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- Herausgeber: e-artnow
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
Embark on an astral odyssey with "The Jason Croft Trilogy," a captivating collection that transcends the boundaries of space and time. Join Jason Croft, a wealthy American endowed with the extraordinary ability of astral projection, as he ventures across the cosmos, encountering love, challenges, and the mysteries of distant worlds. "Palos of the Dog Star Pack" – On the enigmatic planet Palos, Jason Croft's astral journeys lead him to the captivating princess Naia. Drawn by an otherworldly calling to the Dog Star Sirius, Croft's consciousness explores the major planet of Palos. Floating among its inhabitants, he becomes entwined in their lives and, captivated by love at first sight, sets out to win the heart of Princess Naia. A tale of cosmic connection and transcendent love unfolds against the backdrop of Palos' mystical landscapes. "The Mouthpiece of Zitu" – In the sequel, Jason Croft shares his adventures on Palos with Dr. George Murray through astral projection. However, complications arise as Croft is declared the "Mouthpiece of Zitu" by the high priest Zud, complicating his engagement to Naia. Employing astral projection and earthly technology, Croft endeavors to strengthen the nation of Tamarizia and secure the heart of Princess Naia once more. This installment weaves a tale of political intrigue, astral prowess, and the enduring pursuit of love. "Jason, Son of Jason" – The final chapter reunites Jason Croft with Dr. George Murray on Earth, as they embark on a daring astral projection to Palos. Facing challenges on both spiritual and technological fronts, Jason confronts the complexities of love and family. Complications arise with Naia's pregnancy, leading to a journey that involves the birth of their child and a perilous kidnapping by the Zollarians. Armed with his knowledge of earth technology, Jason Croft overcomes adversities to rescue his family and secure the future of Palos.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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The Jason Croft Trilogy – SF Classics
Table of Contents
Palos of the Dog Star Pack
Chapter I
It was a miserable night which brought me first in touch with Jason Croft. There was rain and enough wind to send it in gusty dashes against the windows. When I heard the doorbell ring, I was tempted to ignore it. But as it rang again, and was followed by a rapid tattoo of rapping, I rose, laid aside my book, and stepped into the hall.
First switching on a porch light, I opened the outer door, to reveal the figure of an old woman.
"Doctor," she began in a tone of almost frantic excitement. "Dr. Murray--come quick!"
I am Dr. George Murray, in charge of the Mental Hospital in a Western state. The institution was not then very large, and since taking my position at the head of its staff I had found myself with considerable time for study, seeking to learn what I might concerning both the normal and the abnormal manifestations of mental force.
But I was not thinking of anything like that as I looked at the shawl-wrapped face of the little bent woman. I said to her, "But, my dear woman, there are other doctors for you to call. I am really not in general practice. I am connected with the asylum--"
"And I always said I would come for you if anything happened to Mr. Jason," she cut in.
"Whom?"
"Mr. Jason Croft, sir," she returned. He's dead maybe--I dunno. But he's been that way for a week."
"Dead?"
"Dead, or asleep. I don't know which."
Clearly there was something here I wasn't getting into fully, and my interest aroused. "Come in," I said. "What is your name?"
"Goss," said she. "I'm housekeeper for Mr. Jason, but I'll not be comin' in unless you say you'll go."
"Then come in without any more delay," I replied. I knew Croft--by sight at least. He was a big fellow with light hair and a splendid physique. He had the eyes of a mystic--of a student of those very things I myself had studied more or less. I decided I would go with her to Croft's house which was not very far down the street. I gave her a seat, said I would get on my shoes and coat.
We set out at once, my long raincoat flapping about my legs, and the little old woman tottering along at my side, as we hastened down the storm-swept street.
Then we turned in at a gate and went up toward the large house I knew to be Croft's, and the little old woman unlocked a heavy front door and led me into a hall. It was a most unusual hall, too, its walls draped with rare tapestries and rugs, its floor covered with other rugs such as I had never seen outside private collections.
Across the hall she scuttered, and flung open a door to permit me to enter a room which was plainly a study. It was lined with cases of books, furnished richly yet plainly with chairs, a heavy desk, and a broad couch, on which I saw in one swift glance the stretched-out boy of Croft himself.
He lay wholly relaxed, like one sunk in heavy sleep, but with no visible sign of respiration animating his deep full chest.
