Kull: Exile of Atlantis (48 page)

As the acceptance of
The Shadow Kingdom
seems to have occasioned the writing of
The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune
, it was probably the news of the forthcoming appearance of the two Kull stories that prompted Howard to return once more to the character, but abandoning the more metaphysical aspects in favor of straight-adventure stories set in a Fantasy background.

His first attempt didn’t go beyond the third page. This untitled draft (see p. 151) is the first Kull story to display Howard’s growing passion for things Celtic, which had become conscious in December 1928. Why Howard did not complete the story is easily understood: not only does the story make mention of the historical Celts (in a story supposedly set thousands of years B.C.), but he also gives blue eyes to the fragment’s protagonist, Brule. Brule had always been mentioned as having dark eyes in previous stories, and logically so since he was a Pictish warrior. Blue eyes were in fact becoming the staple of Howard’s Celtic or pseudo-Celtic heroes, Conan being the most famous, of course. More than a casual mistake, this was a clue as to what was happening to the series: Howard was growing detached from his Atlantean creation, and more and more interested in Brule. In that fragment, Brule explains the mode of government of his tribe, the Borni:

We all acknowledge Nial of the Tatheli as over-king but his rule is loose. He does not interefere were 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…Neither does he interfere when two tribes go to war–unless some tribe enroaches on the three who pay tribute. When the war is fought and won, he arbitrates the matter, and his judgment is final…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 tribes 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.

The fragment stops at this point, and it is very interesting to compare it to what happens in the next–and last–Kull stories.

By This Axe I Rule!
and
Swords of the Purple Kingdom
were completed in rapid succession, probably in May and June 1929. In many ways, both stories mark a return to the roots of the Kull series. In
Exile of Atlantis
were mentioned the characters of Ascalante and Ala; these are also the names of characters, albeit different ones, in the 1929 story. More important, the plots of the 1929 tales revolve around an attempted coup d’état, as did
The Shadow Kingdom
. But if
The Shadow Kingdom
had its origins in Howard’s reading of the Biblical story of Saul,
By This Axe I Rule!
was inspired by his reading of a classic playwright.

In the early months of 1929, Howard had probably been rereading Shakespeare. In March, he included two erotic playlets in a letter to Smith. Of the first, Howard wrote that his “desires wavered between a wish to write straight jovial obscenity and a desire to simply parody Shakespeare and exaggerate and emphasize what I consider show the bastardness of the scut’s nature.” Not surprisingly, Tevis Clyde Smith later indicated that Shakespeare was Howard’s favorite playwright.

By This Axe I Rule!
opens with a scene in which conspirators decide to do away with the king on that same day. The scene takes place late at night, as dawn is nearing. To seal their alliance, all men take an oath.

Act II, scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar
takes place in Brutus’ orchard. It is night, and dawn is nearing. As the conspirators agree to assassinate Caesar on that same day, Brutus asks them to join their hands and Cassius subsequently proposes an oath, which Brutus refuses. Despite the small difference, this scene is highly reminiscent of its equivalent in
By This Axe I Rule!

After the oath has been sworn, the conspirators of the Kull story depart; Ascalante tells them: “Get back to your places and not by word, deed or look do you betray what is in your minds.” In
Julius Caesar
, Brutus declares: “Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;/Let not our looks put on our purposes”…

And if Howard had found in Shakespeare the basic plot of his story, it could be that Howard himself was also indeed trying to “kill” his king, i.e., to put an end to the character and the series. The character now little resembled what he was in the early stories, having become an autocratic ruler. If, in
The Shadow Kingdom
, the menace of the serpent-men was an abhorrent one, in the later story there is little difference between Kull and Ascalante, the leader of the conspirators. What the exile Ascalante wishes to do is exactly the same thing Kull did when he ascended the throne: kill the present and legitimate king. Their method is exactly the same, as shown in this passage from
The Shadow Kingdom
, which describes Kull’s ascent to the throne, but which applies perfectly to Ascalante and what he is doing in
By This Axe I Rule!
: “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.” (pp. 18–19). Ascalante and Kull have much more in common than one may presume at first glance. Further, Brule, who was always on hand to save Kull’s life in time of danger, is noteworthily absent from the tale, leaving Valusia as the story opens. His departing words are quite disquieting: “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 assassination, which is no fear at all, considering the fact that you are guarded night and day by a squad of the Red Slayers.” Strange words from a man who saved Kull’s life numerous times, and especially in
The Shadow Kingdom
, in which Kull was nearly slaughtered in his room by conspirators while he thought he was guarded by the Red Slayers. It is also in
By This Axe I Rule!
that we at last learn the name of the tyrant Kull killed to win the throne: Borna. The name’s resemblance to Brule’s tribe, the Borni, is striking.

