by Anthology
Two days after the meeting in the mountains he sent Jadgor's galley to Scira, to await Koryphu's coming and returning to Himyra with the Cathurian aboard, deeming it best to take the man with him to Zitra to appear before Jadgor in person, that his own statements might be confirmed by Koryphu's words. Himself he determined to be present astrally in Berla, when Kalamita appeared before Helmore to make her report.
That her return empty handed was a bitter thing in her heart he was well aware. Watching her, Croft sensed that once more her brain was busy with its schemes.
Bandhor met her at the palace and escorted her into a small and sumptuously furnished room. Helmor of Zollaria sat there, his face contorted into an expression of displeasure. As Bandhor and his sister entered, he half rose, and Kalamita sank swiftly to her knees.
"Hail Helmor, emperor and lord," she faltered.
"Rise," said the Zollarian monarch. "Thy coming was expected. Bandhor informed me as you bade him, yet seemed unminded to further use his tongue. So, then, you appear before me alone?"
"Aye, Helmor." Kalamita lifted herself on shapely limbs and stood with downcast eyes. Suddenly she had adopted a meekness wholly out of keeping with her usual demeanor. "Helmor foresaw the outcome of my effort in his wisdom. All things fell out as he advised."
"The Mouthpiece came not to the meeting?"
"Nay. Perchance he lacked the courage on which I counted." Kalamita threw up her head. Her tawny eyes flashed for a single instant.
Helmor resumed his seat. His brows knit in a frown.
"I await thy story, sister of Bandhor," he said after a time.
Kalamita explained. Helmor's frown deepened as she proceeded with her story. Once and once only his expression denoted satisfaction, and that when the woman spoke of the airplanes flying above the mountains.
"It would seem then that he knows not the woman lies in Berla," he said, nodding. "It was so I planned. In so much is he deceived. Go on—finish the story."
"Nay," Kalamita resumed. "There is no more save that I stated the requirements of her ransom as it was agreed upon between us, and gave Koryphu her signet which I had taken from her finger, bidding him say to the Mouthpiece that she bade him yield, and that one of the flying devices falling, and the Tamarizian within it, being captured, though not before he had destroyed it, was slain by my orders before Koryphu's eyes."
"Slain?" repeated Helmor sharply. "Now, by Bel, were it wise to slay him, or didst let thy judgment be consumed by rage?"
"Perchance," Kalamita admitted, still adhering to her role of meeknesss. "Yet if so, the act was avenged and quickly, in that one of his fellows flew above my lodged and dropped a fire-ball, which, bursting, flew two in the number of my guard—and would have repeated the attack upon us, save that Koryphu himself bade the flag of Tamarizia be unfurled above his party, whereat the flier altered his course and disappeared.
"Helmor of Zollaria—blood has been shed by Tamarizia in this matter. Did not Helmor vow that such an act by the southern nation should give Bel the child of the Mouthpiece, a living sacrifice?"
"Aye, so Helmor promised," he returned slowly. "Yet meant he not the act of a man enraged by the death of his fellow—a minor instance—a matter of no consequence along the border. Sister of Bandhor, you appear over quick to destroy what were a safeguard as well as a price of advantage in Helmor's eyes."
Once more Kalamita lowered her face.
"There were no advantage to Helmor or the nation," she said slowly, "save by favor of the gods. If Kalamita err, be it upon her own head, yet thus far the matter had not gone overly to our liking—and were Bel's favor purchased…"
"Enough!" All at once Helmor roared. "Question not Bel's favor. Has he not placed these two wholly in our power? Is the way not paved for parley and negotiation? Think you the man who waits on the road out of Mazhur wil fail to receive an answer to our demands?"
"Nay," said Kalamita, "there will be an answer. Yet now is it in my heart to warn Helmor against permitting that these parleys—these discussions of our demands—be entered into over long."
"What mean you? Were time not needful when a matter of so great importance is to be arranged?"
"Aye—none may deny it." Kalamita granted the point without hesitation. "And I know not wherein lies the peril save that these be a crafty people, depending more upon their wits than on their strength, and that this Aphurian woman boasted to men aboard my galley that the one who devised these things, the secret of which we are demanding, might well devise a greater. Wherefore let Helmor be warned against protracting his parley to great length."
