Kull by John Severin.
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 hoofs 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 mountains; and behind these the heavily armed
footmen, their broad shields clashing in unison, their long spears swaying in
perfect rhythm to their stride. Behind 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 Valusia. 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 rearing 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 accursed 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 commanders 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 whisperings:
"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 lords and ladies
took their formal departure and Kull leaned back upon the ermine throne and
contemplated matters of state until an attendant requested permission from the
great king to speak, and announced an emissary 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
inscrutable 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 Valusia.'"
"Good," answered Kull. "Say to
Ka-nu the Ancient, 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, gleam-ing 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 conventional 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 imperturbably. "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 dagger, 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 antagonist.
"A king does not accept the challenge of a
nameless savage," he sneered, "nor does the emperor of Valusia 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 warrior 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
affairs 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 broken 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 Empires. 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 ambitious statesmen out of favor at court—and Kull,
wandering adventurer, Atlantean exile, had swept up to the dizzy heights of his
dreams: he was lord of Valusia, 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 mysticisms 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 in the throne before
the table of Ka-nu, ambassador 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 appraisingly; no tribal
traditions hindered his judgments. 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 foremost 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 conversation
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 running 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
Atlantis—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 Valusian 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 comfortable sigh and said, "Now, get you gone, friends,
for the king and I would converse on such matters as concerns not children.
Yes, you too, my pretty; yet first let me kiss those ruby lips—so; now dance
away, my rose-bloom."
Ka-nu's eyes twinkled above his white beard as he
surveyed Kull, who sat erect, grim and uncompromising.
"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 scintillant eyes began to
glow with a feline light.
Ka-nu reached for the wine-pitcher, filled his
beaker and glanced questioningly 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
bearing out his words. His rubicund countenance fairly glowed, and his eyes
sparkled, so that his white beard seemed incongruous. Indeed, he looked
remarkably 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
admonitory finger, "'tis a chancy thing to laud a young man, yet I must
speak my true thoughts to gain your confidence."
"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 falseness in the skein of
his word-web.
"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
wine 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, are age-old 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 sinews of steel and fire,
bound together with the perfect 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 Atlantean, leader
of the raiders who harried the western isles. So you should see in me, not a
Pict but an international man, a figure of the world. Now to that figure, 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 figurehead."
"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 representing 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 ancient
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 without
the garden and Kull was slightly surprized to see that it was the same that had
brought Ka-nu's invitation. No word was spoken as Kull swung into the saddle
nor as they clattered along the empty streets.
The color and the gayety of the day had given away
to the eery 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 imaginative 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 antiquity, 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
Lemuria 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 palace,
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
speechless, 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 throneroom, 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 Walk 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 half-way 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 surprize 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!—somewhere—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 armlet."
He held out his arm and, as Kull complied
wonderingly, 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 passageway.
"A secret passage!" swore Kull softly.
"And I knew nothing of 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; something about his attitude
made Kull's hair prickle slightly, not from fear but from some eery
anticipation. Then beckoning, Brule stepped through the secret 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 easily apparent from
within.
"The palace is a very honeycomb," he
muttered.
"Aye. Night and day you are watched, king, by
many eyes."
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 eighteen Red Slayers who were that night stationed
to watch the king’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 king,
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 audibly. For without stood the eighteen guardsmen!
"This is sorcery!" he whispered,
half-drawing his sword. "Do dead men guard the king?"
"Aye!" came Brule's scarcely audible
reply; there was a strange expression in the Pict's scintillant eyes. They
looked squarely into each other’s eyes for an instant, 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 historians 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 castles. 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
phantoms, 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 leopards 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 had 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
silently, 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, drawing 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. Evidently
he had come through the study room and, finding 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 candle. Then he advanced cautiously, apparently at a loss to
understand the absence of the king. He stood before 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 standing out between his
shoulders.
Kull leaned above him, teeth bared in the killer's
snarl, heavy brows a-scowl 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
glittering 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 recoiled, 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
murmured. "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—I 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 palace, 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 entered.
“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 loosened 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.
Brule was coming though the secret door.
“Hold!” upon the arm upthrown to halt the Mug’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 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 armlet—“nor can any say these
words,” and again Kull heard the strange phrase: “Ka nama kaa lajerama.”
“Ka nama kaa lajerama,” Kull repeated
mechanically. “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
meaning 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, unfathomed reaches opened in the recesses of his consciousness
and for an instant he seemed to gaze back through the vastnesses 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, wisdomless striver from dust to dust, following the long bloody
trail of his destiny, knowing not why, bestial, blundering, like a great
murderous child, yet feeling somewhere 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 secret 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 apedom, 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 ancient wars. Ah, that was a grim and secret war!
Among the men of the Younger Earth stole the frightful 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
people 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 content 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
serpents—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 happened 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 something
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 ambush? 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 concealed 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
Piet. “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 approached, but never fully material. A face looked at
them, a pair of luminous great eyes, that seemed to hold all the 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,
instinctively holding 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 throneroom—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 maintained 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 lighting. "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 broodingly 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 surface of court life was as the unrippled surface
of the sea between tide and tide. To the musing king the affairs of the night
before seemed as a dream, until his eyes dropped to the arm of his throne. A brown,
sinewy 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, deceitful; 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 human face?
Valusia—land of dreams and nightmares—a kingdom 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 statecraft.
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 sealed 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 merely 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
remembered 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 distance now until this is settled one way or another. Ha, Kull, if it
comes to a pitched battle, the streets and the castles bf Valusia will run
red!"
Kull smiled grimly. He would greet any sort of
action with a ferocious joy. This wandering in a labyrinth 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 passage, 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 defiance 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 leopard.
"Ka nama kaa lajerama!" his voice
crackled through the sinister silence of the room and the foremost councilor
recoiled, hand flashing to his robes; and like a spring released Brule moved
and the man pitched headlong to the glint of his sword—headlong he pitched and
lay still while his face faded and became 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 forward. 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 unblinkingly; a frightful fetid
scent pervaded the atmosphere—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 swung. 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 fighting 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 otherwise."
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 aim.
"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!" exclaimed Brule in a fury, kicking the corpses at their feet.
"They caused us to walk like fools into their ambush! 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 through halls that seemed deserted until 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 Valnsia.
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 and 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
astounded 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 look their forms? By
now you should have been slain and yon monster reigning in your stead, unknown
by those who bowed to you. Leap and 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 tapestries,
made the dais in a single lionlike bound. Brule had spoken truth. There stood
men of the Red Slayers, guardsmen trained to move quick as the striking
leopard; 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
minds stunned for an instant, and that was long enough. He upon the dais
snatched 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 before 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 concern, 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 ejaculations 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 accursed. And let those
rotting skeletons lie there forever 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,
chattering 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."
