DAUGHTER OF THE NIGHT
By RICHARD S. SHAVER
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Like a flash of light the gleaming sword swept down
Like a flash of light the gleaming sword swept down. A fraction of asecond later a portion of it no longer gleamed: it was crimson! AndQueen Dionaea's head bounced down the stairway into her garden of liveoaks. A few seconds of thought remained to it before it would be verydead; but her thought was confused by shock—her eyes rolleduncontrollably while she tried to remember some cantrap or rune from herlong association with the Goddess Diana. Desperately she tried to recitethe proper abracadabra to stay the swift death that was sweeping throughher mind; but it is hard for a head to chant a charm with no body todraw a breath....
Druga, his job of execution finished, sheathed his bloody sword andturning, stalked away. Thus it was that he did not see the amazing thingthat happened in the gloom of the ancient live oaks....
Baena was a serpent, a huge river of strength up to his giant head, andhe lived among the mighty branches of the oaks. Being a serpent, Baenawas far from equal to a human being in his brainpower, but even his dimperception told him that harm had come to his one and onlybenefactress—and that meant harm to him, too, for Queen Dionaea hadalways cared for the needs of his stomach. Through her he ate and lived.Without her, he would die. And so, he glided rapidly down from the trunkof his favorite tree and emerged into the paths of the garden just asDionaea's bleeding head rolled out from the base of the steps.
Baena coiled his length protectingly about Dionaea. For an instant hewas at a loss, noting her horribly desperate attempts to speak withoutbreath, her mouth opening and closing and her tongue licking snake-likein and out.
Baena realized after a moment that there was no hope for the Queen to goon living. A head must have a body.
Glancing about, Baena saw nothing but the numerous coils of his ownbody, and after an instant's hesitation, he took his tail in his mouthup to the tenth joint and bit it off! Shrinking along all his lengthwith the terrible necessity that faced him, Baena quickly slapped thebloody stump of his tail fast to the bleeding neck of Dionaea and saidone of the few magic spells he could remember....
Turning his body slowly until his severed nerves told his spine that theconnections were as accurate as could be expected, Baena waited whilethe spell slowly took effect. He lay there all night, waiting for hisown life's blood to reanimate the mind of Dionaea.
As Dionaea came back to her senses, Baena began to experience thestrange phenomena of wanting to go two ways at once, and as thephenomena became more and more troublesome, he decided that he hadbetter have an understanding with Dionaea once and for all. But whatpoor male ever won an argument with a woman?
Thus it was that Baena resigned himself to a life of traveling backward,and that was that.
As a snake, he wished only to eat and bask in his favorite tree, but asDionaea, he wanted only one thin