by Anthology
"Aye—aye," came other voices.
Jadgor rose, his silver cuirass blazing. "Add to the message answer to Kalamita's foul threat, that if aught befalls Jason, Son of Jason—aye, or Naia, mother of Jason—ere parley is held on the matter, Tamarizia waits but the knowledge to unsheathe the sword."
"Aye—aye," again a storm of voices answered his suggestion.
"A vote—a vote!" someone began shouting.
"Let Tamarizia's message be strong."
In the end, once the turmoil exited by the Bithurian and Jadgor had in a measure subsided, a formal vote was taken, and Croft himself was empowered to draft the message entrusting it to one of the regular government couriers—men so employed for years and of trained endurance. Well satisfied, he went back to the palace, worked half the night in formulating it to his liking, interviewed the man who was to bear it and watched his galley sail out of Zitra and turn north at dawn.
And now Himyra and his work behind its red walls called him. He lost small time in answering its call. Once more his galley slipped forth from the massive sea-doors. Zitra sank into the Central Sea—or seemed to, slipping little by little beneath the sparkling waters with its shimmering milk-white walls.
Speed. He had used the word to Jadgor. And now he called upon the captain of the galley for it—speed to Himyra. And he promised himself speed on the task before him once he reached Aphur's ruddy city—such speed as never before, not even in the heat of his preparation against the Zollarian war, had he employed.
For three days he chafed against the surge and plunge of the galley, the slither of each passing wave, until after dawn on the morn of the fourth, the mouth of the Na was reached. Eight days had been consumed on the journey—eight days, and how much longer until he finished his work?
He had forbidden word of his coming preceding him to Robur's city. He wanted no trumpery of public welcomes, no ceremonials, however slight, to delay his purpose now. Almost before the galley had tied fast to the quays he left it, and threw himself into his task.
He gave himself wholly to it. He appeared unexpectedly that afternoon in the shops, the forges, learning that Robur had not been idle, with a mounting satisfaction, finally meeting Aphur's governor face to face on one of his stops.
"Zitu!" cried Robur. "I knew not of your returning. Is it your spirit come to mark my progress, Jason, my friend, or do I behold you in the flesh?"
"Both," Croft answered. "Spirit and flesh united on the work before us, Rob, at last."
"All is arranged?" Robur's eyes flashed with anticipation.
"Aye." Jason inclined his head. "There should be naught to distract from our labors from now until the end."
"The end—hai—the end," said Robur. "Together we shall bring it quickly, my friend."
Little by little each day the work advanced. The liquid fire was an accomplished fact. Trusted men—the best education in their line in Himyra were engaged now upon its production, its preparation for the final venture, as they filled it into the containing flasks.
The shapes of six blimps were slowly forming—huge, unwieldy-seeming bags constructed out of Croft's varnished cloth. Little by little the means of putting the plan of rescue into execution was taking concrete form at last.
Miles of rope and cordage were flowing out of the shops—were being woven into the harness by which the cars should be swung beneath the gigantic envelopes. Vast quantities of chemicals were being collected toward the production of unlimited cubic feet of hydrogen gas.
Through all the seeming chaos Jason moved, ordering, directing, with a fresh certainty of precision now, as something like a definite result to all the days and nights of labor showed.
With him went Robur, aiding and abetting in all ways toward the successful issue of the task. Gaya listened each night to a report of the progress made.
During the war with Mazzer, Croft had perfected a dry-cell battery to solve the ignition troubles of the armored moturs. Now with the liquid fire in the process of manufacture, he turned himself to the problem of constructing an electric flashlight, by which signals between the blimps could be exchanged.
Days passed. A Zitran had elapsed since his return from Zitra. At its end word came by wireless that Zollaria's answer had been received—that Helmor consented to the naming of a Zollarian delegate to discuss the terms of ransom—that a Tamarizian party would be formed and sent north to meet them, with instructions to protract the negotiations, turn the parleys between the Zollarians and themselves into a useless war of words.
