ON THE WINGS OF AZIL
The end of the month following the election found Croft beginning
to carry out his material plans. Robur coming to Zitra for the
inauguration of Jadgor, bringing Gaya and Naia with him--the latter at
Lakkon's request--found time to insist that Jason return to Himyra at
once, and institute the work they had before discussed.
Nor to tell the truth was Croft in any way loath. Indeed work was what
he craved, rather than a life such as for the past two weeks he had
found himself compelled to live in the Zitran pyramid. In addition
he felt that the atmosphere of Zitra would be subtly changed once
Jadgor was upon the ground, while in Aphur with Robur, his friend
and collaborator in his endeavors, the course of his plans would be
cleared. Then, too, he was thrilled by the thought of contriving a
material meeting with Naia, even more than by anything else. That
thought it was which set him to work on the development of electric
power first.
Before that, however, he took Zud and journeyed to Scira in a galley,
its hull gilded, its sails of azure-blue, with a blue canopy above its
after deck, driven by a motor, rather than the oars which had formerly
projected from its waist. And at Scira he interviewed Koryphu, the
head of the university, regarding the establishment of schools. It
was arranged that he should induce Mutlos to take the matter up with
Jadgor, and Croft and the high priest sailed south to the mouth of the
Na and up its yellow flood.
Then once more Himyra's forges flared as they had flared for the
greater part of that strange year before. Robur, democratic despite his
royal birth, went with Croft to the shops. In them was posted a notice
printed from Jason's original alphabetical blocks, announcing that past
the command of the Mouthpiece of Zitu there was no further word. In all
things pertaining to the development of the things he had planned Croft
found himself supreme. He directed and designed, while at the same time
he cultivated the friendship of his superintending captains and their
men.
One of his first steps was to set about developing the vein of coal he
had discovered. He organized a band of miners and a motor transport
train. It was a strange sight when the latter for the first time rolled
forth. Robur and he went with it, and saw to the starting of the work.
Save for his faith in Jason the new governor of Aphur would have
doubted. Laughing, Croft gave him and the staring bands of miners and
captains a demonstration, and allayed their doubts. On the second day,
after the strippers were uncovering the vein and others of the men were
erecting cabins to house the workers, Robur and he drove back.
Copper wire and rubber, or a substitute, were what he next required.
The first was easily gained. For generations the Tamarizians had
worked in metal, as shown by their couches, their molded doors, their
carriages and chariots and their tempered swords and spears. Croft
set hundreds of the workers to the task of making wire. The second
requirement was far less readily gained. But he did not despair.
Aphur's climate was tropical in the main. He believed he might find
some vegetable product such as he needed for the insulation of his
wires and set about an extensive questioning of the city's learned men.
So in the end he learned of a tree which exuded a milk-like sap, in
the forests south along the Na. Thither he and Robur went straightway
in a motor-driven galley, and the thing was done in theory at least,
depending for its practical working out on the efforts of an army of
local natives, whom the two set to gathering sap.
Back again in Himyra, save at night, Croft gave himself little rest.
And even at night since, on Robur's insistence, he had taken up
residence at the palace rather than in the Himyran pyramid, Robur and
he discussed their plans, unless the governor was called by his duties
somewhere else. Occasionally when this happened, Croft talked with Gaya
instead.
In this way he succeeded in winning her sympathetic understanding of
his position, even as concerning his love for Naia he had won it once
before. And Gaya, whose nature was characterized by a sweet simplicity,
questioned him frankly concerning the episode of Naia's attempted
suicide in the pool:
"Robur swore by Zitu, he believed you present, in the same guise in
which you have told me, you move when your body sleeps."
"Yes, Robur was right," Croft told her and described step by step what
had occurred.
The princess nodded. "Now that Lakkon remains with Jadgor at Zitra,
the maid grows lonely," she declared. "She has asked me to visit her.
May I speak with her concerning these things if she mentions to me her
dreams?"
Croft smiled. On Palos, or on earth, woman he thought was the same.
And Gaya, happy beyond question in the arms of the man of her choice,
stood ready to lead or drive Naia, a sister-woman to a mating if she
could. And, smiling, he nodded assent, but added a caution. "Yet speak
not of it save as of a dream--wife of my true friend. For the growth of
the soul must be as the growth of a flower, which the light of truth
expands."
* * * * *
His wire being made, his rubber gathered, Croft turned next to the
harnessing of the mountain stream. He chose copper for his penstocks
instead of wood, furnishing specifications to the molders for the
sections of the pipe and designing the model of the turbines to be
mounted in the pits.
In all things Robur rendered him such assistance as he could, while he
never ceased to marvel at the very things he planned. "Mouthpiece of
Zitu you are indeed!" he exclaimed again and again, with flashing eyes
as some new detail was unfolded to his mind. "Let Jadgor be president
at his leisure. Thou and I, my Jason, shall take Tamarizia yet and make
it a new world."
