The Gifts of Asti Page 2

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 t
he 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