Palos of the Dog Star Pack

by J. U. Giesy

KYPHALLOS AND KALAMITA

Yet once outside the mountain villa, Croft knew where he wanted to go. It was back to Himyra—back to the palace of Lakkon itself—to be alone with his thoughts. To that point, therefore, he once more willed himself.

The city swam beneath him. The yellow Na sparkled and glinted in the flickering gleams of the fire basins lighted along the embankments as they leaped and flared. Other fires flashed out in various of the public squares. And here the population met for their hours of relaxation. Here groups of wandering musicians played on reed and harp and horn as the gaily decked crowds filed by. Here mountebanks plied their stock of tricks, and acrobats proved their supple agility and strength. Over it all the three moons of Palos poured a silvery light as Croft flitted past.

Then he was at the palace of Lakkon, finding still open, a window of Naia's own room, and so at length the place he sought. The moonlight filtered in. It fell in a broad bank, which struck across the pure white figure of Azil with its outstretched wings.

Through a long moment Croft stood gazing at the statue, bathed in the light of the moons. Then, without removing his eyes, he found the couch and sat down upon it, and thought, still staring at Azil—the material symbol of that spirit to whom the girl, the aura of whose presence pervaded this room, had prayed.

And, after a time, out of all his agony of spirit, his tumult of thought, his rebellion at what was proposed for the girl's fate, the sick knowledge of his own futility to aid her, there came to him a prompting impulse as to his future course. To what end he did not know. In his present state he could do nothing and knew it—had raged at the knowledge ever since he had seen Naia of Aphur on her way to this room, where he now sat.

Yet despite the acknowledged fact of impotency, something seemed to urge him to go on, to learn all he might of Palos and its people, of Tamarizia and its history, its manners and customs, its government and laws, and more particularly the true state of things in Cathur and the truth concerning Kyphallos, son of Cathur's king.

To Cathur then would he go, Croft decided, while he sat there staring at Azil, the Angel of Life. And Cathur, he judged, lay toward the north since Jadgor had spoken of the state of Nodhur as lying beyond Aphur on the Na. Hence he willed his spirit in projection without further delay.

Thereafter followed a week in which Jason Croft, disembodied spirit, learned much concerning the nation and the country to which he had dared venture across millions of miles of space.

He found Cathur, a mountainous state lying to the north of a wide mountain walled strait. He found Scira, its capital city, not unlike Himyra save that it was built of an odd blue stone quarried from the mountains which ribbed the state in all directions. There was white stone, too, used in the governmental palace, and also in a splendid collection of buildings lying on a small plateau above the city proper. This was the National University of Tamarizia, as Jason quickly learned, once he was inside its walls. Endowed as he was with the peculiar ability of reading the words of the people by reason of his sublimated state, he found this school a wonderful means of quickly gaining all knowledge of the nation which he desired to know.