Richard S. Shaver

“ For a time Eos and Druga watched the swirling gold and purple sentience mingling and struggling at the center, and as the golden core shone stronger and stronger and at last overcame the purple swirling entity that was Diana, Eos pulled the switch again open, and the black vortice of space-force lessened and finally disappeared.
That intense whirlpool of black energy had taken Diana back with it into the terrible current of space. Diana would live—but only as a mote of defeated consciousness whirled along forever into the depths of space by forces too great to fight. ”

“ Outside, the great glowing magnetic field of female attraction pulsed and glowed and reached its strange streamers across the sky. The disk with its ancient, quaint, pillared and beautiful mansion, trembled in the current of the energy flow of the pole of life. In Feronia's hall a dark, small witch bent to her knees and prayed a prayer, with tears streaking her too-determined face, that this great sleeping man of hers would return his heart where it belonged. ”

“ I have spent so much time brooding and alone."
"Forgive me, Eos. An eagle cannot fly with crows, and I will never again put myself forward. When you have need of me, I will be here, and when you need only your own thoughts, why then go apart; I will not seek you out. I forget who and what you are, for my senses are strained beyond endurance with the power of you."
"You are no crow, Druga. But in me is an adult mind, and you are as a child, whom I must teach and raise up gradually to my estate. Every parent grows impatient of ignorance in their offspring. ”

“ Come to me, Diana, and dwell with me here at the pole of love, and never leave me. Can you not see that the enmity that has sprung up between us is the result of misunderstood love!"
Now Baena, seeing his opportunity, thrust his own male personality to the fore, trying to sway the intricate balance of sexes in the weird self of Diana—and with his mind and his eyes upon Eos, made himself to desire that infinite female attraction, which was not hard, so as to add that much weight to the attraction which even a God might not resist unless, as Druga had done, he turned his back upon it. ”

“ But in these times, who are you to sense the mighty energy of the Universal Pole and be drawn here to me?"
"I am Druga, and I am sad and bereft, and I wander seeking death as much as life. If the name tells you anything, you are welcome to the information. I am no immortal. Are you then one of those who do not die?"
"I have been called by many names in the past, but men sometimes remember me as Aurora. Others have called me Eos."
"A fool is easily convinced, immortal Eos. But though I have not lived long, I have learned that appearances are deceiving and not to be trusted. ”

“ Eos only looked pitifully at Mors, and Mors took her to her dark, soft heart, and the vast strength of her poured into the vibrant soul of Eos, mingled there with that golden energy that made her what she was.
"Whatever I do is going to break their hearts—you know what this place does to men. I cannot love them all, but I do, and I cannot send them away empty-handed. You know what it means to them! It is really all that cruel Diana's fault! ”

“ As the swirl of ethereal force that was Diana's traveling form settled within the golden-moted atmosphere of the great chamber of the disk-mansion, Eos stood up, and dropped from her body her insulating blue robe of shimmering magic, so that her supercharged beauty shone everywhere in blinding, awful attraction. ”

“ Rosy to the tips of her fingers with embarrassment, Eos rose to her feet, her glory dimmed by the majesty of Mors' dark beauty, her height dwarfed by the tall, mysterious strength of Mors' indestructible figure, a figure such as must have caused the ancient artists deepest despair to depict in the least of its intense and vital and overwhelmingly sublime symmetry. ”

“ The nature of this life-energy is not the same as ordinary iron magnetism. Like poles do not repel, but are unaffected. It is in fact only invigorating to me, making me stronger. So it would be if you were at the other end of the universe. At the male pole you would be vastly invigorated, not repelled. Do you understand?"
"It is only sad that the poles lie at opposite ends of the universe," murmured Druga, looking askance at Eos.
"Whatever might you be thinking, Druga? If such power arced between man and woman they would be consumed!" ”

“ Eos looked at him, smiling sadly, her eyes far-off with other thoughts.
"I have been taught, in the far past, that there was a Mother of Life, a real woman, mighty and majestic beyond thinking, who lived there at the pole and ordered life to be as it should be. That she is my ancestor, and that there is some relation between the life energies and myself, may be true, Druga. Whether the pole follows me, or whether coincidence is governed by some magic so that we are never far apart, I know not. Knowledge is a thing now lost from life, as we know it, Druga. ”

