Wood Dolls

I

2000 year before

Across the barren wasteland full of rocks and stale water, scarce of even weeds and thorns, a man dressed in black with a long strip of red satin on the inside flaps of his coat walked with a stick he was playfully using as a walking stick. This man was known as the several hundred year old Magician, making him rather young. It was a curious thing to him, something he had never seen nor ever expected to see in his entire life: a young girl sitting or lying in the distance wrapped in a blanket. She wasn't a baby or small child that might have been abandoned there by her mother. As he came closer, it was not hard to tell that she was there of her own, ragged will.

"Eh! Hello, there! What's a little girl doing out here in the cold, rocky, wasteland all alone?" asked the Magician to the child.

"I'm Marya, Magician, don't you know me," she replied holding her blanket tighter to her to shield her from the sharp, cold wind that blew across the land.

"Ho-hmm," the Magician cleared his throat and peered at her, "I'm sorry my dear, but I do not know you."

The girl looked desperate, "Oh, but you do! Please, you do. You came to my parent's annual dinner, I knew you in Tiaos: you were a toy-maker. You gave me a doll that ended up being a prince, Prince Kristopher of Caelindium, who was under a curse! You must remember! You brought me here!"

"Did I then? I did not know that. Hmmmm...." the man thought for a moment before looking at the girl again with a swing of his walking stick to his shoulder before bringing it down again and tapping a rock, "Well, do you know where you are, my dear?" Marya shook her head despondently, her heart sinking deeper into miserable chasms. "You are in the land of the past. I do not know you, darling, but I reckon my future does. We better be off then." Enough puzzle pieces had fallen into place for him to help the child and his last sentence immediately brightened the girl's face as she seemed filled with renewed willpower.

"Where are we going?" Marya jumped up, grabbed her other blanket, and came along beside him as he started off decidedly in the west direction.

"To the future, child! To your present! I don't suppose you know that the Magicians are twisters of time?" he looked at her with an arched brow. Marya shook her head. "Yes, that we are. It is a terrible business, though, and twisting is the only appropo word for such an act. However, my future self must have deemed the world in such a danger as to count it important, for he separated future, or past as it may be, from present so that you have met me."

"Why would you do that?" his little companion asked curiously.

The Magician eyed her again. "You don't look very much like a hero, do you, my dear?" Marya shook her head again. "No, no you don't. You can't be more than nine years old!"

"I am thirteen now - " the girl answered.

"Thirteen? You do not look it. Nevermind that, I shall take you to where you will continue your journey, then I shall close the gap. You do not want to be trapped in the past, Marya, or you will have to wait on time to bring you back to your place and you would not live that long and all would be lost."

"Thank you, Sir," Marya trotted along to keep up with his quick step.

Chapter I

"Will you be inviting the toymaker?" Marya's Tiaosian mother asked.

"I suppose we must," Marya's father answered, "He shall add some - flare to the party I dare say."

"Don't be so grim, my dear," Marya's mother rested her hands on her husband's shoulders from behind, "Edmund will bring lovely presents for the children if we ask him."