by Andre Norton
Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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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 So He and those who served Him had withdrawn to thismountain outcrop.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.
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 r
ock 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