“ Dionaea was a very evil sorceress, and Druga, most heroic of men, had long sought to bring her into his power, and to end her evil days. Armed with the white magic of Feronia, his loved one, who was also a sorceress, but one who worked her charms only for the good of mankind, he had tracked Dionaea to her castle, and there slain her. Or he would have, had it not been for Baena, the serpent....
What is past is past. It is best not to think of it. There is much in the past of all of us that would need a long, tiresome explanation to a newcomer, and you are newcomers. ”

“ Enough to populate a couple of planets, I should say?"
"Diana? With her bow and arrows alone she used to account for a good many; and later, as she learned more evil arts, there was no record kept. She has been a most evil goddess, yet men worship her."
"Why? A goddess that kills a man for seeing her is a fiend! And her maidens may not see a man, either. It is a strange life she leads, for a true woman. She must be other than female."
"That could be, Druga," murmured Eos. ”

“ So conversing, the now lowly Dionaea and the now lordly Baena glided from the chamber and made their way down the ruby ladder of strange crystal, and out into the world. For it is only so that a male can leave the pole of the universal life force of the female principle, in the company of a female good enough to keep his mind from obeying the influence of the magnetic field. ”

“ Druga, as Eos had foreseen, had been unable to contain his curiosity as to what was going on, and had at last peered from the hallway where he waited, just in time to see the purple swirl that was Diana settle into and seem to reanimate the ancient long-dead stone image.
The emotions natural to a man rose in him. ”

“ He was not sure just what he was seeing, but jealousy rose in him like a flame, and his passion so steadfastly controlled and so rewarded by the fickle Eos made this jealousy into a terrible, red rage against her who had withheld herself from him only to give herself to her worst enemy in the form of a man. ”

“ To explain all of the past to everyone would be an impossible task. You need know only that Druga, champion of mankind, and his lovely Feronia, face now the most awful menace of their lives, and unknowing of it, too, for thinking their arch enemy slain! ”

“ There is no cruelty like the cruelty of Diana Triformis."
The rage passed slowly from Druga, and left him weak and glad that his hands had not found their way to that glorious throat, as they had seemed about to do. For here was a woman who had suffered the same loss as he.
"Eos, we must take thought together, for it seems we have a common enemy. My own Feronia, a woman such as was only created by the Gods once in all Time, was turned into similar black stone before my eyes not long ago. We have a common enemy, and we must find a remedy for this curse she puts upon us. ”

“ One day, if time keeps treading the self-same mill, we will be crushed together like grapes and pressed clean. Until then, be my knight, and think not of me, except with pity for the broken heart that beats inside me. ”

“ A land where wondrous things always happen. It is of one of the most wondrous adventures of all that you are about to hear now—let the past lie, cold and dead as it is, and come with me into the present, and into danger! ”

“ She sent the disk spinning upward in flight, and Druga took himself from her and went and sat by the writhing, fettered body of the Amphis-Baena, or Dionaea-Baena, or two-headed snake, saying to her as she spat venom at him:
"Listen to me, Dionaea, the best thing you can do for yourself is to try to win the favor of Eos. She is an enemy who has suffered as greatly as yourself from the work of Diana, and would help you if you earned it, to acquire a human body again. ”

“ Eos got up from the board, and went to a small chamber at the edge of the disk. There her hands sent the disk slanting upward into the sky. As they left the center of the pole of animal magnetism, Eos' body and face changed subtly. Druga was released from the power of the pole's attraction, and whether that was a good thing or not he could not say, except that every atom of his body wanted to return there to that place and remain.
"How is it, Eos, that the pole does not repel your female nature as it attracts the male? Would it not repel an ordinary woman so that she could not approach it?" ”

“ In his studies Druga had learned that just as the world has a North and South magnetic pole, so does the universe have opposite poles of life-magnetic-energy. One of these is female, and inducts in all life a female nature; the other is male and inducts in all life a male nature, just as the North and South pole induct in all iron and in kindred matter a North and South magnetic pole. ”

“ Diana could not turn her back, and the whole sudden surprise of finding herself not in the palace in Armora, but here in the halls of her erstwhile enemy, Eos of the Dawn-light, made her natural male attributes become dominant so that she desired Eos mightily. ”

“ Days passed, and much hard work, Eos studying the laboratory notes of Feronia, and Druga himself reading them over and trying to think of some way he himself might strike back at their mutual enemy.
"Nothing that she has developed can be used directly against Diana without her surviving to fight back. This would have been fatal to Dionaea, but after all, as you have said—she is dead." ”