CHAPTER XVII
IN THE GRIP OF WAR
As for the other matter which speeded his preparations, it had nothing whatever to do with love—was the exact antithesis of it, dealt wholly with human passion, human strife.
It was now over five weeks since the relief expedition had sailed to Bithur from Himyra, and no word had come from Zitra since.
Mentally, Croft had allowed at least two weeks for the galleys to reach Bithra, the capital of the northeastern state, and unload their moturs and men. Another week, he figured, should bring them well into contact with the Mazzerian forces, if Jadgor moved as quickly as he felt assured he would. And drunk as he was with love, busy as he was with his own endeavors, Croft forgot not entirely affairs of state.
As a result he chose a night some weeks after he felt sure the Bithurian army and its reinforcements should have reached the Bithurian borders, and willed himself to Jadgor's tent.
A strange sight met his eyes. He swam above what at first appeared to him as an enormous grassy plain; and beyond it was a forest, dark in its own shadows beneath the moonlight, and beyond that again was a flare of fires. Toward these he propelled himself without knowing whither exactly he was going, yet arriving to find them the flaring remains of burning houses, spread out on yet another open space beside a river, a mere village, such as the peasant classes were accustomed to inhabit, rather than one of the larger walled towns.
And around it, through it, their bodies picked out by the moonlight and the leaping of the flames, were hundreds—not of Bithur's soldiers, but of leaping, howling, spear-shaking, blood and lust gloated Mazzerian men. And beyond it as he saw now, overcoming his first surprise, lay one of the armored moturs, ringed with intermingled Bithurian and Mazzerian corpses and tipped upon its side.
Disaster! For the first time Croft suspected a Bithurian route. In a flash he returned to his original purpose and once more demanded that Jadgor's position be revealed.
And now a walled town appeared before him, not so large as Himyra, but decidedly greater than Zitra, to judge from the circuit of its walls inside which countless fire-urns flared. And within those walls, as he sped above them, Croft beheld a beaten army's wrack—two of the moturs, parked close inside a gate: weary men showing the marks of conflict, stretched out beside them in a sodden bivouac.
Then into a palace, built of what seemed a brown sandstone, with a huge inner court paved in green, where fire-urns flared and guardsmen stood before a door through which men in armor, with stern, drawn faces passed in and out. Croft followed the progress of the latter and so came at last to the presence of the man he desired.
Jadgor, of Tamarizia—Jadgor, of Aphur—president of a nation, once a haughty king. Jadgor, of Aphur, wounded slightly, with a binding bandage wound about his grizzled head, with his armor dust-stained and smeared with the grime of conflict, Jadgor scowling like some savage creature overborne, driven into a corner, with the sinewy hand of a muscular arm fingering in nervous fashion at his sword.
And about him a cluster of drawn-browed, armored men, one of whom Croft judged to be Medai, governor of Bithur, since his armor was jeweled with the sign of the state, a green medallion halved by a bar of iridescent crystals, to symbolize the mighty river Bith, which crossed it with its flood.
"Mazzer," said Jadgor, "has loosed upon us her whole horde. Armed are they by Zollaria, led by Zollaria's men. By sheer weight of numbers were we overborne—the wings of our army cut so that the center was engulfed. Two of the moturs broke down, and those in charge of them knew not the secret of the one device which causes them to run, because he who constructed them first held the knowledge to himself.
"The men with the rifles within them were cut off when their supply of bullets was gone. Those others so armed, killed so long as their bullets held out, when they also fell back before these blue fiends as well. The fault is not with the weapons, but with the first seeming of the matter. Men of Bithur, we face no barbarian border raiding. This the principal city of your eastern lands shall soon be assailed. Men of Bithur, this is war. For fresh aid I have sent—for more men and weapons. Thrice on as many fields have we met them, and thrice have we been driven back by press of numbers. They swarm like blue vermin, and where one dies two take his place. Yet though crushed, we are not vanquished. Wherefore we fall back on Atla as a strong place for our defense."
