Kull: Exile of Atlantis (16 page)

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 fresh water 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.”

The Cat and the Skull

The Cat and the Skull

King Kull went with Tu, chief councillor 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 to 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 suspicious without knowing why, but years of counter-plot and intrigue had soured him. He swore testily that a talking cat was a snare and a fraud, a swindle and a delusion and maintained that should such a thing exist, it was a direct 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 skeptical but open to conviction.

Delcardes helped the conviction. She lounged with supple ease upon her silk couch, herself like a great beautiful feline, and looked at Kull from under long drooping lashes, which lended unimaginable charm to her narrow, piquantly slanted eyes.

Her lips were full and red and usually, as at present, curved in a faint enigmatical smile and 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 ferocious 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 ways, customs and thoughts of the people he ruled–and the threats of Thulsa Doom.

To Kull, Delcardes was a mysterious and queenly figure, alluring, yet surrounded by a haze of ancient wisdom and womanly magic.

To Tu, chief councillor, 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 show-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 half 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 Valusia that royal women should marry foreigners of lower rank.”

“But the king can rule otherwise,” pouted Delcardes.

“My lord,” said Tu, spreading his hands as one in the last stages of nervous irritation, “if she marries thus it is like 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 between 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 grey, her eyes slanting and mysterious.

“She is 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 her age, Kull.”

“How many years have you seen, Saremes?” asked Kull idly.

“Valusia was young when I was old,” the cat answered 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 councillor of kings ages before even the white beaches of Atlantis knew your feet, Kull of Valusia. I saw the ancestors of the Valusians 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 neophytes who bowed before me and terrible were the rites which were performed in my worship to pleasure me. For of eld beings exalted my kind; beings as strange as their deeds.”

“Can you read the stars and foretell events?” Kull’s barbarian mind leaped at once 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 Kanu 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 disapproving 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 increasingly difficult to refrain from showing exasperation toward kings.

“My lord, give thought to the humans who may be behind the cat!”

“Lord Tu,” said Delcardes in a tone of gentle reproach, “you put me to shame and you offend Saremes.”

Kull felt vaguely angered at Tu.

“At least, Tu,” said he, “the cat talks; that you cannot deny.”

“There is some trickery,” Tu stubbornly maintained. “Man talks; beasts may not.”

“Not so,” said Kull, himself convinced of the reality of the talking cat and anxious to prove the rightness of his belief. “A lion talked to Kambra and birds have spoken to the old men of the sea-mountain tribes, 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 tambu to me save in self defense,” he added irrelevantly.

Tu squirmed. This talk of totem and tambu was good enough in a savage chief, but to hear such remarks 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 anything as I have found.”

“No man can be convinced when he will not,” said Saremes imperturbably, quoting a very old Valusian 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 monies.”

Delcardes laughed and clapped her hands delightedly 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 Saremes. She only bestows on me the honor of her presence; she is a guest. As for the rest 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 traveller, Kull, and it pleases me at times to go out over the world-path and walk the streets of cities where in ages gone I have roamed forests, and to tread the sands of deserts where long ago I trod imperial streets.”