The Gifts of Asti | Page 4

where the lavishness of Asti's
sowing was unchecked by man. Varta seized eagerly upon globes of
blood red fruit which she recognized as delicacies which had been
cultivated in the Temple gardens, while Lur went hunting into the
fringes of the jungle, there dining on prey so easily caught as to be
judged devoid of fear.
The jungle choked highway curved and they were suddenly fronted by
a desert of sere desolation, a desert floored by glassy slag which sent
back the sun beams in a furnace glare. Varta shaded her eyes and tried
to 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, the
mountain wall paralleled their course.
"Then let us keep to the jungle over there and see if it does not bring
around to the far side. But what made this--?" She leaned out over the
glassy stuff, not daring to touch the slick surface.
"War." Lur's tongue shot out to impale a questing beetle. "These
forgotten 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
Erb before the first hut of Memphir squatted on tidal mud. Men forget
knowledge in time. Even in Memphir the lords of the last days forgot
the wisdom of their earlier sages--they fell before the barbarians easily
enough."
"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 was
hard--until they reached a ridge of rock running out from the mountain
as a tongue thrust into the blasted valley. And along this they picked
their slow way.
"There is water near--," Lur's thought answered the girl's desire. She
licked dry lips longingly. "This way--," her companion's sudden turn
was to 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, a
small lake of it. But even as he dipped his fanged muzzle toward that
inviting surface, Lur's spined head jerked erect again. Varta snatched
back the hand she had put out, staring at Lur's strange actions. His
nostrils expanded to their widest, his long neck outstretched, he was
swinging 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. "It
has life within it."
Varta laughed. "Fish, water snakes, your own distant kin, Lur. It is the
scent of them which you catch--"
"No. It is the water itself which lives--and yet does not live--" His
thought trailed away from her as he struggled with some problem. No
human brain could follow his unless he willed it so.
Varta squatted back on her heels and began to look at the water and
then at the banks with more care. For the first time she noted the odd
patches of brilliant color which floated just below the surface of the
liquid. Blue, green, yellow, crimson, they drifted slowly with the tiny
waves which lapped the shore. But they were not alive, she was almost
sure of that, they appeared more a part of the water itself.
Watching the voyage of one patch of green she caught sight of the
branch. It was a drooping shoot of the turbi, the same tree vine which
produced the fruit she had relished less than an hour before. Above the
water dangled a cluster of the fruit, dead ripe with the sweet pulp
stretching its skin. But below the surface of the water--
Varta's breath hissed between her teeth and Lur's head snapped around
as he caught her thought.
The branch below the water bore a perfect circle of green flowers close
to its tip, the flowers which the turbi had borne naturally seven months
before and which should long ago have turned into just such sweetness
as hung above.
With Lur at her heels the girl edged around to pull cautiously at the
branch. It yielded at once to her touch, swinging its tip out of the lake.
She sniffed--there was a languid perfume in the air, the perfume of the
blooming turbi. She examined the flowers closely, to all appearances
they were perfect and natural.
"It preserves," Lur settled back on his haunches and waved one front

paw at the quiet water. "What goes into it remains as it