A TAWNY VAMPIRE
Hours afterward, as it seemed, Croft opened his eyes, and blinked at a
flare of light and closed his lids again, while he sought to collect
his shaken senses.
He remembered by degrees.
The plane had fallen. There was nothing after that. But he had fallen
upon a night-wrapped plain, studded with the fires of a camp. Now,
instead of stars above him, there was what looked like the bellied top
of a tent. Slowly he spread the fringes of his lashes and sought to
verify the impression he had gained.
He was correct. He lay in a tent, seemingly of skins joined to form
the sloping top and walls. The interior was lighted dimly by a couple
of flaring torches. But the light was sufficient to show Croft piles of
military gear, rugs of native skin, on one of the latter of which he
seemed to be lying, and some crude stools scattered about.
He lay with head half turned as he had been thrown down, and now
he became aware of other life in the tent as his senses more fully
returned. There was a sound of voices. He opened his eyes widely and
stared about. And inwardly at least he gasped.
This was the headquarters of the army he had sought to bomb, past any
doubt. Blue men--a dozen, a score were clustered about a huge chair
to one side, in which another blue man sat. And yet--in the latter
Croft detected something familiar in a flash, and immediately after he
understood. He had heard it alleged that certain Zollarian captains
had stained their bodies and shaved their heads and dyed the remaining
scalp lock of their light hair to match the Mazzerian red.
And--and--this was Bandhor of Zollaria--brother of Kalamita--that tawny
female magnet with which the northern nation had sought to bind the
profligate Prince of Cathur to her cause. This was Bandhor, his massive
body stained blue in its every ungainly line, seated upon this chair
before which the other blue men stood. And inspecting the latter more
closely, marking their features well in the murky light, Croft decided
that most of them were men of Zollaria tinted and shaved and dyed like
Bandhor himself.
Here then was proof of Zollaria's hand in the Mazzerian invasion, proof
that Croft lay in the spot which was the brain center of the Mazzerian
army in the field. Croft's head was splitting, but he sought to focus
his attention on what was being said.
"Sayest thou that this man fell out of the skies?" Bandhor roared,
turning his eyes toward where Croft lay on the farther side of the tent.
"Aye," said one of the captains, whom Jason felt positive was a
Zollarian for all his naked blue length. "Aye, Bandhor, he fell from a
device like to a pair of wings. Before that had strange weapons fallen
upon my men from the skies in a rain of death. Then suddenly came this
man."
"Tamarizian devil," Bandhor swore with savage force. "This newest
method of their fighting would seem to be like their last, when they
struck Zollaria's army with a blast of fire. Go see if still he
breathes."
Two of the men turned and approached Croft. They bent above him. He
stared straight into their faces.
"Aye, Bandhor of Zollaria," reported one. "He has opened his eyes."
"Bring him here."
Croft rose. Without waiting the touch of a captor's hand he staggered
up and faced Bandhor's chair. "Stand back," he hissed to men beside
him. "I would walk alone." He took a step forward, swaying; whereupon
the others seized him and hurried him to Bandhor's place.
"Spawn of Tamarizia," Bandhor began, "what is thy name?"
"Thou hast said it, Bandhor," Croft retorted, determined to give no
information.
"Came you from Atla?" Bandhor roared.
"Yes."
"How many men inside her walls can Jadgor and Medai claim?"
"Enough," said Croft. "Enough blue-dyed men of Zollaria to pile other
thousands of your naked dupes before them. There are not men enough in
all Mazzer to scale at Zollaria's command Atla of Bithur's walls."
"Hai! By Bel of Zollaria thy fall has not broken thy tongue at least!"
Bandhor exclaimed. "But thy man-made wings are broken, and thy insolent
spirit may be broken also. Hai--bring a brazier and a spear head.
Since this Tamarizian fights with fire we shall give him a taste of it
himself, and learn perchance what within Atla transpires."
"Hold!" Suddenly the wall of the tent behind Bandhor's chair swept
back, revealing a small private tent beyond it, and a tawny woman
appeared.
White she was in the murky light as a ray of moonlight in the
dusk--white, and splendidly formed in every supple line of sensuous
body and limb. Jeweled cups covered her breasts, and a scarf of
shimmering tissue was twisted about her sinuous loins and fell half
down her thighs. With the grace of a stalking panther she advanced,
accompanied by another blue-stained Zollarian captain, and took her
stand beside her brother. In the flare of the torches she gleamed among
those blue-tinted bodies like a silver wand.
