The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

They were all surprised at the gentle action of the wolf, but Roshario was overwhelmed. She felt that something miraculous had happened, that could only bode well. She reached over with her good arm to touch him. "Thank you, Wolf," she said.

Ayla laid the pieces of plank bedside Roshario's arm, then gave them to Dolando, indicating the size she wanted them to be. When Dolando went out, she led Wolf to a corner of the wooden dwelling, then checked the cooking stones again and decided they were ready. She started to take a stone out of the fire using two pieces of wood, but Jondalar appeared with a bent wood tool especially designed with enough spring to hold the hot cooking stones securely, and he showed her how to use it. As she put several stones into the cooking box to start the datura boiling, she looked at the unusual container a little more closely.

She had never seen anything like it. The square box had been made from a single plank, bent around kerfed grooves that had been cut not quite all the way through for three of the corners; it was fastened together with pegs at the fourth. As it was bent, the square bottom was eased into a groove cut the length of the plank. Designs had been carved around the outside, and the lid with a handle fit over the top.

These people had so many unusual things made out of wood. Ayla thought it would be interesting to see how they were made. Dolando returned then with some yellow-colored skins and gave them to her. "Will this be enough?" he asked.

"But these are too fine," she said. "We need soft, absorbent skins, but they don't have to be your best."

Jondalar and Dolando both smiled. "These are not our best," Dolando said. "We would never offer these in trade. There are too many imperfections in them. They are for everyday use."

Ayla knew something about working skins and making leather, and these were supple and smooth with an exquisitely soft feel and texture. She was very impressed and wanted to know more about them, but now was not the time. Using the knife that Jondalar had made for her, with a thin sharp flint blade mounted in an ivory handle made of mammoth tusk, she cut the chamois skin into wide strips.

Then she opened one of her packets and poured into a small bowl a coarse powder of pounded dried spikenard roots, whose leaves rather resembled foxglove, but with yellow dandelionlike flowers instead. She added a bit of hot water from the cooking box. Since she was making a poultice to help the bone fracture mend, a little addition of datura would not hurt, and its numbing quality might help. But she also added pulverized yarrow, for its external painkilling and quick-healing properties. She fished out the stones and added more hot ones to the cooking box, to keep the decoction simmering, smelling it to check for potency.

When she decided it had reached the proper strength, she scooped out a bowlful to let it cool, then carried it to Roshario. Dolando was sitting beside her. Then she asked Jondalar to translate exactly what she said, so there would be no misunderstanding.

"This medicine will both dull the pain and make you sleep," Ayla said, "but it is very powerful, and it is dangerous. Some people cannot tolerate this strong a dosage. It will relax your muscles, so I can feel the bones inside, but you may pass your water, or mess yourself, because those muscles will also relax. A few people stop breathing. If that happens, you will die, Roshario."

Ayla waited for Jondalar to repeat her statement, then longer to make sure it was fully understood. Dolando was obviously upset.

"Do you have to use it? Can't you break her arm without it?" he asked.

"No. It would be too painful, and her muscles are too tight. They will resist and make it much harder to break in the right place. I have nothing else that will dull the pain as well. I cannot rebreak and set the bones without this, but you must know the danger. She will probably live if I do nothing, Dolando."

"But I will be useless, and live in pain," Roshario said. "That is not living."

"You will have pain, but that doesn't mean you will be useless. There are remedies to ease the pain, though they may take something from you. You may not be able to think as clearly," Ayla explained.

"So I will either be useless or mindless," Roshario said. "If I die, will it be painless?"

"You will go to sleep and not wake up, but no one knows what may happen in your dreams. You may feel great fear or pain in your dreams. Your pain may even follow you to the next world."

"Do you believe pain can follow someone to the next world?" Roshario asked.

Ayla shook her head. "No, I don't think that, but I don't know."

"Do you think I will die if I drink that?"

"I would not offer it to you if I thought you would die. But you may have unusual dreams. It is used by some, prepared another way, to travel to other worlds, spirit worlds."

Though Jondalar had been translating the exchange of communication, there was enough understanding between them that his words only clarified. Ayla and Roshario felt they were talking directly to each other.

"Maybe you should not take the chance, Roshario," Dolando said. "I don't want to lose you, too."

She looked at the man with loving tenderness. "The Mother will call one or the other of us to Her first. Either you will lose me, or I will lose you. Nothing we do can stop that. But if She is willing to let me spend more time with you, my Dolando, I don't want to spend it in pain, and useless. I would rather go quietly now. And you heard Ayla, it's not likely that I will die. Even if it doesn't work, and I'm no better off, at least I will know that I tried, and that will give me heart to go on."

Dolando, sitting on the bed beside her, holding her good hand, looked at the woman he had shared so much of his life with. He saw the determination in her eyes. Finally he nodded. Then he looked up at Ayla.

"You have been honest. Now I must be honest. I will not hold it against you if you fail to help her, but if she dies, you must leave here quickly. I cannot be certain that I will be able to keep from blaming you, and I don't know what I may do. Consider that before you begin."

Jondalar, translating, knew the losses Dolando had suffered: Roshario's son, the son of his hearth, and the child of his heart, killed just as he had reached the full flush of his manhood; and Jetamio, the girl who had been like a daughter to Roshario and had captured Dolando's heart as well. She had grown to fill the void left by the death of the first child after her own mother died. Her struggles to walk again, to overcome the same paralysis that had taken so many, gave her a character that endeared her to everyone, including Thonolan. It seemed so unfair that she should have been taken in the agonies of childbirth. He would understand if Dolando blamed Ayla if Roshario died, but he would kill him before he would let the man harm her. He wondered if Ayla was taking on too much.

"Ayla, perhaps you should reconsider," he said, speaking Zelandonii.

"Roshario is in pain, Jondalar. I have to try to help her, if she wants me to. If she is willing to accept the risks, I can do no less. There is always risk, but I am a medicine woman; it is what I am. I cannot change any more than Iza could."

She looked down at the woman lying on the bed. "I am ready, if you are, Roshario."