Croft, in his earth life, had never looked on a woman with the longing such as is apt to possess the average healthy male at times. But in his studies of the occult he had more than once come in contact with the doctrine of twin souls—that theory that in the beginning the spirit is dual, and that projecting into material existence the dual entity separates into two halves, a male and a female, and so exists forever until the two halves meet once more and unite.
Sometimes because he had never found a woman to appeal to him as he wished a woman to appeal, he had been half inclined to doubt. But this morning on Palos he no longer doubted. He believed. More than that he knew now why no earth woman had ever reached to the center of his being with her soft attraction. He knew now why the Dog Star had always drawn him during his student days. That longing to span the miles between Sirius and earth was explained. It was because in the economy of the Infinite it had been seen fit, God alone knew why, to send his half of their original spirit to earth, and his female counterpart to this life on another sphere.
This beautiful girl was his twin. He knew her. He had found her. A wonderful elation filled his conscious soul as he sat feasting his eyes upon her every graceful line and feature. But suddenly his contemplation was followed by the bitterest despair.
He had found her, yes; but to what avail? The mere fact that he saw her now and was unseen by either her or her father, as he judged the man with whom she rode to be, was proof that his finding her was in vain. She was a living, breathing woman, every cell of whose glowing body sent a subtle call to his spirit, such as only the true mate can send to its absolute complement.
He felt love, a sense of protection, a desire for possession, spiritual uplift, and physical passion all in a breath. He felt a mad urge to cast himself at her side, there on the padded cushion, and gather her lovely form to his heart close within his arms. And he knew himself but a spirit—invisible to her—imperceptible to her—realized that should he follow his impulse she would not know—or should she know even faintly would not understand.
Croft knew himself but a sublimated shape, and nothing more, and it was then he went down into the deepest depths of a mental hell of despair. The torture of Tantalus was his. He could see her, sense her youth, her beauty, her sweetness, every charm which was hers; experience every potent wave of her appeal, yet he could not reveal his presence or make known his response to her spirit-call. Could he have done so he would have groaned in a crushing anguish too great to be endured. Yet even that expression was denied.
The stopping of the gnuppas, as he was to learn the half horse, half deerlike steers were called, brought him back from his introspection after a time. He could hear the driver shouting, and now quite oddly, these people being human, and thoughts being more or less akin to all thinking minds, he found he could understand the intent, even though the words were strange.
"Way! Way for Prince Lakkon, Counselor to the King of Aphur!"
On the words the girl opened her lips. "There is a wonderful press of travelers this morning, my father."
Croft gloried in the soft, full tones of her voice, even before Prince Lakkon made answer. "Aye, the highway is like to a swarm of insects, Naia, my child."
Naia! The sound was music in Croft's ears. He whispered it over and over to himself as the carriage once more advanced through the throngs of market people, carters, freighters, past a caravan of heavily loaded Sarpelcas outward bound. Naia. The word fitted her—seemed oddly appropriate—was music in his ears. Naia, Naia—the other part of his soul. The word beat upon his senses through the shuffle of passing feet.
"I shall tell Chythron to drive directly to our home," Prince Lakkon said.
"You will go on to confer with Uncle Jadgor from there?"
"Aye. You will have most of the day to set the servants about the preparations for the coming of Prince Kyphallos. Spare no expense, Naia, in those preparations. Report hath it he is a hard young man to please."
"Such reports as I have heard would not confirm yours, my father," Naia retorted with a contemptuous curl of her crimson lips. "What has come to my ears would prove him no better than a beast, far too easy to please, indeed."
Prince Lakkon shook his head. "Child!" he chided in sibilant fashion. "You must not speak such words of a Prince of Tamarizia, Naia."
But the maid replied more calmly: "I speak not of him as a Prince of Tamarizia, but as a man and his attitude toward women."
Croft was rather surprised to see Lakkon frown at his daughter's speech. He himself applauded her attitude toward a man he judged must be a profligate of national reputation. He set the man's facial grimace down to mere distaste for hearing any one of royal blood disrated, and as the prince made no reply, sat waiting what might happen next and watching Naia where she reclined.
"What brings him to Himyra?" she questioned at length.
"He comes on matters of state." Prince Lakkon's reply was almost rudely sharp and short. As he ended his answer he sighed and lifted himself to a cross-legged seat. "Ah, here we are at the gate. Naia, there is nothing finer in all Tamarizia than this. No, not even in Zitra itself."
Whether he uttered the exact truth or not Croft did not then know, but as he gazed from the coach between the curtains of fluttering purple he was inclined to agree.
They had come to a place outside the walls—those monster walls Croft had seen hours ago, shining a dull deep red in the morning sun. Now close by, they towered above him in their mighty mass—still red—a deep, ruddy red with an odd effect of a glaze on the surface of what he could now perceive was some sort of artificial building block laid in cement. So far as he could judge, the wall rose a good hundred feet above the road and stretched away on either side, strengthened and guarded every so far by a jutting tower as far as his eye could reach.
Where they now stood the road came down to the bank of the river on a wide-built approach made of stone masonry laid in cement, protected on the shoreline by a wall or rail, fully six feet wide across its top, which was provided every so far with huge stone urns, blackened about their upper edges as though from fire. Croft recognized their purpose as that of flaming beacons to light the wide stone esplanade before the gate at night.
Beyond the wall was the river—a vast yellow flood, moving slowly along. It was at least a half-mile wide where it met the wall. And the wall crossed it on a series of arches, leaving free way for the boats Croft now saw upon the yellow water, equipped with sails and masts, making slow advance against the current, or driven perhaps by their crews at long sweeplike oars. He noted that each arch was guarded by what seemed gates of metal lattice, and that drawn up above each was a huge metal door which could be let down in case of need to present an unbroken outward front above the surface of the flood.
It was a wonderful sight, river, wall, and wide-paved approach as the gnuppas drew the carriage swiftly toward the gates. Then it all vanished. Croft caught sight of two men dressed something like ancient Roman soldiers, huge, powerful fellows, with metal cuirass, spear and shield, barelegged half up their thighs where a short skirt extended, their shins covered by metal greaves, their heads inside metal casques from the top of which sprouted a tuft of wine-red plumes.
They stood beside the leaves of two huge doors, fashioned from copper, as it seemed to Croft, things solidly molded, carved, graved, and embossed in an intricate design. These doors were open and the carriage darted through, entering a shadowy tunnel in the wall itself.
It was high, wide, and deep, the latter dimension giving the actual width of the wall itself. Croft judged it to be nearly as wide as tall. Then it was passed, and he found himself gazing upon such a scene as had never met mortal eyes perhaps since the days of Babylon.
The great river flowed straight before him for a distance so great that the farther wall was lost in a shimmering haze of heat. It flowed between solid walls of stone, cut and fitted to perfect jointure. From the lowest quay the banks sloped back in gentle terraces, green with grass and studded with trees and blooming masses of flowers and shrubs.
Huge stairways and gradually sloping roadways ran from terrace to terrace, down the river's course. And back of the terraced banks there stretched off and away the splendid piles of house after house, huge, massive, each a palace in itself, until beyond them, seemingly halfway down the wonderful river gardens, there loomed a structure greater, vaster, more wide flung than any of the rest. In the light of the risen sun it shone an almost blinding white. To Croft at that distance it appeared built of an absolutely spotless stone.