Croft read the message and wirelessed back his ratification of it. He was very well pleased indeed. Let the matter be delayed yet another Zitran as it might without exciting undue suspicion, since it would take well-nigh half that time for the two delegations to be arranged and get together, and he felt he would be practically prepared.
Even now six monster bags were nearing completion in the huge sheds built by swarming workmen for their housing. The cars were ready for attaching, the moturs to be installed. That ceaseless driving of a double shift had crowded the work of two Zitrans into one so far as results were concerned. Satisfied with the word from Zitra, Croft flung himself into the last stages of his task with redoubled vigor. The envelopes were inflated and floated clear of the ground.
Workmen swarmed about them on spidery trestles and stages, harnessing each monster inside its network of securely knotted cordage, binding fast with each intricate twist and turning as it seemed to the man who ceaselessly watched them, so part of his desperate hope.
Motur-trucks brought from the ships of their fabrication the cages to be hung beneath each tensely floating shape. Men sweating at their labor, made them fast. The new moturs Croft had designed at first were assembled, delivered, and mounted. Propellers were set in place. Day by day the first dirigibles of Palos grew nearer to completion.
Robur was inseparable during those days from Croft. He viewed the monster devices with unbounded enthusiasm and amaze, vowing them the marvel of their age, repeating over and over again his own conception of the consternation they must cause in Zollarian minds when, without warning, they appeared and hung above Berla's walls. Gaya drove down at his solicitation on one occasion and gazed at the hugely bulking shapes out of widening brown eyes.
Word came again from Zitra that the Tamarizian delegation had gone north.
"Let them go," Croft cried to Robur. "Ere long shall Jason follow."
Came a day when the last rivet was driven home, the last nut screwed into place, when Croft distributed largess to the workmen and a vast roar of human voices filled all the places where his latest creation had been given birth. Croft stood with Robur and viewed them—the mighty engines for the deliverance of his hostages to fate. His heart leaped.
"With the sun," he said, turning to his companion, "let Himyra see them. We make a test."
"I and thou," Robur returned, flashing his even teeth.
Croft nodded. His hand crept out and closed on the other man's. "Aye, Rob, if you wish."
Robur's muscles gripped down upon his fingers. "And not only to the testing, friend of Aphur, but even to Berla itself."
"Berla." Croft loosened his hand to lay it on Robur's shoulder, looked into the son of Jadgor's eager face. "It is not in my heart, Rob, to refuse you anything in this."
Dawn came and Himyra gasped—gasped and stood with heads back-tilted, staring upward at a might oblong bag that swung in majestic fashion high above the walls. It hung there like a monstrous bubble, glinting as the rays of Sirius struck upon it—drifting slowly as it seemed before the winds of morning. And yet—even as they watched it, turning and moving against the wind in steady fashion—silently—without seeming reason, too high above the red, red city of Aphur for the ears of her people to sense how its moturs roared.
An hour before—under direction of Croft and Robur—it had been dragged slowly forth from its concealing shed. With filled tanks it engines waited the awakening touch of the engineers—men selected for th
is first attempt at dirigible navigation from the aviation personnel by Croft himself. A huge flask of the liquid fire, equipped with its spraying device, was attached to the carrier designed to hold it. When this was done Croft and Robur stepped aboard.
A hundred workmen—men who had labored to construct it—held the ropes that still controlled it, ready to release it at a word.
"Let go!" That word came in the Mouthpiece of Zitu's voice.
Two hundred hands relaxed their hold upon the ropes. The blimp soared toward the skies.
Himyra fell away beneath it, became a red gem on the yellow sand of the desert, the breast of Aphur, pierced by the thread of the Na like a sparkling, supporting chain. To the north and east the waters of the Central Sea showed as bright as burnished silver under the first rays of the sun.
Robur made no comment, said no word. He stood tight-lipped, gripping the rail of the platform on which they rode with tensely muscled hands. Croft ordered the engines started—and even so there was no feeling that the mighty fabric moved. Rather it seemed stationary, the only solid thing in all existence, while Palos and all it held dropped away from beneath it, until Himyra's palaces and shops and houses became things no larger than the toys of children, her people, pigmies moving antlike on her streets.
