The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

She nodded. "Maybe. I think so."

"But you didn't know my thoughts just now?"

"No. The Gift is not like that, exactly. It's more like going with Mamut when he Searched. Or, like going to deep places, and far places."

"Spirit worlds?"

"I don't know."

Jondalar looked into the air over her head, considering the implications. Then he shook his head, looked at her with a grim smile. "I think it must be the Mother's joke on me," he said. "The first woman I loved was called to Serve Her, and I didn't think I'd ever love again. And now when I have found a woman to love, she turns out to be destined to Serve Her. Will I lose you, too?"

"Why should you lose me? I don't know if I'm destined to Serve Her. I don't want to Serve anyone. I just want to be with you, and share your hearth, and have your babies," Ayla objected vociferously.

"Have my babies?" Jondalar said, surprised at her choice of words. "How can you have my babies? I won't have babies, men don't have children. The Great Mother gives children to women. She may use a man's spirit to create them, but they're not his. Except to provide for, when his mate has them. Then they are the children of his hearth."

Ayla had talked about it before, about men starting the new life growing inside a woman, but he hadn't fully realized, then, that she truly was a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth. That she could visit spirit worlds, and might be destined to Serve Doni. Maybe she did know something.

"You can call my babies children of your hearth, Jondalar. I want my babies to be the children of your hearth. I just want to be with you, always."

"I want that, too, Ayla. I wanted you, and your children, even before I met you. I just didn't know I would find you. I only hope the Mother doesn't start any growing inside you until we get back."

"I know, Jondalar," Ayla said. "I would rather wait, too."

Ayla took their cups and rinsed them out, then finished her preparations for an early start, while Jondalar packed everything except their sleeping furs. They cuddled together, pleasantly tired. The Zelandonii man watched the woman beside him breathing quietly, but sleep eluded him.

My children, he was thinking. Ayla said her babies would be my children. Were we making life begin when we shared Pleasures today? If any new life started from that, then it would have to be very special, because those Pleasures were ... better than any ... ever...

Why were they better? It isn't as though I never did any of those things before, but with Ayla, it's different ... I never get tired of her ... she makes me want her more and more ... just thinking about her makes me want her again ... and she thinks I know how to Pleasure her...

But what if she gets pregnant? She hasn't yet ... maybe she can't. Some women can't have children. But she did have a son. Could it be me?

I lived with Serenio for a long time. She didn't get pregnant all the time I was there, and she had a child before. I might have stayed with the Sharamudoi if she'd had children ... I think. Just before I left, she said she thought she might be pregnant. Why didn't I stay? She said she didn't want to be mated to me, even though she loved me, because I didn't love her the same way. She said I loved my brother more than any woman. But I did care for her, maybe not the way I love Ayla, but if I had really wanted to, I think she would have mated me. And I knew it then. Did I use it as an excuse to leave? Why did I leave? Because Thonolan left and I was worried about him? Is that the only reason?

If Serenio was pregnant when I left, if she had another child, would it have been started from the essence of my manhood? Would it be ... my child? That's what Ayla would say. No, that's not possible. Men don't have children, unless the Great Mother uses a man's spirit to make one. Of my spirit, then?"

When we get there, at least I'll know if she had a baby. How would Ayla feel about it, if Serenio has a child that might somehow be a part of me? I wonder what Serenio will think when she sees Ayla? And what will Ayla think of her?

13

Ayla was eager to be up and moving the next morning, though it was no less sultry than it had been the day before. As she struck sparks with flint from her firestone, she wished she didn't have to bother with a fire. The food she had set by the night before and some water would have been enough for their morning meal, and thinking about the Pleasures she and Jondalar had shared, she wished she could forget about Iza's magic medicine. If she didn't drink her special tea, maybe she could find out if they had started a baby. But Jondalar got so upset at the idea of her getting pregnant on this Journey, that she had to drink the tea.

The young woman didn't know how the medicine worked. She just knew that if she drank a couple of bitter swallows of a strong decoction of golden thread every morning until her moon time, and a small bowl of the liquid from boiled antelope sage root each day that she was bleeding, she didn't get pregnant.

It would not be so hard to take care of a baby while they were traveling, but she didn't want to be alone when she gave birth. She didn't know if she would have lived through Durc's birth if Iza hadn't been there.

Ayla slapped a mosquito on her arm, then checked her supply of herbs while the water was heating. She had enough of the ingredients of her morning tea to last a while, which was just as well, since she had not noticed any of those plants growing around the marsh. They liked higher elevations and drier conditions. Checking the pouches and packages within her worn otter-skin medicine bag, she decided she had adequate quantities of most of the medicinal herbs that she needed in case of emergency, though she would have liked to replace some of last year's harvest with fresher plants. Fortunately she hadn't had much occasion to use her healing herbs so far.

Shortly after they started traveling west again, they came to a fairly large, fast stream. As Jondalar unfastened the pack baskets that hung down quite low on Racer's flanks, and loaded them into the bowl boat mounted on the travois, he took the time to study the rivers. The small river joined the Great Mother at a sharp angle, from upstream.

"Ayla, do you notice how this tributary comes into the Mother? It just

goes straight in and flows downstream without even spreading out. I think this is the cause of that fast current we got caught in yesterday."

"I think you are right," she said, seeing what he meant. Then she smiled at the man. "You like to know the reasons for things, don't you?"

"Well, water doesn't suddenly start running fast for no reason. I thought there had to be an explanation."

"You found it," she said.