Now a witch's prayer is pretty apt to find its way to the God to which
it is directed, especially when it is a white witch with black hair
doing the praying, and not a black witch with white hair, as is so often
the case.
Mother Mors, watching the small black-and-white-striped prayer winging
its way across the deeps of night, reached out her hand and gathered it
in to her whirling bosom, full of the milk of eternal kindness and soft
with the vibrant softness of darkness itself, and read it there with the
inner eyes of her heart.
That prayer contained some startling and incomplete information, and the
mention of the passing of her enemy Diana whom she had tried to entrap
herself for so long, brought Mors abruptly out of her sleep and sent her
swiftly arrowing down upon the little valley where the golden pole now
lit the whole sky.
The mystery and awesome power and majestic primal vitality of her
silhouetted against and merged with the golden glory of the primal pole
as the vast body of Mors merged and condensed and settled and came into
human form there within the great banquet hall of Eos' palace on the
disk.
Now as the body of the great Goddess of the night came into solidity
before Eos, her laughter rang out, rich and ringing and with low, dark
under-tones. Eos looked up from the great stack of ancient alchemic
formulae where she sought the solution to the incredible quandary of too
many lovers. For too-much-of-a-good-thing she could not find any
reference in the books, for they were all designed to give only
information on how to get rid of too-much-of-a-bad-thing.
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.
Mors' laughter made Eos blush till rosy was not the word for her.
"My dear Eos, can this be you? I would hardly have expected it of you,
who have always been to me the personification of so many virtues...."
"Oh, Mother Mors, I am glad to see you, in spite of this state of
affairs--you can help me. You must know what has happened?"
"I can guess, but you had better explain from the beginning. Only a
woman could know what to do here, it seems." Mors glanced around at the
thousand and some virile males.
"You know the Pole is responsible for bringing them here, and one by one
Diana turned them into stone as soon as my lonely heart turned to them
for affection."
"It's a good story, but no one but me will ever believe it."
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!
"For ridding me of her I owe you a debt, and though you are but a child
to my ages of life, I will help you avoid ruining the lives of all these
fine men whom you have loved. Suppose I take them away with me, all but
one, and give them back their own time and place before they found their
way here--give them the will to want that life before they knew you,
would that comfort you?"
"Only one?" murmured Eos, then blushed as she looked out over the
thousand-and-odd faces that stared at her accusingly.
"Only one, and you must choose him carefully from among them all."
"That will take some thought," said Eos, her face full of indecision. "I
loved each of them dearly."
* * * * *
Mors' face grew a little stern at that, and quickly Eos went on:
"I'll attend to it directly, Mother Mors."
"I have a little errand to attend to over at Feronia's, I will be back
in a few beats of Druga's stricken heart. You could at least have kept
your body hidden from him, out of respect for Feronia! I have not much
patience with your dilemma. After all, there are other places to live,
you know."
"But not for me, Mors. It follows me about!"
Mors' face grew even sterner, and Eos added:
"Of course I _know_ that is because of the peculiar nature of the metal
of which the disk is constructed, but _after all_ you _know_ it has been
my home for so _very_ long, I couldn't be expected to give up my home,
could I?"
Mors only lifted one great dark eyebrow and lifted suddenly into dark
whirling force and disappeared.
Eos, her face tear-streaked, went slowly down the endless line of men,
examining each one carefully and cudgeling her memory to decide which
one she had loved the _very_ most. It was _so_ difficult.
Mors, meanwhile, drifted into being over the sleeping Druga and the
praying Feronia, still on her knees, her face upraised and very sweet
with the dark-winged eyes closed, the long line of her throat sheer
beauty in the dim light.
She touched the closed eyes softly with her potent fingertips, and
Feronia opened them with a new understanding gifted into their
structure. Then she softly entered Feronia's body and together they
peered down into the body and the thought of the sleeping man, and with
her dark fingertips vibrant with the energies of dark space, Mors went
over each little nerve and passage in the brain where the energies of
the disk and the Pole and the sight of the intense glory of Eros' body
had burned out Feronia's years of love.
Everywhere she touched, a new awareness grew, centered and vitalized by
the presence of Mors within the body of Feronia, so that nowhere was
there any evidence of the loss of love, but only the beautiful memories
of Feronia alive again within his mind, and wherever desire lived in him
Mors touched her fingers, and planted a seed that would grow with good
treatment into vital love. As she worked, Feronia wept shamelessly with
thankfulness, and for every tiny node of love that Mors planted in
Druga, one sprouted likewise in Feronia, and some of them were for Druga
and some were natural gratitude to Mors for this work of replacement.
The sleeping Druga stirred and his arms came about Feronia's hips where
she stood by the bed. Mors sent her strange energies through the two
lovers, marrying them there with the potent blessing that is actual
magnetic mingling of being--and Feronia knew that only by abuse could
she lose this man again!
"You are a good girl, Feronia, and you have a good man. I will visit you
again, if that _Dark Master_ wills it."
A chill went through the chamber at the mention of The Name, and Mors
went out with the strange ecstatic sweep of entity, and Feronia knew
what was meant by _God-head_.
* * * * *
Eos waited for a long time before Mors came again to her, for the
God-head required certain things of Mors for this night's work.
As she at last reappeared to Eos, Eos did not note the terrific emotions
of love-ecstasy upon her face, the record of her touching with _the One_
upon the mention of him, and began to complain.
"How can I give them up, Mors?"
But Mors only looked at her with absent, flaming eyes, intent upon some
far thing, and for the first time Eos noted the vast and subtle change
in her, as if she had touched some vast fountain of beneficence
somewhere in the while she had been gone. Her cheeks were flushed, her
breast rising and falling. Mors was like a woman in love, or a Goddess
touched by the love of Jove, and Eos' eyes fell before her sublimely,
and only stood waiting for Mors to do what she must.
So Mors absently gathered up all the thousand-and-some men, tucking them
into her bosom one by one, and whirled into the night with all but one.
As the Goddess Mors disappeared, a sudden suspicion struck Eos, and she
whirled to look upon the man that was left behind.
She burst into tears.
The Red Dwarf reached out and patted her golden head. Then he stepped to
the controls and sent the disk winging swiftly away.
"Where are you going?" asked Eos, lifting her head in surprise, and
looking indignantly through her tears.
"To the opposite Pole of Energy, my sweet one," said the Red Dwarf. "Be
patient a little while, and you will yet be supremely happy. Mother Mors
is very wise...."
And Eos was very happy. You see, I _do_ know, for I was there. If it
were not so, how could you be sure what I tell you is true? For it _is_
true....
The wise will understand what I have written.
End of Project Gutenberg's Daughter of the Night, by Richard S. Shaver