Contents

Introduction by Andrew J. Offutt .............. 1

Prolog ...................................... 5

Exile of Atlantis ............................. 7

The Shadow Kingdom ........................ 14

The Altar and the Scorpion .................... 48

Delcardes Cat .............................. 53

The Skull of Silence .......................... 81

By This Axe I Rule! .......................... 90

The Striking of the Gong ...................... Ill

Swords of the Purple Kingdom ................ 116

The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune .................. 145

The King and the Oak ........................ 155

The Black City (fragment) .................... 157

Untitled (fragment) .......................... 161

Untided (fragment) ......................... 181

Epilog ...................................... 184

Prolog

Of that epoch known by the Nemedian chroni-

clers as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age, little is known ex-

cept the latter part, and that is veiled in the mists of

legendry. Known history begins with the waning of

the Pre-Cataclysmic civilization, dominated by the

kingdoms of Kamelia, Valusia, Verulia, Grondar,

Thule, and Commoria. These peoples spoke a similar

language, arguing a common origin. There were other

kingdoms, equally civilized, but inhabited by differ-

ent, and apparently older, races.

The barbarians of that age were the Picts, who

lived on islands far out on the western ocean; the At-

lanteans, who dwelt on a small continent between Pict-

ish Islands and the main, or Thurian, continent; and

the Lemurians, who inhabited a chain of large islands

in the eastern hemisphere.

There were vast regions of unexplored land. The

civilized kingdoms, though enormous in extent, occu-

pied a comparatively small portion of the whole

planet. Valusia was the westernmost kingdom of the

Thurian Continent; Grondar the easternmost. East of

Grondar, whose people were less highly cultured than

those of the other kingdoms, stretched a wild and bar-

ren expanse of deserts. Among the less arid stretches, in

the Jungles, and among the mountains, lived scattered

clans and tribes of primitive savages. Far to the South

there was a mysterious civilization, unconnected with

the Thurian culture, and apparently pre-human in its

nature. On the far eastern shores of the continent

there lived another race, human, but mysterious and

non-Thurian, with whom the Lemurians from time to

time came in contact. They apparently came from a

shadowy and nameless continent lying somewhere

east of the Lemurian Islands.

The Thurian civilization was crumbling; their ar-

mies were composed largely of barbarian mercenaries.

Picts, Atlanteans, and Lemurians were their generals,

their statesmen, often their kings. Of the bickerings of

the kingdoms, and the wars between Valusia and

Commoria, as well as the conquests by which the At-

lanteans founded a kingdom on the mainland, there

are more legends than accurate history.

--The Hyborian Age

Exile of Atlantis

The sun was setting. A last crimson glory filled

the land and lay like a crown of blood on the snow-

sprinkled peaks. The three men who watched the

death of the day breathed deep the fragrance of the

early wind which stole up out of the distant forests,

and then turned to a more material task. One of the

men was cooking venison over a small fire, and this

man, touching a finger to the smoking viand, tasted

with the air of a connoisseur.

"All ready, Kull--Khor-nah; let us eat."

The speaker was young--little more than a boy: a

tall, slim-waisted, broad-shouldered lad who moved

with the easy grace of a leopard. Of his companions,

one was an older man, a powerful, massively-built,

hairy man with an aggressive face. The other was a

counterpart of the speaker, except for the fact that he

was slightly larger--taller, a thought deeper of chest

and broader of shoulder. He gave the impression,

even more than the first youth, of dynamic speed con-

cealed in long, smooth muscles.

"Good," said he, "I am hungry."

"When were you ever otherwise, KulI? jeered the

first speaker.

"When I am fighting," Kull answered seriously.

The other shot a quick glance at his friend so as

to fathom his inmost mind; he was not always sure of

his friend,

"And then you are blood-hungry," broke in the

older man. "Am-ra, have done with your bantering

and cut us food."

Night began to fall; the stars blinked out. Over

the shadowy hill country swept the dusk wind. Far

off, a tiger roared suddenly. Khor-nah made an in-

stinctive motion toward the flint-pointed spear which

lay beside him. Kull turned his head, and a strange

light flickered in his cold gray eyes.

"The striped brothers hunt tonight," said he.

"They worship the rising moon," Am-ra indicated

the east where a red radiance was becoming evident.

"Why?" asked Kull. "The moon discloses them to

their prey and their enemies."

''Once, many hundreds of years ago," said Khor-

nah, "a king tiger, pursued by hunters, called on the

woman in the moon, and she flung him down a vine

whereby he climbed to safety and abode for many

years in the moon. Since then, all the striped people

worship the moon."

"I don't believe it," said Kull bluntly. "Why

should the striped people worship the moon for aiding

one of their race who died so long ago? Many a tiger

has scrambled up Death Cliff and escaped the hunt-

ers, but they do not worship that cliff. How should

they know what took place so long ago?"

Khor-nah's brow clouded, "It little becomes you,

Kull, to jeer at your elders or to mock the legends of

your adopted people. This tale must be true, because

it has been handed down from generation unto gener-

ation longer than men remember. What always was,

must always be."

"I don't believe it," reiterated Kull. "These moun-

tains always were, but someday they will crumble and

vanish. Someday the sea will flow over these hills--"

"Enough of this blasphemy!" cried Khor-nah with

a passion that was almost anger. "Kull, we are close

friends, and I bear with you because of your youth;

but one thing you must learn: respect for tradition.

You mock at the customs and ways of our people; you

whom that people rescued from the wilderness and

gave a home and a tribe."

1 was a hairless ape roaming in the woods," ad-

mitted Kull frankly and without shame. "I could not

speak the language of men, and my only friends were

the tigers and the wolves. I know not whom my peo-

ple were, or what blood am I--"

That matters not," broke in Khor-nah. "For all

you have the aspect of one of that outlaw tribe who

lived in Tiger Valley, and who perished in the Great

Flood, it matters little. You have proven yourself a

valiant warrior and a mighty hunter--"

"Where will you find a youth to equal him in

throwing the spear or in wrestling?" broke in Am-ra,

his eyes alight

"Very true," said Khor-nah. "He is a credit to the

Sea-mountain tribe, but for all that, he must control

his tongue and learn to reverence the holy things of

the past and of the present."

"I mock not, said Kull without malice. "But

many things the priests say I know to be lies, for I

have run with the tigers and I know wild beasts better

than the priests. Animals are neither gods nor fiends,

but men in their way without the lust and greed of

the man--"

"More blasphemy!" cried Khor-nah angrily. "Man

is Valka's mightiest creation."

Am-ra broke in to change the subject. "I heard

the coast drums beating early in the morning. There is

war on the sea. Valusia fights the Lemurian pirates."

"Evil luck to both," grunted Khor-nah.

Kull's eyes flickered again. "Valusia! Land of En-

charrtment! Someday I will see the great City of Won-

der."

"Evil the day that you do," snarled Khor-nah. "You

will be loaded with chains, with the doom of torture

and death hanging over you. No man of our race sees

the Great City save as a slave."

"Evil luck attend her," muttered Am-ra.

"Black luck and a red doom!" exclaimed Khor-

nah, shaking his fist toward the east. "For each drop

of spilt Atlantean blood, for each slave toiling in their

cursed galleys, may a black blight rest on Valusia and

all the Seven Empires!"

Am-ra, fired, leaped lithely to his feet and re-

peated part of the curse; Kull cut himself another slice

of cooked meat.

"I have fought the Valusians," said he. "And they

were bravely arrayed but not hard to kill. Nor were

they evil featured."

"You fought the feeble guard of her northern

coast," grunted Khor-nah. "Or the crew of stranded

merchant ships. Wait until you have faced the charge

of the Black Squadrons, or the Great Army, as have I.

Hai! Then there is blood to drink! With Gandaro of

the Spear, I harried the Valusian coasts when I was

younger than you, Kull. Aye, we carried the torch and

the sword deep into the empire. Five hundred men we

were, of all the coast tribes of Atlantis. Four of us re-

turned! Outside the village of Hawks, which we

burned and sacked, the van of the Black Squadrons

smote us. Hai, there the spears drank and the swords

were eased of thirst! We slew and they slew, but when

the thunder of battle was stilled, four of us escaped

from the field, and all of us sore wounded."

"Ascalante tells me," pursued Kull, "that the walls

about the Crystal City are ten times the height of a

tall man; that the gleam of gold and silver would daz-

zle the eyes, and the women who throng the streets or

lean from their windows are robed in strange, smooth

robes that rustle and sheen."

"Ascalante should know," grimly said Khor-nah,

"since he was slave among them so long that he forgot

his good Atlantean name and must forsooth abide by

the Valusian name they gave him."

"He escaped," commented Am-ra.

"Aye, but for every slave that escapes the

clutches of the Seven Empires, seven are rotting in

dungeons and dying each day, for it was not meant

for an Atlantean to bide as a slave."

"We have been enemies to the Seven Empires

since the dawn of time," mused Am-ra.

"And will. be until the world crashes," said 'Khor-

nah with a savage satisfaction. "For Atlantis, thank

Valka, is the foe of all men,"

Am-ra rose, taking his spear, and prepared to

stand watch. The other two lay down on the sward

and dropped off to sleep. Of what. did Khor-nah

dream? Battle perhaps, or the thunder of buffalo, or a

girl of the caves. Kull--

Through the mists of his sleep echoed faintly arid

far away the golden melody of the trumpets. Clouds

of radiant glory floated over him; then a mighty vista

opened before his dream self. A great concourse of

people stretched away into the distance, and a thun-

derous roar in a strange language went up from them.

There was a minor note of steel clashing, and great

shadowy armies reined to the right and the left; the

mist faded, and a face stood out boldly, a face. above

which hovered a regal crown--a, hawk-like face, dis-

passionate, immobile, with eyes like the gray of the

cold sea. Now the people thundered again; "Hail the

king! Hail the king! Kull the king!"

Kull awoke with a start--the moon glimmered on

the distant mountains, the wind sighed through the

tall grass. Khor-nah slept beside him and Am-ra stood,

a naked bronze statue against the stars. Kull's eyes

wandered to his scanty garment: a leopard's hide

twisted about bis pantherish loins, A naked barbar-

ian--Kull's cold eyes glimmered. Kull the king! Again

he slept.

They arose in the morning and set out for the caves

of the tribe. The sun was not yet high when the broad

blue river met their gaze and the caverns of the tribe-

rose to view,

"Look!" Am-ra cried out sharply. "They burn

someone!"

A heavy stake stood before the caves; thereon

was a young girl bound. The people who stood about,

hard-eyed, showed no sign of pity.

"Sareeta," said Khor-nah, his face setting into un-

bending lines. "She married a Lemurian pirate, the

wanton."

"Aye," broke in a stony-eyed old woman. "My

own daughter; thus she brought shame on Atlantis.

My daughter no longer! Her mate died; she was

washed ashore when their ship was broken by the

craft of Atlantis."

Kull eyed the girl compassionately. He could not

understand--why did these people, her own kind and

blood, frown on her so, merely because she chose an

enemy of her race? In all the eyes that were centered

on her, Kull saw only one trace of sympathy. Am-ra's

strange blue eyes were sad and compassionate.

What Kull's own immobile face mirrored there is

no knowing. But the eyes of the doomed girl rested on

his. There was no fear in her eyes, but a deep and

vibrant appeal. Kull's gaze wandered to the fagots at

her feet. Soon the priest, who now chanted a curse

beside her, would stoop and light these with the torch

which he now held in his left hand. Kull saw that she

was bound to the stake with a heavy wooden chain, a

peculiar thing which was typically Atlantean in its

manufacture. He could not sever that chain, even if he

reached her through the throng that barred his way.

Her eyes implored him. He glanced at the fagots,

touched the long flint dagger at his girdle. She under-

stood, nodded, relief flooding her eyes.

Kull struck as suddenly and unexpectedly as a

cobra. He snatched the dagger from his girdle and

threw it. Fairly under the heart it struck, killing her

instantly. While the people stood spellbound, Kull

wheeled, bounded away, and ran up the sheer side of

the cliff for twenty feet, like a cat. The people stood,

struck dumb; then a man whipped up bow and arrow

and sighted along the smooth shaft. Kull was heaving

himself over the lip of the cliff; the bowman's eyes

narrowed--Am-ra, as if by accident, lurched headlong

into him, and the arrow sang wide and aside. Then

Kull was gone.

He heard the screaming on his track; his own

tribesmen, fired with the blood-lust, wild to run him

down and slay him for violating their strange and

bloody code of morals. But no man in Atlantis could

outrun Kull of the Sea-mountain tribe,

Kull eludes his infuriated tribesmen, only to fall

captive to the Lemurians, For the next two years he

tolls as a slave at the oars of a galley, before escaping.

He makes his way to Valusia, where he becomes an

outlaw in the hills, until captured and confined in her

dungeons. Fortune smiles upon him; he becomes, suc-

cessively, a gladiator in the arena, a soldier in the

army, and a commander. Then, with the backing of

the mercenaries and certain discontented Valusian no-

blemen, he strikes for the throne. Kull it is who slays

the despotic King Borna and rips the crown from his

gory head. The dream has become reality; Kull of At-

lantis sits enthroned in ancient Valusia.

The Shadow Kingdom

1. A King Comes Riding

The blare of the trumpets grew louder, like a

deep golden tide surge, like the soft booming of the

evening tides against the silver beaches of Valusia.

The throng shouted, women flung roses from the

roofs as the rhythmic chiming of silver hosts came

clearer and the first of the mighty array swung into

view in the broad white street that curved round the

golden-spired Tower of Splendor.

First came the trumpeters, slim youths, clad in

scarlet, riding with a flourish of long, slender golden

trumpets; next the bowmen, tall men from the moun-

tains; and behind these the heavily armed footmen,

their broad shields clashing in unison, their long

spears swaying in perfect rhythm to their stride. Be-

hind them came the mightiest soldiery in all the

world, the Red Slayers, horsemen, splendidly

mounted, armed in red from helmet to spur. Proudly

they sat their steeds, looking neither to right nor to

left, but aware of the shouting for all that. Like

bronze statues they were, and there was never a

waver in the forest of spears that reared above them.

Behind those proud and terrible ranks came the

motley files of the mercenaries, fierce, wild-looking

warriors, men of Mu and of Kaa-u and of the hills of

the east and the isles of the west. They bore spears

and heavy swords, and a compact group that marched

somewhat apart were the bowmen of Lemuria. Then

came the light foot of the nation, and more trumpeters

brought up the rear.

A brave sight, and a sight which aroused a fierce

thrill in the soul of Kull, king of Valasia. Not on the

Topaz Throne at the front of the regal Tower of

Splendor sat Kull, but in the saddle, mounted on a

great stallion, a true warrior king. His mighty arm

swung up in reply to the salutes as the hosts passed.

His fierce eyes passed the gorgeous trumpeters with a

casual glance, rested longer on the following soldiery;

they blazed with a ferocious light as the Red Slayers

halted in front of him with a clang of arms and a rear-

ing of steeds, and tendered him the crown salute.

They narrowed slightly as the mercenaries strode by.

They saluted no one, the mercenaries. They walked

with shoulders flung back, eyeing Kull boldly and

straightly, albeit with a certain appreciation; fierce

eyes, unblinking; savage eyes, staring from beneath

shaggy manes and heavy brows.

And Kull gave back a like stare. He granted

much to brave men, and there were no braver in all

the world, not even among the wild tribesmen who

now disowned him. But Kull was too much the savage

to have any great love for these. There were too many

feuds. Many were age-old enemies of Kull's nation,

and though the name of Kull was now a word ac-

cursed among the mountains and valleys of his people,

and though Kull had put them from his mind, yet the

old hates, the ancient passions still lingered. For Kull

was no Valusian but an Atlantean.

The armies swung out of sight around the gem-

blazing shoulders of the Tower of Splendor and Kull

reined his stallion about and started toward the palace

at an easy gait, discussing the review with the com-

manders that rode with him, using not many words,

but saying much.

"The army is like a sword," said Kull, "and must

not be allowed to rust." So down the street they rode,

and Kull gave no heed to any of the whispers that

reached his hearing from the throngs that still

swarmed the streets.

That is Kull, see! Valka! But what a king! And

what a man! Look at his arms! His shoulders!"

And an undertone of more sinister whispering:

"Kull! Ha, accursed usurper from the pagan isles"

"Aye, shame to Valusia that a barbarian sits on the

Throne of Kings." . . .

Little did Kull heed. Heavy-handed had he seized

the decaying throne of ancient Valusia and with a

heavier hand did he hold it, a man against a nation.

After the council chamber, the social palace

where Kull replied to the formal and laudatory

phrases of the lords and ladies, with carefully hidden

grim amusement at such frivolities; then the lord.'s

and ladies took their formal departure and Kull leaned

back upon the ermine throne and contemplated mat-

ters of state until an attendant requested permission

from the great king to speak, and announced an emis-

sary from the Pictish embassy. '

Kull brought his mind back from the dim mazes

of Valusian statecraft where it had been wandering,

and gazed upon the Pict with little favor. The man

gave back the gaze of the king without flinching. He

was a lean-hipped, massive-chested warrior of middle

height, dark, like all his race, and strongly built. From

strong, immobile features gazed dauntless and inscru-

table eyes.

"The chief of the Councilors, Ka-nu of the tribe

right hand of the king of Pictdom, sends greetings and

says: "There is a throne at the feast of the rising moon

for Kull, king of kings, lord of lords, emperor of Valu-

sia.'"

"Good," answered Kull. "Say to Ka-nu the An

cient, ambassador of the western isles, that the king of

Valusia will quaff wine with him when the moon

floats over the hills of Zalgara."

Still the Pict lingered. "I have a word for the

king, not"--with a contemptuous flirt of his hand--"for

these slaves."

Kull dismissed the attendants with a word,

watching the Pict warily.

The man stepped nearer, and lowered his voice:

"Come alone to feast tonight, lord king. Such was the

word of my chief."

The king's eyes narrowed, gleaming like gray

sword steel, coldly.

"Alone?"

"Aye."

They eyed each other silently, their mutual tribal

enmity seething beneath their cloak of formality.

Their mouths spoke the cultured speech, the conven-

tional court phrases of a highly polished race, a race

not their own, but from their eyes gleamed the primal

traditions of the elemental savage. Kull might be the

king of Valusia and the Pict might be an emissary to

her courts, but there in the throne hall of kings, two

tribesmen glowered at each other, fierce and wary,

while ghosts of wild wars and world-ancient feuds

whispered to each.

To the king was the advantage and he enjoyed it

to its fullest extent. Jaw resting on hand, he eyed the

Pict, who stood like an image of bronze, head flung

back, eyes unflinching.

Across Kull's lips stole a smile that was more a

sneer.

"And so I am to come--alone?" Civilization had

taught him to speak by innuendo and the Pict's dark

eyes glittered, though he made no reply. "How am I

to know that you come from Ka-nu?"

"I have spoken," was the sullen response.

"And when did a Pict speak truth?" sneered Kull,

fully aware that the Picts never lied, but using this

means to enrage the man.

"I see your plan, king," the Pict answered imper-

turbably. "You wish to anger me. By Valka, you need

go no further! I am angry enough. And I challenge

you to meet me in single battle, spear, sword or dag-

ger, mounted or afoot. Are you king or man?"

Kull's eyes glinted with the grudging admiration

a warrior must needs give a bold foeman, but he did

not fail to use the chance of further annoying his an-

tagonist.

"A king does not accept the challenge of a name-

less savage, he sneered, "nor does the emperor of Val-

usia break the Truce of Ambassadors. You have leave

to go. Say to Ka-nu I will come alone."

The Pict's eyes flashed murderously. He fairly

shook in the grasp of the primitive blood-lust; then,

turning his back squarely upon the king of Valusia, he

strode across the Hall of Society and vanished through

the great door.

Again Kull leaned back upon the ermine throne

and meditated.

So the chief of the Council of Picts wished him to

come alone? But for what reason? Treachery? Grimly

Kull touched the hilt of his great sword. But scarcely.

The Picts valued too greatly the alliance with Valusia

to break it for any feudal reason. Kull might be a war-

rior of Atlantis and hereditary enemy of all Picts, but

too, he was king of Valusia, the most potent ally of the

Men of the West.

Kull reflected long upon the strange state of af-

fairs that made him ally of ancient foes and foe of

ancient friends. He rose and paced restlessly across

the hall, with the quick, noiseless tread of a lion.,

Chains of friendship, tribe and tradition had he bro-

ken to satisfy his ambition. And, by Valka, god of the

sea and the land, he had realized that ambition! He

was king of Valusia--a fading, degenerate Valusia, a

Valusia living mostly in dreams of bygone glory, but

still a mighty land and the greatest of the Seven Em-

pires. Valusia--Land of Dreams, the tribesmen named

it, and sometimes it seemed to Kull that he moved in a

dream. Strange to him were the intrigues of court and

palace, army and people. All was like a masquerade,

where men and women hid their real thoughts with a

smooth mask. Yet the seizing of the throne had been

easy--a bold snatching of opportunity, the swift whirl

of swords, the slaying of a tyrant of whom men had

wearied unto death, short, crafty plotting with ambi-

tious statesmen out of favor at court--and Kull, wan-

dering adventurer, Atlantean exile, had swept up to

the dizzy heights of his dreams: he was lord of Valu-

sia, king of kings. Yet now it seemed that the seizing

was far easier than the keeping. The sight of the Pict

had brought back youthful associations to his mind,

the free, wild savagery of his boyhood. And now a

strange feeling of dim unrest, of unreality, stole over

him as of late it had been doing. Who was he, a

straightforward man of the seas and the mountain, to

rule a race strangely and terribly wise with the mysti-

cisms of antiquity? An ancient race--

"I am Kull!" said he, flinging back his head as a

lion flings back his mane. "I am Kull!"

His falcon gaze swept the ancient hall. His self-

confidence flowed back. . . . And in a dim nook of

the hall a tapestry moved--slightly.

2. Thus Spake the Silent Halls of Valusia

The moon had not risen, and the garden was

lighted with torches aglow in silver cressets when Kull

sat down on the throne before the table of Ka-nu, am-

bassador of the western isles. At his right hand sat the

ancient Pict, as much unlike an emissary of that fierce

race as a man could be. Ancient was Ka-nu and wise

in statecraft, grown old in the game. There was no

elemental hatred in the eyes that looked at Kull ap-

praisingly; no Tribal traditions hindered his judg-

ments. Long associations with the statesmen of the

civilized nations had swept away such cobwebs. Not:

who and what is this man? was the question ever fore-

most in Ka-nu's mind, but: can I use this man, and

how? Tribal prejudices he used only to further his

own schemes.

And Kull watched Ka-nu, answering his conversa-

tion briefly, wondering if civilization would make of

him a thing like the Pict. For Ka-nu was soft and

paunchy. Many years had stridden across the sky-rim

since Ka-nu had wielded a sword. True, he was old,

but Kull had seen men older than he in the forefront

of battle. The Picts were a long-lived race. A beautiful

girl stood at Ka-nu's elbow, refilling his goblet, and

she was kept busy. Meanwhile Ka-nu kept up a run-

ning fire of jests and comments, and Kull, secretly

contemptuous of his garrulity, nevertheless missed

none of his shrewd humor.

At the banquet were Pictish chiefs and statesmen,

the latter jovial and easy in their manner, the warriors

formally courteous, but plainly hampered by their

tribal affinities. Yet Kull, with a tinge of envy, was

cognizant of the freedom and ease of the affair as

contrasted with like affairs of the Valusian court.

Such freedom prevailed in the rude camps of Atlan-

tis--Kull shrugged his shoulders. After all, doubtless

Ka-nu, who had seemed to have forgotten he was a

Pict as far as time-hoary custom and prejudice went,

was right and he, Kull, would better become a Valu-

sian in mind as in name.

At last when the moon had reached her zenith,

Ka-nu, having eaten and drunk as much as any three

men there, leaned back upon his divan with a com-

fortable sigh and said, "Now, get you gone, friends,

for the king and I would converse on such matters as

concern not children. Yes, you too, my pretty; yet first

let me kiss those ruby lips--so; no, dance away, my

rose-bloom."

Ka-nu's eyes twinkled above his white beard as

he surveyed Kull, who sat erect, grim and uncompro-

mising.

"You are thinking, Kull," said the old statesman,

suddenly, "that Ka-nu is a useless old reprobate, fit

for nothing except to guzzle wine and kiss wenches!"

In fact, this remark was so much in line with his

actual thoughts, and so plainly put, that Kull was

rather startled, though he gave no sign.

Ka-nu gurgled and his paunch shook with his

mirth. "Wine is red and women are soft," he remarked

tolerantly. "But--ha! ha!--think not old Ka-nu allows

either to interfere with business."

Again he laughed, and Kull moved restlessly.

This seemed much like being made sport of, and the

king's scintllant eyes began to glow with a feline

light.

Ka-nu reached for the wine-pitcher, filled his

beaker and glanced questoningly at Kull, who shook

his head irritably.

"Aye," said Ka-nu equably, "it takes an old head

to stand strong drink. I am growing old, Kull, so why

should you young men begrudge me such pleasures as

we oldsters must find? Ah me, I grow ancient and

withered, friendless and cheerless."

But his looks and expressions failed far of bear-

ing out his words. His rubicund countenance fairly

glowed, and his eyes sparkled, so that his white

beard seemed incongruous. Indeed, he looked remark-

ably elfin, reflected Kull, who felt vaguely resentful.

The old scoundrel had lost all of the primitive virtues

of his race and of Kull's race, yet he seemed more

pleased in his aged days than otherwise.

"Hark ye, Kull," said Ka-nu, raising an admoni-

tory finger, " 'tis a chancy thing to laud a young man,

yet I must speak my true thoughts to gain your confi-

dence."

"If you think to gain it by flattery--"

"Tush. Who spake of flattery? I flatter only to

disguard."

There was a keen sparkle in Ka-nu's eyes, a cold

glimmer that did not match his lazy smile. He knew

men, and he knew that to gain his end he must smite

straight with this tigerish barbarian, who, like a wolf

scenting a snare, would scent out unerringly any false-

ness in the skein of his wordweb.

"You have power, Kull," said he, choosing his

words with more care than he did in the council

rooms of the nation, "to make yourself mightiest of all

kings, and restore some of the lost glories of Valusia.

So. I care little for Valusia--though the women and

wlne be excellent-save for the fact that the stronger

Valusia is, the stronger is the Pict nation. More, with

an Atlantean on the throne, eventually Atlantis will

become united--"

Kull laughed in harsh mockery. Ka-nu had

touched an old wound.

"Atlantis made my name accursed when I went to

seek fame and fortune among the cities of the world.

We--they--are age-old foes of the Seven Empires,

greater foes of the allies of the Empires, as you should

know."

Ka-nu tugged his beard and smiled enigmatically.

"Nay, nay. Let it pass. But I know whereof I

speak. And then warfare will cease, wherein there is

no gain; I see a world of peace and prosperity--man

loving his fellow man--the good supreme. All this can

you accomplish-- if you live!"

"Ha!" Kull's lean hand closed on his hilt and he

half rose, with a sudden movement of such dynamic

speed that Ka-nu, who fancied men as some men

fancy blooded horses, felt his old blood leap with a

sudden thrill. Valka, what a warrior! Nerves and sin-

ews of steel and fire, bound together with the per-

fect co-ordination, the fighting instinct, that makes

the terrible warrior.

But none of Ka-nu's enthusiasm showed in his

mildly sarcastic tone.

Tush. Be seated. Look about you. The gardens

are deserted, the seats empty, save for ourselves. You

fear not me?"

Kull sank back, gazing about him warily.

"There speaks the savage," mused Ka-nu. "Think

you if I planned treachery I would enact it here where

suspicion would be sure to fall upon me? Tut. You

young tribesmen have much to learn. There were my

chiefs who were not at ease because you were born

among the hills of Atlantis, and you despise me in

your secret mind because I am a Pict. Tush. I see you

as Kull, king of Valusia, not as Kull, the reckless At-

lantean, leader of the raiders who harried the western

isles. So you should see in me, not a Pict but an inter-

national man, a figure of the world. Now to that fig-

ure, hark! If you were slain tomorrow who would be

king?"

"Kaanuub, baron of Blaal."

"Even so. I object to Kaanuub for many reasons,

yet most of all for the fact that he is but a figure-

head."

"How so? He was my greatest opponent, but I

did not know that he championed any cause but his

own."

"The night can hear," answered Ka-nu obliquely.

"There are worlds within worlds. But you may trust

me and you may trust Brule, the Spear-slayer. Look!"

He drew from his robes a bracelet of gold represent-

ing a winged dragon coiled thrice, with three horns of

ruby on the head.

"Examine it closely. Brule will wear it on his arm

when he comes to you tomorrow night so that you

may know him. Trust Brule as you trust yourself, and

do what he tells you to. And in proof of trust, look

ye!"

And with the speed of a striking hawk, the an-

cient snatched something from his robes, something

that flung a weird green light over them, and which

he replaced in an instant.

The stolen gem!" exclaimed Kull recoiling. "The

green jewel from the Temple of the Serpent! Valka!

You! And why do you show it to me?"

To save your life. To prove my trust. If I betray

your trust, deal with me likewise. You hold my life in

your hand. Now I could not be false to you if I would,

for a word from you would be my doom."

Yet for all his words the old scoundrel beamed

merrily and seemed vastly pleased with himself.

"But why do you give me this hold over you?"

asked Kull, becoming more bewildered each second.

As I told you. Now, you see that I do not intend

to deal you false, and tomorrow night when Brule

comes to you, you will follow his advice without fear

of treachery. Enough. An escort waits outside to ride

to the palace with you, lord."

Kull rose. "But you have told me nothing."

Tush. How impatient are youths!" Ka-nu looked

more like a mischievous elf than ever. "Go you and

dream of thrones and power and kingdoms, while I

dream of wine and soft women and roses. And fortune

ride with you, King Kull."

As he left the garden, Kull glanced back to see

Ka-nu still reclining lazily in his seat, a merry ancient,

beaming on all the world with jovial fellowship.

A mounted warrior waited for the king Just with-

out the garden and Kull was slightly surprised to see

that it was the same that had brought Ka-nu's invita-

tion. No word was spoken as Kull swung into the sad-

dle nor as they clattered along the empty streets.

The color and the gayety of the day had given

way to the eerie stillness of night. The city's antiquity

was more than ever apparent beneath the bent, silver

moon. The huge pillars of the mansions and palaces

towered up into the stars. The broad stairways, silent

and deserted, seemed to climb endlessly until they

vanished in the shadowy darkness of the upper

realms. Stairs to the stars, thought Kull, his imagina-

tive mind inspired by the weird grandeur of the scene.

Clang! clang! clang! sounded the silver hoofs on

the broad, moon-flooded streets, but otherwise there

was no sound. The age of the city, its incredible antiq-

uity, was almost oppressive to the king; it was as if

the great silent buildings laughed at him, noiselessly,

with unguessable mockery. And what secrets did they

hold?

"You are young," said the palaces and the temples

and the shrines, "but we are old. The world was wild

with youth when we were reared. You and your tribe

shall pass, but we are invincible, indestructible. We

towered above a strange world, ere Atlantis and Le-

muria rose from the sea; we still shall reign when the

green waters sigh for many a restless fathom above

the spires of Lemuria and the hills of Atlantis and

when the isles of the Western Men are the mountains

of a strange land.

"How many kings have we watched ride down

these streets before Kull of Atlantis was even a dream

in the mind of Ka, bird of Creation? Ride on, Kull of

Atlantis; greater shall follow you; greater came before

you. They are dust; they are forgotten; we stand; we

know; we are. Ride, ride on, Kull of Atlantis; Kull the

king, Kull the fool!"

And it seemed to Kull that the clashing hoofs

took up the silent refrain to beat it into the night with

hollow re-echoing mockery;

"Kull-the-king! Kull-the-fool!"

Glow, moon; you light a king's way! Gleam, stars;

you are torches in the train of an emperor! And clang,

silver-shod hoofs; you herald that Kull rides through

Valusia.

Ho! Awake, Valusia! It is Kull that rides, Kull the

king!

"We have known many kings," said the silent halls

of Valusia.

And so in a brooding mood Kull came to the pal-

ace, where his bodyguard, men of the Red Slayers,

came to take the rein of the great stallion and escort

Kull to his rest. There the Pict, still sullenly speech-

less, wheeled his steed with a savage wrench of the

rein and fled away in the dark like a phantom; Kull's

heightened imagination pictured him speeding

through the silent streets like a goblin out of the Elder

World.

There was no sleep for Kull that night, for it was

nearly dawn and he spent the rest of the night hours

pacing the throne-room, and pondering over what had

passed. Ka-nu had told him nothing, yet he had put

himself in Kull's complete power. At what had he

hinted when he had said the baron of Blaal was

naught but a figurehead? And who was this Brule

who was to come to him by night, wearing the mystic

armlet of the dragon? And why? Above all, why had

Ka-nu shown him the green gem of terror, stolen long

ago from the temple of the Serpent, for which the

world would rock in wars were it known to the weird

and terrible keepers of that temple, and from whose

vengeance not even Ka-nu's ferocious tribesmen might

be able to save him? But Ka-nu knew he was safe,

reflected Kull, for the statesman was too shrewd to

expose himself to risk without profit. But was it to

throw the king off his guard and pave the way to

treachery? Would Ka-nu dare let him live now? Kull

shrugged his shoulders.

3. They That Wolk the Night

The moon had not risen when Kull, hand to hilt,

stepped to a window. The windows opened upon the

great inner gardens of the royal palace, and the

breezes of the night, bearing the scents of spice trees,

blew the filmy curtains about. The king looked out.

The walks and groves were deserted; carefully

trimmed trees were bulky shadows; fountains near by

flung their slender sheen of silver in the starlight and

distant fountains rippled steadily. No guards walked

those gardens, for so closely were the outer walls

guarded that it seemed impossible for any invader to

gain access to them.

Vines curled up the walls of the palace, and even

as Kull mused upon the ease with which they might

be climbed, a segment of shadow detached itself from

the darkness below the window and a bare, brown

arm curved up over the sill. Kull's great sword hissed

halfway from the sheath; then the King halted. Upon

the muscular forearm gleamed the dragon armlet

shown him by Ka-nu the night before.

The possessor of the arm pulled himself up over

the sill and into the room with the swift, easy motion

of a climbing leopard.

"You are Brule?" asked Kull, and then stopped in

surprise not unmingled with annoyance and suspicion;

for the man was he whom Kull had taunted in the Hall

of Society; the same who had escorted him from the

Pictish embassy.

"I am Brule, the Spear-slayer," answered the Pict

in a guarded voice; then swiftly, gazing closely in

Kull's face, he said, barely above a whisper:

"Ka nama kaa lajerama!"

Kull started. "Ha! What mean you?"

"Know you not?"

"Nay, the words are unfamiliar; they are of no

language I ever heard--and yet, by Valka!~some-

where--I have heard--"

"Aye," was the Pict's only comment. His eyes

swept the room, the study room of the palace. Except

for a few tables, a divan or two and great shelves of

books of parchment, the room was barren compared

to the grandeur of the rest of the palace.

"Tell me, king, who guards the door?"

"Eighteen of the Red Slayers. But how come you,

stealing through the gardens by night and scaling the

walls of the palace?"

Brule sneered. The guards of Valusia are blind

buffaloes. I could steal their girls from under their

noses. I stole amid them and they saw me not nor

heard me. And the walls--I could scale them without

the aid of vines. I have hunted tigers on the foggy

beaches when the sharp east breezes blew the mist in

from seaward and I have climbed the steeps of the

western sea mountain. But come--nay, touch this arm-

let."

He held out his arm and, as Kull complied won-

deringly, gave an apparent sigh of relief.

"So. Now throw off those kingly robes; for there

are ahead of you this night such deeds as no Atlantean

ever dreamed of."

Brule himself was clad only in a scanty loin-cloth

through which was thrust a short, curved sword.

"And who are you to give me orders?" asked Kull,

slightly resentful.

"Did not Ka-nu bid you follow me in all things?"

asked the Pict irritably, his eyes flashing momentarily.

I have no love for you, lord, but for the moment I

have put the thought of feuds from my mind. Do you

likewise. But come."

Walking noiselessly, he led the way across the

room to the door. A slide in the door allowed a view

of the outer corridor, unseen from without, and the

Pict bade Kull look

"What see you?"

"Naught but the eighteen guardsmen."

The Pict nodded, motioned Kull to follow him

across the room. At a panel in the opposite wall Brule

stopped and fumbled there a moment. Then with a

light movement he stepped back, drawing his sword

as he did so. Kull gave an exclamation as the panel

swung silently open, revealing a dimly lighted pas-

sageway.

"A secret passage!" swore Kull softly. "And I

knew nothing or it! By Valka, someone shall dance for

this!"

"Silence!" hissed the Pict.

