Plains of Passage (119 page)

Ayla noticed a collection of mushrooms at the base of a tree, and she knelt to examine them. They were frozen solid, caught by a sudden frost of the previous autumn that had never let up. But no snow had filtered in to betray the season. It was as though the time of harvest had been captured and held in suspension, preserved in the still cold forest. Wolf appeared beside her and pushed his muzzle into her ungloved hand. She rubbed the top of his head, noticed his steamy breath and then her own, and had a fleeting impression that their small company of travelers were the only things alive.

On the far side of the valley, the climb became precipitous and shimmery silver fir appeared, accented by stately deep green spruce. The long-needled pines became stunted with increasing elevation and finally disappeared, leaving the spruce and fir to march beside the Middle Mother.

As he rode, Jondalar’s thoughts kept returning to the Clan people they had met—he would never again be able to think about them as anything other than people. I need to convince my brother. Perhaps he could try to make contact with them—if he is still leader. When they stopped to rest and make some hot tea, Jondalar spoke his thoughts out loud.

“When we get home, I’m going to talk to Joharran about the Clan people, Ayla. If other people can trade with them, we could, too, and he should know that they are meeting with distant clans to discuss the troubles they are having with us,” Jondalar said. “It could mean trouble and I would not want to fight the likes of Guban.”

“I don’t think there is any hurry. It will take a long time for them to reach any decisions. Change is difficult for them,” Ayla said.

“What about trading—do you think they would be willing?”

“I think Guban would be more willing than most. He’s interested in knowing more about us, and he was willing to try the walking sticks, even if he wouldn’t ride the horses. Bringing home such an unusual woman from a faraway clan shows something about him, too. He was taking a chance, even if she is beautiful.”

“Do you think she is beautiful?”

“Don’t you?”

“I can see why Guban would think so,” Jondalar said.

“I guess what a man considers beautiful depends on who he is,” she said.

“Yes, and I think you are beautiful.”

Ayla smiled, making him all the more convinced of her beauty. “I’m glad you think so.”

“It is true, you know. Remember all the attention you got at the Mother Ceremony? Did I ever tell you how glad I was that you picked me?” he said, smiling at the memory.

She recalled something he had said to Guban. “Well, I belong to you, don’t I?” she said, then grinned. “It’s good that you don’t know Clan language too well. Guban would have seen that you were not speaking true when you said I was your mate.”

“No, he wouldn’t. We may not have had a Matrimonial yet, but in my heart, we are mated. It wasn’t a lie,” Jondalar said.

Ayla was moved. “I, too, feel that way,” she said softly, looking down because she wanted to show deference to the emotions that filled her. “I have since the valley.”

Jondalar felt such a fierce surge of love fill him that he thought he would burst. He reached for her and took her in his arms, feeling at that moment, with those few words, that he had experienced a Mating Ceremonial. It didn’t matter if he ever had one that would be recognized by his people. He would go through with it, to please Ayla, but he didn’t need it. He only needed to get her home safely.

A sudden gust of wind chilled Jondalar, driving away the flush of warmth he had felt and leaving him with a strange ambivalence. He got up and, walking away from the warmth of the small fire, took a deep breath. It left him gasping as the desiccating, freezing air seared his lungs. He ducked behind his fur hood and pulled it tight around his face to allow his body heat to warm the air he breathed. Though the last thing he wanted to feel was a warm wind, he knew such bitter cold was extremely dangerous.

To the north of them the great continental glacier had dipped southward, as though straining to encompass the beautiful icy mountains within its overwhelming frozen embrace. They were in the most frigid land on earth, between the glistening mountain tors and the immense northern ice, and it was the depths of winter. The air itself was sucked dry by the moisture-stealing glaciers greedily usurping every drop to increase their bloated, bedrock-crushing mass, building up reserves to withstand the onslaught of summer heat.

The battle between glacial cold and melting warmth for control of the Great Mother Earth was almost at a standstill, but the tide was
turning; the glacier was gaining. It would make one more advance, and reach its farthest southward point, before it was beaten back to polar lands. But even there, it would only bide its time.