I touched his face and found it cold. My fingers sought his pulse and failed to find it at all. But his body was limp as I lifted an arm and dropped it. There was no rigor, yet there was no evidence of decay, such as must follow once rigor has passed away. I had brought instruments with me; I took them from my pocket and listened for some sound from the heart. I thought I found the barest flutter, but I wasn't sure. I tested the tension of the eyeball under the closed lids and found it firm. I straightened and turned to face the old woman.
"Dead, sir?"
I shook my head. "He doesn't appear to be dead," I replied. "See here, Mrs. Goss, what did you mean by saying he ought to have been back three days ago? What do you mean by back?"
She fingered at her lips with one bony hand. "Why--awake, sir."
"Then why didn't you say so?" I snapped. "Why use the word back?"
"Because, sir," she faltered, "that's what he says when he wakes up. 'Well, Mary, I'm back.'"
"He's been like this before, then?"
"Yes, sir. But never more than four days without telling me he would. Th' first time was months ago--but it's been gettin' oftener and oftener, till now all his sleeps are like this. He told me not to be scared--an' to--to never bother about him--to--to just let him alone; but--I guess I was scared tonight, when it begun to storm an' him layin' there like that."
I myself had seen people in a cataleptic condition, had even induced the state in subjects myself, and it appeared to me that Jason Croft was in a similar state, no matter how induced.
"What does your employer do?"
"He studies, sir--just studies things like that." Mrs. Goss gestured at the cases of books. "He don't have to work, you know. His uncle left him rich."
I followed her arm as she swept it about the glass-fronted cases. I brought my glances back to the desk in the center of the room. Upon it I spied another volume lying open. It was yellowed with age; in fact it was not a book at all, but a series of parchment pages tied together with bits of silken cord.
I took the thing up and found the open pages covered with marginal notes in English, although the original was plainly in Sanskrit. The notations, however, threw some light into my mind, and as I read them I forgot everything save what I read and the bearing it held on the man behind me on the couch. I felt sure they had been written by his own hand, and they bore on the subject of astral projection, out-of-the-body phenomena.
I finished the open pages and turned to others. The notations were still present wherever I looked. At last I turned to the very front and found that the manuscript was by Ahmid, an occult adept of Hindustan, who lived somewhere in the second or third century of the Christian era.
With a strange sensation I laid down the silk-bound pages.
"You can do nothing for him?" the woman broke my introspection.
"I'm not so sure of that," I said. "But--M. Croft's condition is rather--peculiar. Whatever I do will require quiet. I think if I can be left here with him for possibly an hour, I can bring him back."
She nodded. "You'll bring him back," she said. "Mind you, doctor, th' trouble is with Mr. Jason's head, I've been thinking. 'Twas for that I've been telling myself I would come for you, if he forgot to come back some time."
"You did quite right," I agreed. "But--the trouble is not with Mr. Croft's mind. In fact, Mrs. Goss, I believe he is a very learned man. How long have you known him, may I ask?"
"Ever since he was a boy, except when he was travelin'," she returned.
"He has traveled?" I took her up.
"Yes, sir, a lot. Me an' my husband kept up th' place while he was gone."
"I see," I said. "And now if you will let me try what I can do."
"Yes, sir. I'll set out in the hall."
Left alone, I took a chair, dragged it to the couch, and studied my man.
So far as I could judge, he was at least six feet tall, and correspondingly built. His hair was heavy, almost tawny, and, as I knew, his eyes were gray. The whole contour of his head and features showed what appeared to me remarkable intelligence and strength, the nose finely chiseled, the mouth well formed and firm, the chin unmistakably strong.
My own years of study had taught me no little of hypnosis, suggestion, and the various phases of the subconscious mind. I had developed no little power with various patients, who from time to time had submitted themselves to my control. It behooved me to get to work.
I began. I concentrated my mind to the exclusion of all else upon my task, sending a mental call to the ego of Jason Croft, wherever it might be, commanding it to return to the body it had temporarily quitted of its own volition, and once more animate it to a conscious life. It was a nerve-racking task. In the end it came to seem that I sat there and struggled against some intangible, invisible force which resisted all my efforts.
The hour ran away, and another, and still the body over which I worked lay as it had lain at first, nor gave any sign of any effect of my concentrated will. It was three in the morning when I gained my first reward.
And when it came, it was so sudden that I started back in my chair and sat clutching its carved arms, staring in something almost like horror at the body which had lifted itself to a sitting posture on the couch.