Brule was standing like a bronze statue as if

straining every nerve for the slightest sound; some-

thing about his attitude made Kull's hair prickle

slightly, not from fear but from some eery anticipa-

tion. Then beckoning, Brule stepped through the se-

cret doorway which stood open behind them. The

passage was bare, but not dust-covered as should

have been the case with an unused secret corridor. A

vague, gray light filtered through somewhere, but the

source of it was not apparent. Every few feet Kull saw

doors, invisible, as he knew, from the outside, but eas-

ily apparent from within.

"The palace is a very honeycomb," he muttered.

"Aye. Night and day you are watched, king, by

many eves."

The king was impressed by Brule's manner. The

Pict went forward slowly, warily, half crouching,

blade held low and thrust forward. When he spoke it

was in a whisper and he continually flung glances

from side to side.

The corridor turned sharply and Brule warily

gazed past the turn.

"Look!" he whispered. "But remember! No word!

No sound--on your life!"

Kull cautiously gazed past him. The corridor

changed just at the bend to a flight of steps. And then

Kull recoiled. At the foot of those stairs lay the eigh-

teen Red Slayers who were that night stationed to

watch the long's study room. Brule's grip upon his

mighty arm and Brule's fierce whisper at his shoulder

alone kept Kull from leaping down those stairs.

"Silent, Kull! Silent, in Valka's name!" hissed the

Pict. "These corridors are empty now, but I risked

much in showing you, that you might then believe

what I had to say. Back now to the room of study."

And he retraced his steps, Kull following; his mind in

a turmoil of bewilderment,

'This is treachery," muttered the long, his steel-

gray eyes a-smolder, "foul and swift! Mere minutes

have passed since those men stood at guard."

Again in the room of study Brule carefully closed

the secret panel and motioned Kull to look again

through the slit of the outer door. Kull gasped audi-

bly. For without stood the eighteen guardsmen!

"This is sorcery!" he whispered, half-drawing his

sword. "Do dead men guard the long?"

"Aye!" came Brule's scarcely audible reply; there

was a strange expression in the Pick's scuitillant eyes.

They looked squarely into each other's eyes for an in-

stant, Kull's brow wrinkled in a puzzled scowl as he

strove to read the Pict's inscrutable face. Then Brule's

lips, barely moving, formed the words;

"The-snake--that-speaks!".

"Silent!" whispered Kull, laying his hand over

Brule's mouth. "That is death to speak! That is a name

accursed!"

The Pict's fearless eyes regarded him steadily.

"Look, again. King Kull. Perchance the guard was

changed."

Nay, those are the same men. In Valka's name,

this is sorcery--this is insanity! I saw with my own

eyes the bodies of those men, not eight minutes agone.

Yet there they stand."

Brule stepped back, away from the door, Kull

mechanically following.

"Kull, what know ye of the traditions of this race

ye rule?"

"Much--and yet, little. Valusia is so old--"

"Aye," Brule's eyes lighted strangely, "we are but

barbarians--infants compared to the Seven Empires.

Not even they themselves know how old they are.

Neither the memory of man nor the annals of the his-

torians reach back far enough to tell us when the first

men came up from the sea and built cities on the

shore. But Kull, men were not always ruled by men!"

The king started. Their eyes met.

"Aye, there is a legend of my people--"

"And mine!" broke in Brule. "That was before we

of the isles were allied with Valusia. Aye, in the reign

of Lion-fang, seventh war chief of the Picts, so many

years ago no man remembers how many. Across the

sea we came, from the isles of the sunset, skirting the

shores of Atlantis, and falling upon the beaches of

Valusia with fire and sword. Aye, the long white

beaches resounded with the clash of spears, and the

night was like day from the flame of the burning cas-

tles. And the king, the king of Valusia, who died on

the red sea sands that dim day--" His voice trailed

off; the two stared at each other, neither speaking;

then each nodded.

"Ancient is Valusia!" whispered Kull. "The hills of

Atlantis and Mu were isles of the sea when Valusia

was young."

The night breeze whispered through the open

window. Not the free, crisp sea air such as Brule and

Kull knew and reveled in, in their land, but a breath

like a whisper from the past, laden with musk, scents

of forgotten things, breathing secrets that were hoary

when the world was young.

The tapestries rustled, and suddenly Kull felt like

a naked child before the inscrutable wisdom of the

mystic past. Again the sense of unreality swept upon

him. At the back of his soul stole dim, gigantic phan-

toms, whispering monstrous things. He sensed that

Brule experienced similar thoughts. The Pict's eyes

were fixed upon his face with a fierce intensity. Their

glances met. Kull felt warmly a sense of comradeship

with this member of an enemy tribe. Like rival leop-

ards turning at bay against hunters, these two savages

made common cause against the inhuman powers of

antiquity.

Brule again led the way back to the secret door.

Silently they entered and silently they proceeded

down the dim corridor, taking the opposite direction

from that in which they previously traversed it. After

a while the Pict stopped and pressed close to one of

the secret doors, bidding Kull look with him through

the hidden slot.

"This opens upon a little-used stair which leads to

a corridor running past the study-room door."

They gazed, and presently, mounting the stair si-

lently, came a silent shape.

"Tu! Chief councilor!" exclaimed Kull. "By night

and with bared dagger! How, what means this,

Brule?"

"Murder! And foulest treachery!" hissed Brule.

"Nay"--as Kull would have flung the door aside and

leaped forth--"we are lost if you meet him here, for

more lurk at the foot of those stairs. Come!" .

Half running, they darted back along the passage.

Back through the secret door Brule led, shutting it

carefully behind them, then across the chamber to an

opening into a room seldom used. There he swept

aside some tapestries in a dim corner nook and, draw-

ing Kull with him, stepped behind them. Minutes

dragged. Kull could hear the breeze in the other room

blowing the window curtains about, and it seemed to

him like the murmur of ghosts. Then through the door,

stealthily, came Tu, chief councilor of the king. Evi-

dently he had come through the study room and, find-

ing it empty, sought his victim where he was most

likely to be.

He came with upraised dagger, walking silently.

A moment he halted, gazing about the apparently

empty room, which was lighted dimly by a single can-

dle. Then he advanced cautiously, apparently at a loss

to understand the absence of the king. He stood be-

fore the hiding place-and-

"Slay!" hissed the Pict.

Kull with a single mighty leap hurled himself into

the room. Tu spun, but the blinding, tigerish speed of

the attack gave him no chance for defense or counter-

attack. Sword steel flashed in the dim light and grated

on bone as Tu toppled backward, Kull's sword stand-

ing out between his shoulders.

Kull leaned above him, teeth bared in the killer's

snarl, heavy brows ascowl above eyes that were like

the gray ice of the cold sea. Then he released the hilt

and recoiled, shaken, dizzy, the hand of death at his

spine.

For as he watched, Tu's face became strangely

dim and unreal; the features mingled and merged in a

seemingly impossible manner. Then, like a fading

mask of fog, the face suddenly vanished and in its

stead gaped and leered a monstrous serpent's head!

"Valka!" gasped Kull, sweat beading his forehead,

and again; "Valka!"

Brule leaned forward, face immobile. Yet his glit-

tering eyes mirrored something of Kull's horror.

Regain your sword, lord king," said he. "There

are yet deeds to be done."

Hesitantly Kull set his hand to the hilt. His flesh

crawled as he set his foot upon the terror which lay at

their feet, and as some jerk of muscular reaction

caused the frightful mouth to gape suddenly, he re-

coiled, weak with nausea. Then, wrathful at himself,

he plucked forth his sword and gazed more closely at

the nameless thing that had been known as Tu, chief

councilor. Save for the reptilian head, the thing was

the exact counterpart of a man.

"A man with the head of a snake!" Kull mur-

mured. "This, then, is a priest of the serpent god?"

"Aye. Tu sleeps unknowing. These fiends can

take any form they will. That is, they can, by a magic

charm or the like, fling a web of sorcery about their

faces, as an actor dons a mask, so that they resemble

anyone they wish to."

"Then the old legends were true," mused the

king; "the grim old tales few dare even whisper, lest

they die as blasphemers, are no fantasies. By Valka, I

had thought--1 had guessed--but it seems beyond the

bounds of reality. Ha! The guardsmen outside the

door--"

"They too are snake-men. Hold! What would you

do?"

"Slay them!" said Kull between his teeth.

"Strike at the skull if at all," said Brule. "Eighteen

wait without the door and perhaps a score more in the

corridors. Hark ye, king, Ka-nu learned of this plot.

His spies have pierced the inmost fastnesses of the

snake priests and they brought hints of a plot. Long

ago he discovered the secret passageways of the pal-

ace, and at his command I studied the map thereof

and came here by night to aid you, lest you die as

other kings of Valusia have died. I came alone for the

reason that to send more would have roused suspicion.

Many could not steal into the palace as I did. Some of

the foul conspiracy you have seen. Snake-men guard

your door, and that one, as Tu, could pass anywhere

else in the palace; in the morning, if the priests failed,

the real guards would be holding their places again,

nothing knowing, nothing remembering; there to take

the blame if the priests succeeded. But stay you here

while I dispose of this carrion."

So saying, the Pict shouldered the frightful thing

stolidly and vanished with it through another secret

panel. Kull stood alone, his mind a-whirl. Neophytes

of the mighty serpent, how many lurked among his

cities? How might he tell the false from the true? Aye,

how many of his trusted councilors, his generals, were

men? He could be certain--of whom?

The secret panel swung inward and Brule en-

tered.

"You were swift."

"Aye!" The warrior stepped forward, eyeing the

floor. "There is gore upon the rug. See?"

Kull bent forward; from the corner of his eye he

saw a blur of movement, a glint of steel. Like a loos-

ened bow he whipped erect, thrusting upward. The

warrior sagged upon the sword, his own clattering to

the floor. Even at that instant Kull reflected grimly

that it was appropriate that the traitor should meet his

death upon the sliding, upward thrust used so much

by his race. Then, as Brule slid from the sword to

sprawl motionless on the floor, the face began to

merge and fade, and as Kull caught his breath, his

hair a-prickle, the human features vanished and there

the jaws of a great snake gaped hideously, the terrible

beady eyes venomous even in death.

He was a snake priest all the time!" gasped the

king. "Valka! What an elaborate plan to throw me off

my guard! Ka-nu there, is he a man? Was it Ka-nu to

whom I talked in the gardens? Almighty Valka!" as his

flesh crawled with a horrid thought; are the people

of Valusia men or are they all serpents?"

Undecided he stood, idly seeing that the thing

named Brule no longer wore the dragon armlet. A

sound made him wheel.

Brute was coming through the secret door.

"Hold!" Upon the arm upthrown to halt the king's

hovering sword gleamed the dragon armlet. "Valka!"

The Pict stopped short. Then a grim smile curled his

lips.

"By the gods of the seas! These demons are crafty

past reckoning. For it must be that one lurked in the

corridors, and seeing me go carrying the carcass of

that other, took my appearance. So. I have another to

do away with."

"Hold!" there was the menace of death in Kull's

voice; "I have seen two men turn to serpents before

my eyes. How may I know if you are a true man?"

Brule laughed. "For two reasons. King Kull. No

snake-man wears this"--he indicated the dragon arm-

let--"nor can any say these words," and again Kull

heard the strange phrase; "Ka nama kaa lajerama."

"Ka nama kaa lajerama" Kull repeated mechani-

cally. "Now, where, in Valka's name, have I heard

that? I have not! And yet-and yet--"

"Aye, you remember, Kull," said Brule. Through

the dim corridors of memory those words lurk; though

you never heard them in this life, yet in the bygone

ages they were so terribly impressed upon the soul

mind that never dies, that they will always strike dim

chords in your memory, though you be reincarnated

for a million years to come. For that phrase has come

secretly down the grim and bloody eons, since when,

uncounted centuries ago, those words were watch-

words for the race of men who battled with the grisly

beings of the Elder Universe. For none but a real man

of men may speak them, whose jaws and mouth are

shaped different from any other creature. Their mean-

ing has been forgotten but not the words themselves."

"True," said Kull. "I remember the legends--

Valka!" He stopped short, staring, for suddenly, like

the silent swinging wide of a mystic door, misty, un-

fathomed reaches opened in the recesses of his con-

sciousness and for an instant he seemed to gaze back

through the vastness that spanned life and life;

seeing through the vague and ghostly fogs dim shapes

reliving dead centuries--men in combat with hideous

monsters, vanquishing a planet of frightful terrors.

Against a gray, ever-shifting background moved

strange nightmare forms, fantasies of lunacy and fear;

and man, the jest of the gods, the blind, wisdom-less

striver from dust to dust, following the long bloody

trail of his destiny, knowing not why, bestial, blunder-

ing, like a great murderous child, yet feeling some-

where a spark of divine fire. . . . Kull drew a hand

across his brow, shaken; these sudden glimpses into

the abysses of memory always startled him.

"They are gone," said Brule, as if scanning his se-

cret mind; "the bird-women, the harpies, the bat-men,

the flying fiends, the wolf-people, the demons, the

goblins--all save such as this being that lies at our

feet, and a few of the wolf-men. Long and terrible

was the war, lasting through the bloody centuries,

since first the first men, risen from the mire of ape-

dom, turned upon those who then ruled the world.

And at last mankind conquered, so long ago that

naught but dim legends come to us through the ages.

The snake-people were the last to go, yet at last men

conquered even them and drove them forth into the

waste lands of the world, there to mate with true

snakes until some day, say the sages, the horrid breed

shall vanish utterly. Yet the Things returned in crafty

guise as men grew soft and degenerate, forgetting an-

cient wars. Ah, that was a grim and secret war!

Among the men of the Younger Earth stole the fright-

ful monsters of the Elder Planet, safeguarded by their

horrid wisdom and mysticisms, taking all forms and

shapes, doing deeds of horror secretly. No man knew

who was true man and who false. No man could trust

any man. Yet by means of their own craft they formed

ways by which the false might be known from the

true. Men took for a sign and a standard the figure of

the flying dragon, the winged dinosaur, a monster of

past ages, which was the greatest foe of the serpent.

And men used those words which I spoke to you as a

sign and symbol, for as I said, none but a true man

can repeat them. So mankind triumphed. Yet again

the fiends came after the years of forgetfulness had

gone by--for man is still an ape in that he forgets

what is not ever before his eyes. As priests they came;

and for that men in their luxury and might had by

then lost faith in the old religions and worships, the

snake-men, in the guise of teachers of a new and truer

cult, built a monstrous religion about the worship of

the serpent god. Such is their power that it is now death

to repeat the old legends of the snake-people, and peo-

ple bow again to the serpent god in new form; and

blind fools that they are, the great hosts of men see no

connection between this power and the power men

overthrew eons ago. As priests the snake-men are con-

tent to rule--and yet--" He stopped.

"Go on." Kull felt an unaccountable stirring of the

short hair at the base of his scalp.

"Kings have reigned as true men in Valusia," the

Pict whispered, "and yet, slain in battle, have died ser-

pents--as died he who fell beneath the spear of Lion-

fang on the red beaches when we of the isles harried

the Seven Empires. And how can this be. Lord Kull?

These kings were born of women and lived as men!

This--the true kings died in secret--as you would have

died tonight--and priests of the Serpent reigned in

their stead, no man knowing."

Kull cursed between his teeth. "Aye, it must be.

No one has ever seen a priest of the Serpent and lived,

that is known. They live in utmost secrecy."

The statecraft of the Seven Empires is a mazy,

monstrous thing," said Brule. "There the true men

know that among them glide the spies of the Serpent,

and the men who are the Serpent's allies--such as

Kaanuub, baron of Blaal--yet no man dares seek to

unmask a suspect lest vengeance befall him. No man

trusts his fellow and the true statesmen dare not speak

to each other what is in the minds of all. Could they

be sure, could a snake-man or plot be unmasked before

them all, then would the power of the Serpent be

more than half broken; for all would then ally and

make common cause, sifting out the traitors. Ka-nu

alone is of sufficient shrewdness and courage to cope

with them, and even Ka-nu learned only enough of

their plot to tell me what would happen--what has hap-

pened up to this time. Thus far I was prepared; from

now on we must trust to our luck and our craft. Here

and now I think we are safe; those snake-men without

the door dare not leave their post lest true men come

here unexpectedly. But tomorrow they will try some-

thing else, you may be sure. Just what they will do,

none can say, not even Ka-nu; but we must stay at

each other's sides. King Kull, until we conquer or both

be dead. Now come with me while I take this carcass

to the hiding-place where I took the other being."

Kull followed the Pict with his grisly burden

through the secret panel and down the dim corridor.

Their feet, trained to the silence of the wilderness,

made no noise. Like phantoms they glided through

the ghostly light, Kull wondering that the corridors

should be deserted; at every turn he expected to run

full upon some frightful apparition. Suspicion surged

back upon him; was this Pict leading him into am-

bush? He fell back a pace or two behind Brule, his

ready sword hovering at the Pict's unheeding back.

Brule should die first if he meant treachery. But if the

Pict was aware of the king's suspicion, he showed no

sign. Stolidly he tramped along, until they came to a

room, dusty and long unused, where moldy tapestries

hung heavy. Brule drew aside some of these and con-

cealed the corpse behind them.

Then they turned to retrace their steps, when

suddenly Brule halted with such abruptness that he

was closer to death than he knew; for Kull's nerves

were on edge.

"Something moving in the corridor," hissed the

Pict. "Ka-nu said these ways would be empty, yet--"

He drew his sword and stole into the corridor,

Kull following warily.

A short way down the corridor a strange, vague

glow appeared that came toward them. Nerves a-leap,

they waited, backs to the corridor wall; for what they

knew not, but Kull heard Brule's breath hiss through

his teeth and was reassured as to Brule's loyalty.

The glow merged into a shadowy form. A shape

vaguely like a man it was, but misty and illusive, like

a wisp of fog, that grew more tangible as it ap-

proached, but never fully material A face looked at

them, a pair of luminous great eyes, that seemed to

hold all me tortures of a million centuries. There was

no menace in that face, with its dim, worn features,

but only a great pity--and that face--that face--

"Almighty gods!" breathed Kull, an icy hand at

his soul; "Eallal, king of Valusia, who died a thousand

years ago!"

Brule shrank back as far as he could, his narrow

eyes widened in a blaze of pure horror, the sword

shaking in his grip, unnerved for the first time that

weird night. Erect and defiant stood Kull, instinc-

tively holdng his useless sword at the ready; flesh a-

crawl, hair a-prickle, yet still a king of kings, as ready

to challenge the powers of the unknown dead as the

powers of the living.

The phantom came straight on, giving them no

heed; Kull shrank back as it passed them, feeling an

icy breath like a breeze from the arctic snow. Straight

on went the shape with slow, silent footsteps, as if the

chains of all the ages were upon those vague feet;

vanishing about a bend of the corridor.

"Valka!" muttered the Pict, wiping the cold beads

from his brow; "that was no man! That was a ghost!"

"Aye!" Kull shook his head wonderingly. "Did

you not recognize the face? That was Eallal, who

reigned in Valusia a thousand years ago and who was

found hideously murdered in his throne-room--the

room now known as the Accursed Room. Have you

not seen his statue in the Fame Room of Kings?"

"Yes, I remember the tale now. Gods, Kull! that is

another sign of the frightful and foul power of the

snake priests--that king was slain by snake-people and

thus his soul became their slave, to do their bidding

throughout eternity! For the sages have ever main-

tained that if a man is slain by a snake-man his ghost

becomes their slave."

A shudder shook Kull's gigantic frame. "Valka!

But what a fate! Hark ye"--his fingers closed upon

Brule's sinewy arm like steel--"hark ye! If I am

wounded unto death by these foul monsters, swear

that ye will smite your sword through my breast lest

my soul be enslaved."

"I swear," answered Brule, his fierce eyes light-

ing. "And do ye the same by me, Kull."

Their strong right hands met in a silent sealing of

their bloody bargain.

4. Masks

Kull sat upon his throne and gazed broodily out

upon the sea of faces turned toward him. A courtier

was speaking in evenly modulated tones, but the king

scarcely heard him. Close by, Tu, chief councilor,

stood ready at Kull's command, and each time the

king looked at him, Kull shuddered inwardly. The sur-

face of court life was as the unrippled surface of the

sea between tide and tide. To the musing king the af-

fairs of the night before seemed as a dream, until his

eyes dropped to the arm of his throne. A brown, sin-

ewy hand rested there, upon the wrist of which

gleamed a dragon armlet; Brule stood beside his

throne and ever the Pict's fierce secret whisper

brought him back from the realm of unreality in

which he moved.

No, that was no dream, that monstrous interlude.

As he sat upon his throne in the Hall of Society and

gazed upon the courtiers, the ladies, the lords, the

statesmen, he seemed to see their faces as things of

illusion, things unreal, existent only as shadows and

mockeries of substance. Always he had seen their

faces as masks, but before he had looked on them

with contemptuous tolerance, thinking to see beneath

the masks shallow, puny souls, avaricious, lustful, de-

ceitful; now there was a grim undertone, a sinister

meaning, a vague horror that lurked beneath the

smooth masks. While he exchanged courtesies with

some nobleman or councilor he seemed to see the

smiling face fade like smoke and the frightful jaws of

a serpent gaping there. How many of those he looked

upon were horrid, inhuman monsters, plotting his

death, beneath the smooth mesmeric illusion of a hu-

man face?

Valusia--land of dreams and nightmares--a king-

dom of the shadows, ruled by phantoms who glided

back and forth behind the painted curtains, mocking

the futile king who sat upon the throne--himself a

shadow.

And like a comrade shadow Brule stood by his

side, dark eyes glittering from immobile face. A real

man, Brule! And Kull felt his friendship for the savage

become a thing of reality and sensed that Brule felt a

friendship for him beyond the mere necessity of state-

craft.

And what, mused Kull, were the realities of life?

Ambition, power, pride? The friendship of man, the

love of women--which Kull had never known--battle,

plunder, what? Was it the real Kull who sat upon the

throne or was it the real Kull who had scaled the hills

of Atlantis, harried the far isles of the sunset, and

laughed upon the green roaring tides of the Atlantean

sea? How could a man be so many different men in a

lifetime? For Kull knew that there were many Kulls

and he wondered which was the real Kull. After all,

the priests of the Serpent went a step further in their

magic, for all men wore masks, and many a different

mask with each different man or woman; and Kull

wondered if a serpent did not lurk under every mask.

So he sat and brooded in strange, mazy thought

ways, and the courtiers came and went and the minor

affairs of the day were completed, until at last the

king and Brule sat alone in the Hall of Society save

for the drowsy attendants.

Kull felt a weariness. Neither he nor Brule had

slept the night before, nor had Kull slept the night

before that, when in the gardens of Ka-nu he had had

his first hint of the weird things to be. Last night

nothing further had occurred after they had returned

to the study room from the secret corridors, but they

had neither dared nor cared to sleep. Kull, with the

incredible vitality of a wolf, had aforetime gone for

days upon days without sleep, in his wild savage days

but now his mind was edged from constant thinking

and from the nerve-breaking eeriness of the past night.

He needed sleep, but sleep was furthest from his

mind.

And he would not have dared sleep if he had

thought of it. Another thing that had shaken him was

the fact that though he and Brule had kept a close

watch to see if, or when, the study-room guard was

changed, yet it was changed without their knowledge;

for the next morning those who stood on guard were

able to repeat the magic words of Brule, but they re-

membered nothing out of the ordinary. They thought

that they had stood at guard all night, as usual, and

Kull said nothing to the contrary. He believed them

true men, but Brule had advised absolute secrecy, and

Kull also thought it best.

Now Brule leaned over the throne, lowering his

voice so not even a lazy attendant could hear: "They

will strike soon, I think, Kull. A while ago Ka-nu gave

me a secret sign. The priests know that we know of

their plot, of course, but they know not, how much we

know. We must be ready for any sort of action. Ka-nu

and the Pictish chiefs will remain within hailing dis-

tance now until this is settled one way or another. Ha,

Kull, if it comes to a pitched battle, the streets and

the castles of Valusia will run red!"

Kull smiled grimly. He would greet any sort of

action with a ferocious joy. This wandering in a laby-

rinth of illusion and magic was extremely irksome to

his nature. He longed for the leap and clang of

swords, for the joyous freedom of battle.

Then into the Hall of Society came Tu again, and

the rest of the councilors.

"Lord king, the hour of the council is at hand and

we stand ready to escort you to the council room."

Kull rose, and the councilors bent the knee as he

passed through the way opened by them for his pas-

sage, rising behind him, and following. Eyebrows

were raised as the Pict strode defiantly behind the

king, but no one dissented. Brule's challenging gaze

swept the smooth faces of the councilors with the de-

fiance of an intruding savage.

The group passed through the halls and came at

last to the council chamber. The door was closed, as

usual, and the councilors arranged themselves in the

order of their rank before the dais upon which stood

the king. Like a bronze statue Brule took up his stand

behind Kull.

Kull swept the room with a swift stare. Surely no

chance of treachery here. Seventeen councilors there

were, all known to him; all of them had espoused his

cause when he ascended the throne.

"Men of Valusia--" he began in the conventional

manner, then halted, perplexed. The councilors had

risen as a man and were moving toward him. There

was no hostility in their looks, but their actions were

strange for a council room. The foremost was close to

him when Brule sprang forward, crouched like a leop-

ard.

"Ka. nama. kaa lajerama!" his voice crackled

through the sinister silence of the room and the fore-

most councilor recoiled, hand flashing to his robes;

and like a spring released, Brule moved and the man

pitched headlong and lay still while his face faded and be-

came the head of a mighty snake.

"Slay, Kull!" rasped 'the Pict's voice. "They be all

serpent men!"

The rest was a scarlet maze. Kull saw the familiar

faces dim like fading fog and in their places gaped

horrid reptilian visages as the whole band rushed for-

ward. His mind was dazed but his giant body faltered

not.

The singing of his sword filled the room, and the

onrushing flood broke in a red wave. But they surged

forward again, seemingly willing to fling their lives

away in order to drag down the king. Hideous jaws

gaped at him; terrible eyes blazed into his unblink-

ingly; a frightful fetid scent pervaded the atmo-

sphere--the serpent scent that Kull had known in

southern jungles. Swords and daggers leaped at him

and he was dimly aware that they wounded him. But

Kull was in his element; never before had he faced

such grim foes but it mattered little; they lived, their

veins held blood that could be spilt and they died

when his great sword cleft their skulls or drove

through their bodies. Slash, thrust, thrust and swing.

Yet had Kull died there but for the man who crouched

at his side, parrying and thrusting. For the king was

clear berserk, fighting in the terrible Atlantean way,

that seeks death to deal death; he made no effort to

avoid thrusts and slashes, standing straight up and

ever plunging forward, no thought in his frenzied

mind but to slay. Not often did Kull forget his fight-

ing craft in his primitive fury, but now some chain

had broken in his soul, flooding his mind with a red

wave of slaughter-lust. He slew a foe at each blow,

but they surged about him, and time and again Brule

turned a thrust that would have slain, as he crouched

beside KulL, parrying and warding with cold skill,

slaying not as Kull slew with long slashes and plunges,

but with short overhand blows and upward thrusts.

Kull laughed, a laugh of insanity. The frightful

faces swirled about him in a scarlet blaze. He felt

steel sink into his arm and dropped his sword in a

flashing arc that cleft his foe to the breast-bone. Then

the mists faded and the king saw that he and Brule

stood alone above a sprawl of hideous crimson figures

who lay still upon the floor.

"Valka! what a killing!" said Brule, shaking the

blood from his eyes. "Kull, had these been warriors

who knew how to use the steel, we had died here.

These serpent priests know naught of swordcraft and

die easier than any men I ever slew. Yet had there

been a few more, I think the matter had ended other-

wise."

Kull nodded. The wild berserker blaze had

passed, leaving a mazed feeling of great weariness.

Blood seeped from wounds on breast, shoulder, arm

and leg. Brule, himself bleeding from a score of flesh

wounds, glanced at him in some concern.

"Lord Kull, let us hasten to have your wounds

dressed by the women."

Kull thrust him aside with a drunken sweep of his

mighty arm.

"Nay, we'll see this through ere we cease. Go you,

though, and have your wounds seen to--I command

it."

The Pict laughed grimly. "Your wounds are more

than mine, lord king--' he began, then stopped as a

sudden thought struck him. "By Valka, Kull, this is not

the council room!"

Kull looked about and suddenly other fogs

seemed to fade. "Nay, this is the room where Eallal

died a thousand years ago--since unused and named

'Accursed.'"

"Then by the gods, they tricked us after all!" ex-

claimed Brule in a fury, kicking the corpses at their

feet. "They caused us to walk like fools into their am-

bush! By their magic they changed the appearance of

all--"

"Then there is further deviltry afoot." said Kull,

"for if there be true men in the councils of Valusia

they should be in the real council room now. Come

swiftly."

And leaving the room with its ghastly keepers

they hastened througth halls that seemed deserted un-

til they came to the real council room. Then Kull

halted with a ghastly shudder. From the council room

sounded a voice speaking, and. the voice was his!

With a hand that shook he parted the tapestries

and gazed into the room. There sat the councilors,

counterparts of the men he and Brule had just slain,

and upon the dais stood Kull, king of Valusia..

He stepped back, his mind reeling.

"This is insanity!" he whispered. "Am I Kull? Do

I stand here or is that Kull yonder in very truth, arid

am I but a shadow, a figment of thought?"

Brule's hand clutching his shoulder, shaking him

fiercely, brought him to his senses.

"Valka's name, be not a fool! Can you yet be as-

tounded after all we have seen? See you not that those

are true men bewitched by a snake-man who has

taken your form, as those others took their forms? By

now you should have been slain, and yon monster

reigning in your stead, unknown by those who bowed

to you. Leap arid slay swiftly or else we are undone.

The Red Slayers, true men, stand close on each hand

and none but you can reach and slay him. Be swift!"

Kull shook off the onrushing dizziness, flung

back his head in the old, defiant gesture. He took a

long, deep breath as does a strong swimmer before

diving into the sea; then, sweeping back the tapes-

tries, made the dais in a single lion-like bound. Brule

had spoken truly. There stood men of the Red Slavers,

guardsmen trained to move quick as the striking; leop-

ard; any but Kull had died ere he could reach the

usurper. But the sight of Kull, identical with the man

upon the dais, held them in their tracks, their rninds

stunned for an instant, and that was long enough. He

upon the dais snatchcd for his sword. but even as his

fingers closed upon the hilt, Kull's sword stood out

behind his shoulders and the thing that men had

thought the king pitched forward from the dais to lie

silent upon the floor.

"Hold!" Kull's lifted hand and kingly voice

stopped the rush that had started, and while they

stood astounded he pointed to the thing which lay be-

fore them--whose face was fading into that of a snake.

They recoiled, and from one door came Brule and

from another came Ka-nu.

These grasped the king's bloody hand and Ka-nu

spoke: "Men of Valusia, you have seen with your own

eyes. This is the true Kull, the mightiest king to whom

Valusia has ever bowed. The power of the Serpent is

broken and ye be all true men. King Kull, have you

commands?"

"Lift that carrion," said Kull, and men of the

guard took up the thing.

"Now follow me," said the king, and he made his

way to the Accursed Room. Brule, with a look of con-

cern, offered the support of his arm but Kull shook

him off.

The distance seemed endless to the bleeding

king, but at last he stood at the door and laughed

fiercely and grimly when he heard the horrified ejac-

ulations of the councilors.

At his orders the guardsmen flung the corpse

they carried beside the others, and motioning all from

the room Kull stepped out last and closed the door.

A wave of dizziness left him shaken. The faces

turned to him, pallid and wonderingly, swirled and

mingled in a ghostly fog. He felt the blood from his

wound trickling down his limbs and he knew that

what he was to do, he must do quickly or not at all.

His sword rasped from its sheath.

"Brule, are you there?"

"Aye!" Brule's face looked at him through the

mist, close to his shoulder, but Brule's voice sounded

leagues and eons away.

"Remember our vow, Brule. And now, bid them

stand back."

His left arm cleared a space as he flung up his

sword. Then with all his waning power he drove it

through the door into the jamb, driving the great

sword to the hilt and sealing the room forever.

Legs braced wide, he swayed drunkenly, facing

the horrified councilors. "Let this room be doubly ac-

cursed. And let those rotting skeletons lie there for-

ever as a sign of the dying might of the Serpent. Here

I swear that I shall hunt the serpent-men from land to

land, from sea to sea, giving no rest until all be slain,

that good triumph and the power of Hell be broken.

This thing I swear--I--Kull--king--of--Valusia."

His knees buckled as the faces swayed and

swirled. The councilors leaped forward, but ere they

could reach him, Kull slumped to the floor, and lay

still, face upward.

The councilors surged about the fallen king, chat-

tering and shrieking. Ka-nu beat them back with his

clenched fists, cursing savagely.

"Back, you fools! Would you stifle the little life

that is yet in him? How, Brule, is he dead or will he

live?"--to the warrior who bent above the prostrate

Kull.

"Dead?" sneered Brule irritably. "Such a man as

this is not so easily killed. Lack of sleep and loss of

blood have weakened him--by Valka, he has a score

of deep wounds, but none of them mortal. Yet have

those gibbering fools bring the court women here at

once."

Brule's eyes lighted with a fierce, proud light.

"Valka, Ka-nu, but here is such a man as I knew

not existed in these degenerate days. He will be in the

saddle in a few scant days and then may the serpent-

men of the world beware of Kull of Valusia. Valka!

but that will be a rare hunt! Ah, I see long years of

prosperity for the world with such a king upon the

throne of Valusia."

The Altar and The Scorpion

"God of the crawling darkness, grant me aid!"

A slim youth knelt in the gloom, his white body

shimmering like ivory. The polished marble floor was

cold to his knees, but his heart was colder than the

stone.

High above him, merged into the masking shad-

ows, loomed the great lapis lazuli ceiling, upheld by

marble walls. Before him glimmered a golden altar,

and on this altar shone a huge crystal image; a scor-

pion, wrought with a craft surpassing mere art.

"Great Scorpion," the youth continued his invoca-

tion, "aid thy worshipper! Thou knowest how in by-

gone days Gonra of the Sword, my greatest ancestor,

died before thy shrine on a heap of slain barbarians

who sought to defile thy holiness. Through the

mouths of thy priests, thou promised aid to Gonra's

race for all the years to come.

"Great Scorpion! Never has man or woman of my

blood before reminded thee of thy vow. But now in

my hour of bitter need I come before thee, to abjure

thee to remember that oath, by the blood drunk by

Gonra's blade, by the blood spilled from Gonra's

veins!

"Great Scorpion! Thuron, high priest of The

Black Shadow, is my enemy. Kull, king of all Valusia,

rides from his purple-spired city to smite with fire

and steel the priests who have defied him and still

offer human sacrifice to the dark elder gods. But be-

fore the king may arrive and save us, I, and the girl I

love, shall lie stark on the black altar in the Temple of

Everlasting Darkness. Thuron has sworn! He will give

our bodies to ancient and abhorred abominations,

and, at last, our souls to the god that lurks forever in

The Black Shadow.

"Kull sits high on the throne of Valusia and now

rides to our aid, but Thuron rules this mountain city

and even now follows me. Great Scorpion, aid us! Re-

member Gonra, who gave up his life for you when the

Atlantean savages carried the torch and sword into

Valusia."

The boy's slender form drooped, his head sank on

his bosom despairingly. The great shimmering image

on the altar gave back an icy sheen in the dim light,

and no sign came to its worshipper to show that the

curious god had heard that passionate invocation.

Suddenly the youth started erect. Quick footfalls

throbbed on the long wide steps outside the temple. A

girl darted into the shadowed doorway like a white

flame blown before the wind.

"Thuron--he comes!" she gasped as she flew into

her lover's arms.

The boy's face went pale, and his embrace tight-

ened as he gazed apprehensively at the doorway.

Footfalls, heavy and sinister, clashed on the marble,

and a shape of menace loomed in the opening.

Thuron, the high priest, was a tall, gaunt man, a

cadaverous giant. His eves glimmered like fiery pools

under his heavy brows, and his thin gash of a mouth

gaped in a silent laugh. His only garment was a silken

loincloth, through which was thrust a cruel curved

dagger, and he carried a short, heavy whip in his lean,

powerful hand-

His two victims clung to each other and gazed

wide-eyed at their foe, as birds stare at a serpent. And

Thuron's slow, swaying stride as he advanced was not

unlike the sinuous glide of a crawling snake.

"Thuron, have a care!" the youth spoke bravely,

but his voice faltered from the terror that gripped

him. "If you have no fear of the king or pity for us,

beware offending the Great Scorpion, under whose

protection we are."

Thuron laughed in his might and arrogance.

