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Title: The mirrors of Tuzun Thune
Author: Robert E. Howard
Illustrator: DOAK
Release Date: May 29, 2023 [eBook #70879]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRRORS OF TUZUN
THUNE ***
THE MIRRORS of TUZUN THUNE
ROBERT E. HOWARD
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales September 1929.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime
Out of Space, out of Time."
--Poe.
There comes, even to kings, the time of great weariness. Then the gold
of the throne is brass, the silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems
in the diadem and upon the fingers of the women sparkle drearily like
the ice of the white seas; the speech of men is as the empty rattle of
a jester's bell and the feel comes of things unreal; even the sun is
copper in the sky and the breath of the green ocean is no longer fresh.
Kull sat upon the throne of Valusia and the hour of weariness was upon
him. They moved before him in an endless, meaningless panorama, men,
women, priests, events and shadows of events; things seen and things
to be attained. But like shadows they came and went, leaving no trace
upon his consciousness, save that of a great mental fatigue. Yet Kull
was not tired. There was a longing in him for things beyond himself
and beyond the Valusian court. An unrest stirred in him and strange,
luminous dreams roamed his soul. At his bidding there came to him Brule
the Spear-slayer, warrior of Pictland, from the islands beyond the West.
"Lord king, you are tired of the life of the court. Come with me upon
my galley and let us roam the tides for a space."
"Nay." Kull rested his chin moodily upon his mighty hand. "I am weary
beyond all these things. The cities hold no lure for me--and the
borders are quiet. I hear no more the sea-songs I heard when I lay as
a boy on the booming crags of Atlantis, and the night was alive with
blazing stars. No more do the green woodlands beckon me as of old.
There is a strangeness upon me and a longing beyond life's longings.
Go!"
Brule went forth in a doubtful mood, leaving the king brooding upon his
throne. Then to Kull stole a girl of the court and whispered:
"Great king, seek Tuzun Thune, the wizard. The secrets of life and
death are his, and the stars in the sky and the lands beneath the seas."
Kull looked at the girl. Fine gold was her hair and her violet eyes
were slanted strangely; she was beautiful, but her beauty meant little
to Kull.
"Tuzun Thune," he repeated. "Who is he?"
"A wizard of the Elder Race. He lives here, in Valusia, by the Lake of
Visions in the House of a Thousand Mirrors. All things are known to
him, lord king; he speaks with the dead and holds converse with the
demons of the Lost Lands."
Kull arose.
"I will seek out this mummer; but no word of my going, do you hear?"
"I am your slave, my lord." And she sank to her knees meekly, but the
smile of her scarlet mouth was cunning behind Kull's back and the gleam
of her narrow eyes was crafty.
* * * * *
Kull came to the house of Tuzun Thune, beside the Lake of Visions. Wide
and blue stretched the waters of the lake and many a fine palace rose
upon its banks; many swan-winged pleasure boats drifted lazily upon its
hazy surface and evermore there came the sound of soft music.
Tall and spacious, but unpretentious, rose the House of a Thousand
Mirrors. The great doors stood open and Kull ascended the broad stair
and entered, unannounced. There in a great chamber, whose walls were of
mirrors, he came upon Tuzun Thune, the wizard. The man was ancient as
the hills of Zalgara; like wrinkled leather was his skin, but his cold
gray eyes were like sparks of sword steel.
"Kull of Valusia, my house is yours," said he, bowing with old-time
courtliness and motioning Kull to a throne-like chair.
"You are a wizard, I have heard," said Kull bluntly, resting his chin
upon his hand and fixing his somber eyes upon the man's face. "Can you
do wonders?"
The wizard stretched forth his hand; his fingers opened and closed like
a bird's claws.
"Is that not a wonder--that this blind flesh obeys the thoughts of my
mind? I walk, I breathe, I speak--are they all not wonders?"
Kull meditated awhile, then spoke. "Can you summon up demons?"
"Aye. I can summon up a demon more savage than any in ghostland--by
smiting you in the face."
Kull started, then nodded. "But the dead, can you talk to the dead?"
"I talk with the dead always--as I am talking now. Death begins with
birth and each man begins to die when he is born; even now you are
dead, King Kull, because you were born."
"But you, you are older than men become; do wizards never die?"
"Men die when their time comes. No later, no sooner. Mine has not come."
Kull turned these answers over in his mind.
"Then it would seem that the greatest wizard of Valusia is no more than
an ordinary man, and I have been duped in coming here."