And I know that when the man said, "So you are the one who called me back?" I gasped before I answered, "Yes."
Croft fastened his eyes upon me. "You are Dr. Murray, from the Mental Hospital, are you not?"
"Ye-s," I stammered again.
He nodded, with the barest smile on his lips. "Only one acquainted with the nature of my condition could have roused me. However, you were engaged in a dangerous undertaking, friend."
"Dangerous for you, you mean," I rejoined. "Do you know you have lain cataleptic for something like a week?"
"Yes." He nodded again. "But I was occupied on a most important mission."
"Occupied!" I exclaimed. "You mean you were engaged in some undertaking whie you lay there?"
"Yes." Once more he smiled.
Well, my very knowledge gained by years of study told me he was sane. I continued with a question. "Where?"
"On the planet Palos, one of the Dog Star pack--a star in the system of the sun Sirius," he replied.
"And you mean you have just returned from--there?" I faltered over the last word. The thing made my senses reel.
"Do not think me in any way similar to those unfortunates under your charge. You must know the truth of that, just as you knew that my trancelike sleep was wholly self-induced."
"I gathered that from the volume on your desk," I explained.
He glanced toward Ahmid's work. "You read the Sanskrit?"
"No, I read the marginal notes."
"I see. Who called you here?"
I explained.
Croft frowned. "I cannot blame her. She is a faithful soul," he remarked. "However, now that you can reassure her, I must ask you to excuse me, Doctor, for a while. Come to me in about twelve hours and I will be here to meet you and explain in part at least." He stretched himself out once more on the couch.
"Wait! What are you going to do?"
"I am going back to Palos."
"But--will your body stand the strain?"
He met my objection with another smile. "I studied that well before I began these little excursions of mine. Meet me at, say, four o'clock this afternoon." He appeared to relax, sighed softly, and sank again into his trance.
I sprang up and stood looking down upon him. I began pacing the floor. Finally I gave my attention to the books in the cases which lined the room. They comprised the most wonderful collection of works on the occult ever gathered within four walls. I decided to take Jason Croft at his word and keep the engagement for the coming afternoon.
I went to the study door and set it open. The little old woman sat huddled on a chair.
"He came back--I--I heard him speaking," she began in a husky whisper. "He--is he all right?"
"All right," I replied. "But he is asleep again now and has promised to see me this afternoon at four. In the meantime do not attempt to disturb him in any way, Mrs. Goss."
She nodded. "I won't, sir. I was worrit--worrit--that was all."
"You need not worry any more," I assured her. "I fancy Mr. Croft is able to take care of himself."
And yet when I woke in the morning and went about my duties at the asylum, I confess the events of the night before seemed rather unreal. Hence it was with a resolve not to be swept off my feet that I approached his house at about three o'clock and turned in from the street to his porch.
He sat there, in a wicker chair, smoking an excellent cigar. He rose as I mounted the steps and put out a hand. "Ah, Dr. Murray, I have been waiting your coming. Let me offer you a chair and a smoke while we talk."
We shook hands, and then I sat down and lighted the mate of the cigar Croft held between his strong, even teeth. "I really told you the truth, Murray, you know," he said.
"About--Palos?" I smiled.
He nodded. "Yes, I was really there, and--I went back after we had our talk."
"Rather quick work," I remarked. "Have you figured out how long it takes even light to reach Earth from that distant star, Mr. Croft?"
"Light?" He half-knit his brows, then suddenly laughed without sound. "Oh, I see--you refer to the equation of time?"
"Well, yes. The distance is considerable, as you must admit."
He shook his head. "How long does it take you to think of Palos--of Sirius?"
"Not long," I replied.
He leaned back in his seat. "Murray, time is but the measure of consciousness. Outside the atmospheric envelopes of the planets--outside the limit of, well--say--human thought--time ceases to exist. And--if between the planets there is no time beyond the depths of their surrounding atmosphere--how long will it take to go from here to there?"
I stared. "You mean time is mental conception?" I managed at last.
"Time is a mental measure of a span of eternity," he said slowly. "Past planetary atmospheres, eternity alone exists. In eternity there is no time. Hence, I cannot use what is not, either in going to or returning from that planet I have named. You admit you can think instantly of Palos. I allege that I can think myself, carry my astral consciousness instantly to Palos. Do you see?"
