Kull: Exile of Atlantis (41 page)

“That is Kull, see! Valka! But what a king! And what a man! Look at his shoulders! His arms!”

And an undertone of more sinister whispers; “Kull! Ha, accursed usurper from the pagan isles–”

“Aye, shame to Valusia that a barbarian sits in 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 curtesously 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 on 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 state craft where it had been wandering, and gazed upon the Pict with little favor.

The man returned the gaze of the king without flinching. He was a strongly built warrior of medium height, dark, like all his race and possesing strong immobile features, from which gazed dauntless inscrutable eyes.

“The chief of Councillors, Ka-nu of the tribes, sends greetings and says: There is a throne at the feast of the rising moon for Kull, king 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.”

“I have a word for the king; not,” with a contemptuous flirt of 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 the feast tonight, lord king. Such was the word of my chief.”

The kings eyes narrowed. “Alone?”

“Aye.” They eyed each other silently, their mutual tribal enmity seething under their cloak of formality. Their mouths spoke the cultured words 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, wary, while ghosts of wild wars and world-ancient feuds whispered to each.

To Kull was the advantage and he enjoyed it to it fullest extent.

Jaw resting on hand, Kull eyed the Pict, who stood like an image of bronze, head thrown back, eyes unflinching.

Across Kull’s lips crept a smile that was more a sneer.

“And so.” said he, “I am to come alone?” Civilization had taught him to speak by inuendo and the Pict’s eyes glittered. But he made no reply.

“How do I know you come from Ka-nu?”

“I have spoken.” the man answered sullenly.

“And when did a Pict speak truth?” sneered Kull, being fully aware that the Picts did not lie, but using this means to anger the man.

“I see your plan, king.” the Pict answered imperturbably, “You wish to enrage me. Very good. You need go no further. I am enraged 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 in grudging admiration, the kind that a fighting man must needs give another, but he did not fail to take the chance of further annoying his antagonist.

“A king does not accept the challenge of a nameless barbarian.” 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 Picts eyes flashed murderously. He fairly shook in the grasp of the primal blood-lust; then turning his back squarely upon the king of Valusia, he strode across the Hall of Society and vanished through the great doorway.

Again Kull leaned back on the ermine throne and mused. So the chief of the Picts of Council wished him to come alone? 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 the hereditary enemy of Picts, but he was king of Valusia and their most potent ally. Kull reflected on the strange state of affairs that made him ally of ancient foes and foe of ancient friends. Then he rose and paced restlessly across the hall. Chains of friendship, tribe and tradition he had broken to satisfy his ambition.

[…]

Kull sank back, yet gazed about him warily.

“There speaks the savage.” said 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 mind because I am a Pict. Tut. I see you as Kull, king of Valusia, not as Kull, the reckless Atlantean who single handed defeated the raiders of Skan. So should you 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?”

“Kanuub, baron of Blal.”

“Even so. I object to Kanuub for many reasons. Yet this most of all; Kanuub is but a figure-head.”

“A figure head! How so? He was my greatest opposer, but I knew not that he championed any cause but his own. How a figure-head.”

Ka-nu’s eyes still twinkled, but there was a calculating light in them, and he quoted a saying of his people to the effect that laughter wastes words.

“But I will not laugh at you.”

“The wind can hear.” answered Ka-nu obliquely, “There are cycles within cycles. But you may trust me and you may trust Brul, the Spear-slayer. Look,” he drew from among his robes a bracelet, of gold, representing a winged dragon coiled thrice, with three horns of ruby on the head. “Examine it closely Kull. Brul will wear it on his arm when he comes to you tomorrow night so that ye may know him. Listen, trust Brul as you trust yourself and do that which he tells you. And in proof of trust, look ye!”

With the quickness of a striking hawk, the ancient snatched something from his robes, something that flung a weird green light over them, then as hastily replaced.

“The stolen gem!” explained Kull, recoiling, “The green gem from the Temple of the Serpent! Valka! You! And why do you show it to me?”

Delcardes’ Cat

King Kull went with Ku, chief councillor of the throne, to see the talking cat of Delcardes, for though a cat a may look at a king, it is not given every king to look at a cat like Delcardes’.

Kull was skeptical and Ku 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.

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

To Ku, chief councillor, she was a woman and therefore the latent base of intrigue and danger.

To Ka-nanu, Pictish ambassador and Kull’s closest adviser, she was an eager child, parading under the effect of her show-acting; but Kananu 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 dissartation on rank, geniology and history but Kull interupted, 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 smile 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 Kully idly.

“Valusia was young when I was old.” the cat answered in a clear though curiously timbered 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.

“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 neophites 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 Kananu 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, dissapproving line and he eyed Delcardes darkly.

She returned his stare guilessly 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.