An ancient man stood upon the bank and a large, flat boat floated on the sullen surface of the water. The man was aged but mightily built, as huge as Kull himself. He was clad only in ragged garments, seemingly as ancient as himself but there was something kingly and awe-inspiring about the man. His snowy hair fell to his shoulders and his huge white beard, wild and unkempt, came almost to his waist. From beneath white, lowering brows, great luminous eyes blazed, undimmed by age.
“Stranger, who have the bearing of a king,” said he to Kull, in a great deep resonant voice, “would ye cross the river?”
“Aye,” said Kull, “if they we seek crossed.”
“A man and a girl rode my ferry yesterday at dawn,” was the answer.
“Name of Valka!” swore Kull, “I could find it in me to admire the fool’s courage! What city lies beyond this river, ferryman?”
“No city lies beyond,” said the elder man. “This river marks the border of Grondar–and the world!”
“How!” ejaculated Kull. “Have we ridden so far? I had thought that the-desert-which-is-the-end-of-the-world was part of Grondar’s realm.”
“Nay. Grondar ends here. Here is the end of the world; beyond is magic and the unknown. Here is the boundary of the world; there begins the realm of horror and mysticism. This is the river Stagus and I am Karon the Ferryman.”
Kull looked at him in wonder, little knowing that he gazed upon one who should go down the dim centuries until myth and legend had changed the truth and Karon the ferryman had become the boatman of Hades.
“You are very aged,” said Kull curiously, while the Valusians looked on the man with wonder and the savage Picts in superstitious awe.
“Aye. I am a man of the Elder Race, who ruled the world before Valusia was, or Grondar or Zarfhaana, riders from the sunset. Ye would cross this river? Many a warrior, many a king have I ferried across. Remember, they who ride beyond the sun-rise, return not! For of all the thousands who have crossed the Stagus, not one has returned. Three hundred years have passed since first I saw the light, king of Valusia. I ferried the army of King Gaar the Conqueror when he rode into World’s End with all his mighty hosts. Seven days they were passing over yet no man of them came back. Aye, the sound of battle, the clash of swords clanged out over the waste lands for a long while from sun to sun, but when the moon shone all was silence. Mark this, Kull, no man has ever returned from beyond the Stagus. Nameless horrors lurk in yonder lands and terrible are the ghastly shapes of doom I glimpse beyond the river in the vagueness of dusk and the grey of early dawn. Mark ye, Kull.”
Kull turned in his saddle and eyed his men.
“Here my commands cease,” said he. “As for myself I ride on Felgar’s trail if it lead to Hell and beyond. Yet I bid no man follow beyond this river. Ye all have my permission to return to Valusia, nor shall any word of blame ever be spoken of you.”
Brule reined to Kull’s side.
“I ride with the king,” he said curtly and his Picts raised an acquiescing shout. Kelkor rode forward.
“They who would return, take a single pace forward,” said he.
The metal ranks sat motionless as statue.
“They ride, Kull,” grinned Brule.
A fierce pride rose in the king’s savage soul. He spoke a single sentence, a sentence which thrilled his warriors more than an accolade.
“Ye are men.”
Karon ferried them across, rowing over and returning until the entire force stood on the eastern bank. And though the boat was heavy and the ancient man rowed alone, yet his clumsy oars drove the unwieldy craft swiftly through the water and at the last journey he was no more weary than at the start.
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.