I saw what he meant, of course, and I indicated as much by a nod. "But," I objected, "you told me you had to return to Palos. Now you tell me you had projected your astral body to that star. What could you do there in the astral state?"
He smiled. "Very little. I know. I have passed through that stage. As a matter of fact, I have a body there now."
"You have what--"
"A body--a living, breathing body," he repeated his declaration. "Oh, man, I know it overthrows all human conceptions of life, but--last night you asked me a question concerning this body of mine--and I told you I knew what I was doing. And I know you must have studied the esoteric philosophies. And therefore you must have read of the ability of a spirit to dispossess a body of its original spiritual tenant and occupy its place--"
"Obsession," I interrupted. "You are practicing that--up there?"
"No. I've gone further than that. I took this body when its original occupant was done with it," he said. "Murray--I'm a physician like yourself."
"You?" I exclaimed, none too politely.
"Yes. That's why I was able to assure you I knew how long the body I occupy now could endure a cataleptic condition last night. I am a graduate of Rush, and I fancy, fully qualified to speak concerning the body's needs. And--" He paused a moment.
"Frankly, Murray, I find myself confronted by what I think I may call the strangest position a man was ever called upon to face. Last night I recognized in you one who had probably far from a minor understanding of mental and spiritual forces. Your ability to force my return at a time when I was otherwise engaged showed me your understanding. For that very reason I asked you to return to me here today. I would like to talk to you--a brother physician, to tell you a story--my story, provided you would care to hear it."
"I'm not going to deny a natural curiosity, Dr. Croft."
"Then," he said in an almost eager fashion, "I shall tell you--the whole thing, I think.... But first--in order that you may understand, and believe if you can, I shall tell you something of myself."
That telling took the rest of the afternoon, and most of the following night.
Jason Croft was born in New Jersey, but brought west at an early age by his parents, who had become converts to a certain faith. In this church, which has grown strong in the Western states, I think there is a closer approach to the Eastern theory of soul and spiritual life.
Be that as it may, Croft grew to manhood in the town where I was now employed. He elected medicine as a career. He went to Chicago and put in his first three years. The second year his mother died, and a year later his father. In his fourth year he met a man named Gatua Kahaun.
Gatua Kahaun was a Hindu, a member of an Eastern brotherhood, come to the United States to study the religions of the West. The two became friends. When Croft came west after his graduation, Gatua Kahaun was his companion and stopped at his home, which had been kept up by Mrs. Goss and her husband, then still alive. The two lived there together for some weeks, and the Hindu taught Croft the rudiments at least of the occult philosophy of life.
Then, with little warning, Croft was assigned on a mission to Australia. The church of which he was a member has a custom of sending their members about the world as missionaries of their faith.
For over two years he did not see the Hindu, though he kept up his studies of the occult. Then, just as he was nearly finished with his "mission," what should happen but that, walking the streets of Melbourne, he bumped into Gatua Kahaun.
The two men renewed their acquaintance at once. Gatua Kahaun taught Croft Hindustani and the mysteries of the Sanskrit tongue. When Croft's mission was finished he prevailed upon him to visit India before returning home.
Croft went. Through Gatua's influence he was admitted to the man's own brotherhood. He forgot his former objects and aims in life in the new world of thought which opened up before his mental eyes. He learned the secrets of the magnetic or enveloping body of the soul, and after a time he became convinced that by constant application to the major purpose the spirit could break the bonds of the material body without going through the change which men call death.
At times he lay staring at the starry vault of the heavens with a vague longing within him to put the thing to the test. And always there was one star which seemed to call him. That was the Dog Star, Sirius.
Meantime, his studies went on. He learned that matter is the reflex of spirit; that no blade of grass, no chemical atom exists save as the envelope of an essence which cannot and does not die. He came to see that nature is no more than a realm of force, comprising light, heat, magnetism, chemical affinity, aura, essence, and all the imponderables which go to produce the various forms of motion as expressions of the ocean of force, so that motion comes to be no more than force refracted through the various forms of existence, from the lowest to the highest, as a ray of light is split into the seven primary colors by a prism, each being different in itself, yet each but an integral part of the original ray.
He came to comprehend that all stages of existence are but stages and nothing more, and that mind, spirit, is the highest form of life force--the true essence--manifesting through material means, yet independent of them in itself.
Then once more he was called home. His father's brother, a bachelor, had died, leaving Croft sufficient wealth to provide for his every need. Croft decided to pursue his studies at home; he had gained all that India could give him, even startling Gatua Kahaun by some theories he had deduced.
