Kull: Exile of Atlantis

by Howard, Robert E.

  He came to the top, filled his enormous chest with air and dived again. Again the shadows swept about him, almost dazzling his eyes with their ghostly gleams. He swam faster this time and having reached the bottom, he began to walk along it, as fast as the clinging substance about his limbs would allow, the while the fire-moss breathed and glowed and the color things flashed about him and monstrous, nightmare shadows fell across his shoulder upon the burning floor, flung by unseen beings.

  The moss was littered by the skulls and the bones of men who had dared the Forbidden Lake and suddenly with a silent swirl of the waters, a thing rushed upon Kull. At first the king thought it to be a huge octopus for the body was that of an octopus, with long waving tentacles, but as it charged upon him he saw it had legs like a man and a hideous semi-human face leered at him from among the writhing snaky arms of the monster.

  Kull braced his feet and as he felt the cruel tentacles whip about his limbs, he thrust his sword with cool accuracy into the midst of that demoniac face and the creature lumbered down and died at his feet with grisly soundless gibbering. Blood spread like a mist about him and Kull thrust strongly against the floor with his legs and shot upward.

  He burst into the fast fading light and even as he did a great form came skimming across the water toward him–a water spider, but this one was larger than a horse and its great cold eyes gleamed hellishly. Kull, keeping himself afloat with his feet and one hand, raised his sword and as the spider rushed in, he cleft it half way through the body and it sank silently.

  A slight noise made him turn and another, larger than the first was almost upon him. This one flung over the king’s arms and shoulders, great strands of clinging web that would have meant doom for any but a giant. But Kull burst the grim shackles as if they had been strings and seizing a leg of the thing as it towered above him, he thrust the monster through again and again till it weakened in his grasp and floated away, reddening the blue waters.

  “Valka!” muttered the king, “I am not like to go without employment here. Yet these things be easy to slay–how could they have overcome Brule, who in all the Seven Kingdoms is second only to me in battle-might?”

  But Kull was to find that grimmer spectres than these haunted the death-ridden abysses of Forbidden Lake. Again he dived and this time only the color-shadows and the bones of forgotten men met his glance. Again he rose for air and for the fourth time he dived.

  He was not far from one of the islands and as he swam downward he wondered what strange things were hidden by the dense emerald foliage which cloaked these islands. Legend said that temples and shrines reared there that were never built by human hands and that on certain nights the lake beings came out of the deeps to enact eery rites there.

  The rush came just as his feet struck the moss. It came from behind and Kull, warned by some primal instinct, whirled just in time to see a great form loom over him, a form neither man nor beast but horribly compounded of both–to feel gigantic fingers close on arm, and shoulder.

  He struggled savagely but the thing held his sword arm helpless and its talons sank deeply into his left forearm. With a volcanic wrench he twisted about so that he could at least see his attacker. The thing was something like a monstrous shark but a long cruel horn curved like a saber jutted up from its snout and it had four arms, human in shape but inhuman in size and strength and in the crooked talons of the fingers.

  With two arms the monster held Kull helpless and with the other two it bent his head back, to break his spine. But not even such a grim being as this might so easily conquer Kull of Atlantis. A wild rage surged up in him and the king of Valusia went berserk.

  Bracing his feet against the yielding moss, he tore his left arm free with a heave and wrench of his great shoulders. With cat-like speed he sought to shift the sword from right hand to left, and failing in this, struck savagely at the monster with clenched fist. But the mocking sapphirean stuff about him foiled him, breaking the force of his blow. The shark-man lowered his snout but before he could strike upward Kull gripped the horn with his left hand and held fast.

  Then followed a test of might and endurance. Kull, unable to move with any speed in the water, knew his only hope was to keep in close and wrestle with his foe in such manner as to counterbalance the monster’s quickness. He strove desperately to tear his sword arm loose and the shark-man was forced to grasp it will all four of his hands. Kull gripped the horn and dared not let go lest he be disembowelled with its terrible upward thrust, and the shark-man dared not release with a single hand the arm that held Kull’s long sword.