"Bethink you my brother," she continued as Croft recognized in
her that Kalamita, that feminine magnet of flesh, who had tempted
Cathur's Prince Kyphallos through the spell of her unclean charms, her
unhallowed embrace, "would destroy or even mar the weapon in your hand?"
"Hai, by Bel," began Bandhor.
"Aye," his sister went on. "Where are Bandhor's eyes? Call on Bel
and you will, yet have you not sacrificed to him enough of blood to
glut his heart, without adding this? See you not this is a man of
importance--and one to me before this described? Mark you not the
closeness of the hair upon his head, his stature? Know you not that
before you stands the Mouthpiece of Zitu of whom Tamarizia boasts--him
to whom Zollaria must mark the score of her defeat, her loss of Mazhur?
Rather than for gaining information can Bandhor not think of a better
way in which such a one may be used?"
"Hai--you mean a ransom, Kalamita my sister?" Bandhor burst out as she
paused.
"Aye." The eyes of a tigress looked into Croft's as she answered,
studied his every expression, marked the effects of her words. "Aye,
Bandhor, and you and other captains--and the ransom--should be--large.
Much should Tamarizia be asked in payment for her Mouthpiece of Zitu,
who tumbles from the skies."
And suddenly she smiled as she broke off her flippant taunt--smiled and
looked steadily into Croft's staring eyes.
"By Bel!" once more Bandhor roared. "The words of Kalamita are of
wisdom. Go--Mamai. Take portions of the device from which he fell. See
they are carried to Atla. Say that this man fell among us with them.
Demand a parley, at which terms for his return shall be named."
"Aye, Bandhor!" One of the captains saluted and left the tent.
* * * * *
Inwardly Croft writhed. Here was a pretty pickle, indeed, since by
his own blunder he had become to Tamarizia a weakness rather than a
strength--since because of it, Tamarizia would seem to be confronted
with the choice of leaving him to fate or paying Mazzer's and
Zollaria's price. And--he had caught all the meaning in the tawny
depths of the Zollarian courtezan's eyes. That price would indeed be
large.
And now she bent and whispered into Bandhor's ear and he nodded. "Bind
him," he said, and pointed to Croft. "Lift him and bear him into my
sister's tent. Place a guard about us when it is finished. That is all,
my captains. We wait for word from Atla. Go!"
To resist was useless. Croft did not try. He stood passively while
his hands and feet were trussed. Even then he was trying to think, to
scheme some way out of the mess into which he had brought himself.
And--a vague question roused as to Kalamita's object in having him
carried into her own tent. Object he was sure there was, but it baffled
him for the moment. Then he was lifted and borne beyond the flapping
door through which she had entered, and laid on a pallet of skins
beside a copper couch.
The woman followed, remained standing until his bearers had left, then
approached and reclined on the couch from whence she could watch his
eyes.
"Mouthpiece of Zitu," she began after a moment of contemplation,
"Mouthpiece of Zitu, who tumbles from the skies."
Croft made no answer, and suddenly she left the couch and knelt beside
him. "You are a handsome man, Mouthpiece of Zitu; am I not beautiful
myself?"
"Yes," said Croft, since in a purely physical way she was no less than
a creature to drive most men mad, and he knew that she knew it, and
because of the knowledge, left none of her charms concealed.
"And"--she bent above him, closer, closer, until her reddened mouth
seemed about to touch him, until her breath played softly against his
cheek--"wisdom and beauty may accomplish much together, Mouthpiece of
Zitu, think you not?"
So that was it--wisdom and beauty together. A sudden loathing--an
impulse to put more space between that gleaming body, that blood-red
mouth so very close above him, gripped Croft and shook him. But he kept
it out of his voice and out of his eyes as he replied. "What mean you,
Kalamita of Zollaria, you magnet of the flesh?"
She laughed--laughed with a note of exultation in the sound as though
his words were a tribute to the power she knew was her own. "Why think
you Kalamita saved you from the fire?"
Croft quibbled. "Said she not the reason in words?"
The woman frowned. "Think you Jadgor of Tamarizia will pay the price
for you that Mazzer will ask?"