   As they continued to mount the highland, each moment seemed colder than the one before. Their increasing altitude was bringing them inexorably closer to their rendezvous with ice. Fodder was getting harder for the horses to find. The sere withered grass near the stream of solid ice was flat against the frozen ground. The only snow was made up of hard dry stinging grains, whipped by driving wind.

They rode silently, but after they made camp and were cuddled together warmly within their tent, they talked.

“Yorga’s hair is beautiful,” Ayla said, snuggling into their furs.

“Yes, it is,” Jondalar said, with honest conviction.

“I wish Iza could have seen it, or anyone from Brun’s clan. They always thought my hair was so unusual, though Iza always said it was my best feature. It used to be light like hers, but it’s darker now.”

“I love the color of your hair, Ayla, and the way it falls in waves when you wear it loose,” Jondalar commented, touching a strand next to her face.

“I didn’t know people of the Clan lived so far away from the peninsula.”

Jondalar could tell her mind was not on hair, or on anything close and personal. She was thinking about the Clan people, as he had been earlier.

“Guban looks different, though. He seems … I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. His brows are heavier, his nose is bigger, his face is more … out. Everything about him seems more … pronounced, more Clan, in a way. I think he is even more muscular than Brun was. He didn’t seem to notice the cold as much, either. His skin was warm to the touch even when he was lying on the frozen ground. And his heart beat faster.”

“Maybe they’ve gotten used to cold. Laduni said a lot of them live north of here, and it hardly gets warm at all up there, even in summer,” Jondalar said.

“You may be right. They think alike, though. What made you tell Guban you were repaying a kinship debt to the Clan? It was the best argument you could have made.”

“I’m not sure. It’s true, though. I do owe my life to the Clan. If they hadn’t taken you in, you wouldn’t be alive, and then neither would I.”

“And by giving him that cave bear tooth, you could not have given him a better token. You were quick to understand their ways, Jondalar.”

“Their ways are not so different. The Zelandonii are careful about obligations, too. Any obligations left unpaid when you go to the next
world can give the one you owe control over your spirit. I’ve heard that a few of Those Who Serve the Mother try to keep people in their debt, so they can control their spirits, but it’s probably just talk. Just because people say things doesn’t mean they’re true,” the man said.

“Guban believes that his spirit and yours are now intertwined, in this life and the next. A piece of your spirit will always be with him, just as a piece of his will always be with you. That’s why he was so concerned. He lost his piece when you saved his life, but you gave him one back, so there is no hole, no emptiness.”

“I wasn’t the only one who saved his life. You did as much as I did, and more.”

“But I am a woman, and a woman of the Clan is not the same as a man of the Clan. It is not an even exchange because one cannot do what the other does. They don’t have the memories for it.”

“But you set his leg and fixed it so he could get back.”

“He would have gotten back; I wasn’t worried about that. I was afraid his leg wouldn’t heal right. Then he wouldn’t be able to hunt.”

“Is it so bad not to hunt? Couldn’t he do something else? Like those S’Armunai boys?”

“The status of a Clan man depends on his ability to hunt, and his status means more to him than his life. Guban has responsibilities. He has two women at his hearth. His first woman has two daughters, and Yorga is pregnant. He promised to care for all of them.”

“What if he can’t?” Jondalar asked. “What will happen to them?”

“They wouldn’t starve, his clan would take care of them, but their status—the way they live, their food and clothes, the respect they are shown—depends on his status. And he would lose Yorga. She’s young and beautiful, another man would be glad to take her, but if she has the son Guban has always wanted, she would take him with her.”

“What happens when he gets too old to hunt?”

“An old man can give up hunting slowly, gracefully. He would go to live with the sons of his mate, or the daughters if they were still living with the same clan, and he wouldn’t be a burden on the whole clan. Zoug developed his skill with a sling so he could still contribute, and even Dorv’s advice was still valued, though he could hardly see. But Guban is a man in his prime, and a leader. To lose it all at once would take the heart out of him.”

