Once upon a time, a family lived at the far side of a deep forest, up against a range of tall mountains. The mountains rose right up out of the forest, looking like a giant had dropped a bag of rocks right in the middle of the trees. They were made of stone so white it looked like snow. No hills led up to them, and they were so steep and rocky that nothing grew on them and even the doughtiest climbers were defeated by them. They extended for miles and miles, only stopping a few miles from the seashore on either end of the land. They were like a great wall dividing the land in half. Their jagged tops were always covered in snow, so high were they, and a few were so tall that the clouds almost always covered them.
People told all sorts of tales about these mountains. Some people said that in the middle of the range was a magic land where all sorts of mythical creatures lived, and other said that there was an entrance to the underworld there. Some said that there was secret passageway to the far side hidden somewhere, and others said that there were giant birds that lived there that would give you a ride to the other side if you could catch one. Of course, you had to get into the mountains to catch one first, so no one had ever done this. There were tales, too, of terrible monsters that lived there that could walk through rocks and climb sheer rock faces that would sometimes come out of the mountains and wreak havoc in the lands beside the mountains.
The family that lived there, in the shadow of the mountains, didn’t say much about them. They kept a eye on the mountains, but never saw anything strange or magical or frightening come out of them They just stuck to making a living, picking up the bits of rock that fell from the mountains that were of a good size to make rock walls and houses, carving them into usable shapes, and transporting them to a town on the far side of the forest where there weren’t any rocks for building so that people were willing to pay good money for them.
This family had lived there for many generations, gathering rocks and selling them, and nothing had ever happened to any of them. They rarely told the stories about the mountains around their fire at night – they saw no point to it, as they could see for themselves that the mountains were just that -plain, boring oversized hunks of rock. As a result, the children never heard the stories unless they happened to go to the town on the far side of the forest with their parents.
When the little daughter of the family was five or so, she went along with her father on her first trip to town. The trip was long, for it took several days to get to the far side of the forest, and so she had never been before. She was astounded by all the people and the sights in town, and in the inn that night, she heard her first storyteller, and she was mesmerized. The storyteller was as good one, with many new and wonderful tales to tell, several of which were about the mountains at the back of the family’s home at the far side of the forest. The little girl listened, her mouth wide open as she hung on to every word. When her father came to take her to bed, she cried until he had to threaten her with no more trips to town if she kept it up. After he tucked her into bed, she dreamed dreams of the magic in the storyteller’s tales, magic on the other side of the mountain walls.
For years, while she was growing up, each time it was her turn to accompany her father or mother into town to sell the rocks, she would seek out the storyteller. She learned to ask for tales of the mountains and hung on each word the storyteller said. Her parents joked that she wasn’t expensive to take to town, as she never wanted to go into the shops, and they always knew where to find her.
The little daughter did not just listen to the stories, she believed them. Well, not all of them. There were some that were too far- fetched even for her to believe. But many of them seemed like they must be true, with magic laced through them and wonder filling them. At home, she began to creep off to search along the rock walls for a hidden entrance or some sign that the magic might be true. She was very careful not to let her family know what she was doing, for she was afraid they would make fun of her or even forbid her to explore. She kept her quest silent, all through the years of growing up.
By the time the daughter had reached the age of 17 or so, she began to look less often. Real life was taking up more and more of her time, and a young man from a house half way through the forest had begun to court her. She hadn’t looked for magic or ways into the mountains in quite some time, really.
One fine spring day, she was out with one of the pony cart, looking for nice rocks of a certain size and maybe a few spring greens for dinner if she could find some. She was humming a little tune she had heard on her last trip to town, not thinking of anything in particular and picking up rocks from an exceptionally nice and very recent rock fall she had come across.
As she pulled another rock from pile, she felt a slight breeze on her face. It came from the direction of the side of the mountain. Startled, she pulled back away from the rock face. As she pulled, the rock she was holding on to suddenly came with her and the rest of the pile shifted, revealing a small dark hole in the side of the rock face. A steady fresh breeze was blowing out of the hole. She sat there in shock with the rock on her lap, staring at the hole that no one had ever though could exist – a hole that quite clearly led to Somewhere Else.
