by Anthology
"Hai!" said Robur. "You have done this, Jason! Did Jadgor know, it would change his mind, I think. My father's attitude in this matter grieves me. Let me be your mouthpiece in this to bring understand to his mind."
Croft nodded. "Speak, Rob, if thereby we may turn Jadgor from what seems to me a draem of personal power, back to that wish for the strength of all Tamarizia, which held place in his heart, when I knew him first."
Robur sighed. "Teacher you may well be called, Jason," he said in a tone of accord with Croft's remarks. "Jadgor's name on every lip has been to Jadgor's spirit like wine to a strong man's flesh—nor do I myself think Zud has any wish to interfere with the affairs of state through proclaiming you Mouthpiece of Zitu, even though my father appears to fear some such thing himself. Wherefore I shall tell him of what you have said, if I may. And of this other matter also I shall speak. In that Naia has yielded you her mouth, has felt your arms about her, who are not of her blood—to Jadgor's mind, there lies a disgrace."
Croft nodded again. Yet would he have given her to Kyphallos, the master of dancing girls, my friend."
"I know—I know," Robur replied. "But that would have been in marriage."
"There can be no marriage between Naia and myself until it is brought about by her as well as my wish."
"Failing which she will become Gayana," Robur said.
"Which you do not like yourself," Croft responded. "Which, should it happen would deprive me of all I have labored in sincere purpose to gain—that which I think Zitu himself is inclined to permit—since he has permitted also that I dwell in the spirit inside Jasor of Nodhur's flesh."
"Aye, by Zitu, I see it!" Robur exclaimed. "Were it said to her, by one to whom she would scarce fail to give ear—then—perhaps she would see it too. Jason—Gaya, my wife, has before this had a hand in this affair of your love. Could she prevail upon my cousin to listen—"
"Rob!" Croft rose and began a slow pacing of the floor. "At least," he said, "she returns by Jadgor's command to Himyra. Let Gaya speak with her, friend of my heart, to whom my heart is show, and prevail upon her to remain outside the pyramid until she has taken time to think. Myself, I told her I could explain if the chance were mine. Rob, you and Gaya your wife will do this?"
"Aye," Robur declared, rising also. "Be not cast down in your heart. Inside fourteen suns I shall be governor in Aphur—and I shall see to it that Jadgor understands much which now he does not understand—also, that Naia does not go to the pyramid in Himyra. I shall speak with Magur himself. Speak of this with Zud, Jason. Have him give tablets into my hands to Magur from himself, advising against an immediate action. Then once I am in the palace, Jason, my friend, we shall reopen the Himyra shops, and set the melting furnaces flaring, and make many things for Tamarizia's welfare—even to this machine which flies without moving its wings."
But the events of the third day following Croft's awaking from what he considered his final trip to Earth showed that Rob and Gaya would have no easy time. For that was the day of the great festival, the colorful ceremony during which he was proclaimed Mouthpiece of Zitu. He went over the exact wording of the proclamation in advance with Zud, and while he did not entirely like it, he could see the necessity. At the proper time in the ceremony, Zud would say to the vast assembly:
"Men and women of Zitra and of all Tamarizia, give ear to Zud, through whom it is given to announce to you one who comes among you as teacher, endowed with a wisdom passing the knowledge of Zud or any other among you, by Zitu's grace.
"Jason, as he is named, cometh to instruct the people on whom Zitu smiles, as a sign that his pleasure shall remain while they are in obedience to his laws.
"Mouthpiece of Zitu is Jason, and shall be so known while he shall remain among us, and afterward, when the spirit within his body shall have been withdrawn. Exalted is he by the knowledge which Zitu has seen fit to instil into his mind. Worthy of honor is he from all true men. Yet is he man as thou art, and to him shall no knee bend. Obedience and respect alone are his due. I, Zud, the high priest, have said it. Let all men regard the Mouthpiece of Zitu as his brother as well as his friend."
