The Adventures of Kardios

The adventures of Kardios, the last inhabitant of Atlantis, are a late Sword & Sorcery series. I say late because as editor, Andrew J Offutt explains, the idea dates back to the 1930s:

He answered the invitation to submit here like a boy, with questions about length and whether this idea/subject was OK — and nary a word about money. He also advised he’s been wanting and waiting to write about the last survivor of Atlantis for forty-five years…but that some fella named Howard got a lock on the Atlantean board and no one wanted Wellman’s Atlantean tales back then. Actually, Kardios is rather a better, more likable and thoughtful fellow than Howard’s Kull. So is Manly Wade Wellman.

Manly Wade Wellman, the author who gave us Silver John, John Thunstone and many other wonderful books, is the author of the series. Written in the late 1970s and 1980s, the set of six stories follows Kardios’ arrival in the world after Atlantis and his many encounters with “gods”. In the first tale, we learn that the queen of Atlantis, an almost immortal creature named Theona, was forbidden to kiss a man because it would cause Atlantis to sink. Kardios, who’s name means heart, dared to plant one on her (at her request) and sent Atlantis into the sea.

Straggler From Atlantis

“Straggler From Atlantis” (Swords Against Darkness, 1975) introduces our hero, Kardios, as he is swept up on distant shores, his native Atlantis now sunk. He is picked up by a race of giants called the Nephol. These fearsome beings live in caves in a cliffside. They find the small man’s bravery endearing and befriend him. The Nephol tell him of an ancient well where a “god” from the stars lives. They call this creature Fith after the sound it makes. Fith is a protoplasmic being that devours all living flesh. The Nephol have made thorn barriers to keep the monster out, since it does not like sharp points. Kardios sneaks off in the night to match his speed with Fith. The man is faster.

Kardios agrees to go into the well to destroy Fith, since he is small enough to go down the well. He is armed with his choice of weapon, a sword found at the site where Fith’s meteor crashed. Kardios has a rope tied to his ankle and is let down head-first. At the bottom of the well, he encounters Fith for a second time. Using his speed and the iron blade, he cuts Fith several times, evading death. Finally, Kardios stabs the nerve center of the creature, killing it.

This first tale of Kardios reminds me a little of Edgar Rice Burroughs with the cave-dwelling giants. Fith is typical of the monsters we will encounter, having an SF feel rather than dragons and trolls.

The Dweller in the Temple

“The Dweller in the Temple” (Swords Against Darkness II, 1977) has Kardios wander into a land called Nyanyanya, where he is immediately crowned king of the realm. He is feted, offered soft-flesh girls, and generally spoiled. The high priest, Athemar, steals away his new sword. Kardios ignores the pampered beauties for a scully-maid named Yola. They are lovers. Yola begins to cry when after Kardios speaks of meeting the Dweller in the Temple, a god named Tongbi. Every king must do this duty. Yola reveals none of the monarchs ever return. Tongbi eats them. The kings of Nyanyanya are sacrifices to the god who was there before the city was built.

Kardios recalls an adventure that happens between the first and second story, where he faced off against Malyhl, a type of wild boar. This creature was built like an elephant but had a single horn on his nose. Kardios killed it by letting it charge then ducking at the last minute, cutting off its head with his sword. The people of Swarr were saved and well-fed by the encounter. (Malyhl is obviously a rhinoceros.)

Kardios has Yola steal back his sword. He goes off to meet Tongbi before the assigned time. The god is a loathsome-looking thing with strange-bending joints and horns. It lives around a strange tree that was also there before the temple was built. Kardios battles Tongbi but can not hurt him because his body is covered in armor. It is only by accident he discovers that when he hurts the tree, he hurts Tongbi. Kardios cuts down the tree, defeating the god as well.

Later when Athemar comes to take Kardios to the temple, the warrior reveals he has already seen Tongbi and killed him. Kardios sets Yola on the throne as the new queen before riding off to new adventures. Wellman ends the story with: “Only Yola was not there. Sitting on the emerald throne that now was hers, she grieved.” A bittersweet note to finish a fine adventure. Like the first story, the god appears to be some kind of alien.

