The door slid back. Zud stood before us, blinking aged eyes.
"Mouthpiece of Zitu," he questioned, "what does this visit betide?"
"Work of Zitemku and his agents," Croft said hoarsely, stepping inside the high priest's apartments and pausing while Zud closed the door.
"Thou knowest of my sleeps, O man of Zitu—and what occurs at times when my body lies sleeping, and how my spirit gains knowledge beyond the power of most men in the gaining—for I have explained to thee, and shown thee somewhat, O Zud, so that by thyself something of the same power was attained," he went on.
"Hence will ye give credence when I declare to you, in the name of Zitu, that this night the woman whose union with me was blessed by thyself appeared to me, saying my home in the mountains of Aphur had been assailed by a Zollarian band, and that she had been carried from it with our child—and ye will credit me still further in that I left the body and went to my house, and found things even as she had described them, and that I followed her to the shore of the outer ocean, and aboard a ship, whereupon was Kalamita, the Zollarian woman of whom thou knowest—and that even now she is carried to Zollaria captive, to be returned to Tamarizia and my house only for a price."
He paused and caught a heavy breath, the fingers of his left hand toying with the jeweled hilt of his sword.
"Zitu," stammered the high priest, advancing a step to lay a withered hand on Jason's shoulder—"may he befriend thee, and guard the woman I know thou lovest. In what way may I aid thee, Jason?"
"In no way, save that I desired your acquaintance with the knowledge. I go now to Jadgor, and Lakkon, her father," Croft replied. "Grant us thy prayers, Zud, and those of the Gayana, since once she lay among them waiting to be my bride." He turned to the door, crashing it back with a wholly unneeded force, and strode off, clanking down the passage, leaving old Zud staring after, out of troubled, aged eyes.