It thus very much seems that Howard was losing contact with his creation and, as he would put it in an oft-quoted passage from a letter to Clark Ashton Smith:

suddenly I would find myself out of contact with the conception, as if the man himself had been standing at my shoulder directing my efforts, and had suddenly turned and gone away, leaving me to search for another character. (REH to Clark Ashton Smith, 14 December 1933,
Selected Letters, 1931–1936,
p. 59)

By This Axe I Rule!
was rejected by Argosy and Adventure, while it is not known where or if
Swords of the Purple Kingdom
was submitted.
The Shadow Kingdom
appeared in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales, followed the next month by
The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune
. This time, Howard was no longer sufficiently interested in the character to attempt to write new stories.

In February 1930, Kull made a brief come-back in
Kings of the Night
. It is not uninteresting to note that the protagonist of this story is Bran Mak Morn, the Pictish king, whom we learn to be a direct descendant of Brule, no longer the simple warrior of
The Shadow Kingdom
, but described as “the greatest of all the Pictish war-chiefs”; Kull had now become only a secondary character, a king without a kingdom in that story.

Kull and Valusia would linger in Howard’s mind until, in March 1932, the character was changed into a Cimmerian and given blue eyes instead of grey–the eyes of Am-ra the Atlantean and of Brule in the Celtic fragment. As to Valusia, its destruction was carried out in the essay
The Hyborian Age
in April of that year.

Conan and the Hyborian Age were coming.

N
OTES ON THE
O
RIGINAL
H
OWARD
T
EXTS

The texts for this book were prepared by Patrice Louinet, Rusty Burke, and Dave Gentzel, with assistance from Glenn Lord. The stories have been checked against Howard’s original typescripts, copies of which were furnished by Glenn Lord, or the first published appearance if a typescript was unavailable. Drafts of Howard’s stories, when extant, have also been checked to ensure the greatest accuracy. Every effort has been made to present the work of Robert E. Howard as faithfully as possible. Deviations from the original sources are detailed in these textual notes. In the following, page, line, and word number are given as follows: 77.1.13, indicating page 77, first line, thirteenth word. Story titles, chapter numbers and titles, and breaks before and after chapter headings, titles, and illustrations are not counted. The page/line number will be followed by the reading in the original source, or a statement indicating the type of change made.

This edition of the Kull stories is based on the best sources available to us; unfortunately, the definitive versions of most of the Kull stories not published during Howard’s lifetime are now probably lost. In 1936, Howard’s father sent the bulk of his son’s typescripts to agent Otis Adelbert Kline. Kline kept the stories he thought had sales potential–among them most of the Kull stories–and resent the rest to Howard’s father. The whereabouts of most of the typescripts that stayed with Kline are unknown, and they are presumed lost. Fortunately, several drafts and/or carbons for these tales were among the lot sent back to Dr. Howard and were eventually acquired by Glenn Lord. This collection is thus based on the best–and sadly only–available texts, and will remain the definitive one unless the lost typescripts are miraculously recovered.

