The Dollmage

“Renoa,” I said, trying to quiet her, for now I knew what Annakey feared. If the dolls indeed had power, they would draw the wild animals to the village. The snarl of a panther cat rang through the valley. It was close at the forest’s edge. “Renoa, it is too late. I have made Annakey the Dollmage. Give her the clay animals,” I said.

Renoa sobbed once.

“My Renoa, be comforted. It is possible that she is to die for her broken promise.”

You see how well I knew you?

Renoa backed away “They are mine.”

Annakey lunged at her, and Renoa ran. Before anyone could follow her, two men came running, breathless and almost weeping.

“Robber people .. . the crops . . .We cannot stop it. . . .”

“What is it?” I asked, and then I saw what everyone else had already seen by now. What had been storm clouds on the east horizon were now clouds of black smoke.

“The robber people have set fire to the crops,” one of the men said. “The forest is afire now too. We cannot stop it. There is a grassfire in the valley. It is coming toward the village...

“Everyone, go into the river!” I cried. “Bring blankets, anything to wet and cover yourselves. Hurry!”

“You first, Dollmage,” Annakey said, grasping my arm.

“No. I will try to find Renoa.”

Annakey and Manal ran to help those with many children. I went in the direction I had seen Renoa run.

I found her at the north end of the village where the forest begins. The fire had chased the wild animals to the edge of the forest where they prowled, caught between their fear of fire and their fear of man. There Renoa had run into them, with her apronful of wild animal dolls.

When I found her body, her face was gone and her legs and arms were chewed to the bone. I did not care if the animals ate me. I covered her body with dry leaves, her body with its face gone, its legs and arms chewed. I left her there for worms to devour and spiders to crawl upon. Then I walked to the nearest twist of the river. I laid my body in the icy-cold river and watched as the fire roared over the village, devouring it, and the sky black and blue above.

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.