The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"I don't think they are really milk," Jondalar said. "But I think there is truth in what the story means. The whole story."

"What does the story mean?"

"It tells about the beginnings of things, how we came to be. That we were made by the Great Earth Mother, out of Her own body; that She lives in the same place as the sun and the moon, and is the Great Earth Mother to them as She is to us; and that the stars are a part of their world."

Ayla nodded. "There could be some truth in that," she said. She liked what he said, and thought that maybe, someday, she would like to meet this Zelandoni and ask her to tell the whole story. "Creb told me the stars were the hearths of the people who live in the spirit world. All the people who have returned, and all the people not yet born. And the home of the spirits of the totems."

"There could be truth in that, too," Jondalar said. Flatheads really must be almost human, he thought. No animal would think like that.

"He once showed me where my totem's home was, the Great Cave Lion," Ayla said and, stifling a yawn, she rolled over on her side.

Ayla tried to see the way ahead, but huge, moss-covered trunks of trees blocked her view. She kept climbing, not sure where she was going or why, just wishing she could stop and rest. She was so tired. If she could just sit down. The log ahead looked inviting, if she could reach it, but it always seemed another step farther. Then she was on top of it, but it gave way beneath her, collapsing into rotten wood and wriggling grubs. She was falling through it, clawing at the earth, trying to climb back up.

Then the dense forest was gone, and she was clambering up the steep side of a mountain through an open woods along a familiar path. At the top was a high mountain meadow where a small family of deer fed. Hazelnut bushes grew against the rock of a mountain wall. She was afraid, and there was safety behind the bushes, but she couldn't find the way in. The opening was blocked by the hazelnut bushes, and they were growing, growing to the size of huge trees, with mossy trunks. She tried to see the way ahead, but all she could see were the trees, and it was getting dark. She was afraid, but then, in the distance, she saw someone moving through the deep shade.

It was Creb. He was standing in front of the opening of a small cave, blocking her way, his hand signs saying she couldn't stay. This was not her place. She had to leave, to find another place, the place where she belonged. He tried to tell her the way, but it was dark and she couldn't quite see what he was saying, only that she had to keep going. Then he stretched out his good arm and pointed.

When she looked ahead, the trees were gone. She started climbing again, toward the opening of another cave. Though she knew she had never seen it before, it was a strangely familiar cave, with an oddly misplaced boulder silhouetted against the sky above it. When she looked back, Creb was leaving. She called out to him, pleading with him.

"Creb! Creb! Help me! Don't go!"

"Ayla! Wake up! You're dreaming," Jondalar said, shaking her gently.

She opened her eyes, but the fire had gone out and it was dark. She clung to the man.

"Oh, Jondalar, it was Creb. He was blocking the way. He wouldn't let me in—he wouldn't let me stay. He was trying to tell me something, but it was so dark I couldn't see. He was pointing toward a cave, and something about it looked familiar, but he wouldn't stay."

Jondalar could feel her shaking in his arms as he held her close, comforting her with his presence. Suddenly she sat up. "That cave! The one he was blocking, that was my cave. That was where I went after Durc was born, when I was afraid they wouldn't let me keep him."

"Dreams are hard to understand. Sometimes a zelandoni can tell you what they mean. Maybe you are still feeling bad about leaving your son," the man said.

"Maybe," she said. She did feel bad about leaving Durc, but if that was what her dream meant, why was she dreaming it now? Why not after she stood on the island looking across Beran Sea, trying to see the peninsula, and cried her final goodbye to him. There was something about it that made her feel there was more to her dream than that. Finally she settled down and they both dozed off for a while. When she woke again, it was daylight, though they were still in the shaded gloom of the forest.

Ayla and Jondalar started north in the morning on foot, with the travois poles lashed together

, and then fastened across the middle of the round boat. With each of them carrying an end, they could lift the poles and the boat over and around obstacles much more easily than trying to drag them behind the horse. It gave the horses a rest, too, with only the pack baskets to carry and their own feet to worry about. But after a while, without the guiding hand of the man on his back, Racer had a tendency to wander off to browse a little on the green leaves of young trees, since there hadn't been much pasture. He took a detour to the side and back a ways when he smelled the grass in a small clearing where a strong wind had blown down several trees, allowing sunlight in.

