From somewhere off between the naked trees, Lawrence Padd heard singing.

Your love's got me looking so crazy right now, your love's got me looking so crazy right now…

Repeated over and over a capella, the rhythm a silky river. The voice was youthful, high, candy-sweet.

Padd's white suit just barely matched the pristine snow and the bone-white birches all around him, their branches creaking in the light breeze.

The path before him was narrow, birch trunks pressing in from all sides, their knotholes like eyes. The top of the Altarstone was up ahead, black and pointed, extending above the trees.

Padd lifted his hand and spoke into his palm.

"Crazy in Love, Beyonce, may her voice live on."

He strode forward, hand on his sword's pommel. His immaculate white shoes left shallow footprints. The snow felt like cotton, and the air was a pleasant cold — the friendly chill of late September, not the brutal gnaw of January.

The clearing was about fifty feet in diameter, a perfect circle in the birches. At its center stood the Altarstone. The Altarstone was large, obsidian, blade-like. At its base was a throne.

And there, lounging on the throne, was the Anodyne.

She was cream-skinned, raven-haired, and stark naked. Her most striking feature was a tattoo that snaked up her left leg-- a vine of ivy with three-lobed leaves. It started at her ankle, twirled up and around her calf, curled past her kneecap, navigated her thigh and the side of her belly before coming to an end just below her small left breast.

Your love's got me lookin' so crazy right now, she sang, looping the line over and over. Every now and then she would punctuate the loop with a fluttery little breakdown — …so crazy in love, so crazy in love…— before starting over.

Her voice was soft as a feather, yet taut as a tripwire. She lit on each note like a butterfly on a finger.

The path yawned outward as Padd approached the clearing. He took two steps into the circle, his eyes on the Anodyne. The birches dripped with snowmelt. The sky was pure blue, completely clear. There was no sun, the daylight coming from everywhere and nowhere.

The Anodyne turned her head, saw him, and smiled widely. Her eyes were a deep and lustrous green.

"Hi!"

She chirped the greeting, and her eyes began to change.

Padd was suddenly frozen in place, nearly every muscle in his body turned to stone.

The Anodyne's irises spiraled outward and inward, overtaking the white of her corneas and the black of her pupils until both her eyes were glorious green kaleidoscopes, turning and whirling like galaxies.

Hype, thought Padd.

His heart thudded, his hand stuck on his sword. It was as if she'd sent a mild electrical current through his entire nervous system. He tried moving, but his muscles only flexed in place.

Proceeding with the Approach, he recited the lines.

"Princess, Temptress, Sorceress, I beseech thee. I come bearing gifts. Will you receive me?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said the Anodyne, waving her hand dismissively.

She reclined languidly across the throne, her eyes revolving deep emerald. Her body was small and sprightly, her nipples pink, a tuft of black hair between her daintily crossed legs.

The luminescence in her eyes faded, and Padd felt the spell break off.

The Anodyne sat up, her milky skin contrasting with the paper-white of the snow and the oil-black of the Altarstone. Her leafy tattoo shifted with her as she moved.

"Wait," said Padd. "I'd like to buy a respawn, please."

The Anodyne shrugged and held a finger to the hollow at the base of her throat. The standard Anodyne uniform appeared on her, dissolving in like sheets of rain on a windshield.

It was a corset— over-bust, the same green of her eyes— with a fat emerald gleaming where she'd held her finger, sealed in the center of a golden collar. She wore green panties with dark green leggings, and no shoes.

Next, she conjured a steel revolver with nickel finish, waving her hand in the air and curling her fingers around the PVC grip as it appeared, fading into solidity.

She stood up and walked toward him, brandishing the gun.

Her irises spiraled out and Padd felt his body stiffen up again. He stood like a statue.

"God, you're vestal as hell," said the Anodyne. “Did you just immerse yesterday?”

As she got closer, Padd could see that she was exceptionally short, her eyeline level with his lower chest.

Upon reaching him, the Anodyne took hold of Padd’s right ear and yanked him downward. Face to face, she touched her lips to his, and for a few seconds Padd was somewhere else.

He's young, 10 or 11, in his bedroom, sitting on his bed and looking out the window. It's sunny. He hears birds tweeting. There's a jet trailing a streak of white across the blue sky. The streak looks like a scar.

It feels like a metal bracket is lodged in young Padd’s throat. This bracket has been there for the past couple of days.

"Lawrence," barks a hoarse, harsh voice from the other side of the door. "They're all done. You can come out now."

"I'll be easy to find," young Padd murmurs to himself.

He was back in the clearing. The Anodyne's lips sucked what looked like a stream of black tar from his mouth.

