The Best of Robert E. Howard: Crimson Shadows (Volume 1) Read online

  The man in the mirror seemed smiling at him — closer, closer — a fog enwrapped all and the reflection dimmed suddenly — Kull knew a sensation of fading, of change, of merging —

  “Kull!” the yell split the silence into a million vibratory fragments!

  Mountains crashed and worlds tottered as Kull, hurled back by that frantic shout, made a superhuman effort, how or why he did not know.

  A crash, and Kull stood in the room of Tuzun Thune before a shattered mirror, mazed and half-blind with bewilderment. There before him lay the body of Tuzun Thune, whose time had come at last, and above him stood Brule the Spear-slayer, sword dripping red and eyes wide with a kind of horror.

  “Valka!” swore the warrior. “Kull, it was time I came!”

  “Aye, yet what happened?” The king groped for words.

  “Ask this traitress,” answered the Spear-slayer, indicating a girl who crouched in terror before the king; Kull saw that it was she who first sent him to Tuzun Thune. “As I came in I saw you fading into yon mirror as smoke fades into the sky, by Valka! Had I not seen I would not have believed — you had almost vanished when my shout brought you back.”

  “Aye,” muttered Kull, “I had almost gone beyond the door that time.”

  “This fiend wrought most craftily,” said Brule. “Kull, do you not now see how he spun and flung over you a web of magic? Kaanuub of Blaal plotted with this wizard to do away with you, and this wench, a girl of Elder Race, put the thought in your mind so that you would come here. Kananu of the council learned of the plot today; I know not what you saw in that mirror, but with it Tuzun Thune enthralled your soul and almost by his witchery he changed your body to mist —”

  “Aye.” Kull was still mazed. “But being a wizard, having knowledge of all the ages and despising gold, glory and position, what could Kaanuub offer Tuzun Thune that would make of him a foul traitor?”

  “Gold, power and position,” grunted Brule. “The sooner you learn that men are men whether wizard, king or thrall, the better you will rule, Kull. Now what of her?”

  “Naught, Brule,” as the girl whimpered and groveled at Kull’s feet. “She was but a tool. Rise, child, and go your ways; none shall harm you.”

  Alone with Brule, Kull looked for the last time on the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.

  “Mayhap he plotted and conjured, Brule; nay, I doubt you not, yet — was it his witchery that was changing me to thin mist, or had I stumbled on a secret? Had you not brought me back, had I faded in dissolution or had I found worlds beyond this?”

  Brule stole a glance at the mirrors, and twitched his shoulders as if he shuddered. “Aye. Tuzun Thune stored the wisdom of all the hells here. Let us begone, Kull, ere they bewitch me, too.”

  “Let us go, then,” answered Kull, and side by side they went forth from the House of a Thousand Mirrors — where, mayhap, are prisoned the souls of men.

  None look now in the mirrors of Tuzun Thune. The pleasure boats shun the shore where stands the wizard’s house and no one goes in the house or to the room where Tuzun Thune’s dried and withered carcass lies before the mirrors of illusion. The place is shunned as a place accursed, and though it stands for a thousand years to come, no footsteps shall echo there. Yet Kull upon his throne meditates often upon the strange wisdom and untold secrets hidden there and wonders. . . .

  For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king’s gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.

  THE MOOR GHOST

  Weird Tales, September 1929

  They haled him to the crossroads

  As day was at its close;

  They hung him to the gallows

  And left him for the crows.

  His hands in life were bloody,

  His ghost will not be still;

  He haunts the naked moorlands

  About the gibbet hill.

  And oft a lonely traveler

  Is found upon the fen

  Whose dead eyes hold a horror

  Beyond the world of men.

  The villagers then whisper,

  With accents grim and dour:

  “This man has met at midnight

  The phantom of the moor.”

  RED THUNDER

  JAPM: The Poetry Weekly, September 16, 1929

  Thunder in the black skies beating down the rain,

  Thunder in the black cliffs, looming o’er the main,

  Thunder on the black sea and thunder in my brain.

  God’s on the night wind, Satan’s on his throne

  By the red lake lurid and great grim stone —

  Still through the roofs of Hell the brooding thunders drone.

  Trident for a rapier, Satan thrusts and foins

  Crouching on his throne with his great goat loins —

  Souls are his footstools and hearts are his coins.

  Slave of all the ages, though lord of the air;

  Solomon o’ercame him, set him roaring there,

  Crouching on the coals where the great flames flare.

  Thunder from the grim gulfs, out of cosmic deep

  Where the red eyes glimmer and the black wings sweep,

  Thunder down to Satan, wake him from his sleep!

  Thunder on the shores of Hell, scattering the coal,

  Riding down the mountain on the moon-mare’s foal,

  Blasting out the caves of the gnome and the troll.

  Satan, brother Satan, rise and break your chain!

  Solomon is dust and his spells grow vain —

  Rise through the world in the thunder and the rain.

  Rush upon the cities, roaring in your might,

  Break down the towers in the moon’s pale light,

  Build a wall of corpses for God’s great sight,

  Quench the red thunder in my brain this night.

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  TWO-GUN MUSKETEER: ROBERT E. HOWARD’S WEIRD TALES

  SPEAR AND FANG

  IN THE FOREST OFŠVILLEFORE

  WOLFSHEAD

  THE LOST RACE

  THE SONG OF THE BATS

  THE RIDE OF FALUME

  THE RIDERS OF BABYLON

  THE DREAM SNAKE

  THE HYENA

  REMEMBRANCE

  SEA CURSE

  THE GATES OF NINEVEH

  RED SHADOWS

  THE HARP OF ALFRED

  EASTER ISLAND

  SKULLS IN THE STARS

  CRETE

  MOON MOCKERY

  RATTLE OF BONES

  FORBIDDEN MAGIC

  THE SHADOW KINGDOM

  THE MIRRORS OFŠTUZUNŠTHUNE

  THE MOOR GHOST

  RED THUNDER