The hamadryad had led the three immortals to a clearing in the very heart of the forest. The trees here were gnarled and twisted with age. Oak and chestnut, elm, ash, hawthorn and apple crowded together, all draped with ivy. Holly bushes with unseasonable ripe red berries clustered around the base of the trees, and white pearls of mistletoe speckled the boughs. From a mound in the center of the clearing rose a crude pillar of white stone, every inch of which was covered with a pattern of coiled spirals and intricate whorls.

“This world is coming to an end.” For a moment it sounded as if the voice were coming from the stone. “And I do not want my creations here when that happens.”

“You could stay and fight,” Palamedes said, stepping into the circle of trees and approaching the stone. “You did that before.”

“And we lost,” the booming male voice said.

The figure that stepped out from behind the pillar was tall and slender, draped in a long white hooded robe patterned with metallic silver leaves. A fantastically ornate silver mask completely covered his face and head. It depicted the face of a young man peering out from a profusion of foliage that flared and extended behind the edges of the mask, making the figure’s head seem enormous. Each leaf had been etched in incredible detail, right down to the veins and threads running through them.

Palamedes stepped forward and bowed deeply, going down on one knee before the figure. “Master Tammuz.”

The hand that appeared from beneath the long sleeve to rest on the knight’s right shoulder was covered in a silver glove embroidered with berries, leaves and twisting vines. “Your call was unexpected and unwelcome,” the bass voice rumbled.

The Saracen Knight rose smoothly to his feet. He was a fraction of an inch shorter than his master, and he could see himself reflected countless times in the polished silver. Bright green eyes dappled with brown stared through the eyeholes in the mask. The pupils were flat narrow ovals. Not for the first time, Palamedes wondered what the Green Man really looked like.

“What do you want?” Tammuz asked, the leaves on the trees around him quivering with his words.

“A favor,” Palamedes said simply. He had rehearsed this conversation countless times on the drive up from London, but he couldn’t guess how his master would react. In the centuries he’d served his master, he’d come to recognize that Tammuz was that most dangerous of combinations: arrogant and unpredictable.

“It is not in my nature to do favors.” Tammuz stepped away from the carved stone and looked across the clearing to where the other two immortals stood beside the tree that had swallowed the hamadryad. “And you have brought the Bard too.” He leaned forward and added loudly. “I really do not like him.”