So it was that our village was destroyed, the crops burned, the haystacks burned, and our flocks roasted. It was the act of Renoa throwing Annakey’s valley doll into the fire that did it. They were both Dollmages, and for a purpose, but I did not see clearly why until now. I will explain, and I must hurry. Still the robber people haunt the outskirts of our village, becoming bolder now that we are bereft. They no longer wish only to eat our grain and steal our children. They wish to make sport of our lives. There is little time left.
How it broke my heart to see you, my people, gathered on the bank of the river, talking in low tones to your children. I walked among you, counting you, and you looked at me with vacant eyes.
“What shall become of us, Dollmage?” you asked me. I did not have the heart to remind you that I was wise, not allknowing.
“Look, up on Mount Crownantler. You see how the mountain has been untouched by the fire? There are sheep in that summer meadow,” I said.
I left you there on the riverbank, almost knowing what you were plotting in your fear and devastation.
I found Annakey picking among the ruins of my house. She had unearthed some of the Sacred dolls, and some of the scorched and shriveled village doll of Seekvalley. She was running her hand over it.
“Make a new one, Dollmage,” she said as I approached.
After a time she raised her head to look at me.
“You are the Dollmage now, Annakey,” I said. “You must be. Renoa is dead.”
Annakey put her hand over her eyes, then drew it away and stood.
“But how? I have broken my promise to marry Areth. For a villager, there is a way, for a Dollmage none.”
“Lead me to the place where you have hidden the valley doll you made. Quickly, before the villagers gather themselves against you, before they are done their mourning.”
She held my hand and led me across the valley to her secret place. The fire had not cut its path there, but the smoke hung like a fog over the river and ash fell like snow.
The valley doll she had made was in ashes in the fire Renoa had built.
“You have been making the story of the village for some time now, Annakey,” I said.
“I had to do it, for my father.”
“And for yourself?” As long as I must speak the truth, let it all be said. She did not deny. “Now you will begin again, and you will make a valley doll that will tell the end, the proper end. Begin.”
On her flat rock, Annakey began once again to fashion it. I helped her, teaching her, encouraging her, pouring out all my knowledge at once. She knew so much intuitively, she had learned so much by watching me. She worked furiously until dark fell, hurried on by the fire. She stood back from her work.
She was horrified.
It was not Seekvalley village at all. It was wrong somehow. The mountains not as high, the river not as twisty, the rolling hills not so roily.
“I cannot replicate our valley,” she said.
I knew myself what it meant.
Annakey had not remade this valley for us. It was too late for this valley. We had to move to a new valley, and with her art, Annakey had found it. It was the very valley I had halfheartedly made for Fedr Rainsayer to find, but mine had been without true art, without belief. This was the valley that would be found, and there was the deer-trod and the nettle, the owl and the wild corn. By her art, we would see it and know it. The sheep in the summer meadow would not feed us until the valley was grown again. They would be left behind to distract the robber people while we escaped.
I wept for my valley. “You sorrow for my poor work,” Annakey said.
“No,” I answered. “It is good. Now make an ending for yourself. Then we must face the villagers and plead for your life.”
She worked a little longer. In the dim light, I could not see what she did. When she was done she took my hand, and led me, blind in the dark, back to the village.
While we were gone, you built little fires on the banks to warm yourselves.You made rude comments about your fires, insulting them, making yourselves feel bigger than the fire that had destroyed everything you had. That night you feasted on roast sheep and pig and chicken, and as you ate Areth talked loudly, telling his own story, and none of it true.You talked and talked, and the more you talked, the more you blamed Annakey. I hid her, knowing if you found her, she would be executed. “I will pray,” I said to her, “then I will return for you.” I walked to the place where the village doll lay charred. Among the ruins I found my husbands ghost doll. I brushed him off and put him in my pocket. Then I went to seek him at the forests edge where Renoa’s bones lay scattered like blown and broken branches. I stooped there a moment to pray. That was when the stranger appeared to me in the darkness. I thought he was a wild man, a man of the robber people.
“Dollmage Hobblefoot,” he said in our own tongue. The robber people do not speak our language.
“I am she,” I said. What was it about the man? Had I seen him before? I peered beneath the beard and long hair that hid his face.
“What has happened to the village?” he asked. “The ashes are still warm. The robber people... ?”
I nodded.
“Did all survive?”
“Only Renoa, Mabe’s daughter, died. Oda Weedbridge is taken by the robber people. Annakey’s life is yet in danger.” I spoke as if to a ghost.
“I know nothing of Annakey or Renoa. What of Vilsa?”
Then I knew him, and you know him, too.
This is my secret. It was Annakey’s father, returned. Not dead. I told him about Vilsa’s faith and love, and about the daughter he did not know. With him I returned to where I had secreted Annakey. She was gone, and I found her bound and beaten, and all of you drunk with desire to stone her.
Now I say, Fedr Rainsayer, come forth!
Ah, Annakey, now you weep. Death by stoning could not make you weep, but this, yes. And how all of you look away, ashamed. A fine greeting it is for Fedr to come home and find his wife dead and his daughter bound by ropes. But I have begged his patience, and he has become a patient man in his travels.
Tell me if I do not speak the truth, Fedr, when I say that the mountains blinded you and your companion as you traveled. You suffered much from hunger and thirst and cold.You could find no passes.You came to great mountains, and sheltered yourselves in caves. You lost track of days and years. In spring you would remember your loved ones, and the promise you had made, and you would move on.
At last you found a valley. It was a beautiful valley It was so much like Seekvalley that your companion, who died on the journey back, thought you had traveled in a circle and come home. You showed him how the mountains were not so high, the river not so twisty, and the rolling hills not so roily. You named it Promise Valley, for those who died fulfilling the promise they made to find new land for your people. The soil is good for corn and melons, and there is plenty of water.
In fact, Fedr Rainsayer, it is just like the valley Annakey made.
I see now that there should indeed have been two Dollmages: one, Renoa, to lead some of the people to the new valley; the other, Annakey, to be Dollmage in Seekvalley. Renoa was meant to run wild, to know the secrets of mountains and trees and rivers and winds.
I see your hearts have changed as you murmur among yourselves. You no longer desire to stone Annakey, but for one.
You, Areth, will you not put down your stone? Will you not? No, Areth, do not strike her, your Dollmage, the one who will lead you to a new valley. Areth! Areth...