Some people say paladins are adventurers by definition. I've never been convinced of that. I know I have the build of a fighter ('built like a siege engine' was what people said ever since I was a little girl), but all I've ever wanted to do was to serve Lathander and help people, and I was as well able to do that by healing people and preaching the good news of Lathander as by going around slaying orcs. After all, one of the best and wisest people I've ever known was an orc who used to travel around the mountains with his human wife, trying to educate the orc tribes who lived up there, and educate humans not to massacre orc children merely for being grey.

Indeed, Nutt the Wise was one of the most important influences on my life. I don't know whether he believed in any gods (though I remember that one of his friends was a cleric of Om), but his goodness made me want to seek the source of holiness, and that is what led me to faith in Lathander. I know I'm not as bright as Nutt (otherwise I'd have liked to train as a doctor), but I'm glad to be able to let Lathander work through me to heal. And I'm a naturally persuasive person, which helped in my work as a missionary when I was sent to the City of Nyth. Now I wonder if my being too persuasive has just made things worse for everyone.

What really made things worse, though, is that I'm an idiot. I was walking on the beach when I noticed a ring glinting in the sand. That should have made me suspicious in itself, as (a) I walk along the beach at dawn to watch Lathander raising the sun on his shoulders and to meditate on his beauty, not to look for trinkets in the sand, and (b) I'm the most unobservant person I know. Looking back, I think the ring must have been calling to me, forcing me to pay attention to it.

If you're wondering whether I picked it up and immediately put it on, I wasn't quite that stupid. I put it in my pocket so that I could find its owner and hand it back, as soon as I had a free moment. Just now, I had duties back at the Temple, but they wouldn't take me long. Several of the people who had come to faith in Lathander after I arrived in Nyth were now ordained clerics, and Emmrietta, who had become the Dawnlord in Nyth, was certainly someone I could rely on. She had been running the church for the last few years, only occasionally needing to seek my advice or help with anything. Fairly soon, I'd probably be sent off on another missionary journey.

I was glad to have people I could rely on, as I was starting to feel seriously ill as I walked back to the Temple. I could see that the sun had risen some way in the sky, but I couldn't feel its warmth. I was shivering, my arms were covered in goose-pimples, and my nipples were hard and shrunken. Nothing I could do – rubbing my arms to try to chafe some life back into them, trying to walk briskly, buying a cup of tea from a seashore drinks vendor, putting a coat on when I got back – made any difference. I just felt weak and exhausted. Also, either I was hallucinating, or the ring was glowing an icy blue.

I tried to call on Lathander to heal me, but it was as if he had ceased to exist. The sun might as well have been just a ball of fire in the sky, as the Omnians believe, rather than the sign of Lathander's blessing.

And then I heard the ring speaking to me. 'Beira? Beira Lightbringer?'

'Yes, that's right,' I said. 'Don't worry, I'm not stealing you. I'm just going to use a Locate Person spell to find your master and bring you back.'

'I don't have a master,' the ring said sadly. 'I hoped you would be my master. I think – I think I've been wanting to find you all my life.'

All right, I know listening to a talking ring, let alone trusting it, is idiotic, but it sounded the way I had felt when I first came to believe in Lathander. Maybe even rings need someone to love, I thought. I put it on – and, of course, it was a cursed ring, controlled by an ice demon, and it turned out to be impossible to take off.

'Lathander forgive me!' I thought – and that reminded me of something. Nutt – who, despite being an orc, was the gentlest person I've ever met, and usually regarded his enemies as sick in the mind and in need of healing, rather than evil – nevertheless carried an axe which his cleric friend had given him, for beheading vampires with. The axe was called Forgiveness. If I wanted forgiveness, I needed to show I was truly sorry. Only if I cut my finger off could I prevent the ice demon from controlling me through the ring.

I went out to a shed where I found an axe that one of the novices had been using to chop firewood. I gave the axe a brief wipe on my robe, and laid my finger on the chopping block. I hoped I wouldn't make a mess of this. I'm not particularly clumsy, but not spectacularly skilled at precision tasks, and I was wearing the ring on the first finger of my left hand, which is my dominant hand, meaning that I had to raise the axe with my right. If I misjudged it, I could lose more of my hand than just the one finger, but it would still be worth it if…

'Beira! NO! It was Emmrietta, who must have realised there was something wrong with me, and followed me to see if I needed any help.

I put down the axe, and turned to face her with my most terrifying glare. 'Are you questioning my judgement?'

'Yes,' said Emmrietta bravely. 'Haven't you always taught us: There is always another dawn? You're not well, and you're not thinking clearly.'

'No,' I admitted. I hadn't been. If I had chopped off my finger without looking around for intruders, someone else instead of Emmrietta – maybe a thief – might have had the chance to steal the ring, finger and all. I was barely able to stop the demon from taking possession of my brain, and had failed to restrain myself from putting it on in the first place, and I'm one of the most strong-willed – all right, pig-headed – people I know. If I couldn't control it, what might it do to someone more susceptible?

I let Emmrietta lead me to a secluded room in the Temple, safely away from all sharp objects and with a bed covered in thick blankets, and lock me in. She left only to fetch me hot drinks and hot-water-bottles, and to organise people to heat more hot water to give me a bath. Nothing helped much, although having a warm bath each morning did at least defrost the crust of ice that grew on my body every time I slept. My room didn't have a fire in the grate, as Emmrietta was worried that I might stick my hand into the fire. There was underfloor heating, but somehow nothing could make me feel less cold. I felt as though I was in my eighties rather than my early forties.

