The Valley of Horses (54 page)

Thonolan didn’t know it, but when he ceased struggling, he didn’t sink as fast. When he stretched out to reach for his brother’s hand, he spread out into a more horizontal position, displacing his weight over the water-filled, loose, silty sand, almost as though floating on water. He reached until they touched fingers. Jondalar inched forward until he had a firm grasp.

“That’s the way! Hold on to him! We’re coming!” said a voice speaking Mamutoi.

Jondalar’s breath exploded, his tension punctured. He discovered he was shaking but held Thonolan’s hand firmly. In a few moments, a rope was passed to Jondalar to tie around his brother’s hands.

“Relax now,” Thonolan was instructed. “Stretch out, like swimming. You know how to swim?”

“Yes.”

“Good! Good! You relax, we will pull.”

Hands pulled Jondalar back from the edge of the quicksand and soon had Thonolan out as well. Then they all followed a woman who prodded the ground with a long pole
to avoid other sinkholes. Only after they reached solid ground did anyone seem to notice that the two men were entirely naked.

The woman who had directed the rescue stood back and scrutinized them. She was a big woman, not so much tall or fat as burly, and she had a bearing that commanded respect. “Why do you have nothing on?” she asked finally. “Why are two men traveling naked?”

Jondalar and Thonolan looked down at their nude, mud-caked bodies.

“We got in the wrong channel; then a log hit our boat,” Jondalar began. He was feeling uncomfortable, unable to stand straight.

“After we had to dry our clothes, I thought we might as well take them off to swim the channel, and then to cross the mud. I was carrying them, ahead because Jondalar was hurt, and …”

“Hurt? One of you is hurt?” the woman asked.

“My brother,” Thonolan said. At the mention of it, Jondalar became acutely aware of the aching, throbbing pain.

The woman saw him blanch. “Mamut must see to him,” she said to one of the others. “You are not Mamutoi. Where did you learn to speak?”

“From a Mamutoi woman living with the Sharamudoi, my kin,” Thonolan said.

“Tholie?”

“Yes, you know her?”

“She is my kin, too. The daughter of a cousin. If you are her kin, you are my kin,” the woman said. “I am Brecie, of the Mamutoi, leader of the Willow Camp. You are both welcome.”

“I am Thonolan, of the Sharamudoi. This is my brother, Jondalar, of the Zelandonii.”

“Zel-an-don-yee?” Brecie said the unfamiliar word. “I have not heard of those people. If you are brothers, why are you Sharamudoi, and he this … Zelandonii? He does not look well,” she said, briskly dismissing further discussion until a more appropriate time. Then she said to one of the others, “Help him. I’m not sure he can walk.”

“I think I can walk,” Jondalar said, suddenly dizzy with pain, “if it’s not too far.”

Jondalar was grateful when one of the Mamutoi men took an arm while Thonolan supported the other.

•  •  •

“Jondalar, I would have gone long ago if you hadn’t made me promise to wait until you were well enough to travel. I’m leaving. I think you should go home, but I won’t argue with you.”

“Why do you want to go east, Thonolan? You’ve reached the end of the Great Mother River. Beran Sea, it’s right there. Why not go home now?”

“I’m not going east, I’m going north, more or less. Brecie said they will all be going north to hunt mammoth soon. I’m going ahead, to another Mamutoi Camp. I’m not going home, Jondalar. I’m going to travel until the Mother takes me.

“Don’t talk like that! You sound like you want to die!” Jondalar shouted, sorry the instant he said it for fear the mere suggestion would make it true.

“What if I do?” Thonolan shouted back. “What do I have to live for … without Jetamio.” His breath caught in his throat, and her name came out with a soft sob.

“What did you have to live for before you met her? You’re young, Thonolan. You have a long life ahead of you. New places to go, new things to see. Give yourself a chance to meet another woman like Jetamio,” Jondalar pleaded.

“You don’t understand. You’ve never been in love. There is no other woman like Jetamio.”

“So you’re going to follow her to the spirit world and drag me along with you!” He didn’t like saying it, but if the only way to keep his brother alive was to play on his guilt, he’d do it.

“No one asked you to follow me! Why don’t you go home and leave me alone.”

“Thonolan, everyone grieves when they lose people they love, but they don’t follow them to the next world.”

