A footfall.
I was into a crouch and I was turned in that direction with my hand on my blade in an instant.
It was a woman that I faced, small, clad in white. She had long, dark hair and wild, dark eyes, and she was smiling. She carried a wicker basket, which she placed on the ground between us.
“You must be hungry, Knight at arms,” she said in strangely accented Thari.
“I saw you come. I brought you this.”
I smiled and assumed a more normal stance.
“Thank you,” I said. “I am. I am called Corwin. Yourself?”
“Lady,” she said.
I quirked an eyebrow. “Thank you-Lady. You make your home in this place?”
She nodded and knelt to uncover the basket.
“Yes, my pavilion is farther back, along the lake.”
She gestured with her head, eastward-in the direction of the black road.
“I see,” I said.
The food and the wine in the basket looked real, fresh, appetizing, better than my traveler's fare. Suspicion was with me, of course.
“You will share it with me?” I asked.
“If you wish.”
“I wish.”
“Very well.”
She spread a cloth, seated herself across from me, removed the food from the basket and arranged it between us. She served it then, and quickly sampled each item herself. I felt a trifle ignoble at this, but only a trifle. It was a peculiar location for a woman to be residing, apparently alone, just waiting around to succor the first stranger who happened along. Dara had fed me on our first meeting, also; and as I might be nearing the end of my journey, I was closer to the enemy's places of power. The black road was too near at hand, and I caught Lady eying the Jewel on several occasions.
But it was an enjoyable time, and we grew more familiar as we dined. She was an ideal audience, laughing at all my jokes, making me talk about myself. She maintained eye contact much of the time, and somehow our fingers met whenever anything was passed. If I were being taken in in some way. She was being very pleasant about it.
As we had dined and talked, I had also kept an eye on the progress of that inexorable-seeming stormfront. It had finally breasted the mountain crest and crossed over. It had begun its slow descent of the high slope. As she cleared the cloth. Lady saw the direction of my gaze and nodded.
“Yes, it is coming,” she said, placing the last of the utensils in the basket and seating herself beside me, bringing the bottle and our cups. “Shall we drink to it?”
“I will drink with you, but not to that.”
She poured.
“It does not matter,” she said. “Not now,” and she placed her hand on my arm and passed me my cup.
I held it and looked down at her. She smiled. She touched the rim of my cup with her own. We drank.
“Come to my pavilion now,” she said, taking my hand, “where we will wile pleasurably the hours that remain.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Another time and that wiling would have been a fine dessert to a grand meal. Unfortunately, I must be on my way. Duty nags, time rushes. I've a mission.”
“All right,” she said. “It is not that important. And I know all about your mission. It is not all that important either, now.”
“Oh? I must confess that I fully expected you to invite me to a private party which would result in me alone and palely loitering on the cold side of some hill sometime hence if I were to accept.”
She laughed.
“And I must confess that it was my intention to so use you, Corwin. No longer, though.”
“Why not?”
She gestured toward the advancing line of disruption.
“There is no need to delay you now. I see by this that the Courts have won. There is nothing anyone can do to halt the advance of the Chaos.”
I shuddered briefly and she refilled our cups.
“But I would rather you did not leave me at this time,” she went on. “It will reach us here in a matter of hours. What better way to spend this final time than in one another's company? There is no need even to go as far as my pavilion.”
I bowed my head, and she drew up close against me. What the hell. A woman and a bottle-that was how I had always said I wanted to end my days. I took a sip of the wine. She was probably right. Yet, I thought of the woman-thing which had trapped me on the black road as I was leaving Avalon. I had gone at first to aid her, sucumbed quickly to her unnatural charms-then, when her mask was removed, saw that there was nothing at all behind it. Damned frightening, at the time. But, not to get too philosophical, everybody has a whole rack of masks for different occasions. I have heard pop psychologists inveigh against them for years. Still, I have met people who impressed me favorably at first, people whom I came to hate when I learned what they were like underneath. And sometimes they were like that woman-thing-with nothing much really there. I have found that the mask is often far more acceptable than its alternative. So... This girl I held to me might really be a monster inside. Probably was. Aren't most of us? I could think of worse ways to go if I wanted to give up at this point. I liked her.
I finished my wine. She moved to pour me more and I stayed her hand.
She looked up at me. I smiled.
“You almost persuaded me,” I said.
Then I closed her eyes with kisses four, so as not to break the charm, and I went and mounted Star. The sedge was not withered, but he was right about the no birds. Hell of a way to run a railroad, though.
“Good-bye, Lady”
I headed south as the storm boiled its way down into the valley. There were more mountains before me, and the trail led toward them. The sky was still streaked, black and white, and these lines seemed to move about a bit; the over-all effect was still that of twilight, though no stars shone within the black areas. Still the breeze, still the perfume about me-and the silence, and the twisted monoliths and the silvery foliage, still dew-damp and glistening. Rag ends of mist blew before me. I tried to work with the stuff of Shadow, but it was difficult and I was tired. Nothing happened. I drew strength from the Jewel, trying to transmit some of it to Star, also. We moved at a steady pace until finally the land tilled upward before us, and we were climbing toward another pass, a more jagged thing than the one by which we had entered. I halted to look back, and perhaps a third of the valley now lay behind the shimmering screen of that advancing stormthing. I wondered about Lady and her lake, her pavilion. I shook my head and continued.
The way steepened as we neared the pass, and we were slowed. Overhead, the white rivers in the sky took on a reddish cast which deepened as we rode. By the time I reached the entrance, the whole world seemed tinged with blood. Passing within that wide, rocky avenue, I was struck by a heavy wind. Pushing on against it, the ground grew more level beneath us, though we continued to climb and I still could not see beyond the pass.
As I rode, something rattled in the rocks to my left. I glanced that way, but saw nothing. I dismissed it as a falling stone. Half a minute later. Star jerked beneath me, let out a terrible neigh, turned sharply to the right, then began to topple, leftward.
I leaped clear, and as we both fell I saw that an arrow protruded from behind Star's right shoulder, low. I hit the ground rolling, and when I halted I looked up in the direction from which it must have come.
A figure with a crossbow stood atop the ridge to my right, about ten meters above me. He was already cranking the weapon back to prepare for another shot.