Loyalty, which so many have forgotten, and for which there is no other word. And not the pale imitation of it found in some marriages, which demand that each cut off and subvert some part of themselves, to be joined like hobbled twins at the place of amputation. What he wanted was nothing more and nothing less than the bond of true allies: not half a woman, because of him, but a whole woman, for the same reason. Not to enslave but to enrich, not to question in time of crisis, but to love and support, not blindly, but freely and fully. All these things he had offered her; but he knew they meant nothing if she was unwilling to give the same in return. Because there is no such thing as one-sided love. He did not know how he understood these things, or why they had come to him now, only that he knew them, and that their truth was unbending. Yes. He would wait for her at the designated time and place. If she came to him and said she could not do it, and asked his help to rebuild the things that they had lost, he would remain with her forever. But if she came to him in mocking triumph---if she ever again spoke to him as she had---all was finished between them. He would leave her, leave this place, and never look back. There was no middle ground. Because he knew finally, defiantly, that he was physically incapable of being other than himself, and should never have tried to be. The consequences of rejection would be devastating, and in the cold light of day he did not know how he would find the will to go on, without her. But this no longer mattered. Nothing mattered, but that this agony and fear must end. There was no other way. He rose and walked the remaining distance. To the Vale of the Obelisk. To wait. *** SO FAR IT'S GONE WELL ENOUGH, she told herself, though she still could not look at him, or one second further than the present. They sat together on the sunlit slope of a wide, grassy recession. Its quiet symmetry would have been lovely and serene, but for a single thrust of gnarled stone which pierced its center, ringed about the base by a matting of jagged weeds. The company called it Devil's Thumb. It was a protrusion of the devil to be sure, but she wasn't at all sure that ‘thumb' was the correct metaphor. She kept her eyes away from it, concentrating instead on the white sheet spread beneath them, on the bread and wine before them. He had brought the wine, for which she was grateful, and she drank of it probably more than she should. But it gave her confidence, and helped dull the edge of her rebelling senses. Perhaps half an hour had passed from the time of her first ready mouthful; and he smiled each time the glass touched her lips. If an eerie contraction of taut face muscles can be called a smile. 'Have you ever done hallucinogenic drugs?' He tried to ask carelessly, but could not quite pull it off. 'What on earth made you ask that?'