Untitled Story (previously published as “Exile of Atlantis”)
Text taken from Howard’s typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. 3.3.8: fragance; 3.5.13: no comma after “man”; 3.6.12: conoiseur; 3.7.1: already; 3.8.11: no comma after “tall”; 3.8.12: no hyphen at “slim waisted”; 3.8.12: no comma after “slim-waisted”; 3.9.1: broad shoulder; 3.11.8: “a” not in original; 3.11.13: accept; 3.13.10: that; 3.17.4: period instead of comma after “fighting”; 3.20.11: comma instead of period after “man”; 3.27.5: comma instead of period after “moon”; 3.29.3: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 3.31.9: “a” capitalized; 3.34.1: no period after “moon”; 3.35.2: dont; 3.35.7: comma instead of period after “bluntly”; 4.8.2: long; 4.10.2: dont; 4.10.6: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 4.12.2: som; 4.17.1: comma instead of period after “anger”; 4.23.2: comma instead of period after “shame”; 4.26.3: semicolon instead of comma after “not”; 4.26.6: comma instead of period after “Gor-na”; 4.35.8: “but” capitalized; 4.38.8: “the” before man; 4.39.5: angerly; comma instead of period after “angerly/angrily”; 4.40.1: no period after “creation”; 5.1.7: comma instead of period after “subject”; 5.11.2: comma instead of period after “Gor-na”; 5.13.3: chai chains (“chai” typed to right edge of paper); 5.28.1: comma instead of period after “east”; 5.36.8: “and” capitalized; 5.39.1: “or” capitalized; 6.5.3: no comma after “sacked”; 6.9.6: “that” capitalized; 6.12.10: ruslte; 6.13.7: “since” capitalized; 6.20.7: Sevn; 6.23.1: comma instead of period after “satisfaction”; 6.24.7: preared; 7.12.1: no comma after “boldly”; 7.14.4: “hawk like” (no hyphen); 7.15.2: no comma after “face”; 7.16.1: disspassionate; 7.39.5: comma instead of period after “sharply”; 7.39.8: some-one; 7.40.2: there on; 8.8.5: abouthard eyed; 8.1.4: comma instead of period after “lines”; 8.8.2: “my” capitalized; 8.15.3: couldont; 8.17.5: no comma after “blood”; 8.25.1: What’s; 8.25.2: KUll’s; 8.28.2: girl’s; 8.31.3: KUll’s; 9.1.3: cruse; 9.4.2: boud; 9.5.7: typicaly; 9.7.7: eached; 9.9.5: lanced; 9.11.4: semi-colon instead of comma after “nodded”; 9.17.3: spell bound (no hyphen); 9.18.1: nd; 9.19.4: eople; 9.32.1: Butno; 9.34.2: footit.

The Shadow Kingdom

Text taken from Weird Tales, August 1929. 27.1.4: hall; 50.13.1: wounded.

The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune

Text taken from Weird Tales, September 1929. No changes have been made for this edition.

