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, succumbed 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.