Croft knew that his heart leaped. He had been afraid--afraid--yet now
he recalled Jadgor as he knew him--Jadgor who had bowed his haughty
crest on the day just passed for Tamarizia, but never for himself.
Turning the thought in his brain he forget to answer.
"You know he will not." Almost Kalamita hissed. "And if not, is death
preferable to life, power--love? Wouldst prefer to lie in the ground,
wise man of Tamarizia, or in Kalamita's arms? Wouldst prefer to give of
your strength to Zollaria and her, or to the worms?"
* * * * *
More and more Croft sickened at her words. For this he had been brought
into her private tent. There alone with this shameless woman he was
to be intrigued, turned traitor, in spirit and body seduced. Almost
instinctively he turned away his eyes. Her beauty had become a deadly
menace--the perfume of her tinted flesh had become a stench. To him she
was offering what to Cathur's prince had been given, which had made of
the man's name a synonym for treason in his nation. And now once more
she was speaking.
"Behold, we are alone. I can unbind you, and--Kalamita's couch
is--wide."
"Aye, too wide, by Zitu!" suddenly Croft roared. "The need was too
patent in its making to have foreseen the fact that width would be
required. Sister of Bandhor, beautiful as the dream of a soul in the
realms of Zitemku you may be, but--Jason of Tamarizia barters not the
welfare of his nation for a moment's lust."
"So!" Kalamita rose and stood above him. Cruel was her red lips' smile,
and cruel was the light that flashed from her oval, tawny eyes. "So,
then, we know your name at last. Hark ye, Jason--for Kalamita's favor
prouder heads than thine have bended down in the dust. Nor is her favor
a thing to be lightly brushed aside. Wherefore and Jadgor pays not the
price we ask, then the Mouthpiece of Zitu dies."
A space of time dragged past and Croft had not replied.
Suddenly Kalamita was again beside him. "Or, perhaps," she said in a
softer fashion, "it is because of that maid of Aphur, of whom one has
told me--that Jason turns aside. If so, forget her--and remember only
that Kalamita also is a woman."
"Nay--by Zitu, and Azil and Ga, the pure woman," Croft flamed. "Jason
forgets not the virgin to whom he is plighted for one who has lain in
Kyphallos of Cathur's or another's arms."
"By Bel." Once more Kalamita rose. A tremor shook her tightened figure
and quivered in her tones. "By Bel, who delights in slaughter, you
shall die by torture. Tested by fire shall you be, and staked out for
the insects to devour. The carrion birds of Mazzer shall pluck out your
beauty-blinded eyes. The beasts of the forest shall tear thy entrails
from thee for thy words to me." She turned and went swiftly toward the
flaplike door and flung it open. "Bandhor, O ay Bandhor!" she cried.
Her blue-stained brother appeared. They conferred together. Bandhor
turned away.
But only for a moment longer were Croft and the woman alone. Then
came Mazzerian soldiers, and lifting the trussed figure, bore it
swiftly into the night through Bandhor's tent and to another, smaller,
unlighted as to its interior, with naught for a floor save the
grass-grown ground. And there they flung him down.
But Jason smiled. That quiet dark, the sweet, pure kiss of the grass
beneath him was better than the atmosphere he had left. He stretched
out his limbs so far as his bonds would let him and breathed a sigh of
relief.
And after a long time, as it seemed to his troubled senses, all his
planning focused on Zud and Naia--dwindled down to those two words.
Lying here, bound, practically doomed to die, he could yet communicate
with them in the astral state. To Zud, whom he had taught to recognize
his coming, he could go then, and even though thereby he made his own
death practically certain, he would still serve best the Tamarizian
states. And Naia---he quivered at the thought. Naia--as he knew her,
would like himself, consider him unworthy if he did less than that.
Therefore he took a deep breath; he would go to Zud.
And swiftly as the thing was always accomplished when he so desired
it, he was bending over the high priest's body, asleep in the Zitran
pyramid.
"Zud," his spirit was calling. "The Mouthpiece of Zitu commands you.
Come forth."
And Zud appeared. "Aye, Jason of Zitu," he quavered. "Zud is here."
