And now a word as to the Tamarizians themselves. They were a white and well-formed race. In their social structure women held an equal place with men. I have hinted at their religion. They believed in the spirit and a future life and the resurrection of the dead. In the sciences and arts they had made considerable progress.
The clothing of the women consisted of a single garment, falling to the knees or just below them, cinctured about the body, caught over one shoulder by a metal or jeweled boss, and leaving the other shoulder and arm exposed. To this was added sandals of leather, metal, or wood, held to the foot by a toe-and-instep band and lacings running well up the calves. Men of wealth and caste and soldiers and nobles, instead of these sandals, generally wore metal casings, which amounted to a sandal and leg piece jointed to allow the ankle full play and reaching nearly to the knees.
The men of caste also wore a soft shirt or chemise beneath a metal cuirass or an embroidered tunic, as the case might be. Save on formal occasions, the serving classes, men and women, wore either a narrow cincture about the loins, supporting a small phallary or apron, or went nude about their tasks.
Agriculture was highly developed, and as a people they had advanced far in architecture, painting, sculpture, and similar arts. They lavished much time and expense in beautifying their houses—making of each a small palace, if the owner were rich. The highways along which the sarpelca caravans and the gnuppa-drawn carriages and chariots passed were models of engineering.
[The gnuppa is a creature seemingly half deer and half horse. The sarpelca is not unlike some weird Silurian lizard, twice the size of an elephant, with a pointed tail, a scale-armored back, a long neck somewhat resembling that of a camel, and the head of a marine serpent having a series of fleshy tentacles about the mouth. They are driven by reins affixed to these latter appendages, and stream across the Palosian deserts bearing merchandise upon their enormous backs.]
All these things I knew from Croft's previous talks. He had told me he could go to Palos as quickly as I could think of it myself, and here I was anticipating a resumption that night of his story concerning beings I had never seen, with an eagerness amounting to impatience of the dragging hours.
Here was I thinking of Naia—the golden-haired, purple-eyed beauty of Aphur; of Lakkon, her father; of Jadgor, her uncle; of Robur, her cousin, the Aphurian crown prince and Croft's loyal co-worker and friend; of the sweet and matronly Gaya, his wife; of Magur, Zud's deputy in Himyra; of Zud himself and others, as one thinks of people well known—actually visualizing them before my mental eye according to Croft's description—portraying their thoughts and acts and feelings to myself, as I might with any man or woman on earth.
And to me in that moment Naia—glorious in her purity and youth, waiting for her mate in the quarters of Ga—the virgin—where burned the never-dying fires of life, on the altar before Ga's feet—was far more clear in her seeming than a million mundane women, despite the billions of miles between her and my present physical estate.
Billions of miles. My mind bridged it in thought.
And Croft had bridged it in spirit at first, until at last he had learned how to cross the bridge and gain a life in the flesh—because the lure of the woman had nerved him to that test. The thing thrilled me, fired every element within me capable of responding to the stimulus of romance. Sane or insane, true or untrue, I wanted to hear the rest of the story.