The king!" he jeered. "What means the king to

me, who am mightier than any king? The Great Scor-

pion? Ho! ho! A forgotten god, a deity remembered

only by children and women. Would you pit your

Scorpion against The Black Shadow? Fool! Valka him-

self, god of all gods, could not save you now! You are

sworn to the god of The Black Shadow."

He swept toward the cowering youngsters and

gripped their white shoulders, sinking his talon-like

nails deep into the soft flesh. They sought to resist,

but he laughed and with incredible strength lifted

them in the air, where he dangled them at arm's

length as a man might dangle a baby. His grating,

metallic laughter filled the room with echoes of evil

mockery.

Holding the youth between his knees, he bound

the girl hand and foot while she whimpered in his

cruel clutch; then, flinging her roughly to the floor,

he bound the youth likewise. Stepping back, he sur-

veyed his work. The girl's frightened sobs sounded

quick and panting in the silence. At last the high

priest spoke.

"Fools, to think to escape me! Always men of

your blood, boy, have opposed me in council and

court. Now you pay, and The Black Shadow drinks.

Ho! ho! I rule the city today, let he be king who may!

"My priests throng the streets, full armed, and no

man dare say me nay. Were the king in the saddle this

moment, he could not arrive and break my swordsmen

in time to save you."

His eyes roved about the temple and fell upon

the golden altar and the silent crystal scorpion.

"Ho! ho! What fools to pin your faith on a god

whom men have long ceased to worship! Who has not

even a priest to attend him, and who is granted a

shrine only because of the memory of his former

greatness; who is accorded reverence only by simple

people and foolish women!

"The real gods are dark and bloody! Remember

my words when soon you lie on an ebon altar behind

which broods a black shadow forever. Before you die

you shall know the real gods, the powerful, the terri-

ble gods, who came from forgotten worlds and lost

realms of blackness. Who had their birth on frozen

stars, and black suns brooding beyond the light of any

stars. You shall know the brain-shattering truth of that

Unnamable One, to whose reality no earthly likeness

may be given, but whose symbol is--The Black

Shadow!"

The girl ceased to cry, frozen, like the youth, into

dazed silence. They sensed, behind these threats, a

hideous and inhuman gulf of monstrous shadows.

Thuron took a stride toward them, bent and

reached claw-like hands to grip and lift them to his

shoulders. He laughed as they sought to writhe away

from him. His fingers closed on the girl's tender shoul-

der--

A scream shattered the crystal gong of the silence

into a million vibrating shards as Thuron bounded

into the air and fell on his face, screeching and writh-

ing. Some small creature scurried away and van-

ished through the door. Thuron's screams dwindled

into a high, thin squealing and broke short at the

highest note. Silence fell like a deathly mist.

At last the boy spoke in an awed whisper.

"What was it?"

"A scorpion!" the girl's answer came low and

tremulous. "It crawled across my bare bosom without

harming me, and when Thuron seized me it stung

him."

Another silence fell. Then the boy spoke again,

hesitantly.

"No scorpion has been seen in this city for longer

than men remember."

"The Great One summoned this of his people to

our aid!" whispered the girl. "The gods never forget,

and the Great Scorpion has kept his oath. Let us give

thanks to him!"

And, bound hand and foot as they were, the

youthful lovers wriggled about on their faces, where

they lay giving praise to the great silent, glistening

scorpion on the altar for a long time-until a distant

clash of many silver-shod hoofs and the clangor of

swords bore to them the coming of the king.

Delcardes' Cat

King Kull went with Tu, chief councilor of the

throne, to see the talking cat of Delcardes, for though

a cat may look at a king, it is not given every king a

look at a cat like Delcardes'. So Kull forgot the death

threat of Thulsa Doom, the necromancer, and went to

Delcardes.

Kull was skeptical, and Tu was wary and suspi-

cious without knowing why, but years of counter-plot

and intrigue had soured him. He swore testily that a

talking cat was a fraud, a swindle, and a delusion; and

maintained that should such a thing exist, it was a di-

rect insult to the gods, who ordained that only man

should enjoy the power of speech.

But Kull knew that in the old times beasts had

talked to men, for he had heard the legends, handed

down from his barbarian ancestors. So he was skepti-

cal but open to conviction.

Delcardes helped the conviction. She lounged

with supple ease upon her silk couch, like a great,

beautiful feline, and looked at Kull from under long,

drooping lashes, which lent unimaginable charm to

her narrow, piquantly slanted eyes.

Her lips were full and red, and usually, as at pres-

ent, curved in a faint enigmatical smile. Her silken

garments and ornaments of gold and gems hid little of

her glorious figure.

But Kull was not interested in women. He ruled

Valusia, but for all that, he was an Atlantean and a

savage in the eyes of his subjects. War and conquest

held his attention, together with keeping his feet on

the ever-rocking throne of the ancient empire, and the

task of learning the customs and thoughts of the peo-

ple he ruled.

To Kull, Delcardes was a mysterious and queenly

figure, alluring, yet surrounded by a haze of ancient

wisdom and womanly magic.

To Tu, she was a woman and therefore the latent

base of intrigue and danger.

To Ka-nu, Pictish ambassador and Kull's closest

adviser, she was an eager child, parading under the

effect of her play-acting; but Ka-nu was not there

when Kull came to see the talking cat.

The cat lolled on a silken cushion on a couch of

her own, and surveyed the king with inscrutable eyes.

Her name was Saremes, and she had a slave who stood

behind her, ready to do her bidding; a lanky man who

kept the lower part of his face concealed by a thin veil

which fell to his chest.

"King Kull," said Delcardes, "I crave a boon of

you before Saremes begins to speak, when I must be

silent."

"You may speak," Kull answered.

The girl smiled eagerly and clasped her hands.

"Let me marry Kulra Thoom of Zarfhaana."

Tu broke in as Kull was about to speak.

"My lord, this matter has been thrashed out at

lengths before! I thought there was some purpose in

requesting this visit! This--this girl has a strain of

royal blood in her, and it is against the custom of Val-

usia that royal women should marry foreigners of

lower rank."

"But the king can rule otherwise," pouted Del-

cardes.

"My lord," said Tu, spreading his hands as one in

the last stages of nervous irritation, "if she marries

thus it is likely to cause war and rebellion and discord

for the next hundred years."

He was about to plunge into a dissertation on

rank, genealogy, and history; but Kull interrupted, his

short stock of patience exhausted.

"Valka and Hotath! Am I an old woman or a

priest to be bedevilled with such affairs? Settle it be-

tween yourselves and vex me no more with questions

of mating! By Valka, in Atlantis men and women

marry whom they please and none else."

Delcardes pouted a little, made a face at Tu, who

scowled back; then smiled sunnily and turned on her

couch with a lissome movement.

"Talk to Saremes, Kull; she will grow jealous of

me."

Kull eyed the cat uncertainly. Her fur was long,

silky, and gray; her eyes slanting and mysterious.

"She looks very young, Kull; yet she is very old,"

said Delcardes. "She is a cat of the Old Race who

lived to be thousands of years old. Ask her age, Kull."

"How many years have you seen, Saremes?"

asked Kull idly.

"Valusia was young when I was old," the cat an-

swered in a clear though curiously timbred voice.

Kull started violently.

"Valka and Hotath!" he swore. "She talks!"

Delcardes laughed softly in pure enjoyment, but

the expression of the cat never altered.

"I talk, I think, I know, I am," she said. "I have

been the ally of queens and the councilor of kings

ages before the white beaches of Atlantis knew your

feet, Kull of Valusia. I saw the ancestors of the Valu-

sians ride out of the far east to trample down the Old

Race, and I was here when the Old Race came up out

of the oceans so many eons ago that the mind of man

reels when seeking to measure them. Older am I than

Thulsa Doom, whom few men have ever seen. I have

seen empires rise and kingdoms fall and kings ride in

on their steeds and out on their shields. Aye, I have

been a goddess in my time, and strange were the neo-

phytes who bowed before me and terrible were the

rites which were performed in my worship. For of old,

beings exalted my land--beings as strange as their

deeds."

"Can you read the stars and foretell events?"

Kull's barbarian mind at once leaped to material

ideas.

"Aye, the books of the past and the future are

open to me, and I tell man what is good for him to

know."

"Then tell me," said Kull, "where I misplaced the

secret letter from Ka-nu yesterday."

"You thrust it into the bottom of your dagger

scabbard and then instantly forgot it," the cat replied.

Kull started, snatched out his dagger, and shook

the sheath. A thin strip of folded parchment tumbled

out.

"Valka and Hotath!" he swore. "Saremes, you are

a witch of cats! Mark ye, Tu!"

But Tu's lips were pressed in a straight, disap-

proving line, and he eyed Delcardes darkly.

She returned his stare guilelessly, and he turned

to Kull in irritation.

"My lord, consider! This is all mummery of some

sort."

"Tu, none saw me hide that letter, for I myself

had forgotten."

"Lord king, any spy might--"

"Spy? Be not a greater fool than you were born,

Tu. Shall a cat set spies to watch me hide letters?"

Tu sighed. As he grew older it was becoming in-

creasingly difficult to refrain from showing exasper-

ation toward kings.

"My lord, give thought to the humans who may

be behind the cat!"

"Lord Tu," said Delcardes in a tone of gentle re-

proach, "you put me to shame, and you offend Sar-

emes."

Kull felt vaguely angered at Tu.

"At least, Tu," said he, "the cat talks; that you

cannot deny."

"There is some trickery," Tu stubbornly main-

tained. "Man talks; beasts may not."

"Not so," said Kull, himself convinced of the real-

ity of the talking cat, and anxious to prove that he was

correct. "A lion talked to Kambra, and birds have spo-

ken to the old men of the Sea-mountain tribe, telling

them where game was hidden.

"None denies that beasts talk among themselves.

Many a night have I lain on the slopes of the forest-

covered hills or out on the grassy savannahs, and have

heard the tigers roaring to one another across the star-

light. Then why should some beast not learn the

speech of man? There have been times when I could

almost understand the roaring of the tigers. The tiger

is my totem and is tabu to me, save in self-defense,"

he added irrelevantly.

Tu squirmed. This talk of totem and tabu was

good enough in a savage chief, but to hear such re-

marks from the king of Valusia irked him extremely.

"My lord," said he, "a cat is not a tiger."

"Very true," said Kull. "And this one is wiser than

all tigers."

"That is naught but truth," said Saremes calmly.

"Lord chancellor, would you believe then if I told

you what was at this moment transpiring at the royal

treasury?"

"No!" Tu snarled. "Clever spies may learn any-

thing, as I have found."

"No man can be convinced when he will not,"

said Saremes imperturbably, quoting an ancient Valu-

sian saying. 'Yet know, lord Tu, that a surplus of

twenty gold tals has been discovered, and a courier is

even now hastening through the streets to tell you of

it. Ah," as a step sounded in the corridor without,

"even now he comes."

A slim courtier, clad in the gay garments of the

royal treasury, entered, bowing deeply, and craved

permission to speak. Kull having granted it, he said:

"Mighty king and lord Tu, a surplus'of twenty

tals of gold has been found in the royal moneys."

Delcardes laughed and clapped her hands de-

lightedly, but Tu merely scowled.

"When was this discovered?"

"A scant half-hour ago."

"How many have been told of it?"

"None, my lord. Only I and the royal treasurer

have known until just now when I told you, my lord."

"Humph!" Tu waved him aside sourly. "Begone. I

will see about this matter later."

"Delcardes," said Kull, "this cat is yours, is she

not?"

"Lord king," answered the girl, "no one owns Sar-

emes. She only bestows on me the honor of her pres-

ence; she is a guest. She is her own mistress and has

been for a thousand years."

"I would that I might keep her in the palace,"

said Kull.

"Saremes," said Delcardes deferentially, "the king

would have you as his guest."

"I will go with the king of Valusia," said the cat

with dignity, "and remain in the royal palace until

such time as it shall pleasure me to go elsewhere. For

I am a great traveler, Kull, and it pleases me at times

to go out over the world and walk the streets of cities

where in ages gone by I have roamed forests, and to

tread the sands of deserts where long ago I trod impe-

rial streets."

So Saremes, the talking cat, came to the royal pal-

ace of Valusia. Her slave accompanied her, and she

was given a spacious chamber lined with fine couches

and silken pillows. The best viands of the royal table

were placed before her daily, and all the household of

the king did homage to her except Tu, who grumbled

to see a cat exalted, even a talking cat. Saremes

treated him with amused contempt, but admitted Kull

into a level of dignified equality.

She quite often came into his throne chamber,

borne on a silken cushion by her slave, who must al-

ways accompany her, no matter where she went.

At other times Kull came into her chamber, and

they talked into the dim hours of dawn, and many

were the tales she told him and ancient the wisdom

that she imparted. Kull listened with interest and at-

tention, for it was evident that this cat was wiser far

than many of his councilors, and had gained more an-

cient wisdom than all of them together. Her words

were pithy and oracular, but she refused to prophesy

beyond minor affairs taking place in the everyday life

of the palace or kingdom; save that she warned him

against Thulsa Doom, who had sent a threat to Kull.

"For," said she, "I, who have lived more years

than you shall live minutes, know that man is better

off without knowledge of things to come; for what is

to be, will be, and man can neither avert nor hasten.

It is better to go in the dark when the road must pass

a lion and there is no other road."

"Yes," said Kull, "if what must be, is to be--a

thing which I doubt--and a man be told what things

shall come to pass and his arm weakened or strength-

ened thereby; then was that, too, foreordained?"

"If he was ordained to be told," said Saremes,

adding to Kull's perplexity and doubt "However, not

all of life's roads are set fast, for a man may do this or

a man may do that, and not even the gods know the

mind of a man."

"Then," said Kull dubiously, "all things are not

destined if there be more than one road for a man to

follow. And how can events then be prophesied truly?"

"Life has many roads, Kull," answered Saremes.

"I stand at the crossroads of the world, and I know

what lies down each road. Still, not even the gods

know what road a man will take, whether the right

hand or the left hand, when he comes to the dividing

of the ways; and once started upon a road, he cannot

retrace his steps."

"Then, in Valka's name," said Kull, "why not

point out to me the perils or the advantages of each

road as it comes and aid me in choosing?"

"Because there are bounds set upon the powers of

such as I," the cat replied, "lest we hinder the work-

ings of the alchemy of the gods. We may not brush the

veil entirely aside for human eyes, lest the gods take

our power from us, and lest we do harm to man. For

though there are many roads at each crossroads, still a

man must take one of those and sometimes one is no

better than another. So Hope flickers her lamp along

one road and man follows, though that road may be

the foulest of all."

Then she continued, seeing Kull found it difficult

to understand.

"You see, lord long, that our powers must have

limits, else we might grow too powerful and threaten

the gods. So a mystic spell is laid upon us, and while

we may open the books of the past, we may but grant

flying glances of the future through the mist that

veils it."

Kull felt somehow that the argument of Saremes

was rather flimsy and illogical, smacking of witchcraft

and mummery; but with Saremes' cold, oblique eyes

gazing unwinkingly at him, he was not prone to offer

any objections, even had he thought of any.

"Now," said the cat, "I will draw aside the veil for

an instant to your own good--let Delcardes marry

Kulra Thoom."

Kull rose with an impatient twitch of his mighty

shoulders.

"I will have naught to do with a woman's mating.

Let Tu attend to it."

Yet Kull slept on the thought, and as Saremes

wove the advice craftily into her philosophizing and

moralizing in days to come, Kull weakened.

A strange sight it was indeed, to see Kull, his chin

resting on his great fist, leaning forward and drinking

in the distinct intonations of me cat Saremes as she

lay curled on her silken cushion, or stretched lan-

guidly at full length; as she talked of mysterious and

fascinating subjects, her eyes glinting strangely and

her lips scarcely moving, if at all, while the slave Ku-

thulos stood behind her like a statue, motionless and

speechless.

Kull highly valued her opinions, and he was

prone to ask her advice--which she gave warily or not

at all--on matters of state. Still, Kull found that what

she advised usually coincided with his private wish,

and he began to wonder if she were not a mind reader

also.

Kuthulos irked him with his gauntness, his mo-

tionlessness, and his silence, but Saremes would have

none other to attend her. Kull strove to pierce the veil

that masked the man's features, but though it seemed

thin enough, he could tell nothing of the face beneath

and out of courtesy to Saremes never asked Kuthulos

to unveil.

Kull came to the chamber of Saremes one day,

and she looked at him with enigmatical eyes. The

masked slave stood statue-like behind her.

"Kull," said she, "again I will tear the veil for you.

Brule, the Pictish Spear-slayer, warrior of Ka-nu and

your friend, has just been hauled beneath the surface

of the Forbidden Lake by a grisly monster."

Kull sprang up, cursing in rage and alarm.

"Ha! Brule? Valka's name, what was he doing

about the Forbidden Lake?"

"He was swimming there. Hasten, you may yet

save him, even though he be borne to the Enchanted

Land which lies below the Lake."

Kull whirled toward the door. He was startled,

but not so much as he would have been had the

swimmer been someone else, for he knew the reckless

irreverence of the Pict, chief among Valusia's most

powerful allies.

He started to shout for guards, when Saremes'

voice stayed him.

"Nay, my lord. You had best go alone. Not even

your command might make men accompany you into

the waters of that grim lake, and by the custom of

Valusia, it is death for any man to enter there save the

king."

"Aye, I will go alone," said Kull, "and thus save

Brule from the anger of the people, should he chance

to escape the monsters. Inform Ka-nu."

Kull, discouraging respectful inquiries with word-

less snarls, mounted his great stallion and rode out of

Valusia at full speed. He rode alone and he ordered

that none follow him. That which he had to do, he

could do alone, and he did not wish anyone to see

when he brought Brule or Brule's corpse out of the

Forbidden Lake. He cursed the reckless inconsider-

ation of the Pict, and he cursed the tabu which hung

over the lake; the violation of which might cause re-

bellion among the Valusians.

Twilight was stealing down from the mountains

of Zalgara when Kull halted his horse on the shores of

the lake, which lay amid a great lonely forest. There

was certainly nothing forbidding in its appearance, for

its waters spread blue and placid from beach to wide

white beach, and the tiny islands rising about its

bosom seemed like gems of emerald and Jade. A faint

shimmering mist rose from it, enhancing the air of

lazy unreality which lay about the regions of the lake.

Kull listened intently for a moment, and it seemed to

him as though faint and faraway music breathed up

through the sapphire waters.

He cursed impatiently, wondering if he were be-

ginning to be bewitched, and flung aside all garments

and ornaments except his girdle, loin-clout, and

sword. He waded out into the shimmery blueness un-

til it lapped his thighs; then, knowing that the depth

swiftly increased, he drew a deep breath and dived.

As he swam down through the sapphire glimmer,

he had time to reflect that this was probably a fool's

errand. He might have taken time to find from Sar-

ernes just where Brule had been swimming when at-

tacked and whether he was destined to rescue the

warrior or not. Still, he thought that the cat might not

have told him, and even if she had assured him of fail-

ure, he would have attempted what he was now

doing, anyway. So there was truth in Saremes' saying

that men were better untold about the future.

As for the location of the site where Brule had

been attacked, the monster might have dragged him

anywhere. Kull intended to explore the lake bed un-

til-

Even as he ruminated thus, a shadow flashed by

him, a vague shimmer in the jade and sapphire shim-

mer of the lake. He was aware that other shadows

swept by him on all sides, but he could not make out

their forms.

Far beneath him he began to see the glimmer ot

the lake bottom which seemed to glow with a strange

radiance. Now the shadows were all about him; they

wove a serpentine net about him, an ever-changing

thousand-hued glittering web of color. The water here

burned topaz and the things wavered and scintillated

in its faery splendor. Like the shades and shadows of

colors they were, vague and unreal, yet opaque and

gleaming.

However, Kull, deciding that they had no inten-

tion of attacking him, gave them no more attention,

but directed his gaze on the lake floor which his feet

just then lightly struck. He started, and could have

sworn that he had landed on a living creature, for he

felt a rhythmic movement beneath his bare feet. The

faint glow was evident there at the bottom of the lake;

as far as he could see, stretching away on all sides

until it faded into the lambent sapphire shadows, the

lake floor was one solid level of fire that faded and

glowed with unceasing regularity. Kull bent closer;

the floor was covered by a sort of short moss-like

substance which shone like white flame. It was as if

the lake bed were covered with myriads of fireflies

which raised and lowered their wings together. And

this moss throbbed beneath his feet like a living thing.

Now Kull began to swim upward again. Raised

among the sea-mountains of ocean-girt Atlantis, he

was like a sea creature himself. As much at home in

the water as any Lemurian, he could remain under the

surface twice as long as the ordinary swimmer, but

this lake was deep and he wished to conserve his

strength.

He came to the top, filled his enormous chest

with air, and dived again. Again the shadows swept

about him, almost dazzling his eyes with their ghostly

gleams. He swam faster this time, and having reached

the bottom, he began to walk along it as fast as the

clinging substance about his limbs would allow;

the while the fire-moss breathed and glowed and the

color things flashed about him and monstrous, night-

marish shadows fell across his shoulder upon the

burning floor, flung by unseen beings.

The moss was littered by the skulls and the bones

of men who had dared the Forbidden Lake. Suddenly,

with a silent swirl of the waters, a thing rushed upon

Kull. At first the king thought it to be a huge octo-

pus, for the body was that of an octopus, with long

waving tentacles; but as it charged upon him he saw

that it had legs like a man and a hideous semi-human

face leered at him from among the writhing, snaky

arms of the monster.

Kull braced his feet, and as he felt the cruel ten-

tacles whip about his limbs, he thrust his sword with

cool accuracy into the midst of that demoniac face,

and the creature lumbered down and died at his feet

with grisly, soundless gibbering. Blood spread like a

mist about him, and Kull thrust strongly against the

floor with his legs and shot upward.

He burst into the fast-fading light, and even as he

did, a great form came skimming across the water to-

ward him--a water spider, but this one was larger than

a boar, and its cold eyes gleamed hellishly. Kull, keep-

ing himself afloat with his feet and one hand, raised

his sword, and as the spider rushed in, he cleft it half-

way through the body; and it sank silently.

A slight noise made him turn, and another, larger

than the first, was almost upon him. This one flung

over the king's arms and shoulders strands of clinging

web that would have meant doom for any but a giant.

But Kull burst the grim shackles as if they had been

strings, and, seizing a leg of the thing as it towered

above him, he thrust the monster through again and

again till it weakened in his grasp and floated away,

reddening the waters.

"Valka!" muttered the king, "I am not like to go

without employment here. Yet these things be easy to

slay. How could they have overcome Brule, who is

second only to me in battle might in all the Seven

Kingdoms?"

But Kull was to find that grimmer spectres than

these haunted the death-ridden abysses of Forbidden

Lake. Again he dived and this time only the color-

shadows and the bones of forgotten men met his

glance. Again he rose for air and for the fourth time

e dived.

He was not far from one of the islands, and as he

swam downward, he wondered what strange things

were hidden by the dense emerald foliage which

cloaked these islands. Legend said that temples and

shrines reared there that were never built by human

hands, and that on certain nights the lake beings came

out of the deeps to enact eerie rites there.

The rush came just as his feet struck the moss. It

came from behind, and Kull, warned by some primal

instinct, whirled Just in time to see a great form loom

over him--a form neither man nor beast, but horribly

compounded of both--to feel gigantic fingers close on

arm and shoulder.

He struggled savagely, but the thing held his sword

arm helpless, and its talons sank deeply into his left

forearm. With a volcanic wrench he twisted about so

that he could at least see his attacker. The thing was

something like a monstrous shark, but a long, cruel

horn, curved like a saber, jutted up from its snout. It

had four arms, human in shape but inhuman in size

and strength and in the crooked talons of the fingers.

With two arms the monster held Kull helpless,

and with the other two it bent his head back to break

his spine. But not even such a grim being as this

might so easily conquer Kull of Atlantis. A wild rage

surged up in him, and the king of Valusia went ber-

serk.

Bracing his feet against the yielding moss, he tore

his left arm free with a heave and wrench of his shoul-

ders. With cat-like speed, he sought to shift the sword

from right hand to left and, failing in this, struck sav-

agely at the monster with clenched fist. But the mock-

ing sapphirean stuff about him foiled him, breaking

the force of his blow. The shark-man lowered his snout,

but, before he could strike upward, Kull gripped the

horn with his left hand and held fast

Then followed a test of might and endurance.

Kull, unable to move with any speed in the water,

knew his only hope was to keep in close and wrestle

with his foe in such manner as to counterbalance the

monster's quickness. He strove desperately to tear his

sword arm loose, and the shark-man was forced to

grasp it with all four of his hands. Kull gripped the

horn and dared not let go lest he be disemboweled

with its terrible upward thrust, and the shark-man

dared not release with a single hand the arm that held

Kull's long sword.

So they wrenched and wrestled, and Kull saw

that he was doomed if it went on in this manner. Al-

ready he was beginning to suffer for want of air. The

gleam in the cold eyes of the shark-man told that he,

too, recognized the fact that he had but to hold Kull

below the surface until he drowned.

A desperate plight indeed, for any man. But Kull

of Atlantis was no ordinary man. Trained from child-

hood in a hard and bloody school, with steel muscles

and dauntless brain bound together by the coordina-

tion that makes the super-fighter, he added to this a

courage which never faltered and a tigerish rage

which on occasion swept him up to superhuman

deeds.

So now, conscious of his swiftly approaching

doom and goaded to frenzy by his helplessness, he de-

cided upon action as desperate as his need. He released

the monster's horn, at the same time bending his body

as far back as he could and gripping the nearest arm

of the thing with the free hand.

Instantly the shark-man struck, his horn plough-

ing along Kull's thigh and then-the luck of Atlantis!--

wedging fast in Kull's heavy girdle. And as he tore it

free, Kull sent his mighty strength through the fingers

that held the monster's arm, and crushed clammy

flesh and inhuman bone like rotten fruit between

them.

The shark-man's mouth gaped silently with the

torment and he struck again wildly. Kull avoided the

blow, and losing their balance, they went down to-

gether, half buoyed by the jade surge in which they

wallowed. And as they tossed there, Kull tore his

sword arm from the weakening grip and, striking up-

ward, split the monster open.

The entire battle had consumed only a very brief

time, but to Kull, as he swam upward, his head sing-

ing and a great weight seeming to press his ribs, it

seemed like hours. He saw dimly that the lake floor

shelved suddenly upward close at hand and knew that

it sloped to an island; then the water came alive about

him and he felt himself lapped from shoulder to heel

in gigantic coils which even his steel muscles could

not break. His consciousness was fading--he felt him-

self borne along at terrific speed--there was a sound

of many bells--then suddenly he was above water and

his tortured lungs were drinking in great draughts of

air. He was whirling along through utter darkness,

and he had time to take only a long breath before he

was again swept under.

Again light glowed about him, and he saw the

fire-moss throbbing far below. He was in the grasp of

a great serpent who had flung a few lengths of its

sinuous body about him like huge cables and was now

bearing him to what destination Valka alone knew.

Kull did not struggle, reserving his strength. If

the snake did not keep him so long under water that

he died, there would no doubt be a chance of battle

in the creature's lair or wherever he was being taken.

As it was, Kull's limbs were pinioned so close that he

could no more free an arm than he could have flown.

The serpent, racing through the blue deeps so

swiftly, was the largest Kull had ever seen--a good

two hundred feet of jade and golden scales, vividly

and wonderfully colored. Its eyes, when they turned

toward Kull, were like icy fire, if such a thing can be.

Even then Kull's imaginative soul was struck with the

bizarreness of the scene: that great green and gold

form flying through the burning topaz of the lake,

while the shadow-colors weaved dazzlingly about it

The fire-gemmed floor sloped upward again-

either for an island or the lake shore--and a great cav-

era suddenly appeared before them. The snake glided

into this, the fire-moss ceased, and Kull found himself

partly above the surface in unlighted darkness. He

was borne along in this manner for what seemed like

a very long time; then the monster dived again.

Again they came up into light, but such light as

Kull had never before seen. A luminous glow shim-

mered duskily over the face of the waters which lay

dark and still. And Kull knew that be was in the En-

chanted Domain under the bottom of Forbidden

Lake, for this was no earthly radiance; it was a black

light, blacker than any darkness; yet it lit the unholy

waters so that he could see the dusky glimmer of them

and his own dark reflection in them. The coils sud-

denly loosed from his limbs, and he struck out for a

vast bulk that loomed in the shadows in front of him.

Swimming strongly, he approached and saw that

it was a great city. On a great level of black stone, it

towered up and up until its sombre spires were lost in

the blackness above the unhallowed light, which,

black also, was yet of a different hue. Huge square-

built massive buildings of mighty basaltic-like blocks

fronted him as he clambered out of the clammy wa-

ters and strode up the steps which were cut into the

stone like steps in a wharf. Columns rose gigantically

between the buildings.

No gleam of earthly light lessened the grimness

of this inhuman city, but from its walls and towers the

black light flowed out over the waters in vast throb-

bing waves.

Kull was aware that in a wide space before him,

where the buildings swept away on each side, a huge

concourse of beings confronted him. He blinked, striv-

ing to accustom his eyes to the strange illumination.

The beings came closer, and a whisper ran among

them like the waving of grass in the night wind. They

were light and shadowy, glimmering against the

blackness of their city, and their eyes were eery and

luminous.

Then the king saw that one of their number stood

in front of the rest. This one was much like a man,

and his bearded face was high and noble, but a frown

hovered over his magnificent brows.

"You come like a herald of all your race," said this

lake-man suddenly. "Bloody and bearing a red sword."

Kull laughed angrily, for this smacked of injus-

tice.

"Valka and Hotath!" said the king. "Most of this

blood is mine own and was let by things of your

cursed lake."

"Death and ruin follow the course of your race,"

said the lake-man sombrely. "Do we not know? Aye,

we reigned in the lake of blue waters before mankind

was even a dream of the gods."

"None molests you--" began Kull.

"They fear to. In the old days men of the earth

sought to invade our dark kingdom. And we slew

them, and there was war between the sons of man and

the people of the lakes. And we came forth and

spread terror among the earthlings, for we knew that

they bore only death for us and that they yielded only

to slaying. And we wove spells and charms and burst

their brains and shattered their souls with our magic

so they begged for peace, and it was so. The men of

earth laid a tabu on this lake so that no man may

come here save the king of Valusia. That was thou-

sands of years ago. No man has ever come into the

Enchanted Land and gone forth, save as a corpse

floating up through the still waters of the upper lake.

King of Valusia, or whoever you be, you are doomed."

Kull snarled in defiance.

"I sought not your cursed kingdom. I seek Brule

the Spear-slayer whom you dragged down."

"You lie," the lake-man answered. "No man has

dared this lake for over a hundred years. You come

seeking treasure or to ravish and slay like all your

bloody-handed kind. You die!"

And Kull felt the whisperings of magic charms

about him; they filled the air and took physical form,

floating in the shimmering light like wispy spider-

webs, clutching at him with vague tentacles. But Kull

swore impatiently and swept them aside and out of

existence with his bare hand. For against the fierce

elemental logic of the savage, the magic of decadency

had no force.

"You are young and strong," said the lake-king.

"The rot of civilization has not yet entered your soul

and our charms may not harm you, because you do

not understand them. Then we must try other things."

And the lake-beings about him drew daggers and

moved upon Kull. Then the king laughed and set his

back against a column, gripping his sword hilt until

the muscles stood out on his right arm in great ridges.

"This is a game I understand, ghosts," he laughed.

They halted.

"Seek not to evade your doom," said the king of

the lake, "for we are immortal and may not be slain

by mortal arms."

"You lie, now," answered Kull, with the craft of

the barbarian, "for by your own words you feared the

death my kind brought among you. You may live for-

ever, but steel can slay you. Take thought among

yourselves. You are soft and weak and unskilled in

arms; you bear your blades unfamiliarly. I was born

and bred to slaying. You will slay me, for there are

thousands of you and I but one; yet your charms have

failed, and many of you shall die before I fall. I will

slaughter you by the scores. Take thought, men of the

lake; is my slaying worth the lives it will cost you?"

For Kull knew that beings who slay by steel may

be slain by steel, and he was unafraid. A figure of

threat and doom, bloody and terrible he loomed

above them.

"Aye, consider," he repeated, "is it better that you

should bring Brule to me and let us go, or that my

corpse shall lie amid sword-torn heaps of your dead

when the battle shout is silent? Nay, there be Picts

and Lemurians among my mercenaries who will fol-

low my trail even into the Forbidden Lake and will

drench the Enchanted Land with your gore if I die

here. For they have their own tabus, and they reck

not of the tabus of the civilized races; nor care they

what may happen to Valusia, but think only of me

who am of barbarian blood like themselves."

"The old world reels down the road to ruin and

forgetfulness," brooded the lake-king. "And we that

were all-powerful in bygone days must brook to be

bearded in our own kingdom by an arrogant savage.

Swear that you will never set foot in Forbidden Lake

again and that you will never let the tabus be broken

by others, and you shall go free."

"First bring the Spear-slayer to me."

"No such man has ever come to this lake."

"Nay? The cat Saremes told me-"

"Saremes? Aye, we knew her of old when she

came swimming down through the green waters and

abode for some centuries in the courts of the En-

chanted Land; the wisdom of the ages is hers, but I

knew not that she spoke the speech of earthly men.

Still, there is no such man here, and I swear--"

"Swear not by gods or devils," Kull broke in.

"Give your word as a true man."

"I give it," said the lake-king, and Kull believed,

for there was a majestic bearing about the king which

made Kull feel strangely small and rude.

"And I," said Kull, "give you my word--which has

never been broken--that no man shall break the tabu

or molest you in any way again."

"And I believe you, for you are different from

any earthly man I ever knew. You are a real king and,

what is greater, a true man."

Kull thanked him and sheathed his sword, turn-

ing toward the steps.

"Know ye how to gain the outer world, king of

Valusia?"

"As to that," answered Kull, "if I swim long

enough I suppose I shall find the way. I know that the

serpent brought me clear through at least one island

and possibly many, and that we swam in a cave for a

long time."

"You are bold," said the lake-king, "but you might

swim forever in the dark."

He raised his hands, and a behemoth swam to the

foot of the steps.

"A grim steed," said the lake-king, "but he will

bear you safely to the very shore of the upper lake."

A moment," said Kull. "Am I at present beneath

an island, or the mainland--or is this land in truth be-

neath the lake floor?"

"You are at the centre of the universe as you are

always. Time, place, and space are illusions, having no

existence save in the mind of man which must set lim-

its and bounds in order to understand. There is only

the underlying reality, of which all appearances are

but outward manifestations, just as the upper lake is

fed by the waters of this real one. Go now, king, for

you are a true man even though you be the first wave

of the rising tide of savagery which shall overwhelm

the world ere it recedes."

Kull listened respectfully, understanding little but

realizing that this was high magic. He struck hands

with the lake-king, shuddering a little at the feel of

that which was flesh, but not human flesh; then he

looked once more at the great black buildings rearing

silently and the murmuring moth-like forms among

them, and he looked out over the shiny jet surface of

the waters with the waves of black light crawling like

spiders across it. And he turned and went down the

stair of the water's edge and sprang on the back of the

behemoth.

Eons followed, of dark caves and rushing waters

and the whisper of gigantic unseen monsters; some-

times above and sometimes below the surface the be-

hemoth bore the long, and finally the fire-moss

leaped up and they swept up through the blue of the

burning water; and Kull waded to land.

Kull's stallion stood patiently where the king had

left him. The moon was }ust rising over the lake,

whereat Kull swore amazedly.

"A scant hour ago, by Valka, I dismounted here! I

had thought that many hours and possibly days had

passed since then."

He mounted and rode toward the city of Valusia,

reflecting that there might have been some meaning

in the lake-king's remarks about the illusion of time.

Kull was weary, angry, and bewildered. The jour-

ney through the lake had cleansed him of the blood,

but the motion of riding started the gash in his thigh

to bleeding again; moreover, the leg was stiff and

irked him somewhat. Still, the main thought that pre-

sented itself was that Saremes had lied to him, either

through ignorance or through malicious forethought,

and had come near to sending him to his death. For

what reason?

Kull cursed, reflecting what Tu would say. Still,

even a talking cat might be innocently wrong, but

hereafter Kull determined to lay no weight to the

words of such.

Kull rode into the silent silvery streets of the an-

cient city, and the guards at the gate gaped at his

appearance, but wisely refrained from questioning.

He found the palace in an uproar. Swearing, he

stalked to his council chamber and thence to the

chamber of the cat Saremes. The cat was there, curled

imperturbably on her cushion; and grouped about the

chamber, each striving to talk down the others, were

Tu and the chief councilors. The slave Kuthulos was

nowhere to be seen.

Kull was greeted by a wild acclamation of shouts

and questions, but he strode straight to Saremes' cush-

ion and glared at her.

"Saremes," said the king, "you lied to me."

The cat stared at him coldly, yawned, and made

no reply. Kull stood nonplussed, and Tu seized his

arm.