"List ye, Priest of Zitu," Croft replied, and told him what had
occurred. "Wherefore give ear further to my words. Go to Lakkon, and
bid him, in Zitu's name, to send to Jadgor at Atla, advising him to
hold out and seek for delay until the aid from Himyra arrives. Let it
be said to him that Zollaria inspires all things which Mazzer requires.
Let him know that through the power of the spirit which is mine, I
shall inspire Naia of Aphur to cause Robur, his son, to come swiftly
to Atla in person, to direct the use of the weapons that together with
myself he understands, and that through you and Naia of Aphur, I shall
keep him informed of all that transpires while yet my body survives."
"And thou--thou?" Zud faltered in distraught fashion, clasping his
shadowy hands.
"I? I know not," said Jason. "My fortune is in Zitu's hands. To you I
give this mission. Say that you understand."
"Zud hears, and Zud obeys."
Croft left him. His work was finished. He sought Himyra and Robur's
palace, and Naia---his other self. And this part of his plan he felt
would be the hardest, since in order to make her comprehend fully he
must tell a painful truth--must confess that through his own daring
was Jason at last undone--that his body lay prisoner to Mazzer,
condemned if what he meant to attempt were accomplished, to what seemed
inevitable death.
And suddenly, as he gained her chamber, Croft had the odd sensation
that he stood before a tomb. Why it was he did not know at the moment,
but it was as though he faced a ravished or an empty shrine. So
strongly had he willed himself to this spot that the very concentration
of his purpose had blotted out all else, and only now, when he reached
it, did there come upon him the feeling that his coming here was vain.
Yet he crept inside. He moved swiftly toward her couch. In the dusk her
form lay stretched upon it. But--it was motionless, with no stirring
of the coverlet stretched above it, no evidence of breath. Pale as a
lovely image it lay before him, in the semblance of what might be death.
* * * * *
Fear--sheer, stark fear gripped Croft and held him through the span of
a startled instant. And then he knew the truth. Because as he stood
there it seemed to him that Naia of Aphur was calling--not from the
form on the couch, but from somewhere else. "Jason--Jason--O Jason, my
beloved!" that subtle cry rang out.
And it drew him. It compelled him. It was the voice of love--the voice
of the affinity of the ages, soundless, as the spinning of the planets
down the grooveless tracks of time--a blind thing, a mad thing, beyond
all thinking in its sweetness--the voice of atom to atom--of the soft
wind to the pollen--the voice of the bird to its mate--of the maiden to
her lover--the ceaseless song of creation--the voice of God to man.
"Jason--O my beloved!"
It filled Croft's being. It engulfed him. It caught him up and carried
him he cared not whither on the tide of a swift irresistible flood. It
made of his astral substance no more than a straw swept up and off and
about in an eddy of compelling force. It was more like that ceaseless
urge which had drawn him from the Dog Star always while yet he dwelt on
earth.
It carried Croft out of the palace and across the Central Sea. It swept
him across Bithur, with its plains and night-wrapped woods. It drew him
above the camp of the Mazzerian army, and inside that tent where his
body lay stretched out upon the ground.
And then Croft understood--that Naia had accomplished for herself, what
heretofore had been by him induced--that her spirit's love--her desire
for knowledge, had enabled her soul to break the body's bonds. That as
she suggested she might, in a former conversation, she had found the
way to visit him in dreams.
Yes, Croft knew all this in a blinding flash of comprehension.
Because--there in the little tent, its auric fires paling and glowing,
its soft arms twined about his unconscious body, lay Naia's astral form.
She had come to find him. Suddenly it seemed to Croft that he might
have known. And all at once he was glad, with a great unreasoning
gladness that when she came, she had found him here alone, like this
rather than in Kalamita's tent.
Then very softly, "Beloved," he let steal forth the soul call.
She heard. She lifted her head from where it had lain upon his breast.
She turned its wide eyes toward him, and saw him and rose swiftly
toward him, and into his embrace.
"Jason--I came to Atla, and could not find you. And I sought
you--sought you. What is the meaning of this?"
"The plane fell. I told you always there was danger," he explained
briefly. "I was taken prisoner by the Zollarian masters of the men of
Mazzer. I am held to ransom for a price."
"Zitu!" Naia panted. "And what else?"