"A greater device?" he questioned. "Now, by Bel, what were it? Has he not brought his fire weapons, his fire chariots across the earth, his fire ships to swarm upon the water, his flying devices into the skies? Where else shall he turn for a new field to conquer? Earth, water, air—their mastery is his—and will remain his only unless Zollaria wrests it from him.
"These airplanes, as he calls them, are our greatest menace—and now they fly above the mountains, seeking her who lies safe inside Berla's walls. Nay, sister of Bandhor, thy work is finished—leave what remains to be accomplished in Helmor's hands, nor heed the words of a woman. Perchance she meant to raise up a fear thought to affright thee."
Kalamita stiffened.
"Kalamita is not easily affrighted," she made answer. "And being woman, may sense the meaning of a woman's words. Yet has Helmor spoken. May Kalamita retire now that her mission is ended, less happily than she wished, yet ended none the less?"
"Aye." Helmor inclined his head. "Ere the sun sinks I shall send to your palace a chariot filled with silver. Bandhor remain. I would speak with you briefly."
"Bel strengthen Helmor's mind." To Croft it seemed almost as though a hidden meaning lurked in the woman's words as she sank again to her knees, rose and passed from the room.
He followed. Let Bandhor and Helmor talk, plan, plot, devise. There lurked not the danger he feared, but rather in the brain of the woman now making her way toward the carriage across the palace court. Hence it was with no surprise as she entered her carriage that he heard her direct Gor to the Temple of Bel, before she reclined upon the cushions and drew a gasping breath.
And he followed close behind her as she reclined upon the cushions and drew to the pyramidal temple itself.
It was built of some dark-hued stone, in color nearly black, set down in the exact center of a mighty open space. Pillared it was on four sides, about a mighty central court, like a great rectangular funnel, the sides of which were corrugated with steps, leading down once more to the outer level of the mighty base. These steps could furnish a multitude with seats, as he saw at a glance. And in the center of the remaining level—huge—massive—smoke and fire darkened—horrible in its grinning visage, its pot-bellied furnace back of extended arms, the idol of Bel found place.
At the head of the inner steps on the side from which she had entered, Kalamita paused. So vast was the structure that standing so alone in her supple beauty, her figure became a pigmy thing, was suddenly dwarfed. Her arms rose above her head. She bent once, twice, thrice from the hips in salutation to the monstrous thing before her, turned and made her way among the pillars of the surrounding colonnade toward the end opposite that the idol faced.
It was built in, unlike the other three sides, and here Jason fancied as he followed, would be the quarters of the temple attendants and the priests.
Upon a door of silver, set in the ebon surface of the wall, Kalamita hammered with peremptory fist, and waited, until the portal was swung ajar by a heavy-muscled individual clad in no more than a leathern apron tied about his waist.
"Go," she directed, stepping past him. "Say to Ptah that the Princess of Adita desires speech with him at once."
"Aye, beautiful one."
The man saluted and hastened off along a passage, to return and beckon her after him mutely until he paused before a second silver door.
He struck upon it. A voice rumbl
ed from beyond it. The man set it open and Kalamita passed it into the presence of Bel's priest.
Huge he was, powerful, heavy muscled, thick of neck and nose and lip, with a knotted, shaven poll, gross, in seeming an unwieldy human beast, as dissimilar to the lithe beauty as day to night. Yet she spread her rosy, gem-banded arms and sank down with lowered eyes.
"Hail to Ptah, priest of the Mighty One," she spoke in salutation.
"Rise, Princess of Adita," said Ptah, his small eyes nearly lost behind the heavy lids lighting at sight of her kneeling figure. "What seeks the Lamp of Pleasure in the house of Ptah?"
"Counsel, O Wise One," Kalamita answered, rising, and went swiftly on to explain concerning her vow to Bel in regard to Naia of Aphur's child.
"So?" Ptah pursed his heavy lips at the end. "Helmor is headstrong nor listens as closely as his fathers to the voices of the gods. In this case hardly could even I defy him, Priestess of Joy."
