Andre Norton 24 min read

Varta, last of the virgin Maidens of Asti, smells burning Memphir on the dawn wind as barbarians sack the city, and knows that she and the reptilian Lur must flee the mountain retreat of a dead god.

Andre Norton's 1948 story is an atmospheric fantasy and adventure tale of a fallen civilization. Vivid, evocative, richly imagined. Read it for early Norton in full mythic voice, a temple maiden and her uncanny companion fleeing a doomed city, guardians of a dead world's last strange gifts.

In its time

Published in 1948, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

24 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).