Carcosa is a cosmological city, older than the Christian reckoning, on the shore of Lake Hali and the domain of the King in Yellow. It lies not on another plane but in a fold of this one, and opens through reading, ritual or dream.
| Type | Place (city) |
| Ruler | The King in Yellow |
| Variant spellings | Tarcosa, Tarkosa |
| Spanish entry | Carcosa |
Description
Its sky fits no known map. The King’s name, like those of other enthroned figures, belongs to the place he occupies, not to a person. Prudent doctrine holds that Carcosa is right here, behind a fold that opens when someone finishes reading the unnamed play. A recurring formula says Tarkosa can be seen only from Lake Hali.
Les Libertateurs (Antiterra, 1784)
The earliest recorded extension of the yellow domain. In the gesta (campaign-cycle) of Les Libertateurs, around 1784, when Sigil, the City of Doors, is switched off in the Land of Dream, the city summoned to replace it is Carcosa. There the husk-body “of Carcosa” nearly takes the witch Cristina, who declares herself heir of Atlantia and aspirant to “yellow queen”, the consort throne. La Plume memorizes and speaks names from the Necronomicon tied to the King in Yellow.
Cthulhu Buenos Aires (1922)
The first of the two later doors opens by reading. In Buenos Aires in 1922, Xul Solar and a young Borges — the only one able to read the Necronomicon’s Latin — perform the rite of the King in Yellow over monoliths at the Ocampo country house. All present share one vision: in a palace of masks the King, invited to unmask, shows no face beneath the Pale Mask, as in Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and tears young Beatriz Guerrero’s arm. The record belongs to the gesta of Cthulhu Buenos Aires.
Malvinas (1966)
In the austral descent of 1966, from a plane hijacking to the islands to the Claromecó Lighthouse, the blue stone awakened by the Esoteric Order of Dagon plunges those nearby into one shared dream.
- The dream sets them on a doubled Claromecó beach under two twin suns orbiting each other; everything casts two shadows, the sea is motionless, and a toy castle, a scale model of something vast, stands by the lighthouse.
- Lake Hali and the Hyades are named, the Tarkosa formula returns, and the King’s command runs through the dream: “quítese la máscara” (“take off the mask”).
- Each dreamer meets a tailored temptation scene matched to their desire or fear, ending with an offer to sign a pact. Among those who cross are Dulce, Irene and their companions.
After the lighthouse rite the stone leaves a whistling yellow-green egg that seems to hold the land of the two suns inside. The Order uses it as a compass to what sleeps beneath reality.
Conflicting accounts
- The Archive places the city under two moons; the Claromecó dream shows it under two suns. The source keeps both without resolving them.