Read Ebook: The Mouthpiece of Zitu by Giesy J U John Ulrich

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Ebook has 1426 lines and 77333 words, and 29 pages

"Changed them?" he returned, with an almost whimsical expression. "Murray, it almost wrecked them at the start--the most important part of them, that is. Remember why I did what I did do really--that all I had done up until that time was in order to win the woman who meant more to me than anything else in life--and then picture if you can my mental condition when I found myself trapped, as it were, by my own acts."

"Your own?" I queried.

He nodded. "Oh, certainly yes--my own, of course--my acts and my overthought--my failing to take into account what a terrible impression I had managed to make on the high priest. I--hang it all, Murray--I knew so entirely what I was up to that I didn't give proper consideration to the effect of my words and acts must have on less well-informed minds. I failed to put myself in the place of Zud, and Magur, the head of the church in Aphur, whom I first enlisted in my aid at Himyra, as I told you before.

"You remember the old saying, 'Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad,' and one equally as true, that 'Pride goeth before a fall'? Well, my friend, I was a bit like that, I think, toward the last of the Zollarian war. Things came my way too fast. The completeness of the Tamarizian victory, and her father's pledge of the girl to me, backed up by the sanction of Jadgor, the Aphurian king, made me feel altogether secure.

"It seemed to me that there could be no question but I carried the destiny of myself and Naia and all Tamarizia in my hands. I had only to speak to see my commands fulfilled.

"Honestly, Murray, in those days I couldn't have been more absolute if I had been the Mouthpiece of Zitu indeed. Perhaps if I'd stayed there and rushed things through, everything would have been all right. But, as you know, I returned for a final visit to close up all matters pertaining to my earthly life before I snapped the astral chord which until then had kept my original body alive. And there was where I made my mistake.

"As I've told you, I left my Palosian body in Zud's quarters, rather magnificently placed. Zud saw to that. I suppose now he was turning the elements of what he fancied the truth in his old brain. My form was stretched out on a golden couch, covered with a sheet of orange-colored silk, in the apartment set apart for my use. And I'd been planning, as you know, many things I wanted to do. I'd drawn plans--designs for things common enough on earth, but never before dreamed of on Palos. And I left the drawing I had made in that room in a golden chest. You remember I told you gold was as plentiful on Palos as iron on earth and used as freely in the metal working arts.

"Night and day a guard was kept in the chamber where I lay in what they believed was my knowledge-gaining sleep. But--the guard was a priest. He would do anything Zud said, of course. I never thought of that. I was anxious only to get back here and close things up and return and claim Naia as my wife.

"So you see I fell into the error of not considering old Zud's thoughts or his interpretation of my claim that everything I did was by Zitu's grace. Of course that was plain enough, however, after I got back and found that he had all along placed a literal interpretation on my remarks and considered my sleeps as no more than a period of spiritual communion with Zitu himself. Then it became very forcibly clear to me that I should have taken Zud more fully into the truth of the facts. And because I hadn't I found myself in a most embarrassing case.

"The high priest had got into that golden box. He had examined my working charts. He had dimly sensed them as designs for things I meant to make--and his wonder knew no bounds. And after that he played the deuce, though I am convinced the old man only thought he was doing what was absolutely right, according to his rights."

"And Naia?" I asked. "How did she view your elevation to such a lofty state?"

Croft gave me a glance. "I told you Zud messed everything up," he replied. "But--it's a long story. Murray, this ramshackle carcass I've seized won't last out a great many days. The weakling soul who once possessed it broke it down by every sort of abuse, including drugs. But, I've got to learn certain things before I abandon its use.

"Suppose you send me up the latest works you have on internal medicine and surgery and therapeutics, and drop in tonight. If you're willing to sacrifice a few hours' sleep, I'll spin you the whole yarn."

"All right," I agreed as I rose. "I don't think I was ever more startled in my life, but I'll send up the books, and I'll be right here after nine myself."

"Right," he accepted. "My physicians wouldn't let me have tobacco, though this body craves it. Bring some cigars when you come, and we'll have a good long talk."

Before, however, I enter upon Croft's actual story, I think it better perhaps to briefly describe, in some part at least, those details of the Palosian world with which he had put me in touch on the occasion of our former meeting to which I have already referred.

And toward a fuller understanding of that world itself, I think it best to take up the geography of that part of Palos Croft visited first. Mainly that which has to do with the Tamarizian nation--a series of allied principalities surrounding the shores of a vast inland sea, with the exception of a central state--the seat of the imperial capital, embracing the island of Hiranur, located in the sea itself, and the kingdom of Nodhur to the west and south.