“Someday it will happen to you, Jondalar. Someday you’ll love a woman so much, you’d rather follow her to the world of the spirits than live without her.”

“And if it were me, now, would you let me go off alone? If I had lost someone I loved so much I wanted to die, would you abandon me? Tell me you would, Brother. Tell me you’d go home if I was sick to death with grief.”

Thonolan looked down, then into the troubled blue eyes of his brother. “No, I guess I wouldn’t leave you if I thought you were sick to death with grief. But you know, Big Brother”—he tried to grin but it was a contortion on his
pain-ravaged face—“if I decide to travel for the rest of my life, you don’t have to follow me forever. You are sick to death of traveling. Sometime you have to go home. Tell me, if I wanted to go home, and you didn’t, you’d want me to go, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I’d want you to go. I want you to go home now. Not because you want to, or even because I do. You need your own Cave, Thonolan, your family, people you’ve known all your life, who love you.”

“You don’t understand. That’s one way we’re different. The Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii is your home, it always will be. My home is wherever I want to make it, I am just as much Sharamudoi as I ever was Zelandonii. I just left my Cave, and people I loved as much as my Zelandonii family. That doesn’t mean I don’t wonder if Joharran has any children at his hearth yet, or if Folara has grown up to be as beautiful as I know she will be. I’d like to tell Willomar about our Journey and find out where he plans to go next. I still remember how excited I was when he returned from a trip. I’d listen to his stories and dream about traveling. Remember how he always brought something back for everyone? Me, and Folara, and you too. And always something beautiful for Mother. When you go back, Jondalar, take her something beautiful.”

The mention of familiar names filled Jondalar with poignant memories. “Why don’t you take her something beautiful, Thonolan? Don’t you think Mother wants to see you again?”

“Mother knew I wasn’t coming back. She said ‘Good journey’ when we left, not ‘Until you return.’ It’s you who must have upset her, perhaps more than you upset Marona.”

“Why would she be more upset about me than you?”

“I’m the son of Willomar’s hearth. I think she knew I’d be a traveler. She might not have liked it, but she understood. She understands all her sons—that’s why she made Joharran leader after her. She knows Jondalar is a Zelandonii. If you made a Journey alone, she’d know you would return—but you left with me, and I wasn’t going back. I didn’t know it when I left, but I think she did. She would want you to return; you’re the son of Dalanar’s hearth.”

“What difference does that make? They severed the knot long ago. They’re friends when they see each other at Summer Meetings.”

“They may be just friends now, but people still talk about Marthona and Dalanar. Their love must have been very special to be so long remembered, and you are all she has to remind her, the son born to his hearth. His spirit, too. Everyone knows that; you look so much like him. You have to go back. You belong there. She knew it, and so do you. Promise you’ll go back someday, Brother.”

Jondalar was uneasy about such a promise. Whether he continued to travel with his brother or decided to return without him, he would be giving up more than he wanted to lose. As long as he made no commitment either way, he felt he could still have both. A promise to return implied that his brother would not be with him.

“Promise me, Jondalar.”

What reasonable objection could he make. “I promise,” he acquiesced. “I will go home—someday.”

“After all, Big Brother,” Thonolan said with a smile, “someone has to tell them we made it to the end of the Great Mother River. I won’t be there, so you’ll have to.”

“Why won’t you be there? You could come with me.”

“I think the Mother would have taken me at the river—if you hadn’t begged Her. I know I can’t make you understand, but I know She will come for me soon, and I want to go.”

“You are going to try to get yourself killed, aren’t you?”

“No, Big Brother.” Thonolan smiled. “I don’t have to try. I just know the Mother will come. I want you to know I’m ready.”

Jondalar felt a knot tightening inside him. Ever since the quicksand accident, Thonolan had had a fatalistic certainty he was going to die soon. He smiled, but it wasn’t his old grin. Jondalar preferred the anger to this calm acceptance. There was no fight in him, no will to live.

“Don’t you think we owe something to Brecie and the Willow Camp? They’ve given us food, clothing, weapons, everything. Are you willing to take it all and not offer anything in return?” Jondalar wanted to make his brother angry, to know there was something left. He felt he’d been tricked into a promise that relieved his brother of his final obligation. “You are so sure the Mother has some destiny for you that you have stopped thinking of anyone but yourself! Just Thonolan, right? No one else matters.”