Croft pointed beyond the walls.
"The desert," he said and watched while the blimp answered to the manipulation of her engines—her rudder and vanes. "It is in my mind to try first the liquid fire upon its scanty vegetation, where it can do small harm."
And after that he waited until they flew above a comparatively level tract of country, covered by a low-growing shrub that throve on scanty moisture, before he stationed himself at the spraying device and opened the valve of the flask.
Far below, the scrub blossomed suddenly into tiny points of color like swiftly opening flowers—that grew, expanded, ran together in patches and lines of quivering light, until the whole mass of vegetation vanished, blotted out beneath a leaping sea of flame. A moment before it had lain there unchanged, as it and the desert had lain practically unchanged for years, and now it was a seething, smoking, blazing thing, sinking down in a red destruction unloosed upon it from the skies.
Croft closed the tank. "Back to Himyra," he cried and turned a set face to Robur, to find his features pale and rigid.
"It is finished, Rob," he said, speaking in a voice that quivered tensely. "As soon as the fliers are trained we go north."
Chapter XIV
That day he entered his motur once the blimp had landed, drove to the airplane hangars, and called for volunteers to man the other five ships.
Returning with the men selected he personally tested each blimp, rising, maneuvering and returning before a constantly growing crowd, which in the end required the use of a detachment of the Himyran guard for its restraining.
Himyra was seething with an exciting augmented with the ascent of each mighty glistening bag. A jostling throng pressed like an impenetrable wall about the sheds, as each new monster was towed out by its straining attendants, was manned by its waiting crew, and rose. They watched and pointed, gesticulated, and cheered.
"Hail to the Mouthpiece of Zitu!" they roared whenever Croft appeared.
That night, eagerness possessed him when he sought his chamber and laid himself down—an eagerness that had possessed him through the length of the day—an eagerness to visit Naia and tell her that the thing was done.
He closed his eyes and released the bond of his spirit. North and north he fled to Berla, and to Helmor's palace and the room beneath it—to stand gazing with eager eyes on Naia of Aphur's form.
Pale as death she hat there, waiting, waiting, as she had waited so long, and she was speaking. "Jason—Jason." Over and over she was repeating the word to his son.
"Ja-son—" the baby lips repeated with a scanning effort. And Naia of Aphur smiled and gathered him into her arms.
Jason—with a full heart Croft understood that she was teaching the child the name of his father—that this word was one of the first his tongue had known.
"Beloved—O my beloved!" he sent their meeting call to her.
She stiffened, threw up her head, and turned to Maia.
"Come, take the child, thou faithful one," she directed—waited until the blue girl had complied and stretched her form on the couch, ere she answered his summons, releasing her astral body to steal into Croft's waiting arms.
For a moment he simply held her, and then he told her. "Beloved—the time approaches. The thing is done."
"Done?" she faltered.
"Aye, finished wholly," Jason said, and felt her quiver—sensed the fires of her astral being quicken—found the form he held suddenly glowing.
"Now Zitu be praised." In all her slender length she pressed suddenly closer to him. "Draws then so near the day?"
"Aye, by Zitu," he declared.
"I know not the meaning of it," Naia said, "but Maia lies daily on the straw within the door of our chamber—and she had heard mutterings now and then among the guard. Thy mention of Bandhor recalls it. Kalamita's brother has come among them within the last few suns, if one may credit their speech among themselves."
"Bandhor? To what purpose?"
"Nay, I know not. Maia but heard mention of his presence—some word concerning Helmor's signet."
"His signet? Hai!" Croft found himself suddenly shaken. "Now may Zitemku seize that woman, and Adita turn her favor from her!"
"Thou meanest—Kalamita?" And now Naia clung against him, not in womanly yearning, but with the quick fear of a mother. "Jason…"
"Aye," he said tensely, "have you forgotten how she forced thy own ring from thee—or the foul thing she planned, save Helmor had overruled her? Now Zitu be thanked you have spoken of this in time since, in my own way, those things she plans may be learned, and Helmor warned. Farewell, thou mate of Jason. He goes to learn what they plan."
