The Gifts of Asti | Page 2

cowled figure some virtue had
departed with the going 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 seek a certain place in the temple wall, known to her
from much reading of the old records.
Having found the stone she sought, she moved her hand in a certain
pattern before it so that the faint radiance streaming from the tiny sun,
gleamed on the grayness of the wall. There was a grating, as from metal
long unused, and a block fell back, opening a narrow door to them.
Before she stepped within, the priestess lifted her hand above her head
and when she withdrew it, the sun and planets remained to form a
diadem just above the intricate braiding of her dull red hair. As she
moved into the secret way, the five orbs swung with her, and in the
darkness there 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 as
it moved back into place behind them echoed through a gulf which
seemed endless. But that too was as the chronicles had said and Varta
knew no fear.
How long they journeyed down into the maw of the mountain and,
beyond that, into the womb of Erb itself, Varta never knew. But, when
feet were weary and she knew the bite of real hunger, they came into a
passageway which ended in a room hollowed of solid rock. And there,
preserved in the chest in which men born in the youth of Memphir had
laid them, Varta found that which would keep her safe on the path she
must take. She put aside the fine silks, the jeweled cincture, which had
been the badge of Asti'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 to cover the entire head, taloned gloves for the hands,
webbed, clawed coverings for the feet--as if the skin of a giant,

man-like lizard had been tanned and fashioned into this suit. And Varta
suspected that that might be so--the world of Erb had not always been
held by the human-kind alone.
There were supplies here too, lying untouched in ageless containers
within a lizard-skin pouch. Varta touched her tongue without fear to a
powdered restorative, sharing it with Lur, whose own mailed skin
would protect 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 shimmering
color. Never again would Asti's servant wear the soft stuff of His
Livery. But she was resolute enough when she picked up the food
pouch and strode forward, passing out of the robing chamber into a
narrow way which 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 the
unclouded crystal of its eye-holes she could see the sprouts of yellow
vapor which puffed from crannies in the rock wall down which she
must climb. If the records of the Temple spoke true, these curls of gas
were death to all lunged creatures of the upper world. She could only
trust that the cunning of the scaled hood would not fail her.
The long talons fitted to the finger tips of the gloves, the claws of the
webbed foot coverings clamped fast to every hand and foot hold, but
the way down was long and she caught a message of weariness from
Lur before they reached the piled rocks at the foot of the cliff. The
puffs of steamy gas had become a fog through which they groped their
way slowly, following a trace of path along the base of the cliff.
Time did not exist in the underworld of Erb. Varta did not know
whether it was still today, or whether she had passed into tomorrow
when they came to a cross roads. She felt Lur press against her, forcing
her back against 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. It
moved slowly, seeming to balance at each step as if travel was a painful
act. 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