Naia of Aphur—Naia! He was now to meet her again in the flesh. The thought held Croft as he drove toward Himyra the next day. He was to meet her, as at Zitra, not as in the mountains beside the stream he had harnessed to his and Tamarizia's purpose, but in Robur's palace, where, like himself, she was a guest—under conditions where the conventions of social life, not so far unlike those of earth, since human nature is, after all, very much the same, would compel a certain courtesy in their association at least.
Toward that meeting he went more like an ardent lover than anything else. Once in the palace, he sent for a barber and had his hair carefully trimmed. For an hour after that he lay while a Mazzerian masseur rubbed softening oils into his skin. And then he dressed in a costume he had ordered made when he returned from Zitra first, unlike old Zud's robes, and of his own designing—a costume of golden leg cases studded with sapphire-hued stones—an undervest of gossamer tissue—a short skirt of a heavier material, white in color, with a silken sheen, and a cuirass of gold and silver, with the wings of Azil and the cross ansata, inlaid on the breast-plate in more of the sapphire-like gems. Of gold and silver was his helmet topped with a crest of azure plumes. Robur came in upon him, having barely returned from the shops, as he put it on.
"Zitu!" he exclaimed, pausing to stare at his friend, and went on: "Jason, thou art a sight—"
"A sight, yes—" Croft cut him short with a heightened color. He laughed. "Rob—there are times when your tongue reminds me of speech on earth. Were I there at this moment, they would name me a sight indeed."
A smile twitched Robur's lip as he caught the unaccustomed meaning. "And at times I find a strange application of meaning in thy words, Jason," he replied. "It is so in the manner of speech you use concerning the games of baseball when the contest waxes warm. 'Tear its hide off! Lay on that pill! Lean on it! Lean on it!'—the word 'charley-horse' which you sometimes employ, and the naming of an arm a 'wing.' None the less thou art a sight to gladden a maiden's eyes, my friend, and even now a maid and a matron await thee beside the bathing pool. So—get thee gone! Thou art beautiful enough."
With another laugh Croft took him at his word, descending to the court where the swimming pool sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight, and advancing in a considerable blaze of material glory to where, on couches beneath a shimmering awning, Gaya and Naia reclined.
"Hai, Jason!" Robur's wife exclaimed, extending a hand as she saw him. "Welcome, thou tamer of the lightning, as my lord has said thou art. Wilt pardon a matron's indolence, or should I greet thee on my feet?"
"Nay." Croft took her hand and bent above it. "I like thee less, wife of Robur, in the formal mood. Retain the charm of thy ease." Then deliberately he turned his eyes and met those of Naia. "Greeting to thee, maid of Aphur," he said.
"And to thee, Mouthpiece of Zitu," she returned with her pansy-purple eyes fixed on the flashing symbol on his breast.
Croft noted the glance, the slight tensing of the lines about her mouth as he sat down. He had meant from the first to note its effect. Indeed, he had worn it to this meeting of a purpose. It was his intent that, in spite of it, and all it stood for, or had stood for at one time in her mind, her surrender should be gained.
"As to the harnessing of Zitu's fire, 'tis no more than a following out of Zitu's law when understood," he turned to Gaya to explain. "The generation of 'elektricity,' as it is called, is no more in this case than the changing of one force into another, a transfer of energy from—-"
"Ah, Ga, I am a woman, unversed in such matters!" Gaya exclaimed with a dancing in her eyes. "I fear I am too old to learn. Naia is of a younger generation, her mind of softer substance; grave thy meaning on its tablet with the stylus of thy tongue. I would see Robur before the evening meal. It were time he had returned."
"Aye," said Croft, smiling and rising to assist her to her feet. "Even now he is within the palace. We spoke before I came forth."
He watched while she hurried importantly away, still smiling inwardly at her palpable subterfuge for leaving Naia and him alone; then turned to where Lakkon's daughter still reclined, and resumed his seat.