Jondalar, tired of going after him, tried for a time to hold on to both Racer's lead rope and his end of the poles, but it was hard to watch where Ayla was going to lift the poles out of the way, to watch his own footing, and to be careful that he wasn't leading the young horse into a hole, or something worse. He wished that Racer would follow him without rein or harness the way Whinney followed Ayla. Finally, when Jondalar accidentally shoved his end of the poles and jabbed Ayla rather hard, she came up with a suggestion.

"Why don't you tie Racer's lead rope to Whinney?" she said. "You know she'll follow me, and she'll watch her own footing, and won't lead Racer astray, and he's used to following her. Then you won't have to be concerned about him wandering off, or getting into some other kind of trouble, and you'll only have to worry about your end of the poles."

He stopped for a moment, frowning, then suddenly broke into a big grin. "Why didn't I think of that?" he said.

Though they had been gaining in elevation slowly, when the land began to get noticeably steeper the forest changed character rather abruptly. The woodland thinned out, and they quickly left the large deciduous hardwood trees behind. Fir and spruce became the primary trees, with the remaining hardwoods, even those of the same variety, much smaller.

They reached the top of a ridge and looked out over it onto a wide plateau that dropped down gently and then extended nearly level for quite some distance. A mostly coniferous forest of dark green fir, spruce, and pine, accented by a scattering of larch, with needles turning golden, dominated the plateau. It was set off by bright greenish-gold high meadows, and splashed with blue and white tarns, reflecting the clear sky above and the clouds in the distance. A fast river partitioned the space, fed by a rampaging falls cascading down the mountainside at the far end. Rising up beyond the tableland, and filling the sky, was the breathtaking vista of a high peak capped in white, partially masked by the clouds.

It seemed so close that Ayla felt she could almost reach out and touch it. The sun behind her illuminated the colors and shapes of the mountain stone; light tan rock jutting out from pale gray walls; nearly white faces contrasting with the dark gray of strangely regular columns that had emerged from the fiery core of the earth and cooled to the angled form of their basic crystal structure. Shimmering above that was the beautiful blue-green ice of a true glacier, frosted with snow that still lingered on the highest reaches. And while they watched, as if by magic, the sun and the rain clouds created a glowing rainbow and stretched it in a great arc over the mountain.

The man and woman gazed in wonder, drinking in the beauty and the serenity. Ayla wondered if the rainbow was meant to tell them something, if only that they were welcome. She noticed that the air she was breathing was deliciously cool and fresh, and she breathed with relief to be away from the deadening heat of the plains. Then she suddenly realized that the swarming bothersome gnats were gone. As far as she was concerned, she wouldn't have needed to go a step farther than this plateau. She could have made her home right there.

She turned to face the man, smiling. Jondalar was stunned for a moment by the sheer force of her emotions, her pleasure in the beauty of the place, and her desire to stay, but he felt it as pleasure in her beauty and desire for her. He wanted her that instant, and it showed in his rich blue eyes and his look of love and yearning. Ayla felt his force, a reflection of her own, but transmuted, and amplified through him.

Mounted on their horses, they stared into each other's eyes, transfixed by something they could not explain but felt the force of: their evenly matched, though unique, emotions; the power of a charisma each possessed, aimed at the other; and the strength of their mutual love. Unthinking, they reached out to each other—which the horses misinterpreted. Whinney started walking downhill and Racer followed. The movement brought the woman and man back to an awareness of where they were. Feeling an inexplicable warmth and tenderness, and just a touch foolish because they didn't quite know what had happened, they smiled at each other with a look that held a promise, and they continued down the hill, turning northwest to follow the plateau.

The morning that Jondalar thought they might reach the Sharamudoi settlement brought a crisp breath of frost to the air, foretelling the changing of seasons, and Ayla welcomed it. As they rode through the wooded hillsides, she could almost believe she had been there before, if she hadn't known better. For some reason, she kept expecting to recognize a landmark. Everything seemed so familiar: the trees, the plants, the slopes, the lay of the land. The more she saw, the more at home she felt.

When she saw hazelnuts, still on the tree in their green prickly casings, but nearly ripe, the way she liked them, she had to stop and pick some. As she cracked a few with her teeth, suddenly it struck her. The reason she felt that she knew the area, that it felt like home, was that it resembled the mountainous region at the tip of the peninsula, around the cave of Bran's clan. She had grown up in a place very much like this.