  So they wrenched and wrestled and Kull saw that he was doomed if it went on in this manner. Already he was beginning to suffer for want of air. The gleam in the cold eyes of the shark-man told that he too recognized the fact that he had but to hold Kull below the surface until he drowned.

  A desperate plight indeed, for any man. But Kull of Atlantis was no ordinary man. Trained from babyhood in a hard and bloody school, with steel muscles and dauntless brain bound together by the co-ordination that makes the superfighter, he added to this a courage which never faltered and a tigerish rage which on occasion swept him up to superhuman deeds.

  So now, conscious of his swiftly approaching doom and goaded to frenzy by his helplessness, he decided upon action as desperate as his need. He released the monster’s horn, at the same time bending his body as far back as he could and gripping the nearest arm of the thing with the free hand.

  Instantly the shark-man struck, his horn ploughing along Kull’s thigh and then–the luck of Atlantis!–wedging fast in Kull’s heavy girdle. And as he tore it free, Kull sent his mighty strength through the fingers that held the monster’s arm, and crushed clammy flesh and inhuman bone like rotten fruit between them.

  The shark-man’s mouth gaped silently with the torment and he struck again wildly. Kull avoided the blow and losing their balance they went down together, half-buoyed by the jade surge in which they wallowed. And as they tossed there, Kull tore his sword arm from the weakening grip and striking upward, split the monster open.

  The whole battle had consumed only a very brief time but to Kull, as he swam upward, his head singing and a great weight seeming to press his ribs, it seemed like hours. He saw dimly that the lake floor shelved suddenly upward close at hand and knew that it sloped to an island, the water became alive about him and he felt himself lapped from shoulder to heel in gigantic coils which even steel muscles could not break. His consciousness was fading–he felt himself borne along at terrific speed–there was a sound as of many bells–then suddenly he was above water and his tortured lungs were drinking in great draughts of air. He was whirling along through utter darkness and he had time only to take a long breath before he was again swept under.

  Again light glowed about him and he saw the fire-moss throbbing far below. He was in the grasp of a great serpent who had flung a few lengths of sinuous body about him like huge cables and was now bearing him to what destination Valka alone knew.

  Kull did not struggle, reserving his strength. If the snake did not keep him so long under water that he died, there would no doubt be a chance of battle in the creature’s lair or wherever he was being taken. As it was, Kull’s limbs were pinioned so close that he could no more free an arm than he could have flown.

  The serpent, racing through the blue deeps so swiftly, was the largest Kull had ever seen–a good two hundred feet of jade and golden scales–vividly and wonderfully colored. Its eyes, when they turned toward Kull, were like icy fire if such a thing can be. Even then Kull’s imaginative soul was struck with the bizarreness of the scene; that great green and gold form flying through the burning topaz of the lake, while the shadow-colors weaved dazzlingly about it.

  The fire gemmed floor sloped upward again–either for an island or the lake shore–and a great cavern suddenly appeared before them. The snake glided into this–the fire-moss ceased and Kull found himself partly above the surface in unlighted darkness. He was borne along
in this manner for what seemed a very long time, then the monster dived again.

  Again they came up into light, but such light as Kull had never before seen. A luminous glow shimmered duskily over the face of the waters which lay dark and still. And Kull knew that he was in the Enchanted Domain under the bottom of Forbidden Lake for this was no earthly radiance; it was a black light, blacker than any darkness yet it lit the unholy waters so that he could see the dusky glimmer of them and his own dark reflection in them. The coils suddenly loosed from his limbs and he struck out for a vast bulk that loomed in the shadows in front of him.

