Chaining the Lady Read Online Free
Author: Piers Anthony
obscure queen was hardly worthy of note, but the lord of the ocean, Poseidon, took umbrage. He sent a sea monster to ravage the coast of Cassiopeiaâs kingdom of Ethiopia. Oh, those Solarians! Their troublesome antics assumed the status of art at times. No Mintakan would have participated in such mischief.
Desperate to abate this menace from the sea, the Ethiopians consulted another intriguing artifact of Solarian culture: the Oracle. This was a fortune-telling entity; apparently no form of Tarot existed then. The Oracle informed them that only by sacrificing Andromeda to the monster could they achieve relief. Andromeda was even more beautiful than her mother, and did indeed rival the Nereids in appearance, which was perhaps why the monster desired her as a morsel.
Melody found the motives of Solarian monsters to be an opaque as those of Solarian sapients, but it was not her task to revise the myth. So they chained this innocent, beautiful lady to a great rock by the edge of the ocean, to be consumed by the monster.
As it happened, the hero Perseus happened to pass by at that timeâcoincidence was not a matter of much concern to myth makersâand when he viewed this naked girl he was overcome by the urge to impregnate her. This too was typical of Solarian males in such circumstances: the very sight of the body of a young healthy woman caused chemical and physical reactions. Her mind or personality did not seem to matter. But Perseus could not simply impregnate and leave her, despite the convenience her situation offered. Chained as she was, she could not readily have resisted him, had she been so inclined, but her offspring would not have survived her consumption by the monster, and therefore the reproduction would have been incomplete. In many other species the offspring formed immediately and became independent, but Solarians for some obscure reason suffered a delay in parturition after copulation. In this instance such delay would have been most inconvenient. So Perseus accepted the alternative course. He slew the monster and made Andromeda his formal mate.
There it was: Andromeda, the chained lady of the card, awaiting her fate. In moments the monster would be upon her. The hero Perseus was not visible in the picture, but presumably he was on his way. Andromeda did not at this moment know that her fate was to be impregnation rather than consumption. How would she have chosen, had she been given the choice in advance? Suppose things became confused, and the monster impregnated her before Perseus slew her? Or were the two actions merely aspects of the same theme? A most intriguing card.
But as this was her omen for the day, did it mean that some such difficulty awaited Melody herself? She did not consider the Tarot to be precognitive; it merely revealed what was in the hidden mind of the querist, the one for whom the cards were read. But sometimes the net effect was predictive. She did not relish the implication here. Would she be faced with the choice between death or impregnation, figuratively?
The door sounded. She broke off her reverie with another chord of annoyance and opened it.
Outside stood Imperial troops headed by a Mintakan officer. âOne ignores the Eye of the Dragon at one's peril,â he played.
Melody's strings shook. That phone call had been genuine! The Dragon world of the segment had summoned her, and she had passed it off as a prank. Now she would pay the consequence.
In fact, she was about to be chained for the Dragon, which was of course merely an aspect of the sea monster. The Tarot had tried to warn her. But she, mired in the complexities of its symbolic ramifications, had missed the obvious.
Was there also a Perseus on the way?
Chapter 2:
Yael of Dragon
*notice transfer plus 200 level kirlian aura within target galaxy*
âspecific location?â
*segment Etamin to imperial planet*
âprobably in order agents there are on quest for leading enemy auras to be
Desperate to abate this menace from the sea, the Ethiopians consulted another intriguing artifact of Solarian culture: the Oracle. This was a fortune-telling entity; apparently no form of Tarot existed then. The Oracle informed them that only by sacrificing Andromeda to the monster could they achieve relief. Andromeda was even more beautiful than her mother, and did indeed rival the Nereids in appearance, which was perhaps why the monster desired her as a morsel.
Melody found the motives of Solarian monsters to be an opaque as those of Solarian sapients, but it was not her task to revise the myth. So they chained this innocent, beautiful lady to a great rock by the edge of the ocean, to be consumed by the monster.
As it happened, the hero Perseus happened to pass by at that timeâcoincidence was not a matter of much concern to myth makersâand when he viewed this naked girl he was overcome by the urge to impregnate her. This too was typical of Solarian males in such circumstances: the very sight of the body of a young healthy woman caused chemical and physical reactions. Her mind or personality did not seem to matter. But Perseus could not simply impregnate and leave her, despite the convenience her situation offered. Chained as she was, she could not readily have resisted him, had she been so inclined, but her offspring would not have survived her consumption by the monster, and therefore the reproduction would have been incomplete. In many other species the offspring formed immediately and became independent, but Solarians for some obscure reason suffered a delay in parturition after copulation. In this instance such delay would have been most inconvenient. So Perseus accepted the alternative course. He slew the monster and made Andromeda his formal mate.
There it was: Andromeda, the chained lady of the card, awaiting her fate. In moments the monster would be upon her. The hero Perseus was not visible in the picture, but presumably he was on his way. Andromeda did not at this moment know that her fate was to be impregnation rather than consumption. How would she have chosen, had she been given the choice in advance? Suppose things became confused, and the monster impregnated her before Perseus slew her? Or were the two actions merely aspects of the same theme? A most intriguing card.
But as this was her omen for the day, did it mean that some such difficulty awaited Melody herself? She did not consider the Tarot to be precognitive; it merely revealed what was in the hidden mind of the querist, the one for whom the cards were read. But sometimes the net effect was predictive. She did not relish the implication here. Would she be faced with the choice between death or impregnation, figuratively?
The door sounded. She broke off her reverie with another chord of annoyance and opened it.
Outside stood Imperial troops headed by a Mintakan officer. âOne ignores the Eye of the Dragon at one's peril,â he played.
Melody's strings shook. That phone call had been genuine! The Dragon world of the segment had summoned her, and she had passed it off as a prank. Now she would pay the consequence.
In fact, she was about to be chained for the Dragon, which was of course merely an aspect of the sea monster. The Tarot had tried to warn her. But she, mired in the complexities of its symbolic ramifications, had missed the obvious.
Was there also a Perseus on the way?
Chapter 2:
Yael of Dragon
*notice transfer plus 200 level kirlian aura within target galaxy*
âspecific location?â
*segment Etamin to imperial planet*
âprobably in order agents there are on quest for leading enemy auras to be
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