The Dark Lady

her?” asked Heath in frustration. “And what do you and he have in common? You got caught in a cave-in and he was run over by a bulldozer. You were in a war and he was taking his daughter for a walk. You didn't die, and he did. What's the connection?”
    As I listened to Heath and considered the problem, Venzia had been staring at me with a curious smile. “I believe Leonardo has figured it out,” he said.
    “I see the connection,” I said. “That is not the same thing.”
    “That's more than I see,” complained Heath.
    “I see it,” I repeated slowly, “but that cannot be the solution.”
    “Why?” prodded Venzia.
    “Because the Dark Lady cannot be Death,” I replied. “Otherwise at least three other patients would have seen her.”
    “I agree,” said Venzia.
    “Then what is she?” I asked him.
    “Will somebody please tell me what's going on here?” demanded Heath.
    “Friend Valentine,” I said, turning to Heath, “the connection is not the nature of their disasters, but the manner in which the disasters were incurred.”
    Heath lowered his head in thought. “Venzia was trying to save an injured woman. The patient was trying to save his daughter.” He looked up. “She only appears to heroes?” He considered what he had said, then shook his head vigorously. “That can't be the answer! Look at Mallachi— there's nothing heroic about getting shot in a bar over a woman.”
    “It was not that Friend Reuben and the little girl's father were heroic, Friend Valentine,” I said. “It was, rather, that each of them courted disaster.”
    Heath frowned. “What's the difference?”
    “In these two instances, nothing,” I said. “But there is a difference.”
    “I don't suppose you'd care to explain it?” asked Heath.
    “Take the animal tamer,” I said. “He was not heroic, and yet he courted disaster every time he performed.”
    “So she appears to people who court disaster?”
    “Let us be more precise,” interjected Venzia. “She appears to people who court death.”
    “Why does she live with some of them, and just appear for a microsecond to others?” asked Heath.
    And suddenly I knew the answer to the riddle of the Dark Lady.
    “Some, like Friend Reuben, court death only once, as a completely spontaneous act,” I said. “Others, like Mallachi and the Kid and the animal tamer, spend their lives courting death.”
    “Now you've got it,” said Venzia.
    “That was the factor I could never determine,” I replied. “My original supposition was that each artist had been involved in some military action, but I see now that that was much too narrow a criterion. The circus daredevil, Brian McGinnis in the jungles of Earth, the man who charted black holes— each of them courted death as assiduously as the soldiers and warriors.”
    “But she's not Death,” said Heath, confused. “As you said, if she were, everyone who was about to die would have seen her.”
    “That's correct,” agreed Venzia.
    “Then what the hell is she?” asked Heath.
    “She is the Dark Lady,” answered Venzia.
    “ What is the Dark Lady?”
    Venzia sighed heavily. “I don't know.”
    “This is becoming a very frustrating conversation,” complained Heath.
    “I don't know what she is,” repeated Venzia. “All I know is that she has appeared to men for almost eight thousand years. And I mean that literally: She appears only to men, never to women. I know that she takes substance when a man leads a life that continually invites death, and that she never remains after the man is dead. I know that she has occasionally gone a century or more between appearances. I know that she appears as if in a vision to those men who court her just once.”
    “Court her or court death ?” asked Heath sharply.
    “I'm not sure there's a difference,” replied Venzia.
    “I thought you said she wasn't Death.”
    “I don't believe she is— but there's no question that she is somehow linked with death. I don't think she actually kills anyone, but she certainly encourages them to take the kinds of chances that result in their deaths.”
    “ Encourages them?” repeated Heath dubiously. “Did she encourage you ?”
    “I misspoke myself,” said Venzia. “Let's say, rather, that she seems irresistibly drawn to them.”
    “Does she appear to everyone who courts death?” asked Heath.
    “I don't know,” answered Venzia. “Most of them don't survive the experience.”
    “What about aliens? Does she appear to