The Gifts of Asti

by Andre Norton

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 de
eper--

  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