Turning his body slowly until his severed nerves told his spine that the connections were as accurate as could be expected, Baena waited while the spell slowly took effect. He lay there all night, waiting for his own life's blood to reanimate the mind of Dionaea. As Dionaea came back to her senses, Baena began to experience the strange phenomena of wanting to go two ways at once, and as the phenomena became more and more troublesome, he decided that he had better have an understanding with Dionaea once and for all. But what poor 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 as Dionaea, he wanted only one thing--and that with all the fervor of hate a sorceress is capable of--a fitting revenge on the man who had visited her execution upon her! Day and night Dionaea plotted, and in her mind a fitting revenge grew--it would include the lovely Feronia, Druga's beloved.... Carefully she prepared the incantation. It is here that my story really begins. What has happened, and how it happened is of little consequence to what is to come--except perhaps to introduce you to the characters. It is very simple. 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. 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.