by Anthology
It was Maia. More than a little surprised, Croft watched her. She carried a bundle. She undid it. She moved higher beside his body and raised his head, supporting it on her thighs. Then swiftly she began to shave it, turning it to reach the back, and working rapidly on the sides. That done, while comprehension flashed into Croft's mind, and with it renewed confidence in this girl, as he recalled his words to Naia concerning some such thing as this, she took a small box from her bundle and began rubbing the scalp-lock she had left upon his poll with a substance it contained. After that she lifted a flask and removed a stopper. Working rapidly, she began smearing the body with some dark fluid, spreading it thinly upon the skin, rubbing it to as even a coating as she might with rapid hands. And as she worked Croft's body lost its ivory whiteness and became a dark-hued thing like her own. At the end she took a small cloth from the articles she had brought with her and twisted it deftly about his loins.
And as she finished and straightened herself from her labors, Croft, sensing it time for his reviving, opened the eyes of the body over which she had worked and spoke.
"Hai," said Maia, without any particular evidence of consternation. "It is even so she said it would happen when I had finished. She said that when I had shaved you, lord, and reddened your hair, and stained your body, and put the loin-cloth upon it, you would reappear."
"She?" Croft questioned her quickly. "You mean Naia of Aphur, Maia?"
"Aye. Who else, Hupor Jason?" She rose and picked up her bundle. "Naia, my mistress. These are your garments. Come, Hupor, till I lead you to her. She lies near."
Chapter Seventeen
She lies near! "You mean?"
"That she lies hid some distance beyond the camp of thy enemies, Hupor. Come."
"But—"
Almost with impatience Maia interrupted. "Seven suns from now she waked from her slumber, Hupor, in a most strange mood. For the Hupor Robur she sent me, and for long they spoke together, and after that she spoke with me again. Bidding me place her in the garment she wears when she dares to rise in the air, she took me with her to the great house where the thing she rides is kept, and compelled me to enter it with her, so that my spirit turned as weak as water when, with a great roaring, we leaped into space."
"Zitu—you she flew to Bithur?"
"Aye, Hupor—partly in the air like a bird, and partly on the water like a boat—which, praise to Zitu, was calm, and with wonderful speed."
"But fuel—what is burned in the motor?" Jason questioned.
Maia shrugged. "Her lips, not mine, should tell you how, like a bird to its mate, she came to seek thee, Hupor," she admonished. "Yet—were not the great galleys already seeking to reach Bithur with men and weapons by the Hupor's orders? And though he swore by Zitu and Azil she should not undertake this madness, he did not refuse to his cousin that which would spell her death. On the waves we rode beside the galleys when the thing that makes the motor turn was required."
"My God!" Croft spoke not as a man of Tamarizia, but of Earth.
"On the night of the sun before this we came down in an open place in the forest," Maia explained further. "There the great wings we rode on lie hid. And some distance farther in this direction she awaits thee, Hupor. Come."
"Aye," said Croft, and caught a great, a wondrous breath of realization. "Aye, come." He started out of the thicket at a pace that made Maia gasp.
"Walk not so quickly, Hupor, and permit that I walk at thy side. Seen we may be of many, and though thou are stained to the seeming of a man of Mazzer, yet were it best that you seem also not as one in haste, but as a man who strolls through the camp with a woman at his side."
"Aye." Croft nodded in understanding and slackened his stride. "Aye—Maia—yet lead me to her as quickly as you can."
Their course led them after a time into the depths of the gloomy forest, where the moons were blotted out or their light filtered in streaming tatters through the trees. And there Croft spoke again to his companion.
"I failed to understand when you put it into the mind of the guard to make way with my clothes."
Maia made a clicking sound suggestive of an almost impish amusement as she answered. "But—since I was to paint your body, Hupor, it was easier for me to bring the pigments wrapped inside them, when I slipped away from him after he had drunk wine into which I had dropped a substance to induce heavy slumber I had brought with me inside my girdle band. Indeed, we three appear now no more than as other children of Mazzer. My mistress, when we come upon her, will seem no other than myself."
"You mean you have stained her?"