Finally, she got her wits about her and, putting the rock aside, scrambled to her feet. She looked carefully at the hole. The fresh air was definitely coming from it. It was black as pitch inside, and she could see nothing. Carefully trying to avoid causing another slide that would hurt her and bury the hole once more, she set about moving rocks to make the hole larger. When the rocks had come down off the higher part of the mountain, they seemed to have crashed against this section of the mountain with enough force to break through a weak section of the wall, revealing this cave behind it. It didn’t take long to make the opening large enough to let in a little light and then to look inside. The cave floor appeared to be clear of rubble. This was good, for it meant that the cave wasn’t in the habit of collapsing. She could see a small chamber and a passage leading down and deeper into the mountain.
She was beside herself with excitement. This was what she had looked for all those years. The cave had to lead to somewhere, or there wouldn’t be a fresh breeze blowing from it.
She hurried to the pony cart and grabbed a candle stub out of a basket kept there. Then she paused and grabbed the basket itself. It was full of supplies for family members caught away from the house at night, with a blanket, package of waterproof matches, a small skin of water, and some journey cake and dried fruit. There was also a small length of rope in the basket, which was the sort designed to be worn on a person’s back. She though she would just go a little ways into the cave and see what it was like. She had to be home in a few hours, and didn’t want to worry anyone at home by being late. She wouldn’t do anything dangerous, she thought. She just wanted to have a little look at this cave she had been searching for since she was small.
When she entered the caves, the young woman lit her little candle and held it out as she looked around the room. The chamber was coated with a shiny, slippery looking stone which glistened in the light from her candle. The floor was rough in places, but fairly even as she walked across it. She touched the wall and was surprised to find it damp. Slowly she walked into the passageway and the next chamber.
While the cave may not have contained magic, it certainly contained wonders. There were rooms full of huge spears of stone hanging from the ceiling, and others rising up from the floor. Some rooms had crystal clear pools with ice-white eyeless fish swimming in them and others had strange looking walls covered with stony popcorn and rocky draperies. The colors varied, too, from the basic snowy white to rusty colors and greens and even blues. One room looked like a sunset as the colors shaded from top to bottom. She lost all track of time, exploring in those caves. A real sunset shaded the sky and it grew dark outside. Eventually, her pony grew hungry for his dinner, pulled his rope loose from the branch he was tethered to and took himself and his cart home to eat. When he arrived without his young mistress, the house went into an uproar. The young daughter was always home on time. They could only imagine that something terrible had occurred to her. Her brothers came boiling out of the house like upset bees, her sisters ran to get their own ponies from the stable, and the young man who was courting her ran out bellowing her name in a panic. Her parents grabbed whoever they could long enough to try to organize a search.
Blissfully unaware that she was causing a panic, Annalise (for that was her name) was staring at each new cavern full of wonders. The breeze was stronger now, and she knew that she must be near the other end of the caves. Just then, a puff of wind blew out her candle and she was left standing in the dark. Annoyed, she took off her basket and rummaged around in it feeling for the package of matches. As soon as she pulled the package out of the basket, though, it jumped from her hand and fell somewhere on the black floor in front of her. Grumbling, she knelt down and tried to ignore the rocks under the heavy canvas knees of her trousers as she felt around for the package. She moved slowly forward as she swept her hands along the floor in front of her, searching carefully by feel. The matches proved to be elusive, and she was nearly crying by the time she finally felt them in front of her. How they had bounced all that way, she didn’t know. As she sat back on her heels to re-light her candle, she noticed that the darkness to the side of her was a little less black. It almost looked like night in that direction, instead of the absolute pitch-dark lightlessness of the caves. Then she saw some thing flit across it, looking a lot like a fire fly. Hurriedly she lit her candle once more, and, grabbing her basket, she walked quickly to the lighter patch of darkness.
Moments later, she stepped out of the caves into the night. It was a beautiful night, clear and full of stars with a bright moon overhead, and filled with the flitting of fireflies and other insects, including a huge green moth that came over to investigate Annalise’s candle flame.
She was on a steep hillside, with fir trees all around her; she could see down into a dark valley below. There were no lights, other than the fireflies, but the place wasn’t quiet. Annalise could hear all sort of insects, an owl, and then to her terror, something large crashing around in the woods. She backed slowly into the mouth of the cave again and blew out her candle. As she crouched there, several huge beasts with legs like tree trunks all covered with shaggy hair crashed by. They were enormous and had great curving white tusks in front and long appendages on their fronts. They looked a lot like the pictures of oliphants Annalise had seen in books, but oliphants weren’t so big and covered with hair. They were frightening beasts.