As for the other houses, surely as he felt the abodes of the nobles and the rich, they were constructed mainly of red sandstone, red granites and marbles, although here and there was one which glowed white through the surrounding trees, or perhaps a combination of red and white both. Yet, aside from the monster structure in the distance, the majority were red. Indeed, he was to come to know later that the word Himyra meant red in the literal sense; that in the Palosian tongue this was the "red city," just as he was to learn also that the name of the mighty river was Na, because of its yellow colored flood.
But this morning he knew none of that as he gazed down the terraced vista, bathed in the rays of Sirius, now rapidly mounting the sky.
And there was much to see. Across from the vast white building, on the other side of the river Na, he beheld a pyramid. He could call it nothing else in his earthly mind. It, too, was huge, vast—a monster red pile, rising high above all other buildings in the city, until near the top was a final terrace or story of blinding white, capped with a finishing band of red; the whole thing supporting a pure white structure, pillared and porticoed like a temple on its truncated top. Even in the distance it was a monster thing. How large he could not tell. Later he was to know it was two thousand feet square at the base, and three hundred feet in its rise above its foundation, ere the temple of Zitu was reached.
But then it struck him merely as vast. Indeed, the whole vista so impressed him, with its palaces, its mighty river, its terraces and parks, and the great white structure toward which they were rapidly dashing along a road before the massive dwellings each surrounded by its own private park. Far, far ahead he caught the dim outline of the farther city wall. He began to feel somewhat like Gulliver in the land of Brobdingnag save that the city life which he had seen was little larger than that of its kind on earth.
And now between the great white palace and the pyramid a bridge grew into being before his eyes. While he watched span after span swung into place to form the whole. Already he had noted a series of masonry pillars in the stream, but had not comprehended what they meant. Closer examination was to teach him that each supported a metal span, mounted on rollers and worked by the tug of the current itself through a series of bucketlike bits of apparatus, which dragged the sections open or drew them shut; also that at night the sections were opened to permit free passage to boats.
The things like the terraces and the roads showed a good knowledge of engineering as a characteristic of the Palosian peoples. But from the fact that the terraces and the river embankment were studded at intervals with more of the stone fire-urns, Croft decided that they were unacquainted with the use of electricity in any form. Nor did they seem to be possessed of a practical knowledge of the various applications of steam.
None of the boats on the river, of which there were many, some plainly pleasure craft equipped with parti-colored sails and others as plainly freight and commercial barges, but were propelled by sail and oar. Nor was the traffic of the streets other than by foot, or by equipages drawn by gnuppas, such as Prince Lakkon's driver was guiding down the well-paved street.
In fact, the more Croft saw of the city of Himyra, the more did he become convinced that civilization on Palos had risen little above the stage which had marked the Assyrian and Babylonian states on earth in their day.
Prince Lakkon spoke now to Chythron a word of direction and turned to his daughter again. "I shall be with Jadgor the greater part of the day. You, Naia, as head of my household, must see to these preparations, since as counselor to the king I must show a noble from Cathur what courtesy I may, in an official capacity at least. Aphur and Cathur guard the highway to all outer nations. Those who would carry goods must pass through the gate and so up the Na even to the region of Mazzer. Cathur is a mighty state."
"As is Ahpur, which holds the mouth of the Na," the girl returned.
"Aye. Together with Nodhur, whose interests are Aphur's interests, the three could place your Uncle Jadgor on the imperial throne when the term of the Emperor Tamhys shall expire."
Croft pricked his ears, even as he saw a quickened interest wake in Naia's face. Plainly Lakkon spoke of various states of the country, and it was evident that the girl understood the full import of her father's words. "Only Bithur would be against him," she said.
"Hardly all of Bithur. It lies too close to the lost state of Mazhur for that," Lakkon replied. "There were seven states in the Tamarizian Empire, as you know, before the war with the Zollarians took one and gave Zollaria their first seaport on the central ocean, through our loss." His face darkened as he spoke. "Small good it did them, however, since there is still the Na, and our other rivers to which they pay toll, if they wish to sail to Mazzer or the other barbarian tribes. And as long as Cathur and Aphur guard the gate small good will it do them. Zitemque take them and all their spawn!"
"As long as Cathur holds!" Naia exclaimed.
Lakkon nodded. "Aye. Cathur stands cut off from the rest of Tamarizia, as you know, by Mazhur's fall. Jadgor would see to it that Cathur still stands despite that fact or Zollaria's plans, if she has them, as some of us fear. Tamhys is a man of peace. So am I if I may be and Zitu sends it; yet will I fight for my own."
"And Kyphallos comes in regard to this—this—alliance?"
Prince Lakkon nodded. "Aye. List you, Naia. Order Bazka to send runners to the hills to bring back snows on the eighth day from this. Kyphallos likes his wines cooled, and will drink no other. In our own place I have given orders for all fruits and fish and fowls to be made ready at the appointed time. See to it that the house is decked for his coming—that all things are made clean and fit for inspection. As for yourself, you must have a new robe. Spare no expense, my child, spare no expense."
Naia's eyes lighted as he paused. "I should desire it of gold broidered in purple," she flashed back, smiling; "with purple sandals wrought with gold."
And suddenly as the carriage turned into a broad approach leading from the main street to a huge red palace, Lakkon laughingly remarked:
"Have what you will, so long as it becomes thy beauty. Well are you called Naia—maid of gold."
The carriage paused before the double leaves of a molded copper door. Chythron reached out and, seizing a cord which hung down from an arm at one side, tugged sharply upon it to sound a deep-toned gong, which boomed faintly within.
Hardly had the sound died than the two leaves rolled back, sinking into sockets in the walls of the building itself, to reveal a vast interior to the eye, and in the immediate foreground the figure of a man who gave Croft a start of surprise.
He was nude as Adam, save for a narrow cord about the loins, supporting a broad phallary of purple leather. And he was blue! From his shaven scalp which supported a single stiff upstanding tuft of ruddy hair throughout his entire superbly supple length he was blue. And the color was natural to his skin. At first Jason had thought him painted, until a closer glance had proved his mistake. Aside from his surprising complexion he seemed human enough, with dark eyes, high molar prominences, and a strongly bridged nose. He was indeed not unlike an American Indian, Croft thought, or perhaps a Tartar. He remembered now that in times long past the Tartars had worn scalp locks, too.
The blue man bowed from the hips, straightened, and stood waiting.
Lakkon sprang from the coach and assisted Naia to alight.
"Bazka," he spoke in command, "your mistress returns. Give ear to her words and do those things she says until I come again."
He sprang back into the coach, and Chythron swung the equipage about. He cried aloud to the gnuppas, and they dashed away, back toward the road along the Na. Croft found himself standing before the open door of Prince Lakkon's city palace with Naia and the strange blue man.
"Call thy fellow servants," the Palosian princess directed as she passed inside and Bazka closed the doors by means of a golden lever affixed to the inner wall. "I shall see them here and issue my commands."
She walked with the grace of limbs unrestrained toward the center of the wonderful hall.
For wonderful it was. At first Croft had thought it paved, in part at least, with glass of a faultless grade. But as he passed by Naia's side toward the center of the half room, half court in which flowers and shrubs and even small trees grew in beds between the pavement, he saw it was in reality some sort of transparent, colorless crystal, cut and set into an intricate design.