"Aye, lord, from the roots of her golden hair to her graceful heels. For two suns, as I have told you, has it been needful for her to lie in the open while I made my way to the camp and performed my mission, and had any come upon her—"
She turned aside and swept back a screen of branches. She plunged through and came into a break in the forest close to the banks of a tiny stream across a little glade. And there she pursed her lips and sent quivering through the moonlight what seemed a nightbird's call.
It was answered. Maia repeated, and paused, and whistled again. Then touching Croft on the arm, she urged him forth from the shadow until he stood revealed in the rays of the Palosian moons.
And from the shadows beyond him another shape appeared. Croft saw, and advanced to meet it, and found it Naia, veiled as she stood before him from head to waist in the heavy cloud of her auburn-tinted hair.
And then she lay against him—her hands were clinging to him, her arms were holding him fast.
"Jason, beloved," she panted, "you are safe—uninjured, alive!"
"Yes—thanks to you, beloved, and to Maia," Croft replied, and kissed her.
"Thou"—Naia of Aphur flung up her head and turned to the girl of Mazzer—"thou who this night have brought me more than life or anything besides—thou shall never leave me—thou shall remain always with me—and with him. My children you shall cradle in your arms—and if love comes to you as to me and offspring, I swear it—to me they shall be as mine."
"My mistress," Maia faltered, bending her head before Naia.
"Nay—you are my sister," said Naia, smiling and took her by the hand. "Yet—I am forgetting. Not yet are we free from danger. Thrice today have men roamed through the forest while I hid me beneath the leaves. But thy huge bird waits to bear us high above them. Come, beloved, come."
For an hour after that, his arm about her, they hurried on. And then once more the moonlight filled all the bowl of a tree-ringed opening in the forest, and struck dull gleams from the copper body of the waiting airplane. Huge, impotent, in seeming, it squatted there, waiting their touch to wake it; its interlacing struts and trusses making a spider-webbed pattern in shadow on the ground.
Naia drew her ruddy tresses about her as they stepped into the forest meadow.
"Put on your flying garment now, beloved," she prompted, "while Maia and I find ours and put them on."
Five minutes later Croft lifted both women to their seats. Then as Maia took her place at the control, he seized the blades of the propeller and sent the engine round.
The plane swung with them like some monster bat beneath the skies. It turned. It rushed off under Naia's guiding, its vanes all silvered now like the top of the forest in the moonlight, bearing its burden of renewed life and love.
Far, far away on the plain where Croft had lain captive, still winked the light of fires. They came closer, closer, as the airplane ate through the trackless distance—were beneath it—were left behind.
Around, in a monster circle—a descending spiral. Once more around. Again and again in a vast, wide turning, sinking lower and lower down. The lights on the Bith were closer. Closer the fire-urns burned. Below was the wide-flung reach of the street along the river, and straight above it the airplane swung. The hum of the motor died, and the night wind sang in a sinking whisper past it. It slipped down a long hill of air and sped along the ground.
And as it stopped,
as Croft lifted Naia from her seat, from the entrance of Atla's palace there dashed a chariot drawn by gnuppas, their plumes tossing, bearing down on the plane with flying feet. Straight as though driven in a race, it approached and paused, with the gnuppas on their haunches. Robur of Aphur flung aside its silklike curtains and sprung down.
"By Zitu—and by Zitu, my friend—my brother—and thou, Naia, my cousin, thou chosen of all Zitu's children!" he cried, all poise or thought of dignity vanishing as he caught them in his arms.
They entered the carriage and reclined upon the padded cushions, the princess commanding Maia to take a place at her side. They were driven to the palace, and there Croft was led to a room. And there attendants labored until the last of the blue pigment vanished, and his skin merged from beneath it a most surprising pink from the necessary force they used. As for the ruddy scalplock, he had it shaved off as the simplest way of settling the matter regarding his hair. He was glowing, both literally and with the thoughts induced by the manner of his escape and return when Robur appeared.
Bidding the servants fetch his customary garments, leg-cases, tunic, helmet, and metal cuirass, he dismissed them and proceeded to clothe himself.
"Hai!" Robur eyed him. "As once before I remarked, thou art 'a sight.' And a sight thou art for more than the eyes of a maid, Jason, my friend. In Zitu's name, what chanced to the airplane that thy plans went wrong? In Atla there was well-night a panic when you failed of your return."