Once more, then, it behooved him to bring himself into contact with the woman Kalamita. He willed himself toward her, passed swiftly to Bandhor's palace and failed to find any sign; paused, baffled for a time before he recalled the scene he had witnessed between her and Ptah, Bel's priest, in the latter's quarters in the temple. Then, where better if she were plotting against Helmor, he asked himself, than in that ebon-walled room.
Swiftly he sought it, and there he found her—and not only her, but Bandhor, Ptah, and another, a heretofore unknown man.
The four were seated around Ptah's table, where flaring oil-lamps partly dispelled the gloom, pricking out the intent masks of the several faces, causing iridescent flashes of light from the jeweled bands that circled Kalamita's arms, and broidered her garment's hem.
"It is to thee, Panthor," she declared, eying the third masculine member of the party. "It is for thee to say whether thy cousin shall hold Zollaria's throne. Twice have his plans to humble Tamarizia failed, his efforts proved vain. Think not but the people say Helmor has no more Bel's favor—wherefore Zollaria is no longer strong. So then—a quick stroke and the thing is done."
"Aye—a quick stroke." Panthor nodded. He was heavy-set, not unlike Helmor, his cousin, in a way, with full lips of a sensual turn and closely cut hair, the stubble of which was blond. "But—regarding this child. I question not the sincerity of Kalamita, yet were it slain—even to gain Bel's favor, which none more than I admit is needful, would not Tamarizia, according to her own words, descend upon us with superior weapons and bring defeat to our armies again?"
"By Bel, has then Panthor so little faith in his favor?" Ptah exclaimed.
"Peace." Kalamita's red lips curled. "Your question is a man's question, Panthor, and the question not of a man's heart, but his brain. Think you Tamarizia means all she says—or speaks to gain her ends? This Mouthpiece is a man—and Naia of Aphur is a woman—and though a child be slain, still is she a woman and the mate of Jason, and he has twice defeated Helmor's plans to gain. Think you the child's death would change the heart of Tamarizia's stro
ng man, or that he would carry his threat far—were she kept safe from harm to be surrendered once more to his arms?"
"Nay, by Bel!" roared Bandor, striking the table. "My sister has struck the mark in her words—with Bel's favor purchased—her oath redeemed and the woman still on our possession, Tamarizia may well balk a resort to arms. It remains then to get the child in our hands."
"My hands," said Ptah.
Bandhor nodded. "Aye, into they hands, Priest of the Strong One—and there is a way in which it may be done. Let Helmor's signet be presented to the captain of the guard now placed upon him, and our ends are gained."
Kalamita leaned half across the table toward Panthor.
"Thou knowest the device on Helmor's ring?"
"Aye," said Panthor slowly.
"And thou knowest some worker of stones?"
"Aye, Priestess of Adita."
"Then let Panthor see Helmor's sign cut on a stone," Kalamita rose. "And let him place it in Bandhor's hand when it is done. Ptah, build you the fires—let them be ready for the torch at the appointed time. Kalamita's oath to the Strong One shall be redeemed. How long, Pathor, before thy part shall be done?"
"Ten suns, perchance twelve," said Panthor, he and Bandhor also rising.
"See to it." Kalamita turned to leave the room. Ptah moved his heavy body to set the door open before her, and Bandhor joined her. They passed out and were gone.
Ptah turned back. "Hail emperor, favorite of Bel," he said, bending his heavy neck to incline his head to Panthor.
Panthor's expression changed. He drew himself up to his fullest height. Already he seemed to sense the weight of authority upon him as he answered. "By Bel—O Ptah—thou and I together once Helmor sits no more upon the throne."
Chapter XV
Ten days, at most twelve, before Helmor's spurious sign should be cut on a lying stone. And then one would bear it down to that dungeon where Naia waited a promised rescue, and with it as authority, demand the child. And after that. Croft sickened as he left Ptah's chamber—sickened and the thought of what might have happened save for Naia's listening ear as she lay on the straw inside the door of the dungeon—Naia's mention of the words the blue girl had overheard to him.