Her open eyes shot a million little pins of paralysis through him. Her heart-shaped face was framed by hair black as night, streaked with emerald and shimmering silver. Up close, she had a bit of a chipmunk-face; her cheeks a little puffy, her eyes a little beady, her front teeth a little bucky.

She disconnected and let him go.

"You've never respawned before, have you, babe?"

"Not like this," said Padd through clenched teeth.

He felt a cool kiss as the pistol's barrel sank into the soft flesh under his jaw. His eyelids wouldn't close.

"Are you scared?"

"No."

"Good. First one's always rough."

She cocked the pistol. Padd braced himself.

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"Make a wish," said the Anodyne.

She pulled the trigger.

Padd stood at the beginning of the path again.

A moment passed.

He blinked, looked around, turned his head, moved his arms, flexed his fingers. He could see the peak of the Altarstone above the birches.

Love's got me lookin' so crazy right now

He had expected a flash of black, a glimpse of oblivion, some split-second form of blank consciousness that preceded the respawn, but there was nothing. No break in time. One second he was in the clearing with the gun firing under his jaw and the next he was back to where he'd started.

The Anodyne was sitting on the throne when Padd re-entered the clearing. She still wore her corset, waiting with her legs crossed. Padd's footprints were gone, as though he'd never been there.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" the Anodyne chirped.

"Princess, Sorceress, Temptress, I be — "

The Anodyne held up a hand, cutting him off.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," she said, shaking her hand like a queen dismissing a servant. "You don't have to say it every time. Yes. Approach is granted."

Padd started ahead, unsheathing his sword as he went, but the Anodyne kept her hand up and stopped him again.

"Hold it," she said. "We gotta wait a sec for the song to surface. The rhythm provides."

She held up both her hands — her nails were long, the same green as her eyes and corset — and clapped twice.

From the edges of the clearing appeared a motley pack of forest animals. There were all kinds — a deer, a rabbit, a skunk, a couple birds, a porcupine, a beaver, a squirrel, a raccoon, a fox, and a large brown bear.

They promptly all lined up off to the side of the Altarstone like a bizarre cheerleading squad.

The Anodyne snapped her fingers, pointed.

On cue, the animals all reached behind themselves (as if into a back pocket) and produced proportionally- sized instruments. The bear obtained an upright bass, the deer had drums, the squirrel and rabbit had trumpets, and the raccoon and skunk held little guitars. The birds clutched little flutes with their talons while flapping their wings.

"Give me something frisky, something old school," said the Anodyne, gazing side-eyed across the clearing at Padd. "Something he'll never forget."

Right away, the bear counted off in a grunting, raspy voice— "And a-one, and a-two, and a-three, and a-four, and a--"— before plucking out a descending bassline. The deer rattled the hi-hats and thumped the bass drum with its hooves. The raccoon and skunk strummed their guitars.

The Anodyne beamed.

"PURRR-FECT," she exclaimed.

She turned to Padd and bowed to him.

He bowed to her.

"Pay tribute," she said.

Padd raised his hand and spoke into his palm.

"These Boots Were Made for Walkin, Nancy Sinatra, may her voice live on."

"All right," said the Anodyne.

Padd drew his sword and started forward.

The drums ramped up and the Anodyne sang.

You keep saying you got something for me

Something you call love but confess

You been messing where you shouldn't have been messing

and now someone else is getting all your best

As she sang, Padd slashed at her. She danced all around him, lighting from one part of the clearing to the next.

He'd just downloaded basic swordplay at Orientation and could wield a blade well enough. But the Anodyne was whip-fast, and easily stayed out of reach.

These boots are made for walkin

and that's just what they'll do

one of these days these boots are gonna

walk all over you

At the end of the refrain, on the word "you", she whirled about and planted a well-placed heel kick to Padd's face, and Padd found himself at the beginning of the path again with his sword back in its white leather sheath.

While the gunshot had produced no sensation whatsoever, he'd felt his nose and jaw crunch upon impact with the Anodyne's foot. The sound was like cereal being chewed.

Padd's footprints were erased when he got back to the clearing. The animal band stared in an unsettling manner as they picked and blew into their instruments, looping the intro to the verse like the Anodyne had looped the Approach song.

The Anodyne was sitting on her throne again.

She held up a finger.

"That's one," she mouthed, breaking into a smile so gorgeous it could resurrect the dead.

Padd wordlessly drew his sword and started forward.

The Anodyne sprang to her feet.

You keep lying when you oughta be truthin

and you keep losing when you oughta not bet

you keep samin when you oughta be changin

now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet

Again Padd attacked, and again she evaded him effortlessly. She dodged and dashed, making a show of it, teasing him. He swiped and slashed empty air again and again.

The Anodyne sprang from one place to the next, allowing Padd to get just close enough to think he had her. But then, rabbit-like, she was up or under or around him, a green and white blur.

