, 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. 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!

Where do all our characters live? In Fantasia, a land far away. 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_!

Who am I? Does it make any difference? If you must know, I am the Red
Dwarf, and I have seen and recorded _everything_! I was there, and if
you can but understand, everything has happened _because_ I was there!
If it were not so, how could you be sure what I tell is true? For it
_is_ true....

* * * * *

It was evening. As Druga and Feronia sat talking, before retiring, the
horror fell upon them.

Feronia's hair fell like a living torrent to fondle her gleaming
shoulders and toy everywhere with the strangely electric invisible
vitality of her glowing skin. Her eyes were molten pools, dark and
liquid as the waters of the lost caverns, and the brows above them were
mystic lines of beauty left by the touch of a raven wing. Her generous
mouth was smiling the wondrous lovely magic that was Feronia, red as a
new-born rose, dewy and waiting for Druga. Her capable hands were soft
with expecting him, and cooler than the moss beneath the fern.

Her breasts were as naked as sun-bleached coral, white as a cloud in a
summer sky, white as truth, white as her own teeth laughing
tantalizingly at him.

Quite suddenly, shockingly, her lovely figure became transfused with a
vile, interloping energy that struck at Druga's sensitivities with a
sickening piercingness, so that he sprang to his feet in fear.

Standing there helplessly, Druga watched the evil energy transform the
strong, deep breasted beauty of his Feronia, change her devilishly and
subtly and gradually before his suffering eye