Yet that the Palosians made glass he soon found proof. Casting his eyes aloft, he saw the metal framework of an enclosing roof arching the court above his head. Plainly it was thrown across the width of the court to support shutters made of glass of several colors, some of them in place, others removed or laid back to leave the court open to the air.
The court itself was two stories high, and from either end rose a staircase of some substance like a lemon-yellow onyx, save that it seemed devoid of any mottling of veins. These stairs mounted to the upper gallery, supported above the central grand apartment on a series of pure white pillars, between which gleamed the exquisite forms of sculptured figures and groups.
There was also a group done in some stone of a translucent white, at the foot of each great stair. One, Croft noted, depicted a man and a woman locked in each other's arms. The other showed a winged figure, binding up the broken pinion of a bird. "Love" and "Mercy" he thought. If this were a sample of the ideal of this people, they must be a nation worth while.
So much he saw, and then Naia seated herself on a chair of a wine-red wood, set beside a hedge of some unknown vegetation which enclosed a splendid central space of the crystal floor.
Bazka had disappeared, but now came the sound of voices, and the servants appeared, emerging from a passage beneath one of the stairs. There were several members of both sexes in the group, and, like Bazka himself, one and all wore no more than a purple apron about the thighs. Croft was to learn in the end that the Palosians wore clothing more as a protection against the elements than for any desire to conceal the form; and with that fact he was to find them a highly moral people none the less.
Now, though their apparel, or lack of it, was something of a shock to his sense of conventions, as the men and women of the blue tribe advanced to greet their mistress in her chair, and listen to those directions she gave, he found himself wondering if they were slaves. Indeed he so regarded them until he knew more of the planet to which he had come. Then he knew slavery no longer existed among the Tamarizians, and that the blue men and women were the children of former slaves captured in wars, but now freed, given the rights of citizenship and paid by those whom they served.
In the end Naia turned to one of the women and ordered her to go to a cloth merchant and bid him attend her at once, with fabrics from which to choose her gown. That done, she dismissed each to his or her task, rose, and moved down the court. Croft followed as she went, mounted one of the yellow stairs, and came out on the upper balcony, down which she passed over an inlaid floor, beside walls frescoed with what he took to be scenes of Palosian history and social life.
She paused at a door fashioned from the wine-red wood, set it open, and entered an apartment plainly her own. Its walls were faced with the same yellow stone used in the stairs. Purple draperies broke the color here and there. Purple curtains hung beside two windows which she set open, turning the casings on hinges, to let in the air. In the center of the floor, which was covered with woven rugs and the skins of various beasts, was a circular metal basin holding water in a shallow pool. On one side was a pedestal of gold supporting a pure white miniature of a winged male figure, poised on toes as if about to take flight.
Beside the pool Naia paused as she turned from opening the window. Her figure was reflected from the motionless surface. Croft recognized it as a mirror in purpose, similar in all respects to those the ancient Phoenicians used. For a time she stood gazing at the image of her figure, then turned away to a chest, made of the wine-red wood, heavily bound with burnished copper bands.
Beside the chest, the room held several chairs and stools, and a molded copper couch covered with rich draperies.
Naia rummaged in the chest while Croft watched. She rose and turned with a garment in her hands. Gossamer it was, fine, soft, sheer, a cobweb of texture as she shook it out. It shimmered with an indefinable play of colors, transparent as gauze. She lifted a hand and unfastened the gown she wore from the heavy shoulder boss that held it in place.
Taken wholly by surprise, Croft caught one glimpse of a glowing, pliant figure, cinctured just above the hips by a golden girdle. Then, realizing that the maiden believed herself utterly alone, he turned to the open window and incontinently fled.
Light as a thistle-down in his sublimated self he emerged into the full Palosian day. Yet he quivered in his soul as with a chill. Naia of Aphur, Princess of the Tamarizian nation, was a woman to stir the soul of any man. And she was his—his! The thought blurred his senses as he rushed forth. His? A second thought gave him pause. His indeed, yet no more his now than always since their dual spirit had projected into the material world and had been lost each to the other how many eons ago? His—found now at last, yet unclaimable still! Unclaimable!
The thought was madness. Croft put it away—or tried. To distract himself he wandered over the city of Himyra stretched red in the Sirian ray. And as before he knew it vast. From the river it stretched in its red and white collection of walls both ways. He visited each part, finding it poorer and poorer as he wandered from the river to the walls until inside them, at all parts, save where the main avenue by the river reached the two principal gates, he found the poorest classes of the people dwelling in huts of yellow-red brick.
Yet Himyra was a wonderful place. Croft visited the quays along the Na, farthest from the gate, where he had entered with Prince Lakkon and his daughter hours before. They swarmed with life, were lined with boats, built principally of wood, though some were mere skin-covered coracles, more than anything else. They lay by the stone loading platforms, taking on or discharging the commerce of the Palosian world. Men, white and blue, swarmed about them, tugging, sweating, straining at their tasks, speaking a variety of tongues.
From the loading platforms on the lower levels tunnels ran up beneath the terraces on the surface to reach the warehouses above where the goods were stored. Within them, moving in metal-grooves braced to an equal width by cross-bars fixed to the floors, small flat-topped cars were drawn by whipcord-muscled creatures like giant dogs.
Croft followed one such team to a warehouse and watched the storing of the load by a series of blue-skinned porters, under the captaincy of a white Aphurian who marked each package and bale with a symbol before it was carried away. This captain wore a tunic, metalwork cases on his calves and sandals and a belt, from which depended a short, broad-bladed sword. He had seen his counterpart on the quays as well and was satisfied that Himyra had a very efficient system of officers of the port.
From the warehouse he went toward an adjacent section, evidently the retail mart of the town. Here were shops of every conceivable nature open in front like those of some Oriental bazaar. At this hour of the day business was brisk. More than one Palosian lady had come in a gnuppa-drawn conveyance to see and choose her purchases for herself. A steady current of life, motion and speech, ran through the section. Blue attendants, male or female, as the chance fell out, walked with these matrons of Palos, shielding their heads from the sun with parasols woven of feathers, held above them on long handles, while they examined, selected, and bought. Porters brought baskets of fruit and flowers, bolts of cloth, strings of jewels to the metal-built carriages behind returning women, and bowed their patrons away.
Suddenly the sound of a vast, mellow gong, a series of gongs, like an old-time carillon rang out. The bustle of the market stopped. As by one accord the people turned toward the vast pyramid beyond the river and stood standing, gazing toward it.
It came over Croft that it was here the great chime had sounded—that this midday cessation in the activities of life had something to do with the religion of the nation. Driven by his will, he reached the great structure where the topmost temple shone, dazzling in the noontime light. He found himself on the vast level top of the pyramid itself. Before him was the temple supported on a base, its doors reached by a flight of stairs. It was pillared with monster monoliths, crowned by huge capitals which supported the porticoed roof.
A sound as of chanting came from within. Croft mounted the stairs and passed the doors and paused before the beauty of what he saw.
The temple was roofed with massive slabs of stone save in the exact center, where an opening was left. Through that aperture the light of the midday sun was falling to bathe a wonderful figure in its rays.
