Each one of them was of solid black stone. The fact struck Druga's mind with a terrible impact. With a face like thunder he said:
"So it was you who turned my Feronia to stone, to drag me here to you by your spells, and then when you tire of me to turn me likewise into stone?"
The woman recoiled2 from his murderous rage, crying out in a shocked voice, a voice of virtue3 unjustly accused:
"Surely you don't think that I had anything to do with this? These men are the curse an enemy has put upon me; and every creature that I ever loved she has turned into stone soon or late and left me here alone forever. 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. Else I will go through life as you have gone, with everything pleasant removed from it."
The artful eyes of Eos softened4, and that mystery living in their depths lightened, her arms became soft pillars of the temple of her beauty as she lowered herself into the big chair at the head of that gloomy feasting board of death. Druga picked up the big body of one of the stone figures, carried it lightly to the side of the hall, and set it there on a bench. Then he took the vacant place at the board beside the queen of the palace of the dead.
Druga related to Eos all the events that had transpired5 since the lopping off of Dionaea's head. She surmised6, as did he, that this deed was the one that had led Diana to turn the spell of the black stone loose upon Druga as upon Eos.
"There must be found a way of turning the spells of this Goddess into harmless attempts," said Druga. "We cannot sit here and wait for her cruelty to work us greater harm. What can we do?"
"I have had long long years to plan a revenge upon her, but nothing I have been able to do has had any effect," Eos said.
The desire that Druga could no more help than he could help breathing, looking upon the pole of all desire that shone its energies through the flesh of Eos, now spoke7, and Druga said with a tongue that was thick:
"Then, Eos, the very next time that Diana happens to think of you, I too will become stone, and if we are to have joy of each other, we had better have it soon, before I become as these others you have loved."
Eos looked at him sadly, her lips glistening8 with an unearthly dew and her eyes shining like chained lightnings.
"It was that thought that betrayed me every time, Druga. Each of those men said much those same words to me when he learned the fate that awaited him, and for each of them my heart turned to water and we spent our time in dalliance instead of spending our energies trying to overcome the work of my enemy.
"For each of them I tried to give all there was of pleasure while they yet had breath, as one tries to give water to a man about to die of fever. I was only that much more hurt by their death—for such giving of the self opens one to the deepest pangs10 of parting.
"That is the agony Diana designed for me, and she has done this to me since that time I brought a young man to her island that was sacred to her only. This time, Druga, there will be none of that for us; we will try some other medicine than love for each other against this evil. Work, we will try!"
"There speaks my dead Feronia," murmured Druga, sadly. And for thought of her he forgot to feel the denial of his desire for the body of this woman, a body filled with the energies of the whole Universal Pole of female magnetism11. That he should lose that glory was nothing beside the pang9 he felt at thought of Feronia; and the wise Eos smiled to note that this man had not forgotten his love even in the face of her infinite attraction.
"If we went back to Feronia's home, might it not be that her work would give you some inkling of how Diana might be overcome?" Druga was thoughtful.
"I can only try," Eos answered him. "We will go there. I will examine her work and her notes, and you will show me her laboratories that I have heard of even here. Together, we might get an answer."
Eos got up from the board, and went to a small chamber at the edge of the disk. There her hands sent the disk slanting12 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 repel13 your female nature as it attracts the male? Would it not repel an ordinary woman so that she could not approach it?"
"In that you are wrong, Druga. 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 repelled14. 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!"
"But what a death, what a death," murmured Druga. Her sudden laughter rang through the hall of death incongruously, and at the sound they fell silent again and did not speak for thinking of the corpses15 waiting there for what would never come.
"How many men has Diana and her friends killed through the years? 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 maidens16 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.
The morning sun glittered from the streams and from the little glass foot-bridge that shimmered17 magically across and up in a great arc to the door in the side of the cliff. Eos sighed at the beauty.
"This wife of yours was a housekeeper18, I note, with an eye for art."
"Her art and her work were always first, Eos. She was an uncommon19 hard woman to get used to, but she made a man of me."
"That I can see," agreed Eos, and Druga looked at her twice to know what she meant. "You owe everything to Feronia, according to you, and nothing to yourself."
"Very little, Goddess. But I do not exaggerate, she was...."