The Guest of Dzinganji

“The Guest of Dzinganji” (Swords Against Darkness III, 1978) has Kardios arrive in Flaal, a city accessed by flying baskets (like a modern gondola). Before he jumps in the basket he meets a very old man who gives him advice. “Do not let greed tempt you in Flaal.” He warns of the god, Dzinganji, but Kardios is cocky after killing three such creatures already.

When Kardios gets to Flaal he meets the beautiful Tanda and her two gigantic guards. She explains that all will be showered in riches and leisure but must obey and worship Dzinganji in turn. Kardios dislikes being told to kneel so he takes on the ax-swinging behemoths. His sword does quick work of what prove to be two robots. Dzinganji is a mechanical genius.

Night falls and the swordsman gets to meet the lord of Flaal, a strange-looking god, with a furry body. Kardios’s food that he brought from the last village displeases the master. He has Kardios leave it far from him for it stinks of garlic. Kardios dines on the good food of Flaal while Dzinganji explains the deal. In exchange for fresh blood, Kardios can have a life filled with beauty and pleasure. The wanderer refuses. Dzinganji attacks with his twin blades.

At first the fight goes against the Atlantean but as Kardios presses his foe closer to the garlic-scented food Dzinganji falls back. Kardios grabs the food and rubs it all over his blade. Now the fight goes his way, and he kills the vampire, for Kardios recognizes the signs. With Dzinganji dead, the people of Flaal don ‘t know what to do. Kardios tells them to take a modest treasure and go home. Tanda admits she has no home for she was created by Dzinganji. She asks Kardios if she can go with him as he wanders on. Kardios declines the offer and heads off, the artificial woman crying to herself. Just as he left Yola, the “hero” is less than heroic when it come to women.

Andrew Offutt gives us a little window on Wellman’s technique in his intro for the last Kardios tale to appear in Swords Against Darkness:

“You can’t say ‘style’ about Manlius Wadius Virbonus; he just tell stories. Did anyone else send me manuscripts with so many strikeovers, I’d be no sweeter than Tolkien’s Goblin King. In Wellman’s manuscripts– I just fix’em, almost absently while I enjoy reading, marveling at how easily it flows…”

The Edge of the World

“The Edge of the World” (Swords Against Darkness IV, 1979) has Kardios in Kolokoto, the city on the edge of the world. His singing attracts the attention of Queen Iarie. Kardios sleeps with her but the next morning the monarch tries to kill him. Kardios knocks out the guards so she sics her two monster pets on him. Ospariel is a Lovecraftian cephalopod and Grub is scaly ape. (Grub reminds me of the beastie in Killer (1985) by Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake, two friends of MWW.) Kardios’s star-metal sword makes short work of the monsters.

Escaping the queen, Kardios runs through the city. He ends up hiding in a house with a young woman named Wanendi (a new Yola figure). She explains that the weavers of Kolokoto are the best in the world but live like slaves. Kardios flees the guards by climbing up the many levels of the city which grows up the side of the mountain Fufona. He is rescued on the sixth level by Wanendi. There, they meet the high priest, Mahleka. He sends the monsters of level six against Kardios, weird twisted creatures that live in cave-like holes. Again the star sword allows Kardios to kill the first attacker. The rest flee along with the high priest.

Kardios gives Wanendi some gold coins and tells her to escape the city with a caravan. Once outside he wants her to warn travelers of Queen Iarie and her deceit. Wanendi wants to go with Kardios but he travels alone (Why do I hear “Freebird” playing in the background?) He crosses over the top of the castle where the locals believe you will fall off the flat earth. Kardios laughs. There is a ship below and he joins her crew for distant Sambarra.

For some reason Kardios’s next adventure did not appear in Swords Against Darkness V (1979). This may have been because, as editor Andrew J. Offutt wrote: “This time I definitely overbought, and several people are unhappy. The publisher: our contract called for 70,000 words of new heroic fantasy and here are more words than that…” It may be Wellman’s tale arrived too late to be part of the book.

The Seeker in the Fortress

Instead the last two stories of the Straggler From Atlantis appeared in other S&S anthologies.

“The Seeker in the Fortress” (Heroic Fantasy, 1979, edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt) breaks the mold in many ways. Kardios happens upon the army of Prince Feothro. The soldiers have surrounded the castle of a wizard named Tromboll. Feothro plans to attack but the wizard has his fiancee, the beautiful Yann. Kardios offers to get her back. He does this by crawling through a drainage pipe into a well in the castle’s basement. There he faces down soldiers, pretending to be on special assignment for the wizard.