And with such a lieutenant Croft found his work advance. Wire was
being made in miles, rubber was being delivered in enormous chunks
from the commercial galleys down the Na, loaded onto trucks along
the quays, drawn by the dog-like creatures harnessed to them through
the merchandise tunnels beneath the streets and stored in the huge
warehouses against future use. Indeed all Himyra, all Aphur hummed at
the end of the month, and the founders were beginning to turn out the
sections of the giant penstock pipes.
Thereupon Croft collected another train of motors and, organizing a
party of road-builders and masons, made his way into the hills to
select the site of his power station on the mountain stream.
At the camp he established beside the mountain torrent he lost no time.
Long since he had cast aside Zud's choice of temple dress, for the
metal leg-cases, the short-skirted tunic of a military captain, falling
half-way down the thighs, and belted at the waist--a costume affording
the utmost freedom of movement while he directed the beginning of
each task. Habited thus he sat one day on the hillside, watching his
laborers digging trenches for the mighty penstocks, preparing the pits
for the turbines when, with a crash, through some near-by bushes was
thrust a huge animal face.
Open it was, gaping, with a lolling red tongue, and yellow fang-like
teeth. For a moment it stared at him panting and then with a bound
the whole lithe creature advanced, and flung itself against him as he
scrambled to his feet.
"Hai, Hupor!" he cried, recognizing the huge houndlike beast which had
fawned upon him once before in Lakkon's mountain house, and excited
Naia's comment by the act.
Then as the creature dropped down beside him and turned its eyes, he
followed their direction with his own, and found his heart begin a
gladdened leaping. A trifle further up the hillside, Naia of Aphur
stood between two trees.
Soft climbing sandals of gnuppa hide were on her feet and embraced her
tapering calves to just below the knees. Brown was her garment above
them, embroidered simply in green. And on her golden hair was a band of
brown, supporting a shimmering drape against the heat of the afternoon,
and a curling plume green as the leaves above it. In that first glance
it seemed to Croft that seen so, she was more beautiful than she had
ever been.
He went toward her, his pulses hammering in his ears, the giant beast
trailing at his heels.
"Greeting, maid of Aphur!" he said when he stood before her, and bowed
deeply from the hips, in formal fashion.
"Hail, Mouthpiece of Zitu!" Naia inclined her head. "Did Hupor break
upon your meditations or distract your attention from the work in hand?"
"Hupor and I," said Croft with a glance at the beast, "are friends. Nor
is my work a thing requiring such haste, that I may not spare time to
admire the fairest work of Zitu's hands."
A swift color mounted into Naia's cheeks. Her glance shifted. "I walk
frequently with Hupor," she began a somewhat confused explanation. "The
temptation came upon me to inspect the work which I have watched from
my father's home for the past three suns, since it began. Hupor, I
think, was more surprised to see you than was I."
"You expected to find me?" Croft caught her words up quickly.
"Why not?" she rejoined with an upward flash of her eyes. "Is not the
work of Zitu's Mouthpiece under his direction?" Her manner changed,
became charged with covert meaning. "And more I dreamed."
"Dreamed?" Croft repeated, striving to still a rising tumult in his
breast, at what seemed a challenging of his spirit by hers.
"Nay, I know not," she said almost faintly, while her white lids
quivered above each purple iris. "But it was as though one told me this
stream was to be used to bring new light to Himyra--that such was a
part of your plans."
"Yes," he said, "it is--to Himyra, and to Lakkon, thy father's house,
if so you desire, and to all of Aphur, all of Tamarizia in time. If so
you saw it, it would appear as a vision rather than a dream, maid of
Aphur. Come and I will show you its beginning and explain."
* * * * *
For an hour after that she wandered with him, and watching her now and
then, Croft surprised a puzzled expression on her face. Yet he said
no definite word, since he knew that the leaven of his past acts was
working in her, was slowly rising up until at last it should wake her
fully to the truth.
"It were hardly fitting, were Lakkon's daughter not to offer to Zitu's
mouthpiece the freedom of Lakkon's house," she said at the last, when
Croft had escorted her back to the mountain valley wherein the palace
was placed. And her tone was vaguely wistful--there was something in
her eyes that cried out to him, wholly unlike that blue fire of scorn
they had held, when she flung the betrothal seal of Azil against his
breast.
"Jason, the Mouthpiece, shall do himself the honor of Lakkon's house,
when Lakkon is within it," he replied with meaning, as he bowed and
turned and left her, and heard her catch her breath.
Yet he took with him a song in his heart because of the invitation
which had faltered from her lips; because as he knew now the cry of
spirit to spirit was beginning to actuate the flesh. And he walked more
as a god indeed than a man as he made his way back to his workmen,
threading his way on springing feet, glorying in the strength of his
free-limbed stride on the wooded slopes, holding in his heart the
knowledge that it was because she had felt he would be present--because
of an urge to be near him, to speak with him as man and woman, that she
had come to view the new work.
