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Varta passed between tall, uncarved pillars, Lur padding beside her, his spine mane erect, the talons on his forefeet clicking on the stone in steady rhythm. So they came into the innermost shrine of Asti and there Varta made graceful obeisance to the great cowled and robed figure which sat enthroned, its hidden eyes focused upon its own outstretched hand.
Lur was pulling at a small door half hidden by a mass of twisted wires and plates and, just as Varta crawled around this obstacle to join him, the barrier gave way allowing them to squeeze through into what had once been the living quarters of the ship. Varta recognized seats, a table, and other bits of strictly utilitarian furniture.
The ledge sloped upwards, at a steep angle at first, and then more gently. Lur slipped past her and thrust head and shoulders through a break in the rock. Grasping his neck spines she allowed him to pull her through that narrow slit into the soft blackness of a surface night.
She knew what Lur meant, the suit which had protected her in the underworld was impervious to everything outside its surface or to every substance its makers knew just as Lur's own hide made his flesh impenetrable. But the fashioners of her suit had probably never known of the living lake and what if she had no defense against the strange properties of the water? She leaned back against a rock.
When they pulled themselves up onto a wide ledge the talons on Varta's gloves were worn to splintered stubs and there was a bright girdle of pain about her aching body. Lur lay panting beside her, his red-forked tongue protruding from his foam ringed mouth. "We walk again the ways of men," Lur was the first to note the tool marks on the stone where they lay.
Gaston considered this serious question with attention. "Since Monsieur has the goodness to inquire, if Monsieur has any of that fine champagne I tasted before " "Ah yes! Certainly." And he gave a rapid order to the Lur. Then he stood silent, his eyes fixed on the reed portière.
"Ah, what pictures I would paint! I would make them so natural that you could see the pine tops wave, and smell the breath of the woods as you looked at them." "You would put me in, standing on The Look-out blowing my lur, wouldn't you?" "Certainly." "And I have no doubt that we could hear the echoes ringing over the hills," continued Hansine, soberly. "Never mind, you needn't make fun. Yes, Hr.
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.
Her hands touched the scaled skin of the suit she still wore and then rubbed across her own smooth flesh. Could one have come from the other, was she of the blood and heritage of Lur? "Not so!" Lur's mind, as quick as his flickering tongue, had caught that panic-born thought. "You are of the blood of this space wanderer. Men from the riven colonies must have escaped to safety.
So He and those who served Him had withdrawn to this mountain outcrop. And she, Varta, was the last, the very last to bow knee at Asti's shrine and raise her voice in the dawn hymn for Lur, as were all his race, was mute. Even the loot of Memphir would not sate the shaggy headed warriors who had stormed her gates this day.
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