"Zitu!" The word came from Naia's lips as a strangled exclamation. She drew herself up on the couch until she sat tense in every quivering fiber of her being. "Now you have touched on the part of the matter I may not tolerate or understand. Granting that he says truth—that a spirit may enter the body of another and possess it, and cause it to live and breathe, and move as its own—can a maid consider a lover in such guise, surrendering to his embrace?"
"Yet consider," said Gaya softly, with a widening of her eyes as though the spell of the subject were upon her fully; "try to measure if you can, my princess, a love so vast that it draws its mate across the space between the stars. Consider what this man's love must be that he forsakes that life to which he was born and comes in search of you—the one woman who fills his soul with longing; and consider, also, that after he entered Jasor's form it changed—that even Sinon declared he no longer resembled Jasor greatly. Seems it not to you that Jason's spirit has altered the elements that were Jasor's until they are as his own?"
"Jason?" Naia faltered.
"Aye. That was his name on earth. Also says he that it is the spirit within us which dwells in and makes us of the flesh. He says, and Zud supports him in saying that to the spirit the flesh is no more than to man is a house—a something he inhabits, makes use of, and finally lays aside."
"Stop!" Naia stayed her. "Why—why were these things not said to me before—before—" She broke off, clasped her hands and crushed them together, struck them down against her sides. "Nay—it might have been," she went on, more to herself than to Gaya, "had I given the chance. He came to me, and I berated him with words. I was filled with pain; my spirit was blinded with horror and despair. I thought only that I had been led to my own undoing—I knew not the truth.
"Zud's words had well-nigh unsettled my mind. Wherefore I prayed to Ga and Azil, and there was no answer. And then I prayed to Zilla, and even the angel of death turned away his face. Gaya, I am like one fallen into a pit from which there is no escape. Him I knew as Jasor—I loved with a glory of the spirit and a madness of the flesh. He was my master. His word was my law. My heart beat like a caged bird in his presence. My spirit faltered when he spoke to me. My flesh was as clay in the potter's hands to his touch. I was a slave, and my glory was in the slavery of my love. Save only Zitu, beyond him there was for me no god!"
Once more she paused and sat panting, her bosom rising and falling, her nostrils aquiver, her lips compressed, while Croft yearned to her and this voicing of a love no less, as it seemed to him, than his love for herself.
"Canst wonder, then," she went on after a moment, "with what gladness I gave him my pledge; with what joy in my thoughts of the future I wore upon my girdle the badge of Azil he placed within my hands as sign that I was his—that badge which, on the day of his proclaiming Mouthpiece of Zitu, I placed in a spray of flowers and hurled against his breast!"
"Naia! Child!" Gaya half started up at the climax of her companion's words. "You did that—did he—understand?"
Naia nodded slightly. "I think so. He—from the dais he carried the flowers I flung against him to his litter in his hand. Oh, Gaya—my soul died within me at that sight—would Zitu—the rest of me had died. I am alone, Gaya—alone. Alone, alone—the word tunes my every breath. Jadgor opposes my seeking the Gayana. My father looks on his name as through me disgraced. And I am tired, Gaya—tired—so very tired. And there is no rest. If only Zilla would hear me when I call him—"