Next he encounters the soldiers who guard the Princess Yann. Any man who sees her falls in love with her, so she is held by a band of warrior women. Kardios sings for them and makes passes at them but eventually crawls up the wall to a secret hatch that the wizard came through to take the princess. Tromboll gets around his castle by flying. He wears a suit of spiked armor.

This leads to a vast chamber with a thin stairway that crawls up the side of the room. Kardios faces four soldiers armed with pikes, a winged bat-monster and a rolling device from a Donkey Kong game. In the end he makes it to the top and finds the door to Tromboll’s inner sanctum. The wizard is busy trying to convince Yann to marry him willingly. The princess watches coldly as Kardios challenges to the wizard to a sword duel.

Tromboll attacks Kardios first with a monster. A fur rug on the room’s floor grows into a bear-wolf thing. Kardios dispatches it with his star sword. The wizard arms himself and the two fight. Kardios learns that Tromboll has a spell on his person that repels all metal. The star sword is turned again and again. Kardios uses a karate chop to kill Tromboll with one hit.

Having cut off Tromboll’s head, Yann returns with Kardios to Prince Feothro. The princess wants no man other than Kardios. Feothro decides he better kill Kardios but the wanderer has slipped away, off on another adventure.

The Slaughter of the Gods

“The Slaughter of the Gods” (Heroic Visions II, 1986, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson) appeared seven years after the last. In fact, it appeared only months after Manly Wade Wellman passed away. It is sadly a rather redundant piece, with little new in it. It feels like a rewrite of “The Edge of the World”.

The editor, Jessica Amanda Salmonson says some interesting comments in her introduction:

Now I go about from time to time making a big stink about the tackiness of pulp fiction, imitated by modern writers. This criticism stems chiefly from the fact that it has been a dominant rather than merely contributory influence on today’s heroic fantasy…But the truth is, I like Conan and Elak and the whole school of barbarian schmoo…And who could be better qualified to represent this popular aspect of heroic fantasy than Manly Wade Wellman, a true giant of the pulp era?

Salmonson, who made her living selling rare books, has a pretty high literary standard. It is unusual to see someone so on-the-nose about pulp fiction but we were heading into the 1990s when heroic fantasy and pulp descended fiction would become unpopular again. All the same, she recognizes Wellman’s abilities within those works. Ultimately she isn’t complaining about pulp fiction only its over-dominating influence.

The story begins right after “The Edge of the World”, with Kardios on deck of the fishing ship of Captain Krarr. They leave the shores of Kolokoto for Sambarra. While Krarr is selling his fish, Kardios wanders about the city where there is no king, only seven ruling gods. A flock of lovely ladies drags him off to meet the first one, a cave-bear sized monster that he kills with his star sword. After this he meets the next, the  goddess, beautiful Iltanie, who he beds. She tries to make a pet of him but Kardios leaves. Iltanie sends two other gods after him. The two monsters attack each other and Kardios kills them both.

To get away, Kardios follows a voice through a trapped door. In the dark chamber below he finds the people of Sambarra, lead by the elderly Algru. More gods attack Kardios but they wise up and flee. In the end he has conquered all seven. He returns to Iltanie. Kardios guesses correctly that she is a sorceress and she brought the monsters with her to rule Sambarra. She agrees to leave the city with Kardios to ply her sorcery elsewhere. Before he goes he sets Algru up as the city’s leader. He says he is headed back to Nyanyanya and Queen Yola.

Conclusion

In some ways Kardios belongs in the 1930s. These tales are too simplistic for the 1970s where the influence of writers like Michael Moorcock and Poul Anderson added new directions to the basic Howard mode. And yet, Wellman’s talents as a storyteller are enduring. I prefer Kardios to the more blatant Conan clones of Brak or Kothar. Wellman’s stories of Hok the Mighty, the caveman with a sword of star metal from Amazing Stories, share some of the same spirit. I don’t think Kardios will bring the same long-lasting fame that Silver John does to Wellman’s reputation. Kardios’s adventures are a fun side project to a long and fascinating career.