But he did not attempt to approach her again in the astral condition
during the week longer that he remained at the site of the power-plant.
Nor did Naia venture to it any more. And so soon as he was satisfied
that his subordinates understood the exact scope of their duties, he
returned to set about the actual construction of the dynamo that, water
driven, should light Himyra with a myriad of glowing lamps.
But that night, after he had received Robur's report of progress, and
they had talked over the dynamo plans, he sought his own apartment and
stretched himself upon his couch. And then he went seeking the two
women who in all his life he had known the best, because he thought
that it would be on this first night, with Gaya, that Naia would
unburden herself.
Failing to find them in the palace, he sought and found them in the
garden, seated on a carved bench of stone, inside the vine-grown walls
of the pool. Naia's eyes were fixed upon its surface, silvered by the
light of Palos's moons. Very wide and dark they seemed beneath the
shadow of her hair. Her lips moved.
"Whether these be dreams, induced by those things of which you told me,
or whether too much thinking has tired my mind until it makes of vain
imaginings the seeming of other thought, I know not," she said in a
musing voice. "Yet even as you said, he had told my cousin Robur that
he left his body, so has it seemed to me that I left my flesh, when
he called me to him--that hand in hand we wandered forth together, to
Himyra--over the mountains, and once that we leaped all space, as he
says his spirit leaped from earth to Palos and stood upon the larger of
the moons up yonder, whose light sparkles here on the pool."
* * * * *
"Zitu!" Gaya's tones were a trifle unsteady--filled with a certain awe,
as Croft waited her answer. "But--Naia, sweet maid, may not dreams
embody truth?"
"If dreams they be, I think it may be so," her companion rejoined. "For
on that time we went to Himyra as it seemed, I saw my father asleep,
and he whispered my name, and the next time he came to me he spoke to
me about it; said that he saw me standing beside him and had called me.
"And,"--abruptly her soft voice took on the speaking semblance of a
child--"Gaya--the night was the same--on which I had my dream. And
again on an afternoon when it seemed he called me, and we wandered over
hill and valley, where flowers bloomed, and up to the everlasting
snows, it seemed also that on returning Maia thought that I had died,
and he bade me back into my body, promising to come to me again. And
when I woke, Maia and Mitlos stood beside me, in tears and terror,
thinking my spirit flown. Gaya--how explain such things as these?"
"I may not tell you," Gaya faltered. "In these days since Zitu's
mouthpiece came among us, Aphur and all Tamarizia have witnessed
wondrous sights, have dreamed of undreamed truths."
"Mouthpiece of Zitu," Naia repeated, turning to face her companion. "I
like not the name. Jason, he calls himself to me in my dreams, and as
Jason I prefer to think of him--as Jason, a man, and--and--my lover.
Ah, Gaya, should I blush for such a thought?"
"Nay--thou art a woman, ripe for loving," Gaya reassured her quickly.
"And to women, be they fit, I think that Ga herself sends dreams."
"Dreams!" Abruptly Naia clenched a fist and struck the tapered outline
of her thigh. "Dreams--aye, dreams they must be, Gaya--for to me he
came no more again. Only when I thought not of his coming did it
happen, and since, when I have called him, sought once more to sleep
and find him, it is vain. Yet if I be shameless, let me speak the same.
Greater happiness have I never known since I tore the seal of Azil from
my girdle, than when in my sleep he called me to him, and I answered
and saw him standing before me in my chamber, fair as Azil himself,
with his form shot through by the soft light of the moon. Or, when I
slept and Maia fanned me, and he came and led me into the outer world,
where we wandered in far places, he and I alone."
"You saw him while he was in the mountains?" Gaya asked as her
companion paused, causing Croft to smile as he saw her intent to learn
what he himself had not told.
"Yes--what am I saying? Gaya, I forget myself, even as that day I
forgot myself and bade him to my father's house." Suddenly she broke
off to throw her arms about Gaya's neck and bury her face, gone white
in the silver moonlight, against her breast.
"And--" the arms of the older woman crept about her.
"He replied he would enter it when Lakkon was within it," Naia told her
in a smothered voice.
"As he would were he careful of your honor." Gaya held her close.
"Child, when my visit is ended, you must return with me to Himyra, nor
longer spend your time in dreams and thoughts."
"But--" Naia sat up abruptly. Her question came with a sweetly feminine
inconsistency. "Would he not think I sought his presence, were I to
accompany you to the palace?"
"Are you not Robur's cousin?" Gaya answered. "Can he expect you to
remain forever in your father's house?"
Croft's smile was very tender as he turned away. Time and those
"dreams" of hers were fighting his battle for him in Naia's soul. And
had he need of other assistance in winning the one woman he desired in
a million worlds or years, Gaya was his lieutenant. He blessed her as
he returned to Himyra, for that propinquity of Naia and himself in the
future, that feminine endeavor at match-making, for which he now knew
that she schemed.