"Kull, where in Valka's name have you been?

Whence this blood?"

Kull jerked loose irritably.

"Leave be," he snarled. "This cat sent me on a

fool's errand--where is Brule?"

"Kull!"

The king whirled and saw Brule stride through

the door, his scanty garments stained by the dust of

hard riding. The bronze features of the Pict were im-

mobile, but his dark eyes gleamed with relief.

"Name of seven devils!" said the warrior testily,

to hide his emotion. "My riders have combed the hills

and the forest for you. Where have you been?"

"Searching the waters of Forbidden Lake for your

worthless carcass," answered Kull, with grim enjoy-

ment at the Pict's perturbation.

"Forbidden Lake!" Brule exclaimed with the free-

dom of the savage. "Are you in your dotage? What

would I be doing there? I accompanied Ka-nu yester-

day to the Zarfhaanian border and returned to hear

Tu ordering out all the army to search for you. My

men have since then ridden in every direction except

the Forbidden Lake, where we never thought of

going."

Saremes lied to me--" Kull began.

But he was drowned out by a chatter of scolding

voices, the main theme being that a king should never

ride off so unceremoniously, leaving the kingdom to

take care of itself.

"Silence!" roared Kull, lifting his arms, his eyes

blazing dangerously. "Valka and Hotath! Am I an ur-

chin to be rated for truancy? Tu, tell me what has

occurred."

In the sudden silence which followed his royal

outburst, Tu began:

"My lord, we have been duped from the begin-

ning. This cat is, as I have maintained, a delusion and

a dangerous fraud."

"Yet-"

"My lord, have you never heard of men who

could hurl their voices to a distance, making it appear

that another spoke out, or that invisible voices

sounded?"

Kull flushed. "Aye, by Valka! Fool that I should

have forgotten! An old wizard of Lemuria had that

gift Yet who spoke--"

"Kuthulos!" exclaimed Tu. "Fool am I not to have

remembered Kuthulos, a slave, aye, but the greatest

scholar and the wisest man in all the Seven Empires.

Slave of that she-fiend Delcardes who even now

writhes on the rack!"

Kull gave a sharp exclamation.

"Aye,' said Tu grimly. "When I entered and found

that you had ridden away, none knew where, I sus-

pected treachery, and I sat down and thought hard.

And I remembered Kuthulos and his art of voice-

throwing and of how the false cat had told you small

things but never great prophecies, giving false argu-

ments for reason of refraining.

"So I knew that Delcardes had sent you this cat

and Kuthulos to befool you and gain your confidence,

and finally send you to your doom. So I sent for Del-

cardes and ordered her put to the torture so that she

might confess all. She planned cunningly. Aye, Sar-

emes must have her slave Kuthulos with her all the

time--while he talked through her mouth and put

strange ideas in your mind."

Then where is Kuthulos?" asked Kull.

"He had disappeared when I came to Saremes'

chamber, and--"

"Ho, Kull!" a cheery voice boomed from the door

and a bearded, elfish figure strode in, accompanied

by a slim, frightened girlish shape.

"Ka-nu! Delcardes! So they did not torture you

after all!"

"Oh, my lord!" she ran to him and fell on her

knees before him, clasping his feet. "Oh, Kull," she

wailed, "they accuse me of terrible things! I am guilty

of deceiving you, my lord, but I meant no harm! I

only wished to marry Kulra Thoom!"

Kull raised her to her feet, perplexed, but pitying

her for her evident terror and remorse.

"Kull," said Ka-nu, "it is a good thing I returned

when I did, else you and Tu had tossed the kingdom

into the sea!"

Tu snarled wordlessly, always jealous of the Pict-

ish ambassador, who was also Kull's adviser.

"I returned to find the whole palace in an uproar,

men rushing hither and yon and falling over one an-

other in doing nothing. I sent Brule and his riders to

look for you, and going to the torture chamber--

naturally I went first to the torture chamber, since Tu

was in charge--"

The chancellor winced.

"Going to the torture chamber," Ka-nu continued

placidly, 'I found them about to torture little Del-

cardes, who wept and told all she had to tell, but they

did not believe her. She is only an inquisitive child,

Kull, in spite of her beauty and all. So I brought her

here.

"Now, Kull, Delcardes spoke truth when she said

Saremes was her guest and that the cat was very an-

cient. True; she is a cat of the Old Race and wiser

than other cats, going and coming as she pleases--but

still a cat. Delcardes had spies in the palace to report

to her such small things as the secret letter which you

hid in your dagger sheath and the surplus in the trea-

sury--the courtier who reported that was one of her

spies and had discovered the surplus and told her be-

fore the royal treasurer knew. Her spies were your

most loyal retainers; the things they told her harmed

you not and aided her, whom they all love, for they

knew she meant no harm.

"Her idea was to have Kuthulos, speaking

through the mouth of Saremes, gain your confidence

through small prophecies and facts which anyone

might know, such as warning you against Thulsa

Doom. Then, by constantly urging you to let Kulra

Thoom marry Delcardes, to accomplish what was Del-

cardes' only desire."

"Then Kuthulos turned traitor," said Tu.

And at that moment there was a noise at the

chamber door, and guards entered, haling between

them a tall, gaunt form, his face masked by a veil, his

arms bound.

"Kuthulos!"

"Aye, Kuthulos," said Ka-nu, but he seemed not

at ease, and his eyes roved restlessly. "Kuthulos, no

doubt, with his veil over his face to hide the workings

of his mouth and neck muscles as he talked through

Saremes."

Kull eyed the silent figure which stood there like

a statue. A silence fell over the group, as if a cold

wind had passed over them. There was a tenseness in

the atmosphere. Delcardes looked at the silent figure

and her eyes widened as the guards told in terse sen-

tences how the slave had been captured while trying

to escape from the palace down a little used corridor.

Then a tense silence fell again as Kull stepped

forward and reached forth a hand to tear the veil from

the hidden face. Through the thin fabric Kull felt two

eyes burn into his consciousness. None noticed Ka-nu

clench his hands and tense himself as if for a terrific

struggle.

Then as Kull's hand almost touched the veil, a

sudden sound broke the breathless silence--such a

sound as a man might make by striking the floor with

his forehead or elbow. The noise seemed to come

from a wall, and Kull, crossing the room with a stride,

smote against a panel from behind which the rapping

sounded. A hidden door swung inward, revealing a

dusty corridor, upon which lay the bound and gagged

form of a man.

They dragged him forth and, standing him up-

right, unbound him.

"Kuthulos!" shrieked Delcardes.

Kull stared. The man's face, now revealed, was

thin and kindly, like a teacher of philosophy and mor-

als.

"Yes my lords and lady," he said. "That man who

wears my veil stole upon me through the secret door,

struck me down, and bound me. I lay there, hearing

him send the king to what he thought was Kull's

death, but could do nothing."

"Then who is he?" All eyes turned towards the

veiled figure, and Kull stepped forward.

"Lord king, beware!" exclaimed the real Kuthu-

los. "He-"

Kull tore the veil away with one motion and re-

coiled with a gasp. Delcardes screamed and her knees

gave way; the councilors pressed backwards, faces

white, and the guards released their grasp and shrank

away, horror-struck.

The face of the man was a bare white skull, in

whose eye sockets flamed livid fire!

"Thulsa Doom! Aye, I guessed as much!" ex-

claimed Ka-nu.

"Aye, Thulsa Doom, fools," the voice echoed cav-

ernously. "The greatest of all wizards and your eternal

foe, Kull of Atlantis. You have won this tilt, but be-

ware, there shall be others."

He burst the bonds on his arms with a single con-

temptuous gesture and stalked toward the door, the

throng giving back before him.

"You are a fool of no discernment, Kull," said he.

"Else you had never mistaken me for that other fool,

Kuthulos, even with the veil and his garments."

Kull saw that it was so, for though the twain were

alike in height and general shape, the flesh of the

skull-faced wizard was like that of a man long dead.

The king stood, not fearful like the others, but so

amazed at the turn of events that he was speechless.

Then even as he sprang forward like a man waking

from a dream, Brute charged with the silent ferocity

of a tiger, his curved sword gleaming. And like a

gleam of light it flashed into the ribs of Thulsa Doom,

piercing him through and through, so that the point

stood out between his shoulders.

Brule regained his blade with a quick wrench as

he leaped back; then, crouching to strike again were it

necessary, he halted. Not a drop of blood oozed from

the wound which in a living man had been mortal.

The skull-faced one laughed.

"Ages ago I died as men do!" he taunted. "Nay, I

shall pass to some other sphere when my time comes,

not before. I bleed not, for my veins are empty, and I

feel only a slight coldness which shall pass when the

wound closes, as it is even now closing. Stand back,

fool, your master goes; but he shall come again to you,

and you shall scream-and shrivel and die in that com-

ing! Kull, I salute you!"

And while Brule hesitated, unnerved, and Kull

halted in undecided amazement, Thulsa Doom

stepped through the door and vanished before their

very eyes.

"At least, Kull," said Ka-nu later, "you have won

your first tilt with the skull-faced one, as he admitted.

Next time we must be more wary, for he is a fiend

incarnate--an owner of magic black and unholy. He

hates you, for he is a satellite of the great Serpent

whose power you broke; he has the gift of illusion and

of invisibility, which only he possesses. He is grim and

terrible."

"I fear him not," said Kull. "The next time I will

be prepared, and my answer shall be a sword thrust,

even though he be unslayable, which thing I doubt.

Brule did not find his vitals, which even a living dead

man must have. That is all."

Then, turning to Tu: "Lord Tu, it would seem

that the civilized races also have their tabus since the

blue lake is forbidden to all save myself."

Tu answered testily, angry because Kull had

given the happy Delcardes permission to marry whom

she desired:

"My lord, that is no heathen tabu such as your

tribe bows to; it is a matter of statecraft, to preserve

peace between Valusia and the lake-beings, who are

magicians."

"And we keep tabus so as not to offend unseen

spirits of tigers and eagles," said Kull. "And therein I

see no difference."

"At any rate," said Tu, "you must beware of

Thulsa Doom, for he vanished into another dimension,

and as long as he is there he is invisible and harmless

to us; but he will come again."

"Ah, Kull," sighed the old rascal, Ka-nu, "mine is

a hard life compared to yours; Brule and I were drunk

in Zarfhaana, and I fell down a flight of stairs, most

damnably bruising my shins. And all the while you

lounged in sinful ease on the silk of the kingship,

Kull?

Kull glared at him wordlessly and turned his

back, giving his attention to the drowsing Saremes.

"She is not a wizard-beast, Kull," said the Spear-

slayer. "She is wise, but she merely looks her wisdom

and does not speak. Yet her eyes fascinate me with

their antiquity. A mere cat, just the same."

"Still, Brule," said Kull, admiringly stroking her

silky fur, "still, she is a very ancient cat. Very."

The Skull of Silence

Men still name it The Day of the King's Fear. For

Kull, king of Valusia, was only a man after all. There

was never a bolder man, but all things have their lim-

its, even courage. Of course Kull had known appre-

hension and cold whispers of dread, sudden starts of

horror, and even the shadow of unknown terror. But

these had been but starts and leapings in the shadow of

the mind, caused mainly by surprise or some loathsome

mystery or unnatural thing--more repugnance than

real fear. So real fear in him was so rare a thing that men

mark the day.

Yet there was a time that Kull knew Fear, stark,

terrible, and unreasoning, and his marrow weakened

and his blood ran cold. So men speak of the time of

Kull's Fear, and they do not speak in scorn, nor does

Kull feel any shame. No, for as it came about, the

thing rebounded to his undying glory.

Thus it came to be. Kull sat at ease on the Throne

of Society, listening idly to the conversation of Tu,

chief councilor; Ka-nu, ambassador from Pictdom;

Brule, Ka-nu's right-hand man; and Kuthulos the

slave, who was yet the greatest scholar in the Seven

Empires.

"All is illusion," Kuthulos was saying. "All out-

ward manifestations of the underlying Reality, which

is beyond human comprehension, since there are no

relative things by which the finite mind may measure

the infinite. The one may underlie all, or each natural

illusion may possess a basic entity. All these things

were known to Raama, the greatest mind of all the

ages, who eons ago freed humanity from the grasp of

unknown demons and raised the race to its heights."

"He was a mighty necromancer," said Ka-nu.

"He was no wizard," said Kuthulos. "No chanting,

mumbling conjurer, divining from snake's livers. There

was naught of mummery about Raama. He had

grasped the First Principles; he knew the Elements

and he understood that natural forces, acted upon by

natural causes, produced natural results. He accom-

plished his apparent miracles by the exercise of his

powers in natural ways, which were as simple in their

manner to him as lighting a fire is to us, and as much

beyond our ken as our fire would have been to our ape-

ancestors."

"Then why did he not give all his secrets to the

race?" asked Tu.

"He knew it is not good for man to know too

much. Some villain would subjugate the whole race,

nay, the whole universe, if he knew as much as Raama

knew. Man must learn by himself and expand in soul

as he learns."

"Yet, you say all is illusion," persisted Ka-nu,

shrewd in statecraft, but ignorant in philosophy and

science, and respecting Kuthulos or his knowledge.

"How is that? Do we not hear and see and feel?"

"What is sight and sound?" countered the slave.

"Is not sound the absence of silence, and silence ab-

sence of sound? The absence of a thing is not material

substance. It is--nothing. And how can nothing exist?"

"Then why are things?" asked Ka-nu like a puz-

zled child.

"They are appearances of reality. Like silence;

somewhere exists the essence of silence, the soul of

silence. Nothing that is something; an absence so ab-

solute that it takes material form. How many of you

ever heard complete silence? None of us! Always

there are some noises--the whisper of the wind, the

flutter of an insect, even the growing of the grass, or

on the desert, the murmur of the sands. But at the

centre of silence, there is no sound."

"Raama," said Ka-nu, "long ago shut a spectre of

silence into a great castle and sealed it there for all

time."

"Aye," said Brule. "I have seen the castle: a great

black thing on a lone hill, in a wild region of Valusia.

Since time immemorial it has been known as the Skull

of Silence."

"Ha!" Kull was interested now. "My friends, I

would like to look upon this thing!"

"Lord king," said Kuthulos, "it is not good to

tamper with what Raama made fast. For he was wiser

than any man. I have heard the legend that by his arts

he imprisoned a demon; not by his arts, say I, but by

his knowledge of the natural forces, and not a demon

but some element which threatened the existence of

the race.

"The might of that element is evinced by the fact

that not even Raama was able to destroy it; he only

imprisoned it."

"Enough," Kull gestured impatiently. "Raama has

been dead so many thousand years that it wearies me

to think on it. I ride to find the Skull of Silence; who

rides with me?"

All of those who listened to him, and a hundred

of the Red Slayers, Valusia's mightiest war force, rode

with Kull when he swept out of the royal city in the

early dawn. They rode up among the mountains of

Zalgara, and after many days' search they came upon

a lone hill rising sombrely from the surrounding pla-

teaus, and on its summit a great stark castle, black as

doom.

"This is the place," said Brule. "No people live

within a hundred miles of this castle, nor have they in

the memory of man. It is shunned like a region ac-

cursed."

Kull reined his great stallion to a halt and gazed.

No one spoke, and Kull was aware of the strange, al-

most intolerable stillness. When he spoke again, every-

one started. To the king, it seemed that waves of

deadening quiet emanated from that brooding castle

on the hill. No birds sang in the surrounding land, and

no wind moved the branches of the stunted trees. As

Kull's horsemen rode up the slope, their footfalls on

the rocks seemed to tinkle drearily and far away,

dying without echo.

They halted before the castle that crouched there

like a dark monster, and Kuthulos again essayed to

argue with the king.

"Kull, consider! If you burst that seal, you may

loose upon the world a monster whose might and

frenzy no man can stay!"

Kull, impatient of restraint, waved him aside. He

was in the grip of a wayward perverseness, a common

fault of kings, and though usually reasonable, he had

now made up his mind and was not to be swerved

from his course.

"There are ancient writings on the seal, Kuthu-

los," he said. "Read them to me.

Kuthulos unwillingly dismounted, and the rest

followed suit, all save the common soldiers who sat

their horses like bronze images in the pale sunlight.

The castle leered at them like a sightless skull, for

there were no windows whatever and only one great

door, that of iron and bolted and sealed. Apparently

the building was all in one chamber.

Kull gave a few orders as to the disposition of the

troops and was irritated when he found he was forced

to raise his voice unseemingly in order for the com-

manders to understand him. Their answers came

dimly and indistinctly.

He approached the door, followed by his four

comrades. There on a frame beside the door hung a

curious-appearing gong, apparently of jade, a sort of

green in color. But Kull could not be sure of the color,

for before his amazed stare it changed and shifted,

and sometimes his gaze seemed to be drawn into

depths and sometimes to glance at extreme shallowness.

Beside the gong hung a mallet of the same strange

material. He struck it lightly and then gasped, nearly

stunned by the crash of sound which followed--it was

like all earthly noise concentrated.

"Read the writings, Kuthulos," he commanded

again, and the slave bent forward in considerable

awe, for no doubt these words had been carved by the

great Raama himself.

"That which was, may be again," he intoned.

"Then beware, all sons of men!"

He straightened, a look of fright on his face.

"A warning! A warning straight from Raama!

Mark ye, Kull, mark ye!"

Kull snorted, and drawing his sword, rent the seal

from its hold and cut through the great metal bolt. He

struck again and again, dimly aware of the compara-

tive silence with which the blows fell. The bars fell,

the door swung open.

Kuthulos screamed. Kull reeled, stared--the

chamber was empty? No! He saw nothing, there was

nothing to see, yet he felt the air throb about him as

something came billowing from that foul chamber in

great unseen waves. Kuthulos leaned to his shoulder

and shrieked, and his words came faintly as from over

cosmic, distance.

"The Silence! This is the soul of all Silence!"

Sound ceased. Horses plunged and their riders

fell face first into the dust and lay clutching at their

heads with their hands, screaming without sound.

Kull alone stood erect, his futile sword thrust in

front of him. Silence! Utter and absolute! Throbbing,

billowing waves of still horror. Men opened their

mouths and shrieked, but there was no sound!

The Silence entered Kull's soul; it clawed at his

heart; it sent tentacles of steel into his brain. He

clutched at his forehead in torment; his skull was

bursting, shattering. In the wave of horror which en-

gulfed him, Kull saw red and colossal visions: the Si-

lence spreading out over the Earth, over the Universe!

Men died in gibbering stillness; the roar of rivers, the

crash of seas, the noise of winds faltered and ceased to

be. All Sound was drowned by the Silence. Silence,

soul-destroying, brain-shattering; blotting out all life

on Earth and reaching monstrously up into the skies,

crushing the very singing of the stars!

And then Kull knew fear, horror, terror-

overwhelming, grisly, soul-killing. Faced by the ghast-

liness of his vision, he swayed and staggered drunk-

enly, gone wild with fear. Oh gods, for a sound, the

very slightest, faintest noise! Kull opened his mouth

like the groveling maniacs behind him, and his heart

nearly burst from bis breast in his effort to shriek.

The throbbing stillness mocked him. He smote against

the metal sill with his sword. And still the billowing

waves flowed from the chamber, clawing at him, tear-

ing at him, taunting him like a being sensate with ter-

rible Life.

Ka-nu and Kuthulos lay motionless. Tu writhed

on his belly, his head in his hands, and squalled

soundlessly like a dying jackal. Brule wallowed in the

dust like a wounded wolf, clawing blindly at his scab-

bard.

Kull could almost see the form of the Silence

now, the frightful Silence that was coming out of its

Skull at last, to burst the skulls of men. It twisted, it

writhed in the unholy wisps and shadows, it laughed at

him! It lived! Kull staggered and toppled, and as he

did, his outflung arm struck the gong. Kull heard no

sound, but he felt a distinct throb and jerk of the

waves about him, a slight withdrawal, involuntary,

just as a man's hand jerks back from the flame.

Ah, old Raama left a safeguard for the race, even

in death! Kull's dizzy brain suddenly read the riddle.

The sea! The gong was like the sea, changing green

shades, never still, now deep and now shallow, never

silent.

The sea! Vibrating, pulsing, booming day and

night; the greatest enemy of the Silence. Reeling,

dizzy, nauseated, he caught up the jade mallet. His

knees gave way, but he clung with one hand to the

frame, clutching the mallet with the other in a desper-

ate death grip. The Silence surged wrathfully about

him.

Mortal, who are you to oppose me, who am older

than the gods? Before Life was, I was, and shall be

when Life dies. Before the invader Sound was born,

the Universe was silent and shall be again. For I shall

spread out through all the cosmos and kill Sound--kill

Sound--kill Sound--kill Sound!

The roar of Silence reverberated through the cav-

erns of Kull's crumbling brain in abysmal chanting

monotones as he struck on the gong--again--and

again--and again!

And at each blow the Silence gave back--inch by

inch--inch by inch. Back, back, back. Kull renewed

the force of his mallet blows. Now he could faintly

hear the faraway tinkle of the gong, over unthinkable

voids of stillness, as if someone on the other side of

the Universe were striking a silver coin with a horse-

shoe nail. At each tiny vibration of noise, the waver-

ing Silence started and shuddered. The tentacles

shortened, the waves contracted. The Silence shrank.

Back and back and back--and back. Now the

wisps hovered in the doorway, and behind Kull, men

whimpered and wallowed to their knees, chins sag-

ging and eyes vacant. Kull tore the gong from its

frame and reeled toward the door. He was a finish

fighter; no compromise for him. There would be no

bolting the great door upon the horror again. The

whole Universe should have halted to watch a man

justifying the existence of mankind, scaling sublime

heights of glory in his supreme atonement.

He stood in the doorway and leaned against the

waves that hung there, hammering ceaselessly. All

Hell flowed out to meet him from the frightful thing

whose very last stronghold he was invading. All of the

Silence was now in the chamber again, forced back by

the unconquerable crashings of Sound; Sound concen-

trated from all the sounds and noises of Earth and im-

prisoned by the master hand that long ago conquered

both Sound and Silence.

And here Silence gathered all its forces for one

last attack. Hells of soundless cold and noiseless flame

whirled about Kull. Here was a thing, elemental and

real. Silence was the absence of sound, Kuthulos had

said: Kuthulos who now groveled and yammered

empty nothingnesses.

Here was more than an absence, an absence

whose utter absence became a presence, an abstract

illusion that was a material reality. Kull reeled, blind,

stunned, dumb, almost insensible from the onslaught of

cosmic forces upon him; soul, body, and mind.

Cloaked by the whirling tentacles, the noise of the

gong died out again. But Kull never ceased. His tor-

tured brain rocked, but he thrust his feet against the

sill and shoved powerfully forward. He encountered

material resistance, like a wave of solid fire, hotter

than flame and colder than ice. Still he plunged for-

ward and felt it give--give.

Step by step, foot by foot, he fought his way into

the chamber of death, driving the Silence before him.

Every step was screaming, demoniac torture; every

foot was ravaging Hell. Shoulders hunched, head

down, arms rising and falling in jerky rhythm, Kull

forced his way, and great drops of blood gathered on

his brow and dripped unceasingly.

Behind him, men were beginning to stagger up,

weak and dizzy from the Silence that had invaded

their brains. They gaped at the door, where the king

fought his deathly battle for the Universe. Brule

crawled blindly forward, trailing his sword, still

dazed, and only following his stunned instinct which

bade him follow the king, though the trail led to Hell.

Kull forced the Silence back, step by step, feeling

it grow weaker and weaker, feeling it dwindle. Now

the sound of the gong pealed out and grew and grew.

It filled the room, the Earth, the sky. The Silence

cringed before it, and as the Silence dwindled and

was forced into itself, it took hideous form that Kull

saw, yet did not see. His arm seemed dead, but with a

mighty effort he increased his blows. Now the Silence

writhed in a dark corner and shrank and shrank.

Again, a last blow! All the sound in the Universe

rushed together in one roaring, yelling, shattering, en-

gulfing burst of sound! The gong flew into a million

vibrating fragments. And Silence screamed!

By This Axe I Rule!

1. "My Songs Are Nails for a King's Coffin!"

"At midnight the king must die!"

The speaker was tall, lean and dark; a crooked

scar close to his mouth lent him an unusually sinister

cast of countenance. His hearers nodded, their eyes

glinting. There were four of these; a short fat man

with a timid face, weak mouth, and eyes which

bulged in an air of perpetual curiosity; a sombre

giant, hairy and primitive; a tall, wiry man in the garb

of a jester, whose flaming blue eyes flared with a

light not wholly sane; and a stocky dwarf, abnormally

broad of shoulders and long of arms.

The first speaker smiled in a wintry sort of man-

ner. "Let us take the vow, the oath that may not be

broken--the Oath of the Dagger and the Flame! I

trust you; oh yes, of course. Still, it is better that there

be assurance for all of us. I note tremors among some

of you."

"That is all very well for you to say, Ardyon,"

broke in the short fat man. "You are an ostracized out-

law, anyway, with a price on your head; you have all

to gain and nothing to lose, whereas we--"

"Have much to lose and more to gain," answered

the outlaw imperturbably. "You called me down out

of my mountain fastnesses to aid you in overthrowing

a king. I have made the plans, set the snare, baited

the trap, and stand ready to destroy the prey--but I

must be sure of your support. Will you swear?"

"Enough of this foolishness!" cried the man with

the blazing eyes. "Aye, we will swear this dawn, and

tonight we will dance down a king! 'Oh, the chant of

the chariots and the whir of the wings of the vul-

tures.' "

"Save your songs for another time, Ridondo,"

laughed Ardyon. This is a time for daggers, not

rhymes."

"My songs are nails for a king's coffin!" cried the

minstrel, whipping out a long, lean dagger. "Varlets,

bring hither a candle! I shall be first to swear the

oath!"

A silent and sombre slave brought a long taper,

and Ridondo pricked his wrist, bringing blood. One

by one, the other four followed his example, holding

their wounded wrists carefully so that the blood

should not drip yet. Then gripping hands in a circle,

with the lighted candle in the centre, they turned

their wrists so that the blood drops fell upon it. While

it hissed and sizzled, they repeated:

"I, Ardyon, a landless man, swear the deep spo-

ken and the silence covenanted, by the oath unbreak-

able."

"And I, Ridondo, first minstrel of Valusia's

courts!" cried the minstrel.

"And I, Ducalon, count of Komahar," spoke the

dwarf.

"And I, Enaros, commander of The Black Legion,"

rumbled the giant.

"And I, Kaanuub, baron of BIaal," quavered the

short fat man in a rather tremulous falsetto.

The candle sputtered and went out, quenched by

the ruby drops which fell upon it.

"So fades the life of our enemy," said Ardyon, re-

leasing his comrades' hands. He looked on them with

carefully veiled contempt. The outlaw knew that

oaths may be broken, even "unbreakable" ones, but

he knew also that Kaanuub, of whom he was most dis-

trustful, was superstitious. There was no point in over-

looking any safeguard, no matter how slight.

Tomorrow,' said Ardyon abruptly, "or rather, to-

day, for it is dawn now, Brule the Spear-slayer, the

king's right hand man, departs for Grondar along with

Ka-nu, the Pictish ambassador; the Pictish escort; and

a goodly number of the Red Slayers, the king's body-

guard."

"Yes," said Ducalon with some satisfaction, "that

was your plan, Ardyon, but I accomplished it. I have

kin high in the council of Grondar and it was a simple

matter to indirectly persuade the king of Grondar to

request the presence of Ka-nu. And of course, as Kull

honors Ka-nu above all others, he must have a suffi-

cient escort."

The outlaw nodded.

"Good. I have at last managed, through Enaros,

to corrupt an officer of the Red Guard. This man will

march his men away from the royal bedroom tonight

just before midnight, on a pretext of investigating

some suspicious noise or the like. The various court-

iers will have been disposed of. We will be waiting,

we five, and sixteen desperate rogues of mine whom I

have summoned from the hills, and who now hide in

various parts of the city. Twenty-one against one--"

He laughed. Enaros nodded, Ducalon grinned,

Kaanuub turned pale; Ridondo smote his hands to-

gether and cried out ringingly:

"By Valka, they will remember this night, who

strike the golden strings! The fall of the tyrant, the

death of the despot--what songs I shall make!"

His eyes burned with a wild fanatical light, and

the others regarded him dubiously, all save Ardyon,

who bent his head to hide a grin. Then the outlaw

rose suddenly.

"Enough! Get back to your places and not by

word, deed or look do you betray what is in your

minds." He hesitated, eyeing Kaanuub. "Baron, your

white face will betray you. If Kull comes to you and

looks into your eyes with those icy gray eyes of his,

you will collapse. Get you out to your country estate

and wait until we send for you. Four are enough."

Kaanuub almost collapsed then, from a reaction

of joy; he left babbling incoherencies. The rest nod-

ded to the outlaw and departed.

Ardyon stretched himself like a great cat and

grinned. He called for a slave, and one came, a

sombre-looking fellow whose shoulder bore the scars

of the brand that marks thieves.

"Tomorrow," quoth Ardyon, taking the cup of-

fered him, "I come into the open and let the people of

Valusia feast their eyes upon me. For months now,

ever since the Rebel Four summoned me from my

mountains, I have been cooped in like a rat; living in

the very heart of my enemies, hiding away from the

light in the daytime, skulking, masked, through dark

alleys and darker corridors at night. Yet I have accom-

plished what those rebellious lords could not. Working

through them and through other agents, many of

whom have never seen my face, I have honeycombed

the empire with discontent and corruption. I have

bribed and subverted officials, spread sedition among

the people--in short, I, working in the shadows, have

paved the downfall of the king who at the moment

sits throned in the sun. Ah, my friend, I had almost

forgotten that I was a statesman before I was an out-

law, until Kaanuub and Ducalon sent for me."

"You work with strange comrades," said the slave.

"Weak men, but strong in their ways," lazily an-

swered the outlaw. "Ducalon--a shrewd man, bold,

audacious, with kin in high places; but poverty-

stricken, and his barren estates loaded with debts. En-

aros--a ferocious beast, strong and brave as a lion,

with considerable influence among the soldiers, but

otherwise useless for he lacks the necessary brains.

Kaanuub--cunning in his low way and full of petty

intrigue, but otherwise a fool and a coward; avari-

cious but possessed of immense wealth which has

been essential in my schemes. Ridondo--a mad poet,

full of harebrained schemes, brave but flighty. A

prime favorite with the people because of his songs

which tear out their heartstrings. He is our best bid

for popularity, once we have achieved our design."

"Who mounts the throne, then?"

"Kaanuub, of course--or so he thinks! He has a

trace of royal blood in him, the blood of that king

whom Kull killed with his bare hands. A bad mistake

of the present king. He knows there are men who still

boast descent from the old dynasty, but he lets them

live. So Kaanuub plots for the throne. Ducalon wishes

to be reinstated in favor as he was under the old re-

gime, so that he may lift his estate and title to their

former grandeur. Enaros hates Kelkor, commander of

the Red Slayers, and thinks he should have that position.

He wishes to be commander of all Valusia's armies.

As for Ridondo--bah! I despise the man and ad-

mire him at the same time. He is your true idealist. He

sees in Kull, an outlander and a barbarian, merely a

rough-footed, red-handed savage who has come out of

the sea to invade a peaceful and pleasant land. He

already idolizes the king that Kull stew, forgetting the

rogue's vile nature. He forgets the inhumanities under

which the land groaned during his reign, and he is

making the people forget. Already they sing "The La-

ment For the King" in which Ridondo lauds the saintly

villain and vilifies Kull as 'that black hearted savage.'

Kull laughs at these songs and indulges Ridondo, but

at the same time wonders why the people are turning

against him."

"But why does Ridondo hate Kull?"

"Because he is a poet, and poets always hate

those in power and turn to dead ages for relief in

dreams. Ridondo is a flaming torch of idealism, and

he sees himself as a hero, a stainless knight rising to

overthrow the tyrant."

"And you?"

Ardyon laughed and drained the goblet "I have

ideas of my own. Poets are dangerous things because

they believe what they sing, at the time. Well, I be-

lieve what I think. And I think Kaanuub will not hold

the throne overlong. A few months ago I had lost all

ambitions save to waste the villages and the caravans

as long as I lived. Now, well--now we shall see."

3. "Then I Was The Liberator--Now--"

A room strangely barren in contrast to the rich

tapestries on the walls and the deep carpets on the

floor. A small writing table, behind which sat a man.

This man would have stood out in a crowd of a mil-

lion. It was not so much because of his unusual size,

his height and great shoulders, though these features

lent to the general effect. But his face, dark and im-

mobile, held the gaze, and his narrow gray eyes beat

down the wills of the onlookers by their icy magne-

tism. Each movement he made, no matter how slight,

betokened steel-spring muscles and brain knit to those

muscles with perfect coordination. There was nothing

deliberate or measured about his motions; either he

was perfectly at rest--still as a bronze statue--or else

he was in motion with that catlike quickness which

blurred the sight that tried to follow his movements.

Now this man rested his chin on his fists, his elbows

on the writing table, and gloomily eyed the man who

stood before him. This man was occupied in his own

affairs at the moment, for he was tightening the laces

of his breast-plate. Moreover he was abstractedly

whistling, a strange and unconventional performance,

considering that he was in the presence of a king.

"Brule," said the king, "this matter of statecraft

wearies me as all the fighting I have done never did."

"A part of the game, Kull," answered Brule. "You

are king; you must play the part."

"I wish that I might ride with you to Grondar,"

said Kull enviously. "It seems ages since I had a horse

between my knees, but Tu says that affairs at home

require my presence. Curse him!

"Months and months ago," he continued with in-

creasing gloom, getting no answer, and speaking with

freedom, "I overthrew the old dynasty and seized the

throne of Valusia, of which I had dreamed ever since

I was a boy in the land of my tribesmen. That was

easy. Looking back now, over the long hard path I

followed, all those days of toil, slaughter, and tribula-

tion seem like so many dreams. From a wild tribes-

man in Atlantis, I rose, passing through the galleys of

Lemuria--a slave for two years at the oars--then an

outlaw in the hills of Valusia, then a captive in her

dungeons, a gladiator in her arenas, a soldier in her

armies, a commander, a king!

"The trouble with me, Brule, I did not dream far

enough. I always visualized merely the seizing of the

throne; I did not look beyond. When King Borna lay

dead beneath my feet, and I tore the crown from his

gory head, I had reached the ultimate border of my

dreams. From there, it has been a maze of illusions

and mistakes. I prepared myself to seize the throne,

not to hold it.

"When I overthrew Borna, then people hailed me

wildly; then I was The Liberator--now they mutter

and stare blackly behind my back--they spit at my

shadow when they think I am not looking. They have

put a statue of Borna, that dead swine, in the Temple

of the Serpent, and people go and wail before him,

hailing him as a saintly monarch who was done to

death by a red-handed barbarian. When I led her ar-

mies to victory as a soldier, Valusia overlooked the

fact that I was a foreigner; now she cannot forgive

me.

"And now, in the Temple of the Serpent, there

come to burn incense to Borna's memory, men whom

his executioners blinded and maimed, fathers whose

sons died in his dungeons, husbands whose wives

were dragged into his seraglio. Ba! Men are all

fools."

"Ridondo is largely responsible," answered the

Pict, drawing his sword-belt up another notch. "He

sings songs that make men mad. Hang him in his jest-

er's garb to the highest tower in the city. Let him

make rhymes for the vultures."

Kull shook his leonine head. "No, Brule, he is be-

yond my reach. A great poet is greater than any king.

He hates me; yet I would have his friendship. His

songs are mightier than my sceptre, for time and again

he has near torn the heart from my breast when he

chose to sing for me. I will die and be forgotten; his

songs will live forever."

The Pict shrugged his shoulders. "As you like;

you are still king, and the people cannot dislodge you.

The Red Slayers are yours to a man, and you have all

Pictland behind you. We are barbarians together, even

if we have spent most of our lives in this land. I go

now. You have naught to fear save an attempt at as-

sassination, which is no fear at all, considering the fact

that you are guarded night and day by a squad of the

Red Slayers."

Kull lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell, and

the Pict clanked out of the room.

Now another man wished his attention, remind-

ing Kull that a king's time was never his own.

This man was a young noble of the city, one Seno

val Dor. This famous young swordsman and reprobate

presented himself before the king with the plain evi-

dence of much mental perturbation. His velvet cap was

rumpled, and as he dropped it to the floor when he

kneeled, the plume drooped miserably. His gaudy

clothing showed stains as if in his mental agony he had

neglected his personal appearance for some time.

"King, lord king," he said in tones of deep sincerity,

"if the glorious record of my family means anything

to your majesty, if my own fealty means anything, for

Valka's sake, grant my request."

"Name it."

"Lord king, I love a maiden. Without her, I can-

not live. Without me, she must die. I cannot eat, I can-

not sleep for thinking of her. Her beauty haunts me

day and night--the radiant vision of her divine loveli-

ness--"

Kull moved restlessly. He had never been a lover.