Croft explained, and Robur nodded.
"Aye, it was the same with the motors when they 'stalled,' and they knew not how to start them. And as you have explained to me, there is small time to work upon a motor in the air. My father, however, swore it was a judgment of Zitu against him for his stand of the past few Zitrans toward thee. Then came Zud and Lakkon with your message, and word that fresh men and weapons were assured to lighten his cares."
"And the dynamo, Rob?"
"Lies on a galley even now beside the quays," Robur replied. "What of it, Jason? You have a plan?"
"Yes." Croft nodded as he laid a hand on his sword. "A plan to show that its wires as well as light, may build a cordon about Atla's walls, to touch which shall mean death. Then let Mazzer's Zollarian-commanded horde attack."
"Aye—say you so." Robur gained his feet. "Two thousand riflemen are with me. Four times their number come from Bithra, and should arrive tomorrow. Nodhur and Milidhur will send us others. Also, there are the motors—twelve, all numbered—and the remaining airplanes, with men who know how to fly them to some extent. Aye, let Mazzer and her Zollarian leaders attack. But if you are ready, come. I was sent to bid you to a feast."
"A feast?" Croft eyed him sharply.
And Robur smiled. "Aye, Naia of Aphur acts hostess tonight to her lord."
Yet even so, Croft did not understand as he followed his friend to a small apartment where a table was spread, and found Medai of Bithur, Jadgor, Lakkon, Zud, and Naia, already reclining on the couches ranged about the board. Nor did he consider greatly, after he had gripped the hand of each man present and looked into old Zud's eyes with a glance of mutual understanding, and taken the place at Naia's side she indicated by a gesture of her hand.
She was in white—all save the golden fabric of her girdle where against the glistening background the seal of Azil blazed. Save only for that spot of color, white as the robe of a vestal, her garment showed. White even were the sandals and leg cases on her feet and tapering calves—of white leather as thin and soft as kid. White, too, were the stately plumes above her hair, once more a shimmer of gold. And her lips were scarlet as a poppy, and her eyes twin lakes of pansy purple, and softly pink, as the plush of innocence itself, her warm skin glowed.
Wherefore Croft was content to put by all consideration to eat; to drink of the wine before him with his lips, of Naia with his eyes; listen to the congratulations of the others stretched about the tables, while the harps of musicians hidden somewhere out of sight were softly played.
Nor did he dream that anything beyond the celebration of their safe return was toward, until old Zud, rising, signaled them to rise.
So that, all uncomprehending, he obeyed and rose, and giving Naia his hand, assisted her to her feet, and stood in silence waiting for the priest to speak; becoming aware as he did so that the others had also risen and were standing with their eyes on Naia and himself.
"Children of Zitu, I give ye to one another. May he send his blessings upon you, as I his priest give—mine."
So spake Zud of Zitra, high priest of all Tamarizia, than whose words was no higher priestly voice.
And Naia, reaching down, unpinned the seal of Azil, and placed the gleaming jewel in his palm.
"O Jason, Jason," she stayed his halting question, "think you not that in our case custom may be set aside? See you not that so I compelled Zud to promise—before I flew above Atla's walls to find you—that if we returned together, it should be so—tonight?"
And then Croft comprehended all the sweetness of her planning. And drew her into his arms and held her—held her until it seemed that all else faded away and there was naught in the world save their two selves.
"My bride," he said, "my—bride."
Chapter Eighteen
This is the story told me by the lips of the sorry wreck on the bed, the spirit that looked out of its eyes—Croft's spirit, as I have every reason to believe, since he so frankly admitted what he had done, and because every detail of the narrative itself showed complete familiarity with the events embraced in the story Croft in his own Earthly body had told me before.
"And that's all—or practically all—Murray," he said at last with a sigh and laid his cigar aside. "I've done a lot of things since then, and Tamarizia bids fair to develop into a very up-to-date nation. Only I needed information concerning a lot of things in regard to which I was lacking. It was to gain this information I reversed my first experiment in changing bodies. Will you help me to what I need?"
"I'll help you, of course," I told him, "but what about the Mazzerian invasion?"
