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Transcriber's Notes:

This etext was produced from Fantasy Book Vol. 1, No. 3 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyrighton this publication was renewed. 

A number of typographical errors found in the original text have beencorrected in this version. A list of these errors is found at the endof this book. 

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THE GIFTS OF ASTI

ANDREW NORTH

_She was the guardian of the worlds, but HER world was dead. _

Even here, on the black terrace before the forgotten mountain retreat ofAsti, it was possible to smell the dank stench of burning Memphir, toimagine that the dawn wind bore upward from the pillaged city the fainttortured cries of those whom the barbarians of Klem hunted to theirprolonged death. Indeed it was time to leave--

Varta, last of the virgin Maidens of Asti, shivered. The scaled andwattled creature who crouched beside her thigh turned his reptilian headso that golden eyes met the aquamarine ones set slantingly at a faintlyprovocative angle in her smooth ivory face. 

"We go--?"

She nodded in answer to that unvoiced question Lur had sent into herbrain, and turned toward the dark cavern which was the mouth of Asti'slast dwelling place. Once, more than a thousand years before when thewalls of Memphir were young, Asti had lived among men below. But in therichness and softness which was trading Memphir, empire of empires, Astifound no place. So He and those who served Him had withdrawn to thismountain outcrop. And she, Varta, was the last, the very last to bowknee at Asti's shrine and raise her voice in the dawn hymn--for Lur, aswere all his race, was mute. 

Even the loot of Memphir would not sate the shaggy headed warriors whohad stormed her gates this day. The stairway to Asti's Temple was plainenough to see and there would be those to essay the steep climb hopingto find a treasure which did not exist. For Asti was an austere God, delighting in plain walls and bare altars. His last priest had lain inthe grave niches these three years, there would be none to hold thatgate against intruders. 

Varta passed between tall, uncarved pillars, Lur padding beside her, hisspine mane erect, the talons on his forefeet clicking on the stone insteady rhythm. So they came into the innermost shrine of Asti and thereVarta made graceful obeisance to the great cowled and robed figure whichsat enthroned, its hidden eyes focused upon its own outstretched hand. 

And above the flattened palm of that wide hand hung suspended in spacethe round orange-red sun ball which was twin to the sun that lightedErb. Around the miniature sun swung in their orbits the four worlds ofthe system, each obeying the laws of space, even as did the planets theyrepresented. 

"Memphir has fallen, " Varta's voice sounded rusty in her own ears. Shehad spoken so seldom during the last lonely months. "Evil has risen tooverwhelm our world, even as it was prophesied in Your Revelations, O, Ruler of Worlds and Maker of Destiny. Therefore, obeying the order givenof old, I would depart from this, Thy house. Suffer me now to fulfillthe Law--"

Three times she prostrated her slim body on the stones at the foot ofAsti's judgment chair. Then she arose and, with the confidence of achild in its father, she laid her hand palm upward upon the outstretchedhand of Asti. Beneath her flesh the stone was not cold and hard, butseemed to have an inner heat, even as might a human hand. For a longmoment she stood so and then she raised her hand slowly, carefully, asif within its slight hollow she cupped something precious. 

[Illustration]

And, as she drew her hand away from the grasp of Asti, the tiny sun andits planets followed, spinning now above her palm as they had above thestatue's. But out of the cowled figure some virtue had departed with thegoing of the miniature solar system; it was now but a carving of stone. And Varta did not look at it again as she passed behind its bulk to seeka certain place in the temple wall, known to her from much reading ofthe old records. 

Having found the stone she sought, she moved her hand in a certainpattern before it so that the faint radiance streaming from the tinysun, gleamed on the grayness of the wall. There was a grating, as frommetal long unused, and a block fell back, opening a narrow door to them. 

Before she stepped within, the priestess lifted her hand above her headand when she withdrew it, the sun and planets remained to form a diademjust above the intricate braiding of her dull red hair. As she movedinto the secret way, the five orbs swung with her, and in the darknessthere the sun glowed richly, sending out a light to guide their feet. 

They were at the top of a stairway and the hollow clang of the stone asit moved back into place behind them echoed through a gulf which seemedendless. But that too was as the chronicles had said and Varta knew nofear. 