He stocked the library where I had found him the night before, and the more he studied, the more he became convinced that ordinary astral projection was but a first step.
He began to experiment, sending his consciousness here and there, roaming the globe at will. One night on his porch, when Mrs. Goss, now a widow, had gone to bed, he watched the moon rising above the mountains, and decided to try a greater project than before. He fixed his whole mind upon his purpose and sank into a cataleptic sleep.
There was a sensation of airy lightness. His body sat beneath him in the chair; he could see it. He could see the city and the lake and the mountains and the yellow disk of the moon. He knew he was rising toward the latter swiftly. Then--space was annihilated in an instant, and he seemed to be standing on the topmost edge of a mighty crater in the full, unobstructed glare of a blinding light.
He sensed that as the sun, which hung like a ball of fire halfway up from the horizon, flung its rays in dazzling brilliance against the satellite's surface.
To one side was the vast ring of the crater itself, a well of darkness. To the other was the downward sweep of the crater's flank, dun-colored, dead, wrinkled, seamed and seared. And beyond the foot of the crafter was a vast, irregular plain, lower in the center as though eons past it might have been the bed of some vanished sea. About the plain were the crests of barren mountains, crags, pinnacles, misshapen and weird.
Yes, the moon is dead--now. Croft willed himself down from the lip of the crater to the plain. Indeed it had been a sea. There in the airless blaze, still etched in the lifeless formations, he found an ancient water-line. And skirting the outline of that long-lost sea, he came to the ruin of a city, a thing of paved streets, and dead walls, safe in that moistureless world from decay.
Through the hours of the lunar day he explored. Not, in fact, until the sun was dropping swiftly below the rim of the mountains beyond the old sea bed, did he desist. Then lifting he eyes he beheld a luminous crescent, many times larger than the moon appears to us, emitting a soft, green light. He stood and gazed upon it form some moments before he realized fully that he looked upon a sunrise on Earth.
Then as realization came upon him he remembered his body--left on the porch of his home in the chair. Suddenly he felt a longing to return. Fastening his full power upon the endeavor, he willed himself back, and--
He opened his eyes--his physical eyes--and gazed into the early sun of a new day rising over the mountains.
The sound of a caught-in breath fell on his ears. He turned his glance. Mrs. Goss stood beside him.
"Laws, sir, but you was sound asleep!" she exclaimed. "I come to call you to breakfast an' you wasn't in your room, an' when I found you, you was sleepin' like th' dead. You must have got up awful early, Mr. Jason."
"I was here before you were moving," Croft said as he rose. He smiled as he spoke. Indeed, he wanted to laugh, to shout. He had done what no mortal had ever accomplished before. The wonders of the universe were his to explore at will.
Chapter II
And now the Dog Star called. No longer was it an occasional prompting. Rather it was a never-ceasing urge which nagged him night and day.
He yielded at last. But remembering his return from his first experiment, he arranged for the next with due care. In order that Mrs. Goss might not become alarmed by seeing his body entranced, he arranged for her to take a holiday with a married daughter in another part of the state, telling her simply that he himself expected to be absent from his home for an indefinite time and would summon her upon his return.
He knew the woman well enough to be sure she would spread the word of his coming absence, and so felt assured that his body would remain undisturbed.
Having seen the old woman depart, he entered the library, drew down all the blinds, and stretched himself on the couch. Fixing his mind of Sirius to the exclusion of everything else, he threw off the bonds of the flesh.
Here Croft made a well-nigh fatal mistake; Sirius is a sun. As a result, he was floating in the actual nebula surrounding the flaming orb itself.
Directly beneath him, as it appeared, the Dog Star rolled, a mass of electric fire. Not for a moment was there any rest upon that surface toward which he was sinking with incredible speed. Every atom of the monster sun was in motion, ever shifting, ever changing, yet always the same. It quivered and billowed and shook. Flames of every conceivable color radiated from it in waves of awful heat. Vast explosions recurred again and again on the ever-heaving surface.
In this maelstrom of titanic forces Croft found himself caught, buffeted, swirled about and swayed by the irresistible forces which warred around him in a never-ceasing tumult. The force which held him was one beyond his experience or knowledge.
His will power faltered, staggered. For the time being, he lost his ability to choose his course. He had willed himself here, and here he was, but he found himself unable to will himself back, or anywhere else, in fact.