The face of the statue was divine—the face of a man, superbly strong, broad-browed, and with purity and strength writ in its every line. The head and face were wrought in purest white as were the bared left shoulder and arm. Below that the figure was portrayed as clad in gold, which was also the material used in modeling the staff crowned by a loop and cross-bar, grasped by the hand of the extended left arm. The man was portrayed as seated on a massive throne. Now as the sun's rays struck full upon it, it seemed that the strong face glowed with an inward fire.
On either side of the statue stood a living man, shaven of head, wearing long white robes which extended to their feet. Each held in his hand a miniature replica of the stave held by the statue—a staff crowned by a golden cross-bar and loop.
Croft started. This was thecrux ansataof the ancient Egyptians in all outward form—the symbol of life everlasting, of man's immortality. And he found it here on Palos on the top of a pyramid.
The chant he had heard was growing louder. It held a feminine timbre to his ears. At the rear of the temple a curtain swept aside seemingly of its own volition and a procession appeared. It was formed of young girls—their hair garlanded with flowers, each carrying a flaming blossom in her hand. They advanced, singing as they came, to form a kneeling circle in front of the monster statue on its throne.
They were clad in purest white, unadorned from their rosy shoulders to their dimpled knees save for a cincture of golden tissue which ran about the neck, down between the breasts, back about the body, and around to fasten in front like a sash with pendent ends, which hung in a golden fringe to the edge of the knee-length skirt.
And as they advanced and knelt and rose and cast their offering of flowers before the glowing statue, they continued to chant the harmony which had first reached Croft's ear. In it the word Zitu recurred, again and again. Zitu then was the name of the statue—the name of the god. He listened intently and finally gained the purport of the hymn.
"Zitu, hail Zitu!Father of all life!Who through thy angelsGive life and withdraw it,Into our bodies—out of our bodies;God—the one god—Accept our praise."
"Zitu, hail Zitu!Father of all life!Who through thy angelsGive life and withdraw it,Into our bodies—out of our bodies;God—the one god—Accept our praise."
"Zitu, hail Zitu!
Father of all life!
Who through thy angels
Give life and withdraw it,
Into our bodies—out of our bodies;
God—the one god—
Accept our praise."
The chant died and the singer turned back behind the curtain, which swung shut as they passed. Croft left the temple and stood on the top of its broad approach, gazing across the river at the vast white structure which he had first seen at a distance that morning, and which now stretched directly before his eyes. It came to him that this was the capital of Aphur—the palace of that Jadgor—Prince Lakkon had mentioned, brother of Naia's mother, as he was to learn. Bent on seeing the man who aspired to Tamarizia's imperial throne at close quarters, he willed himself toward the far-flung white pile.
It was built of stone he did not know, as he found when he came down to the broad, paved esplanade before it. But the substance seemed to be between a marble and an onyx, so nearly as he could judge. It stretched for the best part of an earth-mile and housed the entire working force of the Aphur government as he came to know in the following days.
Now, however, he gave more attention to his immediate surroundings—the vast towers on either side of the monstrous entrance, heavy and imposing and each flanked by guardian figures of what seemed winged dogs, whose front legs supported webbed membranes from body to paw.
Croft passed between them through the entrance where flowed counter streams of Palosians, on foot or dashing past in gnuppa-drawn chariots, trundling on two wheels, and driven by men clad in cuirasses and belted with short swords.
He entered a vast court, surrounded by colonnades, reached by sloping inclines and stairs and paved with a dull red stone. Here stood more of the chariots before the doors of this or that office of state. Blue porters moved about it, sprinkling the pavement with cooling streams of water from metal tanks strapped to their shoulders and fitted with a curved nozzle and spraying device.
It made a splendid picture as the sun struck down on the red floor, the gaily trapped gnuppas, the metal of the chariots and the flashing armor on the bodies of those who rode them, or the men at arms who stood here and there about the court, armed with sword and spear. This was the heart of Aphur's life, Croft thought, gave it a glance, and set off in quest of Aphur's king.
He passed through vast chambers of audience, of council, or banqueting and reception, as he judged from the furnishing of each place. He passed other courts, marveling always at the blending of grace with strength in the construction of the whole. Also, he marveled at the richness of the draperies with which various rooms and doorways and arches were hung. Much of it seemed to possess a metallic quality in texture. It seemed like thin-spun gold. Yet it was everywhere about the palace as he passed. Finally he paused. He was getting nowhere. He decided there was but one means of attaining his desire. He put it into force. Hewilledhimself into the presence of Jadgor without further search.
Thereafter he was in a room, where, beside a huge wine-red table, two men sat. The one was Prince Lakkon, whom he knew. The other was even a larger man—heavy set, dark of complexion, with grizzled hair, and a mouth held so tightly by habit that it gave the impression of lips consciously compressed. His eyes were dark as those of a bird. His nose high and somewhat bent at the middle of the bridge. The whole face was that of a man of driving purpose, who would brook small hindrance between himself and a predetermined goal.
Aside from that, however, there was little of the king about him since he was clad simply in a loose, white tunic, out of which his neck rose massive, below which his lower limbs showed corded with muscle and strong. Plainly Jadgor was talking state business with his brother-in-law at ease.
As Croft gained the room he struck the table at which he sat with clenched fist. "Cathur must still guard the gateway with Aphur, Prince Lakkon!" he cried. "Let Zollaria plan. Cathur's mountains make her impregnable now as fifty years before. Had Mazhur been other than a low-lying country she would have never fallen victim to Zollaria's greed. But Cathur must be assured in her loyalty to the state."
"Her loyalty?" Prince Lakkon exclaimed. "What does Aphur's king mean?"
"What he says." Jadgor set his lips quite firmly. "Scythys is king—a dotard! Kyphallos is what—a fop—a voluptuary, as you know—as all Tamarizia knows. When he mounts the throne—as he doubtless will since there seems none to oppose him—what will Zollaria do? Cathur, since Mazhur was taken, stands alone—secure in her mountains, it is true, but alone, none the less. And Cathur guards the western gate to the inland sea.
"Fifty years ago Zollaria meant to take Cathur as well, and she failed. The capture of Mazhur, save the territorial addition to her borders, gave her nothing at which she aimed. True, she has now a seaport at Niera, yet to what end? We hold the gate and the mouths to all rivers opening into the sea. Yet has Zollaria ceased to prate of a freedom of the seas? You know she has not. With Kyphallos on Cathur's throne, will she seek to gain by craft what was denied to her arms?"
"But Kyphallos himself?" Lakkon objected as Jadgor paused.
"Kyphallos!" The heavy shoulders of Aphur's monarch shrugged. "List ye Lakkon! Zollaria is strong. Cathur stands alone. Cathur guards the gate. Aphur could not hold it alone. Think you our foemen to the north have ceased of their ambition or to plan or prepare, while Tamarizia wounded by Mazhur's loss, has licked her wounds for fifty years—and what now? Tamhys—Zitu knows I mean no unjust criticism of a nobleman—is one who believes in peace. So, too, do I, if peace can be enjoyed without the sacrifice of the innate right of man to regulate his own ways of life. Yet were I on the throne at Zitra, do you think I would ignore the possible peril to the north? No! I would prepare to meet move by move should the occasion arise."
"And your first step?" Lakkon asked.
"To make sure of Cathur," Jadgor said.
"How?"