How long they journeyed down into the maw of the mountain and, beyondthat, into the womb of Erb itself, Varta never knew. But, when feet wereweary and she knew the bite of real hunger, they came into a passagewaywhich ended in a room hollowed of solid rock. And there, preserved inthe chest in which men born in the youth of Memphir had laid them, Vartafound that which would keep her safe on the path she must take. She putaside the fine silks, the jeweled cincture, which had been the badge ofAsti's service and drew on over her naked body a suit of scaled skin, gemmed and glistening in the rays of the small sun. There was a hood tocover the entire head, taloned gloves for the hands, webbed, clawedcoverings for the feet--as if the skin of a giant, man-like lizard hadbeen tanned and fashioned into this suit. And Varta suspected that thatmight be so--the world of Erb had not always been held by the human-kindalone. 

There were supplies here too, lying untouched in ageless containerswithin a lizard-skin pouch. Varta touched her tongue without fear to apowdered restorative, sharing it with Lur, whose own mailed skin wouldprotect him through the dangers to come. 

She folded the regalia she had stripped off and laid it in the chest, smoothing it regretfully before she dropped the lid upon its shimmeringcolor. Never again would Asti's servant wear the soft stuff of HisLivery. But she was resolute enough when she picked up the food pouchand strode forward, passing out of the robing chamber into a narrow waywhich was a natural fault in the rock unsmoothed by the tools of man. 

But when this rocky road ended upon the lip of a gorge, Varta hesitated, plucking at the throat latch of her hood-like helmet. Through theunclouded crystal of its eye-holes she could see the sprouts of yellowvapor which puffed from crannies in the rock wall down which she mustclimb. If the records of the Temple spoke true, these curls of gas weredeath to all lunged creatures of the upper world. She could only trustthat the cunning of the scaled hood would not fail her. 

The long talons fitted to the finger tips of the gloves, the claws ofthe webbed foot coverings clamped fast to every hand and foot hold, butthe way down was long and she caught a message of weariness from Lurbefore they reached the piled rocks at the foot of the cliff. The puffsof steamy gas had become a fog through which they groped their wayslowly, following a trace of path along the base of the cliff. 

Time did not exist in the underworld of Erb. Varta did not know whetherit was still today, or whether she had passed into tomorrow when theycame to a cross roads. She felt Lur press against her, forcing her backagainst a rock. 

"There is a thing coming--" his message was clear. 

And in a moment she too saw a dark hulk nosing through the vapor. Itmoved slowly, seeming to balance at each step as if travel was a painfulact. But it bore steadily to the meeting of the two paths. 

"It is no enemy--" But she did not need that reassurance from Lur. Unearthly as the thing looked it had no menace. 

With a last twist of ungainly body the creature squatted on a rock andclawed the clumsy covering it wore about its bone-thin shoulders anddomed-skull head. The visage it revealed was long and gray, with darkpits for eyes and a gaping, fang-studded, lipless mouth. 

"Who are you who dare to tread the forgotten ways and rouse from slumberthe Guardian of the Chasms?"

The question was a shrill whine in her brain, her hands half arose tocover her ears--

"I am Varta, Maiden of Asti. Memphir has fallen to the barbarians of theOuter Lands and now I go, as Asti once ordered--. "

The Guardian considered her answer gravely. In one skeleton claw itfumbled a rod and with this it now traced certain symbols in the dustbefore Varta's webbed feet. When it had done, the girl stooped andaltered two of the lines with a swift stroke from one of her talons. Thecreature of the Chasm nodded its misshapen head. 

"Asti does not rule here. But long, and long, and long ago there was apact made with us in His Name. Pass free from us, woman of the Light. There are two paths before you--. "

The Guardian paused for so long that Varta dared to prompt it. 

"Where do they lead, Guardian of the Dark?"

"This will take you down into my country, " it jerked the rod to theright. "And that way is death for creatures from the surface world. Theother--in our old legends it is said to bring a traveler out into theupper world. Of the truth of that I have no proof. "

"But that one I must take, " she made slight obeisance to the huddle ofbones and dank cloak on the rock and it inclined its head in gravecourtesy. 