Through eons of time, as it seemed to him, he hung above that blazing orb, surrounded by seething gases which dimmed but did not wholly obscure his vision. Then a change began taking place. A great spot of darkness appeared on the pulsing body of the sun. It widened swiftly. About it the fiery elements of molten mass seemed to center their main endeavor. Vast streamers of flaming gas leaped and darted about its spreading center. It stretched and spread.
To Croft's fascinated vision it showed a mighty, funnel-like chasm, reaching down for thousands of miles into the very heart of their solar mass. And suddenly he was sinking, was being drawn down, between walls of living fire which swirled about him with an inconceivable velocity of revolution. The vapors which closed about him seemed to stifle even his spirit senses. He had lost all control, all conscious power to judge of time or distance. Yet he was able still to see. And so at last he sensed that the fiery walls were coming swiftly together.
For a wild instant he conceived himself engulfed. Then he knew that he was being thrown out and upward again with terrific force, literally crowded forth with the outrushing gases between the collapsing walls, and hurled again into space.
Darkness came down, a darkness so deep it seemed a thousand suns might not pierce it through with their rays. Sirius, the great sun, seemed blotted out. He was seized by a sense of falling through that Stygian shroud. In which direction he knew not, or why or how. He knew only that his ego over which he had lost control was swirling in vast spirals down and down through an endless void to an endless fate.
By degrees, however, he fought back to some measure of control. And by degrees there came to him a sense of not being any longer alone. In the almost palpable darkness it seemed that other shapes and forms, whose warp and woof was darkness also, floated and writhed about him as he fell.
They thrust against him; they gibbered soundlessly at him. They taunted him as he passed. And yet their very presence helped him in the end. He recognized these shapes of terror as those elementals of which occult teaching spoke, things which roamed in the darkness, which had as yet never been able to reach out and gain a soul for themselves.
With understanding came again the power of independent action. Unknowing whither, Croft willed himself to the nearest bit of matter afloat in the universal void. Abruptly he became aware of the near presence of some solid substance, the sense of falling ended, and he new that his will had found expression in fact.
Yet wherever it was he had landed, the region was dead. Like Earth's moon, it was wholly devoid of moisture or atmosphere. The presence of solid matter, however, gave him back a still further sense of control. Exerting his will, he passed over the darkened face and emerged on the other side in the midst of a ghostly light. At once he became conscious of his surroundings, of a valley and encircling lofty mountains. From the sides of the latter came the peculiar light. Examination showed Croft that it was given off by some substance which glowed with a phosphorescence sufficient to cast faint shadows of the rocks which strewed the dead and silent waste.
Not knowing where he was, Croft waited until at length the top of a mountain lighted as if from a rising sun. Inside a few moments the valley was bathed in light; he saw the great sun Sirius wheel up the morning sky.
Peace came into his soul. Close to the line of the horizon, and shining with what was plainly reflected light, he saw the vast outlines of another planet he had failed to note until now.
He understood. This was the major planet, surely one of the Dog Star's pack, and he had alighted on one of its moons. Summoning his will, he made the final step of his journey, and found himself standing on a world not so vastly different from his own.
He stood on the side of a mountain in the midst of an almost tropic vegetation. Giant trees were about him, giant ferns sprouted from the soil. But here, as on Earth, the color of the leaves was green. Through a break in the forest he gazed across a vast, wide-flung plain through which a mighty river made its way. Its waters glinted in the rays of the rising sun. Its banks were lined with patches of what he knew from their appearance were cultivated fields. Beyond them was a dun track, reminding him of the arid stretches of a desert.
He turned his eyes and followed the course of the river. By stages of swift interest he traced it to a point where it disappeared beneath what seemed the dull red walls of a mighty city. They flung across the course of the river, which ran on through the city itself, passed beyond a farther wall, and--beyond that again there was the glint of silver and blue.
The call of a bird brought his attention back. Gay-plumaged creatures, not unlike parrots, were fluttering from tree to tree. The sound of a grunting came toward him. A creature such as he had never seen was coming out of a quivering mass of sturdy fern. It had small, beady eyes and a snout like a pig. Two tusks sprouted from its jaws like the tusks of a boar. But the rest of the body was covered with a long wool-like hair, fine and seemingly almost silken soft. Later, he learned they were called taburs.
