Plains of Passage (120 page)

Small animals moved freely along beaten tracks they had made beneath the trees, but large game forged trails by main force. Jondalar decided to veer away from the unnamed small stream they had been following, one of many that would eventually form the beginning of a great river, and take a game trail through the thick fringe of dwarfed conifers.

As they approached the timberline, the trees thinned out and they could see the region beyond that was completely bereft of upright woody growths. But life is tenacious. Low-growing shrubs and herbs, and extensive fields of grassy turf, partly buried under a blanket of snow, still flourished.

Though much more expansive, similar regions existed in the low elevations of the northern continents. Relict areas of temperate deciduous trees were maintained in certain protected areas and at the lower latitudes, with hardier needled evergreens appearing in the boreal regions to the north of them. Farther north, where they existed at all, trees were usually dwarfed and stunted. Because of the extensive glaciers, the counterparts of the high meadows that surrounded the perpetual ice of the mountains were the vast steppes and tundras, where only those plants that could complete their life cycles quickly survived.

Above the timberline many hardy plants adapted to the harshness of the environment. Ayla, leading her mare, noticed the changes with interest, and she wished she had more time to examine the differences. The mountains in the region where she had grown up were much farther south, and because of the warming influence of the inland sea, the vegetation was primarily of the cold temperate variety. The plants that existed in the higher elevations of the bitterly cold arid regions were fascinating to her.

Stately willows, which graced nearly every river, stream, or brook that sustained even a trace of moisture, grew as low shrubs, and tall sturdy birches and pines became prostrate woody growths that crawled along the ground. Blueberries and bilberries spread out as thick carpets, only four inches high. She wondered if, like the berries that grew near the northern glacier, they bore full-size but sweeter and wilder fruits. Though the bare skeletons of withered branches gave evidence of many plants, she didn’t always know what variety they were, or how familiar plants might be different, and she wondered how the high meadows would look in warmer seasons.

Traveling in the dead of winter, Ayla and Jondalar did not see the spring and summer beauty of the highlands. No wild roses or rhododendrons colored the landscape with blooms of pink; no crocuses or anemones, or beautiful blue gentians, or yellow narcissus were tempted to brave the harsh wind; and no primroses or violets would burst with polychrome splendor until the first warmth of spring. There were no bellflowers, rampions, worts, groundsels, daisies, lilies, saxifrages, pinks, monkshoods, or beautiful little edelweiss to ease the bitter cold monotony of the freezing fields of winter.

But another, more awesome sight filled their view. A dazzling
fortress of gleaming ice lay athwart their path. It blazed in the sun like a magnificent, many-faceted diamond. Its sheer crystalline white glowed with luminous blue shadows that hid its flaws: the crevasses, tunnels, caves, and pockets that riddled the gigantic gem.

They had reached the glacier.

As the travelers neared the crest of the worn stump of the primordial mountain that bore the flat-topped crown of ice, they weren’t even sure if the narrow mountain stream beside them was still the same river that had been their companion for so long. The diminutive trail of ice was indistinguishable from the many frozen little waterways waiting for spring to release their cascading flows to race down the crystalline rocks of the high plateau.

The Great Mother River they had followed all the way from her broad delta where she had emptied into the inland sea, the great waterway that had guided their steps over so much of their arduous Journey, was gone. Even the ice-locked hint of a wild little stream would soon be left behind. The travelers would no longer have the comforting security of the river to show them the way. They would have to continue their Journey west by dead reckoning, with only the sun and stars to act as guides, and landmarks that Jondalar hoped he would remember.

Above the high meadow, the vegetation was more intermittent. Only algae, lichens, and mosses that were typical of rocks and scree could derive a struggling existence beyond the cushion plants and a few other rare species. Ayla had begun to feed the horses some of the grass they carried for them. Without their heavy, shaggy coats and thick undercoat, neither horses nor wolf would have survived, but nature had adapted them to the cold. Lacking fur of their own, the humans had made their own adaptations. They took the furs of the animals they hunted; without them they would not have survived. But then, without the protection of furs and fire, their ancestors would never have come north in the first place.

