and he took a last step forward to find himself, with Louis behind him, squeezing their way out of a small cave opening in a cliff face.

They emerged onto a beach. It had pebbles rather than sand, worn smooth with the passage of time, with an enormous lake stretching in front of them. The waters rocked and churned, almost completely obscured by the clouds of fog rolling across them; even through it, he thought he saw huge reeds moving in the waters, or perhaps the tentacles of great creatures in there. Across the lake, a tall twisted black palace rose, backlit by two huge moons, both full and nearly touching each other.

On this side, a path ran along the beach toward some shattered ruins of old buildings, the start to an old city that had clearly been long destroyed and left to rot. That path split before reaching the ruins, one fork leading on into the, the other leading through some woods; beyond those woods, he could see black spires, tall domes, lights on in their windows. An occupied city, still in use, perhaps thriving after the old city on its outskirts had died out.

Jay felt Louis drop his hand, and turned to ask him what he thought, but Louis was looking around with his eyes huge behind his mask.

“This is Carcosa,” Louis said airlessly. “I’ve seen it in my nightmares. This is the lake Hali. That is the palace, where they reenact the coming of the king.” He raised his hands to his face, his mask. “Am I the Stranger here? Will I be sacrificed? No, it’s fine, since this isn’t the palace, it’s fine. Someone is already acting that role there, and my role is different on Earth.”

“Hey.” Jay took his hands, squeezing them, pulling them down again. “Look at me.”

Louis looked, eyes still wide.

“We’re going to be okay,” Jay said. “We’ve got to decide which way to go, though. What do you think? Abandoned city, new city, try to cross the lake to go to the palace? Or do you think it fell into the waters?”

Louis let out a shudder, then abruptly became calm again. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem to have been found, though, so we have to consider what that means in terms of where the Flute ended up. The City of Carcosa may or may not be Hastur, but people and monsters are said to live there. The Palace hosts the royal family—at least, in the play. I don’t know what the reality is. The Lake? They say that Hastur lives in lake Hali, along with… other things. And the destroyed city… I don’t know anything about which city that could be. They say Carcosa absorbs cities which are lost to time in other worlds and takes it into its own body, and so it could be any lost city.”

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