"I went in the spirit to converse with Zud, and send him on a mission
to thy father," Jason told her, loath to answer her questions with a
mere avowal of the numbing truth--that truth which as it seemed must
blast their own hopes for the future, unless in some blind way he could
contrive escape. "Through him I shall send word to Jadgor that the
price must be refused."
"Refused?" Naia drew back slightly. Those quivering fires of her life
force faltered, grew dim and uncertain, died down like a flame well
nigh blown out by a deadening wind of fear. "But Jason--thy body--which
I found lying--here?"
"Belongs to thee, while yet it survives," Croft answered slowly, and
went on before she could find a reply. "Then went I to Himyra, and
finding your form stretched on its couch, seemed to hear you calling,
and returned to find you here. Listen, Naia, my beloved, you must find
Robur and speak to him for me. To Jadgor you must send him, explaining
what has befallen, telling him from me as the one Lakkon sent will tell
him, that when Robur shall arrive to take charge of the motors and
the riflemen of Aphur, they must strike, strike, strike until Bithur
shall be freed. Also to Robur you must say he shall call on Nodhur and
Milidhur to arm so quickly as they may, and send their men to reenforce
and support Aphur. So shall Tamarizia vanquish Mazzer and once more
defeat those things Zollaria plans."
"And--you ask me--to do this?" Naia faltered.
"Aye--for Tamarizia I ask it," Croft replied.
"But--you--you?" She glanced toward the tight-bound body.
Croft sought to stay her questions. "Look not there, beloved. I am
here."
"But--unless this price of Mazzer you mentioned--be paid?" She would
not be refused.
* * * * *
Croft drew her to him. His position was perhaps rather more peculiar
than that of any living man. The answer to what she had asked was
death, and he knew it. Once he had snapped the astral cord that bound
him to a body, but only after control of another had been gained. And
that second body, the one he had made his own on Palos when he forsook
earth because of the woman whose vital substance now glowed and paled
against him, was the one which lay bound beside them on the ground.
There was no other--the loss of it meant to him what the loss of
physical life must mean to all men--nothing else. "If the price is not
paid, it is easy enough to snap the cord that binds my life within it,
at the proper time," he said at length.
"And," said Naia in a tone of horror, "you would ask me in taking your
message to Robur, in sending him to Jadgor, to consign our love to
death?"
"The price," said Croft in justification, "is very great. Much will
Mazzer ask--more than by Tamarizia can be paid for one man's life."
Swiftly the auric fires leaped up in Naia's slender figure. "Is there
no escape?"
"I know not," Croft made answer. "It is as Zitu wills. These Zollarians
with the men of Mazzer have stained themselves blue. Yet whom have I to
stain my body, were the stain within my grasp, or shave my hair and dye
it red in time to make the venture? This tent is under guard, and will
be, and the hands of my body are bound."
Naia considered. "And the price Mazzer will ask," she spoke slowly
after a time, "is large?"
"Aye, as large, I fear, as though the Zollarian war had been lost by
Tamarizia and Mazhur not regained."
"And if not paid--your body--dies--and mine."
"Thine?" Croft tightened the grip of his arms upon her. "What mean you,
maid of Aphur, by such words?"
"Aphur means what Aphur says," she returned, and looked him in the
eyes. For a moment her own were steady, and then they wavered. She
clung to him in an almost frantic agony of what seemed a momentary
panic of more than mortal grief. Then that, too, had passed, giving way
to an almost passionate mood. "Think you that when life has left your
body, Naia of Aphur, too, shall not lie dead; that to her the body has
no longer any meaning, save as it delights you, save as through it she
knows the touch of yours? Did you not swear to me by Zitu and Azil to
return and claim me? And if that promise remains unfulfilled, think you
that Naia of Aphur will live?"
"Yet," Croft stammered, shaken by this breath of passion, dazzled by
the flashing of her being's fire, "if the welfare of Tamarizia demands
the failure of that promise--if not with honor can I return to Himyra
in the body. If your words, beloved, make doubly hard my purpose,
when you shall have left me and returned to carry my message to your
cousin--"
"By Zitu--and by Zitu," Naia fired into desperate protest, "it shall
not be. Azil, giver of life! Shall these foul spawn of Zitemku keep you
from me? Nay, as I am a daughter of Ga, with your seal upon me, now Ga
speaks to me!" She broke off and lifted her hands to her breast. Her
very eyes were fired.
