Exile of Atlantis
The sun was setting. A last crimson glory filled
the land and lay like a crown of blood on the snow-
sprinkled peaks. The three men who watched the
death of the day breathed deep the fragrance of the
early wind which stole up out of the distant forests,
and then turned to a more material task. One of the
men was cooking venison over a small fire, and this
man, touching a finger to the smoking viand, tasted
with the air of a connoisseur.
"All ready, Kull—Khor-nah; let us eat."
The speaker was young—little more than a boy: a
tall, slim-waisted, broad-shouldered lad who moved
with the easy grace of a leopard. Of his companions,
one was an older man, a powerful, massively-built,
hairy man with an aggressive face. The other was a
counterpart of the speaker, except for the fact that he
was slightly larger—taller, a thought deeper of chest
and broader of shoulder. He gave the impression,
even more than the first youth, of dynamic speed con-
cealed in long, smooth muscles.
"Good," said he, "I am hungry."
"When were you ever otherwise, KulI? jeered the
first speaker.
"When I am fighting," Kull answered seriously.
The other shot a quick glance at his friend so as
to fathom his inmost mind; he was not always sure of
his friend,

 
"And then you are blood-hungry," broke in the
older man. "Am-ra, have done with your bantering
and cut us food."
Night began to fall; the stars blinked out. Over
the shadowy hill country swept the dusk wind. Far
off, a tiger roared suddenly. Khor-nah made an in-
stinctive motion toward the flint-pointed spear which
lay beside him. Kull turned his head, and a strange
light flickered in his cold gray eyes.
"The striped brothers hunt tonight," said he.
"They worship the rising moon," Am-ra indicated
the east where a red radiance was becoming evident.
"Why?" asked Kull. "The moon discloses them to
their prey and their enemies."
''Once, many hundreds of years ago," said Khor-
nah, "a king tiger, pursued by hunters, called on the
woman in the moon, and she flung him down a vine
whereby he climbed to safety and abode for many
years in the moon. Since then, all the striped people
worship the moon."    
"I don't believe it," said Kull bluntly. "Why
should the striped people worship the moon for aiding
one of their race who died so long ago? Many a tiger
has scrambled up Death Cliff and escaped the hunt-
ers, but they do not worship that cliff. How should
they know what took place so long ago?"
Khor-nah's brow clouded, "It little becomes you,
Kull, to jeer at your elders or to mock the legends of
your adopted people. This tale must be true, because
it has been handed down from generation unto gener-
ation longer than men remember. What always was,
must always be."
"I don't believe it," reiterated Kull. "These moun-
tains always were, but someday they will crumble and
vanish. Someday the sea will flow over these hills—"
"Enough of this blasphemy!" cried Khor-nah with
a passion that was almost anger. "Kull, we are close
friends, and I bear with you because of your youth;
but one thing you must learn: respect for tradition.
You mock at the customs and ways of our people; you

 
whom that people rescued from the wilderness and
gave a home and a tribe."
1 was a hairless ape roaming in the woods," ad-
mitted Kull frankly and without shame. "I could not
speak the language of men, and my only friends were
the tigers and the wolves. I know not whom my peo-
ple were, or what blood am I—"
That matters not," broke in Khor-nah. "For all
you have the aspect of one of that outlaw tribe who
lived in Tiger Valley, and who perished in the Great
Flood, it matters little. You have proven yourself a
valiant warrior and a mighty hunter—"
"Where will you find a youth to equal him in
throwing the spear or in wrestling?" broke in Am-ra,
his eyes alight
"Very true," said Khor-nah. "He is a credit to the
Sea-mountain tribe, but for all that, he must control
his tongue and learn to reverence the holy things of
the past and of the present."
"I mock not, said Kull without malice. "But
many things the priests say I know to be lies, for I
have run with the tigers and I know wild beasts better
than the priests. Animals are neither gods nor fiends,
but men in their way without the lust and greed of
the man—"
"More blasphemy!" cried Khor-nah angrily. "Man
is Valka's mightiest creation."
Am-ra broke in to change the subject. "I heard
the coast drums beating early in the morning. There is
war on the sea. Valusia fights the Lemurian pirates."
"Evil luck to both," grunted Khor-nah.
Kull's eyes flickered again. "Valusia! Land of En-
charrtment! Someday I will see the great City of Won-
der."
"Evil the day that you do," snarled Khor-nah. "You
will be loaded with chains, with the doom of torture
and death hanging over you. No man of our race sees
the Great City save as a slave."
"Evil luck attend her," muttered Am-ra.
"Black luck and a red doom!" exclaimed Khor-