Once more he turned to the plain and stood lost in something new. Across the dun reaches of the desert, beyond the green region of the river, was moving a long dark string of figures, headed toward the city he had seen. Swiftly he willed himself toward them and moved along by there side. They were huge beasts, twice the size of an earthly elephant. They moved in a majestic fashion, yet with a surprising speed. Their bodies were covered with a hairless skin, reddish pink in color, wrinkled and warted and plainly extremely thick. It slipped and slid over the muscles beneath it as they swung forward on the four massive legs, each one of which ended in a five-toed foot armed with heavy claws.
But it was the head and neck and tail of the things which gave Croft pause. The head was more that of a sea serpent or a monster lizard than anything else. The neck was long and flexible and curved like that of a camel. The tail was heavy where it joined the main spine, but thinned rapidly to a point. And the crest of head and neck, the back of each creature, so far as he could see, was covered with a sort of heavy scale. Yet he could not see very well, since each Sarpelca, as he was to learn their Palosian name, was loaded heavily with bundles and bales of what might be valuable merchandise.
And on each sat a man. They had heads and arms and legs and a body, and their faces were white. Their features departed in no particular, so far as he could see, from the faces of Earth, save that all were smooth, with no evidence of hair on upper lip or cheek or chin.
They were clad in loose cloak-like garments and a hooded cap or cowl. They sat the Sarpelcas just back of the juncture of the body and neck, and guided the strange-appearing monsters by means of slender reins affixed to two of the fleshy tentacles which sprouted about the beast's almost snakelike mouths.
That this strange cortege was a caravan Croft was now assured. He kept on beside it down the valley, along what he now saw was a well-defined and carefully constructed road. It was like the roads of Ancient Rome, Croft thought with quickened interest. It was in a perfect state of preservation and showed signs of recent mending here and there. While he was feeling a quickened interest in this, the caravan entered the cultivated region along the river, and Croft gave his attention to the fields.
The first thing he noted here was the fact that all growth was due to irrigation, carried out by means of ditches and laterals. Here and there as the caravan passed down the spledid road he found a farmer's hut set in a bower of trees. For the most part they were built of a tan-colored brick, and roofed with a thatching of rushes from the river's bank. He was the natives working in the fields, strong-bodied men, clad in what seemed a single short-skirted tunic reaching to the knees, with the arms and lower limbs bare.
Croft noticed that there faces were intelligent, well featured, and their hair for the most part a sort of rich, almost chestnut brown, worn rather long and wholly uncovered, or else caught about the brows by a cincture which held a bit of woven fabric draped over the head and down the neck.
Travel began to thicken along the road. The natives seemed heading to the city, to sell the produce of their fields. Croft found himself drawing aside in the press as the caravan overtook the others and crowded past.
They had just passed a heavy cart drawn by two odd creatures, resembling a deer save that they were larger and possessed of hoofs like those of horses, and instead of antlers sported two little horns not over six inches long. They were in color almost a creamy white. On the cart itself were high-piled crates of some bird, with the head of a goose, the plumage of a pheasant, and bluish, webbed feet. Past the cart they came upon a band of native women carrying baskets and other burdens, strapped to their shoulders.
The Palosian females were strong limbed and deep breasted. Like the men, they wore but a singly garment, falling just over the bend of the knees and caught together over one shoulder with an embossed metal button, so far as he could tell. The other arm and shoulder were left wholly bare, as were their feet and legs, save that they wore coarse sandals of wood, strapped by leather thongs about ankle and calf. Their baskets were piled with vegetables and fruit, and they chattered and laughed among themselves.
And now as the Sarpelcas shuffled past, the highway grew actually packed. The caravan thrust its way through a drove of wooly hogs such as Croft had seen on the side of the mountain. The hogsherds stalked beside their charges and exchanged heavy banter with the riders of the Sarpelcas.
From behind a sound of shouting reached Croft's ears. He glanced around. Down the highway, splitting the throng of early market people came some sort of conveyance, drawn by four of the deerlike creatures, harnessed abreast. They had nodding plumes fixed to the head bands of their bridles in front of their horns. These plumes were all of a purple color, and from the way the crowds gave way before the advance of the equipage, Croft deemed that it bore someone of note. Even the captain of the Sarpelca train drew his huge beasts to the side of the road and stood up in his seatlike saddle to face inward as it passed.