So for a moment she stood before she went on. "Hark you, Jason, whom I
love more than my own soul. This tent is guarded as you have said, and
a price is laid on Tamarizia for your returning. Yet am I not woman
whom you have wakened for nothing, and my love is not in vain. What
price for a man who is dead?"
"By Zitu!" Croft caught her meaning. His glance turned toward the body
on the ground beside their feet.
And Naia nodded. "Aye--Gaya told me in speaking of those things you
told to Robur and to Zud, and now I know for myself that when the
spirit is without it, the body lies as dead. Wherefore were it possible
for you to remain as now you are for a space sufficient to deceive
these men of Mazzer into thinking that injured in your fall you
perchance had died--think you they would keep your body under guard or
even near them, lest it foul the air even like those rotting corpses
which tainted it with horror as I passed this night by Atla's walls?"
"No by Zitu--they would cast it forth in some other place," Croft
answered quickly. "Naia--Ga--priestess of life, you have said it.
Together we shall beat them yet."
"Aye, we shall beat them. Listen further," Naia said. "For a few suns
you shall appear to be alive, yet faint and not recovered from injury.
To Himyra shall I return and carry your message to Rob. When seven
suns beginning with the next are passed, then must you seem to die.
Thus shall they carry you forth. But the seven days shall be to gain
time for what you direct to be done. Hai, I am not daughter of Ga for
nothing. Beloved--give me your mouth. I must be gone."
Life! Life and this woman! There was a chance. Her wits had found it
where his had milled around. Daughter of Ga was she as she said--and
perhaps Ga--the eternal woman, _had_ spoken to her through the elements
which went into forming her nature first. Croft took her once more
closely into his arms.
"Seek not to leave your body for one moment between now and the end of
the seventh sun," she cautioned, "lest one should note it and so at the
proper time entertain a doubt of your real death."
Croft marveled. To him she seemed to think of each infinitesimal
detail. "No," he gave his promise. "I shall be merely as one who from
one sun to another fails."
Naia lifted her lips. And as once before in similar fashion, she
yielded them to him. For an instant it was as though their two beings
blended, intermingled, and then she had torn herself from him, divinely
glowing. "Zitu keep you, beloved," she whispered, and vanished from
before his eyes.
* * * * *
For the succeeding seven days Croft endured--simply endured
discomfort--the trussing up of his arms and feet at night in none too
gentle fashion, the scant irregularity of poorly furnished meals, the
absence of aught save trampled grass to sleep upon, renewed attempts on
the part of Bandhor to force from him some intimation of Tamarizia's
plans--the haughty, venomous hate that glared out of Kalamita's
tawny eyes--that fury of a woman of the purely physical type, whose
allurement has been scorned--of an adventuress, a schemer, whose scheme
has failed.
But on the seventh day, as he lay brooding in his tent, close by the
huge skin headquarters tent of Bandhor, which reminded him more of some
Tatar chieftain's domicile than anything else, with its hide walls, its
semibarbaric trappings, its red-and-green standard floating on a pole
before its door, the door of his own tent was drawn slightly to one
side and a face appeared to send his heart leaping into his breast.
Maia, Naia's own maid, was looking shrewdly into his starting eyes.
And as lost in a maze he lay staring at her, filled with a vast wonder
at her presence here in the heart of the Mazzerian camp, yet afraid to
speak--torn between a desire to learn the meaning of her presence and a
fear lest any sign of recognition should destroy whatever purpose that
presence might portend, she flung the flap entirely back and darted
inside.
"Thou canor of Tamarizia!" she cried in the voice of a termagant--a
shrew--and struck him with her right hand a smart blow. "Thou foul
offspring of Zitu fallen to the ground--thou devil who sent fire
against my people, whose own people have cast him off, die--like the
canor thou art!" And all the time she was shrieking she continued to
buffet him with blows, striking him with her bare hand, kicking him
with her feet. "Die, thou pale-faced fiend, whom Bel--greater than thy
Zitu struck down and hurled among us--die--die now!"
But Croft, under the storm of her words, her buffetings, made no
movement of resistance, lay limp and unresisting on the grass. Because
even as she struck him, even as she lashed him with her tongue, calling
him fiend and devil and canor--the name of the great beasts such as
Naia's pet and protector, Hupor, which was the nearest approach in
Palos to a dog; yet as her one hand rose and fell above him, her other
drew from the narrow apron about her blue loins a little looped silver
cross, and showed it to him briefly and thrust it back, and between
the anathema of her lips they moved in almost soundless speaking.