"Strong walls has Atla," Medai replied. "And Jadgor speaks strong words from a strong heart. Yet if this be war indeed inspired and sent upon us, not Bithur alone, but all Tamarizia may be affected thereby, if Bithur fall. And since he who made these new weapons knows surely best their use, were it not well also to send one asking him as Zitu's Mouthpiece, to give us aid?"
For a single moment Jadgor winced, and then he inclined his head. "Aye, Medai of Bithur, so have I done. In the mouth of him who departed for Zitra and Himyra, for speech with Zud the high priest, and Robur, my son, have I placed words to that effect. For, as you have said, this matter affects not one man or another, or even yet one state. The peril lies now to our welfare as a nation. Were Jadgor to avail himself not of all means to combat it Jadgor were wrong, and, by Zitu, I swear that above all other things in life, it is Tamarizia that Jadgor loves."
Croft thrilled to those words. Here spoke the old-time Jadgor, patriot again. Even as the first time he had watched the man and listened, as now, to his words, in those days when he sought to strengthen his nation through the sacrifice of Naia, hoping so to block Zollaria's plans, so now the generalissimo of Tamarizia's forces seemed thinking of his country first. Wherefore Croft felt shaken in his soul, so that a responsive emotion toward Robur's father waked within him and glowed. And he vowed that such aid as was asked he would give, both as Mouthpiece of Zitu, and as a man to whom Tamarizia's welfare, both present and future, was identical with his.
Swiftly he made calculation. At the best it would take eight days for the messenger Jadgor had despatched to arrive. He willed himself back to his own apartments in a flash and sat up on his couch. Much might be done in a week he thought, and there was much to be done. Jadgor had failed largely because the drivers of the moturs understood not the nature of the magnetos which Croft had kept secret in their making, and the ammunition for the rifles had given out. Well, for the first part, he had dry cells now to insure ignition, aside from the more complicated device. Moturs must be equipped with them without delay and the arsenal Robur and he had equipped many Zitrans before, set working—much ammunition, many cartridges and grenades turned out.
He rose and called a guard and sent him for Robur at once. And when he came to him, his face somewhat puzzled by this summons from his slumbers, he told him all that he had learned, and how.
And from past experience Robur believed without question. "Zitu!" he cried, springing up and standing before Croft with eyes that were flashing. "They are driven back on Atla, shut up inside her walls, two of the moturs destroyed, their bullets well-nigh exhausted. They send for fresh aid. Hai! Mouthpiece of Zitu, how do you advise?"
Croft told him. "Start all men working on more bullets and the bombs we throw by hand. Send men to call the assembly together against the time Jadgor's messenger comes, yet state not why, save that Robur commands. Order all captains of decktarons to hold those men we trained in readiness for a possible call to arms. Give these orders merely; say naught as yet of war."
"Aye," Robur nodded, "it shall be done."
"Speed also," Croft went on, "the completion of the other airplanes. In the morning I begin training men to fly them when they are done. Also"—his eyes narrowed with a sudden thought—"Rob—we shall remove the dynamo, and transport it to Atla, after we have shown Himyra this new light."
"Thou wilt do that still—in the face of this?" Robur stammered.
Croft nodded. Before his mind's eye floated Naia of Aphur's face—Naia who was to pin the seal of Azil on her girdle the day the light he had promised to Himyra was born. Come weal or woe, come war or peace, Croft swore naught should interfere with that occasion.
"Aye," he said, "on the seventh sun from this."
Yet despite Croft's interdiction on the spreading of the word abroad, Naia and Gaya were told—the latter as Robur's wife, the former as Croft's assistant in his work. For from now on she became fully that. Day after day, from the hour of the morning bath until late at night, she toiled in the laboratory he had equipped in the palace, preparing the chemicals for the dry cells, aiding him with a tight-lipped, yet unfaltering purpose while the cells were packed, taking full charge in the daytime while he was engaged elsewhere on other work.
