The Story
- We now hear the history (or is it myth?) about the Valley (2.1). It explains why dudes can't go into the forest without barfing and why the north was sealed off from everywhere else by snow.
- Years ago, the Valley was controlled by the evil Empire that took everything from the Valley folks (2.6).
- The Empire was purportedly protecting the Valley folk against marauding tribes, but the imperial troops were just a ton of thieves (2.8).
- Foreigner Sonnam suggests that someone goes to ask the magician Asarta to block off the pass to the Empire (2.13)—way back in the day Asarta embarrassed the Emperor and stuck him in a cage (2.18) until she got the money she came for.
- A group of people went out looking for Asarta, but only two—Reyel Ortahlson and Dirna Urlasdaughter—kept on trucking (2.35). They overhear people talking about Asarta—"'Asarta? You have news of Asarta?'"—and find her in the desert (2.38).
- Asarta can't do much to help them—except give them bread and water that never die out (no biggie)—but sends them on to the capital city of Talak to find her friend/nemesis, the magician Faheel, to seal off the Valley (2.50). She gives them a ring to give to him. At night she transforms into a younger version of herself (2.54) and disappears.
- Faheel—Asarta's frenemy—tells Reyel and Dirna what they have to do (2.80). Reyel has to dump out his water in a stream near his house in the Valley and sing to the water, and his descendants gotta do the same (2.84). Dirna must sow barley in her fields and sing to the cedars (2.86). Finally, Faheel gave them peaches and Dirna plants her peach-seed in her own yard (2.89).
- The Empire's soldiers try to attack, but they can't because there's a glacier blocking the northern side (2.94) and their male soldiers can't go through the forest (2.98).
- The descendants of the Ortahlsons and Urlasdaughters continue to speak to the trees and sing to the rivers (2.104); the peach tree that grew from the seed was carved into a magical spoon (2.105).