Prologue
She was old when the Earth was young.
She stood atop Cemetery Ridge when Pickett made his charge, and she was there when the six hundred rode into the Valley of Death. She was at Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius blew, and she was in the forests of Siberia when the comet hit.
She hunted elephant with Selous and buffalo with Cody, and she was there the night the high wire broke beneath the Flying Wallendas. She was at the fall of Troy and the Little Bighorn, and she watched Manolete and Dominguez face the brave bulls in the bloodstained arenas of Madrid.
She was there when Man went out to the stars. She saw the Battle of Spica and the Siege of Sirius V, and she sat in Jimmy McSwain’s corner the fatal night he fought Skullcracker Murchison. She rode the spaceways with the Angel, watched Billybuck Dancer die beneath the red sun of a distant world, and stood beside Santiago when Johnny One-Note gunned him down.
She has no name, no past, no present, no future. She wears only black, and though she has been seen by many men, she is known to only a handful of them. You’ll see her—if you see her at all—just after you’ve taken your last breath. Then, before you exhale for the final time, she’ll appear, silent and sad-eyed, and beckon to you. She is the Dark Lady, and this is her story.
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