With Lur pushing a little ahead, she took the road which ran straightinto the flume-veiled darkness. Nor did she turn to look again at theThing from the Chasm world. 

They began to climb again, across slimed rock where there were eviltrails of other things which lived in this haunted darkness. But the sunof Asti lighted their way and perhaps some virtue in the rays from itkept away the makers of such trails. 

When they pulled themselves up onto a wide ledge the talons on Varta'sgloves were worn to splintered stubs and there was a bright girdle ofpain about her aching body. Lur lay panting beside her, his red-forkedtongue protruding from his foam ringed mouth. 

"We walk again the ways of men, " Lur was the first to note the toolmarks on the stone where they lay. "By the Will of Asti, we may win outof this maze after all. "

Since there were no signs of the deadly steam Varta dared to push offher hood and share with her companion the sustaining power she carriedin her pouch. There was a freshness to the air they breathed, damp andcold though it was, which hinted of the upper world. 

The ledge sloped upwards, at a steep angle at first, and then moregently. Lur slipped past her and thrust head and shoulders through abreak in the rock. Grasping his neck spines she allowed him to pull herthrough that narrow slit into the soft blackness of a surface night. They tumbled down together, Varta's head pillowed on Lur's smooth side, and so slept as the sun and worlds of Asti whirled protectingly abovethem. 

A whir of wings in the air above her head awakened Varta. One of thesmall, jewel bright flying lizard creatures of the deep jungle poisedand dipped to investigate more closely the worlds of Asti. But atVarta's upflung arm it uttered a rasping cry and planed down into themass of vegetation below. By the glint of sunlight on the stone aroundthem the day was already well advanced. Varta tugged at Lur's mane untilhe roused. 

There was a regularity to the rocks piled about their sleeping placewhich hinted that they had lain among the ruins left by man. But of thisside of the mountains both were ignorant, for Memphir's rule had not runhere. 

"Many dead things in times past, " Lur's scarlet nostril pits wereextended to their widest. "But that was long ago. This land is no longerheld by men. "

Varta laughed cheerfully. "If here there are no men, then there willrise no barbarian hordes to dispute our rule. Asti has led us to safety. Let us see more of the land He gives us. "

There was a road leading down from the ruins, a road still to befollowed in spite of the lash of landslip and the crack of time. And itbrought them into a cup of green fertility where the lavishness ofAsti's sowing was unchecked by man. Varta seized eagerly upon globes ofblood red fruit which she recognized as delicacies which had beencultivated in the Temple gardens, while Lur went hunting into thefringes of the jungle, there dining on prey so easily caught as to bejudged devoid of fear. 

The jungle choked highway curved and they were suddenly fronted by adesert of sere desolation, a desert floored by glassy slag which sentback the sun beams in a furnace glare. Varta shaded her eyes and triedto see the end of this, but, if there was a distant rim of green beyond, the heat distortions in the air concealed it. 

Lur put out a front paw to test the slag but withdrew it instantly. 

"It cooks the flesh, we can not walk here, " was his verdict. 

Varta pointed with her chin to the left where, some distance away, themountain wall paralleled their course. 

"Then let us keep to the jungle over there and see if it does not bringaround to the far side. But what made this--?" She leaned out over theglassy stuff, not daring to touch the slick surface. 

"War. " Lur's tongue shot out to impale a questing beetle. "Theseforgotten people fought with fearsome weapons. "

"But what weapon could do this? Memphir knew not such--. "

"Memphir was old. But mayhap there were those who raised cities on Erbbefore the first hut of Memphir squatted on tidal mud. Men forgetknowledge in time. Even in Memphir the lords of the last days forgot thewisdom of their earlier sages--they fell before the barbarians easilyenough. "

"If ever men had wisdom to produce this--it was not of Asti's giving, "she edged away from the glare. "Let us go. "

But now they had to fight their way through jungle and it washard--until they reached a ridge of rock running out from the mountainas a tongue thrust into the blasted valley. And along this they pickedtheir slow way. 