Jadgor leaned toward his companion before he replied. "I would take a lesson from Zollaria herself. Lakkon, we have lived—each state too much in itself. Tamarizia is a loosely held collection of states, each ruled by what—a nominal king and a state assembly? And those assemblies in turn elect the central ruler—the emperor of the nation—to serve for ten Palosian cycles.
"Zollaria is what? A nation ruled by one man and a cycle of advisors, whose word is ultimate law. How was that brought about? By intermarriage—by making the governing house of Zollaria one, bound wholly together by a common interest without regard to anything else save that. Hence, let us make the interests of Aphur and Cathur one, and let us not delay."
"By intermarriage?"
"Aye. With the right princess on Cathur's throne Kyphallos might be swayed, and certainly nothing would transpire without our gaining word."
"You have such an one in mind?" Lakkon asked.
"Aye. I plan not so vaguely, Lakkon. I would give him the fairest maid of Aphur to wife. It would require such to hold a man of his type. Do you know that inside the last cycle he has been seen frequently at Niera, mingling with the Zollarian nobles who come to summer there?"
"So I have heard rumored." Prince Lakkon inclined his head. "But this woman?"
"Your daughter Naia," Jadgor declared.
"Naia! Your sister's own child!" Prince Lakkon half rose from his chair.
"Hilka!" Jadgor waved him back. "Stop Lakkon! She is beautiful as Ga, the mother of Azil. It is because of her Kyphallos comes to Himyra now. I, Jadgor of Aphur, sent him the invitation with this in mind for Tamarizia's good. The betrothal must be agreed upon before he returns. Lakkon, I speak as your king."
Prince Lakkon's face seemed to Croft to age, to grow drawn and somewhat pale as he bowed to his king's command. He looked to Croft, indeed, as Jason knew he himself felt. Never had he seen Prince Kyphallos of Cathur, yet he had heard him mentioned that morning in Lakkon's coach. He had heard Naia's soft lips utter sincere disgust of the lecherous young noble.
Now Naia—the woman he himself loved—was planned a sacrifice to policy of state. Every atom of his soul cried out in revolt—"not that—not that." He might not win her himself, as he very well knew. Yet he had seen her—known her, loved her. A sick loathing evoked by Jadgor's plan waked in his soul. The thought of her surrender to the foul embrace of the northern prince roused within him a rebellion so vast that his senses whirled.
Lakkon rose slowly. His features were dull and his voice a monotone of feeling too deep for an accent of expression.
"King of Aphur, I shall inform the maid that she is chosen a sacrifice," he said. "I know her mind. She loathes this Prince of Cathur in her heart."
"Yet other women have sacrificed themselves to their nation in Tamarizia's history," Jadgor replied.
"I shall place the matter before her in that light," Lakkon informed him, and turned to leave the room.
Croft left, too, flitting out of the palace and once more taking up his own purposeless wandering about the town. Naia, Naia, Naia, his soul cried out within him! Naia, mate of his spirit!—sweet, pure maid of gold. Would that he had a body here on the planet of Palos! He would fight this monstrous step, he told himself, to the death! He would seize this golden girl and bear her away—somewhere—anywhere, beyond the reach, the touch of the satyr Prince of Cathur. He would prevent this intended sacrifice of all that was holy in human existence—or die in the attempt!
Here and there he made his way among the life of Himyra, torn by an agony of thought. Dimly he saw where he went—through the stables of the mighty caravans full of the ungainly sarpelcas—through what seemed a market of cattle, where were droves of the long-haired taburs and herds of other creatures like monster sheep save that they had huge pendulous udders, evidently the source of the nation's supply of milk.
He noted these things without being fully aware of the fact at the time. Only later did he recall them as objects beheld before. In a similar fashion he came upon the barracks of troops guarding the various gates in the great wall, entered them, passed through them, found Himyra's weapons no more than strong bows and swords and spears, her soldiery, sturdy looking fellows clad in leathern tunics.
Yet not for one instant did the tumult in his senses cease as he passed from scene to scene. Always was the thought of Naia with him. Always was his spirit hot in revolt against the plan of Aphur's king. And so in the end thoughts of Naia seemed to draw him back in a circuit to Lakkon's palace where was the girl herself.
He reached it and paused outside its doors. They were open. The copper-hued chariot drawn by the four plumed gnuppas stood before them, with Chythron back of the reins.
Bazka, too, stood between the open leaves of the portal, and across the crystal pavement, leading to them, Lakkon was leading Naia toward the coach.
While Jason watched, Aphur's prince and his daughter entered the conveyance and the great doors closed. Chythron spoke to the gnuppas and they sprang into their stride. Quite as he had done that morning Croft entered the carriage and crouched on the padded cushion where Naia already reclined. Where they were going, he did not know. Nor did he care, so long as she lay there before his eyes.
For a time as they turned toward the city gate, which they had entered that morning, silence held between Prince Lakkon and his child.
Lakkon broke it himself at last. "All is arranged as you thought best, my Naia?" he inquired.
"Aye, my father." She turned her eyes. "The messengers have departed to the mountains for the snows; the servants are cleaning. I have ordered the tables set in the crystal court, inside the hedge, and I have arranged for a band of dancers and musicians on the appointed day."
"And the robe. You did not forget the new robe?" Lakkon smiled.
Naia shook her head, her eyes dancing. "I am a woman," she replied. "The makers came at my summons to take my measure. It will be ready on the seventh day from this."
"That is well," Prince Lakkon said. But he sighed.
And suddenly Naia's face lost its light and grew sweetly brooding. She stretched out a rounded arm and touched him on the breast. "You are tired, my father," she spoke in almost crooning fashion, edging nearer to him. "The day with Uncle Jadgor has left you weary."
"Aye, somewhat," Lakkon confessed. With a swift, yet powerful gesture, he reached out and swept her into his arms, drawing her against his massive chest and sinking his cheek to touch her golden hair. "Naia, my daughter, thou knowest that I love you well," he said.
Croft quivered in his being. It seemed to him he was looking into Lakkon's heart and reading there all his lips held back—the fatherly love, the fatherly pain, attendant on that scene in Jadgor's apartment, where he had spent much of the day. It was that, he felt, inspired that sudden, almost hungry clasping of the girl's supple figure to the father's breast—that almost plaintive cry for her assurance of her faith in his love.
But Naia seemed not to sense any deeper reason than the mere love between them expressed. Her red lips parted, and she laughed softly as she lay against him, lifting a hand to his gray-shot hair. "Know that you love me?" she repeated. "Think you I could doubt it? Did you not give me my life? Do we not love what we create—so long as it comes from ourselves?" She nestled her head in the hollow of his corded neck.
Above that gold-crowned head the man's face worked. "We were happy the day of thy birth, thy mother and I," he said.
And now it seemed that at last the woman sensed some trouble unexpressed in the mind of the man. Very gently she released herself and sat up on the padded cushion. Her almost purple eyes looked full into those of her parent. "Concerning what did you speak with Uncle Jadgor today?"
"Concerning thee." Lakkon met the issue fairly now that it confronted him at last.
"Concerning me?" To Croft every line of Naia's figure stiffened.
"Aye." Prince Lakkon sat up. He spoke swiftly, briefly, and paused. Yet ere he paused he had fully outlined all King Jadgor planned.
