The Shadow Kingdom | Page 8

the stair silently, came a silent
shape.
"Tu! Chief councilor!" exclaimed Kull. "By night and with bared
dagger! How, what means this, Brule?"
"Murder! And foulest treachery!" hissed Brule. "Nay"-as Kull would
have flung the door aside and leaped forth-"we are lost if you meet him
here, for more lurk at the foot of those stairs. Come!"
Half running, they darted back along the passage. Back through the
secret door Brule led, shutting it carefully behind them, then across the
chamber to an opening into a room seldom used. There he swept aside
some tapestries in a dim corner nook and, drawing Kull with him,
stepped behind them. Minutes dragged. Kull could hear the breeze in
the other room blowing the window curtains about, and it seemed to
him like the murmur of ghosts. Then through the door, stealthily, came
Tu, chief councilor of the king. Evidently he had come through the
study room and, finding it empty, sought his victim where he was most
likely to be.
He came with upraised dagger, walking silently. A moment he halted,
gazing about the apparently empty room, which was lighted dimly by a

single candle. Then he advanced cautiously, apparently at a loss to
understand the absence of the king. He stood before the hiding place-
and "Slay!" hissed the Pict.
Kull with a single mighty leap hurled himself into the room. Tu spun,
but the blinding, tigerish speed of the attack gave him no chance for
defense or counterattack. Sword steel flashed in the dim light and
grated on bone as Tu toppled backward, Kull's sword standing out
between his shoulders.
Kull leaned above him, teeth bared in the killer's snarl, heavy brows
ascowl above eyes that were like the gray ice of the cold sea. Then he
released the hilt and recoiled, shaken, dizzy, the hand of death at his
spine.
For as he watched, Tu's face became strangely dim and unreal; the
features mingled and merged in a seemingly impossible manner. Then,
like a fading mask of fog, the face suddenly vanished and in its stead
gaped and leered a monstrous serpent's head! "Valka!" gasped Kull,
sweat beading his forehead, and again; "Valka!"
Brule leaned forward, face immobile. Yet his glittering eyes mirrored
something of Kull's horror.
"Regain your sword, lord king," said he. "There are yet deeds to be
done."
Hesitantly Kull set his hand to the hilt. His flesh crawled as he set his
foot upon the terror which lay at their feet, and as some jerk of
muscular reaction caused the frightful mouth to gape suddenly, he
recoiled, weak with nausea. Then, wrathful at himself, he plucked forth
his sword and gazed more closely at the nameless thing that had been
known as Tu, chief councilor. Save for the reptilian head, the thing was
the exact counterpart of a man.
"A man with the head of a snake!" Kull murmured. "This, then, is a
priest of the serpent god?"

"Aye. Tu sleeps unknowing. These fiends can take any form they will.
That is, they can, by a magic charm or the like, fling a web of sorcery
about their faces, as an actor dons a mask, so that they resemble anyone
they wish to."
"Then the old legends were true," mused the king; "the grim old tales
few dare even whisper, lest they die as blasphemers, are no fantasies.
By Valka, I had thought-I had guessed-but it seems beyond the bounds
of reality. Ha! The guardsmen outside the door-"
"They too are snake-men. Hold! What would you do?"
"Slay them!" said Kull between his teeth.
"Strike at the skull if at all," said Brule. "Eighteen wait without the
door and perhaps a score more in the corridors. Hark ye, king, Ka- nu
learned of this plot. His spies have pierced the inmost fastnesses of the
snake priests and they brought hints of a plot. Long ago he discovered
the secret passageways of the palace, and at his command I studied the
map thereof and came here by night to aid you, lest you die as other
kings of Valusia have died. I came alone for the reason that to send
more would have roused suspicion. Many could not steal into the
palace as I did. Some of the foul conspiracy you have seen. Snake-men
guard your door, and that one, as Tu, could pass anywhere else in the
palace; in the morning, if the priests failed, the real guards would be
holding their places again, nothing knowing, nothing remembering;
there to take the blame if the priests succeeded. But stay you here while
I dispose of this carrion."
So saying, the Pict shouldered the frightful thing stolidly and vanished
with it through another secret panel. Kull stood alone, his mind a-whirl.
Neophytes of the mighty serpent, how many