"There is water near--, " Lur's thought answered the girl's desire. Shelicked dry lips longingly. "This way--, " her companion's sudden turn wasto the left and Varta was quick to follow him down a slide of rock. 

Lur's instinct was right, as it ever was. There was water before them, asmall lake of it. But even as he dipped his fanged muzzle toward thatinviting surface, Lur's spined head jerked erect again. Varta snatchedback the hand she had put out, staring at Lur's strange actions. Hisnostrils expanded to their widest, his long neck outstretched, he wasswinging his head back and forth across the limpid shallows. 

"What is it--?"

"This is no water such as we know, " the scaled one answered flatly. "Ithas life within it. "

Varta laughed. "Fish, water snakes, your own distant kin, Lur. It is thescent of them which you catch--"

"No. It is the water itself which lives--and yet does not live--" Histhought trailed away from her as he struggled with some problem. Nohuman brain could follow his unless he willed it so. 

Varta squatted back on her heels and began to look at the water and thenat the banks with more care. For the first time she noted the oddpatches of brilliant color which floated just below the surface of theliquid. Blue, green, yellow, crimson, they drifted slowly with the tinywaves which lapped the shore. But they were not alive, she was almostsure of that, they appeared more a part of the water itself. 

Watching the voyage of one patch of green she caught sight of thebranch. It was a drooping shoot of the turbi, the same tree vine whichproduced the fruit she had relished less than an hour before. Above thewater dangled a cluster of the fruit, dead ripe with the sweet pulpstretching its skin. But below the surface of the water--

Varta's breath hissed between her teeth and Lur's head snapped around ashe caught her thought. 

The branch below the water bore a perfect circle of green flowers closeto its tip, the flowers which the turbi had borne naturally seven monthsbefore and which should long ago have turned into just such sweetness ashung above. 

With Lur at her heels the girl edged around to pull cautiously at thebranch. It yielded at once to her touch, swinging its tip out of thelake. She sniffed--there was a languid perfume in the air, the perfumeof the blooming turbi. She examined the flowers closely, to allappearances they were perfect and natural. 

"It preserves, " Lur settled back on his haunches and waved one front pawat the quiet water. "What goes into it remains as it was just at themoment of entrance. "

"But if this is seven months old--"

"It may be seven years old, " corrected Lur. "How can you tell when thatbranch first dipped into the lake? Yet the flowers do not fade even whenwithdrawn from the water. This is indeed a mystery!"

"Of which I would know more!" Varta dropped the turbi and started onaround the edge of the lake. 

Twice more they found similar evidence of preservation in flower orleaf, wherever it was covered by the opaline water. 

The lake itself was a long and narrow slash with one end cutting intothe desert of glass while the other wet the foot of the mountain. And itwas there, on the slope of the mountain that they found the greatestwonder of all, Lur scenting it before they sighted the remains among thestones. 

"Man made, " he cautioned, "but very, very old. "

And truly the wreckage they came upon must have been old, perhaps evenolder than Memphir. For the part which rested above the water was almostgone, rusty red stains on the rocks outlining where it had lain. Butunder water was a smooth silver hull, shining and untouched by theyears. Varta laid her hand upon a ruddy scrap between two rocks and itbecame a drift of powdery dust. And yet--there a few feet below wasstrong metal!

Lur padded along the scrap of shore surveying the thing. 

"It was a machine in which men traveled, " his thoughts arose to her. "But they were not as the men of Memphir. Perhaps not even as the sonsof Erb--"

"Not as the sons of Erb!" her astonishment broke into open speech. 

Lur's neck twisted as he looked up at her. "Did the men of Erb, even inthe old chronicles fight with weapons such as would make a desert ofglass? There are other worlds than Erb, mayhap this strange thing was asky ship from such a world. All things are possible by the Will ofAsti. "

Varta nodded. "All things are possible by the Will of Asti, " sherepeated. "But, Lur, " her eyes were round with wonder, "perhaps it isAsti's Will which brought us here to find this marvel! Perhaps He hassome use for us and it!"

"At least we may discover what lies within it, " Lur had his own share ofcuriosity. 

"How? The two of us can not draw that out of the water!"

"No, but we can enter into it!"

