Roy ran from the throne room, delving into a passage that burrowed under the city, a secret escape. His work was done. He'd fed his god, and a portion of the vitality that the King in Yellow leached from those he'd offered would be bestowed to Roy, divvied out over time, lengthening his life, and giving him power as well. He'd done it before in Coprates, several years before. That time had been easier. He didn't have a marshal hunting him down.

He'd tried to serve his King back on Terra. But the extreme distance between planets meant that the sacrificial offerings he performed there transferred little vitality to his King. But he had proved his fealty. So the King had summoned him, reaching out in darkened drug-induced dreams, bestowing on him the great task of gathering sustenance for him to be ready at the advent of his waking from his millennium of slumber.

The King destroyed all remnants of life on this planet, thousands upon thousands of years prior. And when all life forms were destroyed, he siphoned from the red planet itself, until it was but a dried and cracked scab of its former glory. The Great Ancient One checked him though, held him in place, affixed him to the red planet for all time. Thus he needed souls to be brought to him in between the intervals of his millesimal hibernation.

He had spoken through men's dreaming minds, whispered lofty aspirations of planetary conquest, incepting the seeds of pursuit that inspired them to pull all their resources together to brave the black of space and colonize the red planet. Then the King waited patiently, reveling in the depths of his own mysterious reveries as mankind took the steps necessary to colonize and rejuvenate the dried planet. Unwittingly they sowed the seeds of their own destruction. All so the King could consume them.

But the Ancient One interfered again, allowing the war to break out upon the face of Terra, preventing the exodus en masse from Terra to Rubrum, and eventually Carcosa, cutting off the King's supply of eager sacrifices. Thus the withered King summoned Roy, filling him with his purpose in exchange for power and near eternal longevity.

An inhuman cry sounded like a shrill siren, blaring in Roy's ears. Then a pang bit into Roy's chest.

The medallion hanging about his neck cracked. He felt a tugging, then a tearing. He cried out in pain, falling to the temple floor. Weak and trembling, he braced himself against a wall. He felt as if one of his limbs had been torn off, leaving a useless bloodied stump.

His work was done. Why did it now feel incomplete?

With all his willpower he stumbled back into the alter chamber.

A thick haze hung in the air of the massive room obscuring everything. Where was the King? Roy crept closer to the altar, confused.

Slowly, the haze melted. The King's sarcophagus lay closed, sealed once more. An empty void weighed down on Roy. He realized the ever-present weight of his eldritch god had vanished. No, not vanished, diminished. As if all of the toil Roy underwent to bring the sacrifices here amounted to nothing, even less than nothing.

How had his King's power been depleted?

Roy heard boots stepping towards him.

There, striding tall through the ash and soot remnants of the sacrifices came the lawman, from the far side of the altar, green eyes piercing Roy. The marshal looked unscathed, rejuvenated even, as if somehow he had taken all of the vitality meant for Roy's King.

Roy bared his teeth at Tracy, hissing. He raised his hands to throw putrid pestilence at him, to set his bones to rot and decay from the inside out, but his previous power vanished.

As he tried to draw power, a backlash pummeled him, dropping him to the ground. A groan of woe leaked out of Roy's mouth. No power filled him, only painful, agonizing emptiness. With great effort he climbed to his knees. Vile obscenities dripped from his mouth, curses he hurled at the lawman.

"Go ahead, Marshal. Blast me. Put a hole in my soul."

The marshal pointed his smartarm at Roy. The metal fist dislocated and launched, shooting right at Roy like a bullet. The blow to Roy's gut knocked all the wind out of him. As he stumbled, the detached cyborg hand scuttled up his robe and clamped down on his throat, cutting off the oxygen to his lungs and severed the flow of blood to his mind.

He clawed at the alloyed hand, trying to rip it off his convulsing throat, but every effort expended more and more energy. He sank to the floor in a limp heap. The last thing he saw was the darkened silhouette of the lawman towering over him, triumphant.

Roy fought to keep his eyelids open, but the weight of defeat plunged him into unending darkness and despair. Down, down, down he spiraled, lost in his own conquered ego, his mind drowning in the realization of his worthless irrelevance.