The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

Thick moss covered the ground in a seamless blanket of green and climbed over boulders, spread over the rounded shapes of ancient trees long fallen, and circled disintegrating standing stumps and living trees impartially. The large wolf running ahead jumped up on a mossy log. He broke through the ancient rotted core that was slowly dissolving back into the soil, exposing writhing white grubs surprised by the light of day. The man and woman soon dismounted to make it easier to find their way across a forest floor littered with the remnants of life and its regenerating offspring.

Seedlings sprouted from mossy rotting logs, and saplings vied for a place in the sun where a lightning-struck tree had taken several more down with it. Flies buzzed around the nodding, pink-flowered spikes of wintergreen in the bright rays that reached the forest floor through a break in the canopy. The silence was uncanny; the smallest sounds were amplified. They spoke in whispers for no reason.

Fungus was rampant; mushrooms of every variety could be found almost anyplace they looked. Leafless herbs like beechdrops, lavender toothwort, and various bright-flowered small orchids, often without green leaves, were everywhere, growing from the roots of other living plants or their decaying remains. When Ayla saw several small, pale, waxy, leafless stems with nodding heads she stopped to collect some.

"This will help soothe Wolf's and the horses' eyes," she explained, and Jondalar noticed a warm, sad smile playing across her face. "It's the plant Iza used for my eyes when I cried."

While she was at it, she picked some mushrooms that she was certain were edible. Ayla never took chances: she was very careful about mushrooms. Many varieties were delicious, many were not very tasty but not harmful, some were good as medicine, some would make a person mildly sick, a few could help one see spirit worlds, and a few were deadly. And some of them could be easily confused with others.

They had trouble moving the travois with its widely spaced poles through the forest. It kept getting caught between trees growing close together. When Ayla first developed the simple but efficient method of utilizing the strength of Whinney to help her transport objects too heavy for her to carry by herself, she devised a way for the horse to climb the steep narrow path to her cave by bringing the poles closer together. But with the bowl boat mounted on it, they couldn't move the long poles, and it was difficult getting around objects while dragging them. The travois was very effective over rough terrain, it did not get stuck in holes or ditches or mud, but it needed an open landscape.

They struggled for the rest of the afternoon. Jondalar finally untied the bowl boat entirely and dragged it himself. They were beginning to think seriously of leaving it behind. It had been more than helpful in crossing the many rivers and smaller tributaries that had flowed into the Great Mother, but they weren't sure if it was worth the trouble it was taking to get it through the thick growth of trees. Even if there were many more rivers ahead, they could certainly get across them without the boat, and it was slowing them down.

Darkness caught them still in the forest. They set up camp for the night, but they both felt uneasy and more exposed than in the middle of the wide steppes. Out in the open, even in the dark, they could see something: clouds, or stars, silhouettes of moving shapes. In the dense forest, with the massive trunks of tall trees that were able to hide even large creatures, the dark was absolute. The amplifying silence that had seemed uncanny when they entered the wooded world was terrifying in the deep woods at night, though they tried not to show it.

The horses were tense, too, and crowded close to the known comfort of fire. Wolf stayed at camp as well. Ayla was glad, and as she gave him a serving of their meal, thought she would have kept him close in any case. Even Jondalar was glad; having a large friendly wolf nearby was reassuring. He could smell things, sense things, that a human could not.

The night was colder in the damp woods, with a clammy, sticky sort of humidity, so heavy it felt almost like rain. They crawled into their sleeping furs early, and though they were tired they talked long into the night, not quite ready to trust sleeping.

"I'm not sure we should bother with that bowl boat any more," Jondalar commented. "The horses can wade across the small streams without getting much of anything wet. With deeper rivers, we can lift the pack baskets to their backs, instead of letting them hang down."

"I tied my things to a log once. After I left the Clan and was looking for people like me, I came to a wide river. I swam across it pushing the log," Ayla said.

"That must have been hard to do, and maybe more dangerous, not having your arms free."

"It was hard, but I had to get across, and I couldn't think of any other way," Ayla said.

She was quiet for a while, thinking. The man, lying beside her, wondered if she had fallen asleep; then she revealed the direction her thoughts had taken.

"Jondalar, I'm sure we have already traveled much farther than I did before I found my valley. We have come a long way, haven't we?"

"Yes, we have come a long way," he replied, a little guarded in his answer. He shifted to his side and raised up on one arm so he could see her. "But we are still a long way from my home. A

re you tired of traveling already, Ayla?"

"A little. I would like to rest for a while. Then I'll be ready to travel again. As long as I'm with you, I don't care how far we have to go. I just didn't know this world was so big. Does it ever end?"

"To the west of my home, the land ends at the Great Waters. No one knows what lies beyond that. I know another man who says he has traveled even farther, and has seen great waters in the east, though many people doubt him. Most people travel a little, but few travel very far, so they find it hard to believe the stories of long Journeys, unless they see something that convinces them. But there are always a few who travel far." He made a disparaging chuckle. "Though I never expected to be one. Wymez traveled around the Southern Sea and found there was more land even farther to the south."

"He also found Ranee's mother and brought her back. It's hard to doubt Wymez. Have you ever seen anyone else with brown skin like Ranee's? Wymez had to travel far to find a woman like that," Ayla said.

Jondalar looked at the face glowing in the firelight, feeling a great love for the woman beside him, and a great worry. This talk of long Journeys made him think about the long way they still had to go.

"In the north, the land ends in ice," she continued. "No one can go beyond the glacier."

"Unless they go by boat," Jondalar said. "But I'm told that all you will find is a land of ice and snow, where white spirit bears live, and they say there are fish bigger than mammoths. Some of the western people claim there are shamans powerful enough to Call them to the land. And once they are beached, they can't go back, but . . ."

There was a sudden crashing among the trees. The man and woman both jumped with fright, then lay perfectly still, not uttering a sound. Hardly even breathing. A low, rumbling growl came from Wolf's throat, but Ayla had her arm around him and wasn't about to let him go. There was more thrashing about, and then silence. After a while Wolf stopped his rumbling, too. Jondalar wasn't sure if he'd be able to sleep at all that night. He finally got up to put a log on the fire, grateful that he had earlier found some good-size broken limbs that he could chop with his small ivory-hafted stone axe into pieces.

"The glacier we have to cross isn't in the north, is it?" Ayla asked after he came back to bed, her mind still on their Journey.

"Well, it's north of here, but not as far as that wall of ice to the north. There is another range of mountains west of these, and the ice we must cross is on a highland north of them."

"Is it hard to cross ice?"

"It's very cold, and there can be terrible blizzards. In spring and summer it melts a little and the ice gets rotten. Big cracks split open. If you fall in a deep crack, no one can get you out. In winter, most of the cracks fill with snow and ice, though it can still be dangerous."

Ayla shivered suddenly. "You said there's a way around. Why do we have to cross the ice?"