Tuzun Thune shook his head. "Men are but men, and the greatest men are
they who soonest learn the simpler things. Nay, look into my mirrors,
Kull."
The ceiling was a great many mirrors, and the walls were mirrors,
perfectly jointed, yet many mirrors of many sizes and shapes.
"Mirrors are the world, Kull," droned the wizard. "Gaze into my mirrors
and be wise."
Kull chose one at random and looked into it intently. The mirrors upon
the opposite wall were reflected there, reflecting others, so that he
seemed to be gazing down a long, luminous corridor, formed by mirror
behind mirror; and far down this corridor moved a tiny figure. Kull
looked long ere he saw that the figure was the reflection of himself.
He gazed and a queer feeling of pettiness came over him; it seemed that
that tiny figure was the true Kull, representing the real proportions
of himself. So he moved away and stood before another.
"Look closely, Kull. That is the mirror of the past," he heard the
wizard say.
Gray fogs obscured the vision, great billows of mist, ever heaving
and changing like the ghost of a great river; through these fogs Kull
caught swift fleeting visions of horror and strangeness; beasts and men
moved there and shapes neither men nor beasts; great exotic blossoms
glowed through the grayness; tall tropic trees towered high over
reeking swamps, where reptilian monsters wallowed and bellowed; the sky
was ghastly with flying dragons and the restless seas rocked and roared
and beat endlessly along the muddy beaches. Man was not, yet man was
the dream of the gods and strange were the nightmare forms that glided
through the noisome jungles. Battle and onslaught were there, and
frightful love. Death was there, for Life and Death go hand in hand.
Across the slimy beaches of the world sounded the bellowing of the
monsters, and incredible shapes loomed through the steaming curtain of
the incessant rain.
"This is of the future."
Kull looked in silence.
"See you--what?"
"A strange world," said Kull heavily. "The Seven Empires are crumbled
to dust and are forgotten. The restless green waves roar for many a
fathom above the eternal hills of Atlantis; the mountains of Lemuria of
the West are the islands of an unknown sea. Strange savages roam the
elder lands and new lands flung strangely from the deeps, defiling the
elder shrines. Valusia is vanished and all the nations of today; they
of tomorrow are strangers. They know us not."
"Time strides onward," said Tuzun Thune calmly. "We live today; what
care we for tomorrow--or yesterday? The Wheel turns and nations rise
and fall; the world changes, and times return to savagery to rise again
through the long ages. Ere Atlantis was, Valusia was, and ere Valusia
was, the Elder Nations were. Aye, we, too, trampled the shoulders of
lost tribes in our advance. You, who have come from the green sea hills
of Atlantis to seize the ancient crown of Valusia, you think my tribe
is old, we who held these lands ere the Valusians came out of the East,
in the days before there were men in the sea lands. But men were here
when the Elder Tribes rode out of the waste lands, and men before men,
tribe before tribe. The nations pass and are forgotten, for that is the
destiny of man."
"Yes," said Kull. "Yet is it not a pity that the beauty and glory of
men should fade like smoke on a summer sea?"
"For what reason, since that is their destiny? I brood not over the
lost glories of my race, nor do I labor for races to come. Live now,
Kull, live now. The dead are dead; the unborn are not. What matters
men's forgetfulness of you when you have forgotten yourself in the
silent worlds of death? Gaze in my mirrors and be wise."
Kull chose another mirror and gazed into it.
"That is the mirror of the deepest magic; what see ye, Kull?"
"Naught but myself."
"Look closely, Kull; is it in truth you?"
Kull stared into the great mirror, and the image that was his
reflection returned his gaze.
"I come before this mirror," mused Kull, chin on fist, "and I bring
this man to life. This is beyond my understanding, since first I saw
him in the still waters of the lakes of Atlantis, till I saw him
again in the gold-rimmed mirrors of Valusia. He is I, a shadow of
myself, part of myself--I can bring him into being or slay him at my
will; yet"--he halted, strange thoughts whispering through the vast
dim recesses of his mind like shadowy bats flying through a great
cavern--"yet where is he when I stand not in front of a mirror? May it
be in man's power thus lightly to form and destroy a shadow of life
and existence? How do I know that when I step back from the mirror he
vanishes into the void of Naught?
"Nay, by Valka, am I the man or is he? Which of us is the ghost of
the other? Mayhap these mirrors are but windows through which we look
into another world. Does he think the same of me? Am I no more than a
shadow, a reflection of himself--to him, as he to me? And if I am the
ghost, what sort of a world lives upon the other side of this mirror?