The vehicle came on. So nearly as he could tell, it was a four-wheeled conveyance something like an old-time chariot in front, where stood the driver of the cream-white steeds, and behind that protected from the sun by an arched over draped on each side with a substance not unlike heavy silk. These draperies, too, were purple in shade, and the body and wheels of the carriage seemed fashioned from something like burnished copper.
Then it was upon them, and Croft could look squarely into the shaded depths beneath the cover he now saw to be supported by upright metal rods, save at the back where the body continued straight up in a curve to form the top.
The curtains were drawn back and Jason gained a view of those who rode. He gave them one glance and mentally caught his breath. There were two passengers in the coach--a woman and a man. The latter was plainly past middle age, well built, with a set face and hair somewhat sprinkled with gray. He was clad in a tunic the like of which Croft had never seen, since it seemed woven of gold, etched and embroidered in what appeared stones or jewels of purple, red, and green. This covered his entire body and ended in half sleeves below which his forearms were bare.
He wore a jeweled cap supporting a single spray of purple feathers. From an inch below his knees his legs were incased in what seemed an open-meshed casing of metal, in color not unlike his tunic, jointed at the ankles to allow of motion when he walked. There were no seats proper in the carriage, but rather a broad padded couch upon which both passengers lay.
So much Croft saw, and then, forsaking the caravan, let himself drift along beside the strange conveyance to inspect the girl. She was younger than the man. Her face was a perfect oval, framed in a wealth of golden hair, which, save for a jeweled cincture, fell unrestrained about her shoulders in a silken flood. Her eyes were blue--the purple blue of the pansy--her skin, seen on face and throat and bared left shoulder and arm, a soft, firm white. For she was dressed like the peasant women, save in a richer fashion. It was broidered with a simple jeweled margin at throat and hem and over the breasts with stones of blue and green.
Her girdle was of gold in color, catching her just above the hips with long ends and fringe which fell down the left side of the knee-length skirt. Sandals of the finest imaginable skin were on the soles of her slender pink-nailed feet, bare save for a jewel-studded toe and instep band, and the lacing cords which were twined about each limb as high as the top of the calf. On her left arm she wore a bracelet, just above the wrist, as a single ornament.
Croft gave her one glance which took in every detail of her presence and attire. He quivered as with a chill. It was as though suddenly he had found something he had lost--as though he had met one known and forgotten and now once more recognized. Without giving the act the slightest thought of consideration, he willed himself into the coach between the fluttering curtains of purple silk, and crouched down on the padded platform at her feet.
Croft, in his Earth life, had never looked upon 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.
He knew now why the Dog Star had always drawn him during his student days. This beautiful girl was his twin. He knew her. He had found her, yes; but to what avail? 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. He could see her, yet he could not reveal his presence of make known his response to her.
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, 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. 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."
"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! You must not speak such words of a Prince of Tamarizia, Naia."
"I speak not of him as a Prince of Tamarizia, but as a man and his attitude toward women. What brings him to Himyra?"
"He comes on matters of state." Prince Lakkon lifted himself to a cross-legged seat. "Ah, here we are at the gate."
They had come to a place outside the walls--those monster walls Croft had seen hours ago. Now close by, they towered above him in the 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 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 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 all 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.
The gnuppas drew the carriage swiftly toward the gates. 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, 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 rive flowed straight before him for a distance so great that the farther wall was lost in a shimmering haze of heat. It flowed between sold 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, 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.
Across from the vast white building, on the other side of the river, he beheld a pyramid. 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 of 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. Far, far ahead he caught the dim outline of the farther city wall.
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. 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.
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. Nor did they seem to be possessed of a practical knowledge of the various applications of steam. 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 of 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 pas through the gate and so up the Na even to the region of Mazzer. Cathur is a mighty state."
"As is Aphur, 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 picked up his ears, even as he saw a quickened interest wake in Naia's face. "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 of 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. Zitemku take them and all their spawn!"
"As long as Cathur holds!" Nia 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, Lakon 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! At first Jason thought him painted, until a closer glance had proved his mistake. 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 back 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 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.
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.
In the end, Naia turned to one of the women and ordered her to go to a cloth merchant and bid him attend to 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, the side 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 was 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.
Besides 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.
Chapter III
Taken wholly by surprise, Croft caught one glimpse of a glowing, pliant figure, cinctured just above the hips by a golden girdle. The, realizing that the maiden believed herself utterly alone, he turned to the open window and incontinently fled.