"You have heard from Zitra?" he inquired.
"Aye," she said, and went on with the information: "Lakkon, my father, and Jadgor are blessed by Zitu with good health. My cousin's wife informs me Jadgor has given sanction to thy plans for schools."
"My plans?" Jason countered the indirect accusation. "Was not the matter presented by Mutlos of Cathur?"
"Aye." The pansy-purple eyes grew somewhat narrow. "Mutlos—a man of the people, who writes not his own name upon the tablets, suggests that the people be taught to read the characters heretofore known to few save the nobles and the priests. And Koryphu of Scira joins hands with Mutlos to support the project. Thus inside a few Zitrans after a thousand cycles in Tamarizia—" The ivory shoulder above her left breast twitched in something like a shrug of her own words of rejection. "Thus, on its face, the thing appears. Also, Robur last night came with a marvelous tale of your latest success. Zitu—one succeeds where another only dreams."
"Success," said Croft, looking directly at her, "consists very largely, Princess Naia, in refusing to be denied."
For a moment she endured his steady contemplation, and then her lids drooped, she picked at a fold of her garment. "And you succeed? You refuse to be—denied?"
"Yes, by Zitu!" her companion told her quickly. "I refuse to question the possibility of aught which Zitu permits or ordains."
And suddenly Naia of Aphur threw up her head in an almost haughty gesture. "As were fitting, being Mouthpiece of Zitu," she made answer, "speak further. Tell me of your plans."
Womanlike, she had touched him on a soft spot. Croft blazoned forth. And though now in all things mortal he was Tamarizian indeed—still he was a man—and because of the peculiar circumstances leading up to his present position, he still clung to many of the habits in thought of earth. Furthermore he had planned at some length the night before concerning the manner of his demonstration of electricity to Himyra. And in those plans he had put all his eggs in one basket, more or less. He had planned to make it what on earth he might have called "some time."
Hence he ignored Naia's evasion of what had been growing into more or less a tense situation, fell in with her suggestion, and began a delineation of his designs. And despite herself, as he went on, Naia, being a typical Aphurian and, like her people, one of a pleasure-loving race, found her interest quicken, her somewhat formal pose forgotten, her brain filled with pictures never beheld before; so that long before he had finished her eyes began to shine.
"Himyra shall see sights such as she has never witnessed," Croft declared. "I shall make lights. Already for them the plans are drawn. Lamps they shall be of glass and metal, which, when the new force shall pass through them, shall glow, yet without emitting any smoke or flame. These first I shall show at a public celebration, in small numbers. Later they shall flare from one end of Aphur to the other. Yet before I present them to the people, I shall have completed yet another device which shall be for a part of the celebration—a machine which, like the motors across the desert, shall fly through the air."
He went on, lost in the joy of portraying his intentions to her, and described the airplane, drawing in graphic words a verbal outline of each part, from the metal fuselage to the wings.
It was then for the first time that Naia interrupted. And not as an interruption, but in their nature her words were surprising in a way. Gradually as Croft described the airplane he meant to build, her whole expression had changed, had grown wide-eyed and parted of lip, a thing of rapt attention, until as he paused, with the promise of himself riding the air at the coming celebration, she exclaimed:
"Thou wouldst be as a bird in thy daring, and the birds I have often yearned to follow! To rise like them, singing in broad circles against the sun, or with beating wings to breast some cloudy storm. Zitu permitting"—she lifted herself on her couch, and her whole form seemed to expand with the thrill of the conception—"I myself would delight to fly with these thy wings."
"Thou?" Croft found that her wish both upset and thrilled him. The spontaneous flare of daring it mirrored forth, the flash of the lovely eyes that accompanied its expression, the light of its thought on her face, all woke a quick admiration. But—the following consideration of her glorious life exposed to the perils of the undertaking roused something like consternation in him.