After the beasts had passed, Annalise relit her candle. That was when she realized that there was not enough of it left to see her safely back through the caves. She would have to go looking for something she could use as a torch – but that would need to wait until the sun was out in the morning. With a mental apology to her family for all the worry she must be causing them with her thoughtlessness, Annalise resigned herself to spending the night on the far side of the mountains. She was not going to sleep out there where huge beasts could step on her and never even notice, though. Annalise went a little deeper back into the cave and curled up under her blanket in a little niche in the wall. She fell asleep listening to the strange noises of the valley beyond the mountains.
Meanwhile, her family had followed the tracks of Annalise’s pony cart back to where the rock slide and cave were. They were shocked to see the hole in the mountainside, but knew immediately that this was where Annalise had gone.
“I only hope she went willingly and wasn’t dragged off by who knows what,” said her father grimly. The young man who was courting her was moving the rocks, trying to make an opening large enough for a grown man to enter. Annalise had slipped through a much smaller entrance. As he struggled to move one of the larger rocks, aided by some of Annalise’s brothers, they all heard a loud rumbling from above them. The rocks that had fallen in the original slide were apparently just the first to fall. With a curse, the young men ran to safety as more of the mountainside came crashing down, burying the entrance to the cave behind tons of debris.
Annalise awoke slowly, feeling very warm and cozy. Her mattress seemed quite lumpy this morning, but she was wonderfully warm, even though the early spring air was quite chilly. She stretched, opened her eyes, and was surprised to see a rocky ceiling above her until she remembered finding the cave entrance the day before. As she shifted slightly, a voice right beside her said, “Ah, I see you are awake now.” The warmth at her back moved, and a large grey wolf came into view.
Annalise crawled back into the very back of the niche in terror, clutching the blanket to her and screaming.
“Hush, child, you have no need to fear me.” The wolf was talking. Annalise stopped in mid-scream. If the wolf was talking, this must be a dream. Wolves didn’t talk. Annalise and the wolf stared at each other and then the wolf sat down and spoke again.
“You really are lucky you fell asleep in the cave, you know. If you had chosen to sleep outside, you wouldn’t have woken up as yourself. You would have been transformed into an animal while you slept, thanks to the sorcerer’s curse on the valley.”
“Huh?” Annalise thought this was a bit far-fetched, even for a dream. She reached down and pinched herself. It hurt. But she couldn’t be awake, could she?
“A curse,” repeated the wolf. “The same curse that turned me into a wolf, and all the other folks in the valley into other animals. Even though the sorcerer who created it is long dead, the curse lives on.” The wolf settled down and grinned a gape- mouthed lupine grin at Annalise. “I can see you don’t believe me and have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“This is just a dream. I’m still asleep. I have to be!” Annalise answered the wolf. “I thought there must be magic on the other side of the mountains, so I’m dreaming that there is!”
“Well, if you think this is a dream, you might as well hear the whole story,” the wolf laughed. “Listen well, girl child, while I tell you the story of the valley.”
“Once, long ago, how long I am not sure, for as an enchanted wolf, time flows differently, the valley was a happy and busy place. Magic abounded here, and the people of the valley traded with the people who lived on the other side of the mountains – magical wonders for natural wonders, things of many lands coming here in trade for the magical things we took for granted. It was a wonderful time, with plenty for all. There was a sorcerer, however, who had decided that he would wed the young daughter of the king of the valley. He thought she was beautiful, and wanted her hand more than anything else. The girl had other ideas, though. She was in love with another young man, and before the sorcerer could do anything to detain her, she ran off and wed her love in secret. The sorcerer found out and came after the young couple, but they disappeared for a while, out into the world beyond the mountains. Soon the young bride was with child, and wished to return to the valley to have her baby. As soon as she set foot in the valley, the sorcerer knew that she was back and he was furious. He met her half-way to the palace and confronted her.
‘How dare you wed another when you knew I wanted you!’ he roared, red faced with rage.
‘How dare YOU demand that I wed you when I did not love you or want to marry you!’ she shouted back at him. ‘I wed the man I wanted to, and it was no business of yours. Now begone and let us pass, so that we might go and see my parents.’
The sorcerer’s lip curled. ‘Your parents are gone. I took care of them myself, with my magic, as soon as I heard you were gone. Since they would not stop you and make you mine, they had to be punished. Now you will be punished, too.’ With that the sorcerer threw a bottle on the ground, where it broke, a thick orange smoke billowing from it. He laughed cruelly, and said, ‘Your disloyalty to me has sealed the fate of the entire valley. You shall be as lonely as I am, for all eternity!’ With that, the sorcerer disappeared, leaving the young woman sobbing in the arms of her young husband.
