The Dollmage

Chapter 12

Renoa pulled her promise doll from around her neck and made a loud hissing sound. She held it high for all to see, she shoved it in my face. Her teeth were clamped, her lips pulled back. We all fell silent as she shook her promise doll in all our faces. Then she put it back on, slowly, ceremoniously, defying every glance with a glare. Finally, she said to me, “Vile old woman. All my life you have the robbed the power out of me. Only when I was away from you could I feel my strength as a Dollmage. Now I will be Dollmage. I will, for I will no longer let you feed on my power, not even long enough to name another Dollmage.”

She stood looking at me, hating me as much as she had loved me. I turned away from her and said, “Be Dollmage, Annakey. Love and lead your people, and make their stories with all the art of your hands, and make them true totems of promise.”

Annakey nodded.

Cries came, “But what of the broken promise?”

“Yes, Dollmage,” Greppa Lowmeadow said, “if Annakey is to be Dollmage, she must keep all her promises.” She put her arm around Renoa, who said nothing. She was clutching her promise doll so tightly that the thong dug into the flesh at her neck.

“That is so,” I said.

“Before you declare her Dollmage, you should see that she keep her promise to marry me,” Areth said.

“Dollmage,” Annakey said, “has God provided no way?”

I touched her shoulder. “God always provides a way. It is one of the things that makes me his friend,” I said.

Renoa’s face became gray. She released her grip on her promise doll.

“You, Hobblefoot. I know your secret,” she shrieked. “You yourself are a promise breaker, for I have seen your husband’s ghost wandering in the forests, and I have spoken to him. Now I will find him and bring him to you so you can die.” The crowd, utterly baffled and afraid, said nothing. Their eyes were more upon the ridge than upon me. She slipped away on bare feet. She did not see my husband, already amongst the crowd.

I said nothing to defend myself. The first promise broken leads to the next until there is no end.

“I have searched the Sacred dolls,” I said to Annakey. “As a villager, you can be released from your promise to marry Areth. The death of your heart the day that Areth hurt you is a fair enough price. But it is different for a Dollmage. Your promise can be broken only at the price of a death. If you are dead, however, you can keep none of your other promises. Areth must release you from your promise to him. Where is Areth?”

Areth was nowhere to be seen, and so some went to find him.

As I waited, I saw storm clouds on the horizon and hoped for rain, and sun by morning.

Now, Renoa had run away to the end of the valley. In the half-light she came to where the great trees hang down their long branches to pinch and scratch, to the place where there are eyes in every hole and under every leaf. She came to the place where the river runs out of the mountain, where the wild things come to wash their bloody whiskers in the water. Renoa came to Annakey’s secret place.

On the huge, flat rock she saw Annakey’s doll of Seekvalley, and beside it all the wild animals Annakey had formed of clay.

“So!” she said aloud and to no one.

She walked around the large, flat rock slowly, looking and looking but not touching. “So,” she said again, “Hobblefoot was right. This is why the village is no longer hidden by the sky blanket.”

Then Renoa thought of a way to destroy Annakey.

Why? you ask. Because those who would hurt others do not care for themselves. It is true for myself as well. I was unsure of my powers as a Dollmage. This made me feel less about myself. That made me want to have the powers of a Dollmage even more.Which made me angry when I thought that Annakey’s promise doll was not keeping its promise. Only to the extent that I despised myself could I despise Annakey.

Now my confession is almost full. I hope that makes God happy. It is my deep desire that we are friends.

Still smoldering in the secret bower was the little fire that Annakey had built before Manal found her. Renoa took the mosses and twigs and branches and bark that made the village, and dumped them into the fire. Quickly the moss caught fire, and soon the whole doll was in flames.

Then Renoa gathered the little wild animals into her apron and headed back to the village.

We were all still standing together in the village common, watching as more robber men gathered on the mountain ridge. They had begun to stamp their feet rhythmically, when Renoa came running to me.

“Look, Dollmage. Look what I have made,” Renoa called as she ran to me. She poured the clay animals, the treecats and the bears, the wolves and the panthers, all onto the ground from her apron. “Are they not wonderful? Can you not sense in them a power also? Name me Dollmage. Name me!”

“Renoa, my wild animals—,” Annakey said.

“Not yours,” Renoa said. “Mine. I made them. Dollmage, you sense the power in her Evil doll, but do you not remember that she made the doll? She has evil in her enough to lie. I made the animals.”

“Take them away from here,” Annakey said. She looked around frantically. “Give them to me, Renoa. I will take them to the edge of the wood.”

Renoa grasped them to her and backed away. “Leave me alone.You stole my birthright. I was to be the Dollmage. I was due to be born that day. Your mother was early. I have the smiling promise doll.”

“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.

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...

So then.

And now.

It is not only Manal that you had to be wary of, Areth, but Fedr also, and now he has killed you. Did you forget that he, too, was entitled to one stone? Fedr has become a wild man, wandering for years among the wild mountains. Even still, your ghost grasps at stones, Areth. Grasp at stones, then, past the time you have forgotten why.

Fedr, hold your daughter, as you dreamed of holding your wife again. Now, Fedr, embrace your son-in-law, Manal, for I will wed them. It will be my last act as Dollmage.

Greppa, put down your stone. The bloodletting is done. A death will atone for the broken promise indeed, but it will not be Annakey’s death. It will be mine. I will not go with you to the new valley that has been found, to the long lakes in the valley. Annakey will go as your Dollmage, and I will stay here among the ashes.

Mine is the death that will atone for Annakey’s broken promise.