When the proclamation was made, Croft sought out Jadgor's eyes; the king's glance was dark, and he caught a slight shake of the crown prince's head. Lakkon also looked somber.
Then the gayana approached the throne on which Croft was seated, each maiden carrying a wreath from which she plucked a long-stemmed scarlet flower and tossed it at him. Suddenly his eyes met the blue eyes of Naia among them, but she did not toss her flower—she threw it, with her lips curled in scorn. There was something concealed within the flower, and when Croft picked it up, he found it to be a silver medallion, bearing a raised figure of Azil, the angel of life, and surrounded by blood-red stones, such as Tamarizian men gave to the women to whom they were betrothed.
"Thy litter awaits thee." Zud's voice was in his ear. He saw that the blue men of Mazzer had indeed brought a great silver palanquin into position opposite the dais steps, and quickly he asked the high priest if Naia had become Gayana. She had not, Zud assured him with comprehension. But she had asked to be among them and now he realized why; for this medallion she had hurled back at him was the one he had ordered made, and given to her at the end of the Zollarian war. Like the maids of her nation, she had worn it on her girdle as a sign that to one man, and one alone, Azil had set his seal upon her. And today she had flung it from her, against the wings of Azil himself, which Croft wore on his breast.
There was no mistaking the action. It was repudiation. Croft's lips writhed into a strange smile. He recalled how the thing had pained when it struck above his heart.
Chapter Seven
Jadgor was elected over Tammon by an overwhelming majority. Robur became governor of Aphur as a matter of course. In Cathur, Mutlos gained the lead largely because the populace still remembered the treason intended by Kyphallos of Scythys's house, and refused to vote for the dead king's younger son. This was the major result of the elections, so far as Croft was concerned.
Before it was held, however, several things had occurred. Naia and her father, Jadgor and his son, left Zitra the day of Jason's proclaiming, in a motor-driven galley. Robur contrived an interview with Croft before he left.
Croft in the meantime had seen Zud as soon as he returned to the pyramid, and showed him the jeweled medallion, and narrated to him the manner in which it had been returned. At the end he requested a letter to Magur asking the Himyra priest to advise delay, provided Naia sought admission to the vestal ranks.
The tablets of wax whereon Zud wrote his commands Croft gave to Robur, and the two friends gripped hands.
"Jadgor had turned his face from you," Robur said. "Always has he been of stubborn mind. But, by Zitu, once I am in Himyra's palace, there will be a place for you, my friend, wherein we will work out your strange designs!"
"Yes," Croft replied. "Your cousin goes with you, Rob?"
"Aye," Robur declared. "She yields to Jadgor's command, saying one may forget herself no less in Himyra than in Zitra's pyramid. Yet in Himyra is Gaya, to whom, I believe, my cousin will open her heart. At present the maid is overwrought, and Jadgor's attitude toward you does not strengthen your case."
"You spoke with him concerning those things we discussed three suns ago?"
"Aye, and to small avail." Robur frowned. "His stand is, you should have told them to him, rather than to Zud, at first. You will remember how Zud swayed Tamhys before the Zollarian war in your favor. Jadgor refused to accept it other than that there is an understanding between the high priest and yourself."
"Then must our works convince him since our words fail," said Croft. "Robur, my friend, a safe and pleasant journey. May Kronhur, ruler of the oceans, provide you a peaceful path to Himyra's gate. Make my salutations to the gentle Gaya, whom I trust I may ere long greet. In her hands and yours, Robur, is carried Jason's fate."
For four days thereafter he remained in constant company with Zud. Two things occupied his
time—the instruction of the high priest in the mysteries of astral control, at first compelling the projections by his own will. Later Zud gained a minor success for himself, a thing he accomplished quickly because of his great desire to learn, and Croft took up certain social reforms he had long had in mind.