Clad in a coarse smock, acid stained and scorched, her hands soiled by the manipulation of reagents, she yet had never to Jason presented a fairer, braver sight. She worked. She neither complained nor cried out. She gave her service to her country and to him, in the depths of her purple eyes an almost Spartan light. And Gaya helped. Day after day she labored beside her, under her direction, learning in turn from Naia what she had learned from Croft.
"Are you not glad you have taught me to fly?" Naia questioned one night as they worked. "See you not Zitu's hand in this, beloved, since when you are gone to this spawn of Mazzer's undoing I may continue your work?"
"You?" Croft faltered, sickened at the picture of her meaning. "You must not. As I have told you, there is danger."
"Ah, but"—her smile was very gentle—"is there not danger to thee as well? Think not my heart is like a frightened bird, did it speak in place of my mind. Know you not that to me the loss of you blots out the world?"
"No," Croft cried, and swept her into his arms. "Tis a brave, brave heart, beloved!" He caught and held her fingers. "O brave, brave heart!"
For a moment she lay against him. He felt her shake. Then it was over, and she straightened up again. "In three suns," she said, "your seal shall glow again on my girdle. Tell me, beloved, for I hunger for the knowledge, how may this separation of the spirit from the body, which you have thrice brought about within my knowledge, be by oneself attained?"
"By desire," said Croft. "By a focusing of all the yearning of the soul on that one thing—without doubt, without fear—by centering the mind on its attaining and on the object whereat in that state you wish to arrive; for indeed, beloved, it is the desire of the spirit in life that accomplishes all things."
"Desire," she repeated softly, "desire. Aye, now I see. One must forget all, save only it, alone to attain it. It must be so great that nothing else save only it remains—as great as the love you have wakened in me—as your desire for me. Ah, beloved, when first Gaya told me of your seeking me from earth, I thought it madness, though even then the thought itself set me aflame. And then"—she threw out her arms and stood before him glorious in her soul's surrender—"then you come to me, in what at first I called—a dream."
"Naia!" Croft stammered, lost in the glory of her. "Naia, what have you in your mind?"
She came closer. "Am I not your mate, who am about to lose you? Yet were this power mine, perchance I, too, might visit you—in dreams."
And now Croft saw her meaning, and like her quivered as once more he held her in his arms.
Then came to Himyra light! Croft smiled in singular fashion on the day it came. Aphur's red city was in carnival attire. Its pavements swarmed with life. Open refreshment booths did a thriving business, jugglers plied their skill on woven mats stretched out in open squares. Jostling crowds swarmed about them, filling the air with jest and good-natured cries. The whole place hummed with a myriad life.
And yet to Jason the whole scene was unreal—a mask, a carnival domino spread as it was above a grinning skull. To him driving in his motor with Naia in purple and gold, above which her snowy left shoulder and throat made a band of ivory, the whole vast assemblage seemed no more than the shifting fantasmagoria of a dream—a gorgeous play of color through the mind of a sleeper not as yet awake. For Himyra made merry in her ignorance of the catastrophe striking against the national borders to the east. Jadgor's messenger had not as yet arrived.
And though Himyra dreamed a dream of splendor, in which none had a thought of care, though the crowds moved in indolent leisure through street and public square, though copper-bodied motors roared and panted over pavements laid in bitumen as smooth in their surface as a floor; though plumed gnuppas pranced with a clatter of slender feet, and bright-eyed, softly shrouded and perfumed women rode within them to the games of the afternoon—the beginning of the celebration of what all thought a new era in the life of Tamarizia and Aphur, still beneath the surface seeming, because of Croft's knowledge, and the words he had spoken to Robur, and Robur's orders, the inner soul of Himyra and all Aphur prepared on this day for war.