"Then in Valka's name, marry her!"

"Ah," cried the youth, "there's the rub! She is a

slave, Ala by name, belonging to one Ducalon, count

of Komahar. It is on the black books of Valusian law

that a noble cannot marry a slave. It has always been

so. I have moved high heaven and get only the same

reply. 'Noble and slave can never marry.' It is fearful.

They tell me that never before in the history of the

empire has a nobleman wanted to marry a slave. What

is that to me? I appeal to you as a last resort."

"Will not this Ducalon sell her?"

"He would, but that would hardly alter the case.

She would still be a slave, and a man cannot marry his

own slave. Only as a wife do I want her. Any other

way would be a hollow mockery. I want to show her

to all the world rigged out in the ermine and jewels of

val Dor's wife! But it cannot be, unless you can help

me. She was born a slave, of a hundred generations of

slaves, and slave she will be as long as she lives, and

her children after her. And as such she cannot marry a

freeman."

"Then go into slavery with her," suggested Kull,

eyeing the youth narrowly.

This I desired," answered Seno, so frankly that

Kull instantly believed him. "I went to Ducalon and

said, *You have a slave whom I love; I wish to wed

her. Take me, then, as your slave so that I may be

ever near her.' He refused with horror; he would sell

me the girl or give her to me, but he would not con-

sent to enslave me. And my father has sworn on the

unbreakable oath to kill me if I should so degrade the

name of val Dor by going into slavery. No, lord king,

only you can help me."

Kull summoned Tu and laid the case before him.

Tu, chief councilor, shook his head. "It is written in

the great iron-bound books, even as Seno has said. It

has ever been the law, and it will always be the law.

A noble may not mate with a slave."

"Why may I not change that law?" queried KulL

Tu laid before him a tablet of stone whereon the

law was engraved.

"For thousands of years this law has been. See,

Kull, on the stone it was carved by the primal law-

makers, so many centuries ago a man might count all

night and still not number them all. Not you, or any

other king may alter it"

Kull felt suddenly the sickening, weakening feel-

.ing of utter helplessness which had begun to assail

him of late. Kingship was another form of slavery, it

seemed to him; he had always won his way by carving

a path through his enemies with his great sword. How

could he prevail against solicitous and respectful

friends who bowed and flattered and were adamant

against anything new; who barricaded themselves and

their customs with tradition and antiquity and quietly

defied him to change anything?

"Go," he said with a weary wave of his hand. "I

am sorry, but I cannot help you."

Seno val Dor wandered out of the room, a broken

man, if hanging head and bent shoulders, dull eyes

and dragging steps mean anything.

3. "I Thought You a Human Tiger!"

A cool wind whispered through the green wood-

lands. A silver thread of a brook wound among great

tree boles, whence hung large vines and gayly fes-

tooned creepers. A bird sang, and the soft late sum-

mer sunlight was sifted through the interlocking

branches to fall in gold and black velvet patterns of

shade and light on the grass-covered earth. In the

midst of this pastoral quietude, a little slave girl lay

with her face between her soft white arms, and wept

as if her heart would break. The birds sang, but she

was deaf; the brooks called her, but she was dumb;

the sun shone, but she was blind--all the universe was

a black void in which only pain and tears were real.

So she did not hear the light footfall nor see the

tall, broad-shouldered man who came out of the

bushes and stood above her. She was not aware of his

presence until he knelt and lifted her, wiping her eyes

with hands as gentle as a woman's.

The little slave girl looked into a dark immobile

face, with cold, narrow gray eyes which Just now were

strangely soft. She knew this man was not a Valusian

from his appearance, and in these troublous times it

was not a good thing for little slave girls to be caught

in the lonely woods by strangers, especially foreigners,

but she was too miserable to be afraid, and, besides,

the man looked kind.

"What's the matter, child?" he asked, and because

a woman in extreme grief is likely to pour out her sor-

rows to anyone who shows interest and sympathy, she

whimpered, "Oh, sir, I am a miserable girl. I love a

young nobleman--"

"Seno val Dor?"

"Yes sir," she glanced at him in surprise. "How

did you know? He wishes to marry me, and today, hav-

ing striven in vain elsewhere for permission, he went

to the king himself. But the king refused to aid him."

A shadow crossed the stranger's dark face. "Did

Seno say the king refused?"

"No, the king summoned the chief councilor and

argued with him awhile, but gave in. Oh," she

sobbed, "I knew it would be useless! The laws of Val-

usia are unalterable, no matter how cruel or unjust.

They are greater than the king."

The girl felt the muscles of the arms supporting

her swell and harden into great iron cables. Across the

stranger's face passed a bleak and hopeless expression.

Aye," he muttered, half to himself, "the laws of

Valusia are greater than the king."

Telling her troubles had helped her a little, and

she dried her eyes. Little slave girls are used to trou-

bles and to suffering, though this one had been un-

usually kindly used all her life.

"Does Seno hate the king?" asked the stranger.

She shook her head. "He realizes the king is help-

less."

"And you?"

"And I what?"

"Do you hate the king?"

Her eyes flared. "I! Oh, sir, who am I, to hate the

king? Why, why, I never thought of such a thing."

"I am glad," said the man heavily. "After all, little

one, the king is only a slave like yourself, locked with

heavier chains."

"Poor man," she said, pityingly, though not ex-

actly understanding; then she flamed into wrath. "But

I do hate the cruel laws which the people follow! Why

should laws not change? Time never stands still! Why

should people today be shackled by laws which were

made for our barbarian ancestors thousands of years

ago--" She stopped suddenly and looked fearfully

about.

"Don't tell," she whispered, laying her head in an

appealing manner on her companion's shoulder. "It is

not fit that a woman, and a slave girl at that, should

so unashamedly express herself on such public mat-

ters. I will be spanked if my mistress or my master

hears of it."

The big man smiled. "Be at ease, child. The king

himself would not be offended by your sentiments;

indeed, I believe that he agrees with you."

"Have you seen the king?" she asked, her childish

curiosity overcoming her misery for the moment

"Often."

"And is he eight feet tall," she asked eagerly, "and

has he horns under his crown, as the common people

say?"

"Scarcely," he laughed. "He lacks nearly two feet

of answering your description as regards height; as for

size, he might be my twin brother. There is not an

inch difference in us."

"Is he as kind as you?"

"At times, when he is not goaded to frenzy by a

statecraft which he cannot understand and by the va-

garies of a people which can never understand him."

"Is he in truth a barbarian?"

"In very truth; he was born and spent his early

boyhood among the heathen barbarians who inhabit

the land of Atlantis. He dreamed a dream and ful-

filled it. Because he was a great fighter and a savage

swordsman, because he was crafty in actual battle,

because the barbarian mercenaries in the Valusian

army loved him, he became king. Because he is a war-

rior and not a politician, because his swordsmanship

helps him now not at all, his throne is rocking beneath

him."

"And he is very unhappy?"

"Not all the time," smiled the big man. "Some-

times when he slips away alone and takes a few hours

holiday by himself among the woods, he is almost

happy. Especially when he meets a pretty little girl

like-"

The girl cried out in sudden terror, slipping to

her knees before him. "Oh, sire, have mercy! I did not

know; you are the king!"

"Don't be afraid." Kull knelt beside her again and

put an arm about her, feeling her tremble from head

to foot. "You said I was kind--''

"And so you are, sire," she whispered weakly. "I--

I thought you were a human tiger, from what men

said, but you are kind and tender--b-but--you are k-

king, and I--"

Suddenly, in a very agony of confusion and em-

barrassment, she sprang up and fled, vanishing in-

stantly. The realization that the king whom she had

only dreamed of seeing at a distance some day, was

actually the man to whom she had told her pitiful

woes, overcame her with an abasement and embar-

rassment which was almost physical terror.

Kull sighed and rose. The affairs of the palace

were calling him back, and he must return and wres-

tle with problems concerning the nature of which he

had only the vaguest idea, and concerning the solving

of which he had no idea at all.

4. "Who Dies First?"

Through the utter silence which shrouded the

corridors and halls of the palace, twenty figures stole.

Their stealthy feet, cased in soft leather shoes, made

no sound either on thick carpet or bare marble tile.

The torches which stood in niches along the halls

gleamed redly on bared daggers, broadsword blade,

and keen-edged axe.

"Easy, easy all!" hissed Ardyon, halting for a mo-

ment to glance back at his followers. "Stop that cursed

loud breathing, whoever it is! The officer of the night

guard has removed all the guards from these halls, ei-

ther by direct order or by making them drunk, but we

must be careful. Lucky it is for us that those cursed

Picts--the lean wolves--are either reveling at the con-

sulate or riding to Grondar. Hist! back--here come the

guard!"

They crowded back behind a huge pillar which

might have hidden a whole regiment of men, and

waited. Almost immediately, ten men swung by; tall

brawny men in red armor, who looked like iron stat-

ues. They were heavily armed, and the faces of some

showed a slight uncertainty. The officer who led

them was rather pale. His face was set in hard lines,

and he lifted a hand to wipe sweat from his brow as

the guard passed the pillar where the assassins hid.

He was young and this betraying of a king came not

easy to him.

They clanked by and passed on up the corridor.

"Good!" chuckled Ardyon. "He did as I bid; Kull

sleeps unguarded! Haste, we have work to do! If they

catch us killing him, we are undone, but a dead king

is easy to make a mere memory. Haste!"

Aye, haste!" cried Ridondo.

They hurried down the corridor with reckless

speed and stopped before a door.

"Here!" snapped Ardyon. "Enaros--break me

open this door!"

The giant launched his mighty weight against the

panel. Again--this time there was a rending of bolts, a

crash of wood, and the door staggered and burst in-

ward.

"In!" shouted Ardyon, on fire with the spirit of

murder.

"In!" roared Ridondo. "Death to the tyrant-"

They halted short. Kull faced them--not a naked

Kull, roused out of deep sleep, mazed and unarmed to

be butchered like a sheep, but a Kull wakeful and fero-

cious, partly clad in the armor of a Red Slayer, with

a long sword in his hand.

Kull had risen quietly a few minutes before, un-

able to sleep. He had intended to ask the officer of the

guard into his room to converse with him awhile, but

on looking through the spy-hole of the door, had seen

him leading his men off. To the suspicious brain of

the barbarian king had leaped the assumption that he

was being betrayed. He never thought of calling the

men back, because they were supposedly in the plot,

too. There was no good reason for this desertion. So

Kull had quietly and quickly donned the armor he

kept at hand, nor had he completed this act when Ena-

ros first hurtled against the door.

For a moment the tableau held--the four rebel

noblemen at the door and the sixteen desperate out-

laws crowding close behind them--held at bay by the

terrible-eyed silent giant who stood in the middle of

the royal bedroom, sword at the ready.

Then Ardyon shouted, "In and slay him! He is

one to twenty, and he has no helmet!"

True, there had been lack of time to put on the

helmet, nor was there now time to snatch the great

shield from where it hung on the wall. Be that as it

may, Kull was better protected than any of the assas-

sins except Enaros and Ducalon, who were in full ar-

mor with their vizors closed.

With a yell that rang to the roof, the killers

flooded into the room. First of all was Enaros. He

came in like a charging bull, head down, sword low

for the disemboweling thrust. And Kull sprang to

meet him like a tiger charging a bull, and all the

king's weight and mighty strength went into the arm

that swung the sword. In a whistling arc the great

blade flashed through the air to crash down on the

commander's helmet. Blade and helmet clashed and

flew to pieces together, and Enaros rolled lifeless on

the floor, while Kull bounded back, gripping the

bladeless hilt.

"Enaros!" he snarled as the shattered helmet dis-

closed the shattered head; then the rest of the pack

were upon him. He felt a dagger point rake along his

ribs and flung the wielder aside with a swing of his

left arm. He smashed his broken hilt square between

another's eyes and dropped him senseless and bleed-

ing to the floor.

"Watch the door, four of you!" screamed Ardyon,

dancing about the edge of that whirlpool of singing

steel, for he feared that Kull, with his great weight

and speed, might crash through their midst and es-

cape. Four rogues drew back and ranged themselves

before the single door. And in that instant Kull leaped

to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-axe

which had hung there for possibly a hundred years.

Back to the wall, he faced them for a moment;

then leaped among them. No defensive fighter was

Kull! He always carried the fight to the enemy. A

sweep of the axe dropped an outlaw to the floor with

a severed shoulder--the terrible backhand stroke

crushed the skull of another. A sword shattered

against his breastplate--else he had died. His concern

was to protect his uncovered head and the spaces be-

tween breastplate and backplate, for Valusian armor

was intricate, and he had not had time to fully arm

himself. Already he was bleeding from wounds on the

cheek and the arms and legs, but so swift and deadly

was he, and so much the fighter, that even with the

odds so greatly on their side, the assassins hesitated to

leave an opening. Moreover, their own numbers ham-

pered them.

For one moment they crowded him savagely,

raining blows; then they gave back and ringed him,

thrusting and parrying--a couple of corpses on the

floor gave mute evidence of the folly of their first

plan.

"Knaves!" screamed Ridondo in a rage, flinging

off his slouch cap, his wild eyes glaring. "Do ye shrink

from the combat? Shall the despot live? Out on it!"

He rushed in, thrusting viciously; but Kull, recog-

nizing him, shattered his sword with a tremendous

short chop and, with a push, sent him reeling back to

sprawl on the floor. The king took in his left arm the

sword of Ardyon, and the outlaw only saved his life

by ducking Kull's axe and bounding backward. One

of the bandits dived at Kull's legs, hoping to bring

him down in that manner, but after wrestling for a

brief instant at what seemed a solid iron tower, he

glanced up Just in time to see the axe falling, but not

in time to avoid it. In the interim, one of his comrades

had lifted a sword with both hands and hewed down-

ward with such downright sincerity that he cut through

Kull's shoulder plate on the left side, and wounded the

shoulder beneath. In an instant the king's breastplate

was full of blood.

Ducalon, flinging the attackers to right and left in

his savage impatience, came plowing through and

hacked savagely at Kull's unprotected head. Kull

ducked and the sword whistled above, shaving off a

lock of hair; ducking the blows of a dwarf like Ducalon

is difficult for a man of Kull's height.

Kull pivoted on his heel and struck from the side,

as a wolf might leap, in a wide level arc; Ducalon

dropped with his entire left side caved in and the

lungs gushing forth.

"Ducalon!" Kull spoke the word rather breath-

lessly. "I'd know that dwarf in Hell-"

He straightened to defend himself from the mad-

dened rush of Ridondo, who charged in wide open,

armed only with a dagger. Kull leaped back, axe high.

"Ridondo!" his voice rang sharply. "Back! I would

not harm you--"

"Die, tyrant!" screamed the mad minstrel, hurling

himself headlong on the king. Kull delayed the blow

he was loath to deliver until it was too late. Only

when he felt the bite of steel in his unprotected side

did he strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation.

Ridondo dropped with a shattered skull, and Kull

reeled back against the wall, blood spurting through

the fingers which gripped his wounded side.

'In, now, and get him!" yelled Ardyon, preparing

to lead the attack.

Kull placed his back to the wall and lifted his

axe. He made a terrible and primordial picture. Legs

braced far apart, head thrust forward, one red hand

clutching at the wall for support, the other gripping

the axe on high, while the ferocious features were

frozen in a snarl of hate and the icy eyes blazed

through the mist of blood which veiled them. The

men hesitated; the tiger might be dying, but he was

still capable of dealing death.

"Who dies first?" snarled Kull through smashed

and bloody lips.

Ardyon leaped as a wolf leaps, halted almost in

mid-air with the unbelievable speed which character-

ized him, and fell prostrate to avoid the death that

was hissing toward him in the form of a red axe. He

frantically whirled his feet out of the way and rolled

clear just as Kull recovered from his missed blow and

struck again; this time the axe sank four inches into

the polished wood floor close to Ardyon's revolving

legs.

Another desperado rushed at this instant, fol-

lowed half-heartedly by his fellows. The first villain

had figured on reaching Kull and killing him before

he could get his axe out of the floor, but he miscalcu-

lated the king's speed, or else he started his rush a

second too late. At any rate, the axe lurched up and

crashed down, and the rush halted abruptly as a red-

dened caricature of a man was catapulted back

against their legs.

At that moment a hurried clanking of feet!

founded down the hall, and the rogues in the door

raised a shout, "Soldiers coming!"

Ardyon cursed, and his men deserted him like

rats leaving a sinking ship. They rushed out into the

hall--or limped, splattering blood--and down the cor-

ridor a hue and cry was raised and pursuit started.

Save for the dead and dying men on the floor,

Kull and Ardyon stood alone in the royal bedroom.

Kull's knees were buckling, and he leaned heavily

against the wall, watching the outlaw with the eyes of

a dying wolf. In this extremity, Ardyon's cynical phi-

losophy did not escape him.

"All seems to be lost, particularly honor," he mur-

mured. "However, the king is dying on his feet, and--"

Whatever other cogitation might have passed through

his mind is not known, for at that moment he ran

lightly at Kull just as the king was employing his axe

arm to wipe the blood from his half-blind eyes. A man

with a sword at the ready can thrust quicker than a

wounded man, out of position, can strike with an axe

that weights his weary arm like lead.

But even as Ardyon began his thrust, Seno val

Dor appeared at the door and flung something

through the air which glittered, sang, and ended its

flight in Ardyon's throat. The outlaw staggered,

dropped his sword, and sank to the floor at Kull's feet,

flooding them with the flow of a severed jugular;

mute witness that Seno's war-skill included knife-

throwing as well. Kull looked down bewilderedly at

the dead outlaw, and Ardyon's dead eyes stared back

in seeming mockery, as if the owner still maintained

the futility of kings and outlaws, of plots and counter-

plots.

Then Seno was supporting the king, the room was

flooded with men-at-arms in the uniform of the great

val Dor family, and Kull realized that a little slave girl

was holding his other arm.

"Kull, Kull, are you dead?" val Dor's face was

very white.

"Not yet," the king spoke huskily. "Staunch this

wound in my left side; if I die 'twill be from it. It is

deep--Ridondo wrote me a deathly song there!--but

the rest are not mortal. Cram stuff into it for the pres-

ent; I have work to do."

They obeyed wonderingly, and as the flow of

blood ceased, Kull, though literally bled white al-

ready, felt some slight access of strength. The palace

was fully aroused now. Court ladies, lords, men-at-

arms, councilors, all swarmed about the place, bab-

bling. The Red Slayers were gathering, wild with

rage, ready for anything. Jealous of the fact that others

had aided their king. Of the young officer who had

commanded the door guard, he had slipped away in

the darkness, and neither then nor later was he in ev-

idence, though earnestly sought after.

Kull, still keeping stubbornly to his feet, grasping

his bloody axe with one hand and Seno's shoulder

with another, singled out Tu, who stood wringing his

hands, and ordered, "Bring me the tablet whereon is

engraved the law concerning slaves."

"But lord king--"

"Do as I say!" yelled Kull, lifting the axe, and Tu

scurried to obey.

As he waited, and the court women flocked

about him, dressing his wounds and trying gently but

vainly to pry his iron fingers from about the bloody

axe handle, Kull heard Seno's breathless tale.

"--Ala heard Kaanuub and Ducalon plotting--she

had stolen into a little nook to cry over her--our trou-

bles, and Kaanuub came on his way to his country

estate. He was shaking with terror for fear plans

might go awry, and he made Ducalon go over the plot

with him again before he left, so he might know there

was no flaw in it.

"He did not leave until it was late in the evening,

and only then did Ala find a chance to steal away and

come to me. But it is a long way from Ducalon's city

house to the house of val Dor, a long way for a little

girl to walk, and though I gathered my men and came

instantly, we almost arrived too late."

Kull gripped his shoulder.

"I will not forget."

Tu entered with the law tablet, laying it rever-

ently on the table.

Kull shouldered aside all who stood near him and

stood up alone.

"Hear, people of Valusia," he exclaimed, upheld

by the wild beast vitality which was his. "I stand

here--the king. I am wounded almost unto death, but

I have survived mass wounds.

"Hear you! I am weary of this business. I am no

king, but a slave! I am hemmed in by laws, laws,

laws! I cannot punish malefactors nor reward my

friends because of law--custom--tradition. By Valka, I

will be king in fact as well as in name!"

"Here stand the two who have saved my life.

Hence forward they are free to marry, to do as they

like."

Seno and Ala rushed into each other's arms with a

glad cry.

"But the law!" screamed Tu.

"I am the law!" roared Kull, swinging up his axe;

it flashed downward and the stone tablet flew into a

hundred pieces. The people clenched their hands in

horror, waiting dumbly for the sky to fall.

Kull reeled back, eyes blazing. The room whirled

before his dizzy gaze.

"I am king, state, and law!" be roared, and seizing

the wand-like sceptre which lay near, he broke it in

two and flung it from him. "This shall be my sceptre!"

The red axe was brandished aloft, splashing the pallid

nobles with drops of blood. Kull gripped the slender

crown with his left hand and placed his back against

the wall; only that support kept him from falling, but

in his arms was still the strength of lions.

"I am either king or corpse!" he roared, his

corded muscles bulging, his terrible eyes blazing. "If

you like not my kingship--come and take this crown!"

The corded left arm held out the crown, the right

gripping the menacing axe above it.

"By this axe I rule! This is my sceptre! I have

struggled and sweated to be the puppet king you

wished me to be--to rule your way. Now I use mine

own way. If you will not fight, you shall obey. Laws

that are just shall stand, laws that have outlived their

times I shall shatter as I shattered that one. I am

king!"

Slowly the pale-faced noblemen and frightened

women knelt, bowing in fear and reverence to the

blood-stained giant who towered above them with his

eyes ablaze.

"I am king!"

The Striking of The Gong

Somewhere in the hot red darkness there began a

throbbing. A pulsating cadence, soundless but vibrant

with reality sent out long rippling tendrils that flowed

through the breathless air. The man stirred, groped

about with blind hands, and sat up. At first it seemed

to him that he was floating on the even and regular

waves of a black ocean, rising and falling with monot-

onous regularity which hurt him physically somehow.

He was aware of the pulsing and throbbing of the air

and he reached out his hands as though to catch the

elusive waves. But was the throbbing in the air about

him, or in the brain inside his skull? He could not un-

derstand and a fantastic thought came to him--a feel-

ing that he was locked inside his own skull.

The pulsing dwindled, centralized, and he held

his aching head in his hands and tried to remember.

Remember what?

"This is a strange thing," he murmured. "Who or

what am I? What place is this? What has happened

and why am I here? Have I always been here?"

He rose to his feet and sought to look about him.

Utter darkness met his glance. He strained his eyes,

but no single gleam of light met them. He began to

walk forward, haltingly, hands out before him, seek-

ing light as instinctively as a growing plant seeks it

"This is surely not everything," he mused. "There

must be something else--what is different from this?/

Light! I know--1 remember Light, though I do not re-

member what Light is. Surely I have known a differ-

ent world than this."

Far away a faint gray light began to glow. He

hastened toward it. The gleam widened, until it was

as if he were striding down a long and ever widening

corridor. Then he came out suddenly into dim star-

light and felt the wind cold in his face.

"This is light," he murmured, "but this is not all

yet."

He felt and recognized a sensation of terrific

height. High above him, even with his eyes, and be-

low him, flashed and blazed great stars in a majestic

glittering cosmic ocean. He frowned abstractedly as

he gazed at these stars.

Then he was aware that he was not alone. A tall

vague shape loomed before him in the starlight. His

hand shot instinctively to his left hip, then fell away

limply. He was naked and no weapon hung at his

side.

The shape moved nearer and he saw that it was a

man, apparently a very ancient man, though the fea-

tures were indistinct and illusive in the faint light.

"You are new come here?" said this figure in a

clear deep voice which was much like the chiming of

a jade gong. At the sound a sudden trickle of memory

began in the brain of the man who heard the voice.

He rubbed his chin in a bewildered manner.

"Now I remember," said he. "I am Kull, king of

Valusia--but what am I doing here, without garments

or weapons?"

"No man can bring anything through the Door

with him," said the other cryptically. "Think, Kull of

Valusia, know you not how you came?"

"I was standing in the doorway of the council

chamber," said Kull dazedly, "and I remember that

the watchman on the outer tower was striking the

gong to denote the hour--then suddenly the crash of

the gong merged into a wild and sudden flood of

shattering sound. All went dark and red sparks

flashed for an instant before my eyes. Then I awoke

in a cavern or a corridor of some sort, remembering

nothing."

"You passed through the Door; it always seems

dark."

"Then I am dead? By Valka, some enemy must

have been lurking among the columns of the palace

and struck me down as I was speaking with Brule, the

Pictish warrior."

"I have not said you were dead," answered the

dim figure. "Mayhap the Door is not utterly closed.

Such things have been."

"But what place is this? Is it Paradise or Hell?

This is not the world I have known since birth. And

those stars--I have never seen them before. Those con-

stellations are mightier and more fiery than I ever

knew in life."

"There are worlds beyond worlds, universes

within and without universes," said the ancient. "You

are upon a different planet than that upon which you

were born; you are in a different universe, doubtless

in a different dimension,"

"Then I am certainly dead."

"What is death but a traversing of eternities and a

crossing of cosmic oceans? But I have not said that

you are dead."

"Then where in Valka's name am I?" roared Kull,

his short stock of patience exhausted.

"Your barbarian brain clutches at material actual-

ities," answered the other tranquilly. "What does it

matter where you are, or whether you are dead, as

you call it? You are a part of that great ocean which is

Life, which washes upon all shores, and you are as

much a part of it in one place as in another, and as

sure to eventually flow back to the Source of it, which

gave birth to all Life. As for that, you are bound to

Life for all Eternity as surely as a tree, a rock, a bird

or a world is bound. You call leaving your tiny planet,

quitting your crude physical form--death!"

"But I still have my body."

"I have not said that you are dead, as you name

it. As for that, you may be still upon your little planet,

as far as you know. Worlds within worlds, universes

within universes. Things exist too small and too large

for human comprehension. Each pebble on the

beaches of Valusia contains countless universes within

itself, and itself as a whole is as much a part of the

great plan of all universes, as is the sun you know.

Your universe, Kull of Valusia, may be a pebble on

the shore of a mighty kingdom.

"You have broken the bounds of material limita-

tions. You may be in a universe which goes to make

up a gem on the robe you wore on Valusia's throne or

that universe you knew may be in the spiderweb

which lies there on the grass near your feet. I tell you,

size and space and time are relative and do not really

exist."

"Surely you are a god?" said Kull curiously.

"The mere accumulation of knowledge and the ac-

quiring of wisdom does not make a god," answered

the other rather impatiently. "Look!" A shadowy hand

pointed toward the great blazing gems which were

the stars.

Kull looked and saw that they were changing

swiftly. A constant weaving, an incessant changing of

design and pattern was taking place.

"The 'everlasting' stars change in their own time,

as swiftly as the races of men rise and fade. Even as

we watch, upon those which are planets, beings are

rising from the slime of the primeval, are climbing up

the long slow roads to culture and wisdom, and are

being destroyed with their dying worlds. All life and a

part of life. To them it seems billions of years; to us,

but a moment. All life."

Kull watched, fascinated, as huge stars and

mighty constellations blazed and waned and faded,

while others equally as radiant took their places, to be

in turn supplanted.

Then suddenly the hot red darkness flowed over

him again, blotting out all the stars. As through a

thick fog, he heard a faint familiar clashing.

Then he was on his feet, reeling. Sunlight met his

eyes, the tall marble pillars and walls of a palace, the

wide curtained windows through which the sunlight

flowed like molten gold. He ran a swift, dazed hand

over his body, feeling his garments and the sword at

his side. He was bloody; a red stream trickled down

his temple from a shallow cut. But most of the blood

on his limbs and clothing was not his. At his feet in a

horrid crimson wallow lay what had been a man. The

clashing he had heard ceased, re-echoing.

"Brule! What is this? What happened? Where have

I been?"

"You had nearly been on a journey to old King

Death's realms," answered the Pict with a mirthless

grin as he cleansed his sword. "That spy was lying in

wait behind a column and was on you like a leopard

as you turned to speak to me in the doorway. Whoever

plotted your death must have had great power to so

send a man to his certain doom. Had not the sword

turned in his hand and struck glancingly instead of

straight, you had gone before him with a cleft skull,

instead of standing here now mulling over a mere

flesh wound."

"But surely," said Kull, "that was hours agone."

Brule laughed.

"You are still mazed, lord king. From the time he

leaped and you fell, to the time I slashed the heart out

of him, a man could not have counted the fingers of

one hand. And during the time you were lying in his

blood and yours on the floor, no more than twice that

time elapsed. See, Tu has not yet arrived with ban-

dages and he scurried for them the moment you went

down."

"Aye, you are right," answered Kull. "I cannot un-

derstand--but just before I was struck down I heard

the gong sounding the hour, and it was still sounding

when I came to myself,

"Brule, there is no such thing as time nor space;

for I have travelled the longest journey of my life, and

have lived countless millions of years during the strik-

ing of the gong."

Swords of The Purple Kingdom

I. "'Valusia Plots Behind Closed Doors"

A sinister quiet lay like a shroud over the ancient

city of Valusia. The heat waves danced from roof to

shining roof and shimmered against the smooth mar-

ble walls. The purple towers and golden spires were

softened in the faint haze. No ringing hoofs on the'

wide paved streets broke the drowsy silence, and the

few pedestrians who appeared did what they had to

do hastily and vanished indoors again. The city

seemed like a realm of ghosts.

Kull, king of Valusia, drew aside the filmy cur-

tains and gazed over the golden window sill, out over

the court with sparkling fountains and trim hedges^

and pruned trees, over the high wall and at the blank

windows of houses which metnis glance.

"All Valusia plots behind closed doors, Brule," he

grunted.

His companion, a dark-faced, powerful warrior of

medium height, grinned hardly. ''You are too suspi-

cious, Kull. The heat drives most of them indoors."

"But they plot," reiterated Kull. He was a tall,

broad-shouldered barbarian, with the true fighting

build: wide shoulders, mighty chest, and lean flanks.

Under heavy black brows his cold gray eyes brooded.

His features betrayed his birthplace, for Kull the usurp-

er was an Atlantean.

True, they plot. When did the people ever fail to

plot, no matter who held the throne? And they might

be excused now, Kull."

"Aye," the giant's brow clouded, "I am an alien.

The first barbarian to press the Valusian throne since

the beginning of time. When I was a commander of

her forces they overlooked the accident of my birth.

But now they hurl it into my teeth--by looks and

thoughts, at least."

"What do you care? I am an alien also. Aliens rule

Valusia now, since the people have grown too weak

and degenerate to rule themselves. An Atlantean sits on

her throne, backed by all the Picts, the empire's most

ancient and powerful allies; her court is filled with

foreigners; her armies with barbarian mercenaries;

and the Red Slayers--well, they are at least Valusians,

but they are men of the mountains who look upon

themselves as a different race."

Kull shrugged his shoulders restlessly.

"I know what the people think, and with what

aversion and anger the powerful old Valusian families

must look on the state of affairs. But what would you

have? The empire was worse under Borna, a native

Valusian and a direct heir of the old dynasty, than it

has been under me. This is the price a nation must

pay for decaying: the strong young people come in

and take possession, one way or another. I have at

least rebuilt the armies, organized the mercenaries

and restored Valusia to a measure of her former inter-

national greatness. Surely it is better to have one bar-

barian on the throne holding the crumbling bands

together, than to have a hundred thousand riding red-

handed through the city streets. Which is what would

have happened by now, had it been left to King

Borna. The kingdom was splitting under his feet, inva-

sion threatened on all sides, the heathen Grondarians

were ready to launch a raid of appalling magnitude--

"Well, I killed Borna with my bare hands that

wild night when I rode at the head of the rebels. That

bit of ruthlessness won me some enemies, but within

six months I had put down anarchy and all counter-

rebellions, had welded the nation back into one

piece, had broken the back of the Triple Federation,

and crushed the power of the Grondarians. Now Valu-

sia dozes in peace and quiet, and between naps plots

my overthrow. There has been no famine since my

reign, the storehouses are bulging with grain, the trad-

ing ships ride heavy with cargo, the merchants' purses

are full, the people are fat-bellied--but still they mur-

mur and curse and spit on my shadow. What do they

want?"

The Pict grinned savagely and with bitter mirth.

"Another Borna! A red-handed tyrant! Forget their in-

gratitude. You did not seize the kingdom for their

sakes, nor do you hold it for their benefit. Well, you

have accomplished a lifelong ambition, and you are

firmly seated on the throne. Let them murmur and

plot. You are king."

Kull nodded grimly. "I am king of this purple

kingdom! And until my breath stops and my ghost

goes down the long shadow road, I will be king. What

now?"

A slave bowed deeply, "Nalissa, daughter of the

great house of bora Ballin, desires audience, most

high majesty."

A shadow crossed the king's brow. "More suppli-

cation in regard to her damnable love affair," he sighed

to Brule. "Mayhap you'd better go." To the slave, "Let

her enter the presence."

Kull sat in a chair padded with velvet and gazed

at Nalissa. She was only some nineteen years of age;

and clad in the costly but scanty fashion of Valusian

noble ladies, she presented a ravishing picture, the

beauty of which even the barbarian king could appre-

ciate. Her skin was a marvelous white, due partly to

many baths in milk and wine, but mainly to a heritage

of loveliness. Her cheeks were tinted naturally with a

delicate pink, and her lips were full and red. Under

delicate black brows brooded a pair of deep soft eyes,

dark as mystery, and the whole picture was set off by

a mass of curly black hair which was partly confined

by slim golden band.

Nalissa knelt at the feet of the king, and clasping

his sword-hardened fingers in her soft slim hands, she

looked up into his eyes; her own eyes luminous and

pensive with appeal. Of all the people in the kingdom,

Kull preferred not to look into the eyes of Nalissa. He

saw there at times a depth of allure and mystery. She

knew something of her powers, the spoiled and pam-

pered child of aristocracy, but her full powers she lit-

tle guessed because of her youth. But Kull, who was

wise in the ways of men and women, realized with

some uneasiness that with maturity Nalissa was bound

to become a terrific power in the court and in the

land, either for good or bad.

"But your majesty," she was wailing now, like a

child begging for a toy, "please let me marry Dalgar

of Farsun. He has become a Valusian citizen, he is

high in favor at court, as you yourself say. Why--"

"I have told you," said the king with patience, "it

is nothing to me whether you marry Dalgar, Brule, or

the devil! But your father does not wish you to marry

this Farsunian adventurer and--"

"But you can make him let me!" she cried.

"The house of bora Ballin I number among my

staunchest supporters," answered the Atlantean. 'And

Murom bora Ballin, your father, among my closest

friends. When I was a friendless gladiator, he be-

friended me. He lent me money when I was a com-

mon soldier, and he espoused my cause when I struck

for the throne. Not to save this right hand of mine

would I force him into an action to which he is so

violently opposed, or interfere in his family affairs."

Nalissa had not yet learned that some men cannot

be moved by feminine wiles. She pleaded, coaxed,

and pouted. She kissed Kull's hands, wept on his

breast, perched on his knee and argued, all much to

his embarrassment, but to no avail. Kull was sincerely

sympathetic, but adamant. To all her appeals and

blandishments he had one answer: that it was none of

his business, that her father knew better what she

needed, and that he, Kull, was not going to interfere.

At last Nalissa gave up and left the presence with

bowed head and dragging steps. As she emerged from

the royal chamber, she met her father coming in. Mu-

rom bora Ballin, guessing his daughter's purpose in

visiting the king, said nothing to her, but the look he

gave her spoke eloquently of punishment to come.

The girl climbed miserably into her sedan chair, feel-

ing as if her sorrow was too heavy a load for any one

girl to bear. Then her inner nature asserted itself. Her

dark eyes smoldered with rebellion, and she spoke a

few quick words to the slaves who carried her chair.

Count Murom stood before his king meanwhile,

and his features were frozen into a mask of formal def-

erence. Kull noted that expression, and it hurt him.

Formality existed between himself and all his subjects

and allies except the Pict, Brule; and the ambassador,

Ka-nu; but this studied formality was a new thing in

Count Murom, and Kull guessed at the reason.

"Your daughter was here, Count," he said ab-

ruptly.

"Yes, your majesty," the tone was impassive and

respectful.

"You probably know why. She wants to marry

Dalgar of Farsun."

The count made a stately inclination of his head.

"If your majesty so wishes, he has but to say the

word." His features froze into harder lines.

Kull, stung, rose and strode across the chamber to

the window, where once again he gazed out at the

drowsing city. Without turning, he said, "Not for half

my kingdom would I interfere with your family af-

fairs, nor force you into a course unpleasant to you."