As he held her, though, she could feel something happening. He was changing, shrinking. She pulled back just in time to see him turn into a snake. As she stared at him in horror, he turned and slithered away, frightened.
The curse had turned everyone in the valley into creatures of various sorts. The young woman had not changed, to her surprise, and as she wandered through the valley that morning, she saw that the palace guards had become mammoths, like huge hairy oliphants, the bards and minstrels had become brightly plumaged birds while the sturdy farmers and their families were changed into equally sturdy donkeys and ponies. All the people of the valley, except the young woman, had been turned into creatures. The young woman wandered all day, and as the sun began to set, found herself by the entrance to the caves that connected to the world beyond the mountains. She felt a new pain now, and knew that the time to deliver her child was upon her. Alone in the cave and alone in the valley, she bore her child, a girl, and wrapped her up well. She laid the baby beside her and then, exhausted, fell asleep there in the mouth of the cave. Sometime while she slept, she moved slightly and one of her feet slipped out of the cave and into the open air of the valley exposing it to the curse still hanging there. As she slept, she too changed. She awoke to hear her daughter crying with hunger and turned to nurse her. To her horror, she could not care for her little daughter. She had become a wolf. Raising her head to the sky, she howled in sorrow, in fear, in loneliness. And in his tower, the sorcerer heard, and smiled.
The young woman turned wolf knew that the baby would not live if she did not find someone raise the child, so she did the only thing she could. She took the baby’s swaddling wraps in her jaws and carefully lifted the baby and carried her through the caves, back to the other side of the mountains.
She made directly for a small house near the mountains, because she remembered that the young woman of the house was also quite pregnant. Perhaps the woman would be willing to raise this child alongside her own. She laid her squalling daughter down on the doorstep and slipped into the trees to see what happened.
The door opened, and a woman looked out. Seeing the baby, she gasped and reached for it. The baby was taken inside, the door slammed shut, and the wolf went back into the cave. She returned several times over the next few days to make sure all was going well. Her daughter was being treated like a daughter of the house and was safe and well. The wolf realized that staying nearby would probably get her killed as a dangerous predator and came back through the cave to the valley.
Over the next few months, she watched the cave carefully. Traders came through the caves into the valley. As soon as they stopped to sleep, the curse took them and they became animals. A squirrel, a porcupine, a magnificent stag – all of the people transformed into some sort of creature. It bothered the young wolf-woman very much to see this happening, so she gathered all the magic she could find and all the magic she could use as a wolf, and went through the caves again. At the other side, she carefully wrought her magic, and the entrance to the cave disappeared. The rock wall became smooth, as if the cave had never been there. Sadly, the wolf-woman went back to the valley, all alone.”
Annalise looked at the wolf in front of her. “My great-great-great grandmother was a foundling,” she said, “and there were tales of a large wolf who was seen in the forest for a while about the time she was found.”
“Yes, I thought so. You have the look of my mother,” replied the wolf with a certain sadness.
“But, how could it be you! That was so long ago!” Annalise asked.
“It seems to be part of the magic spell,” the wolf said. “If I am to be lonely forever, forever needs to last, well, forever.”
“But surely the sorcerer would have relented eventually,” Annalise said.
“He might have, if he were still alive. He died a few years after he cursed the valley, all alone, in a fall down the stairs to his tower. Some cats who lived there (they used to be his servants, before the curse) told me that they could hear him screaming for help for several days. Of course, there was no one to help him.”
Annalise shuddered. “Is there no hope, then, ever?”
“Well you might ask. There may be, but none of us in the valley can do anything about it. As we are all animals, we can’t get into his tower to see what may be done.”
“None of the creatures have the ability to get in?”
“In his fear of vengeance, the sorcerer made the tower so that no animal could enter it. It is magically shielded from us as surely as if it were made of seamless steel. We have tried, all of us, and we cannot enter it.” The wolf shook her head, a very human gesture. “I think that perhaps there is a spell to break the curse therein, for the sorcerer was growing quite lonely in his last years. Still, I do not know.”
Annalise sat silently for a while. “It has been so very long. My world has begun to think that the land here never existed. I do find that strange, since there was once trade between the lands.”