Ibex, chamois, and mouflon were at home in mountain meadows, including those in more precipitous rugged regions, and frequented higher ground, though usually not so late in the season, but horses were an anomaly at this high elevation. Even the gentler slopes of the massif did not usually encourage their kind to climb so high, but Whinney and Racer were sure-footed.

The horses, with their heads bent low, plodded up the incline at the base of the ice hauling supplies and brownish-black burning stones that would mean the difference between life and death for all of them. The humans, who led the horses to places they would not ordinarily go, were looking for a level spot to set up a tent and make camp.

They were all weary of fighting the intense cold and sharp wind, of climbing the steep terrain. It was exhausting work. Even the wolf was content to stay close rather than to run off and explore.

“I’m so tired,” Ayla said as they were trying to set up camp with gusty winds blowing. “Tired of the wind, and tired of the cold. I don’t think it’ll ever get warm again. I didn’t know it could be so cold.”

Jondalar nodded, acknowledging the cold, but he knew the cold they had yet to face would be worse. He saw her glance at the great mass of ice, then look away as though she didn’t want to see it, and he suspected she was concerned with more than cold.

“Are we really going to go across all that ice?” she asked, finally acknowledging her fears. “Is it possible? I don’t even know how we’re going to get up to the top.”

“It’s not easy, but it’s possible,” Jondalar said. “Thonolan and I did it. While there is still light, I’d like to look for the best way to get the horses up there.”

“It feels like we’ve been traveling forever. How much farther do we have to go, Jondalar?”

“It’s still a way to the Ninth Cave, but not too far, not near as far as we have come, and once we get across the ice, it’s only a short distance to Dalanar’s Cave. We’ll stop there for a while; it will give you a chance to meet him, and Jerika and everyone—I can hardly wait to show Dalanar and Joplaya some of the flint-knapping techniques I learned from Wymez—but even if we stay and visit, we should be home before summer.”

Ayla felt distressed. Summer! But this is winter, she thought. If she had really understood how long the Journey would be, she wondered if she would have been so eager to go with Jondalar all the way back to his home. She might have tried harder to persuade him to stay with the Mamutoi.

“Let’s go take a closer look at that glacier,” Jondalar said, “and plan the best way to get up on it. Then we should make sure we have everything and are ready to cross the ice.”

“We’ll have to use some of the burning stones to make a fire tonight,” Ayla said. “There’s nothing to burn around here. And we’ll have to melt ice for water … we shouldn’t have any trouble finding enough of that.”

Except for a few shaded pockets of negligible accumulation, there was no snow in the area where they camped, and there had been very little for most of their trek up the slope. Jondalar had only been that way once before, but the whole area seemed much drier than he remembered. He was right. They were in the rain shadow of the highland, the back side; the sparse snows that did fall in the region usually
arrived a little later, after the season had begun to turn. He and Thonolan had run into a snowstorm on their way down.

During the winter, the warmer, water-laden air, riding the prevailing winds coming from the western ocean, rose up the slopes until it reached the large level area of cold ice with high pressure centered over it. Having the effect of a giant funnel that was aimed at the high massif, the moist air cooled, condensed, and turned to snow, which fell only on the ice below, feeding the hungry maw of the demanding glacier.

The ice covering the entire worn and rounded top of the ancient massif spread the precipitation over the whole area, creating a nearly level surface, except at the periphery. The cooled air, milked dry of liquid, dropped low and raced down the sides, bringing no snow beyond the edges of the ice.

As Jondalar and Ayla hiked around the base of the ice looking for the easiest way up, they noticed areas that seemed newly disturbed, with dirt and rocks gouged up by prongs of advancing ice. The glacier was growing.

In many areas, the ancient rock of the highland was exposed at the foot of the glacier. The massif, folded and uplifted by the immense pressures that had created the mountains to the south, had once been a solid block of crystalline granite that incorporated a similar highland to the west. The forces that pushed against the immovable old mountain, the most ancient rock on earth, left evidence in the form of a great rift, a fault that had cleaved the block asunder.