And as the thought clouded his face and he stammered forth his interrogatory exclamation, Naia relaxed the tension of her figure, reclining again on the couch. "Nay," she said, "if it fills you with displeasure, forget my overquick speech. There shall be new light in Himyra, and Zitu's Mouthpiece shall ride above all men's heads, on the wings of his devising, that they may behold him and wonder at his wisdom. What else?"
Mentally, Croft winced at the subtle turn of her words. Almost it seemed to him that she purposely misunderstood his hesitation, seeking thereby to mask the temporary loss of her own pose, the well-nigh forward interest she had displayed. But, aside from an inward emotion, he gave no sign that he noted the personal bias of her rejoinder.
"In the afternoon there will be a ball game," he said. "Robur and I will select the teams."
"Base-ball?" Suddenly Naia laughed. Her arms rose, and she clasped her hands behind her head. Her whole figure, clad in white, embroidered over the breasts and about the hem in scarlet, blue, and green, with small gems to produce something like a Persian effect, stretched its supple length in an almost indolent fashion. She began toying with the ends of its fringed girdle. "Robur tells me 'tis a game you brought with you from—earth."
Abruptly Croft became aware of the scrutiny of her eyes, for the space of a heartbeat, then they were again inspecting her girdle's fringe.
"Yes," he answered, sensing that once more she was groping for some sign in his words or manner. "Have you witnessed a game?"
Naia nodded, without looking up. "Robur insisted, after he had contrived to throw a ball through my chamber window and drop it into the mirror pool with a most surprising splash, to say nothing of waking me with the water in my face."
Croft smiled. He suspected Rob had been continuing his experiments with the intricacies of curves.
"Since then," Naia went on, "I have been seeking to aid him in the mornings with something he desires to learn. It seems that he declares a ball may be thrown so that it changes its direction in the air, and I confess that, watching one of the team pitchers whom he pointed out at a game, it appeared that it was done. We have risen and worked for several mornings together; but, besides breaking two windows and some flower urns, we have little to show for our pains. Gaya declares he will destroy the palace unless you teach him the trick on your return."
"I shall join you in the morning," said Jason, laughing, as her red lips smiled.
Naia regarded the arches of her pink feet, bared save for sandals of scarlet gnuppa leather, caught about her slender ankles by silver bands, to which were linked chains of silver running up on either side of the heel and between the toes. "Then," said she, "shall I let you take the ball when he throws it. I confess it burns my hands. As to this new light—what does it burn, since it neither smokes nor flames?"
"A substance," said Croft, "made from koal." And now as he spoke he watched his companion in turn. And suddenly he met her eyes in a glance that thrilled—a glance that spoke of recollection, that seemed for an instant to flash him a voiceless question, yet one whose meaning to him was plain. And for a moment it seemed that an actual question trembled on the lips of the perfect mouth he watched, before Naia spoke in an almost breathless fashion.
"Koal—the strange, black stone you have set men to digging in the region to the west? Jason—how knew you where to find what, before your coming, in all Aphur was unknown?"
Croft's heart leaped, both at what he felt was the animus back of the query, and the fact that now, for the first time to him in the unity of soul and body, she had used his name. And suddenly daring the issue, he let his eyes sweep from her golden head to pink-nailed toes, in a glance that was subtly like a caress, before he answered slowly: "I came upon its locality on a day when my body lay sleeping and my spirit wandered as you have heard that it does. Some might say that Zitu showed it to me—in a dream."
Naia of Aphur went pale. Her color faded. One of her hands crept up and lay above her heart. For a moment she plainly struggled for control, and then she faltered. "A dream, say you—a dream?"
Croft nodded. "Yes. Did you not speak to me yourself of one such, in which you had learned of my intent concerning the use of water to bring new light to Himyra? Said you not as much the afternoon of that sun on which you and Hupor came upon me by the stream?"
"Oh, aye—oh, aye, indeed." Naia's tone was listless, weary. "Yet am I not Mouthpiece of Zitu. Who am I to dream?"