  Swimming strongly he approached, and saw that it was a great city. On a great level of black stone, it towered up and up until its sombre spires were lost in the blackness above the unhallowed light, which, black also, was yet of a different hue. Huge square-built massive buildings of mighty basaltic like blocks fronted him as he clambered out of the clammy waters and strode up the steps which were cut into the stone, like steps in a wharf, and between the buildings columns rose gigantically.

  No gleam of earthly light lessened the grimness of this inhuman city but from its walls and towers the black light flowed out over the waters in vast throbbing waves.

  Kull was aware that in a wide space before him, where the buildings swept away on each side, a huge concourse of beings confronted him. He blinked, striving to accustom his eyes to the strange illumination. The beings came closer and a whisper ran among them like the waving of grass in the night wind. They were light and shadowy, glimmering against the blackness of their city and their eyes were eery and luminous.

  Then the king saw that one of their number stood in front of the rest. This one was much like a man and his bearded face was high and noble but a frown hovered over his magnificent brows.

  “You come like the herald of all your race,” said this lake-man suddenly, “bloody and bearing a red sword.”

  Kull laughed angrily for this smacked of injustice.

  “Valka and Hotath!” said the king. “Most of this blood is mine own and was let by things of your cursed lake.”

  “Death and ruin follow the course of your race,” said the lake-man sombrely. “Do we not know? Aye, we reigned in the Lake of blue waters before man-kind was even a dream of the gods.”

  “None molests you–” began Kull.

  “They fear to. In the old days men of the earth sought to invade our dark kingdom. And we slew them and there was war between the sons of men and the people of the lakes. And we came forth and spread terror among the earthlings for we knew that they bore only death for us and that they yielded only to slaying. And we wove spells and charms and burst their brains and shattered their souls with our magic so they begged for peace and it was so. The men of earth laid a tambu on this lake so that no man may come here save the king of Valusia. That was thousands of years ago. No man has ever come into the Enchanted Land and gone forth, save as a corpse floating up through the still waters of the upper lake. King of Valusia or whoever you be, you are doomed.”

  Kull snarled in defiance.

  “I sought not your cursed kingdom. I seek Brule the Spear-slayer whom you dragged down.”

  “You lie,” the lake-man answered. “No man has dared this lake for over a hundred years. You come seeking treasure or to ravish and slay like all your bloody-handed kind. You die!”

  And Kull felt the whisperings of magic charms about him; they filled the air and took physical form, floating in the shimmering light like wispy spider-webs, clutching at him with vague tentacles. But Kull swore impatiently and swept them aside and out of existence with his bare hand. For against the fierce elemental logic of the savage, the magic of decadency had no force.

  “You are young and strong,” said the lake-king. “The rot of civilization has not yet entered your soul and our charms may not harm you, because you do not understand them. Then we must try other things.”

  And the lake-beings about him drew daggers and moved upon Kull. Then the king laughed and set his back against a column, gripping his sword hilt until the muscles stood out on his right arm in great ridges.

  “This is a game I understand, ghosts,” he laughed.

  They halted.

  “Seek not to evade your doom,” said the king of the lake, “for we are immortal and may not be slain by mortal arms.”

  “You lie, now,” answered Kull with the craft of the barbarian, “for by your own words you feared the death my kind brought among you. You may live forever but steel can slay you. Take thought among yourselves. You are soft and weak and unskilled in arms; you bear your blades unfamiliarly. I was born and bred to slaying. You will slay me for there are thousands of you and I but one, yet your charms have failed and many of you shall die before I fall. I will slaughter you by the scores and the hundreds. Take thought, men of the lake, is my slaying worth the lives it will cost you?”

  For Kull knew that beings who slay may be slain by steel and he was unafraid. A figure of threat and doom, bloody and terrible he loomed above them.

  “Aye, consider,” he repeated. “Is it better that you should bring Brule to me and let us go, or that my corpse shall lie amid sword-torn heaps of your dead when the battle-shout is silent? Nay, there be Picts and Lemurians among my mercenaries who will follow my trail even into the Forbidden Lake and will drench the Enchanted Land with your gore if I die here. For they have their own tambus and they reck not of the tambus of the civilized races nor care they what may happen to Valusia but think only of me who am of barbarian blood like themselves.”