A more general education was the first of these. At Scira in Cathur, Tamarizia had maintained a national school. This, however, was for the patronage of the rich. Among the masses little education was known. Croft decided at once to alter this. To Zud he outlined a scheme for a general system of schools. Assisted by the high priest, he drafted a provisional alphabet, to which the hieroglyphic characters not unlike those of the Mayan inscriptions in Central America lent itself with little change. Already in Himyra he had constructed a form of printing press for large character work. Now he took up the subject of perfecting and elaborating this to the wonder of Zud, whose enthusiastic approbation he instantly gained. He thought the matter of the schools might be easily arranged. The national school was under the patronage of the church. Most of the priests were educated in it. Teachers could be drawn from their ranks; and if the matter were carefully broached, both Jason and Zud felt inclined to believe that the move would meet with little opposition from Jadgor at first—especially if the suggestion came from some such one as Mutlos, governor of Cathur, whom Zud would see was properly approached by the faculty of the national school, rather than by Zud or Croft.
Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, however, Croft went to his own quarters, loosened his clothing, and laid himself down on the golden couch. There had been time for Jadgor's galley to have reached Himyra, as he knew—time for Naia to have gone either to her own home or the palace, as Jadgor and her father had elected. Closing his eyes and fixing his mind on the red-walled city of Aphur, he brought all his will to bear upon his one desire, and projected his astral entity to the palace. He willed himself toward it, entered it through the main gates between the huge carved figures of the winged doglike creatures set up on either side, their front legs supporting webbed membranes from body to paw. He passed into a vast, red-paved court, where naked Mazzerian porters passed to and fro with metal sprinkling tanks strapped to their shoulders, and gnuppas, harnessed to flashing chariots, champed on their bits and pawed.
To Croft, it was all an old story. He had lived in it once. He fixed his mind on gaining the presence of Gaya, Robur's wife, for he felt Naia would seek the company and companionship of a woman rather than any one else.
In this his judgment proved right, as he found when he reached the wing of the palace in which he had formerly lived. Here, in the portion given over to Robur and his wife, was a court containing a private bath, set in the center, surrounded on all sides by growing shrubs and flowers, the tessellated pavements about it dotted with chairs and couched of the wine-red wood and silklike canopies to offer shad against the Palosian sun.
On two of the red couches he found the women he had come in search of. They reclined beneath a yellow awning supported by standards, with a low table between them, holding small cakes, fruit conserves such as the women of Tamarizia affected, and crystal glasses, scarcely larger than a thimble, filled with an amber-colored wine.
Naia lay pale, her eyes shadowed by darkened circles beneath their lids, her features weary. Her figure was draped in a robe of exquisite green, across the upper part of which a strand of her fair hair made a sheen of gold. Croft glanced at Gaya, and found her eyes fixed in an anxious inspection of her companion's face.
Abruptly Naia's breast swelled sharply and she spoke: "I shall become Gayana. THere is nothing else."
"Nay! Nay, daughter of Lakkon—you are overwrought. Robur thinks not so, nor Jadgor, his father. To Lakkon there is none other, since your mother died, save yourself. Would leave him to finish his life alone?"
Naia sat up upon the couch. "That was true," she returned in a tone gone bitter, "until this trouble came upon me. Now Lakkon holds me disgraced."
"Nay," Gaya replied, "say not that in any way were you to blame, Naia, fairest of Aphur's maids. For have you and I not spoken concerning your love ere this, and did you not first to me confess it, when you stood pledge to Cathur's heir, from whom this man of Zitu saved you?"
"Say you that he is a man—Gaya, my friend—or is the word but used as a means of expression since you know not what to call him save as he seems?"
"Nay, I mean man, child," Gaya returned. "Man he appears, and man he claims to be, and man he is. You know Robur for his friend. Much to Robur has he explained since he wakened from the last of his strange sleeps. Yet is he such a man as never was seen on Palos before, and though of mortal birth, as we are, yet was he not born on Palos, but of a woman on Earth."
"Earth?" Naia's eyes widened swiftly.
"Aye—a different star from ours," Gaya replied.
"Robur told you this?"
"Aye. He swore it by Zitu himself."
He told it to Robur—to your husband—to Jadgor's son! Why not to me?"