And suddenly Jason Croft caught a breath deep into his lungs. Close to the borderland between spirit and body were they in that moment, and he knew it—close, very close. A little more thought, a little more pondering and questioning of itself, and this girl's spirit must spread the wings of the soul in conscious understanding of the truth. His eyes lighted at the recognition of that fact. His nostrils tensed a trifle about the angle at thought of all it must mean.
"No, Mouthpiece of Zitu are you not called," he said. "Nor is there any mouthpiece of Zitu, save through the soul of man. Yet are you daughter of Ga, and a woman, through whom man's soul must pass before man be man indeed. Thou art the door between man and Zitu, and in so much nearer than man to him."
Then for a moment he paused and sat with a fear beginning to stir within him lest he had dared too much. For she said nothing, nor moved. Nor did she look at him, or, as he fancied, at any objective thing. She lay reclining, her body rising and falling to a long, slow rhythm of breathing, her gaze directed off across the shimmering ripple of the pool. But as he watched, her expression softened, became rapt—as though the purple eyes beneath her long-fringed lashes were beholding what save to herself was an invisible thing. Her lips moved without sound. But Croft, reading their motion, knew that they framed two of his own words: "The Door."
"Yes—the door—above which Azil spreads his wings," Croft repeated softly.
Once more he broke off and sat waiting. Because his words had been almost an allusion to the betrothal gift of Tamarizian men to their women—that seal of Azil she had torn from her girdle and returned in scorn to him. And that she would understand it, considering how largely symbolism entered into Tamarizian speech, he felt assured.
Nor was he kept long in suspense. Naia's steady breathing broke its rhythm. With a lithe movement she first sat up on the couch, then lifted herself to her feet. Her eyes turned toward him. The introspective light was gone from their blue depths. They blazed with a purple fire. "Enough!" she panted as she faced him. "Friend thou art of my cousin, and friend art thou to his wife. Mouthpiece of Zitu art thou to my nation, and as such I yield you my respect. Yet speak not any more to me such words as these, and let us have understanding. Daughter of Ga am I, and a woman as thou knowest; but one for whom not—any more does Azil spread his wings."
She paused and stood before him, head back-tilted on the round, white pillar of her throat, arms straightened beside her a trifle extended, drawn a trifle back, tense as a tightened cord in all her slender length; staring wide-eyed into his eyes, until abruptly she lifted a hand and struck herself sharply on the breast and turned from him, crossing the court to disappear from sight.
Beside the pool Croft remained more than a little disturbed by the feeling that, urged on by the propinquity for which he had thirsted through weeks, he had on this first meeting risked too much. Nor was his mood lightened by the fact that Naia failed to appear at the evening meal, and the questioning expression in Gaya's glance, which she turned upon him from time to time. As a matter of fact, the girl's close presence had gone to his head, and he had literally sought to gain from her some sign—to speak not so much to her physical mind as to her soul. But as he sought his chamber that night, it appeared that, instead of rousing an answering flash from her spirit, he had struck a note which in some way disharmonized.
And because of that he sought her out, safe once again in the undertaking, since should he call her to him in the astral body now, she might well think that she dreamed once more—a dream inspired by his presence in Robur's house.
He willed himself to her. Long practice had made it easy. With him now, such things occurred in a flash. It was his intent to summon her forth, speak to her such things as he dared not speak yet in the flesh. But once in that yellow-draped room of Robur's dwelling where he had thought to find her stretched on the amber-jeweled copper couch, he paused—paused and stood waiting and watching, because—
Naia knelt, a slender white shape in the dusk of her apartment, before the figure of Azil, beside the mirror pool. And as once before, when she had cried out to this same Angel of Life against the barter of her body to a profligate traitor, for the saving of her nation, so now once more Croft bent his head while she prayed:
"Oh, Azil, who carry life from Zitu to all the daughters of Ga, by his command—thou whose sign I have torn from my girdle and flung at the feet of him who gave it, have pity upon me. For truly am I a daughter of Ga. And though thy sign I hurled against him, even against the symbol of thy widespread wings, yet was my action prompted by an agony of spirit, rather than by any wish or intent to show disrespect to thee. And were I wrong, set me aright.