In a way the aspect of the city reminded Jason of the condition of the woman at his side in those past days when the soul of her had been his as always, and only the objective mind had failed as yet to wake.
Today she had come to the game with him alone at his own request. Outside the vast stadium where formerly all public games had been held—a huge thing of red stone, that always reminded Croft of the Colosseum of Rome—he helped her down. Through bowing crowds they gained the entrance giving on what had once been the royal box, now reserved for the governor of Aphur's suite. He led her in through a gilded and frescoed passage, and conducted her to where a scarlet canopy was spread above a tier of seats. She sank down, inclining her head in salutation to a hundred greetings from neighboring boxes, until the purple plume, rising from the cincture in her golden hair, was set a-nodding above her lovely face.
Robur came with Gaya a few moments later. The vast assemblage rose and the games began. First was a chariot race, entered by six chariots drawn each by a team of four plumed gnuppas, driven at top speed. Marthos, a young noble, won handily, amid acclaim from the thousands ranged about the immense amphitheater, and was awarded a metal garland, standing flushed with triumph before Robur's box.
Followed various athletic contests, javelin throwing, foot racing, shooting with bows and arrows at a herd of wild taburs driven into the arena from pens beneath the tiers of seats, wrestling matches and other sports, in which both men and women took part. In a way, as he sat at Naia's side, the scene reminded Croft of a reproduction of a public ceremonial of ancient Greece. For as in Greece and in Tamarizia, for generations untold, the contestants threw off all their clothing as they came to their stations and worked frankly nude until they had ended their exhibition of skill or strength, when once more their garments were donned.
The minor events ended, there came a pause. Then from the far end of the arena suddenly there dashed a chariot drawn by four pure-white gnuppas, orange plumed. Straight for Robur's box they plunged and came to a rearing halt as Marthos, to whom had been awarded this further honor, drew them to a stand.
Croft rose. He descended from the box and entered the car. Clad in brown he was, in the suit Naia had designed and had made for him as once more the gnuppas traversed the arena's length and stopped near to where the men from the hangars had trundled the great plane into sight. In a leap he was aboard. The attendants ran to their places. Two men turned the engine over. It caught!
Above the whispers of the multitude its roar rang out. The great plane trembled. Its attendants released it. It trundled forward over the hard packed floor of yellow sand. Straight as a die it surged toward Robur's box until suddenly Croft changed his vanes. And then it rose. It shot up at what looked like a forty-five degree slant. Up and up and up, until it swam above the vast concourse of back-tilted faces. Like the hum of a giant beetle, the sound of its whirring engine came down from a cloudless sky to a myriad ears. Once, twice, Croft made the circuit of the arena, and then began to settle, finishing with a graceful volplane, which left him within a few feet of his start.
"Hai! Hai! Hail to the Mouthpiece of Zitu! Hail to Jason, teacher of all Tamarizia! Hail to him whose mind Zitu has enlightened above all others!" the cry of the multitude rang out. Croft once more in Marthos's chariot pushed back his leather helmet and bowed. Bowing to right and left, acclaimed as a conqueror might have been, he rode back toward Robur's box, and left the chariot and ascended to his seat, and looked into Naia's face, finding it somewhat white, but smiling, and bowing again before the tempest of acclamation began to subside.
Then came the game of ball, on a diamond arena attendants were beginning already to mark out, between the men from the foundries and the team from the airplane shop. Robur himself rose and, taking a ball from an ornate box extended to him by a guardsman, cast it out. Then, as it was passed snappily to the pitcher of the foundry's team which had won the inning and elected to send the airplane aggregation to bat: "Play ball!" he cried.
And suddenly as the first batter fanned and flung his bat away and walked to the bench, very much like any disgruntled batsman of earth, Croft smiled. It was unbelievable, of course. It was a fantasmagoria of the brain. The thing couldn't be, and yet—there was the pitcher of the founders, in a short-skirted tunic, below which his lean thighs showed above his leg-cases of leather, cradling the ball, and cuddling it in his palm. And there was the catcher, squatted down back of the plate in breast-plate and mask, twiddling the signaling fingers of a huge labor-browned hand, and—whir—snap! There was the ball thudding against his mitt.
