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.
"My lord—my lord!" he stammered in little more than a husky whisper, and sank upon his knees. His back bent, his head inclined until its face was hidden. His arms rose, and as Croft watched he made the sign of the Tamarizian priesthood—a horizontal cross.
Croft lifted himself to a sitting posture on the couch, shoving the coverings back until his shoulders and torso gleamed white with a ripple of muscles beneath the yellow light. Frankly he was perplexed. Knighthood he had gained. He was a Hupor or Prince of Aphur by Jadgor's accolade. It was well enough for the brother to call him "lord." He was a powerful man in all the nation, but—never had he before encountered the bent knee of a priest—and since the guardian of his chamber must have known what to expect, he hardly thought the man's act attributable to fright.
"Come! What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Since you were placed to attend my awaking, why do you kneel?"
The man lifted his face—it was white—even beyond the priestly pallor—and his eyes were wide.
"Because," he said slowly, in almost timorous fashion, "all men bend the knee to the Mouthpiece of Zitu—even Zud himself."
The whole thing burst on Croft just like that, without warning, without any premonitory sign to prepare him for his changed estate. And then, with a wildly whirling brain as he realized the far-reaching consequences hinted at by the priest's announcement, he found himself forced to accept the conclusion that the Mouthpiece of Zitu could be none other than himself. At first the thought startled him, disturbed him, appalled, and in swift succession it excited an almost resentful rage.
Those things were instinctive wholly, then as the brain, once more in the grasp of his will, began to functionate more fully, he decided that something unforeseen must have transpired while he lay here entranced, and resolved in a flash that the first step essential to a fuller information lay in an interview with Zud at once.