A wizened figure rode across a far away western land. Wind carved mountains of living stone towered over deserts of dead stone. The sun shone always, even when the rain came everyday. The rider never noticed this. He just continued on, across the strange land until his eyes burned, his tongue swelled, and his horse stumbled and fell among the rocks, snapping its leg like a dry weak twig. Still the horseless rider went on, until the moon rose and his skin ran like mercury, dripping and cooling into the forms of a wolf and monster.
The World, She knew him, but She did not care. She had spurned him for many years; now, he was simply returning the favor. The wolf-and-man climbed up the tallest mountain, into ancient halls that were now nothing more than piles of crudely shaped stone. It was here that the world fell away from him, and he walked where only spirits dwell. Still he continued on, until he forgot the mountain, and his dead horse, his own swollen tongue, and the laughter of his children.
It was there he met her. Not Her. She would never answer. This one was different, a creature of longing, passion, and hidden power, a forgotten goddess who remembered the ancestors walk across the grinding freezing ice of old. This one promised mastery of the secret ways, how to harness the cycle of creation, birth, and death. The man-wolf-monster listened and laughed long and hard.