 
nah, shaking his fist toward the east. "For each drop
of spilt Atlantean blood, for each slave toiling in their
cursed galleys, may a black blight rest on Valusia and
all the Seven Empires!"
Am-ra, fired, leaped lithely to his feet and re-
peated part of the curse; Kull cut himself another slice
of cooked meat.
"I have fought the Valusians," said he. "And they
were bravely arrayed but not hard to kill. Nor were
they evil featured."
"You fought the feeble guard of her northern
coast," grunted Khor-nah. "Or the crew of stranded
merchant ships. Wait until you have faced the charge
of the Black Squadrons, or the Great Army, as have I.
Hai! Then there is blood to drink! With Gandaro of
the Spear, I harried the Valusian coasts when I was
younger than you, Kull. Aye, we carried the torch and
the sword deep into the empire. Five hundred men we
were, of all the coast tribes of Atlantis. Four of us re-
turned! Outside the village of Hawks, which we
burned and sacked, the van of the Black Squadrons
smote us. Hai, there the spears drank and the swords
were eased of thirst! We slew and they slew, but when
the thunder of battle was stilled, four of us escaped
from the field, and all of us sore wounded."
"Ascalante tells me," pursued Kull, "that the walls
about the Crystal City are ten times the height of a
tall man; that the gleam of gold and silver would daz-
zle the eyes, and the women who throng the streets or
lean from their windows are robed in strange, smooth
robes that rustle and sheen."
"Ascalante should know," grimly said Khor-nah,
"since he was slave among them so long that he forgot
his good Atlantean name and must forsooth abide by
the Valusian name they gave him."
"He escaped," commented Am-ra.
"Aye, but for every slave that escapes the
clutches of the Seven Empires, seven are rotting in
dungeons and dying each day, for it was not meant
for an Atlantean to bide as a slave."
"We have been enemies to the Seven Empires
since the dawn of time," mused Am-ra.
"And will. be until the world crashes," said 'Khor-
nah with a savage satisfaction. "For Atlantis, thank
Valka, is the foe of all men,"
Am-ra rose, taking his spear, and prepared to
stand watch. The other two lay down on the sward
and dropped off to sleep. Of what. did Khor-nah
dream? Battle perhaps, or the thunder of buffalo, or a
girl of the caves. Kull—
Through the mists of his sleep echoed faintly arid
far away the golden melody of the trumpets. Clouds
of radiant glory floated over him; then a mighty vista
opened before his dream self. A great concourse of
people stretched away into the distance, and a thun-
derous roar in a strange language went up from them.
There was a minor note of steel clashing, and great
shadowy armies reined to the right and the left; the
mist faded, and a face stood out boldly, a face. above
which hovered a regal crown—a, hawk-like face, dis-
passionate, immobile, with eyes like the gray of the
cold sea. Now the people thundered again; "Hail the
king! Hail the king! Kull the king!"
Kull awoke with a start—the moon glimmered on
the distant mountains, the wind sighed through the
tall grass. Khor-nah slept beside him and Am-ra stood,
a naked bronze statue against the stars. Kull's eyes
wandered to his scanty garment: a leopard's hide
twisted about bis pantherish loins, A naked barbar-
ian—Kull's cold eyes glimmered. Kull the king! Again
he slept.
They arose in the morning and set out for the caves
of the tribe. The sun was not yet high when the broad
blue river met their gaze and the caverns of the tribe-
rose to view,
"Look!" Am-ra cried out sharply. "They burn
someone!"
A heavy stake stood before the caves; thereon
was a young girl bound. The people who stood about,
hard-eyed, showed no sign of pity.

 
"Sareeta," said Khor-nah, his face setting into un-
bending lines. "She married a Lemurian pirate, the
wanton."
"Aye," broke in a stony-eyed old woman. "My
own daughter; thus she brought shame on Atlantis.
My daughter no longer! Her mate died; she was
washed ashore when their ship was broken by the
craft of Atlantis."
Kull eyed the girl compassionately. He could not
understand—why did these people, her own kind and
blood, frown on her so, merely because she chose an
enemy of her race? In all the eyes that were centered
on her, Kull saw only one trace of sympathy. Am-ra's
strange blue eyes were sad and compassionate.
What Kull's own immobile face mirrored there is
no knowing. But the eyes of the doomed girl rested on
his. There was no fear in her eyes, but a deep and
vibrant appeal. Kull's gaze wandered to the fagots at
her feet. Soon the priest, who now chanted a curse
beside her, would stoop and light these with the torch
which he now held in his left hand. Kull saw that she
was bound to the stake with a heavy wooden chain, a
peculiar thing which was typically Atlantean in its
manufacture. He could not sever that chain, even if he
reached her through the throng that barred his way.
Her eyes implored him. He glanced at the fagots,
touched the long flint dagger at his girdle. She under-
stood, nodded, relief flooding her eyes.
Kull struck as suddenly and unexpectedly as a
cobra. He snatched the dagger from his girdle and
threw it. Fairly under the heart it struck, killing her
instantly. While the people stood spellbound, Kull
wheeled, bounded away, and ran up the sheer side of
the cliff for twenty feet, like a cat. The people stood,
struck dumb; then a man whipped up bow and arrow
and sighted along the smooth shaft. Kull was heaving
himself over the lip of the cliff; the bowman's eyes
narrowed—Am-ra, as if by accident, lurched headlong
into him, and the arrow sang wide and aside. Then
Kull was gone.
He heard the screaming on his track; his own

 
tribesmen, fired with the blood-lust, wild to run him
down and slay him for violating their strange and
bloody code of morals. But no man in Atlantis could
outrun Kull of the Sea-mountain tribe,
Kull eludes his infuriated tribesmen, only to fall
captive to the Lemurians, For the next two years he
tolls as a slave at the oars of a galley, before escaping.
He makes his way to Valusia, where he becomes an
outlaw in the hills, until captured and confined in her
dungeons. Fortune smiles upon him; he becomes, suc-
cessively, a gladiator in the arena, a soldier in the
army, and a commander. Then, with the backing of
the mercenaries and certain discontented Valusian no-
blemen, he strikes for the throne. Kull it is who slays
the despotic King Borna and rips the crown from his
gory head. The dream has become reality; Kull of At-
lantis sits enthroned in ancient Valusia.