"Hupor--give ear to my berating of thee closely. I come from one who
loves thee greatly--to show you the cross."
The cross ansata--the looped symbol of life--the little sign Zud had
placed in Naia's hands at their betrothal--the sign of immortal life
which came to men through women--Naia of Aphur was sending it by this
servant of hers, who loved her, to him! He closed his eyes and nodded
slightly in understanding as Maia continued to rave. Only now his brain
was whirling, seething; was a caldron of troubled questions he dared
not voice--questions as to why Maia had been sent to aid in his escape,
as he felt sure now she had. Yet to question the girl was impossible
under the present conditions, and what was she screaming?
"Die--thou canor--die as Bandhor has decreed thou must, since Jadgor
has refused thy ransom! Die now--thou Tamarizian dog!"
And she had told him to listen closely to her vituperations. Croft
gained the message she intended. Jadgor had done as he advised, and
Bandhor's captive had lost value. Wherefore he kept his eyes closed,
and seemingly died.
Footsteps! Croft's guard burst through the door. He seized Maia and
flung her to one side, and stooped above the body with a face of
terror. And then he straightened and turned upon her. "By Bel, you have
killed him!" he stammered. "He has been ailing ever since he fell among
us. Fool that I was to listen to your plea to view him. May Bel send
you our commander's rage."
"That rage," Maia said, panting as it seemed from her exertions and
emotions, "seeing that he is of value no longer, should not be so
intense."
"Come!" The guard seized her by an arm and led her toward Bandhor's
tent.
Croft went along, trailing the man and woman's steps. And once inside
the huge shelter of skins, the guard saluted sharply and hurled Maia
before the Zollarian noble, so that she sprawled her length on the
ground.
"Behold, O Bandhor"--he made his report in a gruff bluster designed to
cover his own face as well as he could--"this woman who made her way by
stealth into Jason of Tamarizia's tent and struck him so that he died!"
"Hai!" Bandhor half rose, and sank back and narrowed his eyes. He
regarded Maia, who groveled before him, her body caught and held,
half-raised, on stretching arms, her head lifted, gazing into his
startled face with watchful eyes.
"How are you called?" he inquired.
"Maia," stammered the woman. "Child am I of a father and mother who
have lived among his people. All my life have I served them until Bel
sent Bandhor and my father's people to bring liberation. Then I slipped
away and made my way to thy army, with which I have stayed the past
sun. Wherefore, hearing that Bandhor had condemned this one to death,
I desired to see him and, seeing him, rage overcame me, and I threw
myself upon him. Mercy, O Bandhor, mighty commander of my people, for
this which I have done."
"Hai!" said Bandhor again, his lids contracting still further. "After
all, it is a small matter, though my sister will be annoyed. She had
planned a more lingering death for this insolent man. Yet to death was
he condemned, and it is finished. Say you that from the bondage of his
people you have come?"
"Aye, from Atla, lord."
"Atla! Now, by Bel!" Bandhor roared. "And what inside the penned-up
city do these white spawn plan?"
"They speak of resistance," Maia made answer, "as Bandhor knows. But
perchance he knows not that many men from Aphur have arrived, armed
with the chariots they call moturs, which run by fire, and breathe it
forth as death, and with the sticks that throw death unseen with noise
and smoke, unlike the flight of an arrow or spear. Ten thousand have
reached Bithra, and are advancing to the relief of Atla even now. More
are said to be journeying from Aphur across the Central Sea, and yet
others from Nodhur and Milidhur are to come."
"Hai!" For the third time Bandhor said it with a heavy frown. "This
is of importance. For the information your words contain, I give you
pardon--were those other of thy father's children in Tamarizia as
loyal--much might be wrought of ill among them were their caste of
servants to rise and kill and burn. Go!" He turned to the guard, whose
face had lightened. "Take men and bear forth this body, and cast it
beyond the camp. Or hold! I will view him myself." For the third time
his eyelids narrowed, and he rose.