He chased her all over the clearing as she bounced from one place to the next like a drunken fairy, her movements in perfect sync with the spunky flow of the song.

these boots are meant for walkin

and that's just what they'll do

one of these days these boots are gonna

walk all over you

Once again, on the final word of the refrain-- “…walk all over you…”— the Anodyne leaped ten feet in the air, did an Olympian triple flip, landed on Padd's shoulders, and snapped his neck with a flick of her ankles.

Padd felt everything in his body go numb, and then he was back at the beginning of the path.

The Anodyne was standing out in front of the Altarstone when he reached the clearing a third time. Her hands were on her hips, bobbing to the music.

"You're kind of boring, bro," she said, bobbing away, showing him how her hips could move. "It's almost like you want that white feather."

"It's my first time," said Padd.

"It shows.”

The Anodyne cracked her knuckles.

"Hope you don't mind if I spice things up a bit. We're already on the third verse here."

Padd drew his sword. It was getting heavy.

For this verse, he respawned to the end of the path where it yawned into the clearing, and this time the Anodyne didn't wait for him to get his bearings. She continued to sing, dispatching him at the end of every line.

you keep playing where you shouldn't be playing

She gouged out his eyes with her thumbs...

and you keep thinking that you'll never get burned

...tore his throat out with her bare, elegant fingers...

I just found me a brand new box of matches

...crushed his ribcage with a juggernaut fist to the solar plexus...

and what he knows you ain't had time to learn

...and took out his knees with one powerful, sweeping kick. Then, just to show off, she ripped away Padd’s lower jaw as he toppled over. Padd felt a hideous gaping sensation in his lower face in the split second before the respawn took him.

It all happened so fast and with such precision that Padd could only stand and stare as the Anodyne rose into the air, singing.

These boots are made for walkin'

And that's just what they'll do

One of these days these boots are gonna

Walk all over you

Electricity crackled at her fingers. A bolt of emerald lightning shot out of her pointed finger while Padd gaped like a frog.

The bolt struck its target — the left of his chest, his heart — and he felt it stop cold as he crumpled.

The beginning of the path faded in.

One thing was for sure: the sword was not working.

Padd checked for his cheat sack. Fortunately, it was there, hanging off his belt.

The cheat sack was the size of a coin purse and made of leather. Inside were four seemingly worthless objects: a small pink flower wrapped in silk, a balled-up wad of sticky cobweb, a little leather pouch of orange seeds, and a powdery moth's wing.

Padd made a decision and stepped into the clearing for the final time, sword drawn and ready. He would have only seconds before the song ended.

The animals pounded and plucked their instruments with ferocious intensity. The bear was snarling at him, the deer staring as it struck the drums with its hooves, the raccoon and squirrel and rabbit bearing their chompers. Their eyes glowed red.

The Anodyne sat on her throne, chin resting on her propped-up hand. She looked like a high school senior right before the final bell.

"All right, babe," she said. "Let's finish this off."

She spread her arms, rose into the air. Electricity flowed around her entire body, sparking, coursing and thrumming.

Are you ready, boots?

Start walkin'

She dove downward at breakneck speed, aiming for a finisher.

The animals blasted out the final bars, thumping and picking and blowing on their instruments, the fury of the finishing move surging through every note.

At the last moment, Padd threw away his sword, yanked the cobweb from inside his jacket pocket, shook it out to the size of a small sheet, and stepped to the side holding it like a matador's cape.

The Anodyne zoomed right into it, holding her arms up in a futile attempt at deceleration.

Padd was so surprised the move had worked that the Anodyne nearly got away, but he bear-hugged and wrestled her to the ground. Weakened by the cobweb, the Anodyne went limp.

The animal band dropped their instruments in the snow where they dissolved into nothing. Every one of them scattered back into the birch forest, tails flitting behind them.

Padd took two corners of the web in his hands, struggling to his feet.

The Anodyne flopped like a fish as Padd stretched the web and hung it up between two birches, hooking the sticky coils onto the ends of a couple sturdy, low-hanging branches. They sagged downward but held.

Padd stood, regarding his conquered opponent.

The Anodyne hung there between the trees, arms stretched out in a crucifix position.

"Nice," she said. "Very nice."

Padd reached forward, fingers trembling. He plucked the gleaming green jewel off her collar and put it in his pocket.

The golden collar disappeared off her neck, and her corset and leggings disappeared with it.

Her naked body had the curve of a blade as she hung in the web. Her breasts were small like cupcakes, her belly flat like a cutting board, her legs smooth as soap and her feet as delicate as a doll's. Her tattoo was so detailed it looked like someone had glued an actual vine of ivy around her leg and midsection.

She looked up at him with luxurious green eyes and batted her eyelashes.

"Ivy Snow, for your consideration."