"Not Bel's priest? Am I in this then to stand forsworn? And think you what may depend upon it. Does Bel take a promise lightly—and were his favor purchased…" Once more she paused.
Ptah frowned. Once more he pursed his lips, and then rising, he took up a metal hammer and struck with it upon a gong which Croft now perceived to be let into the substance of the door.
Casting the hammer aside he waited until the man with the leathern apron appeared. "Go," he commanded then; "fetch me a suckling tabur and the knife of augury from the hall of sacrifice where it is stored."
Returning to his seat he waited, his eyes never shifting from the shape of the woman before him until the man reappeared bearing the little creature he had named, and a massive knife of copper with a weighted blade.
Rising, he received both and held them until the attendant had disappeared.
"Oh, Bel—thou Strong Once—show us thy pleasure in the matter before the nation and in the case of Naia of Aphur's suckling. Speak to us through the life of this creature I, Ptah, am about to sacrifice to thee," his heavy voice rumbled.
Seizing the tabur by the hind legs, he poised the copper blade, and with once muscular sweep of his mighty arm, struck off his head, and laid the carcass down.
"Let me, O Ptah!" cried Kalamita, seizing the reeking knife from the hands of the priest and kneeling to slit open the quivering belly of the tabur, so that the entrails were exposed. Plunging her pink-nailed hands into the quivering mass, she wrenched them forth and spread them writhing on the bloodstained floor.
Ptah bent over them, marking the fall of them closely. The woman still knelt before him, watching his every change of expression out of questioning eyes, holding forth toward him, palm upward, her crimson-dripping hands. Ptah said nothing, and after a time he straightened and lifted his hands toward the ceiling, "Bel, I, Ptah, thy servant, hear thee," he intoned hoarsely.
"An augury—an augury!" Kalamita panted. "What says the Strong One?"
Ptah lowered his back-tilted head. "Naught but the child may prevail to save Zollaria in this matter. It lies with Helmor. Him must you persuade to give ear to Bel's decision."
"Or"—she bent toward him, laying her blood-dabbled hands against his mighty torso—"were the child brought into the temple—"
"Hah!" Ptah's eyes fired. "Bel himself has spoken to thee also, Priestess of Adita. Were the child within this temple none, not even Helmor, would have the power to regain him, and were Helmor to know a third defeat, one more pious might mount the throne."
For a moment there was silence, and then Kalamita said slowly, "An' he listens not to Bel's message, perchance the Strong One will show me a way to gain our ends."
Ptah nodded. "Perchance, Priestess."
A glance of understanding passed between them, and Kalamita moved toward the door.
Chapter XI
Kalamita and Ptah. Croft knew not wholly what they plotted, what plans might lie in their brains. Yet whatever they might intend, certain it was that the death of Jason, Son of Jason, was included in the plan. And that night as he labored in the laboratory he called Robur and Gaya to him and explained to their ready ears those things he had heard and seen.
At the end Gaya's soft eyes were wide with sympathetic sorrow, and Robur's square lower jaw was clamped hard. As Croft paused he broke into exclamation:
"Now, by Zitu, Ptah was right. Naught but the child of Jason can save his unclean nation indeed—and should harm come on him Zitemku will have a foul pit full of Zollarian souls."
"Aye, if he be harmed. But it were an empty revenge after all, my friend, and one which might not bring him again to my house."
Robur nodded. "What then does Jason propose? Many suns must pass ere we are ready to attempt the rescue, and meanwhile Kalamita plans."
"To warn Helmor of her planning."
"Warn him? In what fashion may Helmor be warned in time—even were he minded to give ear to any word out of Tamarizia? Jason, you speak in riddles."
Croft nodded. "Nay—Helmor would pay little heed to Tamarizian words, but were he to dream…"
"Dream…" All at once Gaya caught her breath. Her glance met Croft's in a subtle understanding. "Jason, thou meanest—thou canst induce a dream in his brain?"
"Aye." For the second time Croft nodded, well pleased at her intuitive understanding. "Why not? Gaya knows how in the spirit I called Naia of Aphur's spirit to me, before our marriage, and that nightly now we speak so together concerning our love and this present thing; also that I speak so to Zud of Zitra when the need arises, having taught him to answer the call of my spirit. Wherefore, may I not visit Helmor in the spiritual presence and by the same force inspire a vision of his and Zollaria's danger in his mind?"