* * * * *
Followed by Maia and the guard, he entered Croft's tent and bent over
the body on the ground. "Aye--his spirit has left him," he said as he
straightened from the inspection and swung about on his heel.
"Mighty Bandhor," Maia stayed him. "I may remain for a time in the
camp."
Bandhor eyed her. "Oh, aye," he said in careless fashion. "You are a
comely girl of your people; you should have small trouble in finding
some man to take you to his tent."
He turned away, and a moment later a brazen trumpet began sounding
a summoning blast. As Croft learned, this was a signal to Bandhor's
captains and advisers to assemble for a council with their chief.
Maia stole out with the arm of the guard about her, walking coyly at
his side. Quite plainly the fellow was inclined to take Bandhor's
suggestion about her to himself. Croft watched them vanish, and
remained beside his own body, still huddled on the grass.
And in the end he followed it--followed his own body when it was borne
outside the limits of the encampment and cast into a thicket of bushes,
where its disposition was watched by Maia, who accompanied the now
openly amorous guard and lingered beside the thicket with him after the
other soldiers had cast down their burden and gone.
"Let us remove its clothing," she suggested. "To waste it were a loss."
The guard assented.
Five minutes later, more than a little aghast, Croft found his material
tenement stretched stark upon the ground. Maia and her lover were
moving off. In her arms the girl bore his suit of soft, brown leather.
In a way now Croft became more and more disturbed. Vague fancies filled
his mind. At the first he had trusted her wholly, but this last move he
did not understand. He recalled the story Parthys had told of the blue
servants rising against their employers during the present trouble, and
he marked the manner in which she accepted the blue man's advances.
After all, she was a Mazzerian herself, he thought, and there was no
reason save her possible affection for Naia to insure her worthiness
of trust. Still--she had shown him the tiny cross from the apron about
her waist, and she had told him to die, as Naia had advised he should.
After all, she might have some definite reason beyond his present
knowledge for divesting his body of clothes. And he could do nothing
until nightfall. That being the case, and the night being several
hours removed, there was nothing to do but wait. Dead it might be in
seeming, yet Croft knew that lying thus in the open his body needed
protection. In the middle of the thicket he settled down beside it. It
was rather odd, he found himself thinking, to be sitting there keeping
an invisible watch of his own form.
Now and then, as the afternoon passed, he stole a glance at the camp.
There was bustle there, a moving and shifting of men. It came to him
that Bandhor, after his council, was preparing for another attack
of Atla, urged thereto by Maia's report concerning the approaching
reinforcements of weapons and men. Well, let them attack, he thought
with a grim satisfaction. Jadgor would hold out through yet one more
attack surely, and by then Bandhor would have lost his chance, once
Robur and his forces had arrived.
Night came at last. Purposely Croft waited until late before making his
venture at escape. And while he waited, there stole into the thicket a
dim shape, which approached his body and sank beside it on the ground.
It was Maia. More than a little surprised, Croft watched her. She
carried a bundle. She undid it. She moved higher beside his body and
raised his head, supporting it on her thighs. Then swiftly she began
to shave it, turning it to reach the back, and working rapidly on the
sides. That done, while comprehension flashed into Croft's mind, and
with it renewed confidence in this girl, as he recalled his words to
Naia concerning some such thing as this, she took a small box from her
bundle and began rubbing the scalp-lock she had left upon his poll with
a substance it contained. After that she lifted a flask and removed a
stopper. Working rapidly, she began smearing the body with some dark
fluid, spreading it thinly upon the skin, rubbing it to as even a
coating as she might with rapid hands. And as she worked Croft's body
lost its ivory whiteness and became a dark-hued thing like her own. At
the end she took a small cloth from the articles she had brought with
her and twisted it deftly about his loins.
And as she finished and straightened herself from her labors, Croft,
sensing it time for his reviving, opened the eyes of the body over
which she had worked and spoke.
"Hai," said Maia, without any particular evidence of consternation. "It
is even so she said it would happen when I had finished. She said that
when I had shaved you, lord, and reddened your hair, and stained your
body, and put the loin-cloth upon it, you would reappear."
"She?" Croft questioned her quickly. "You mean Naia of Aphur, Maia?"
"Aye. Who else, Hupor Jason?" She rose and picked up her bundle. "Naia,
my mistress. These are your garments. Come, Hupor, till I lead you to
her. She lies near."