"Well, never mind it now. I grow weary of Feronia this and Feronia that. I will judge for myself whether she understood you or no."
"She was extremely understanding," said Druga.
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 mutual20 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."
"She ought to be dead, I cut her head off!"
"That usually does the trick."
They decided21 to leave the laboratory the next morning, and that evening Druga picked up the stone statue of his Feronia and carried it carefully aboard the disk, placing her there—one woman among the thousand-odd dead heroes of the long dead past. Druga sadly made a place for her at the head of the board. He did not think of it, but Feronia now sat where Eos herself had spent many a sad hour, sitting and gazing at her dead lovers.
With the stone Feronia gone, the vast and multiplex-walled chambers22 of mystery and magic assumed a new atmosphere, and Druga found himself talking to Eos that night as if he was not a man whose heart was dead.
She sat in the place from which he had removed the black stone body of Feronia, and Druga could not help but compare the glowing life of her with the dead thing that had sat there.
The hammered sunlight of her hair made curls and waves of beauty about the white shores of her shoulders. She had let the robe of insulative blue drop from her, exposing the very heart of her beauty he had feared to see when she was herself filled with the flow of the Pole of Life Energy. And Druga wondered a little whether she were not still somehow the center and pivot23 of the energy, for his senses reeled with looking, and his will crumbled24 into forgotten ashes. He sank to the silken couch beside her, and his eyes burned with flashing energies like meteors plunging25 into the Northern lights.
Eos held her breath, and her eyes burned into his with greater and greater force, for she had been dreaming and weeping and waiting there at the Pole-of-all-Life for so many cold empty years—waiting for the curse to be lifted so that she could begin to live again.
With the last shred26 of her own will Eos murmured: "Let us go into the disk and leave at once for Armora, and think no more of each other or surely we will sink into the raptures27 we desire and forget to fight. Then I will awake and find you too turned into stone, and myself again alone against her. I have been unable to fight alone."
"If that is your will, do not fail to shield your beauty with that robe you wear. For I cannot resist the power in your loveliness any more than a straw in the wind!"
Eos closed the robe against his gaze, and like two people weighted down with lead in every limb, they got up and went out of the darkened chambers, and Druga closed the great doors and locked them. Silently, not touching28 each other, they walked down the bridge of glass.
They entered the mansion29 on the disk, and Eos sent it sharply upward. There was blood on her lower lip where she had bit it, and Druga's nails had bitten into his palms.
Druga noted30 that the great golden glow in the sky had approached near to the valley that Feronia had made her home, and he said:
"This pole of life seems to follow you about! Is there some relation between you and it, so that you cannot be apart?"
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, mighty31 and majestic32 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. We can only guess at these truths, and never learn them surely."
"Now you are not telling me all you know, Eos."
"I would not tell you what I only guess, Druga. And I do not surely know anything, any more. 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. One day, if time keeps treading the self-same mill, we will be crushed together like grapes and pressed clean. Until then, be my knight33, and think not of me, except with pity for the broken heart that beats inside me."
Druga did not look at her more, but went in and sat at the board where the thousand dead stared, each stony34 eye broodingly centered upon the spot where he had placed Feronia. And as Druga's eye likewise centered upon that seat that had been the scene of a thousand deaths, he felt a wave of anger from the stony body of Feronia, and a sense of guilt35 came over him. He felt remorse36 that he should forget her and desire Eos. If he had known that those eyes were not dead, but seeing and remembering all that passed before them, he would have been shivering with fear of her anger. But Druga did not know. Yet it seemed to his senses that each of those eyes was likewise angry with him, and he got up in haste from that table of dead men and one dead woman, and went and drank wine by himself until sleep came.
With the first rays of morning light Eos woke him, and Druga learned that she had lowered the disk over the garden of live-oaks beside the palace of Dionaea, and Druga looked out. No one was yet astir; they had not yet been seen. Druga and Eos descended37 by the ladder of ruby38 glass, and went side by side through the garden and Druga took the stairs he knew well up to the sleeping chamber of Dionaea. For in the many-locked cabinets of that chamber were her many acquisitions of magical apparatus39, and if anything was there that would help them, they meant to find it.
As they entered the room, opening the door with a pick-lock, Eos cried out in a triumphant40 voice:
"We are not in vain. The Queen is not dead, Druga!"