And while he spoke the eyes of the woman widened swiftly, as the iris stretched to leave her pupils deep wells of horror.
Then as Lakkon finished speaking she cried out: "No!" in swift instinctive protest, and lifted herself upon her pink bent knees to poise so an instant before she flung herself once more upon her father's breast. "No!" she cried again, clinging to him. "No, no! Not that—not that! Father, unsay it! Give me not to that beast!"
"Hush!" Prince Lakkon stayed her. "Chythron will hear your outcry."
"Chythron!" she exclaimed. "Not Chythron but all Aphur—all Tamarizia shall hear my outcry against what Jadgor intends—every woman in the nation shall give thanks to Azil and Ga, that she stands not in my place."
"Naia." Her father spoke in a voice not wholly steady.
"Would you profane a shrine, sully a temple, defile a sacred thing?" she flared. "Is a virgin's body a thing to be bartered and sold in Aphur? Does my uncle regard me as a shameless creature who sells herself for a price? Azil and his holy mother would veil their faces from such marriage rites."
"Think not I wish it," her father said. "Yet can I not deny the truth of Jadgor's words, or that the union of the houses of the two states would work for Tamarizia's great good."
Naia was panting. "Tamarizia's?" she faltered now.
"Aye, did you not comprehend what I said concerning the welfare of our nation?" Lakkon asked.
She shook her head. "I—I think horror must have dulled my understanding," she said. "Explain to me again."
Long since they had left the city gates and were following a well-built road which led off toward those mountains where Croft had first stood and viewed the Palosian landscape in the light of this waning day. As he reached the end of his second exposition of the facts, Prince Lakkon turned and suddenly swept aside the purple curtain which draped the side of the coach. He flung out an arm and pointed straight to where the dull red walls of Himyra still shone in the afternoon rays.
"Behold Himyra, jewel on the breast of Aphur," he cried. "There she lies. Think you I would have given ear to Jadgor's plans save for that? Think you I would send you flesh of my loins to such a union save for the good of unborn souls to come? Think you were it not for Himyra, Aphur, Tamarizia herself, I would have bowed my head to the words of Aphur's king? Nay. If so, you are wrong. But for Tamarizia and that glory and honor which are hers and have been for a thousand cycles of our sun, a true son of the nation must sink all thoughts of self, must live, if by living he can serve, or should it serve better, must—die!"
Despite himself, Croft thrilled at the words, such as only a true patriot might speak in such tones of fire—tones which quivered and pulsed with emotion, one might not deny. In spite of his own sorry rebellion of spirit, echoed, as he now knew, in the soul of the gentle girl before him, some feeling akin to pity for this royal father of hers, crept through his mind. Prince Lakkon was a man torn between parental love and the love of his nation—destined, as it seemed, to suffer, no matter how this thing fell out.
And while he spoke, the girl, his child, flesh of his flesh, crept to his side, to kneel and gaze out at the distant walls of the city she knew as her own. Her expression changed. Some of the indefinable quality of girlhood seemed to fall from her and expose the deeper, firmer woman's nature, as though a veil had been torn aside.
"And I must live for her—with—Kyphallos?" she whispered tensely as Lakkon once more paused.
"If you can win him—hold him—sway him—with Jadgor on the throne at Zitra you will have made Tamarizia strong."
"I—will have made—Tamarizia—strong."
O girl of gold! Croft's heart cried out as he caught her scanning speech. O wonderful woman—so true to womanhood—so true now to the spirit of ultimate woman, ultimate sacrifice through which attribute of woman comes life itself! Unseen, unknown to her or the man who rode beside her, Croft approached and bent above her in that moment of struggle and decision. For, as she turned her eyes back to the interior of the coach, Croft knew she had decided, and that in deciding she had chosen the path which led against every personal impulse of her own clean spirit.
"What am I against Tamarizia?" she said.
"You are my daughter and I love thee," said Lakkon, Aphur's prince.
"I know." Naia crept to him and laid herself in his arms. "I know," she murmured after a time of silence.
Lakkon's arms tightened about her as the coach swung along. Her arm crept up and stole about his neck. Silence came down again save for the patter of the gnuppa's feet on the stone surface of the highway which had now left the plain and begun to scale the mountainside.
Crouched invisible, Croft turned his gaze from the man and woman to stare out between the fluttering curtains.
The road came to an end in a mountain valley, open toward the east and so unveiled a fresh scene of beauty to Jason's eyes.
Here was a country palace, gleaming white above a series of terraced gardens which rose from the shores of a tiny mountain lake. Toward it Chythron guided his steeds along a private drive which branched off from the highway they had traversed thus far.
As though the turning had been a signal, Naia loosened the embrace which held her and sat up, still without speaking, before Chythron brought his team to a stand.
Then, as in the morning, Prince Lakkon helped her to descend and moved beside her up a low, broad flight of steps to reach the portals of their home.
At their heels Croft followed on. His eyes swept the scope of the valley so far as he could mark it from the steps. Groups of the woolly, sheep-like cattle he had seen in Himyra fed in the lush grass of mountain meadows. Cultivated fields stretched out before his eyes. At the top of the steps he turned briefly and looked off to the east. There his eyes caught the glint of distant sun-kissed water—the Central Sea, of which Prince Lakkon had spoken, he now believed.
Then the portals before which Lakkon and Naia stood swung open, and once more a blue native appeared. Beside him was a monster beast, similar in all respects to those Croft had seen harnessed to the tiny trams in the cargo tunnels. It marked the advent of Lakkon and Naia with a slow wagging of its tail, and, suddenly rearing, laid its huge front paws, one on each of the girl's shoulders.
She spoke to the creature softly, and when it dropped back, at her command, she patted its head. Then turning to the man of Mazzer, who stood waiting, she proferred a command: "I am going to my apartments, Miltos; send Maia to me there."
"You will attend me later—over our evening viands?" her father asked.
"Aye, presently," she returned as she moved toward a stair at one end of the entrance court, which, in a smaller way, was not unlike Prince Lakkon's Himyra palace, save that here its pavement was laid in alternate squares of pale yellow and dull red. The treads of the stairway, also, were of yellow and red, as Croft saw while mounting, and the pillars which supported the balcony were yellow, while the balcony itself was red. Here, too, as in the city, a group of white sculpture stood at the foot of the stair. It depicted a very Hercules of a man throttling a creature not far unlike a tiger, while behind him crouched a woman, holding a tiny figure of a child.
All this he saw as Naia ascended without pause, reached a door, guarded by a heavy golden curtain, swept it aside and entered into her own room.
Here, as in Himyra, Croft found couch and chairs, and windows, the mirror basin, the pedestal, and the winged figure poised as though for flight.
Once more the golden curtain was drawn back and a young Mazzer woman appeared.
Naia turned. "Maia, how is the pool?"
"It should be delightful, princess," the blue girl replied. "All this day Zitu warmed it with his light."
Naia tapped with her foot. "Procure fresh raiment and bring it thither," she said. "The ride was tiresome and I will bathe."
Five minutes later, accompanied by Maia, who bore fresh robes, she left the room and led the way to one end of the corridor and through a small door to an outer stair. Descending that she passed through a sort of sunken garden, laid out in odd geometric designs and planted with shrubs and trees and flowers, among which gleamed the white of ornamental urns, fire-urns, and statues toward a low, white wall in which an opening appeared. Passing this, she turned about the angle of a protecting inner stone screen and stood on the margin of an open bath, its water clear as crystal and tinted a delicate amber from the yellow bottom and sides of the peculiar onyxlike stone.