Jondalar nodded. “I think I understand. Not hunting wouldn’t bother me so much. I would hate it, though, if something happened to me so that I couldn’t work the flint any more.” He paused to reflect, then said, “You did a lot for him, Ayla. Even if Clan women are different, shouldn’t that count for something? Couldn’t he at least acknowledge it?”

“Guban expressed his gratitude to me, Jondalar, but it was subtle, as it had to be.”

“It must have been subtle. I didn’t see it,” Jondalar said, looking surprised.

“He communicated directly to me, not through you, and he paid attention to my opinions. He allowed his woman to speak to you, which acknowledged me as her equal, and since he has a very high status, so was hers. He thought very highly of you, you know. Paid you a compliment.”

“He did?”

“He thought your tools were well made and he admired your workmanship. If he hadn’t, he would not have accepted the walking sticks, or your token,” Ayla explained.

“What would he have done? I accepted his tooth. I thought it was a strange gift, but I understood his meaning. I would have accepted his token, no matter what it was.”

“If he had felt it was not appropriate, he would have refused it, but that token was more than a gift. He accepted a serious obligation. If he did not respect you, he would not have accepted your spirit piece in exchange for his; he values his too much. He would rather have an emptiness, a hole, than accept a piece of an unworthy spirit.”

“You’re right. There are many subtleties to those Clan people, shades of meaning within shades of meaning. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to sort it all out,” Jondalar said.

“Do you think the Others are any different? I still have trouble understanding all the shades within shades,” Ayla said, “but your people are more tolerant. Your people do more visiting, more traveling than the Clan, and they are more used to strangers. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes, but I think your people have overlooked them because I’m a visitor and they realize the customs of my people may be different.”

“Ayla, my people are your people, too,” Jondalar said, gently.

She looked at him as if she didn’t quite understand him at first. Then she said, “I hope so, Jondalar. I hope so.”

   The spruce and fir trees were thinning out and becoming stunted as the travelers climbed, but even though they could see past the vegetation, their route along the river took them beside outcrops and through deep valleys that blocked their view of the heights around them. At a bend in the river, an upland stream fell into the Middle Mother, which itself came from higher ground. The marrow-chilling air had caught and stilled the waters in the act of falling, and the strong dry winds had sculpted them into strange and grotesque shapes. Caricatures of living creatures captured by frost, poised to begin a headlong flight down the
course of the long river, seemed to be waiting impatiently, as if knowing the turning of the season, and their release, was not far off.

The man and woman led the horses carefully over the jumbled broken ice, and around to the higher ground of the frozen waterfall, then stopped, spellbound, as the massive plateau glacier loomed into view. They had caught glimpses of it before; now it seemed close enough to touch, but the stunning effect was misleading. The majestic, brooding ice with its nearly level top was farther away than it seemed.

The frozen stream beside them was unmoving, but their eyes followed its tortuous route as it twisted and turned, then ducked out of sight. It reappeared higher up, along with several other narrow channels spaced at irregular intervals that leaked off the glacier like a handful of silvery ribbons trimming the massive cap of ice. Far mountains and nearer ridges framed the plateau with their rugged, sharp-edged, frozen tops, so starkly white their undertones of glacial blue seemed only to reflect the clear deep hue of the sky.

The twin high peaks to the south, which for a while had accompanied their recent travels, had long since passed from view. A new high pinnacle that had appeared farther west was receding to the east, and the summits of the southern range that had traced their path still showed their glistening crowns.

To the north were dual ridges of more ancient rock, but the massif that had formed the northern edge of the river valley had been left behind at the bend where the river turned back from its most northern point, before the place where they had met the people of the Clan. The river was closer to the new highland of limestone that had taken over as the northern boundary as they climbed southwest, toward the river’s source.

The vegetation continued to change as they ascended. Spruce and silver fir gave ground to larch and pine on the acid soils that thinly covered the impervious bedrock, but these were not the stately sentinels of lower elevations. They had reached a patch of mountainous taiga, stunted evergreens whose crowns held a covering of hard-packed snow and ice that was cemented to the branches for most of the year. Though quite dense in places, any shoot brave enough to project above the others was quickly pruned by wind and frost, which reduced the tops of all the trees to a common level.