The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children 2)

“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 Clave, 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 y

ou’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.

19

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.