Varta fingered the folds of the hood on her shoulders. She knew what Lurmeant, the suit which had protected her in the underworld was imperviousto everything outside its surface--or to every substance its makersknew--just as Lur's own hide made his flesh impenetrable. But thefashioners of her suit had probably never known of the living lake andwhat if she had no defense against the strange properties of the water?

She leaned back against a rock. Overhead the worlds and sun of Astistill traveled their appointed paths. The worlds of Asti! If it was HisWill which had brought them here, then Asti's power would wrap her roundwith safety. By His Will she had come out of Memphir over ways no humanof Erb had ever trod before. Could she doubt that His Protection waswith her now?

It took only a moment to make secure the webbed shoes, to pull on andfasten the hood, to tighten the buckles of her gloves. Then she creptforward, shuddering as the water rose about her ankles. But Lur pushedon before her, his head disappearing fearlessly under the surface as hecrawled through the jagged opening in the ship below. 

Smashed engines which had no meaning in her eyes occupied most of thebroken section of the wreck. None of the metal showed any deteriorationbeyond that which had occurred at the time of the crash. Under herexploring hands it was firm and whole. 

Lur was pulling at a small door half hidden by a mass of twisted wiresand plates and, just as Varta crawled around this obstacle to join him, the barrier gave way allowing them to squeeze through into what had oncebeen the living quarters of the ship. 

Varta recognized seats, a table, and other bits of strictly utilitarianfurniture. But of those who had once been at home there, there remainedno trace. Lur, having given one glance to the furnishings, was prowlingabout the far end of the cabin uncertainly, and now he voiced hisuneasiness. 

"There is something beyond, something which once had life--"

Varta crowded up to him. To her eyes the wall seemed without line of anopening, and yet Lur was running his broad front paws over it carefully, now and then throwing his weight against the smooth surface. 

"There is no door--" she pointed out doubtfully. 

"No door--ah--here--" Lur unsheathed formidable fighting claws to theirfull length for perhaps the first time in his temple-sheltered life, andendeavored to work them into a small crevice. The muscles of hisforelegs and quarters stood out in sharp relief under his scales, hisfangs were bare as his lips snapped back with effort. 

Something gave, a thin black line appeared to mark the edges of a door. Then time, or Lur's strength, broke the ancient locking mechanism. Thedoor gave so suddenly that they were both sent hurtling backward andLur's breath burst from him in a huge bubble. 

The sealed compartment was hardly more than a cupboard but it was full. Spread-eagled against the wall was a four-limbed creature whose form wasso smothered in a bulky suit that Varta could only guess that it wasakin in shape to her own. Hoops of metal locked it firmly to the wall, but the head had fallen forward so that the face plate in the helmet washidden. 

Slowly the girl breasted the water which filled the cabin and reachedher hands toward the bowed helmet of the prisoner. Gingerly, her bluntedtalons scraping across metal, she pulled it up to her eye-level. 

The eyes of that which stood within the suit were closed, as if insleep, but there was a warm, healthy tint to the bronze skin, sodifferent in shade to her own pallid coloring. For the rest, theprisoner had the two eyes, the centered nose, the properly shaped mouthwhich were common to the men of Erb. Hair grew on his head, black andthick and there was a faint shadow of beard on his jaw line. 

"This is a man--" her thought reached Lur. 

"Why not? Did you expect a serpent? It is a pity he is dead--"

Varta felt a rich warm tide rising in her throat to answer that teasinghalf question. There were times when Lur's thought reading was annoying, He had risen to his hind legs so that he too could look into the shellwhich held their find. 

"Yes, a pity, " he repeated. "But--"

A vision of the turbi flowers swept through her mind. Had Lur suggestedit, or had that wild thought been hers alone? Only this ship was soold--so very old!

Lur's red tongue flicked. "It can do no harm to try--" he suggestedslyly and set his claws into the hoop holding the captive's right wrist, testing its strength. 

"But the metal on the shore, it crumpled into powder at my touch--" sheprotested. "What if we carry him out only to have--to have--" Her mindshuddered away from the picture which followed. 