"Strike on-n-n-e!" That was the umpire's voice.
Cr-a-a-a-a-a-c-k! That was the sound of a ball met fairly and lined swiftly out. And there it went, a clean drive between first and second base, into the right outfield.
"Run, run—go on—go on!" That was Robur yelling in ungovernorlike excitement.
"Run—go on—run—oh, run—run!" That was the voice of Naia—of the woman by his side.
Croft turned to her and found her leaning forward, straining her slender length from the hips, lips parted, her eager blue eyes wide.
"Hold it!" That was the airplane's captain coaching the runner.
Thud! The right outfield had slammed the ball into the second baseman's glove.
Croft smiled again. It couldn't be a baseball game on Palos, but—it was.
And as it went on the assembled multitude went wild. They cheered, they jeered, they urged and encouraged, and cat-called and howled. They stamped on the tiers of seats with leather and bare and metal-shod feet. They waved hands and arms. State assemblymen already gathered by Robur's orders, and guests of the occasion forgot dignity and joined in the rising roars that greeted the different plays. And Naia of Aphur was beating against Croft's thigh and yelling—yes, yelling, as the founder's first baseman romped home on a far-reaching drive. "Come on—come on," she was urging the runner. "Come on—atta boy—come home!"
Croft prisoned her beating little fist and held it. The runner scored. She looked into Jason's face and smiled. Croft thrilled. She was all woman—-all glorious, lovely woman. He knew it, had seen it proved in the last week when she worked stern-lipped for the good of her nation. But today in this new-found pastime she had forgotten for the moment and become a child.
The game ended for the Founders, three to one, bringing with its termination an intermission, since not until dusk would the lights be turned on.
Blue men of Mazzer with torches began moving about the vast circuit of the arena, lighting hundreds of oil flares. Blue girls with skins of tabur hide on their naked backs and shoulders, and metal cups in their hands, began threading the tiers of seats selling a mild, light wine. Vendors of fruits and conserves for the women, and baked meats and wheaten cakes plied an active trade. In the rear of Robur's box was spread a table, and a meal was served. And before its beginning Magur, high priest of Aphur, arrived. To him Croft and Naia rose side by side and bowed. And suddenly Naia was once more all woman, as she looked into her companion's face and flushed from throat to eyes. Magur's coming meant she was to pledge herself to Croft before all the assembled men and women of Aphur, once the new light came on.
And in such fashion was it done. Two heralds with silver trumpets appeared in scarlet livery, the color of Robur's house. From the front of Robur's box they blew a blast.
And on that signal the arena attendants began running to and fro extinguishing all lights. Over the arena night came down as one by one the oil flares died.
Croft gave a final glance to the woman at his side—to her face, her form, to her dress of purple and gold. He had asked her to put it on. It was the garment she had worn on the first formal occasion in which he had ever seen her take part. And its colors were the same as the auric colors of that astral form of hers which he had seen and found divine. Taking her hand he led her quite to the front of the box. There on either side had been placed one of Tamarizia's first two arcs. And in the back of the box was the controlling switch. And miles away in the mountains men were waiting for the signal of a flare on Himyra's walls to release the power. Already one had gone to see that the flare was lit. And a captain was without to carry word when it shone forth.
Now suddenly he appeared.
Croft closed the switch.
A click—a hiss—the crackling ignition of incandescent carbon—a rising glow in the darkness—then—light—clear, radiant light!
Light that flared up and wavered and steadied and shone on Naia of Aphur, sheathed in purple and gold.
A babble of sound, a cheer of acclaim.
The trumpets of the heralds rang out.