  “The old world reels down the road to ruin and forgetfulness,” brooded the lake-king, “and we that were all powerful in by-gone days must brook to be bearded in our own kingdom by an arrogant savage. Swear that you will never set foot in Forbidden Lake again, and that you will never let the tambu be broken by others and you shall go free.”

  “First bring the Spear-slayer to me.”

  “No such man has ever come to this lake.”

  “Nay? The cat Saremes told me–”

  “Saremes? Aye, we knew her of old when she came swimming down through the green waters and abode for some centuries in the courts of the Enchanted Land; the wisdom of the ages is hers but I knew not that she spoke the speech of earthly men. Still, there is no such man here and I swear–”

  “Swear not by gods or devils,” Kull broke in. “Give your word as a true man.”

  “I give it,” said the lake-king and Kull believed for there was a majesty and a bearing about the being which made Kull feel strangely small and rude.

  “And I,” said Kull, “give you my word–which has never been broken–that no man shall break the tambu or molest you in any way again.”

  The lake-king replied with a stately inclination of his lordly head and a gesture of his hand.

  “And I believe you, for you are different from any earthly man I ever knew. You are a real king and what is greater, a true man.”

  Kull thanked him and sheathed his sword, turning toward the steps.

  “Know ye how to gain the outer world, king of Valusia?”

  “As to that,” answered Kull, “if I swim long enough I suppose I shall find the way. I know that the serpent brought me clear through at least one island and possibly many and that we swam in a cave for a long time.”

  “You are bold,” said the lake-king, “but you might swim forever in the dark.”

  He raised his hands and a behemoth swam to the foot of the steps.

  “A grim steed,” said the lake-king, “but he will bear you safe to the very shore of the upper lake.”

  “A moment,” said Kull. “Am I at present beneath an island or the mainland, or is this land in truth beneath the lake floor?”

  “You are at the center of the universe as you are always. Time, place and space are illusions, having no existence save in the mind of man which must set limits and bounds in order to understand. There is only the underlying reality, of which all appearances are but outward manifestatio
ns, just as the upper lake is fed by the waters of this real one. Go now, king, for you are a true man even though you be the first wave of the rising tide of savagery which shall overwhelm the world ere it recedes.”

  Kull listened respectfully, understanding little but realizing that this was high magic. He struck hands with the lake-king, shuddering a little at the feel of that which was flesh but not human flesh; then he looked once more at the great black buildings rearing silently and the murmuring moth-like forms among them, and he looked out over the shiny jet surface of the waters with the waves of black light crawling like spiders across it. And he turned and went down the stair to the water’s edge and sprang on the back of the behemoth.

  Eons followed, of dark caves and rushing waters and the whisper of gigantic unseen monsters; sometimes above and sometimes below the surface, the behemoth bore the king and finally the fire-moss leaped up and they swept up through the blue of the burning water and Kull waded to land.

  Kull’s stallion stood patiently where the king had left him and the moon was just rising over the lake, whereat Kull swore amazedly.

  “A scant hour ago, by Valka, I dismounted here! I had thought that many hours and possibly days had passed since then.”

  He mounted and rode toward the city of Valusia, reflecting that there might have been some meaning in the lake-king’s remarks about the illusion of time.

  Kull was weary, angry and bewildered. The journey through the lake had cleansed him of the blood, but the motion of riding started the gash in his thigh to bleeding again, moreover the leg was stiff and irked him somewhat. Still, the main question that presented itself was that Saremes had lied to him and either through ignorance or through malicious forethought had come near to sending him to his death. For what reason?

  Kull cursed, reflecting what Tu would say and the chancellor’s triumph. Still, even a talking cat might be innocently wrong but hereafter Kull determined to lay no weight to the words of such.