Aftermath

Locating Francesca quite easily, Nathaniel Browne asks her to return to England with him, a request to which she happily agrees. The two elope soon after Andrew Saunders' memorial service which is held near the end of April, 1931, and spend some time in America, where Browne finally meets with Robert Chambers. The two return to England and settle in the west country.

Meanwhile, Captain Withers marries the widow Morrison in a church ceremony on the 14th of December, 1930. Over the next few years, he and Browne meet on occasion to reminisce, and to wonder if, and when, the King in Yellow's prescence on Earth might be felt. When war stirs in Europe, each wonders whether this is the King's influence, and whether armies united under the banner of the yellow sign might soon be marching across the continent.

The Brownes' first child arrives stillborn in the February of 1932, and despite trying, they have difficulty conceiving again. Nathaniel continues his writing. Despite never turning in an adequate sequel to The Tatters of the King, he continues to write horror stories. His book "The Frozen Tomb" about an ancient horror buried beneath the Antarctic Ice who's dreams invade those of researchers in the southern continent, enjoys some popularity, especially after the tragic Starkweather-Moore expedition of 1933 makes the news. Eventually a living son, Andrew Frederick Browne, is born on the 18th of February, 1937 although the birth is difficult and Francesca almost perishes in childbirth. After this, Nathaniel's stories become, like Chambers before him, light romances. Fortunately, in wartime England, these prove, although critically reviled, massively successful. Indeed one, "Love At Sea", which tells the tale of an author meeting a beautiful woman on an ocean liner to India, is eventually made into a film starring Alec Guinness in the 1950s.

German Bomber over London, 1941

In 1941, during the blitz, disaster strikes. Visiting relatives in the outskirts of London, Francesca is killed when a building, weakened by enemy munitions, collapses. Andrew, who was with Francesca at the time, is also assumed dead. In fact Andrew, traumatized by the event, wanders, dazed, into London where he is eventually picked up by the police and put into an orphanage. Utterly traumatized, the boy does not speak for the next 3 years.

Nathaniel's writing becomes, again, dark. His stories are now haunted, disjointed things, full of faustian bargains. Nathaniel begins planning an archaeological excavation in the Nepalese highlands, to be funded from his own fortune. On the morning of November 1st, 1947, Nathaniel is found dead in his study, shot through the head. A revolver lays in his right hand. Neighbors say that the previous evening there was a large car outside the house, possibly an army staff car. A heated argument took place in which the word 'Carcosa' was mentioned, and also something about a 'king'. Finding no trace of any foul play in the house, however, and finding copious supplies of opium both in the house and in Nathaniel's blood, the case is deemed suicide. To everyone's surprise, Nathaniel has left everything to his second cousin in Australia. Unable to contact her or arrange for the dispersal of the estate, the house is simply locked up and left. The police do not notice the burned remains of several maps, notes and books in the fireplace.

Nathaniel's Last Work

Withers, by now a Colonel and a veteran of two World Wars, attended the funeral, then went back to a life that had long left behind the horrors of Carcosa and Leng, except occasionally in dreams. As the only true survivor of the entire incredible affair he never really knew to what extent they could be said to have triumphed.

In the years after Nathaniel's death, his books experience an incredible upsurge in popularity due, in no small part, to the mysterious circumstances surrounding his demise. His publishers arrange for his last work in progress to be finished by a leading author of the day. The work turns out to be a magnum opus, a fiction of great emotional power which borrows heavily, although the readers don't know it, from the real adventure of Nathaniel and his friends. Scholars debate the work for decades to come.

In 1965, under hypnosis while undergoing psychotherapy (by sheer coincidence, at the Bartlett Institute In London), the now adult Andrew Browne, now known as Alan Tate, remembers his name and his family. To his surprise he finds that, as the only surviving member of the Browne family, he has gained entitlement to his father's house and belongings. He takes up residence in the house, which has become much overgrown and run down. While cleaning up the fireplace, he discovers a loose brick, behind which is found a journal, embossed with a strange yellow sign...