"To Robur he swore he had meant to tell you ere you became his mate," Gaya rejoined. "Save that Zud learned these things from Abbu of Scira and spoke to you during his sleep, I feel assured he had done it at a proper time."
She paused, and Naia turned her head. "Now I remember that he said to me after he awakened, when he came to me in the quarters of the Gayana, that he had somewhat to explain. What said he else?"
"Strange things—things to madden the heart of a woman, as it seems to me," Gaya returned. "To Robur he swore that to Palos he came because of you, because in you he knew the mate to whom his spirit cried out—that he remained on Palos to save you from Cathur and win you for himself, and to that end that he might claim you wholly, used Jasor's body when his spirit was drawn from his flesh."
"Zitu! Now you have touched on the part of the matter I may not tolerate or understand. Granting that he says truth—that a spirit may enter the body of another and possess it, and cause it to live and breathe, and move as its own—can a maid consider a lover in such guise, surrendering to his embrace?"
"Yet consider," said Gaya softly, "try to measure if you can, my princess, a love so vast that it draws its mate across the space between the stars. Consider that after he entered Jasor's form it changed—that even Sinon declared he no longer resembled Jasor greatly. Seems it not to you that Jason's spirit has altered the elements that were Jasor's until they are as his own?"
"Jason?" Naia faltered.
"Aye. That was his name on Earth. Also says he that it is the spirit within us which dwells in and makes us of the flesh. He says, and Zud supports him in saying that to the spirit the flesh is no more than to man is a house—a something he inhabits, makes use of, and finally lays aside."
"Stop!" Naia stayed her. "Why—why were these things not said to me before—before—" She broke off, clasped her hands and crushed them together, struck them down against her sides. "Nay—it might have been," she went on, more to herself than to Gaya, "had I given the chance. He came to me, and I berated him with words. I was filled with pain, my spirit was blinded with horror and despair. I thought only that I had been led to my own undoing—I knew not the truth.
"Gaya, I am like one fallen into a pit from which there is no escape. Him I knew as Jasor—I loved with a glory of the spirit and a madness of the flesh. Save only Zitu, beyond him there was for me no god!"
Once more she paused. "Canst wonder, then," she went on after a moment, "with what gladness I have him my pledge; with what joy in my thoughts of the future I wore upon my girdle the badge of Azil he placed within my hands as a sign that I was his—that badge which, on the day of his proclaiming Mouthpiece of Zitu, I placed in a spray of flowers and hurled against his breast!"
"Naia! You did that—did he—understand?"
Naia nodded slightly. "I think so. He—from the dais he carried the flowers I flung against him to his litter in his hand. Oh, Gaya—my soul died within me at that sight—would Zitu—the rest of me had died. I a
m alone, Gaya—alone. Alone, alone—the word tunes my every breath. Jadgor opposes my seeking the Gayana. My father looks on his name as through me disgraced. And I am tired, Gaya—tired—so very tired. And there is no rest. If only Zilla would hear me when I call him—"
"Aye, you are tired, poor child." Gaya rose, crossed to the other couch, and took the girl's golden head inside her arms. "Come, talk no more at present. I shall call Bela, my own maid, who shall attend you. You shall bathe, and afterward she shall anoint your flesh with sweet-smelling oils, and you will sleep and awaken refreshed. She has a soothing touch beyond any I have ever found. She shall wait upon you." She reached out to the table and struck a small metal gong.
"Refreshed," said Naia slowly. Once more her eyes were fastened on the sun-kissed water. "Aye, I shall bathe, gentle Gaya. I shall find rest in your pool."
She rose slowly. Her eyes were wide; her face was very white. Turning, she walked to the edge of the sunken basin. For a moment she stood there in the attitude of one who listens.
Her lips moved. "Zilla," she whispered and smiled.
And then he voice raised, rang our sharply: "Zilla, I hear thy answer!"
Her arms lifted, stretched upward. She plunged face downward into the pool and sank without a struggle into its transparent depths.
And now began one of the most amazing parts of Croft's whole tale.