The wolf replied, “No, for not all traveled here. The routes in were hidden to all but a few traders, lest we be overrun with people wishing to play with the magic, which is always a dangerous thing. It may be a side effect of the curse, as well, seeping out into the world beyond.”
Annalise looked at her, trying to get her head around the idea that this wolf had been a woman who was her ancestor. Finally, she spoke, “How far off is the tower? Do you think I could get into it?”
“Child, the tower is near, but I do not know what sorts of traps the sorcerer may have laid in it. It may not be safe, and I do not wish to endanger you.”
“If the tower is near, then I will go and try. The sorcerer was defending himself against animals, not other humans. I’m willing to bet that I can do it.”
“You know you may be gambling with your life, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. But I want to do it. If you won’t show me the way to the tower, then I’ll just go exploring until I find it myself,” Annalise added.
“Then let us waste no more time. I will show you the way. When you have seen it, you may wish to turn back. Then I will guide you through the caves to your home and seal the entrance shut once more, so that no one else can be harmed.”
They set off down the hillside, with the wolf telling her about the land as they went. Annalise told her some of the stories she had heard, and the wolf laughed at a few of them. Others she confirmed as being true. She pointed out magical creatures to Annalise as they went, too, some of which Annalise had never even heard of. Finally, the wolf said, “It is strange to think of my home as being nothing more than a tale in the world beyond. It is even stranger to think that so much time has passed. But there, look, the tower is just beyond that rise. You can see the top of it now.”
The tower was indeed just ahead, and Annalise began to feel quite nervous. At the top of the rise, she paused to look around her. While they had been walking and talking, all sorts of animals had joined them. Others had already gathered in the clearing around the tower. The great mammoths, colorful birds, squirrels, badgers, porcupines and deer, the cats and dogs, donkeys and ponies, birds and beasts of every kind. They were all there, waiting and hoping. How had they known, Annalise wondered. It must have been the magic here. The wolf beside her sat down with a great sigh and looked up at Annalise wordlessly. Annalise just looked back, and then nodded.
Annalise pushed through the throngs of animals to the base of the tower. Many murmured words of encouragement as she passed. At the head of the group was a large snake. Annalise had a feeling she knew who this was, and this was confirmed when the wolf came and sat down beside it.
None of the animals could come within ten feet of the tower, so she walked the last few steps alone. There was complete silence in the clearing as she approached the door.
Annalise put her hand on the doorknob and turned it. It turned and clicked with a rusty, dirty, grating sound. She pushed on the door and it move slightly. She tried again and put her shoulder into it. The door was stiff and warped with age, but finally it gave and she stumbled into the musty darkness inside. As daylight streamed through the door for the first time in two hundred years, the first thing that Annalise saw was the skeleton of the sorcerer at the bottom of the stairs. It was clear that both legs were badly broken. Annalise shuddered and stepped over it as quickly as she could. It was sad, but he had chosen his own fate. She mounted the stone stairs slowly, checking for surprises as she went.
“The workroom will be at the top!” The wolf called out one last instruction as Annalise slowly climbed the stairs. The first level and the second level were simply living quarters and Annalise moved quickly through these. The next level seemed to have been just a storeroom, full of dusty trunks and broken furniture. The top level was next. Annalise saw a heavy wooden door on the landing at the top of the stairs. There was no key hole, no lock, just a doorknob. Annalise slowly reached out to grasp it. Nothing happened, so she turned the knob carefully. This door had been protected from the elements, and opened with only a small creak.
The workroom was covered in dust – fortunately, the sorcerer had been a tidy sort of fellow, and so the dust was the worst of the mess. Annalise saw shelves of books and scrolls, more shelves of bottles and small boxes all carefully labeled, and dusty but otherwise clean glassware and strange apparatus on the wooden worktables. She went over to the windows and unlatched them, pushing them open to let in the clean spring breeze. A fresh gust of it burst through the windows and rushed through the room, blowing away much of the dust and leaving Annalise sneezing violently. It seemed that the land itself was trying to help lift the curse.
Annalise wandered around the room for a short while, getting an idea of what was there and where things were stored. Finally, she came upon a locked cabinet on the far wall. If she were the sorcerer, this was where she would keep something like the counter spell for the curse. Unfortunately, this cabinet was locked. The keyhole was a tiny thing, so the key could be hidden almost anywhere. She remembered that the skeleton had had a small pouch, nearly rotted through, strapped around its waist. Although she was not happy with the idea, she knew she needed to check this for the key.