Naia bathed. Refusing to spy upon her, Croft waited without the concealing wall, while twilight fell and the sounds of soft splashings came to his ear. The bath took a long time. Croft fancied the girl found some vague comfort in the soft, warm kiss of the waters tempered all day by the sun—that to lie wrapped in their liquid caress soothed somewhat her spirit, torn by the revelations her recent journey had held. While he waited twilight deepened, and after a time a softer light stole through the garden.
He lifted his gaze to the skies. Three moons hung there, casting their blended light over mountain and valley and plain. Vaguely he wondered which of the three he had visited during the night before—that night with its weird experience, ending on the edge of this day which, after all, had been but little less weird—this day in which he had found and recognized and yielded to the one feminine counterpart of his nature, only to find her destined to another less worthy than himself, and to know himself unable to intervene between her and her fate.
While he sat there brooding the whole strange situation—a man in all save material body—a consciousness, suffering all the pangs of spirit he was unable to physically express, Naia came forth and moved with her accompanying servant, a pure, white figure, through the garden to the house.
Like her shadow, Croft pursued her every step. He stood beside her while she sat waiting for the evening meal. He was behind her when she reclined on the couch beside the table, opposite her father, and ate. He dogged her steps when she once more sought the quiet of her room, and bade Maia leave her for the night.
Hence he witnessed what no other eyes beheld as the flaring oil-lamp, with its guttering wick little better than a candle extinguished, and the apartment flooded only by the light of the Palosian moons, she knelt by the mirror basin, before the winged figure on the wine-red pedestal.
And he heard what no other ears save her own could hear as she lifted her hands to the figure, before which she knelt—the cry of her soul—her womanhood's suppliant prayer.
"O, Azil, Giver of Life, must this be forced upon me? O Ga, Mother of Azil—thou virgin woman, whom Zitu ordained the one to give an angel life, that he might speak to men of Zitu himself and teach them how to live, do thou intercede for me! Thou knowest woman guards the sacred flame, which is life itself; so that it burns clear and never ceasing. Must that flame in me be fouled? Ga the Mother, Azil the Son—Azil the Angel—hear ye my prayer!"
She ceased and knelt on, silent, with hands clasped and lovely head bowed down.
And once more it seemed to Croft that his senses went spinning, eddying, whirling around. Azil the Giver of Life. Ga the mother of Azil the Son. A Virgin and a Child. And Zitu the father—God. She prayed to them.
This was the Palosian religion, at least, in part. Strange analogy to the earth-creed Croft found it—to the creed in which he had been raised. Zitu was the one creative source here as elsewhere, no matter by what name called—the source to which the projected atoms of its thought looked back, to whom they lifted their voices in praise or prayer.
What did it matter whether on earth or Palos, life was then the same, and the source was one place as another, all-embracing, universal, always the same? And Azil the Angel of Life was what? A Messianic spirit, surely, which had come to speak to the human atoms and tell them of the source. What else? And Ga—the medium, through which spirit was translated into matter—the eternal woman, through whom Life came to the incarnated man.
And to these, this maid—this other woman who had pledged herself as a sacrifice for her nation, prayed. Alone here before the pedestal shrine of Azil, Son of Zitu, she knelt and asked that the cup she had promised to drink might be divinely removed from her lips since all human hope of such a removal seemed to have died in so far as she could know.
Should that prayer go unheeded or unheard? Could the pure cry of a clean spirit fail to reach the listening ears of the source?
No! Croft's spirit cried the word to his soul. No, no! A thousand times no! Somehow, some way, he knew not how that prayer must be heard and answered. He tore himself free from the spell of the kneeling figure, and with no definite purpose in his going save to remove himself from a privacy he felt he must no longer intrude, went blindly out of the room.
Yet once outside the mountain villa, Croft knew where he wanted to go. It was back to Himyra—back to the palace of Lakkon itself—to be alone with his thoughts. To that point, therefore, he once more willed himself.
The city swam beneath him. The yellow Na sparkled and glinted in the flickering gleams of the fire basins lighted along the embankments as they leaped and flared. Other fires flashed out in various of the public squares. And here the population met for their hours of relaxation. Here groups of wandering musicians played on reed and harp and horn as the gaily decked crowds filed by. Here mountebanks plied their stock of tricks, and acrobats proved their supple agility and strength. Over it all the three moons of Palos poured a silvery light as Croft flitted past.
Then he was at the palace of Lakkon, finding still open, a window of Naia's own room, and so at length the place he sought. The moonlight filtered in. It fell in a broad bank, which struck across the pure white figure of Azil with its outstretched wings.
Through a long moment Croft stood gazing at the statue, bathed in the light of the moons. Then, without removing his eyes, he found the couch and sat down upon it, and thought, still staring at Azil—the material symbol of that spirit to whom the girl, the aura of whose presence pervaded this room, had prayed.
And, after a time, out of all his agony of spirit, his tumult of thought, his rebellion at what was proposed for the girl's fate, the sick knowledge of his own futility to aid her, there came to him a prompting impulse as to his future course. To what end he did not know. In his present state he could do nothing and knew it—had raged at the knowledge ever since he had seen Naia of Aphur on her way to this room, where he now sat.
Yet despite the acknowledged fact of impotency, something seemed to urge him to go on, to learn all he might of Palos and its people, of Tamarizia and its history, its manners and customs, its government and laws, and more particularly the true state of things in Cathur and the truth concerning Kyphallos, son of Cathur's king.
To Cathur then would he go, Croft decided, while he sat there staring at Azil, the Angel of Life. And Cathur, he judged, lay toward the north since Jadgor had spoken of the state of Nodhur as lying beyond Aphur on the Na. Hence he willed his spirit in projection without further delay.
Thereafter followed a week in which Jason Croft, disembodied spirit, learned much concerning the nation and the country to which he had dared venture across millions of miles of space.
He found Cathur, a mountainous state lying to the north of a wide mountain walled strait. He found Scira, its capital city, not unlike Himyra save that it was built of an odd blue stone quarried from the mountains which ribbed the state in all directions. There was white stone, too, used in the governmental palace, and also in a splendid collection of buildings lying on a small plateau above the city proper. This was the National University of Tamarizia, as Jason quickly learned, once he was inside its walls. Endowed as he was with the peculiar ability of reading the words of the people by reason of his sublimated state, he found this school a wonderful means of quickly gaining all knowledge of the nation which he desired to know.
He literally went to school, an unknown scholar who listened to the recitation of classes and the lectures of grave professorial men clad in long robes of spotless white. Geography held his interest mainly at first. He learned that Tamarizia lay upon a continent holding itself completely surrounded save for the narrow strait, a vast central sea, studded here and there with islands, the major of which, Hiranur, some fifty miles long by twenty wide, was the seat of the imperial throne at the city of Zitra, of which Jadgor had made mention before. The Tamarizian states bordered this central ocean—or had done so before the Zollarian war had wrested Mazhur, on the extreme north shore, from the original group of states.