"By Zitu!" Robur mumbled again.
But Gaya sat brooding the thought for a moment longer, presently lifting her head to murmur, "Three times. Let the dream be repeated once and yet again, Jason, until it takes possession of him wholly, nor is absent from his thoughts at any time."
Croft started slightly. He had only considered the one inspired dream of warning, but now, he realized swiftly the value of Gaya's words—the weight attached to the repetition of a dream. Her suggestion demanded acceptance. "Aye, Gaya," he assented. "Ga speaks through you to the benefit of child and mother. The dream shall be repeated three times, on as many nights—until Helmor is convinced of an agency behind it, even though the nature of that agency he fails to suspect."
Robur rose. His manner was restless. Suddenly he whirled around.
"You can do this thing?" he questioned. "Is naught forbidden to you, my friend? You can enter the mind of another and order the shape of the pictures in his brain?"
Jason eyed him for a moment before he answered. "Naught is forbidden to the seeker after knowledge, Rob, so he see not from evil purpose or for merely selfish gain. All life is a rhythm—even as the sound of the harp given off from a vibrating string. And if I alter the rhythm of Helmor's mind to the preserving of the life of my child, the honor of his mother, the estate of himself, and the lives of his people, were the action vain?"
"Nay, it were a work of justice and mercy," exclaimed Gaya before Robur found words in which to respond.
Croft lifted a tiny vial and held it toward both man and woman. "Behold!" he cried sharply. "Fix your eyes upon it."
Arrested by his sudden words and manner, they complied, and in an instant for them the room faded, gave place to another scene. A straw covered dungeon appeared—a dungeon with every detail of which Croft was familiar in his spirit—a woman, a blue girl of Mazzer—a child. Briefly Robur of Aphur and Gaya his wife beheld that picture and knew it for the room beneath Helmor's palace—and then the whole thing faded and once more they were gazing at a tiny vial in the Mouthpiece of Zitu's hands.
It was no more than an example of mass hypnotism as practiced for ages by the Hindu fakirs, a trick learned by Croft while still as a man of Earth he had lived and studied in India for several years, but to the two Tamarizians it was altogether strange.
"Zitu! Zitu!"
Robur gasped, while his wife sat staring no longer at the vial but into Jason's eyes.
"Think you that you have been to Berla?" he questioned, smiling slightly. "Nay, my good friends, the thing was but a changing of the rhythm of your minds into sympathy with mine; but a picture never absent from my thought, which I excited in your brains. Think you now that I may make Helmor behold a vision?"
"Aye." Robur's tone was thick. "Aye, Jason, thou man unlike any other."
"Aye, Helmor shall dream," Gaya echoed his assurance. She smiled, and her smile was strange.
Yet no more strange than the hour passed by Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, before he stretched his body on its couch of copper in the formulation of a dream—the careful marshaling of the various thought forms he meant of deliberate purpose to instill into Helmor's brain.
Only when their sequence was wholly to his satisfaction did he relax his body, his physical mind, will his astral form swiftly to Helmor's palace and into Helmor's room.
A vast apartment it was, draped in saffron hangings, lighted by small lamps to a dusky twilight, in which blue maids, slaves of the palace kept up a ceaseless waving of noiseless fans above the silver couch on which the emperor slept.
Unseen, unnoted any more than the trailing smoke of one of the low-burning lamps, he drifted to Helmor's luxurious bed and began hurling his thought force upon him, seeking thereby to awaken a sympathetic vibration inside his heavy head.
Over and over he drew the mental pictures he had formed, concentrating all his power on them—Helmor defeated in every purpose—Kalamita and Ptah as co-plotters—Helmor about to be dethroned—the child sacrificed to Bel—and Tamarizia resorting for vengeance to the sword—the Zollarian armies once more beaten into a bleeding rabble—fleeing—leaving their own defenseless monarch to face the future alone—Kalamita haughty and sneering—her mask of meekness cast aside—showing at last as the once by whom these things had been brought to pass.