Slowly, she made her way back down the stairs – she didn’t want to end up like the sorcerer had, broken and helpless at the bottom. When she got there, she carefully opened the little pouch, which fell apart in her hands. In it were a few coins, a miniature painting on a locket, and a tiny key. She put the other items in her pocket to examine later, and hurried back upstairs with the key.
The key fit into the lock perfectly, and the cabinet opened with a snick. The doors creaked open, and displayed there were row upon row of bottles, all carefully labeled in a faded, spidery script. Annalise sighed with resignation. This was going to take a while.
She leaned out of the window to let the waiting animals know what was going on, and then took a chair over to the cabinet.
Several hours later, she had found spells for growing hair on a bald spot, making flowers appear in thin air, speaking to someone miles away, changing the colors of one’s clothing, and cleaning one’s clothing while still wearing it. There were dozens of others, mostly frivolous, some truly useful. She was tempted to try the one for cleaning clothing, because she was filthy from her trip through the caves the day before.
The light was beginning to grow dim as she took the last bottles from the cabinet. She was very discouraged – perhaps there wasn’t a counter spell, after all. The last bottle came out – it was a spell for untangling your horse’s mane – and Annalise set it on the table beside her with tears in her eyes. She had failed.
She turned to leave the room, to go and break it to the animals that there was no hope for them, when something caught her eye. There was a mirror hanging on the wall which did not sit tight against the wall. It appeared to be raised, as if something were under it. Annalise reached out to take the edge and as soon as she touched the mirror, something odd happened. The image of herself swirled and she saw herself as a young child, as a daughter and sister. She saw, flashing past, major events in her life, things she wished she had never done and things she still laughed over. Tears came to her eyes, and she laughed at the same time. She saw the woman she had become and how she affected those around her. She even saw her beloved desperately moving rocks at the entrance to the caves, and her conscience pricked her. Finally she heard a voice saying, “Face yourself. Do you accept what you find here?”
Annalise held firmly onto the edge of the mirror, and answered, “Yes, I do. This is me, and I accept who I am.”
The mirror’s surface stopped swirling and disappeared. Where it had been was a single bottle. She reached in and took it. It was labeled, simply, “Counter Spell.”
Slowly, Annalise descended to the bottom once more. As she exited the door, the sun began to set on the horizon. She looked at the wolf, and the wolf told her, “Just open the bottle. If it works, we’ll know.”
Annalise took a deep breath and pulled the stopper from the bottle. A cloud of blue smoke rushed forth, and expanded to cover everything. Annalise could see nothing for a few seconds, and then the smoke cleared. Before her stood not a crowd of animals, but a crowd of humans, all smiling and staring at her in wonder. A great roar went up from the crowd, a roar of joy. People began laughing and crying and hugging one another. Annalise looked at the head of the crowd and saw a young woman who looked very like herself, and like the miniature she had in her pocket. Beside her was a young man who reminded her slightly of her father, which made since, since he was her great-great-great grandfather. They were smiling, with tears in their eyes, holding hands as if they would never let one another go again. As one, they turned to Annalise. “There is no way we can ever thank you enough,” they said. “You have given us back our lives.”
As the stars came out in the sky above them, a joyful escort led Annalise back to the caves. “What I don’t understand,” said Annalise, “is why the sorcerer would have stored the counter spell in such a way. He would have had to face himself to retrieve it, and that wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do”
“Perhaps that is the reason. He didn’t wish to use it, so he made it as hard as possible to reach it. He didn’t want to use it the first time he got lonely,” suggested the lovely young woman who was her ancestor.
“He was lonely, though. I found this in his belt pouch,” said Annalise, handing over the miniature and the coins.
“Yes, the picture is me, and the coins are those from lands we used to trade with,” came the reply.
“And will trade with once more!” someone else added.
When they reached the caves, someone just waved their arms and said a word, and lanterns in the walls lit up. “This is much better than a candle stub!” said Annalise.
The group walked through the caves, pointing out wonderful rock formations and strange sights as they went. When they came to the end, they could hear people digging on the far side of the wall.
Several of the people did a few mysterious things and suddenly the wall had a large opening in it. The folks digging on the other side were standing there in astonishment.
Annalise flew into their arms and hugging everyone she could reach, said, “Boy, do we have a tale to tell you!”
