"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! From his shaven scalp which supported a single stiff upstanding tuft of ruddy hair throughout his entire superbly supple length he was blue. And the color was natural to his skin. At first Jason had thought him painted, until a closer glance had proved his mistake. Aside from his surprising complexion he seemed human enough, with dark eyes, high molar prominences, and a strongly bridged nose. 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 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.