"Spread over me again thy shadow wings—let me once more be altogether daughter of Ga, thy mother—not barren, but a fruitful thing. Or were my impious act too great to be forgotten—if against me thy wings are folded—if woman's birthright I may not hold, nor mirror the life of him, as this pool mirrors thy form within it—if I may not be that Door of Life he called me—have pity, Azil; Zitu have pity; have pity Ga, and teach me a new strength."
She rose. Her arms lifted. For a moment she stood so before the carved figure. Then her lips moved. "Jason," they faltered. Her breath caught in a sob. She turned and threw herself upon her couch.
"Beloved!" Croft let the cry of his thrilling soul steal forth. "Beloved you have called me. Beloved, I am here."
Naia of Aphur stiffened in every soft line and curve. She lifted her head as one who listens. She lifted her slender body on her rounded arms. Then slowly, in a wide-eyed wondering fashion, since Croft had not waited for sleep to claim her on this night of nights when he had heard the confession of her love in the sacred shrine of her night-wrapped chamber, she sat up.
And now the borderland between objective and sub-conscious knowledge was narrow—very, very narrow indeed—the consciousness of soul and body was divided by no more than a breath, a hair. Croft felt that it quivered as the woman sat there, rapt of expression.
"Jason," she whispered again at last.
"Beloved—come forth!" Close by the form of Azil, Croft took his station, moved by the sudden impulse that for this girl who prayed to be made once more all woman he was as Azil himself.
The form of Naia swayed. It bent. Slowly it sagged down and lay relaxed upon the couch. And between it and Croft where he waited, there appeared the diaphanous, swaying, scintillating outline of her astral shape.
"Jason!" And now for the third time she cried it gladly with her quivering, flaming lips. "Jason—Azil!" She stretched out yearning hands. "Thou hast come to me again."
"Yes," said Croft, opening his own embrace and drawing her inside its circle. "Yes, I have come—to tell you your prayer is answered—to tell you that of all laws of Zitu, the greatest of all is love—that love in which Ga brought Azil forth before he came to Palos to teach men the way of life. Wherefore for Azil himself I speak when I say, as I have said before, that for me—for me, and for me alone, you guard the shrine of life—that some day, once more I shall place upon thy girdle that sign that in Zitra you flung against my breast."
"Thou hast it?" The contained fire of her substance glowed.
"Yes." Croft smiled. "And some day the fleshly hands of Jason shall pin it fast."
"I was mad, mad!" his companion panted. "Much thinking, the shock of learning thee other than I had thought, had made my heart sick, my mind unsettled—too much I thought of the man, and not enough of the spirit—the real you that is here with me now, as with you the real me is here. Ah, Jason, Jason—one time in Lakkon's palace we stood thus together in the body, and I—I yielded you—my mouth."
"As once more you yield it." Croft lowered his lips to the strange, lambent outline of hers beneath them. He kissed her in a strange kiss such as he had never dreamed of—a thing all inexpressible softness, seeming to hold in its contact a something that tingled like fire. And as though that fire were a strange, cosmic solvent, for an instant as short as a breath, as long as eternity, it was as though their two individualities dissolved and flowed together, blended into one.
Croft tore away his mouth. The thing had been too real. It left a weird, staggering sensation quivering through him, and the form within his strong arms quivered. Its auric fires of white and gold and purple were more radiant than they had ever been. Naia's hands clung to him. Her eyes were uplifted. "Go—go!" she panted. "Send me back to my body. Yet wait not so long to come to me again."
"In the morning I shall see you with Robur," said Croft as he released her. For now he felt assured that she was very, very close to a conscious understanding of the nature of their love—its wonder—its glory—its truth.