Directly across toward the west, on the opposite side of the glacier, the massif’s western slope was steep, and matched by an east-facing parallel edge across the rift valley. A river flowed along the middle of the broad valley floor of the fault trough protected by the high parallel sides of the cracked massif. But Jondalar planned to head southwest, to cross the glacier diagonally and come down a more gradual grade. He wanted to cross the river nearer its source high in the southern mountains, before it flowed around the glaciered massif and through the rift valley.

   “Where did this come from?” Ayla asked, holding up the object in question. It consisted of two oval wooden disks mounted in a frame that held them rigid and fastened fairly close together, with leather thongs attached to the outside edges. A thin slit was cut the long way down the middle of the wooden ovals for almost the fall length, nearly dividing them in half.

“I made it before we left. I have one for you, too. It’s for your eyes. Sometimes the glare of the ice on the glacier is so bright that you can’t see anything but white—people call it snow-blind. The blindness
usually goes away after a while, but your eyes can get awfully red and sore. This will protect your eyes. Go ahead, put it on,” Jondalar said. Then, seeing her fumble with them, he added, “Here, I’ll show you.” He put the unusual sunshields on and tied the thongs behind his head.

“How can you see?” Ayla asked. She could just barely make out his eyes behind the long horizontal slits, but she put on the pair he gave her. “You can see almost everything! You just have to turn your head to see to the side.” She was surprised; then she smiled. “You look so funny with your big blank eyes, like some kind of strange spirit … or a bug. Maybe the spirit of a bug.”

“You look funny, too,” he said, smiling back, “but those bug eyes could save your life. You need to see where you are going up on the ice.”

“These mouflon-wool boot liners from Madenia’s mother have been so nice to have,” Ayla commented as she put them in a handy place to get at them easily. “Even when they’re wet, they keep your feet warm.”

“We may be grateful to have the extra pair when we’re on the ice, too,” Jondalar said.

“I used to stuff my foot-coverings with sedge grass, when I lived with the Clan.”

“Sedge grass?”

“Yes. It keeps your feet warm and dries fast.”

“That’s useful to know,” Jondalar said, then picked up a boot. “Wear the boots with the mammoth-hide soles. They’re almost waterproof and they’re tough. Sometimes ice can be sharp, and they’re rough enough so you won’t slip, especially on the way up. Let’s see, we’ll need the adze to chop up ice.” He put the tool on top of a pile he was making. “And rope. Good strong cord, too. We’ll need the tent, sleeping furs, food, of course. Can we leave some of the cooking equipment? We won’t need much on the ice, and we can get more from the Lanzadonii.”

“We’ll be using traveling food. I won’t be cooking, and I decided to use the big skin pot attached to the frame that we got from Solandia to melt the ice for water, and put it directly over the fire. It’s faster that way, and we don’t have to boil the water. Just melt it,” Ayla said.

“Be sure to keep a spear with you.”

“Why? There are no animals on the ice, are there?”

“No, but you can use it to prod ahead of you to make sure the ice is solid. What about this mammoth hide?” Jondalar asked. “We’ve carried this with us ever since we started out, but do we need it? It’s heavy.”

“It’s a good hide, nice and pliable now, and a good waterproof cover for the bowl boat. You said it snows on the ice.” She really hated to throw it away.

“But we can use the tent as a cover.”

“That’s true … but,” Ayla said, pursing her lips, considering … Then she noticed something else. “Where did you get those torches?”

“From Laduni. We’ll be up before sunrise and will need light to pack. I want to reach the top of the plateau before the sun is very high, while everything is still frozen solid,” Jondalar said. “Even when it’s this cold, the sun can melt the ice a little and it will be difficult enough to reach the top.”

They went to bed early, but Ayla couldn’t fall asleep. She was nervous and excited. This was the glacier that Jondalar had talked about from the beginning.

   “Wha … What’s wrong?” Ayla said, startled wide awake.

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s time to get up,” Jondalar said, holding up the torch. He pushed the handle into the gravel to support it, then handed her a cup of steaming tea. “I started a fire. Here’s some tea.”