From the central sea a narrow strait led west toward an outer ocean beyond the continent on which the several principalities found place. To the north of this strait, known as the Gateway, was Cathur, a mountainous country and the seat of the national university at its capital city Scira. East of Cathur was Mazhur, known at the time of Croft's arrival as the Lost State, since in a former war it had been wrested from the original Tamarizian group by the Zollarians, a hostile nation lying still farther north.

Croft, by defeating Zollaria, after his entertainment of physical life on Palos, had brought Mazhur back. In fact, he had just completed that bit of work at the time of our former conversation, thereby raising himself to a very high position of influence and power, as I have sought to indicate, and winning from Naia's father, Prince Lakkon of Aphur, the promise of his daughter's hand, as well as the consent of Jadgor, King of Aphur, and Naia's uncle, that the union should take place.

On Croft's advent Scythys--a man old to dotage--had been king of Cathur, with Kyphallos the crown prince, a profligate of the worst type, for a son. Yet Jadgor of Aphur, scenting a danger unless it was checked in advance in Kyphallos's ascent of the Cathurian throne, had sought to bind the northern prince to the Tamarizian fealty more surely by offering him Naia, his sister's child, to wife.

Kyphallos had, however, sunk under the enchantments of Kalamita, a Zollarian adventuress of great beauty, until he had reached the stage of plotted treason, planning to surrender Cathur to Zollaria in return for being given the throne of Tamarizia with Kalamita at his side.

To win Naia for himself, and overthrow Zollaria's designs against the southern nation had been Croft's main work, toward which he strained every nerve. Besides his development of the motor on Palos he introduced firearms as well, placed them in the hands of the Tamarizian soldiery until then armed with spears, swords, bows and arrows and shields, and defeated the flower of the Zollarian hosts on a couple of bloody fields. The victory complete and Zollaria not only defeated but forced to cede Mazhur after a tenure of fifty years, and it being the end of the Emperor Tamhys's reign, he had prevailed upon the nation to adopt a democratic form.

And now a word as to the Tamarizians themselves. They were a white and well-formed race. In their social structure women held an equal place with men. I have hinted at their religion. They believed in the spirit and a future life and the resurrection of the dead. In the sciences and arts they had made considerable progress.

The clothing of the women consisted of a single garment, falling to the knees or just below them, cinctured about the body, caught over one shoulder by a metal or jeweled boss, and leaving the other shoulder and arm exposed. To this was added sandals of leather, metal, or wood, held to the foot by a toe-and-instep band and lacings running well up the calves. Men of wealth and caste and soldiers and nobles, instead of these sandals, generally wore metal casings, which amounted to a sandal and leg piece jointed to allow the ankle full play and reaching nearly to the knees.

The men of caste also wore a soft shirt or chemise beneath a metal cuirass or an embroidered tunic, as the case might be. Save on formal occasions, the serving classes, men and women, wore either a narrow cincture about the loins, supporting a small phallary or apron, or went nude about their tasks.

Agriculture was highly developed, and as a people they had advanced far in architecture, painting, sculpture, and similar arts. They lavished much time and expense in beautifying their houses--making of each a small palace, if the owner were rich. The highways along which the sarpelca caravans and the gnuppa-drawn carriages and chariots passed were models of engineering.

All these things I knew from Croft's previous talks. He had told me he could go to Palos as quickly as I could think of it myself, and here I was anticipating a resumption that night of his story concerning beings I had never seen, with an eagerness amounting to impatience of the dragging hours.

Here was I thinking of Naia--the golden-haired, purple-eyed beauty of Aphur; of Lakkon, her father; of Jadgor, her uncle; of Robur, her cousin, the Aphurian crown prince and Croft's loyal co-worker and friend; of the sweet and matronly Gaya, his wife; of Magur, Zud's deputy in Himyra; of Zud himself and others, as one thinks of people well known--actually visualizing them before my mental eye according to Croft's description--portraying their thoughts and acts and feelings to myself, as I might with any man or woman on earth.

And to me in that moment Naia--glorious in her purity and youth, waiting for her mate in the quarters of Ga--the virgin--where burned the never-dying fires of life, on the altar before Ga's feet--was far more clear in her seeming than a million mundane women, despite the billions of miles between her and my present physical estate.

Billions of miles. My mind bridged it in thought.

And Croft had bridged it in spirit at first, until at last he had learned how to cross the bridge and gain a life in the flesh--because the lure of the woman had nerved him to that test. The thing thrilled me, fired every element within me capable of responding to the stimulus of romance. Sane or insane, true or untrue, I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

Only remember--that if it wasn't Croft, his spirit--indwelling in the new patient's miserable wreck of a body--how would he have known the elements of the former story he had already mentioned--been able to pick it up where he left it off, and preface what he had promised to tell me, with his account of the actions of the Tamarizian high priest? That argument alone seemed enough to remove the last shreds of unbelief. Consequently I felt that when I entered my patient's room that evening, it would be to hear not so much a story as a narrative of life.