"Did the turbi blossom fade when pulled out?" countered Lur. "There is asecret to these fastenings--" He pulled and pried impatiently. 

Varta tried to help but even their united strength was useless againstthe force which held the loops in place. Breathless the girl slumpedback against the wall of the cabin while Lur settled down on hishaunches. One of the odd patches of color drifted by, its vivid scarletlike a jewel spiraling lazily upward. Varta's eyes followed its driftand so were guided to what she had forgotten, the worlds of Asti. 

"Asti!"

Lur was looking up too. 

"The power of Asti!"

Varta's hand went up, rested for a long moment under the sun and thendrew it down, carefully, slowly, as she had in Memphir's temple. Thenshe stepped towards the captive. Within her hood a beaded line ofmoisture outlined her lips, a pulse thundered on her temple. This was afearsome thing to try. 

She held the sun on a line with one of the wrist bonds, She must avoidthe flesh it imprisoned, for Asti's power could kill. 

From the sun there shot an orange-red beam to strike full upon themetal. A thin line of red crept across the smooth hoop, crept andwidened. Varta raised her hand, sending the sun spinning up and Lur'sclaws pulled on the metal. It broke like rotten wood in his grasp. 

The girl gave a little gasp of half-terrified delight. Then the oldlegends were true! As Asti's priestess she controlled powers too greatto guess. Swiftly she loosed the other hoops and restored the sun andworlds to their place over her head as the captive slumped across thethreshold of his cell. 

Tugging and straining they brought him out of the broken ship into thesunlight of Erb. Varta threw back her hood and breathed deeply of theair which was not manufactured by the wizardry of the lizard skin andLur sat panting, his nostril flaps open. It was he who spied the springon the mountain side above, a spring of water uncontaminated by thestrange life of the lake. They both dragged themselves there to drinkdeeply. 

Varta returned to the lake shore reluctantly. Within her heart shebelieved that the man they had brought from the ship was truly dead. Lurmight hold out the promise of the flowers, but this was a man and he hadlain in the water for countless ages--

So she went with lagging steps, to find Lur busy. He had solved themystery of the space suit and had stripped it from the unknown. Now hisclawed paw rested lightly on the bared chest and he turned to Vartaeagerly. 

"There is life--"

Hardly daring to believe that, she dropped down beside Lur and touchedtheir prize. Lur was right, the flesh was warm and she had caught thefaint rhythm of shallow breath. Half remembering old tales, she put herhands on the arch of the lower ribs and began to aid that rhythm. Thebreaths were deeper--

Then the man half turned, his arm moved. Varta and Lur drew back. Forthe first time the girl probed gently the sleeping mind before her--evenas she had read the minds of those few of Memphir who had ascended tothe temple precincts in the last days. 

Much of what she read now was confused or so alien to Erb that it had nomeaning for her. But she saw a great city plunged into flaming death inan instant and felt the horror and remorse of the man at her feetbecause of his own part in that act, the horror and remorse which hadled him to open rebellion and so to his imprisonment. There was a lastdark and frightening memory of a door closing on light and hope--

The space man moaned softly and hunched his shoulders as if he struggledvainly to tear loose from bonds. 

"He thinks that he is still prisoner, " observed Lur. "For him lifebegins at the very point it ended--even as it did for the turbi flowers. See--now he awakens. "

The eyelids rose slowly, as if the man hated to see what he must lookupon. Then, as he sighted Varta and Lur, his eyes went wide. He pulledhimself up and looked dazedly around, striking out wildly with hisfists. Catching sight of the clumsy suit Lur had taken from him hepulled at it, looking at the two before him as if he feared some attack. 

Varta turned to Lur for help. She might read minds and use the wordlessspeech of Lur. But his people knew the art of such communication longbefore the first priest of Asti had stumbled upon their secret. Let Lurnow quiet this outlander. 

Delicately Lur sought a way into the other's mind, twisting down pathsof thought strange to him. Even Varta could not follow the subtile wavessent forth in the quick examination and reconnoitering, nor could sheunderstand all of the conversation which resulted. For the man from theancient ship answered in speech aloud, sharp harsh sounds of no meaning. It was only after repeated instruction from Lur that he began to framehis messages in his mind, clumsily and disconnectedly. 