The sleepy-eyed Dionaea poked41 her head above the covers at the sound of their entry. At sight of them, she hissed42 like a great snake, and writhed43 the long hideous44 body of Baena free of the encumbrance45 of the quilts, and Baena reared his own hideous, fanged46 head up beside Dionaea's.
Druga stood astonished to see the fabled47 Amphis-Baena here in the bed of Dionaea, and with the head of Dionaea! A great laugh broke from him to see the reptilian48 change the grafting49 had wrought50 in Dionaea's beauty.
Dionaea did not say anything, but Baena coiled swiftly on the bed and struck out full length, his fangs51 meeting in Druga's arm. Druga felt the terrible venom52, like fire in his veins53, and seized the great serpent-head in his two hands, squeezing in terrible anger. But Eos seized him.
"No, do not kill her! Carry her into the disk, and make her captive. I have conceived of a way of conquering Diana, and we need this creature alive."
Druga wrapped the great body around and around his body and arm, seizing the neck of Dionaea in one hand and the neck of Baena in the other. So burdened, he staggered down the steps and up again into the disk, and the trip took him a good hour, for Baena twisted loose and tried to flee, and he wrestled54 and fell from the ladder, and only succeeded by tying the writhing55 pillar of strength into a bow-knot and pulling it up into the ship with a rope.
Meanwhile the people of Armora had awakened56 from the tumult57, and crowded everywhere about the gardens, getting underfoot and wondering loudly what this was all about. Eos hurried from the bed chamber of their Queen with a great bundle of material she had selected as of possible future use. They tried to stop her, but one glance of the potent58 magnetic power that flamed from her great eyes sent them all to their knees in worshipful, helpless adoration59.
Druga, waiting above with the snake wound round with ropes and lashed60 to the pillars, watched this evidence of her powers with awe61, for he had himself but narrowly escaped the swords of the guards, and had been about to plunge62 down the ladder with his own sword in a futile63 attempt to rescue Eos.
She sent the disk spinning upward in flight, and Druga took himself from her and went and sat by the writhing, fettered64 body of the Amphis-Baena, or Dionaea-Baena, or two-headed snake, saying to her as she spat65 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. I think the snake himself would like that better too. He is too greatly married, I would say, to relish66 the state overmuch."
Baena relaxed at these words, and ceased to struggle. Then in great snake hisses67, he made himself heard.
"Dionaea, I think too you should seize this opportunity to get out of this fix we are in. I gave you my tail to roost upon as a temporary measure, not as a permanent part of my future. Diana, whom we both serve, could have released us if she had been so inclined, and fixed68 us up with separate bodies, but she chose not."
That Dionaea was considering his words was evident. She ceased to spit at him, and composed her face into thought. Druga leaned back and smiled.
Eos brought the disk to rest again at the meadow at the foot of the glass bridge before Feronia's cliff palace, and came in to them. She stood gazing at the two-headed creature trussed to the pillars of the chamber. Feronia gazed at them with her stone eyes, and all the men gazed at Feronia as if transfixed by her stony beauty, and the sight made Dionaea shiver with apprehension69. For she thought that these were people who had angered Eos and that Eos had changed them into stone. She wondered why Eos had added Feronia to the collection.
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1
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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3
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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5
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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6
surmised
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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7
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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8
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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9
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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11
magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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12
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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13
repel
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| v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥 | |
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14
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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15
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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16
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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17
shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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23
pivot
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| v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的 | |
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24
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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25
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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26
shred
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| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
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27
raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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29
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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30
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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32
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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34
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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36
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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37
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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38
ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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39
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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40
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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41
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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42
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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43
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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45
encumbrance
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| n.妨碍物，累赘 | |
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46
fanged
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| adj.有尖牙的，有牙根的，有毒牙的 | |
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47
fabled
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| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
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48
reptilian
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| adj.（像）爬行动物的；（像）爬虫的；卑躬屈节的；卑鄙的n.两栖动物；卑劣的人 | |
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49
grafting
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| 嫁接法，移植法 | |
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50
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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51
fangs
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| n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座 | |
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52
venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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53
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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54
wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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55
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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56
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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57
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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58
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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59
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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60
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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61
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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62
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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63
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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64
fettered
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| v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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66
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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67
hisses
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| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
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68
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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