I lost track of time after a while. All I could do was concentrate on stopping the ring from taking control of me completely. From time to time, I asked Emmrietta how things were going, and what the weather was like outside. My room had no windows, so I couldn't even see Lathander's light, but Emmrietta said it was best if I just rested and concentrated on recovering. I wished I could look out of the window and remind myself that it was summer out there, even if I felt as if I was in the depths of winter. I knew it was shallow and selfish to want luxuries, but I couldn't help wishing that sometimes, Emmrietta could have time to bring in some colourful flowers, or a few strawberries or raspberries for dessert, instead of just potato and onion soup. But I knew how tiring it must be for her, caring for a patient who bled on the bedclothes from cracked and chapped skin (and from my hand where the ring dug into it), and who covered them with ice so that they took ages to dry out, so I didn't say anything about flowers or fruit.

I didn't realise what was going on outside until one day when I heard shouting and screaming, and the smashing of wood. Even though the ring, cutting me off from Lathander, had taken away my ability to sense the undead – let alone drive them off – I could hear that something was badly wrong. Emmrietta tried to soothe me and warn me to keep still and quiet, but I ignored her. I struggled out of bed, keeping my left hand thrust into my dressing-gown pocket to hide the flare of light coming from the ring.

I made my way out into the corridor and found – bodies. Nearly everyone in the Temple – the people I had become good friends with over the past six years – was dead. Those who had merely been murdered were the lucky ones. The unlucky had been ritually sacrificed to the evil god Shub-Niggurath and turned into undead. I could see the bodies of people I had counselled, prayed with, and led meditation classes with, now reaching out to me, chanting, 'Give – us – the power! Give – us – the power – for – our – Master!'

I was furious. How dare anyone turn the kind, joyous, hope-filled young clerics they had been into this? Before I knew what I was doing, I lifted my left hand and held it up, as if I was a true paladin again and casting Turn the Unholy. The ring's blue light flared out in rays that froze the undead, who toppled to the ground and shattered like icicles. There were more behind the ones I had frozen, trying to force their way into the Temple, but I managed to push the doors closed and draw the bolt across them. Instead of feeling relieved that the souls of the dead were free from the curse of being undead, I just felt sick as I realised that if I had lost control any earlier, I might just as easily have frozen Emmrietta. I stuffed my hand back into my pocket and went back into my room.

'You stay there,' Emmrietta said, after one glance at me. 'I'll go out and drive off the rest of them.' I was too tired and horrified to argue.

After a while, I managed to subdue the ring, so that its piercing glare died down to a fainter glow which didn't seem to shatter anyone. I think I managed to fall asleep for a while, though I'm not sure for how long. The only candle in my room had burned down to nothing, leaving the glare from my ring as the only light. When I woke, the Temple seemed almost silent, but I could hear footsteps that sounded as if they might be Emmrietta's. I waited, so that she wouldn't scold me for getting out of bed.

Without knocking, she opened my door and made her way towards my bed. She wasn't carrying a fresh candle, as she usually would. In fact, I realised when I lifted my ring to see her better, a candle wouldn't have done any good. Something – one of the undead? – had gouged out her eyes. Blood was streaming down her face, but she seemed oblivious to that. 'All right, then,' she snarled, in a tone of voice I had never heard her use before. 'Hand over the ring.'

'Emmrietta, it's all right,' I said (stopping myself just in time from asking anything as fatuous as 'Are you all right?'). 'Just sit down on the bed, and I'll get some clean water and wash your wounds and bandage them.'

'I want the ring,' Emmrietta repeated. 'I have sworn to bring it to my Master.'

'Emmrietta Dowsomn, you are a cleric of Lathander,' I reminded her. 'You are the Dawnlord. So stop talking like an undead and let me take care of you.'

'Not any more!' said Emmrietta. 'I have seen the Dark.' She cackled and began to sing, insanely, 'The pe-o-ple that walkèd, that walkèd in brightness, have see-een a great dark!' She grabbed at me, groping for my left hand, but I held her at arm's length with my right. There was snow on her robes and on her hair, which I had never seen in the time she was caring for me while I was cursed by the ring. Had I really been ill for so long that it was now winter?

'Emmrietta, it doesn't have to be like this,' I pleaded. 'You're going through a dark time, but there is always another dawn.' I realised too late that this wasn't the most tactful of metaphors to use on someone who had just been blinded. Emmrietta had blood on her own hands, and as far as I could make out, it was even under her fingernails. Had she torn her own eyes out? 'If you've done something wrong, there is always forgiveness,' I tried. 'Lathander sends the sun's warmth on the righteous and sinners alike.' All right, this wasn't the theology I had been taught, but it was the best thing I could think of to say. Emmrietta wasn't listening anyway.

[Author's note: this was the character I was given for my first ever RPG session – although I invented Beira's past friendship with Nutt, who is a hero of one of the Discworld novels. As I'd never played before, the DM created a suitable character who she thought would fit into her campaign, and sent me Beira's backstory. I've just tried to put it into my own words.]