The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

She had been a normal, talkative little girl before she was adopted, and though she had lost most of her vocal language when she began to speak as the Clan did, the patterns were set. Her driving need to relearn verbal speech so she could communicate with Jondalar had added impetus to a natural ability. Once begun, the process she had unconsciously used was further developed when she went to live with the Lion Camp and had to learn yet another language. She could memorize vocabulary after one hearing, though syntax and structure took a little longer. But the language of the Sharamudoi was close to Mamutoi in structure, and many words were similar. Ayla listened carefully to Tholie's translation of her words, because as she was relating her story, she was learning their language.

As fascinating as her story of adopting a baby horse was, even Tholie had to stop and ask her to repeat herself when Ayla talked about finding the injured cave lion cub. Perhaps loneliness might drive someone to live with a grass-eating horse, but a gigantic carnivore? A full-grown male cave lion, walking on all fours, could nearly reach the height of the smallish steppe horses, and was more massive. Tholie wanted to know how she could even consider taking in a lion cub.

"He wasn't so big then, not even the size of a small wolf, and he was a baby ... and he was hurt."

Though Ayla had meant to describe a smaller animal, people glanced toward the canine beside Roshario. Wolf was of northern stock, and big even for that large breed. He was the biggest wolf any of them had ever seen. The idea of taking in a lion that size did not appeal to many.

"The word she named him meant 'baby,' and she called him that even after he was full grown. He was the biggest Baby I ever saw," Jondalar added, which brought chuckles.

Jondalar smiled, too, but then told a more sobering fact. "I thought that was humorous, too, later, but there was nothing funny about the first time I saw him. Baby was the lion that killed Thonolan, and almost killed me." Dolando looked apprehensively at the wolf beside his woman again. "But what else can you expect when you walk into a lion's den? Though we had watched his mate leave and didn't know Baby was in there, it was a stupid thing to do. As it turned out, I was lucky that it happened to be that particular lion."

"What do you mean, 'lucky'?" Markeno asked.

"I was badly mauled and unconscious, but Ayla was able to stop him before he killed me," Jondalar said.

Everyone turned back to the woman. "How could she stop a cave lion?" Tholie asked.

"The same way she controls Wolf and Whinney," Jondalar said. "She told him to stop, and he did."

Heads were shaking in disbelief. "How do you know that's what she did? You said you were unconscious," someone called out.

Jondalar looked to see who the speaker was. It was a young River man he had known, though not well. "Because I saw her do the same thing later, Rondo. Baby came to visit her once when I was still recovering. He knew I was a stranger, and perhaps he remembered when Thonolan and I went into his den. Whatever the reason, he did not want me near Ayla's cave, and he immediately sprang to attack. But she stepped in front of him and told him to stop. And he did it. It was almost funny the way he pulled himself short in the middle of a leap, but at the time I was too scared to notice."

"Where's the cave lion now?" Dolando asked, looking at the wolf and wondering if the lion followed her, too. He was not particularly interested in being visited by a lion, no matter how well she might control him.

"He has made his own life," Ayla said. "He stayed with me until he was grown. Then, like some children, he left to find a mate, and he probably has several by now. Whinney left me for a while, too, but she came back. She was pregnant when she returned."

"What about the wolf?" Do you think he will leave someday?" Tholie asked.

Ayla caught her breath. It was a question that she had refused to consider. It had come to her mind more than once, but she always pushed it aside, not even wanting to acknowledge it. Now it was said, out in the open, and waiting for an answer.

"Wolf was so young when I found him, I think he grew up believing that the people of Lion Camp were his pack," she said. "Many wolves stay with their pack, but some wolves leave and become loners until they find another loner for a mate. Then a new pack starts. Wolf is still young, hardly more than a cub. He looks older because he's so big. I don't know what he will do, Tholie, but I worry about it sometimes. I don't want him to leave."

Tholie nodded. "Leaving is difficult, both for the one who leaves, and the ones that are left behind," she said, thinking about her own difficult decision to leave her people to live with Markeno. "I know how I felt. Didn't you say you left those people who raised you? What did you call them? Clan? I never heard of those people. Where do they live?"

Ayla glanced at Jondalar. He was sitting perfectly still, full of tension, with a strange expression on his face. He was very nervous about something, and suddenly she wondered if he was still ashamed of her background and the people who had raised her. She thought he was over those feelings now. She was not ashamed of the Clan. In spite of Broud and the anguish he had caused her, she had been cared for and loved even though she had been different, and she had loved in return. With a little feeling of anger, and a prickly touch of pride, she decided that she was not going to deny those people she had loved.

"They live on the peninsula in Beran Sea," Ayla replied.

"The peninsula? I didn't know there were people living on the peninsula. That's flathead territory..." Tholie stopped. It couldn't be, could it?

Tholie wasn't the only one who had seen the implications. Roshario had gasped and was furtively watching Dolando, trying to see if he had made any connections, but not wanting it to seem that she had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The strange names she mentioned, the ones that were so hard to pronounce, could they be names she

had given some other kind of animals? But she said the woman who raised her had taught her healing medicine. Could there have been some woman living with them? What woman would choose to live with them, especially if she knew healing? Would a shamud live with flatheads?

Ayla was noticing the strange reactions of some of the people, but when she glanced at Dolando and saw him staring at her, she felt a shiver of dread. He did not seem to be the same man, the controlled leader who had cared for his woman with such tenderness. He was not looking at her with the grateful relief her healing skill had invoked, or even with the wary acceptance of their first meeting. Instead, she detected a deeply buried pain and saw a distancing; a menacing hard anger filled his eyes as though he could not see clearly, but only through the red haze of rage.

"Flatheads!" he exploded. "You lived with those filthy, murderous animals! I'd like to kill every one of them. And you lived with them. How could any decent woman live with them?"

His fists were clenched as he started to come for her. Both Jondalar and Markeno jumped up to hold him back. Wolf was standing in front of Roshario, teeth bared, a deep low growl in his throat. Shamio started to cry, and Tholie picked her up and held her protectively close. Under most circumstances, she would never fear for her daughter around Dolando, but he was not rational about flatheads, and at the moment he seemed to be in the grip of an uncontrollable madness.

"Jondalar! How dare you bring a woman like that here!" Dolando said, trying to shake off the restraining hold of the tall blond man.

"Dolando! What are you saying?" Roshario said, trying to get up. "She helped me! What difference does it make where she grew up? She helped me!"

The people who had gathered for Jondalar's welcoming were stunned, gaping with shock, and had no idea what to do. Carlono got up to help Markeno and Jondalar and to try to calm his coleader.

Ayla was stunned, too. Dolando's virulent reaction was so completely unexpected that she was at a loss. She saw Roshario attempting to get up, trying to push aside the wolf, who was standing defensively in front of her, as confused as everyone else by the commotion, but determined to protect the woman he saw as his charge. She should not get up, Ayla thought, hurrying toward the woman.