Untitled Draft

Text taken from Howard’s typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. Howard changed the name of one character from “Fenar” to “Felgar” beginning on page 5 of the typescript and continuously thereafter. We have thus changed the earlier instances for consistency. 67.2.8: Fenar; 67.10.1: step’s; 67.17.1: rhinocerous; 67.18.7: period instead of question mark after “tale”; 67.19.5: period instead of comma after “Kull”; 67.21.7: comma instead of period after “besides”; 67.23.10: consumated; 67.31.3: period instead of comma after “Valka”; 67.31.5: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 67.34.3: thus; 67.34.5: comma instead of period after “soothingly”; 67.36.3: net work; 67.37.12: no period and quotation mark after “blood”; “blood” followed by “in”; a page apparently missing from typescript at this point; 68.1.11: period instead of comma after “girl”; 68.2.1: period instead of comma after “Aye”; 68.2.5: comma instead of period after “spoke”; 68.2.14: Fenar; 68.4.8: Fenar; no quotation mark; 68.8.13: no single quote after “horses”; 68.17.10: Fenar’s; 68.19.6: reek; 68.20.3: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 68.23.10: comma instead of period after “door”; 68.25.4: kings; 68.25.9: preceeding; 69.2.4: Fenar’s; 69.2.5: period instead of comma after “trail”; 69.2.9: comma instead of period after “ferociously”; 69.5.4: comma instead of period after “Tu”; 69.7.9: comma instead of period after “named”; 69.8.10: period instead of comma after “cities”; 69.21.1: Fenar; 69.25.2: no comma after “allies”; 69.29.2: period instead of exclamation point after “attention”; 69.29.6: comma instead of period after “command”; 69.31.2: curiosly; 69.33.11: caparisioned; 70.8.11: restrain; 70.9.5: comma after “world”; 70.19.11: “were” repeated; 70.23.7: many a drifting; 70.25.5: by gone; 70.28.1: brooding; 70.28.3: clinched; 70.38.5: period instead of comma after “sunrise”; 70.39.1: period instead of comma after “response”; 70.40.1: no quotation mark after “sunrise”; 71.15.4: “him” not in typescript; 71.27.4: that; 71.33.11: debauched; 71.37.13: no comma after “men”; 71.40.1: scruf; 72.3.3: period instead of comma after “steal”; 72.6.2: days (no apostrophe); 72.9.5: period instead of comma after “Valusia”; 72.10.2: apruptly; comma instead of period after “apruptly”; 72.17.2: on; 72.17.6: comma instead of colon after “other”; 72.20.1: period instead of comma after “Aye”; 72.20.4: comma instead of period after “replied”; 72.35.9: period instead of comma after “days”; 72.35.12: And; 72.38.5: period instead of comma after “fellows”; 72.39.4: comma instead of period after “lips”; 75.1.3: period instead of comma after “ways”; 75.2.9: comma instead of period after “contempt”; 75.10.4: comma instead of period after “heed”; 75.13.4: period instead of comma after “barbarian”; 75.18.4: period instead of comma after “position”; 75.19.5: comma instead of period after “end”; 75.19.6: no comma after “North”; 76.3.5: period instead of comma after “Kelkor”; 76.3.7: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 76.4.7: comma after “name”; 76.7.3: comma after “eastern-most”; 76.10.6: period instead of comma after “Kull”; 76.11.6: comma instead of period after “saddle”; 76.12.6: period instead of comma after “any”; 76.12.8: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 76.14.13: no comma after “land”; 76.15.7: rider’s; 76.16.13: no comma after “hard”; 76.19.11: else desires; 76.25.4: comma after “north”; 76.31.11: no comma after “safe”; 76.38.10: comma instead of period after “gate-guards”; 76.40.4: period instead of comma after “say”; 76.40.7: comma instead of period after “answered”; 77.2.2: period instead of comma after “then”; 77.3.1: comma instead of period after “arm”; 77.5.7: comma instead of period after “covetously”; 77.18.3: comma instead of period after “soldier”; 77.22.1: comma instead of period after “tactics”; 77.27.5: “is” not in typescript; 77.31.7: but; 77.35.9: concience; 77.39.8: statue; 78.14.2: committing of; 78.20.4: consumating; 78.25.3: no hyphen in “class like”; 78.32.1: Kull; 78.35.5: period instead of comma after “hear”; 78.36.8: comma instead of period after “mirth”; 79.1.5: comma instead of period after “woman”; 79.3.7: period instead of comma after “gold”; 79.8.8: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 79.11.1: has there; 79.13.7: comma instead of period after “hand”; 79.14.1: period instead of comma after “king”; 79.17.4: period instead of comma after “king”; 79.23.10: comma instead of period after “suspiciously”; 79.34.5: You; 79.37.1: comma instead of period after “response”; 80.15.4: unconcious; 81.4.4: The; 81.8.3: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 81.17.7: Farsuns; 82.3.4: comma after “pass”; 82.6.7: enlessly; 82.7.10: on; 82.15.5: period instead of comma after “sunrise”; 82.19.7: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 82.19.10: “the” not in typescript; 82.22.2: no quotation mark after “Zarfhaana”; 82.25.4: trails; 82.25.5: lead; 82.27.8: horses (no apostrophe); 82.39.6: no comma after “marked”; 83.2.4: comma after “included”; 83.2.11: spoked; 83.6.1: horseman; 83.7.7: They; 83.11.6: disobeidient; 83.13.3: comma instead of period after “sneered”; 83.15.8: My; 83.16.8: too; 83.20.9: no comma after “unable”; 83.21.3: comma after “stand”; $$$$$83.21.6: comma after “open”; 83.35.11: lead; 83.40.12: horrizin; 84.9.4: Would; 84.11.11: period instead of comma after “dawn”; 84.12.5: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 84.14.4: period instead of comma after “beyond”; 84.14.8: comma instead of period after “man”; 84.14.10: rivers; 84.14.11: mark; 84.16.3: comma instead of period after “Kull”; 84.15.4: period instead of comma after “aged”; 84.35.3: no comma after “battle”; 84.37.1: no comma after “this”; 84.37.7: return; 86.2.4: period instead of comma after “cease”; 86.2.6: comma instead of period after “he”; 86.7.5: period instead of comma after “king”; 86.7.14: acquiesing; 86.9.9: period instead of comma after “forward”; 86.4.3: period instead of comma after “Kull”; 86.12.14: sentance; 86.13.2: sentance; 86.17.11: unweildy; 86.20.2: comma instead of period after “spake”; 86.25.5: period instead of comma after “river”; 86.24.8: comma instead of period after “ferryman”; 86.26.1: period instead of comma after “Forward”; 86.26.3: comma instead of period after “Kull”