The count was at his side in an instant, his for-

mality vanished, his fine eyes eloquent. "Your maj-

esty, I have wronged you in my thoughts--1 should

have known-" He made as if to kneel, but Kull re-

strained him.

The king grinned. "Be at ease. Count. Your pri-

vate affairs are your own. I cannot help you, but you

can help me. There is conspiracy in the air; I smell

danger as in my early youth I sensed the nearness of a

tiger in the jungle or a serpent in the high grass."

"My spies have been combing the city, your maj-

esty," said the count, his eyes kindling at the prospect

of action. "The people murmur as they will murmur

under any ruler--but I have recently come from Ka-nu

at the consulate, and he told me to warn you that out-

side influence and foreign money were at work. He

said he knew nothing definite, but his Picts wormed

some information from a drunken servant of the Ve-

rulian ambassador--vague hints at some coup that

government is planning."

Kull grunted. "Verulian trickery is a byword. But

Gen Dala, the Verulian ambassador, is the soul of

honor."

"So much better a figurehead. If he knows noth-

ing of what his nation plans, so much the better will

he serve as a mask for their doings."

"But what would Verulia gain?" asked Kull.

"Gomlah, a distant cousin of King Gorna, took ref-

uge there when you overthrew the old dynasty. With

you slain, Valusia would fall to pieces. Her armies

would become disorganized, all her allies except the

Picts would desert her, the mercenaries whom only

you can control would turn against her, and she would

be an easy prey for the first powerful nation who

might move against her. Then, with Gomlah as an

excuse for invasion, as a puppet on Valusia's throne--"

"I see," grunted Kull. "I am better at battle than

in council, but I see. So--the first step must be my

removal, eh?"

"Yes, your majesty."

Kull smiled and flexed his mighty arms. "After

all, this ruling grows dull at times." His fingers ca-

ressed the hilt of the great sword which he wore at all

times.

"Tu, chief councilor to the king, and Dondal, his

nephew," sang out a slave, and two men entered the

presence.

Tu, chief councilor, was a portly man of medium

height and late middle life, who looked more like a

merchant than a councilor. His hair was thin, his face

lined, and on his brow rested a look of perpetual sus-

picion. Tu's years and honors rested heavily on him.

Originally of plebian birth, he had won his way by

sheer power of craft and intrigue. He had seen three

kings come and go before Kull, and the strain told on

him.

His nephew Dondal was a slim, foppish youth

with keen dark eyes and a pleasant smile. His chief

virtue lay in the fact that he kept a discreet tongue in

his head and never repeated what he heard at court.

For this reason he was admitted into places not even

warranted by his close kinship to Tu.

"Just a small matter of state, your majesty," said

Tu. "This permit for a new harbor on the western

coast. Will your majesty sign?"

Kull signed his name; Tu drew from inside his

bosom a signet ring attached to a small chain which

he wore around his neck, and affixed the seal. This

ring was the royal signature, in effect. No other ring

in the world was exactly like it, and Tu wore it about

his neck, waking or sleeping. Outside those in the

royal chamber at the moment, not four men in the

world knew where the ring was kept.

2. Mystery

The quiet of the day had merged almost imper-

ceptibly into the quiet of night. The moon had not yet

risen, and the small silver stars gave little light, as if

their radiance was strangled by the heat which still

rose from the earth.

Along a deserted street a single horse's hoofs

clanged hollowly. If eyes watched from the blank

windows, they gave no sign that betrayed that anyone

knew Dalgar of Farsun was riding through the night

and the silence.

The young Farsunian was fully armed, his lithe

athletic body was completely encased in light armor,

and a morion was on his head. He looked capable of

handling the long, slim jewel-hilted sword at his side,

and the scarf which crossed his steel-clad breast, with its

red rose, detracted nothing from the picture of man-

hood he presented.

Now as he rode he glanced at a crumpled note in

his hand, which, half unfolded, disclosed the follow-

ing message in the characters of Valusia; "At mid-

night, my beloved, in the Accursed Gardens beyond

the walls. We will fly together."

A dramatic note; Dalgar's handsome lips curved

slightly as he read. Well, a little melodrama was par-

donable in a young girl, and the youth enjoyed a

touch himself. A thrill of ecstasy shook him at the

thought of that rendezvous. By dawn he would be far

across the Verulian border with his bride-to-be; then

let Count Murom bora Ballin rave; let the whole Val-

usian army follow their tracks. With that much start,

he and Nalissa would be in safety. He felt high and

romantic; his heart swelled with the foolish heroics of

youth. It was hours until midnight, but--he nudged

his horse with an armored heel and turned aside to

take a shortcut through some dark narrow streets.

"Oh, silver moon and a silver breast--" be

hummed under his breath the flaming love songs of

the mad, dead poet Ridondo; then his horse snorted

and shied. In the shadow of a squalid doorway, a dark

bulk moved and groaned.

Drawing his sword, Dalgar slipped from the sad-

dle and bent over he who groaned.

Bending very close, he made out the form of a

man. He dragged the body into a comparatively

lighter area, noting that he was still breathing. Some-

thing warm and sticky adhered to his hand.

The man was portly and apparently old, since his

hair was sparse and his beard shot with white. He was

clad in the rags of a beggar, but even in the darkness

Dalgar could tell that his hands were soft and white

under their grime. A nasty gash on the side of his

head seeped blood, and his eyes were closed. He

groaned from time to time.

Dalgar tore a piece from his sash to staunch the

wound, and in so doing, a ring on his finger became

entangled in the unkempt beard. He jerked impa-

tiently--the beard came away entirely, disclosing the

smooth-shaven, deeply lined face of a man in late

middle life. Dalgar cried out and recoiled. He

bounded to his feet, bewildered and shocked. A mo-

ment he stood, staring down at the groaning man;

then the quick rattle of hoofs on a parallel street re-

called him to life.

He ran down a side alley and accosted the rider.

This man pulled up with a quick motion, reaching for

his sword as he did so. The steel-shod hoofs of his

steed struck fire from the flagstones as the horse set

back on his haunches.

"What now? Oh, it's you, Dalgar."

"Brule!" cried the young Farsunian. "Quick! Tu,

the chief councilor, lies in yonder side street, sense-

less--mayhap murdered!"

The Pict was off his horse in an instant, sword

flashing into his hand. He flung the reins over his

mounts head and left the steed standing there like a

statue while he followed Dalgar on a run.

Together they bent over the stricken councilor

while Brule ran an experienced hand over him.

"No fracture, apparently," grunted the Pict. "Can't

tell for sure, of course. Was his beard off when you

found him?"

"No, I pulled it off accidentally--"

"Then likely this is the work of some thug who

knew him not I'd rather think that. If the man who

struck him down knew he was Tu, there's black

treachery brewing in Valusia. I told him he'd come to

grief prowling around the city disguised this way--but

you cannot tell a councilor anything. He insisted that

in this manner he learned all that was going on; kept

his finger on the empire's pulse, as he said."

"But if it were a cutthroat," said Dalgar, "why did

they not rob him? Here is his purse with a few copper

coins in it--and who would seek to rob a beggar?"

The Spear-slayer swore. "Right. But who in Val-

ka's name could know he was Tu? He never wore the

same disguise twice, and only Dondal and a slave

helped him with it. And what did they want, whoever

struck him down? Oh well, Valka--he'll die while we

stand here jabbering. Help me get him on my horse."

With the chief councilor lolling drunkenly in the

saddle, upheld by Brule's steel-sinewed arms, they

clattered through the streets to the palace. They were

admitted by a wondering guard, and the senseless

man was carried to an inner chamber and laid on a

couch, where he was showing signs of recovering con-

sciousness, under the ministrations of the slaves and

court women.

At last he sat up and gripped his head, groaning.

Ka-nu, Pictish ambassador and the craftiest man in

the Kingdom, bent over him.

"Tu! Who smote you?"

"I don't know," the councilor was still dazed. "I

remember nothing."

"Had you any documents of importance about

you?"

"No."

"Did they take anything from you?"

Tu began fumbling at his garments uncertainly;

his clouded eyes began to clear, then flared in sudden

apprehension. "The ring! The royal signet ring! It is

gone!"

Ka-nu smote his fist into his palm and cursed

soulfully.

"This comes of carrying the thing with you! I

warned you! Quick, Brule, Kelkor--Dalgar; foul trea-

son is afoot! Haste to the king's chamber.'

In front of the royal bedchamber, ten of the Red

Slayers, men of the king's favorite regiment, stood at

guard. To Ka-nu's staccato questions, they answered

that the king had retired an hour or so ago, that no

one had sought entrance, and that they had heard no

sound.

Ka-nu knocked on the door. There was no re-

sponse. In a panic he pushed against the door. It was

locked from within.

"Break that door down!" he screamed, his face

white, his voice unnatural with unaccustomed strain.

Two of the Red Slayers, giants in size, hurled

their full weight against the door, but it, being of

heavy oak braced with bronze bands, held. Brule

pushed them away and attacked the massive portal

with his sword. Under the heavy blows of the keen

edge, wood and metal gave way, and in a few mo-

ments Brule shouldered through the shreds and

rushed into the room. He halted short with a stifled

cry, and, glaring over his shoulder, Ka-nu clutched

wildly at his beard. The royal bed was mussed as if it

had been slept in, but of the king there was no sign.

The room was empty, and only the open window gave

hint of any clue.

"Sweep the streets!" roared Ka-nu. "Comb the

city! Guard all the gates! Kelkor, rouse out the full

force of the Red Slayers. Brule, gather your horsemen

and ride them to death if necessary. Haste! Dalgar--"

But the Farsunian was gone. He had suddenly re-

membered that the hour of midnight approached, and

of far more importance to him than the whereabouts

of any king was the fact that Nalissa bora Ballin was

awaiting him in the Accursed Gardens two miles be-

yond the city wall.

3. The Sign of the Seal

That night Kull had retired early. As was his cus-

tom, he halted outside the door of the royal bedcham-

ber for a few minutes to chat with the guard, his old

regimental mates, and exchange a reminiscence or so

of the days when he had ridden in the ranks of the

Red Slayers. Then, dismissing his attendants, he en-

tered the chamber, flung back the covers of his bed,

and prepared to retire. Strange proceedings for a king,

no doubt, but Kull had been long used to the rough

life of a soldier, and before that he had been a savage

tribesman. He had never gotten used to having things

done for him, and in the privacy of his bedchamber

he would at least attend to himself.

But just as he turned to extinguish the candle

which illumined his room, he heard a slight tapping at

the window sill. Hand on sword, he crossed the room

with the easy, silent tread of a great panther and

looked out. The window opened on the inner grounds

of the palace; the hedges and trees loomed vaguely in

the semi-darkness of the starlight. Fountains glim-

mered vaguely, and be could not make out the forms

of any of the sentries who paced those confines.

But here at his elbow was mystery. Clinging to

the vines which covered the wall was a small wizened

fellow who looked much like the professional beggars

which swarmed the more sordid of the city's streets.

He seemed harmless with his thin limbs and monkey

face, but Kull regarded him with a scowl.

"I see I shall have to plant sentries at the very

foot of my window, or tear these vines down," said

the king. "How did you get through the guards?"

The wizened one put his skinny finger across

puckered lips for silence; then with a simian-like dex-

terity, slid a hand through the bars. He silently

handed Kull a piece of parchment. The long unrolled

it and read: "King Kull: If you value your life, or the

welfare of the kingdom, follow this guide to the place

where he shall lead you. Tell no one. Let yourself be

not seen by the guards. The regiments are honey-

combed with treason, and if you are to live and hold

the throne, you must do exactly as I say. Trust the

bearer of this note implicitly." It was signed "Tu,

Chief Councilor of Valusia" and was sealed with the

royal signet ring.

Kull knit his brows. The thing had an unsavory

look--but this was Tu's handwriting--he noted the pe-

culiar, almost imperceptible, quirk in the last letter of

Tu's name, which was the councilor's trademark, so to

speak. And then the sign of the seal, the seal which

could not be duplicated. Kull sighed.

"Very well, he said. "Wait until I arm myself."

Dressed and clad in light chain-mail armor, Kull

turned again to the window. He gripped the bars, one

in each hand, and cautiously exerting his tremendous

strength, felt them give until even his broad shoulders

could slip between them. Clambering out, he caught

the vines and swung down them with as much ease as

was displayed by the small beggar who preceded him.

At the foot of the wall, Kull caught his companion's

arm.

"How did you elude the guard?" he whispered.

"To such as accosted me, I showed the sign of the

royal seal."

"That will scarcely suffice now," grunted the

king. "Follow me; I know their routine."

Some twenty minutes followed of lying in wait

behind a hedge or tree until a sentry passed, of dodg-

ing quickly into the shadows and making short, steal-

thy dashes. At last they came to the outer wall. Kull

took his guide by the ankles and lifted him until his

fingers clutched the top of the wall. Once astride it,

the beggar reached down a hand to aid the king; but

Kull, with a contemptuous gesture, backed off a few

paces, took a short run, and bounding high in the air,

caught the parapet with one upflung hand, swinging

his great form up across the top of the wall with an

almost incredible display of strength and agility.

The next instant the two strangely incongruous

figures had dropped down on the opposite side and

faded into the gloom.

4. "'Here I Stand at Bay!"

Nalissa, daughter of the house of bora Ballin, was

nervous and frightened. Upheld by her high hopes

and her sincere love, she did not regret her rash ac-

tions of the last few hours, but she earnestly wished

for the coming of midnight and her lover.

Up to the present, her escapade had been easy. It

was not easy for anyone to leave the city after night-

fall, but she had ridden away from her father's house

Just before sundown, telling her mother that she was

going to spend the night with a girl friend. It was well

for her that women were allowed unusual freedom in

the city of Valusia, and were not kept hemmed in ser-

aglios and veritable prison houses as they were in the

Eastern empires; a custom which survived the Flood.

Nalissa had ridden boldly through the eastern

gate, and then made directly for the Accursed Gar-

dens, two miles east of the city. These Gardens had

once been the pleasure resort and country estate of a

nobleman, but tales of grim debauches and ghastly

rites of devil worship began to get abroad; and finally

the people, maddened by the regular disappearance of

their children, had descended on the Gardens in a

frenzied mob and had hanged the prince to his own

portals. Combing the Gardens, the people had found

foul things, and in a flood of repulsion and horror had

partially destroyed the mansion and the summer

houses, the arbors, the grottoes, and the walls. But

built of imperishable marble, many of the buildings

had resisted both the sledges of the mob and the cor-

rosion of time. Now, deserted for a hundred years, a

miniature jungle had sprung up within the crumbling

walls and rank vegetation overran the ruins.

Nalissa concealed her steed in a ruined summer

house, and seated herself on the cracked marble floor,

settling down to wait. At first it was not bad. The gen-

tle summer sunset flooded the land, softening all

scenes with its mellow gold. The green sea about her,

shot with white gleams which were marble walls and

crumbling roofs, intrigued her. But as night fell and

the shadows merged, Nalissa grew nervous. The night

wind whispered grisly things through the branches

and the broad palm leaves and the tall grass, and the

stars seemed cold and far away. Legends and tales

came back to her, and she fancied that above the

throb of her pounding heart she could hear the rustle

of unseen black wings and the mutter of fiendish

voices.

She prayed for midnight and Dalgar. Had Kull

seen her then he would not have thought of her

strange deep nature, nor the signs of her great future;

he would have seen only a frightened little girl who

passionately desired to be taken up and cuddled.

But the thought of leaving never entered her

mind.

Time seemed as if it would never pass, but pass it

did somehow. At last a faint glow betrayed the rising

of the moon, and she knew the hour was closing to

midnight

Then suddenly there came a sound which

brought her to her feet, her heart flying into her

throat Somewhere in the supposedly deserted Gar-

dens there crashed into the silence a shout and a clang

of steel. A short, hideous scream chilled the blood in

her veins; then silence fell in a suffocating shroud.

Dalgar--Dalgar! The thought beat like a hammer

in her dazed brain. Her lover had come and had fallen

foul of someone--or something.

She stole from her hiding place, one hand over

her heart which seemed about to burst through her

ribs. She stole along a broken pave, and the whispering

palm leaves brushed against her like ghostly fingers.

About her lay a pulsating gulf of shadows, vibrant

and alive with nameless evil. There was no sound.

Ahead of her loomed the ruined mansion; then

without a sound, two men stepped into her path. She

screamed once; then her tongue froze with terror. She

tried to flee, but her legs would not work, and before

she could move, one of the men had caught her up

and tucked her under his arm as if she were a tiny

child.

"A woman," he growled in a language which Nal-

issa barely understood, and which she recognized as

Verulian. "Lend me your dagger and I'll--"

"We haven't time now," interposed the other,

speaking in the Valusian tongue. Toss her in there

with him, and we'll finish them both together. We

must get Phondar here before we kill him; he wants to

question him a little."

"Small use," rumbled the Verulian giant, striding

after his companion. "He won't talk--I can tell you that

-he's opened his mouth only to curse us, since we cap-

tured him."

"Nalissa, tucked ignominiously under her captor's

arm, was frozen with fear, but her mind was working.

Who was this "him" they were going to question and

then kill? The thought that it must be Dalgar drove

her own fear from her mind, and flooded her soul

with a wild and desperate rage. She began to kick and

struggle violently and was punished with a resound-

ing smack that brought tears to her eyes and a cry of

pain to her lips. She lapsed into a humiliated submis-

sion and was presently tossed unceremoniously

through a shadowed doorway, to sprawl in a dishev-

eled heap on the floor.

"Hadn't we better tie her?" queried the giant.

"What use? She can't escape. And she can't untie

him. Hurry up; we've got work to do."

Nalissa sat up and looked timidly about. She was

in a small chamber, the corners of which were

screened with spider webs. Dust was deep on the

floor, and fragments of marble from the crumbling

walls littered it. Part of the roof was gone, and the

slowly rising moon poured light through the aperture.

By its light she saw a form on the floor, close to the

wall. She shrank back, her teeth sinking into her lip

with horrified anticipation; then she saw with a deliri-

ous sensation of relief that the man was too large to

be Dalgar. She crawled over to him and looked into

his face. He was bound hand and foot and gagged;

above the gag, two cold gray eyes looked up into hers.

"King KulI!" Nalissa pressed both hands against

her temples while the room reeled to her shocked and

astounded gaze. The next instant her slim, strong fin-

gers were at work on the gag. A few minutes of ago-

nized effort, and it came free. Kull stretched his jaws

and swore in his own language, considerate, even in

that moment, of the girl's tender ears.

"Oh, my lord, how came you here?" The girl was

wringing her hands.

"Either my most trusted councilor is a traitor or I

am a madman!" growled the giant. "One came to me

with a letter in Tu's handwriting, bearing even the

royal seal. I followed him, as instructed, through the

city and to a gate, the existence of which I had never

known. This gate was unguarded and apparently un-

known to any but they who plotted against me. Out-

side the gate, one awaited us with horses, and we

came full speed to these damnable gardens. At the

outer edge we left the horses, and I was led, like a

blind, dumb fool for sacrifice, into this ruined man-

sion.

"As I came through the door, a great man-net fell

on me, entangling my sword arm and binding my

limbs, and a dozen rogues sprang on me. Well, may-

hap my taking was not so easy as they had thought

Two of them were swinging on my already encum-

bered right arm so I could not use my sword, but I

kicked one in the side and felt his ribs give way, and

bursting some of the net's strands with my left hand, I

gored another with my dagger. He had his death

thereby and screamed like a lost soul as he gave up

the ghost.

"But by Valka, there were too many of them. At

last they had me stripped of my armor, --Nalissa saw

the king wore only a sort of loincloth--"and bound as

you see me. The devil himself could not break these

strands; no, scant use to try to untie the knots. One of

the men was a seaman, and I know of old the sort of

knots they tie. I was a galley slave once, you know."

"But what can I do?" wailed the girl, wringing

her hands.

"Take a heavy piece of marble and flake off a

sharp sliver," said Kull swiftly. "You must cut these

ropes--"

She did as he bid and was rewarded with a long

thin piece of stone, the concave edge of which was as

keen as a razor with a jagged edge.

"I fear I will cut your skin, sire," she apologized

as she began work.

"Cut skin, flesh, and bone, but get me free!"

snarled Kull, his eyes blazing. "Trapped like a blind

fool! Oh, imbecile that I am! Valka, Honan, and Ho-

tath! But let me get my hands on the rogues--how

came you here?"

"Let us talk of that later," said Nalissa rather

breathlessly. "Just now there is time for haste."

Silence fell as the girl sawed at the stubborn

strands, giving no heed to her own tender hands,

which were soon lacerated and bleeding. Slowly,

strand by strand, the cords gave way; but there were

still enough to hold the ordinary man helpless when a

heavy step sounded outside the door.

Nalissa froze. A voice spoke, "He is within, Phon-

dar, bound and gagged. With him is some Valusian

wench that we caught wandering about the Gardens."

"Then be on watch for some gallant," spoke an-

other voice, whose harsh, grating tones were those of

a man accustomed to being obeyed. "Likely she was

to meet some fop here. You--"

"No names, no names, good Phondar," broke in a

silky Valusian voice. "Remember our agreement; until

Gomlah mounts the throne, I am simply--the Masked

One."

"Very good," grunted the Verulian. "You have

done a good night's work, Masked One. None but you

could have done it, for only you knew how to obtain

the royal signet. Only you could so closely counterfeit

Tu's writing--by the way, did you kill the old fellow?"

"What matter? Tonight, or the day Gomlah

mounts the throne, he dies. The matter of most im-

portance is that the king lies helpless in our power."

Kull was racking his brain trying to place the

hauntingly familiar voice of the traitor. And Phon-

dar--his face grew grim. A deep conspiracy indeed, if

Verulia must send the commander of her royal armies

to do her foul work. The king knew Phondar well, and

had aforetime entertained him in the palace.

"Go in and bring him out," said Phondar. "We

will take him to the old torture chamber. I have ques-

tions to ask of him."

The door opened, admitting one man: the giant

who had captured Nalissa. The door closed behind

him and he crossed the room, giving scarcely a glance

to the girl who cowered in a corner. He bent over the

bound king, took him by leg and shoulder to lift him

bodily; there came a sudden loud snap as Kull, throw-

ing all his iron strength into one convulsive wrench,

broke the remaining strands which bound him.

He had not been tied long enough for all circula-

tion to be cut off and his strength affected thereby.

As a python strikes, his hands shot to the giant's

throat; shot, and gripped like a steel vise.

The giant went to his knees. One hand flew to

the fingers at his throat, the other to his dagger. His

fingers sank like steel into Kull's wrist, the dagger

flashed from its sheath; then his eyes bulged, his

tongue sagged out. The fingers fell away from the

king's wrist, and the dagger slipped from a nerveless

grip. The Verulian went limp, his throat literally

crushed in that terrible grip. Kull, with one terrific

wrench, broke his neck and, releasing him, tore the

sword from its sheath. Nalissa had picked up the dag-

ger.

The combat had taken only a few flashing sec-

onds and had caused no more noise than might have

resulted from a man lifting and shouldering a great

weight.

"Hasten!" called Phondar's voice impatiently from

beyond the door, and Kull, crouching tigerlike just in-

side, thought quickly. He knew that there were at

least a score of conspirators in the Gardens. He knew

also, from the sound of voices, that there were only

two or three outside the door at the moment. This

room was not a good place to defend. In a moment

they would be coming in to see what occasioned the

delay. He reached a decision and acted promptly.

He beckoned the girl. "As soon as I have gone

through the door, run out likewise and go up the stairs

which lead away to the left." She nodded, trembling,

and he patted her slim shoulder reassuringly. Then he

whirled and flung open the door.

To the men outside, expecting the Verulian giant

with the helpless king on his shoulders, appeared an

apparition which was dumbfounding in its unexpected-

ness. Kull stood in the door; Kull, half-naked, crouch-

ing like a great human tiger, his teeth bared in a snarl

of battle fury, his eyes blazing. His sword blade

whirled like a wheel of silver in the moonlight.

Kull saw Phondar, two Verulian soldiers, a slim

figure in a black mask--a flashing instant, and then he

was among them and the dance of death was on. The

Verulian commander went down in the king's first

lunge, his head cleft to the teeth in spite of his helmet.

The Masked One drew and thrust, his point raking

Kull's cheek; one of the soldiers drove at the king with

a spear, was parried, and the next instant lay dead

across his master. The remaining soldier broke and

ran, yelling lustily for his comrades. The Masked One

retreated swiftly before the headlong attack of the

king, parrying and guarding with an almost uncanny

skill. He had no time to launch an attack of his own;

before the whirlwind ferocity of Kull's charge he had

only time for defense. Kull beat against his blade like

a blacksmith on an anvil, and again and again it

seemed as though the long Verulian steel must inevi-

tably cleave that masked and hooded head, but always

the long slim Valusian sword was in the way, turning

the blow by an inch or stopping it within a hair's-

breadth of the skin, but always just enough.

Then Kull saw the Verulian soldiers running

through the foliage and heard the clang of their weap-

ons and their fierce shouts. Caught here in the open,

they would get behind him and slit him like a rat. He

slashed once more, viciously, at the retreating Valu-

sian, and then, backing away, turned and ran fleetly

up the stairs, at the top of which Nalissa already

stood.

There he turned at bay. He and the girl stood on

a sort of artificial promontory. A stair led up, and a

stair had once led down the other way, but now the

back stair had long since crumbled away. Kull saw

that they were in a cul-de-sac. The walls were cut

deep with ornate carvings but- Well, thought Kull,

here we die. But here many others die, too.

The Verulians were gathering at the foot of the

stair, under the leadership of the mysterious masked

Valusian. Kull took a fresh grip on his sword hilt and

flung back his head, an unconscious reversion to days

when he had worn a lion-like mane of hair.

Kull had never feared death; he did not fear it

now, and, except for one consideration, he would have

welcomed the clamor and madness of battle as an old

friend, without regrets. This consideration was the girl

who stood beside him. As he looked at her trembling

form and white face, he reached a sudden decision.

He raised his hand and shouted, "Ho, men of Ve-

rulia! Here I stand at bay. Many shall fall before I

die. But promise me to release the girl, unharmed, and

I will not lift a hand. You may then kill me like a

sheep."

Nalissa cried in protest, and the Masked One

laughed. "We make no bargains with one already

doomed. The girl also must die, and I make no prom-

ises to be broken. Up, warriors, and take him!"

They flooded the stair like a black wave of death,

swords sparkling like frosty silver in the moonlight.

One was far in advance of his fellows, a huge warrior

who bore on high a great battle-axe. Moving quicker

than Kull had anticipated, this man was on the land-

ing in an instant. Kull rushed in, and the axe de-

scended. He caught the heavy shaft with his left hand

and checked the downward rush of the weapon in

mid-air--a feat few men could have done--and at the

same time struck in from the side with his right, a

sweeping hammerlike blow which sent the long sword

crunching through armor, muscle, and bone, and left

the broken blade wedged in the spinal column.

At the same instant, he released the useless hilt

and tore the axe from the nerveless grasp of the dying

warrior, who pitched back down the stairs. And Kull

laughed shortly and grimly.

The Verulians hesitated on the stair, and, below,

the Masked One savagely urged them on. They were

inclined to be rebellious.

"Phondar is dead," shouted one. "Shall we take

orders from this Valusian? This is a devil and not a

man who faces us! Let us save ourselves!"

"Fools!" the Masked One's voice rose in a ferine

shriek. "Don't you see that your own safety lies in

slaying the king? If you fail tonight, your own govern-

ment will repudiate you and will aid the Valusians in

hunting you down! Up, fools! You will die, some of

you, but better for a few to die under the king's axe

than for all to die on the gibbet! Let one man retreat

down these stairs--that man will I kill!" And the long,

slender sword menaced them.

Desperate, afraid of their leader, and recognizing

the truth of his words, the score or more of warriors

turned their breasts to Kull's steel. As they massed for

what must necessarily be the last charge, Nalissa's at-

tention was attracted by a movement at the base of

the wall. A shadow detached itself from the rest of the

shadows and moved up the sheer face of the wall,

climbing like an ape and using the deep carvings for

foot and hand holds. This side of the wall was in

shadow, and she could not make out the features of

the man; moreover, he wore a heavy morion which

shaded his face.

Saying nothing to Kull, who stood at the landing,

his axe poised, she stole over to the edge of the wall,

half concealing herself behind a ruin of what had

once been a parapet. Now she could see that the man

was in full armor, but still she could not make out his

features. Her breath came fast, and she raised the

dagger, fighting fiercely to overcome a tendency of

nausea.

Now a steel-clad arm hooked up over the edge--she

sprang as quickly and silently as a tigress and struck

full at the unprotected face suddenly upturned in the

moonlight. And even as the dagger fell, and she was

unable to cheek the blow, she screamed, wildly and

agonizedly. For in that fleeting second, she recog-

nized the face of her lover, Dalgar of Farsun.

5. The Battle of the Stair

Dalgar, after unceremoniously leaving the dis-

tracted presence of Ka-nu, ran to his horse and rode

hard for the eastern gate. He had heard Ka-nu give

orders to close the gates and let no one out, and he

rode like a madman to beat that order. It was a hard

matter to get out at night anyway, and Dalgar, having

learned that the gates were not guarded tonight by

the incorruptible Red Slayers, had planned to bribe

his way out. Now he depended upon the audacity of

his scheme.

All in a lather of sweat, he halted at the eastern

gate and shouted, "Unbolt the gate! I must ride to the

Verulian border tonight! Quickly! The king has van-

ished! Let me through and then guard the gate! In the

name of the king!"

Then, as the soldier hesitated, "Haste, fools! The

king may be in mortal danger! Hark!"

Far out across the city, chilling hearts with sud-

den nameless dread, sounded the deep tones of the

great bronze Bell of the King, which booms only

when the king is in peril. The guards were electrified.

They knew Dalgar was high in favor as a visiting no-

ble. They believed what he said, so, under the impet-

uous blast of his will, they swung the great iron gates

wide, and he shot through like a thunderbolt, to van-

ish instantly in the outer darkness.

As Dalgar rode, he hoped no great harm had

come to Kull, for he liked the bluff barbarian far

more than he had ever liked any of the sophisticated

and bloodless kings of the Seven Empires. Had it

been possible, he would have aided in the search. But

Nalissa was waiting for him, and already he was late.

As the young nobleman entered the Gardens, he

had a peculiar feeling that here in the heart of desola-

tion and loneliness there were many men. An instant

later he heard a clash of steel, the sound of many run-

ning footsteps, and a fierce shouting in a foreign

tongue. Slipping off his horse and drawing his sword,

he crept through the underbrush until he came in

sight of the ruined mansion. There a strange sight

burst upon his vision. At the top of the crumbling

staircase stood a half-naked, blood-stained giant

whom he recognized as the king of Valusia. By his

side stood a girl--a half-stifled cry burst from Dalgar's

lips. Nalissa! His nails bit into the palms of his

clenched hand. Who were those men in dark clothing

who swarmed up the stairs? No matter. They meant

death to the girl and to Kull. He heard the king chal-

lenge them and offer his life for Nalissa's, and a flood

of gratitude engulfed him. Then he noted the deep

carvings on the wall nearest him. The next instant he

was climbing, to die by the side of the king, protect-

ing the girl he loved.

He had lost sight of Nalissa, and now as he

climbed he dared not take the time to look up for her.

This was a slippery and treacherous task. He did not

see her until he caught hold of the edge to pull him-

self up; then he heard her scream and saw her hand

falling toward his face, gripping a gleam of silver. He

ducked and took the blow on his morion; the dagger

snapped at the hilt, and Nalissa collapsed in his arms

the next moment.

Kull had whirled, axe high, at her scream; now he

paused. He recognized the Farsunian, and even in

that instant he read between the lines. He knew why

the couple were here and grinned with real enjoy-

ment.

A second the charge had halted, as the Verulians

had noted the second man on the landing; now they

came on again, bounding up the steps in the moon-

light, blades gleaming, eyes wild with desperation.

Kull met the first with an overhand smash that

crushed helmet and skull; then Dalgar was at his side,

and his blade licked out and into a Verulian throat.

Then began the battle of the stair, since immortalized

by singers and poets.

Kull was there to die and to slay before he died.

He gave scant thought to defense. His axe played a

wheel of death about him, and with each blow there

came a crunch of steel and bone, a spurt of blood, a

gurgling cry of agony. Bodies choked the wide stair,

but still the survivors came, clambering over the gory

forms of their comrades.

Dalgar had little opportunity to thrust or cut. He

had seen in an instant that his best task lay in protect-

ing Kull, who was a born killer, but who, in his armor-

less condition, was likely to fall at any instant.

So Dalgar wove a web of steel about the king,

bringing into play all the sword skill that was his.

Again and again his flashing blade turned a point

from Kull's heart; again and again his mail-clad fore-

arm intercepted a blow that else had killed. Twice

he took on his own helmet slashes meant for the king's

bare head.

It is not easy to guard another man and yourself

at the same time. Kull was bleeding from cuts on the

face and breast, from a gash above the temple, a stab

in the thigh, and a deep wound in the left shoulder; a

thrusting pike had rent Dalgar's cuirass and wounded

him in the side, and he felt his strength ebbing. A last

mad effort of their foes and the Farsunian was over-

thrown. He fell at Kull's feet, and a dozen points

prodded for his life. With a lion-like roar, Kull cleared

a space with one mighty sweep of his red axe and

stood astride the fallen youth. They closed in-

There burst on Kull's ears a crash of horses' hoofs

and the Accursed Gardens were flooded with wild ri-

ders, yelling like wolves in the moonlight. A storm of

arrows swept the stairs, and men howled, pitching

headlong to lie still, or to tear at the cruel, deeply

embedded shafts. The few whom Kull's axe and the

arrows had left fled down the stairs to be met at the

bottom by the whistling curved swords of Brule's

Picts. And there they died, fighting to the last, those

bold Verulian warriors--cat's-paws for their false king,

sent out on a dangerous and foul mission, disowned

by the man who sent them out, and branded forever

with infamy. But they died like men.

But one did not die there at the foot of the stairs.

The Masked One had fled at the first sound of hoofs,

and now he shot across the Gardens riding a superb

horse. He had almost reached the outer wall when

Brule, the Spear-slayer, dashed across his path. There

on the promontory, leaning on his bloody axe, Kull

saw them fight beneath the moon.

The Masked One had abandoned his defensive

tactics. He charged the Pict with reckless courage,

and the Spear-slayer met him, horse to horse, man to

man, blade to blade. Both were magnificent horse-

men. Their steeds, obeying the touch of the bridle, the

nudge of the knee, whined, reared, and spun. But

through all their motions, the whistling blades never

lost touch of each other. Brule, unlike his tribesmen,

used the slim straight sword of Valusia. In reach and

speed there was little difference between them, and

Kull, watching, again and again caught his breath

and bit his lip as it seemed Brule would fall before an

unusually vicious thrust.

No crude hacking and slashing for these seasoned

warriors. They thrust and countered, parried and

thrust again. Then suddenly Brule seemed to lose

touch with his opponent's blade--he parried wildly,

leaving himself wide open--the Masked One struck

heels into his horse's side as he lunged, so that the

sword and horse shot forward as one. Brule leaned

aside, let the blade glance from the side of his cuirass;

his own blade shot straight out, elbow, wrist, hilt, and

point making a straight line from his shoulder. The

horses crashed together and together they rolled head-

long on the sward. But from that tangle of lashing

hoofs Brule rose unharmed, while there in the grass

lay the Masked One. Brule's sword still transfixing

him.

Kull awoke as from a trance; the Picts were howl-

ing about like wolves, but he raised his hand for si-

lence. "Enough! You are all heroes! But attend to

Dalgar; he is sorely wounded. And when you have fin-

ished, you might see to my own wounds. Brule, how

came you to find me?"

Brule beckoned Kull to where he stood above the

dead Masked One.

"A beggar crone saw you climb the palace wall,

and out of curiosity watched where you went. She fol-

lowed and saw you go through the forgotten gate. I

was riding the plain between the wall and these Gar-

dens when I heard the clash of steel. But who can this

be?"

"Raise the mask," said Kull, "Whoever it is, it is he

who copied Tu's handwriting, who took the signet

ring from Tu, and--"

Brule tore the mask away.

"Dondal!" Kull ejaculated. "Tu's nephew! Brule,

Tu must never know this. Let him think that Dondal

rode with you and died fighting for his king."

Brule seemed stunned. "Dondal! A traitor! Why,

many a time I've drunk wine with him and slept it off

in one of his beds."

Kull nodded. "I liked Dondal."

Brule cleansed his blade and drove it home in the

scabbard with a vicious clank. "Want will make a

rogue of any man," he said moodily. "He was deep in

debt--Tu was penurious with him. Always maintained

that giving young men money was bad for them. Don-

dal was forced to keep up appearances for his pride's

sake, and so fell into the hands of the usurers. Thus

Tu is the greater traitor, for he drove the boy into

treachery by his parsimony--and I could wish Tu's

heart had stopped my point instead of his."

