NAIA, PRINCESS OF PALOS
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.