He gave me a glance, and the light in his eye was quietly amused.
"Lord, man, I was forgetting. To me it seemed that the moment in which I knew Naia mine was the logical ending.
"Rob and I went to work the next day. We put about a thousand riflemen on the walls. And then we went outside and set up a lot of posts about twenty feet from the base of the walls. Ugh!—it was nasty work—with all those rotting corpses under foot. But we got them up while the riflemen kept the blue men back out of arrow range, and then we hitched one end of our wire to an armed motor and pulled it about the walls. In the meantime, however, we had to repulse an attack. On the second day Bandhor sent about ten thousand Mazzerians against our defenses, and we rolled them back considerably less in numbers than when they started, though I must say they fought like devils, and for a while it was pretty warm work.
"We had quite a time getting the wire strung, too, because they used to slip in and cut it down as night, so that finally, while I was rigging up a motor to run the dynamo and generate the current I meant to charge the wire, we gave it up. Then, when the motor was properly harnessed, we took a couple of cars and ran halfway around the walls each way between daylight and dark, and hooked the two ends up. And that night, you can take my word for it, the Mazzerians found trouble when they came up to undo our work. All you had to do was to stand on top of the wall and watch the flashes when those blue men hit the wire. Robur thought it was about the best piece of work I had accomplished yet.
"By that time, however, the eight thousand from Bithra had come up, and we began to get ready to stage our own attack. Murray, the present war was just started when I went to Palos first. But at the time I defeated Helmor, of Zollaria, these tanks I've been reading about in the papers the past few days hadn't been thought of, let alone used, on Earth. That's one instance in which Tamarizia beat this more advanced planet."
"It was a man of Earth who did it," I pointed out.
"Well—possibly, yes." Croft laughed.
"We sortied from Atla, with the motors in advance. Under a screen of rifle fire from the walls, we moved them out of the gates and placed them back of the wire, and filled them with men and grenades. And I picked two men Naia had trained in flying better than I could have done it myself. My wife is a born aviatrix—nothing less. She'll do things with a plane I daren't attempt, and she'd licked two of the hangar crowd into mighty decent shape. I took them, and we used three planes and about a ton of bombs. Naia wanted to go along, but I wouldn't let her, but I know she went up on the walls with Lakkon and watched.
"Rob led the motor squadron and I the planes. We gave Bandhor's army everything at once. Jadgor had charge of the foot forces. And when everything was ready the sortie began.
"The motors advanced straight over the wire in which the power was turned off. I took my planes over the walls from the concourse along the Bith, and hit the blue army first with a shower of bombs. I honestly think the sight of the planes themselves shook them as much as anything else.
"And, of course, Robur made contact with his armored cars before they had steadied themselves. They fought—oh, yes, they fought, but they were beaten from the first. They tried to stall the motors and overturn them as they had when Jadgor used them against their army first. But this time they didn't stall, or not for long at a time—and what of the enemy weren't shot by the men inside them either ran away or were crushed. One did get stuck in the timber, and was in a pretty bad way until Robur himself got to it and drove the Mazzerians about it off. On the whole, however, they did splendidly, and tore some awful gaps in Bandhor's line.
"The infantry, coming up to the attack behind them, finished the work. Inside thirty minutes there wasn't any real army before us so much as the fragments of an army fighting where they fought at all, in small, disorganized bands. Thousands ran away in bodies. Hundreds hid in the woods. The riflemen mopped them up in drives. In a surprisingly short time Rob broke clear through the line with three of the motors, and got out of the fringe of forest between Atla and that great plain where Bandhor had his tent. And as luck would have it, he was just in time. Bandhor was about the leave. Rob"—the eyes of the man on the bed twinkled—"suggested in a somewhat urgent fashion that he remain—and his sister with him. I mustn't forget Kalamita at the last. He stuck both of them into one of the motors under guard and sent them straight back inside Atla's walls, and after that, what with the planes above them and the two remaining motors—Rob's own and the other—the Mazzerian army met a warm reception when it streamed out of the forest upon that plain. The end came right there. Mazzer's organized force broke up. It quit cold and ran. For a week we were hazing them in small bands out of Bithur, but they never stiffened up enough to offer a real fight again."