So saying, the Pict turned on his heel and strode

sombrely away.

Kim turned back to Dalgar, who lay half-

senseless while the Pictish warriors dressed his

wounds with experienced fingers. Others attended to

the king, and while they staunched, cleansed, and

bandaged, Nalissa came up to Kull.

"Sire," she held out her small hands, now

scratched and stained with dried blood, "will you now

have mercy on us--grant my plea if--" her voice

caught on a sob--"if Dalgar lives?'

Kull caught her slim shoulders and shook her in

his anguish.

"Girl, girl, girl! Ask me anything except some-

thing I cannot grant. Ask half my kingdom or my

right hand, and it is yours. I will ask Murom to let you

marry Dalgar--I will beg him--but I cannot force

him."

Tall horsemen were gathering through the Gar-

dens, whose resplendent armor shone among the half-

naked, wolfish Picts. A tall man hurried up, throwing

back the vizor of his helmet.

"Father!"

Murom bora Ballin crushed his daughter to his

breast with a sob of thanksgiving, and then turned to

his king.

"Sire, you are sorely wounded!"

Kull shook his head. "Not sorely; at least, not for

me, though other men might feel stiff and sore. But

yonder lies he who took took the death thrusts meant for

me; who was my shield and my helmet, and but for

whom Valusia had howled for a new king."

Murom whirled toward the prostrate youth.

"Dalgar! Is he dead?"

"Nigh unto it," growled a wiry Pict who was still

working above him. "But he is steel and whalebone;

with any care he should live."

"He came here to meet your daughter and elope

with her," said Kull, while Nalissa hung her head. "He

crept through the brush and saw me fighting for my

life and hers, atop yonder stair. He might nave es-

caped. Nothing barred him. But he climbed the sheer

wall to certain death, as it seemed then, and fought

by my side as gayly as he ever rode to a feast--and he

not even a subject of mine by birth."

Murom's hands clenched and unclenched. His

eyes kindled and softened as they bent on his daugh-

ter.

"Nalissa," he said softly, drawing the girl into the

shelter of his steel-clad arm, "do you still wish to

marry this reckless youth?"

Her eyes spoke eloquently enough.

Kull was speaking, "Take him up carefully and

bear him to the palace; he shall have the best--"

Murom interposed, "Sire, if I may ask; let him be

taken to my castle. There the finest physicians shall

attend him and on his recovery--well, if it be your

royal pleasure, might we not celebrate the event with

a wedding?"

Nalissa screamed with joy, clapped her hands,

kissed her father and Kull, and was off to Dalgar's

side like a whirlwind.

Murom smiled softly, his aristocratic face alight.

"Out of a night of blood and terror, joy and hap-

piness are born."

The barbarian king grinned and shouldered his

stained and notched axe.

"Life is that way. Count; one man's bane is anoth-

er's bliss."

The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune

"A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime

Out of Space, out of Time."

-poe

There comes, even to kings, the time of great

weariness. Then the gold of the throne is brass, the

silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems in the dia-

dem sparkle drearily like the ice of the white seas; the

speech of men is as the empty rattle of a jester's bell

and the feel comes of things unreal; even the sun is

copper in the sky, and the breath of the green ocean is

no longer fresh.

Kull sat upon the throne of Valusia and the hour

of weariness was upon him. They moved before him

in an endless, meaningless panorama: men, women,

priests, events and shadows of events; things seen and

things to be attained. But like shadows they came and

went, leaving no trace upon his consciousness, save

that of a great mental fatigue. Yet Kull was not tired.

There was a longing in him for things beyond him-

self and beyond the Valusian court. An unrest stirred

in him, and strange, luminous dreams roamed his soul.

At his bidding there came to him Brule the Spear-

slayer, warrior of Pictland, from the islands beyond

the West.

"Lord king, you are tired of the life of the court-

Come with me upon my galley and let us roam the

tides for a space."

"Nay." Kull rested his chin moodily upon his

mighty hand. "I am weary beyond all these things.

The cities hold no lure for me--and the borders are

quiet. I hear no more the sea-songs I heard when I lay

as a boy on the booming crags of Atlantis, and the

night was alive with blazing stars. No more do the

green woodlands beckon me as of old. There is a

strangeness upon me and a longing beyond life's long-

ings. Go!"

Brule went forth in a doubtful mood, leaving the

king brooding upon his throne. Then to Kull stole a

girl of the court and whispered:

"Great king, seek Tuzun Thune, the wizard. The

secrets of life and death are his, and the stars in the

sky the lands beneath the seas."

Kull looked at the girl. Fine gold was her hair

and her violet eyes were slanted strangely; she was

beautiful, but her beauty meant little to Kull.

'Tuzun Thune," he repeated. "Who is he?"

"A wizard of the Elder Race. He lives here in Val-

usia, by the Lake of Visions in the House of a Thou-

sand Mirrors. All things are known to him, lord king;

he speaks with the dead and holds converse with the

demons of the Lost Lands."

Kull arose.

"I will seek out this mummer; but no word of my

going, do you hear?"

'I am your slave, my lord." And she sank to her

knees meekly, but the smile of her scarlet mouth was

cunning behind Kull's back and the gleam of her nar-

row eyes was crafty.

Kull came to the house of Tuzun Thune, beside

the Lake of Visions. Wide and blue stretched the wa-

ters of the lake, and many a fine palace rose upon its

banks; many swan-winged pleasure boats drifted la-

zily upon its hazy surface and evermore there came

the sound of soft music.

Tall and spacious, but unpretentious, rose the

House of a Thousand Mirrors. The great doors stood

open, and Kull ascended the broad stair and entered,

unannounced. There in a great chamber, whose walls

were of mirrors, he came upon Tuzun Thune, the

wizard. The man was ancient as the hills of Zal-

gara; like wrinkled leather was his skin, but his cold

gray eyes were like sparks of sword steel.

"Kull of Valusia, my house is yours," said he,

bowing with old-time courtliness and motioning Kull

to a throne-like chair.

"You are a wizard, I have heard," said Kull

bluntly, resting his chin upon his hand and fixing his

sombre eyes upon the man's face. "Can you do won-

ders?"

The wizard stretched forth his hand; his fingers

opened and closed like a bird's claws.

"Is that not a wonder--that this blind flesh obeys

the thoughts of my mind? I walk, I breathe, I speak--

are they not all wonders?"

Kull meditated awhile, then spoke. "Can you

summon up demons?"

"Aye. I can summon up a demon more savage

than any in ghost land--by smiting you in the face."

Kull started, then nodded. "But the dead, can you

talk to the dead?"

"I talk with the dead always--as I am talking

now. Death begins with birth, and each man begins to

die when he is born; even now you are dead, King

Kull, because you were born."

"But you, you are older than men become; do

wizards never die?"

"Men die when their times come. No later, no

sooner. Mine has not come."

Kull turned these answers over in his mind.

"Then it would seem that the greatest wizard of

Valusia is no more than an ordinary man, and I have

been duped in coming here."

Tuzun Thune shook his head. "Men are but men,

and the greatest men are they who soonest learn the

simpler things. Nay, look into my mirrors, Kull."

The ceiling was a great many mirrors, and the

walls were mirrors, perfectly joined, yet many mirrors

of many sizes and shapes.

"Mirrors are the world, Kull," droned the wizard.

"Gaze into my mirrors and be wise."

Kull chose one at random and looked into it in-

tently. The mirrors upon the opposite wall were re-

flected there, reflecting others, so that he seemed to

be gazing down a long, luminous corridor, formed by

mirror behind mirror; and far down this corridor

moved a tiny figure. Kull looked long ere he saw that

the figure was the reflection of himself. He gazed and

a queer feeling of pettiness came over him; it seemed

that that tiny figure was the true Kull, representing

the real proportions of himself. So he moved away and

stood before another.

"Look closely, Kull. That is the mirror of the

past," he heard the wizard say.

Gray fogs obscured the vision, great billows of

mist, ever heaving and changing like the ghost of a

great river; through these fogs Kull caught swift fleet-

ing visions of horror and strangeness; beasts and men

moved there and shapes neither men nor beasts; great

exotic blossoms glowed through the grayness; tall

tropic trees towered high over reeking swamps, where

reptilian monsters wallowed, and bellowed; the sky

was ghastly with flying dragons, and the restless seas

rocked and roared and beat endlessly along the

muddy beaches. Man was not, yet man was the dream

of the gods, and strange were the nightmare forms

that glided through the noisome jungles. Battle and

onslaught were there, and frightful love. Death was

there, for Life and Death go hand in hand. Across the

slimy beaches of the world sounded the bellowing of

the monsters, and incredible shapes loomed through

the streaming curtain of the incessant rain.

"This is of the future."

Kull looked in silence.

"See you--what?"

"A strange world," said Kull heavily. "The Seven

Empires are crumbled to dust and are forgotten. The

restless green waves roar for many a fathom above the

eternal hills of Atlantis; the mountains of Lemuria of

the West are the islands of an unknown sea. Strange

savages roam the elder lands and new lands flung

strangely from the deeps, defiling the elder shrines.

Valusia is vanished and all the nations of today; they

of tomorrow are strangers. They know us not."

"Time strides onward," said Tuzun Thune calmly.

"We live today; what care we for tomorrow--or yester-

day? The Wheel turns and nations rise and fall; the

world changes, and times return to savagery to rise

again through the long age. Ere Atlantis was, Valusia

was, and ere Valusia was, the Elder Nations were.

Aye, we, too, trampled the shoulders of lost tribes in

our advance. You, who have come from the green sea

hills of Atlantis to seize the ancient crown of Valusia,

you think my tribe is old, we who held these lands ere

the Valusians came out of the East, in the days before

there were men in the sea lands. But men were here

when the Elder Tribes rode out of the waste lands,

and men before men, tribe before tribe. The nations

pass and are forgotten, for that is the destiny of man."

"Yes," said Kull. "Yet is it not a pity that the

beauty and glory of men should fade like smoke on a

summer sea?"

"For what reason, since that is their destiny? I

brood not over the lost glories of my race, nor do I

labor for races to come. Live now, Kull, live now. The

dead are dead; the unborn are not. What matters

men's forgetfulness of you when you have forgotten

yourself in the silent worlds of death? Gaze in my mir-

rors and be wise."

Kull chose another mirror and gazed into it.

"That is the mirror of deepest magic; what see ye,

Kull?" " " --

"Naught but myself."

"Look closely, Kull; is it in truth you?"

Kull stared into the great mirror, and the image

that was his reflection returned his gaze.

"I come before this mirror," mused Kull, chin on

fist, "and I bring this man to life. That is beyond my

understanding, since first I saw him in the still waters

of the lakes of Atlantis, till I saw him again in the

gold-rimmed mirrors of Valusia. He is I, a shadow of

myself, part of myself--I can bring him into being or

slay him at my will; yet--" He halted, strange thoughts

whispering through the vast dim recesses of his mind

like shadowy bats flying through a great cavern--"yet

where is he when I stand not in front of a mirror?

May it be in man's power thus lightly to form and

destroy a shadow of life and existence? How do I

know that when I step back from the mirror he van-

ishes into the void of Naught?

"Nay, by Valka, am I the man or is he? Which of

us is the ghost of the other? Mayhap these mirrors are

but windows through which we look into another

world. Does he think the same of me? Am I no more

than a shadow, a reflection of himself--to him, as he

to me? And if I am the ghost, what sort of a world

lives upon the other side of this mirror? What armies

ride there and what kings rule? This world is all I

know. Knowing naught of any other, how can I judge?

Surely there are green hills there and booming seas

and wide plains where men ride to battle. Tell me,

wizard who is wiser than most men, tell me are there

worlds beyond our worlds?"

"A man has eyes, let him see," answered the wiz-

ard. "Who would see must first believe."

The hours drifted by, and Kull still sat before the

mirrors of Tuzun Thune, gazing into that which de-

picted himself. Sometimes it seemed that he gazed

upon hard shallowness; at other times gigantic depths

seemed to loom before him. Like the surface of the

sea was the mirror of Tuzun Thune; hard as the sea in

the sun's slanting beams, in the darkness of the stars,

when no eye can pierce her deeps; vast and mystic as

the sea when the sun smites her in such way that the

watcher's breath is caught at the glimpse of tremen-

dous abysses. So was the mirror in which Kull gazed.

At last the king rose with a sigh and took his de-

parture still wondering. And Kull came again to the

House of a Thousand Mirrors; day after day he came

and sat for hours before the mirror. The eyes looked

out at him, identical with his; yet Kull seemed to

sense a difference--a reality that was not of him. Hour

upon hour he would stare with strange intensity into

the mirror; hour after hour the image gave back his

gaze.

The business of the palace and of the council

went neglected. The people murmured; Kull's stallion

stamped restlessly in his stable, and Kull's warriors

diced and argued aimlessly with one another. Kull

heeded not. At times he seemed on the point of dis-

covering some vast, unthinkable secret. He no longer

thought of the image in the mirror as a shadow of

himself; the thing, to him, was an entity, similar in

outer appearance, yet basically as far from Kull him-

self as the poles are far apart. The image, it seemed to

Kull, had an individuality apart from Kull's, he was no

more dependent on Kull than Kull was dependent on

him. And day by day Kull doubted in which world he

really lived; was he the shadow, summoned at will by

the other? Did he instead of the other live in a world

of delusion, the shadow of the real world?

Kull began to wish that he might enter the per-

sonality beyond the mirror for a space, to see what

might be seen; yet should he manage to go beyond

that door could he ever return? Would he find a world

identical with the one in which he moved? A world, of

which his was but a ghostly reflection? Which was

reality and which illusion?

At times Kull halted to wonder how such

thoughts and dreams had come to enter his mind, and

at times he wondered if they came of his own volition

or--here his thoughts would become mazed. His medi-

tations were his own; no man ruled his thoughts, and

he would summon them at his pleasure; yet could he?

Were they not as bats, coming and going, not at his

pleasure but at the bidding or ruling of--of whom?

The gods? The Women who wove the webs of Fate?

Kull could come to no conclusion, for at each mental

step he became more and more bewildered in a hazy

fog of illusory assertions and refutations. This much

he knew: that strange visions entered his mind, like

flying unbidden from the whispering void of non-

existence; never had he thought these thoughts, but

now they ruled his mind, sleeping and waking, so that

he seemed to walk in a daze at times; and his sleep

was fraught with strange, monstrous dreams.

"Tell me, wizard," he said, sitting before the mir-

ror, eyes fixed intently upon his image, "how can I

pass yon door? For of a truth, I am not sure that that

is the real world and this the shadow; at least, that

which I see must exist in some form."

"See and believe," droned the wizard. "Man must

believe to accomplish. Form is shadow, substance is

illusion, materiality is dream; man is because he be-

lieves he is; what is man but a dream of the gods? Yet

man can be that which he wishes to be; form and

substance, they are but shadows. The mind, the ego,

the essence of the god-dream--that is real, that is im-

mortal. See and believe, if you would accomplish,

Kull."

The king did not fully understand; he never fully

understood the enigmatical utterances of the wizard;

yet they struck somewhere in his being a dim respon-

sive chord. So day after day he sat before the mirrors

of Tuzun Thune. Ever the wizard lurked behind him

like a shadow.

Then came a day when Kull seemed to catch

glimpses of strange lands; there flitted across his con-

sciousness dim thoughts and recognitions. Day by day

he had seemed to lose touch with the world; all things

had seemed each succeeding day more ghostly and

unreal; only the man in the mirror seemed like reality.

Now Kull seemed to be close to the doors of some

mightier worlds; giant vistas gleamed fleetingly; the

fogs of unreality thinned; "form is shadow, substance

is illusion; they are but shadows" sounded as if from

some far country of his consciousness. He remem-

bered the wizard's words and it seemed to him that

now he almost understood--form and substance, could

not he change himself at will, if he knew the master

key that opened this door? What worlds within what

worlds awaited the bold explorer?

The man in the mirror seemed smiling at him--

closer, closer--a fog enwrapped all and the reflection

dimmed suddenly--Kull knew a sensation of fading, of

change, of merging. . . .

"KulI!" the yell split the silence into a million vi-

bratory fragments!

Mountains crashed and worlds tottered as Kull,

hurled back by the frantic shout, made a superhuman

effort, how or why he did not know.

A crash, and Kull stood in the room of Tuzun

Thune before a shattered mirror, mazed and half-

blind with bewilderment. There before him lay the

body of Tuzun Thune, whose time had come at last,

and above him stood Brule the Spear-slayer, sword

dripping red and eyes wide with a kind of horror.

Valka!" swore the warrior. "Kull, it was time I

came!"

"Aye, yet what happened?" The king groped for

words.

"Ask this traitress," answered the Spear-slayer, in-

dicating a girl who crouched in terror before the king;

Kull saw that it was she who first sent him to Tuzun

Thune. "As I came in I saw you fading into yon mirror

as smoke fades into the sky, by Valka! Had I not seen

I would not have believed--you had almost vanished

when my shout brought you back."

"Aye," muttered Kull, "I had almost gone beyond

the door that time."

"This fiend wrought most craftily," said Brule.

"kull, do you not now see how he spun and flung over

you a web of magic? Kaanuub of Blaal plotted with

this wizard to do away with you, and this wench, a

girl of the Elder Race, put the thought in your mind

so that you would come here. Ka-na of the council

learned of the plot today; I know not what you saw in

that mirror, but with it Tuzun Thune enthralled your

soul and almost by his witchery he changed your

body to mist-"

"Aye." Kull was still mazed. "But being a wizard,

having knowledge of all the ages and despising gold,

glory, and position, what could Kaanuub offer Tuzun

Thune that would make of him a foul traitor?"

"Gold, power, and position," grunted Brule. "The

sooner you learn that men are men whether wizard,

king, or thrall, the better you will rule, Kull. Now

what of her?"

"Naught, Brule," as the girl whimpered and grov-

eled at Kull's feet. "She was but a tool. Rise, child,

and go your ways; none shall harm you."

Alone with Brule, Kull looked for the last time on

the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.

"Mayhap he plotted and conjured, Brule; nay, I

doubt you not, yet--was it his witchery that was

changing me to thin mist, or had I stumbled on a se-

cret? Had you not brought me back, had I faded in

dissolution or had I found worlds beyond this?"

Brule stole a glance at the mirrors, and twitched

his shoulders as if he shuddered. "Aye, Tuzun Thune

stored the wisdom of all the hells here. Let us be

gone, Kull, ere they bewitch me, too."

"Let us go, then," answered Kull, and side by side

they went forth from the House of a Thousand Mir-

rors--where, mayhap, are prisoned the souls of men.

None look now in the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.

The pleasure boats shun the shore where stands the

wizard's house, and no one goes in the house or to the

room where Tuzun Thune's dried and withered car-

cass lies before the mirrors of illusion. The place is

shunned as a place accursed, and though it stands for

a thousand years to come, no footsteps shall echo

there. Yet Kull upon his throne meditates often upon

the strange wisdom and untold secrets hidden there

and wonders. . . .

For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull

knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by

words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the kings

gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of

reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun

Thune.

The King and The Oak

Before the shadows slew the sun the kites were soaring free,

And Kull rode down the forest road, his red sword at his

knee;

And winds were whispering round the world: "King Kull

rides to the sea."

The sun dried crimson in the sea, the long gray shadows

fell;

The moon rose like a silver skull that wrought a demon's

spell,

For in its light great trees stood up like spectres out of hell.

In spectral light the trees stood up, inhuman monsters dim;

Kull thought each trunk a living shape, each branch a

knotted limb,

And strange unmortal evil eyes flamed horribly at him.

The branches writhed like knotted snakes, they beat against

the night,

And one gray oak with swayings stiff, horrific in his sight,

Tore up its roots and blocked his way, grim in the ghostly

light.

They grappled in the forest way, the king and grisly oak;

Its great limbs bent him in their grip, but never a word was

spoke;

And futile in his iron hand, the stabbing dagger broke.

And through the tossing, monstrous trees there sang a dim

refrain

Fraught deep with twice a million years of evil, hate and

pain:

"We were the lords ere man had come and shall be lords

again."

Kull sensed an empire strange and old that bowed to man's

advance

As kingdoms of the grass-blades before the marching ants,

And horror gripped him; in the dawn like someone in a

trance.

He strove with bloody hands against a still and silent tree;

As from a nightmare dream he woke! a wind blew down the

lea,

And Kull of high Atlantis rode silent to the sea.

The Black City

(Fragment)

The cold eyes of Kull, king of Valusia, clouded

with perplexity as they rested on the man who had so

abruptly entered the royal presence and who now

stood before the king, trembling with passion. Kull

sighed; he knew the barbarians who served him, for

was not he himself an Atlantean by birth? Brule, the

Spear-slayer, bursting rudely into the king's chamber,

had torn from his harness every emblem given him by

Valusia and now stood bare of any sign to show that

he was allied to the empire. And Kull knew the mean-

ing of this gesture.

"Kull!" barked the Pict, pale with fury. "I will

have justice!"

Again Kull sighed. There were times when peace

and quiet were things to be desired and in Kamula he

thought he had found them. Dreamy Kamula--even as

he waited for the raging Pict to continue his tirade,

Kull's thoughts drifted away and back along the lazy,

dreamy days that had passed since his coming to this

mountain city, this metropolis of pleasure, whose mar-

ble and lapis-lazuli palaces were built, tier upon

gleaming tier, about the dome-shaped hill that formed

the city's center.

"My people have been allies of the empire for a

thousand years!" the Pict made a swift, passionate ges-

ture with his clenched fist. "Now, is it that one of my

warriors can be snatched from under my nose in the

very palace of the king?"

Kull straightened with a start.

"What madness is this? What warrior? Who seized

him?"

"That's for you to discover," growled the Pict.

"One moment he was there, lounging against a marble

column--the next--zut! He was gone with only a foul

stench and a frightful scream for clue."

"Perhaps a jealous husband--" mused Kull.

Brule broke in rudely; "Grogar never looked at

any women--even of his own race. These Kamulians

hate we Picts. I have read it in their looks."

Kull smiled. "You dream, Brule; these people are

too indolent and pleasure-loving to hate anyone. They

love, they sing, they compose lyrics--I suppose you

think Grogar was snatched away by the poet Taligaro,

or the singing woman Zareta, or prince Mandara?"

"I care not!" snarled Brule. "But I tell you this,

Kull, Grogar has spilt his blood like water for the em-

pire, and he is my best chief of mounted bowmen. I

will find him, alive or dead, if I have to tear Kamula

apart, stone by stone! By Valka, I will feed this city to

the flames and quench the flames in blood--"

Kull had risen from his chair.

"Take me to the place you last saw Grogar," he

said, and Brule ceased his tirade and led the way sul-

lenly. They passed out of the chamber through an in-

ner door and proceeded down a winding corridor, side

by side, as different in appearance as two men could

well be, yet alike in the litheness of movement, the

keenness of eye, the intangible wildness that pro-

claimed the barbarian.

Kull was tall, broad-shouldered and deep-

chested--massive yet lithe. His face was brown from

sun and wind, his square-cut black hair like a lion's

mane, his gray eyes cold as a sword gleaming through

fathoms of ice.

Brule was typical of his race--of medium height,

built with the savage economy of a panther, and of

skin much darker than the kings.

"We were in the Jeweled Room," grunted the Pict,

"Grogar, Manaro and I. Grogar was leaning against a

half-column set into the wall when he shifted his

weight full against the wall--and vanished before our

eyes! A panel swung inward and he was gone--and we

had but a glimpse of black darkness within, and a

loathsome scene flowed momentarily outward. But

Manaro, standing beside Grogar, whipped out his

sword in that instant and thrust the good blade into

the opening, so the panel could not wholly close. We

thrust against it, but it did not yield and I hastened

after you, leaving Manaro holding his sword in the

crack."

"And why did you tear off your Valusian em-

blems?" asked Kull.

"I was angry," growled the Spear-slayer sullenly,

avoiding Kull's eye. The king nodded without reply. It

was the natural, unreasoning action of an infuriated

savage, to whom no natural enemy appears to be

slashed and rent.

They entered the Jeweled Room, the further wall

of which was set into the natural stone of the hill on

which Kamula was built.

"Manaro swore he heard a whisper as of music,"

grunted Brule. "And there he leans with his ear at the

crack. HoIa-Manaro!"

Kull frowned as he saw the tall Valusian did not

change his posture or give any heed to the hail. He

did in truth lean against the panel, one hand gripping

the sword which held the secret doorway apart, one

ear glued to the thin crack. Kull noted the almost ma-

terial darkness of that thin strip of blackness--it

seemed to him that beyond that unknown opening,

the darkness must lurk like a living, sentient thing.

He strode forward impatiently and clapped the

soldier heavily on the shoulder. And Manaro rocked

away from the wall and fell stiffly to lie at Kull's feet

With horror-glazed eyes staring blankly upward.

"Valka!" swore Brule. "He's been stabbed-I was

a fool to leave him here alone--"

The king shook his lion-like head. There's no

blood on him--look at his face." Brule looked and

cursed. The dead Valusian's features were set. in a

mask of horror--and the effect was distinctly one of

listening.

Kull cautiously approached the crack in the wall

and then beckoned Brule. From somewhere beyond

that mysterious portal sounded a thin, wailing sound

as of a ghostly piping. It was so dim as to barely be

heard, but it held in its music all the hate and venom

of a thousand demons. Kull shrugged his giant shoul-

ders.

Untitled

(Fragment)

Thus," said Tu, chief councilor, "did Lala-ah,

countess of Fanara, flee with her lover, Fenar, Far-

sunian adventurer, bringing shame to her husband-to-

be and to the nation of Valusia."

Kull, fist supporting chin, nodded. He had lis-

tened with scant interest to the tale of how the young

countess of Fanara had left a Valusian nobleman wait-

ing on the steps of Merama's and had eloped with a

man of her own choice.

"Yes," he impatiently interrupted Tu, "I under-

stand. But what have the amorous adventures of a

giddy girl to do with me? I blame her not for forsak-

ing Ka-yanna--by Valka, he is as ugly as a rhinoceros

and has a more abominable disposition. Then why tell

me this tale?"

"You do not understand, Kull," said Tu, with the

patience one must accord a barbarian who happens to

be a king, besides. "The customs of the nation are not

your customs. Lala-ah, by deserting Ka-yanna at the

very foot of the altar where their nuptials were to be

consummated, committed a very gross offense to the

traditions of the land--and an insult to the nation is an

insult to the king, Kull. For this alone she must be

brought back and punished.

- "Then, she is a countess, and it is a Valusian tra-

dition that noble women marry foreigners only with

the consent of the Valusian state--here consent was

never given nor even asked. Valusia will become the

scorn of all nations if we allow men from other lands

to take our women with impunity."

"Name of Valka," grumbled Kull. "Here is a great

to-do-- custom and tradition! I have heard little else

since I first pressed the throne of Valusia. In my land

women mate with. whom they will and with whom

they choose."

"Aye, Kull," thus Tu, soothingly. "But this is Val-

usia--not Atlantis. There all men, aye, and all women,

are free and unhindered, but civilization is a network

and a maze of precedences and custom. And another

thing in regard to the young countess: she has a strain

of royal blood.

"This man rode with Ka-yanna's horsemen in pur-

suit of the girl," said Tu,

"Aye," the young man spoke, "and I have for you

a word from Fenar, lord king."

"A word for me? I never saw Fenar."

"Nay, but this he said to a border guard or

Zarfhaana, to be repeated to they who pursued; Tell

the barbarian swine who defiles an ancient throne

that I name him scoundrel. Tell him that some day I

shall return and clothe his cowardly carcass in the

clothing of women, to attend my chariot horses.' "

Kull's vast bulk heaved erect, his chair of state

crashing to the floor. A moment he stood, speechless,

then he found voice in a roar that sent Tu and the

noble backward.

"Valka, Honen, Holgar, and Hotath!" he roared,

mingling deities with heathen gods in a manner that-

made Tu's hair rise at the blasphemy. Kull's huge

arms were brandished aloft and his mighty fist de-

scended on the tabletop with a force that buckled the

heavy legs like paper. Tu, pale, swept off his feet by

this tide of barbarian fury, backed against the wall,

followed by the young noble who had dared much in.

giving Fenar's word. However, Kull was too much the

savage to connect the insult with the bearer; it must

remain for civilized rulers to wreak vengeance on

couriers.

"Horses!" roared Kull. "Have the Red Slayers

mount! Send Brule to me!"

He tore off his kingly robe and hurled it across

the room, snatched a costly vase from the broken ta-

ble and dashed it to the floor.

"Hurry!" gasped Tu, shoving the young nobleman

toward the door. 'Get Brule, the Pictish Spear-slayer--

haste, before he slays us all!"

Tu judged the king's actions by those of preced-

ing kings; however, Kull had not progressed far

enough in civilized custom to wreak his royal rage on

innocent subjects.

His first red fury had been succeeded by a cold

steel rage by the time Brule arrived. The Pict stalked

in unconcernedly, a grim smile touching his lips as he

marked the destruction caused by the king's wrath.

Kull was garbing himself in riding garments and

he looked up as Brule entered, his scintillant gray eyes

gleaming coldly.

"Kull, we ride?" asked the Pict.

"Aye, we ride hard and far, by Valka! We ride to

Zarfhaana first and perhaps beyond--to the lands of

the snow or the desert sands or to Hell! Have three

hundred of the Red Slayers in readiness."

Brule grinned in pure enjoyment. He was a pow-

erfully built man of medium height, with glittering

eyes set in immobile features. He looked much like a

bronze statue. Without a word he turned and left the

chamber.

"Lord king, what do you do?" ventured Tu, still

shaking from fright.

"I ride on Fenar's trail," answered the king fero-

ciously. "The kingdom is in your hands, Tu. I return

when I have crossed swords with this Farsunian or I

do not return at all."

"Nay, nay!" exclaimed Tu. "This is most unwise,

King! Heed not what that nameless adventurer said!

The emperor of Zarfhaana will never allow you to

bring such a force as you named into his realm."

Then I will ride over the ruins of Zarfhaana's cit-

ies," was Kull's grim reply. "Men avenge their own

insults in Atlantis--and though Atlantis has disowned

me and I am king of Valusia-- still I am a man, by

Valka!"

He buckled on his great sword and strode to the

door, Tu staring after him.

There before the palace sat four hundred men in

their saddles. Three hundred of these were men of the

Red Slayers, Kull's cavalry, and the most terrible sol-

diery of the earth. They were composed mostly of

Valusian hill-men, the strongest and most vigorous of

a degenerating race. The remaining hundred were

Picts, lean, powerful savages, men of Brule's tribe,

who sat their horses like centaurs and fought like de-

mons when occasion arose.

All these men gave Kull the crown salute as he

strode down the palace steps and his eyes lighted with

a fierce gleam. He was almost grateful to Fenar for

having given him the pretext he needed to quit the

monotonous life of the court for awhile and plunge

into fierce action--but his thoughts toward the Far-

sunian were no more kindly for this reason.

At the front of this fierce array sat Brule, chief-

tain of Valusia's most formidable allies, and Kelkor.

second commander of the Red Slayers.

Kull acknowledged the salute by a brusque ges-

ture and swung into the saddle.

Brule and the commander reined in on either side

of him.

"At attention," came Kelkor's curt command.

"Spurs! Forward!"

The cavalcade moved forward at an easy trot

The people of Valusia gazed curiously from their win-

dows and doorways, and the throngs on the streets

turned as the clatter of silver hoofs resounded through

the babble and chatter of trading and commerce. The

steeds flung their caparisoned manes; the bronze ar-

mor of the warriors glinted in the sun, the pennons on

the long lances streamed backward. A moment the

small people of the marketplace stopped their gabble

as the proud array swept by, blinking in stupid won-

der or childish admiration; then the horsemen dwin-

dled down the great white street, the clang of silver

on cobblestone died away in the distance, and the

people of the city turned back to their commonplace

tasks. As the people always do, no matter what kings

ride.

Along the broad white streets of Valusia swept

the king and his horsemen, out through the suburbs

with their spacious estates and lordly palaces; on and

on until the golden spires and sapphire towers of Val-

usia were but a silver shimmer in the distance and the

green hills of Zligara loomed majestically before

them.

Night found them encamped high on the slopes

of the mountains. The hill people, kin to the Red Slay-

ers, many of them, flocked to the camp with gifts of

food and wine, and the warriors, the proud restraint

they felt among the cities of the world loosened,

talked with them and sang old songs, and exchanged

old tales. But Kull walked apart, beyond the glow of

the campfires, to gaze out across the mystic vistas of

crag and valley. The slopes were softened by verdure

and foliage, the vales deepening into shadowy realms

of magic, the hills standing out bold and clear in the

silver of the moon. The hills of Zaigara had always

held a fascination for Kull, They brought to his mind

the mountains of Atlantis whose snowy heights he had

scaled as a youth, ere he fared forth into the great

world to write his name across the stars and make an

ancient throne his seat.

Yet tliere was a difference. The crags of Atlantis

rose stark and gaunt; her cliffs were barren and rug-

ged. The mountains of Atlantis were brutal and terri-

ble with youth, even as Kull. Age had not softened

thier might. The hills of Zalgara rose up like ancient

gods, but green groves and waving verdure laughed

upon their shoulders and cliffs, and their outline was

soft and flowing. Age--age--thought Kull; many a

drifting century had worn away their craggy splendor;

they were mellow and beautiful with antiquity. An-

cient mountains dreaming of bygone kings whose

careless feet had trod their sward.

Like a red wave the thought of Fenar's insult

swept away these broodings. Hands clenched in fury,

Kull flung back his shoulders to gaze full into the

calm eye of the moon.

"Helfara and Hotath doom my soul to everlasting

Hell if I wreak not my vengeance on Fenar!" he

snarled.

The night breeze whispered among the trees as if

in answer to the heathen vow.

Ere scarlet dawn had burst like a red rose over

the hills of Zalgara Kull's cavalcade was in the saddle.

The first glints of morning shone on the lance points,

the helmets and the shields as the band wound its

way through green-waving vales and up over long un-

dulating slopes.

"We ride into the sunrise," remarked Kelkor.

"Aye," was Brule's grim response. "And some of

us ride beyond the sunrise."

Kelkor shrugged his shoulders. "So be it. That is

the destiny of a warrior."

Kull glanced at the commander. Straight as a

spear sat Kelkor in his saddle, inflexible, unbending

as a statue of steel. The commander had always re-

minded the king of a fine sword of polished steel. A

man of terrific power and mighty forces, the most

powerful thing about him was his absolute control of

himself. An icy calmness had always characterized his

words and deeds. In the heat and vituperation of

council, in the wild wrack of battle, Kelkor was al-

ways cool, never confused. He had few friends, nor

did he strive to make friends. His qualities alone had

raised him from an unknown warrior in the ranks of

the mercenaries to the second highest rank in Valusian

armies--and only the fact of his birth debarred him

from the highest. For custom decreed that the lord

commander of troops must be a Valusian and Kelkor

was a Lemurian. Yet he looked more a Valusian than

a Lemurian as he sat his horse, for he was built differ-

ently from most of his race, being tall and leanly but

strongly built. His strange eyes alone betrayed his

race.

Another dawn found them riding down from the

foothills that debauched out into the Camoonian de-

sert, a vast wasteland, uninhabited, a dreary waste of

yellow sands. No trees grew there, nor even bushes,

nor were there any streams of water. All day they

rode, stopping only a short time at midday to eat and

rest the horses, though the heat was almost intoler-

able. The men, inured as they were, wilted beneath the

heat. Silence reigned save for the clank of stirrups and

armor, the creak of sweating saddles, and the monoto-

nous scruff of hoof through the deep sands. Even

Brule hung his corselet on his saddlebow. But Kelkor

sat upright and unmoved, under the weight of full ar-

mor, seemingly untouched by the heat and discomfort

that harried the rest.

"Steel, all steel," thought Kull in admiration, se-

cretly wondering if he could ever attain the perfect

mastery over himself that this man, also a barbarian,

had attained.

Two days' journey brought them out of the desert

and into the low hills that marked the confines of

Zarfhaana. At the borderline they were stopped by

two Zarfhaanian riders.

"I am Kull of Valusia," the king answered ab-

ruptly. "I ride on the trail of Fenar. Seek not to hinder

my passing. I will be responsible to your emperor."

The two horsemen reined aside to let the caval-

cade pass and as the clashing hoofs faded in the dis-

tance, one spoke to the other.

"I win our wager. The king of Valusia rides him-

self."

"Aye," the other replied. "These barbarians avenge

their own wrongs. Had the king been a Valusian, by

Valka, you had lost."