Thonolan smiled. He understood Jondalar’s anger and
could not blame him. How would he have felt if Jetamio had known she was going to die, and had told him?

“Jondalar, I want to tell you something. We were close …”

“Aren’t we still?”

“Of course, because you can relax with me. You don’t have to be so perfect all the time. Always so considerate …”

“Yes, I’m so good, Serenio wouldn’t even be my mate,” he said with bitter sarcasm.

“She knew you were leaving and didn’t want to get hurt any worse. If you had asked her sooner, she would have mated you. If you had even pushed her a little when you did ask, she would have—even knowing you didn’t love her. You didn’t want her, Jondalar.”

“So how can you say I’m so perfect? Great Doni, Thonolan, I wanted to love her.”

“I know you did. I learned something from Jetamio, and I want you to know it. If you want to fall in love, you can’t hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You’ll be hurt sometimes, but if you don’t, you’ll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it won’t matter, you’ll love her for exactly what she is.”

“I wondered where you were,” Brecie said, approaching the two brothers. “I’ve planned a little farewell feast for you since you’re determined to leave.”

“I feel an obligation, Brecie,” Jondalar said. “You’ve taken care of me, given us everything. I don’t think it’s right to leave without making some repayment.”

“Your brother has done more than enough. He hunted every day while you were recovering. He takes a few too many chances, but he’s a lucky hunter. You leave with no obligation.”

Jondalar looked at his brother, who was smiling at him.

Spring in the valley was a flamboyant outbreak of color dominated by vernal green, but an earlier break had been frightening and had subdued Ayla’s usual enthusiasm for the new season. After its late start, the winter was hard with heavier than normal snow. The early spring flooding carried off the melt with raging violence.

Surging through the narrow upstream gorge, the torrent crashed into the jutting wall with such force it shook the cave. The water level nearly reached the ledge. Ayla was concerned for Whinney. She could scramble up to the steppes if necessary, but it was too steep a climb for the horse, especially one so pregnant. The young woman spent several anxious days watching the seething stream creep higher as it surged against the wall, then eddied back and swirled around the outer edge. Downstream, half the valley was submerged and the brush along the small river’s usual course was completely inundated.

During the worst of the rampaging flood, Ayla sprang up with a jolt in the middle of the night, awakened by a muffled crack, like thunder, coming from beneath her. She was petrified. She didn’t know the cause until the flood subsided. The concussion of a large boulder colliding with the wall had sent shock waves through the stone of the cave. A piece of the rock barrier had broken under the impact, and a large section of the wall lay across the stream.

Forced to find a new way around the obstruction, the course of the stream changed. The breach in the wall became a convenient bypass, but it narrowed the beach. A large portion of the accumulated bones, driftwood, and beach stones had been washed away. The boulder itself, which seemed to be made of the same rock as the gorge, had lodged not far beyond the wall.

Yet, for all the rearranging of rock and uprooting of trees and brush, only the weakest had succumbed. Most perennial growth burst forth from established roots, and new sproutings filled every vacant niche. Vegetation quickly covered the raw scars of freshly exposed rock and soil, giving them the illusion of permanence. Soon, the recently altered landscape seemed as though it had always been that way.

Ayla adjusted to the changes. For every boulder or piece of driftwood used for a special purpose, she found a replacement. But the event left its mark on her. Her cave, and the valley, lost a measure of security. Each spring she went through a period of indecision—for if she was going to leave the valley and continue her search for the Others, it would have to be in spring. She needed to allow herself time to travel, and to look for some other place to settle for the winter if she did not find anyone.

This spring the decision was more difficult than ever. After her illness, she was afraid to get caught in late fall or early winter, but her cave didn’t seem as safe as it once had. Her illness had not only sharpened her perceptions of the danger of living alone, it had made her conscious of her lack of human companionship. Even after her animal friends had returned, they hadn’t filled the void in the same way. They were warm and responsive, but she could communicate with them only in simple terms. She could not share ideas or relate an experience; she could not tell a story or express wonder at a new discovery or a new accomplishment and receive an answering look of recognition. She had no one to allay her fears or console her griefs, but how much of her independence and freedom was she willing to exchange for security and companionship?