Pictures of another world, another solar system, began to grow moreclear as the space man became more at home in the new way ofcommunication. He was one of a race who had come to Erb from beyond thestars and discovered it a world without human life: So they hadestablished colonies and built great cities--far different fromMemphir--and had lived in peace for centuries of their own time. 

Then on the faraway planet of their birth there had begun a great war, awar which brought flaming death to all that world. The survivors of alast battle in outer space had fled to the colonies on Erb. But amongthis handful were men driven mad by the death of their world, and thesehad blasted the cities of Erb, saying that their kind must be wiped out. 

The man they had rescued had turned against one such maddened leader andhad been imprisoned just before an attack upon the largest of thecolony's cities. After that he remembered nothing. 

Varta stopped trying to follow the conversation--Lur was only explainingnow how they had found the space man and brought him out of the wreckedship. No human on Erb, this one had said, and yet were there not her ownpeople, the ones who had built Memphir? And what of the barbarians, who, ruthless and cruel as they seemed by the standards of Memphir, wereindeed men? Whence had they come then, the men of Memphir and theancestors of the barbarian hordes? Her hands touched the scaled skin ofthe suit she still wore and then rubbed across her own smooth flesh. Could one have come from the other, was she of the blood and heritage ofLur?

"Not so!" Lur's mind, as quick as his flickering tongue, had caught thatpanic-born thought. "You are of the blood of this space wanderer. Menfrom the riven colonies must have escaped to safety. Look at this man, is he not like the men of Memphir--as they were in the olden days of thecity's greatness?"

The stranger was tall, taller than the men of Memphir and there was acertain hardness about him which those city dwellers in ease had neverdisplayed. But Lur must be right, this was a man of her race. She smiledin sudden relief and he answered that smile. Lur's soft laughter rang inboth their heads. 

"Asti in His Infinite Wisdom can see through Centuries. Memphir hasfallen because of its softness and the evildoing of its people and thebarbarians will now have their way with the lands of the north. But tome it appears that Asti is not yet done with the pattern He was weavingthere. To each of you He granted a second life. Do not disdain the Giftsof Asti, Daughter of Erb!"

Again Varta felt the warm tide of blood rise in her cheeks. But she nolonger smiled. Instead she regarded the outlander speculatively. 

Not even a Maiden of the Temple could withstand the commands of the AllHighest. Gifts from the Hand of Asti dared not be thrown away. 

Above the puzzlement of the stranger she heard the chuckling of Lur. 

The End. 

 * * * * *

TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED

The following typographical errors in the text were corrected asdetailed here. 

In the text: "Then she arose and, with the confidence of a child inits father, she laid her hand palm upward upon the outstretched handof Asti. .. . " the word "outstreched" was corrected to "outstretched. "

In the text: "Varta touched her tongue without fear to a powderedrestorative, " the word "restoritive" was corrected to "restorative. "

In the text: "Varta threw back her hood and breathed deeply of theair which was not manufactured by the wizardry of the lizard skin . .. "the word "manufacured" was corrected to "manufactured"; and the word"wizardy" was corrected to "wizardry. "

In the text: "A thin line of red crept across the smooth hoop, crept andwidened. .. . " the word "widdened" was corrected to "widened. "

In the text: "Then time, or Lur's strength, broke the ancient lockingmechanism. .. . " the word "machanism" was corrected to "mechanism. "

In the text: ". .. So different in shade to her own pallid coloring. .. . "the word "palid" was corrected to "pallid. "

In the text: "One of the small, jewel bright flying lizard creatures ofthe deep jungle poised and dipped to investigate more closely the worldsof Asti. .. . " the word "closly" was corrected to "closely. "

In the text: ". .. His long neck outstretched, he was swinging hishead back and forth across the limpid shallows. .. . "the word "outstreched" was corrected to "outstretched. "

In the text: "What goes into it remains as it was just at the moment ofentrance. .. . " the word "at" was corrected to "as. "

In the text: "the flowers which the turbi had born naturally seven monthsbefore, " the word "born" was corrected to "borne. "

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