East of Mazhur lay Bithur. South of that was Milidhur, completing the eastern side of the Central Sea. Aphur joined Milidhur on the west—its name literally meaning "the state to the west," and south of Milidhur and Aphur was Nodhur, gaining outlet for its commerce by means of the river Na.
Cathur lay west of Mazhur, north of the strait, to the outer ocean, completing the circle. Its name might be translated as the battle-ground, which, in fact, it was, Zollaria having more than once sought to conquer it and lost because of the nature of its mountainous terrain. Having learned so much, he could readily see wherein the possession of this state would give Zollaria the freedom of the seas, which she desired, and a joint control of the entire Central Sea.
From geography he turned to sociology and science. He found out quickly that the Tamarizians used a metric system, numbering their population by tens and dividing the national census on the basis of thousands and tens of thousands, each thousand unit having a captain and each ten thousand a local governor. Their day was twenty-seven hours long, their year longer than that of earth, but divided into twelve periods or months, each in their belief ruled over by an angel designated by a symbolic sign.
They believed in the immortality of the soul, as he had learned the first day. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. They used a system of social castes, to which the naturalized descendants of the Mazzerian nations belonged, being purely a caste of the lowest or serving type. The trades of fathers descended to sons, instruction in crafts and arts being largely by word of mouth alone. They had a bard or minstrel caste, a caste of dancers wholly female in its circle.
A Palosian year was called a cycle, a day a sun, a month a Zitran—or period set by Zitu, the national God. There was a priesthood and a vestal order of women. Also, there was an order of knighthood, to which belonged men of noble blood or those raised to it by kingly decree for some signal accomplishment in the arts or sciences or some other service to the state.
The royal house of each state was hereditary, but governed jointly with a state assembly elected by the vote of each ten thousand unit of population, each unit selecting a state delegate to the assembly. The imperial throne was filled by the choice of the states, as he had once before heard Jadgor, of Aphur, say.
Agriculture was highly held and greatly specialized. Metal working was a very advanced science, as he had already guessed. Copper was abundant, and the Tamarizians held the secret of tempering the metal, now unknown on earth. Of it they made their weapons and most of their public structural metal, including their carriages and chariots and all conveyances of a finer sort. Gold was plentiful, too. But silver and lead were rare and held in high esteem. Steam and electricity were unknown in their application, as Croft had already seen.
They had reached a high plane in art, sculpture and weaving. He discovered that the golden cloth was actually gold spun into threads and mixed with a vegetable fiber to form warp and wool. There was also a medical caste, somewhat crude, but seemingly efficient, so far as he could learn, and attached to it a female or nursing caste, consisting wholly again of women, who entered it from choice. In fact, women, as he came to see, held a prominent place in the nation. They held the right of suffrage. Their citizenship was coequal with their men. They sat in the class-rooms of the university, as he actually saw, and even took part in public ceremonials and competed in the public games.
All in all, before his week at Scira was past, he had come to understand that Tamarizia was a very democratic nation despite its form of royal rulership, and that the emperor of Zitra was little more than a relic of old-time government, with little more power than a republican president.
And that, like most republics, the nation had grown weak in the pursuit of the profession arms, he had to admit that Jadgor was right. Each city had a sort of civic guard—each unit of ten thousand possessed a military police. There was an imperial guard at Zitra of possibly five hundred men. Civic guards, imperial guards and police, the national maximum force none too well armed or trained would not be judged as aggregating over fifty thousand effective men.
To the north of Tamarizia lay Zollaria, her western shore line that of the great or outer ocean. Like Tamarizia, Zollaria was a nation of whites, differing, however, in their national regime and their physical appearance to no small degree. As Jadgor had said to Lakkon, theirs was a rule of absolutism, first and last, with the governing class distinct from the common people in each detail of their life.
Larger than Tamarizia, Zollaria looked with envy on the position of the country to the south. Fifty years before she had sought to change it and failed. Yet Jadgor was assured she had not laid aside her ambition, and Croft was inclined to agree.
The Zollarians themselves were a light-haired race, to a great extent, heavily built, strong, virile, sturdy, many of them blue-eyed, except in the southern part of the nation, where they approached more nearly to the Tamarizian type.
East of Tamarizia and south of Zollaria, in the hinterland of the continent on which the three nations lived, was the half-savage tribe of Mazzer, the blue men, inhabiting a region consisting mainly of semitropic forests and plains, living largely by hunting and the exporting of skins and dried meats and natural fruits, together with a variety of cheese. In these articles they maintained commerce with Zollaria and Tamarizia, along their adjoining borders, and had done so for years. Commerce was entirely by water in such boats as Croft had seen on the Na, and by means of the sarpelca caravans across stretches of desert to regions not approachable by the streams.
That week in school proved a rather peculiar experience to Croft. He came to feel actually at home in Scira. Without being seen or known he came to know the youths of the various classes.
And to one in particular he gave special note. He was a wonderful man in so far as physique was concerned. He stood a good six feet in height and was built in perfect proportion. In the games and sports he always excelled because of his splendid strength. And there he ceased. Mentally he was not the equal of those with whom he strove.
Nature seemed to have left her task uncompleted so far as Jasor was concerned. That was his name—Jasor, from Nodhur, the state to the south of Aphur as Croft learned by degrees. He was a lovable young man, mild-mannered, friendly and kind. But he was rated in his studies with youths two years his juniors and appeared unable to do more than maintain his standing with them. Watching him, Croft felt both pity and interest develop through the course of the seven days wherein he himself acquired so great an understanding of Palosian life.
It seemed a pity to Croft that one so splendidly endowed with physical perfection should be so mentally weak. He rather followed young Jasor about and discovered to his pleasure that although seemingly well provided with means the youth was naturally of a cleanly life. More than that, through association with him, he came to know that Jasor felt his position acutely, and was brooding over his own mental capacity to an unwise degree.
Throughout his stay in Cathur, however, Croft did not lose sight of his main object in coming to the northern state. He had come to find and judge Kyphallos for himself, and he attended to that, not the first night, as he had intended, but the next night after that. There was a reason for the delay. Kyphallos was not in Scira when Croft came to the capital of Cathur. Jason managed to see Scythys the king. He found him in a splendid room clad in a loose robe of scarlet, a senile husk of a once massive man, with a look of vague trouble in his half-blinded cataract-filmed eyes. But of Kyphallos the son there was no sign.
Only by chance remarks was Croft able to learn the whereabouts of the prince. By such means he finally learned of a second palace maintained on an island in the Central Sea, off the coast of Cathur, not far from the border of the former Tamarizian state of Mazhur. The island was known as Anthra, was a part of the state of Cathur, and a favorite retreat with the crown prince.
To Anthra on the second night Croft went. And on Anthra he plunged into such a scene as he had not met in Tamarizia as yet. Heretofore he had been struck with the mild beauty of Palosian life, with a sort of personal dignity which seemed to pervade the nation, despite the magnificence of their public structures and the undoubted wealth of the state.
Not but what, being human, there was a percentage of criminality in the social life. Such things, as among other races, were known and recognized, but he had found it here regulated to a surprising extent.
On Anthra, he came into an atmosphere the antithesis of this, combined with a degree of voluptuous luxury, cradled in a setting of utter magnificence.
He came upon a saturnalia of pleasure. He could liken it to nothing else. A feast was in progress in the palace Kyphallos had made the scene of his private debauches for years.