WATER DRIPPED SLOWLY in the back of the cave, a cold sort of sound that spoke of loneliness and emptiness. It had dripped so for untold centuries, slowly forming a mound of slick, calcified minerals that already was the size of a man’s leg. It was a steady noise, and during his isolation over long hungry days, Ulrem had grown blind to the sound. Now it was like a dagger in the ear, a torturous plink plunk without end, unceasing as the days. He felt as if his very nerves were afire, though he sat as still as the stone maw in which he squatted.

You starve yourself, coward!

“I am no coward,” he muttered. “I am my own master.”

The answer was a furious wave of hunger that brought tears to his eyes. He groaned, clutching his belly, wondering whether his ribs would cave in. Opposite the dark remnants of the fire where he had been sleeping lay the boar’s carcass. By some unlucky trick it was facing him now, and the scant light that came from the forest glimmered in its dead eyes. They had lost their wet liveliness, but Ulrem could not help but feel them upon him, a silent accusation of his weakness and fear.

A fire must be fed, came the voice from within him, gnawing under his skin. Starve us and you die!

Surging to his feet, Ulrem clutched his head in both hands and moaned. What had he done? How long would this madness go on? For the thousandth time he cursed himself for a sunblind fool, though to any listener the words would have been slurred with the thick, incomprehensible tone of the insane. The floor seemed to slide out from under him, and he staggered, falling upon the wall. He caught himself, the whipcord muscles of his long, lean limbs standing out as if he held all the weight of the world back.

“Go away!” he growled. Sweat beaded on his brow, and the lights seemed to glare and dance weirdly. Was it dawn? Dusk? Time seemed to flow as oil through the trees, and he knew he was mad when he saw a light like the sun itself sliding between the dark, gnurled trunks. He clenched shut his eyes and threw himself by the cold fire pit again, curling his knees up over his hollow belly.

The men of the Oron were iron wolves, and they knew neither fear nor pain, he told himself, repeating the words he had learned so long ago. He said them again and again until the edge of hunger faded, leaving him brittle and exhausted on the rough, gravel-strewn floor.

When he opened his eyes, the boar was glaring at him. It spoke with the voice of that which infested him, though neither its tusked mouth nor its dead eyes showed any signs of life. A dozen cycles have the sons of the lion carried the fire across the world! Ours is the fury and the fire! The unconquerable crown of the worthy! Yet you resist that which is your very nature! Your cowardice poisons us!

“I am no coward! I will starve you out of me, devil!” He curled his hands into fists so tightly that the knuckles popped. The feeling brought him back to himself a little, the desperate grip of a man clinging to sanity in a maelstrom of the soul.

Then why have you slain me? the boar asked.

The young killer answered only with a groan, fists clutched to his head.

You resist only yourself, the carcass said. Was it mocking him? He didn’t know. The cave seemed to swirl around those dead eyes, the light from the entrance smudging into the long shadows from the darker recesses, and all around him, the ceaseless plink plunk of the damnable dripping that pattered at him like fever sweat.

“I am my own master!” Ulrem roared, finding himself on his feet. He caught the scent of horrible fear, and realized it was his own wretched stink.

The boar laughed horribly, and it had the sound of an open grave. For now.

“Damn you!” Ulrem seethed. He hurled himself over the carcass and staggered towards the cave entrance, towards the light beyond. If hunger did not drive the demon away, he would outrun it. Oh, how he wished now for one of the tattooed shamans his father atimes trucked with by firelight on moonless nights. He had always mistrusted those old wizards as madmen and snakes, but they would have known the cure for a plague of the mind, surely.

Only, they were dead, too, as dead as the rest of his people.

The trees engulfed him, spreading black boughs over and around him like the hatred that coursed through his soul. He ran without knowing direction, with none of the easy grace of the barbarian among the wilds. He ran as the quarry, thundering away from snapping fangs that lunged for his throat, over ridge and rise and across gully floor, fleeing the boar, the cave, and the memories of an isle of death that had driven him back to the continent.

You cannot outrun yourself. He tasted his failure like blood in his mouth. The voice sounded like a testament of truth, with the force of a god. The cavern of his skull ached. The forest seemed to strain around him as if threatening to burst. Upon his finger, the ring blazed like a beacon, white-hot light searing his eyes until he was forced to close them. Yet there was power in that light—an unalloyed, ageless strength like cool water upon his lips. Ulrem knew that should he drink of that power, he would be made strong again. It would not appease the hunger of his flesh, but it would fire him beyond the strength of other men.

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And, when it had faded, he would be left twice as tired and rapacious as he now felt.

Still, he was sore tempted by that light, by the rippling energies within it. Perhaps with that strength, he could outrun the madness. His hands shook as he balanced on the very precipice of temptation.