Jason stepped forward and took his place close by Naia's side.
Magur, the high priest, arose, robed in his vestments of azure, accompanied by two temple boys. Each bore a silver goblet on a tray of the same metal that sparkled under the light.
Magur lifted a silver stave crowned with the cross ansata. "Who cries to Magur?" his voice rang out.
"A maid who would pledge herself and her life to the man of her choosing, O Prince of Zitu," Robur replied.
"The man is present?" Magur went on in ritualistic form.
"Aye, he stands beside her," Robur declared.
"Who sponsors this woman?" Magur inquired.
"I, Robur of Aphur, her cousin—child of the sister of her who gave her life."
"Come then in the name of Zitu," Magur said, and advanced to face the arena, back of Naia and Croft.
"Naia of Aphur—thou woman, and being woman, sister of Ga, and hence priestess of that shrine of life which is eternal, the guardian of the fire of life which is eternal—is it thine intent to pledge thyself to this man, who stands now at thy side?"
"Aye," said Naia of Aphur clearly, and looked not at Magur as she answered, but into Jason's eyes.
"And thou, Jason, known as the Mouthpiece of Zitu, whom Zitu has inspired with his wisdom, even as no other man, do thou accept this pledge, and with it the woman herself, to make her in the fulness of time thy bride, to cherish her and cause her to live as a glory to the name of woman, to whom all men may justly give respect?"
"Aye, so I pledge, by Zitu, and Azil, giver of life," said Jason, gazing on the woman as he spoke the words.
"Then take this, maid of Aphur." Magur drew from his robe a looped silver cross and placed it in her hands. "Hold it and guard it, look upon it as a symbol of that life eternal that you shall be kept eternal, and which, taken from the hands of Azil the angel, shall be transmuted within thee into the life of men."
Turning, he took the two goblets from their bearers and poured wine from one to the other and back. One he extended to Naia and one to Croft.
"Drink," he said. "Let these symbolize thy two bodies, the life of which shall be united from this time in purpose. Drink and may Zitu bless thee in that union which comes into existence by his intent."
Jason raised his goblet. "I drink of thee deeply," he spoke to the lovely chalice of mortal life standing there.
Naia set her goblet to her lips. "And I of thee."
Then, and then only, Croft took that medallion of silver ringed with red stones, which Zitra had burned against his breast. And lifting the golden girdle which cinctured Naia's body above the hips he pinned it once more upon it, so that it flashed like a scarlet eye, beneath the newborn light.
Magur lifted his stave. "Azil's seal has he set upon her. Let it speak to all men's sight."
"Hail! Hail! Mouthpiece of Zitu. Hail! Hail! Hail! Naia, maid of Aphur!" From the vast arena a roar of acknowledgment and approbation tore its way upward in the night.
So as it seemed ended Himyra's greatest holiday; so for Croft and Naia began a new phase of life. Yet though she had never seemed nearer, dearer to him, the Mouthpiece of Zitu was vaguely disturbed as they rode back to the palace through the still pleasure-making crowds. Everything seemed very peaceful, very auspicious. But he could not rid his mind of the picture which had troubled him for a week—the picture of a burning village—of blue men leaping in savage exultation of a beaten army's rout.
Hence it was with no pleasure that an hour after their return from the arena, while yet the city flared and rang with the carnival life of the people, a palace guard brought word to him from Robur, asking his presence at once.
Nor when he had followed to the audience chamber of the palace was he surprised to meet a man with drawn face, and eyes a trifle haggard—a man wearing Bithur's green and silver circle, who rose now and saluted him with flat palm forward, and burst into hurried, excited speech.
"Mouthpiece of Zitu, Bithur is sore assailed—her armies beaten, the aid Aphur sent her largely destroyed; wherefore in the name of Bithur and of Tamarizia, Jadgor, president of the nation, now at Atla, sends me to you and to Robur of Aphur, his son, to speak what is in his heart."