Croft's heart was bitter, too, as he left the place and returned by his will to Scira and the apartment of Jasor of Nodhur.
Just why he went there he hardly knew—save that the sympathy he felt for the soul-sick youth seemed to keep the boy in his mind. Yet once in his presence he found the youth sitting before an untouched plate of food. And after a time he hurled this to the floor and buried his head in his hands, to break into muttered speech.
Croft listened and after a time he found the cause. Jasor's father had sent him word to come home. The two leaves of a writing tablet—bits of thin metal covered with hardened wax, in which characters were cut with a metal stylus, lay unbound and spread out on the table where the food had sat. Jasor's father had evidently become convinced that his son was a dullard and was wasting his time in seeking to learn more than he already knew.
Croft remained with him during the night. For a time he whimpered and cursed. Later he destroyed the tablets as he had destroyed his food. After that he flung himself on his couch and for hours he dozed and waked and tossed and muttered. Croft fancied him in a fever from the broken nature of the words he spoke. And in the morning the boy did not rise. The woman of whom he rented his lodgings came to clean and found him muttering and mouthing. He sprang up and drove her from the room. She ran crying downstairs and out to the street and along it for some distance to a house where quite evidently one of the nursing caste lived.
Presently a woman in the uniform of her calling, a short blue-skirted costume, embroidered with a red, heart-shaped symbol came forth and followed her back to her house. Five minutes after her arrival she had sent the old woman for a doctor and was herself bathing Jasor's flushed neck and face.
The doctor came, examined the patient, left some liquid substance to be given in interval doses and went away. Croft remained till evening. Jasor was more quiet by then, and he left. But, physician as he was, he felt that the young Nodhurian's days were numbered, that unless he had the will to recover he would sink slowly and die in the end. And he knew Jasor had not the will to get well.
His own will carried him to Himyra in a flash, and to Lakkon's palace at once. Night had fallen when he reached it and the central court was a blaze of light from a myriad of oil-lamps. In the main expanse of the crystal flooring the tables were set forth, decked with flowers and loaded with viands. Serving men and maidens of the blue Mazzerian race were still at work in the final preparations. Of Naia or Lakkon there was no sign.
The latter came down the stairs at one end after some time, however, and signing to Bazka, the Mazzerian major-domo, took up a place near the massive doors. There he remained until a clatter of hoofs marked the first arriving guests.
They came in a stream thereafter, nobles of Aphur and their daughters and wives; captains of the civic guard, and finally, with a blare of trumpets from riders mounted on gnuppas, Jadgor himself and Kyphallos in a golden coach drawn by eight gnuppas harnessed four abreast.