"I've Come To Talk To You Again"

by Karl Edward Wagner
originally published Dark Terrors, 1995

Jon Holsten, an American writer in the Lovecraft tradition, is in London on an annual holiday.  He meets for drinks with some friends.  Despite being older than any of them, Holsten looks younger and is in perfect health, while the others are all suffering from various ailments.

Holsten is haunted by the figure of the King in Yellow.  He has memories of a visit to Carcosa, and things he saw there.  Apparently he made a deal with the King to retain his youth and health. But he turns others over for sacrifice.

Holsten leaves, knowing some grim fate is in store for his friends.  He meets with a young fan for an interview.  It appears the fan will suffer a similar fate.

Karl Edward Wagner's early stuff, collected as In A Lonely Place, rank among my favorite supernatural fiction.  Also add "The Sign of the Salamander", a Robert E. Howard-ish pulp actioneer of warring wizards, his "Kane" stories and novels, which are as good (and spooky) as sword-and-sorcery gets, and you've got an author I like a lot.

 Unfortunately, several things happened to Wagner in the 80's.  One, he got more prolific.  Two - his long-standing personal problems started to get the better of him, which led to Three - the quality of his work began to suffer.

His stories remained well-written, and became sometimes startlingly edgy - as if he were trying to out-outrage Clive Barker (he did, too).  But the imagination, ambition, and sheer beauty of his best writing was missing.

"I've Come To Talk To You Again" is from the later period.  Actually, it was published after Wagner's passing in 1994.  It is a potent little gut-punch.  Well-done - but it simply isn't memorable for me the way Wagner's best stuff was.