What armies ride there and what kings rule? This world is all I know.
Knowing naught of any other, how can I judge? Surely there are green
hills there and booming seas and wide plains where men ride to battle.
Tell me, wizard who are wiser than most men, tell me, are there worlds
beyond our worlds?"
"A man has eyes, let him see," answered the wizard. "Who would see must
first believe."
* * * * *
The hours drifted by and Kull still sat before the mirrors of Tuzun
Thune, gazing into that which depicted himself. Sometimes it seemed
that he gazed upon hard shallowness; at other times gigantic depths
seemed to loom before him. Like the surface of the sea was the mirror
of Tuzun Thune; hard as the sea in the sun's slanting beams, in
the darkness of the stars, when no eye can pierce her deeps; vast
and mystic as the sea when the sun smites her in such way that the
watcher's breath is caught at the glimpse of tremendous abysses. So was
the mirror in which Kull gazed.
At last the king rose with a sigh and took his departure still
wondering. And Kull came again to the House of a Thousand Mirrors;
day after day he came and sat for hours before the mirror. The eyes
looked out at him, identical with his, yet Kull seemed to sense a
difference--a reality that was not of him. Hour upon hour he would
stare with strange intensity into the mirror; hour after hour the image
gave back his gaze.
The business of the palace and of the council went neglected. The
people murmured; Kull's stallion stamped restlessly in his stable and
Kull's warriors diced and argued aimlessly with one another. Kull
heeded not. At times he seemed on the point of discovering some vast,
unthinkable secret. He no longer thought of the image in the mirror as
a shadow of himself; the thing, to him, was an entity, similar in outer
appearance, yet basically as far from Kull himself as the poles are
far apart. The image, it seemed to Kull, had an individuality apart
from Kull's; he was no more dependent on Kull than Kull was dependent
on him. And day by day Kull doubted in which world he really lived; was
he the shadow, summoned at will by the other? Did he instead of the
other live in a world of delusion, the shadow of the real world?
Kull began to wish that he might enter the personality beyond the
mirror for a space, to see what might be seen; yet should he manage
to go beyond that door could he ever return? Would he find a world
identical with the one in which he moved? A world, of which his was but
a ghostly reflection? Which was reality and which illusion?
At times Kull halted to wonder how such thoughts and dreams had come
to enter his mind and at times he wondered if they came of his own
volition or--here his thoughts would become mazed. His meditations were
his own; no man ruled his thoughts and he would summon them at his
pleasure; yet could he? Were they not as bats, coming and going, not at
his pleasure but at the bidding or ruling of--of whom? The gods? The
Women who wove the webs of Fate? Kull could come to no conclusion, for
at each mental step he became more and more bewildered in a hazy gray
fog of illusory assertions and refutations. This much he knew: that
strange visions entered his mind, like bats flying unbidden from the
whispering void of non-existence; never had he thought these thoughts,
but now they ruled his mind, sleeping and waking, so that he seemed
to walk in a daze at times; and his sleep was fraught with strange,
monstrous dreams.
"Tell me, wizard," he said, sitting before the mirror, eyes fixed
intently upon his image, "how can I pass yon door? For of a truth, I
am not sure that that is the real world and this the shadow; at least,
that which I see must exist in some form."
"See and believe," droned the wizard. "Man must believe to accomplish.
Form is shadow, substance is illusion, materiality is dream; man is
because he believes he is; what is man but a dream of the gods? Yet man
can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but
shadows. The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream--that is real,
that is immortal. See and believe, if you would accomplish, Kull."
The king did not fully understand; he never fully understood the
enigmatical utterances of the wizard, yet they struck somewhere in
his being a dim responsive chord. So day after day he sat before the
mirrors of Tuzun Thune. Ever the wizard lurked behind him like a shadow.
* * * * *
Then came a day when Kull seemed to catch glimpses of strange lands;
there flitted across his consciousness dim thoughts and recognitions.
Day by day he had seemed to lose touch with the world; all things had
seemed each succeeding day more ghostly and unreal; only the man in the
mirror seemed like reality. Now Kull seemed to be close to the doors
of some mightier worlds; giant vistas gleamed fleetingly; the fogs of
unreality thinned; "form is shadow, substance is illusion; they are but
shadows" sounded as if from some far country of his consciousness. He
remembered the wizard's words and it seemed to him that now he almost
understood--form and substance, could not he change himself at will, if
he knew the master key that opened this door? What worlds within what
worlds awaited the bold explorer?
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!
[Illustration: "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.
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