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 vast 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 forecursor of 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; your 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 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.
“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 forgetfullness.” 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 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 manifestations, 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 waters 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.