Free Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard

drunken sweep of his mighty arm.
    “Nay, we’ll see this through ere we cease. Go you, though, and have your wounds seen to–I command it.”
    The Pict laughed grimly. “Your wounds are more than mine, lord king–” he began, then stopped as a sudden thought struck him. “By Valka, Kull, this is not the council room!”
    Kull looked about and suddenly other fogs seemed to fade. “Nay, this is the room where Eallal died a thousand years ago–since unused and named ‘Accursed.’”
    “Then by the gods, they tricked us after all!” exclaimed Brule in a fury, kicking the corpses at their feet. “They caused us to walk like fools into their ambush! By their magic they changed the appearance of all–”
    “Then there is further deviltry afoot,” said Kull, “for if there be true men in the councils of Valusia they should be in the real council room now. Come swiftly.”
    And leaving the room with its ghastly keepers they hastened through halls that seemed deserted until they came to the real council room. Then Kull halted with a ghastly shudder. From the council room sounded a voice speaking, and the voice was his!
             
     
    WITH a hand that shook he parted the tapestries and gazed into the room. There sat the councilors, counterparts of the men he and Brule had just slain, and upon the dais stood Kull, king of Valusia.
    He stepped back, his mind reeling.
    “This is insanity!” he whispered. “Am I Kull? Do I stand here or is that Kull yonder in very truth and am I but a shadow, a figment of thought?”
    Brule’s hand clutching his shoulder, shaking him fiercely, brought him to his senses.
    “Valka’s name, be not a fool! Can you yet be astounded after all we have seen? See you not that those are true men bewitched by a snake-man who has taken your form, as those others took their forms? By now you should have been slain and yon monster reigning in your stead, unknown by those who bowed to you. Leap and slay swiftly or else we are undone. The Red Slayers, true men, stand close on each hand and none but you can reach and slay him. Be swift!”

     
    Kull shook off the onrushing dizziness, flung back his head in the old, defiant gesture. He took a long, deep breath as does a strong swimmer before diving into the sea; then, sweeping back the tapestries, made the dais in a single lionlike bound. Brule had spoken truly. There stood men of the Red Slayers, guardsmen trained to move quick as the striking leopard; any but Kull had died ere he could reach the usurper. But the sight of Kull, identical with the man upon the dais, held them in their tracks, their minds stunned for an instant, and that was long enough. He upon the dais snatched for his sword, but even as his fingers closed upon the hilt, Kull’s sword stood out behind his shoulders and the thing that men had thought the king pitched forward from the dais to lie silent upon the floor.
    “Hold!” Kull’s lifted hand and kingly voice stopped the rush that had started, and while they stood astounded he pointed to the thing which lay before them–whose face was fading in to that of a snake. They recoiled, and from one door came Brule and from another came Ka-nu.

     
    These grasped the king’s bloody hand and Ka-nu spoke: “Men of Valusia, you have seen with your own eyes. This is the true Kull, the mightiest king to whom Valusia has ever bowed. The power of the Serpent is broken and ye be all true men. King Kull, have you commands?”
    “Lift that carrion,” said Kull, and men of the guard took up the thing.
    “Now follow me,” said the king, and he made his way to the Accursed Room. Brule, with a look of concern, offered the support of his arm but Kull shook him off.
    The distance seemed endless to the bleeding king, but at last he stood at the door and laughed fiercely and grimly when he heard the horrified ejaculations of the councilors.
    At his orders the guardsmen flung the corpse they carried beside the others, and motioning