THE GIFTS OF ASTI by ANDREW NORTH - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19029/pg19029-images.html

 

She was the guardian of the worlds, but HER world was dead.

 Even here, on the black terrace before the forgotten mountain retreat of Asti, it was possible to smell the dank stench of burning Memphir, to imagine that the dawn wind bore upward from the pillaged city the faint tortured cries of those whom the barbarians of Klem hunted to their prolonged death. Indeed it was time to leave