The vales of Zarfhaana echoed to the tramp of

Kull's riders. The peaceful country people flocked out

of their villages to watch, the fierce warriors sweep

by, and word went to the north and the south, the

west and the east, that Kull of Valusia rode eastward

Just beyond the frontier, Kull, having sent an en-

voy to the Zarfhaanian emperor to assure him of their

peaceful intention, held council with Brule, Ka-yanna,

and Kelkor.

"They have the start of us by many days," said

Kull, "and we must lose no time in searching for their

trail. These country people will lie to us; we must

scent out our own trail, as wolves scent out the spoor

of a deer."

"Let me question these fellows," said Ka-yanna,

with a vicious curl of his thick, sensual lips. I will

guarantee to make them speak truthfully."

Kull glanced at him inquiringly.

"There are ways," purred the Valusian.

"Torture?" grunted Kull, his lip writhing in un-

veiled contempt. "Zarfhaana is a friendly nation."

"What cares the emperor for a few wretched vil-

lagers?" blandly asked Ka-yanna.

"Enough." Kull swept aside the suggestion with

true Atlantean abhorrence, but Brule raised his hand

for attention.

"Kull," said he, "I like this fellow's plan no more

than you, but at times even a swine speaks truth." Ka-

yanna's lips writhed in rage, but the Pict gave him no

heed. "Let me take a few of my men among the vil-

lagers and question them. I will only frighten a few,

harming no one; otherwise we may spend weeks in fu-

tile search."

"There spake the barbarian," said Kull with the

friendly maliciousness that existed between the two.

"In what city of the Seven Empires were you

born, lord king?" asked the Pict with sarcastic defer-

ence.

Kelkor dismissed this byplay with an impatient

wave of his hand.

"Here is our position," said he, scrawling a map in

the ashes of the campfire with his scabbard end.

"North Fenar is not likely to go--assuming as we do

that he does not intend remaining in Zarfhaana--

because beyond Zarfhaana is the sea, swarming with

pirates and sea-rovers. South he will not go because

there lies Thurania, foe of his nation. Now it is my

guess that he will strike straight east as he was travel-

ling, cross Zarfhaana's eastern border somewhere near

the frontier city of Talunia, and go into the waste-

lands of Grondar; thence I believe he will turn south

seeking to gain Farsun--which lies west of Valusia--

through the small principalities south of Thurania."

"Here is much supposition, Kelkor," said Kull. "If

Fenar wishes to win through to Farsun, why in Val-

ka's name did he strike in the exactly opposite direc-

tion?"

"Because, as you know, Kull, in these unsettled

times all our borders, except the easternmost, are

closely guarded. He could never have gotten through

without proper explanation, much less have carried

the countess with him."

"I believe Kelkor is right, Kull," said Brule, eyes

dancing with impatience to be in the saddle. "His ar-

guments sound logical, at any rate."

"As good a plan as any," replied Kull. "We ride

east."

And east they rode through the long lazy days,

entertained and feasted at every halt by the kindly

Zarfhaanian people. A soft and lazy land, thought

Kull, a dainty girl waiting helplessly for some ruthless

conqueror--Kull dreamed his dreams as his riders'

hoofs beat out their tattoo through the dreamy valleys

and the verdant woodlands. Yet he drove his men

hard, giving them no rest, for ever behind his far-

sweeping and imperial visions of blood-stained glory

and wild conquest, there loomed the phantom of his

hate, the relentless hatred of the savage, before which

all other desires must give way.

They swung wide of cities and large towns for

Kull wished not to give his fierce warriors opportu-

nity to become embroiled in some dispute with the

inhabitants. The cavalcade was nearing the border

city of Talunia, Zarfhaana's last eastern outpost, when

the envoy sent to the emperor in his city to the north

rejoined them with the word that the emperor was

quite willing that Kull should ride through his land,

and requested the Valusian king to visit him on his

return. Kull smiled grimly at the irony of the situation,

considering the fact that even while the emperor was

giving benevolent permission, Kull was already far

into his country with his men.

Kull's warriors rode into Talunia at dawn, after

an all night's ride, for he had thought that perhaps

Fenar and the countess, feeling temporarily safe,

would tarry awhile in the border city and he wished

to precede the word of his coming.

Kull encamped his men some distance outside the

city walls and entered the city alone save for Brule.

The gates were readily opened to him when he had

shown the regal signet of Valusia and the symbol sent

him by the Zarfhaanian emperor.

"Hark ye," said Kull to the commander of the

gate guards, "are Fenar and Lala-ah in this city?"

That I cannot say," the soldier answered. "They

entered at this gate many days since, but whether

they are still in the city or not, I do not know."

"Listen, then," said Kull, slipping a gemmed

bracelet from his mighty arm, "I am merely a wander-

ing Valusian noble, accompanied by a Pictish com-

panion. None need know who I am, understand?"

The soldier eyed the costly ornament covetously.

"Very good, lord long, but what of your soldiers en-

camped in the forest?"

They are concealed from the eyes of the city. If

any peasant enters your gate, question him and if he

tells you of a force encamped, hold him prisoner for

some trumped-up reason, until this time tomorrow

For by then I shall have secured the information I de-

sire."

"Valka's name, lord long, you would make me a

traitor of sorts!" expostulated the soldier. "I think not

that you plan treachery, yet--"

Kull changed his tactics. "Have you not orders to

obey your emperor's command? Have I not shown

you his symbol of command? Dare you disobey?

Valka, it is you who would be the traitor!

After all, reflected the soldier, this was the

truth--he would not be bribed, no! no! But since it

was the order of a king who bore authority from his

emperor--

Kull handed over the bracelet with no more than

a faint smile betraying his contempt of mankind's way

of lulling their consciences into the path of their desires,

refusing to admit that they violated their own moral

senses, even to themselves.

The king and Brule walked through the streets,

where the tradespeople were just beginning to stir.

Kull's giant stature and Brule's bronze skin drew

many curious stares, but no more than would be ex-

pected to be accorded strangers. Kull began to wish

he had brought Kelkor or a Valusian, for Brule could

not possibly disguise his race, and since Picts were

seldom seen in these eastern cities, it might cause

comment that would reach the hearing of those they

sought.

They sought a modest tavern where they secured

a room, then took their seats in the drinking room, to

see if they might hear aught of what they wished to

hear. But the day wore on and nothing was said of the

fugitive couple, nor did carefully veiled questions

elicit any knowledge. If Fenar and Lala-ah were still

in Talunia they were certainly not advertising their

presence. Kull would have thought that the presence

of a dashing gallant and a beautiful young girl of

royal blood in the city would have been the subject of

at least some comment, but such seemed not to be the

case.

Kull intended to fare forth that night upon the

streets, even to the extent of committing some maraud-

ing if necessary, and failing in this to reveal his identity

to the lord of the city the next morning, demanding that

the culprits be handed over to him. Yet Kull's fero-

cious pride rebelled at such an act. This seemed the

most logical course, and was one which Kull would

have followed had the matter been merely a diplo-

imatic or political one. But Kull's fierce pride was

roused and he was loath to ask aid from anyone in the

consummating of his vengeance.

Night was falling as the comrades stepped into

the streets, still thronged with voluble people and

lighted by torches set along the streets. They were

passing a shadowy side-street when a cautious voice

halted them. From the dimness between the great

building a claw-like hand beckoned. With a swift

glance at each other, they stepped forward, warily

loosening their daggers in their sheaths as they did so

An aged crone, ragged, stooped with age, stole

from the shadows.

"Aye, King Kull, what seek ye in Talunia?" her

voice was a shrill whisper.

"Kull's fingers closed about his dagger hilt more

firmly as he replied guardedly.

"How know you my name?"

"The marketplaces speak and hear," she answered

with a low cackle of unhallowed mirth. "A man saw

and recognized you today in the tavern and the word

has gone from mouth to mouth."

Kull cursed softly.

"Hark ye!" hissed the woman. "I can lead ye to

those ye seek--if ye be willing to pay the price."

"I will fill your apron with gold," Kull answered

swiftly.

"Good. Listen now. Fenar and the countess are

apprized of your arrival. Even now they are preparing

their escape. They have hidden in a certain house

since early evening when they learned that you had

come, and soon they leave their hiding place--"

"How can they leave the city?" interrupted KulL

"The gates are shut at sunset."

"Horses await them at a postern gate in the east-

ern wall. The guard has been bribed. Fenar has many

friends in Talunia."

"Where hide they now?"

The crone stretched forth a shrivelled hand. "A

token of good faith, lord king," she wheedled.

Kull put a coin in her hand and she smirked and

made a grotesque curtsey.

"Follow me, lord king," and she hobbled away

swiftly into the shadows.

The king and his companion followed her uncer-

tainly through narrow, winding streets until she halted

before an unlit huge building in a squalid part of the

city.

"They hide in a room at the head of the stairs

leading from the lower chamber opening into the

street, lord king."

"How do you know that they do?" asked Kull sus-

piciously. "Why should they pick such a wretched

place in which to hide?"

The woman laughed silently, rocking to and fro

in her uncanny mirth,

"As soon as I made sure you were in Talunia, lord

king, I hurried to the mansion where they had their

abode and told them, offering to lead them to a place

of concealment! Ho, ho, ho! They paid me good gold

coins!"

Kull stared at her silently.

"Now, by Valka," said he, "I knew not civilization

could produce a thing like this woman. Here, female,

guide Brule to the gate where await the horses. Brule,

go with her there and await my coming--perchance

Fenar might give me the slip here--"

"But Kull," protested Brule, "you go not into yon

dark house alone--bethink you this might all be an

ambush!"

"This woman dare not betray me!" and the crone

shuddered at the grim response. "Haste ye!"

As the two forms melted into the darkness, Kull

entered the house. Groping with his hands until his

feline-gifted eyes became accustomed to the total

darkness, he found the stair and ascended it, dagger in

hand, walking stealthily and on the lookout for creak-

ing steps. For all his size, the king moved as easily

and silently as a leopard, and had the watcher at the

head of the stairs been awake, it is doubtful if he

would have heard his coming,

As it was, he awakened when Kull's hand was

clapped over his mouth, only to fall back temporarily

unconscious as Kull's fist found his jaw.

The king crouched a moment above his victim,

straining his faculties for any sound that might beto-

ken that he had been heard. Utter silence reigned. He

stole to the door. Ah, his keen senses detected a low

confused mumble as of people whispering--a guarded

movement--with one leap Kull hurled the door open

and hurled himself into the room. He halted not to

weigh chances; there might have been a roomful of

assassins waiting for him for all he thought of the

thing.

Everything then happened in an instant. Kull saw

a barren room, lighted by moonlight that streamed in

at the window, he caught a glimpse of two forms

clambering through this window, one apparently

carrying the other, a fleeting glance of a pair of dark,

daring eyes in a face of piquant beauty, another

laughing, reckless handsome face--all this he saw con-

fusedly as he cleared the whole room with a tigerish

bound, a roar of pure bestial ferocity breaking from

his lips at the sight of his foe escaping. The window

was empty even as he hurled across the sill, and rag-

ing and furious, he caught another glimpse, two forms

darting into the shadows of a nearby maze of build-

ings--a silvery mocking laugh floated back to him, an-

other stronger, more mocking. Kull flung a leg over

the sill and dropped the sheer thirty feet to the earth,

disdaining the rope ladder that still swung from the

window. He could not hope to follow them through

that maze of streets, which they doubtless knew much

better than he.

Sure of their destination, however, he raced to-

ward the gate in the eastern wall, which from the

crone's description was not far distant. However, some

time elapsed before he arrived and when he did it was

only to find Brule and the hag there.

"Nay," said Brule. "The horses are here, but none

has come for them."

Kull cursed savagely. Fenar had tricked him after

all, and the woman also. Suspecting treachery, the

horses at that gate had only served as a blind. Fenar

was doubtless escaping through some other gate, then.

"Swift!" shouted Kull. Haste to the camp and

have the men mount! I follow Fenar's trail."

And leaping upon one of the horses he was gone.

Brule mounted the other and rode toward the camp.

The crone watched them go, shaking with unholy

mirth. After awhile she heard the drum of many

hoofs passing the city.

"Ho, ho, ho! They ride into the sunrise--and who

rides back from beyond the sunrise?"

All night Kull rode, striving to cut down the lead

the Farsunian and the girl had gained. He knew they

dared not remain in Zarfhaana and as the sea lay to

the north, and Thurania, Farsun's ancient enemy, to

the south, then there lay but one course for them--the

road to Grondar.

The stars were paling when the ramparts of the

eastern hills rose starkly against the sky in front of the

king, and dawn was stealing over the grasslands as

Kull's weary steed toiled up the pass and halted a mo-

ment at the summit. Here the fugitives must have

passed for these cliffs stretched the whole length of

the Zarfhaanian border and the next nearest pass was

many a mile to the north. The Zarfhaanian in the

small tower that reared up in the pass, hailed the king,

but Kull replied with a gesture and rode on.

At the crest of the pass he halted. There beyond

lay Grondar. The cliffs rose as abruptly on the eastern

side as they did upon the west and 'from their feet the

grasslands stretched away endlessly. Mile upon count-

less mile of tall waving savannah land met his eyes,

seemingly inhabited only by the herds of buffalo and

deer that roamed those wild expanses. The east was

fast reddening and as Kull sat his horse the sun

flamed up over the savannahs like a wild blaze of

fire, making it appear to the king as if all the grass-

lands were ablaze--limning the motionless horseman

against its flame, so that man and horse seemed a sin-

gle dark statue against the red morning to the riders

who were fust entering the first defile of the pass far

behind. Then he vanished from their gaze as he

spurred forward.

"He rides into the sunrise," muttered the warriors.

"Who rides back from the sunrise?"

The sun was high in the sky when the troop over-

took Kull, the king having stopped to consult with his

companions.

Have your Picts spread out," said Kull. "Fenar

and the countess will try to turn south any time now,

for no man cares to ride any further into Grondar than

need be. They might even seek to get past us and win

back into Zarfhaana."

So they rode in open formation, Brute's Picts

ranging like lean wolves far afield to the north and

the south.

But the fugitives' trail led straight onward,

Kull's trained eyes easily following the course through

the tall grass, marking where the grass had been tram-

pled and beaten down by the horses' hoofs. Evidently

the countess and her lover rode alone.

And on into the wild country of Grondar they

rode, pursuers and pursued.

How Fenar managed to keep that lead, Kull

could not understand, but the soldiers were forced to

spare their horses, while Fenar had extra steeds arid

could change from one to another, thus keeping each

comparatively fresh.

Kull had sent no envoy to the king of Grondar.

The Grondarians were a wild, half-civilized race, of

whom little was known by the rest of the world, save

that their raiding parties sometimes swept out of the

grasslands to sweep the borders of Thurania and the

lesser nations with torch and sword. Westward, their

borders were plainly marked, clearly defined and

carefully guarded, that is by their neighbors, but how

far easterly their kingdom extended no one knew. It

was vaguely supposed that their country extended to,

and possibly included, that vast expanse of untenable

wilderness spoken of in myth and legend as The

World's End.

Several days of hard riding had passed with nei-

ther sight of the fugitives nor any other human, when a

Pictish rider sighted a band of horsemen approaching

from the south.

Kull halted his force and waited. They rode up

and halted at a distance, a band of some four hundred

Grondarian warriors, fierce, leanly-built men, clad in

leather garments and rude armor.

Their leader rode forth. "Stranger, what do ye in

this land?"

Kull answered, "We pursue a disobedient subject

and her lover, and we ride in peace. We have no dis-

pute with Grondar."

The Grondarian sneered. "Men who ride in Gron-

dar carry their lives in their right hands, stranger."

'Then, by Valka," roared Kull, losing patience,

"my right hand is stronger to defend than all Grondar

is to assail! Stand aside ere we trample you!"

"Lances at rest!" came Kelkor's curt voice; the

forest of spears lowered as one, the warriors leaning

forward.

The Grondarians gave back before that formida-

ble array, unable, as they knew, to stand in the open

the charge of fully armed horsemen. They reined

aside, sitting their horses sullenly as the Valusians

swept by them. The leader shouted after them.

"Ride on, fools! Who ride beyond the sunrise--

return not!"

They rode, and though bands of horsemen circled

their tracks at a distance like hawks, and they kept a

heavy guard at night, the riders came not nearer nor

were the outriders molested in any way,

The grasslands continued with never a hill or for-

est to break their monotony. Sometimes they came

upon the almost obliterated ruins of some ancient city,

mute reminders of the bloody days when, ages and

ages since, the ancestors of the Grondarians had ap-

peared from nowhere in particular and had conquered

the original inhabitants of the land. They sighted no

inhabited cities, none of the rough habitations of the

Grondarians, for their way led through an especially

wild, unfrequented part of the land. It became evi-

dent that Fenar intended not to turn back; his trail

led straight east and whether he hoped to find sanc-

tuary somewhere in that nameless land or whether he

was seeking merely to tire his pursuers out, could not

be said.

Long days of riding and then they came to a

great river meandering through the plain. At its banks

the grasslands came to an abrupt halt, and beyond, on

the further side, a barren desert stretched to the hori-

zon.

An ancient man stood upon the bank and a large,

flat boat floated on the sullen surface of the water.

The man was aged, but mightily built, as huge as Kull

himself. He was clad only in ragged garments, seem-

ingly as ancient as himself, but there was something

kingly and awe-inspiring about the man. His snowy

hair fell to his shoulders and his huge white beard,

wild and unkempt, came almost to his waist. From be-

neath white, lowering brows, great luminous eyes

blazed, undimmed by age.

"Stranger, who have the bearing of a king," said

he to Kull in a great deep resonant voice, "would ye

cross the river?"

"Aye," said Kull, "if they we seek crossed."

"A man and a girl rode my ferry yesterday at

dawn," was the answer.

"Name of Valka!" swore Kull. "I could find it in

me to admire the fool's courage! What city lies beyond

this river, ferryman?"

"No city lies beyond," said the Elder man. This

river marks the border of Grondar--and the world!"

"How!" ejaculated Kull. "Have we ridden so far?

I had thought that the desert which is the end of the

world was part of Grondar's realm."

"Nay. Grondar ends here. Here is the end of the

world; beyond is magic and the unknown. Here is the

boundary of the world; there begins the realm of hor-

ror and mysticism. This is the river Stagus and I am

Karon the Ferryman."

Kull looked at him in wonder, little knowing that

he gazed upon one who should go down the dim cen-

turies until myth and legend had changed the truth

and Karon the Ferryman had become the boat-man of

Hades.

"You are very aged," said Kull curiously, while

the Valusians looked on the man with wonder and the

savage Picts in superstitious awe.

"Aye. I am a man of the Elder Race, who ruled

the world before Valusia was, or Grondar or

Zarfhaana, riders from the sunset. Ye would cross this

river? Many a warrior, many a king, have I ferried

across. Remember, they who ride beyond the sunrise,

return not! For of all the thousands who have crossed

the Stagus, not one has returned. Three hundred years

have passed since first I saw the light, king of Valusia.

I ferried the army of King Gaar the Conqueror when

he rode into World's End with all his mighty hosts.

Seven days they were passing over, yet no man of

them came back. Aye, the sound of battle and the

clash of swords clanged out over the wastelands for a

long while from sun to sun, but when the moon shone

all was silence. Mark this, Kull, no man has ever re-

turned from beyond the Stagus. Nameless horrors lurk

in yonder lands and terrible are the ghastly shapes of

doom I glimpse beyond the river in the vagueness of

dusk and the grey of early dawn. Mark ye, Kull."

Kull turned in his saddle and eyed his men.

"Here my commands cease," said he. "As for my-

self, I ride on Fenar's trail if it lead to Hell and be-

yond. Yet I bid no man follow beyond this river. Ye

all have my permission to return to Valusia, nor shall

any word of blame ever be spoken of you."

Brule reined to Kull's side.

"I ride with the king," he said curtly, and his Picts

raised an acquiescing shout. Kelkor rode forward.

"They who would return, take a single pace for-

ward," said he.

The metal rank's sat motionless as statues.

"They ride, Kull," grinned Brule.

A fierce pride rose in the king's savage soul. He

spoke a single sentence, a sentence which thrilled his

warriors more than an accolade.

"Ye are men."

Karon ferried them across, rowing over and re-

turning until the entire force stood on the eastern

bank. And though the boat was heavy and the ancient

man rowed alone, yet his clumsy oars drove the un-

wieldy craft swiftly through the water and at the last

journey he was no more weary than at the start.

Kull spake. "Since the desert throngs with wild

things, how is it that none come into the lands of

men?

Karon pointed to the river, and looking closely

Kull saw that the river swarmed with serpents and

small freshwater sharks.

"No man swims this river," said the ferryman.

"Neither man nor mammoth."

"Forward," said Kull. "Forward; we ride. The

land is free before us."

Untitled

(Fragment)

Three men sat at a table playing a game. Across

the sill of an open window there whispered a faint

breeze, blowing the filmy curtains about and bearing

to the players the incense of roses and vines and grow-

ing green things.

Three men sat at a table--one was a king--one a

prince of an ancient house--one was the chief of a ter-

rible and barbaric nation.

"Score!" quoth Kull, king of Valusia, as he moved

one of the ivory figures. "My wizard menaces your

warrior, Brule."

Brule nodded. He was not as large a man as the

king, but he was firmly knit, compactly yet lithely

built. Kull was the tiger, Brule was the leopard. Brule

was a Pict and dark like all his race. Immobile fea-

tures set off a fine head, powerful neck, heavy trim

shoulders and a deep chest. These features, with the

muscular legs and arms, were characteristics of the

nation to which he belonged. But in one respect Brule

differed from his tribesmen, for whereas their eyes

were mostly hard scintillant brown or wicked black,

his were a deep volcanic blue. Somewhere in his

blood was a vagrant strain of Celt or of those scat-

tered savages who lived in ice caves close to the Arc-

tic Circle.

"A wizard is a hard man to beat, Kull," said this

man, "in this game or in the real red game of battle--

well, there was once when my life hung on the bal-

ance of power between a Pick-land wizard and me--he

had his charms and I had a well-forged blade--"

He paused to drink deeply from a crimson goblet

which stood at his elbow.

Tell us the tale, Brule," urged the third player.

Ronaro, prince of the great Atl Volante house, was a

slim elegant young man with a splendid head, fine

dark eyes and a keen intellectual face. He was the pa-

trician--the highest type of intelligent aristocracy any

land has ever produced. These other two in a way

were his antithesis. He was born in a palace; of the

others, one had been born in a wattle hut, the other in

a cave. Ronaro traced his descent back two thousand

years, through a line of dukes, knights, princes, states-

men, poets, and longs. Brule could trace his ancestors

vaguely for a few hundred years and he named among

them skin-clad chiefs, painted and feathered warriors,

shamans with bison-skull masks and finger-bone neck-

laces--one or two island kings who held court in mud

huts, and a legendary hero or two, semi-deified for

feats of personal strength or wholesale murder. Kull

did not know who his own parents were.

But in the countenance of all three gleamed an

equality beyond the shackles of birth and circum-

stance-the aristocracy of the Man. These men were

natural patricians, each in his own way. Ronaro's

ancestors were kings; Brule's, skin-clad chiefs; Kull's

might have been slaves or chieftains. But about each

of the three was that indefinable element which sets

the superior man apart and shatters the delusion that

all men were born equal.

"Well," Brule's eyes filled with brooding reminis-

cence, "it happened in my early youth; yes, in my first

war raid. Oh, I had killed a man or so in the fishing

brawls and at the tribal feasts, but I had not yet been

ornamented with the scars of the warrior clan--" he

indicated his bare breast where the listeners saw three

small horizontal marks, barely discernible in the sun-

bronze of the Pict's mighty chest

Ronaro watched him with a never-failing interest

as he talked. These fierce barbarians with their primi-

tive vitality and straight-forwardness intrigued the

young prince. Years in Valusia as one of the empire's

strongest allies had wrought an outward change on

the Pict--had not tamed him, but had given him a ve-

neer of culture, education and reserve. But beneath

that veneer burned the blind black savage of old. To a

greater extent had this change worked on Kull, once

warrior of Atlantis, now king of Valusia.

"You, Kull, and you, Ronaro," Brule said, "we of

The Islands are all one blood, but of many tribes, and

each tribe has customs and traditions peculiar to itself

alone. We all acknowledge Nial of the Tatheli as over-

king, but his rule is loose. He does not interfere with

our affairs among ourselves, nor does he levy tribute

or taxes, as the Valusians call it, from any except the

Nargi and the Dano and the Whale-slayers who live

on the isle of Tathel with his own tribe. These he pro-

tects against other tribes and for that reason he col-

lects toll. But he takes no toll of my tribe, the Borni,

nor of any other tribe. Neither does he interfere when

two tribes go to war--unless some tribe encroaches on

the three who pay tribute. When the war is fought and

won, he arbitrates the matter, and his judgment is fi-

nal--what stolen women shall be returned, what pay-

ment of war canoes made, what blood price paid, and

so on. And when the Lemurians or the Celts or any

foreign nation or band of reavers come against us, he

sends forth for all tribes to put aside their quarrels

and fight side by side. Which is a good thing. He

might be a supreme tyrant if he liked, for his own

tribe is very strong, and with the aid of Valusia he

might do as he liked-but he knows that though he

might, with his tribes and their allies, crush all the

other tribes, there would never be peace again, but

revolt as long as a Borni or a Sungara or a Wolf-slayer

or any of the tribesmen was left alive."

Epilog

Then the Cataclysm rocked the world. Atlantis

and Lemuria sank, and the Pictish Islands were

heaved up to form the mountain peaks of a new conti-

nent. Sections of the Thurian Continent vanished un-

der the waves, or, sinking, formed great inland lakes

and seas. Volcanoes broke forth and terrific earth-

quakes shook down the shining cities of the empires,

Whole nations were blotted out.

The barbarians fared a little better than the civi-

lized races. The inhabitants of the Pictish Islands

were destroyed, but a great colony of them, settled

among the mountains of Valusia's southern frontier to

serve as a buffer against foreign invasion, was un-

touched. The continental kingdom of the Atlanteans

likewise escaped the common ruin, and to it came

thousands of their tribesmen in ships from the sinking

land. Many Lemurians escaped to the eastern coast of

the Thurian Continent, which was comparatively un-

touched. There they were enslaved by the ancient

race which already dwelt there, and their history, for

thousands of years, is a history of brutal servitude.

In the western part of the continent, changing

conditions created strange forms of plant and animal

life. Thick jungles covered the plains, great rivers cut

their roads to the sea, wild mountains were heaved

up, and lakes covered the ruins of old cities in fertile

valleys. To the continental kingdom of the Atlanteans,

from sunken areas, swarmed myriads of beasts and

savages--ape-men arid apes. Forced to battle contin-

ually for their lives, they yet managed to retain vestiges

of their former state of highly advanced barbarism.

Robbed of metals and ores, they became workers

in stone like their distant ancestors, and had at-

tained a real artistic level, when their struggling culture

came into contact with the powerful Pictish nation,

The Picts had also reverted to flint, but had ad-

vanced more rapidly in the matter of population and

war-science. They had none of the Atlanteans' artistic

nature; they were a ruder, more practical, more pro-

lific race. They left no pictures painted or carved on

ivory, as did their enemies, but they left remarkably

efficient flint weapons in plenty.

These stone age kingdoms clashed, and in a series

of bloody wars, the outnumbered Atlanteans were

hurled back into a state of savagery, and the evolution

of the Picts was halted. Five hundred years after the

Cataclysm the barbaric kingdoms had vanished. They

are now a nation of savages--the Picts--carrying on con-

tinual warfare with tribes of savages--the Atlanteans,

The Picts had the advantage of numbers and unity,

whereas the Atlanteans had fallen into loosely-knit

clans. That was the west of that day.

In the distant east, cut off from the rest of the

world by the heaving up of gigantic mountains and

the forming of a chain of vast lakes, the Lemurians are

toiling as slaves of their ancient masters. The far south

is still veiled in mystery. Untouched by the Cata-

clysm, its destiny is still pre-human. Of the civilized

races of the Thurian Continent, a remnant of one of

the non-Valusian nations dwells among the low moun-

tains of the southeast--the Zhemri. Here and there

about the world are scattered clans of apish savages,

entirely ignorant of the rise and fall of the great civili-

zations. But in the far north another people are slowly

coming into existence.

At the time of the Cataclysm, a band of savages;

whose development was not much above that of the

Neanderthal, fled to the north to escape destruction

They found the snow-countries inhabited only by

species of ferocious snow-apes--huge shaggy white an-

imals, apparently native to that climate. These they

fought and drove beyond the arctic circle, to perish,

as the savages thought. The latter, then, adapted

themselves to their hardy new environment and

throve.

After Pictish--AtIantean wars had destroyed the

beginnings of what might have been a new culture,

another, lesser cataclysm further altered the appear-

ance of the original continent, left a great inland sea

where the chain of lakes had been, to further separate

west from east, and the attendant earthquakes, floods

and volcanoes completed the ruin of the babarians

which their tribal wars had begun.

A thousand years after the lesser cataclysm, the

western world is seen to be a wild country of jungles

and lakes and torrential rivers. Among the forest-

covered hills of the northwest exist wandering bands

of ape-men without human speech, or the knowledge

of fire or the use of implements. They are the descen-

dants of the Atlanteans, sunk back into the squalling

chaos of jungle-bestiality from which ages ago their

ancestors so laboriously crawled. To the southwest

dwell scattered the clans of degraded, cave-dwelling

savages, whose speech is of the most primitive form,

yet who still retain the name of Picts, which has come

to mean merely a term designating men--themselves--

to distinguish them from the true beasts with which

they contend for life and food. It is their only link

with their former stage. Neither the squalid Picts nor

the apish Atlanteans have any contact with other

tribes or peoples.

Far to the east, the Lemurians, levelled almost to

a bestial plane themselves by the brutishness of their

slavery, have risen and destroyed their masters. They

are savages stalking among the ruins of a strange civi-

lization. The survivors of that civilization, who have

escaped the fury of their slaves, have come westward

They fall upon that mysterious pre-human kingdom of

the south and overthrow it, substituting their own cul-

ture, modified by contact with the older one. The

newer kingdom is called Stygia, and remnants of the

older nation seemed to have survived, and even been

worshipped, after the race as a whole had been de-

stroyed,

Here and there in the world small groups of sav-

ages are showing signs of an upward trend; these are

scattered and unclassified. But in the north, the tribes

are growing. These people are called Hyborians, or

Hybori; their god was Bori--some great chief, whom

legend made even more ancient as the king who led

them into the north, in the days of the great Cata-

clysm, which the tribes remember only in distorted

folklore.

They have spread over the north, and are pushing

southward in leisurely treks. So far they have not

come in contact with any other races; their wars have

been with one another. Fifteen hundred years in the

north country have made them a tall, tawny-haired,

gray-eyed race, vigorous and war-like, and already ex-

hibiting a well-defined artistry and poetism of nature.

They still live mostly by the hunt, but the southern

tribes have been raising cattle for some centuries.

There is one exception in their so far complete isola-

tion from other races: a wanderer into the far north

returned with the news that the supposedly deserted

ice wastes were inhabited by an extensive tribe of

ape-like men, descended, he swore, from the beasts

driven out of the more habitable land by the ancestors

of the Hyborians. He urged that a large war-party be

sent beyond the arctic to exterminate these beasts,

whom he swore were evolving into true men. He was

jeered at; a small band of adventurous young warriors

followed him into the north, but none returned.

But tribes of the Hyborians were drifting south,

and as the population increased, this movement be-

came extensive. The following age was an epoch of

wandering and conquest Across the history of the

world tribes and drifts of tribes moved arid shifted in an

ever changing panorama,

Look at the world five hundred years late

Tribes of tawny-haired Hyborians have moved south-

ward and westward, conquering and destroying many

of the small unclassified clans. Absorbing the blood of

conquered races, already the descendants of the older

drifts have begun to show modified racial traits, and

these mixed races are attacked fiercely by new, purer

blooded drifts, and swept before them as a broom

sweeps debris impartially, to become even more

mixed and mingled in the tangled debris of races an a

tag-ends of races.

As yet the conquerors have not come in contact

with the older races. To the southeast, the descen-

dants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new blood re-

sulting from admixture with some unclassified tribe,

are beginning to seek to revive some faint shadow of

their ancient culture. To the west, apish Atlanteans

are beginning the long climb upward. They have com-

pleted the cycle of existence; they have long forgotten

their former existence as men; unaware of any other

former state, they are starting the climb unhelped and

unhindered by human memories. To the south of

them, the Picts remain savages, apparently defying

the laws of Nature by neither progressing nor retro-

gressing. Far to the south dreams the ancient mysteri-

ous kingdom of Stygia. On its eastern borders wander

clans of nomadic savages, already known as the Sons

of Shem.

Next to the Picts, in the broad valley of Zingg,

protected by great mountains, a nameless band of prim-

itives, tentatively classified as akin to the Shemites,

has evolved an advanced agricultural system and exis-

tence.

Another factor has added to the impetus of Hy-

borian drift. A tribe of that race has discovered the

use of stone in building, and the first Hyborian king

dom has come into being--the rude and barbaric king

dom of Hyperborea, which had its beginning in a

crude fortress of boulders heaped to repel tribal at-

tack. The people of this tribe soon abandoned their

horse-hide tents for stone houses, crudely but mightily

built, and thus protected, they grew strong. There are

few more dramatic events in history than the rise of

the rude, fierce kingdom of Hyperborea, whose peo-

ple turned abruptly from their nomadic life to rear

dwellings of naked stone, surrounded by cyclopean

walls--a race scarcely emerged from the polished

stone age, who had by a freak of chance, learned the

first rude principles or architecture.

The rise of this kingdom drove forth many other

tribes, for, defeated in war, or refusing to become

tributary to their castle-dwelling kinsmen, many clans

set forth on long treks that took them halfway around

the world. And already the more northern tribes are

beginning to be harried by gigantic blond savages,

not much more advanced than ape-men.

The tale of the next thousand years is the tale of

the rise of the Hyborians, whose war-like tribes domi-

nate the western world. Rude kingdoms are taking

shape. The tawny-haired invaders have encountered

the Picts, driving them into the barren lands of the

west. To the northwest, the descendants of the Atlan-

teans, climbing unaided from apedorn into primitive

savagery, have not yet met the conquerors. Far to the

east, the Lemurians are evolving a strange semi-

civilization of their own. To the south, the Hyborians

have founded the kingdom of Koth, on the borders of

those pastoral countries known as the Lands of Shem,

and the savages of those lands, partly through contact

with the Hyborians, partly through contact with the

Stygians who have ravaged them for centuries, are

emerging from barbarism. The blond savages of the

far north have grown in power and numbers so that

the northern Hyborian tribes move southward, driv-

ing their kindred clans before them. The ancient king-

dom of Hyperborea is overthrown by one of those

northern tribes, which, however, retains the old name,

Southeast of Hyperborea, a kingdom of the Zhemri

has come into being, under the name of Zamora. To

the southwest, a tribe of Picts have invaded the fertile

Valley of Zingg, conquered the agricultural people;

there, and settled among them. This mixed race was in

turn conquered later by a roving tribe of Hybori, and

from these mingled elements came the kingdom of

Zingara.

Five hundred years later, the kingdoms of the

world are clearly defined. The kingdoms of the Hy-

borians--Aquilonia, Nemedia, Brythunia, Hyperborea,

Koth, Ophir, Argos, Corinthia, and one known as the

Border Kingdom--dominate the western world. Za-

mora lies to the east, and Zingara to the southwest of

these kingdoms--peoples alike in darkness of complex-

ion and exotic habits, but otherwise unrelated. Far to

the south sleeps Stygia, untouched by foreign inva-

sion, but the people of Shem have exchanged the

Stygian yoke for the less galling one of Koth. The

dusky masters have been driven south of the great

river Styx, Nilus, or Nile, which, flowing north from

the shadowy hinterlands, turns almost at right angles

and flows almost due west through the pastoral mead-

owlands of Shem, to empty into the great sea. North

of Aquilonia, the westernmost Hyborian kingdom, are

the Cimmerians, ferocious savages, untamed by the

invaders, but advancing rapidly because of contact

with them; they are the descendants of the Atlanteans,

now progressing more steadily than their old enemies,

the Picts, who dwell in the wilderness west of Aqui-

lonia.

--The Hyborian Age

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

robert ervin howard was born in the small town of

Cross Plains, Texas, in 1906. His first story, "Spear and

Fang," was published when he was eighteen, in Weird

Tales. Over the next twelve years, Howard wrote over a

million words of fantasy. Westerns, pirate yarns, detective

and adventure stories for the pulp magazines. He is best

known for his larger-than-life heroes: King Kull, Solomon

Kane, Bran Mat Morn, and the greatest hero of them all,

Conan, who swagger through exotic and far-off lands and

times having fabulous adventures, conquering kingdoms'

and beautiful women with equal ease. Howard committed

suicide on June 11, 1930, when he heard his mother had

lapsed into a terminal coma.