The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune is an early fantasy tale by Robert E. Howard featuring Kull, the brooding king of Valusia. Restless on his throne and questioning the nature of reality, Kull seeks wisdom from Tuzun Thune, a mysterious sage whose room of mirrors reflects more than mere images. What begins as philosophical curiosity slowly becomes a quiet descent — Kull finds himself drawn toward a reflection that seems to hold another world, another truth, or perhaps a trap. The story is short, reflective, and atmospheric, more concerned with mood and metaphysics than with swordplay. It shows Howard exploring ideas of identity, illusion, and the thin line between thought and madness.
The piece stands apart in Howard’s work for its stillness and tone. Instead of battlefields and roaring steel, we get silence, glass, and doubt. It’s a glimpse of the inward-facing side of a writer best known for outward violence and heroism. Through Kull’s struggle to trust his own senses, the tale anticipates Howard’s later fascination with unseen worlds beneath ordinary life.
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) was an American pulp writer whose vivid imagination helped define modern fantasy. Raised in small-town Texas, he sold stories to Weird Tales, creating enduring figures such as Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and King Kull. His work blended myth, physicality, and a strong sense of fatalism, often set in invented pre-historic ages. Though he died young, Howard’s influence on fantasy fiction has been enormous — his characters moved beyond magazines into comics, films, and games, shaping how readers picture warriors, wizards, and lost kingdoms. Beneath the violence and adventure ran a steady current of poetry and melancholy, both of which are clearly felt in The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune.