And at that I was to be amazed by what had happened to Jason Croft.

HARNESSED TO HEAVEN

Meanwhile I sent him the books he had said he wanted, together with a box of good cigars. And along about eight forty-five, when I had finished my evening round of patients, I went up myself.

I lighted up a cigar and took a chair, tacitly preparing for a stay of some considerable time, and then as Croft continued to smoke in an almost meditative silence, I opened the matter myself:

"Even supposing that Zud did get at your plans, I hardly see why he should have taken the step he did before your return."

Croft nodded. "It wasn't only the plans," he said. "You must recall Abbu, the priest of the pyramid at Scira--the one who was present when I entered Jasor's body and made it my own--who administered the last rites of his church to the dying Jasor, and with whom I talked after I had succeeded in compelling the Nodhurian's form to obey my will.

"I told you that to Abbu I had acknowledged that my spirit was not Jasor's, but that what I was about to do was for Tamarizia's good, thereby enlisting his aid in my undertakings--also how he acted as an instrument in saving Naia from becoming a victim of the plan Cathur's crown prince and his Zollarian coplotters had so cunningly laid.

"At the time I swore him to secrecy, of course, and I honestly believe that up until the time I left Jasor's body for the purpose of making a final trip to earth, he was the only man who knew that the spirit within it was not the same as the one it had held at birth. But"--a smile flicked across his lips--"just as on my first excursion to Palos I made an error and nearly precipitated myself into the fiery heart of Sirius, so I seem to have overlooked the human equation which holds on Palos no less than earth--and I overlooked also the fact that Zud was the high priest.

"Abbu, after the war with Zollaria, had been brought to Zitra and raised to a higher rank, because of his part in first assisting me. Naturally Zud was acquainted with all such facts, and one can hardly blame him for wanting to know more in view of what I can well understand were the tremendous changes I had brought about in Tamarizia's affairs.

"To me motors and firearms were nothing save things of every-day experience, and what I had made on Palos seemed but as crude devices at the best. But to Zud and all others they appeared little short of the miraculous, upsetting all former conceptions of their lives. Take that into consideration and then picture the impression on his mind likely to be made by the fact that by my own admission I was not the same Jasor of Nodhur who, according to the physician attending him in Scira, had there died."

I began to understand what must have happened.

"He pumped Abbu?" I exclaimed.

"Exactly." Croft smiled dryly again. "He absolved him from his oath and learned all the facts with which Abbu was acquainted. You can easily understand the rest. Jasor of Nodhur dies. His body comes back to life. Its lips speak to Abbu, the priest. He hears that a new spirit inhabits Jasor's body. Immediately after strange things--but things aimed wholly for Tamarizia's good--begin to happen.

"Shall the dead live again, save by divine intervention? Shall undreamed of things appear save by Zitu's grace? And if in addition the revivified body shall fall into strange sleeps at times and upon waking seem possessed of a supernatural knowledge, what more natural to the priest--unendowed with a full understanding of what was taking place, unaware that the things that excited his unlimited amazement were but copies of things existing on another planet--than to consider that those things he witnessed were the result of divine ordination and to regard the individual who brought them about as the mouthpiece of his god in the flesh? Oh, frankly, Murray, I don't blame that puzzled old man in the least. As a matter of fact, I blame myself for not having foreseen the effect of all that had happened on his brain."

Croft put out a hand and selected a fresh cigar. He set it alight and got it to going nicely while, as it seemed to me, he marshaled his thoughts. And then--all at once he began speaking again, and this is the story he told.

The Palosian day--or "sun"--is twenty-seven hours long. Dawn was on the verge of breaking when Croft, having severed the astral link with his earthly body, opened Jasor of Nodhur's physical eyes in the room of the Zitran pyramid. And because now he had taken the last step which so nearly as possible must make him a Palosian indeed, and nothing held him longer on any other sphere, he opened his eyes in a flash.

One moment the body he had taken when Jasor laid it down was stretched an inanimate object on the golden couch beneath its smooth coverlet of orange silk. The next moment it was the living, breathing figure of a perfectly proportioned man, blinking its newly opened eyes.

A slightly unsteady radiance of a yellow color filled the room. It came from the blazing wicks in oil-filled sconces fixed about the walls, as Croft knew. He lay and sensed it briefly, while the tide of awakening life flowed in a tingling stream through his powerful body and limbs. And then he turned his head.

His glance fell upon one of the lay brothers of the priesthood, clad in a brown robe, from which peeped his toe-splayed, naked feet. He sat on a stool of molded copper, with down-bent head. He appeared to be asleep. But suddenly as though aroused by Croft's slight movement, he jerked to attention and encountered the sleeper's eyes. Instantly he sprang erect, approaching with a soft, quick shuffle and pausing by the golden bed.

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