“You are lost.” The words startled him, for he had not spoken them himself. It came from the trees, he thought, all around him, and yet neither near nor far. He winced, suddenly afraid that he had developed some new affliction. Yet, it came again. “It is no sin to lose your way, young lion.” The voice was smooth and gentle, like a summer breeze. He heard green growth within it, and glad tidings.

“I am mad,” Ulrem said. The admission came unbidden, but the truth of the words was like a revelation. He gasped. “I am mad, and I am dying.”

“No, you are not,” answered the voice, and now it seemed to come from somewhere nearer. It had changed, had taken on a new tone; was the voice of a mother upon seeing her son after a long season of raiding, warm with relief and welcome. “Stand, man of the west.”

He obeyed, and found a woman before him, wrapped in a shining cloak of green that fluttered like polished oak leaves. Beneath her cloak, she wore nothing at all, clad as the wind. She was beautiful in aspect, yet fearsome too. Her long, burnished hair was plaited back like long rows of the sunny grains men grew in the southlands. Her eyes were the heavy gray of clouds promising bounties of rain. Deeper power flickered within those dark pools too, crackling lightning on a summer eve. Her naked limbs were pale, but strong and lithe as river currents, and her belly flat as a promising field. He had never seen such a beautiful creature before. He knew she was no mere woman, for she stood at a height with him, and her pale ears rose to points unlike any he’d seen. Gazing upon her, Ulrem felt focused and calm. He had not felt such for many days.

Unsure of himself, Ulrem sank to one knee before her, hanging his head low in respect. “Who are you, lady?”

“I am the green lady,” she said. “I ward these woods.”

“Are you a god?”

She laughed with the voice of a wife pleased in her husband’s craft. His heart sang to hear it. “No,” said she. “But I see a little further than the eyes of men.”

“Then what are you?”

She held out a slim, pale hand to him, and Ulrem allowed her to lift him back to his feet. The touch of her skin was cool and tender. It lingered when she drew her hand back and pulled her green cloak about her shoulders. “Do not kneel before me, Inheritor of Imaahis. I am but a dream spun into motion. Another ringbearer such as yourself created me, and bade me care for this weald and the souls within it.”

“Another?” he asked. “There are more…like me?”

“There were. There are.” She looked west, her face taking on a reddish tint of sunset, and ruby light played along her tresses. There was a sadness in her eyes, of seasons ending and of approaching darkness. “I hear whispers among the birds of strange tidings, but long has it been since I saw the one who created me. Her songs once made the flowers bloom, but the even the winds carry naught of her now. I have not heard her voice since she went to war against the Young Shadow.”

Ulrem followed her gaze but saw nothing save dark trees and gloomy underbrush. “Who was she?”

She turned her gaze back to him, and her eyes shone like sapphires in sunlight. Again, she laughed, joyful at the memory. She sounded to Ulrem much like the girl he had come upon in the forest. “I was dreamed by Iddunir,” she said, “when the world was young and the Eridesh still free.” The ancient folk, Ulrem knew, were a race older than men, whose remnants yet lingered on the edges of the world. They were said to live without age, possessing memories that stretched back to the dawn of time. He had never met such a creature. Yet, he had never met anyone like the strange beauty who stood before him, either.

He frowned. His people kept no gods, but Ulrem knew the old legends and tales: Iddunir the Gardener, from whose ring was said to drip the Golden Apples of Fate, who named the rivers and from whose tears sprang bright flowers.

“Then you are the daughter of a god?”

“Not a god, child of Imaahis. Queen Iddunir was an Inheritor. Like you.” The green lady pointed to the ring on his finger. Inheritor? he thought dimly. He knew those, too. The stories were filled with them: Akale, Hejmdir, Gil-gur, and more. Heroes out of ancient legend, kings and queens who wielded strange and terrible powers. He looked to the green lady, suddenly feeling very small indeed.

He felt the ring stirring. Idunnir. Queen of Thorns, Lady of the Rivers, it said. Ulrem caught a sense of longing. Of old love. But they were like scraps of thought that belonged not to him; confusing and disorienting.

Her sad eyes met his. “I am a Porwita, dreamed by my queen to watch over her wild gardens, and to ward those who dwell beneath my branches. I see your suffering, as surely as I know the fear of the men in the valley. My heart aches for you, as it does for them. You resist that which is yourself, your nature, and so you resist your very purpose. The man who severs his soul from his body will surely die.”

“My soul?” Ulrem frowned. He looked at his hand. The ring gleamed strangely, catching light that was not there. His reflection swirled upon the band. He caught a flashing glimpse of golden eyes. He gasped. “I do not understand.”

“No. You are lost,” said the green lady, and now she sounded as an old woman, deep in the winter of mourning. “The lion lord was ever his own king, and must always find his own path. You must choose who you will be: the wildfire, or the conquering flame. But it is not my place to guide you. Rather, I come to beg your aid.”