In the Court of the Yellow King by Tim Curran, Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, C.J. Henderson, William Meikle, T.E. Grau, Laurel Halbany, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris

for the part of Cassilda, the queen of a mythical city called Hastur, somewhere on or off the earth, she had no idea. She had not read the entire play, but it supposedly ended on a tragic note, and she’d always had an affinity for tragedies.
    At 109th, she disembarked, her seatmate bidding her rude farewell by way of a low “ Reina puta, ” and had walked most of the block to her building when she felt her jacket pocket vibrating. It was Bryon on the phone.
    “You got Cassilda,” came his excited voice. “She’s all yours.”
    “Well, thank you !”
    “Rehearsals start this Friday night.”
    “Seriously?”
    “The schedule’s going to be intense. Hope you’re up for it. Can you get to their office tomorrow afternoon and get the paperwork done?”
    “I guess I can take a long lunch.”
    “Do it. I have a good feeling about this one.”
    “So do I. I think.”
    “You impress Broach, things are going to start falling into place. See if they don’t.”
    “I’ll hold you to that.”
    “You’d better.”
    She signed off just as she reached the front door of her building, an ancient, nine-story monstrosity that took up half the block between Amsterdam and Broadway. Her apartment was on the top floor, a single-bedroom cubbyhole she shared with her roommate, Yumiko, whom she actually saw about twice a month. She found herself hoping Yumiko would be there now. At first she thought it was because she was excited about sharing her good news, but as the elevator took her up to the dim, deathly silent hallway, she realized she was not excited but nervous. More than that — unsettled, apprehensive. Not the little butterflies that came before stepping on stage but the cold anxiety she might feel if a stranger were to fall in behind her and rapidly close the distance.
    Unfortunately, she discovered as she opened the door and entered darkness, the place was deserted, except for Koki, Yumiko’s cat, who occupied his traditional spot on the windowsill. The gray and white tabby gave her a brief, unconcerned glance and returned to peering at the alley outside. For a moment, the view out the window seemed somehow off , and she realized there was an odd reflection in the glass: some kind of swirly pattern in bright, yellow-gold, as if cast by an illuminated sign at the entrance to the alley, though she knew no such sign existed. The reflection lasted only a few seconds and then vanished, as if whatever was producing it had dissolved.
    That was strange, she thought, but hardly worth dwelling on. Koki was displaying no interest in anything, indoors or out, and if the Feline Early Warning System didn’t go off, all was right with the world. More or less.

    Damned peculiar: the script the office manager had given her was incomplete. A number of random pages had been excised, including the final scene. Still, from it, she pieced together as much of the story as possible.
    The play opened with Queen Cassilda — many thousands, perhaps millions of years old — gazing on the vast Lake of Hali from her palace in the far-off city of Hastur. For eons, Hastur had been at war with its sister city, Alar, and the endless siege had made Cassilda into an embittered, apathetic, largely impotent monarch. She occasionally entertained the idea of passing her rule to one of her two sons, Uoht or Thale, she cared not which. Both princes desired to marry their sister, Camilla, and Cassilda finally decided that whichever son won her daughter’s hand would ascend to the throne and take the name “Aldones” — the name of every king that had ever ruled in Hastur. Then Cassilda would give to Camilla the royal diadem, which had been worn by Hastur’s queen since the beginning of time. Camilla, however, dreaded such a transfer, for legend told that the recipient of the diadem might also receive the Yellow Sign — a harbinger of death, or worse — from the mysterious King in Yellow: a nightmarish, inhuman being that resided in the fabled,