The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

Several women with spears spaced themselves around the group of men. One of them shouted some words and the men started walking. Jondalar used the opportunity to look around and try to get a sense of where he was. The settlement, consisting of several rounded dwellings, felt vaguely familiar, which was strange because the countryside was totally unknown to him. Then he reali

zed it was the dwellings. They resembled Mamutoi earthlodges. Though they were not exactly the same, they appeared to be constructed in a similar fashion, probably using the bones of mammoths as structural supports that were covered with thatch, then sod and clay.

They started walking uphill, which afforded Jondalar a broader view. The countryside was mostly grassy steppeland or tundra—treeless plains on land with frozen subsoil that thawed to a black mucky surface in summer. Tundra was able to support only dwarfed herbs, but in spring their conspicuous blossoms added color and beauty, and they fed musk-oxen, reindeer, and other animals that could digest them. There were also stretches of taiga, low-growing evergreen trees so uniform in height that their tops could have been sheared off by some gigantic cutting tool, and in fact they were. Icy winds driving needles of sleet or sharp bits of gritty loess cut short any individual twig or tip that dared to strive above its brethren.

As they trudged higher, Jondalar saw a herd of mammoths grazing far to the north, and somewhat closer, reindeer. He knew horses roamed nearby—the people had been hunting them—and he guessed that bison and bear frequented the region in the warmer seasons. The land resembled his own country more than it did the dry grassy steppes to the east, at least in the types of plants that grew, although the dominant vegetation was different, and probably the proportional mix of animals, too.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jondalar caught movement to the left. He turned in time to see a white hare dash across the hill chased by an arctic fox. As he watched, the large rabbit suddenly bounded in another direction, passing by the partially decomposed skull of a woolly rhinoceros, then scooted into its hole.

Where there are mammoths and rhinoceroses, Jondalar thought, there are cave lions, and with the other herding animals, probably hyenas, and certainly wolves. Plenty of meat and fur-bearing animals, and food that grows. This is a bountiful land. Making such an assessment was second nature to him, as it was to some degree to most people. They lived off the land, and careful observations about its resources were necessary.

When the group reached a high, level place on the side of the hill, they stopped. Jondalar looked down the hillside and saw that the hunters who lived in this area had a unique advantage. Not only could the animals be seen from a distance, the vast and various herds that roamed the land had to pass through a narrow corridor below that lay between steep walls of limestone and a river. They would be easy to hunt right here. It made him wonder why they had been hunting horses near the Great Mother River.

A keening wail brought Jondalar's attention back to his immediate surroundings. A woman with long, stringy, disheveled gray hair was being supported by two somewhat younger women as she wailed and cried in obvious grief. Suddenly she broke free, fell on her knees, and draped herself over something on the ground. Jondalar edged forward to get a closer look. He was a good head taller than most of the other men, and with a few steps he understood the woman's grief.

This was obviously a funeral. Stretched out on the ground were three people—young, probably late teens or early twenties, he guessed. Two of them were definitely male; they were bearded. The biggest one was probably the youngest. His light facial hair was still somewhat sparse. The gray-haired woman was sobbing over the body of the other male, whose brown hair and short beard were more apparent. The third one was fairly tall but thin, and something about the body and the way it lay made him wonder if that person had had some physical problem. He could see no facial hair, which made him think it was a woman at first, but it also could have been a rather tall young man who shaved, just as easily.

The details of clothing were not much help. They were all dressed in leg coverings and loose tunics that disguised distinguishing characteristics. The clothes appeared to be new, but lacked decoration. It was almost as though someone didn't want them recognized in the next world and had attempted to make them anonymous.

The gray-haired woman was lifted, almost dragged—though not roughly—away from the body of the young man by the two women who had tried to support her. Then another woman stepped forward, and something about her made Jondalar look again. Her face was strangely skewed, oddly unsymmetrical, with one side seemingly pushed back and slightly smaller than the other. She made no attempt to hide it. Her hair was light-colored, perhaps gray, pulled back and piled up into a bun on top of her head.

Jondalar thought she was about his mother's age, and she moved with the same grace and dignity, although there was no physical resemblance to Marthona. In spite of her slight deformity, the woman was not unattractive, and her face commanded attention. When she caught his eye, he realized he had been staring, but she looked away first, rather quickly, he thought. As she began to speak, he realized that she was conducting the funeral ceremony. She must be a mamut, he thought, a woman who communicates with the spirit world, a zelandonii for these people.

Something made him turn and look to the side of the congregation. Another woman was staring at him. She was tall, quite muscular and strong featured, but a handsome woman with light brown hair and, interestingly, very dark eyes. She did not turn away when he looked at her, but appraised him quite frankly. She had the size and shape, the general appearance of a woman that he would ordinarily be attracted to, he thought, but her smile made him uneasy.

Then he noticed she was standing with her legs apart and her hands on her hips, and suddenly he knew who she was: the woman who had laughed so menacingly. He fought an urge to move back and hide among the other men, knowing he couldn't even if he tried. He was not only a head taller, he was far healthier and more muscular than they. He would be conspicuous no matter where he stood.

The ceremony seemed rather perfunctory, as if it were an unpleasant necessity, rather than a solemn, important occasion. With no burial shrouds, the bodies were simply carried to a single shallow grave one at a time. They were limp when they were picked up, Jondalar noted. They could not have been dead very long; no stiffness had set in yet and there was no smell. The tall, thin body went in first, placed on its back, and powdered red ochre was sprinkled on the head and, strangely, over the pelvis, the powerful generative area, making Jondalar wonder if, perhaps, it was indeed a woman.

The other two were handled differently, but even more strangely. The brown-haired male was put in the common grave, to the left of the first corpse from Jondalar's viewpoint, but on the figure's right, and placed on his side, facing the first body. Then his arm was stretched out so that his hand rested on the red-ochred pubic region of the other. The third body was almost thrown into the grave, facedown, on the right side of the body that had been put in first. Red ochre was also sprinkled on both of their heads. The sacred red powder was obviously meant for protection, but for whom? And against what? Jondalar wondered.

Just as the loosely piled dirt was being scooped back into the shallow grave, the gray-haired woman broke loose again. She ran to the grave and threw something in it. Jondalar saw a couple of stone knives and a few flint spear points.

The dark-eyed woman strode forward, clearly incensed. She cracked an order to one of the men, pointing at the grave. He cringed but did not move. Then the shaman stepped forward and spoke, shaking her head. The other woman screamed at her in anger and frustration, but the shaman stood her ground and continued to shake her head. The woman pulled back and slapped her face with the back of her hand. There was a collective gasp, and then the angry woman stalked off, with a coterie of spear-carrying females following her.

The shaman did not acknowledge the blow, not even to put her hand to her cheek, though Jondalar could see the growing redness even from where he stood. The grave was hurriedly filled in, with soil that had several pieces of loose charcoal and partially burned wood mixed in. Large bonfires must have burned here, Jondalar thought. He glanced down at the narrow corridor below. With dawning insight, it occurred to him that this high ground was a perfect lookout from which fires could be used to signal when animals—or anything else—approached.

As soon as the bodies were covered, the men were marched back down the hill and taken to an area surrounded by a high palisade of trimmed tree trunks placed side by side and lashed together. Mammoth bones were piled against a section of the fence, and Jondalar wondered why. Perhaps the bones helped to prop it up. He was separated from the others and taken back to the earthlodge, then shoved toward the small, circular, hide-covered enclosure again. But before he went in, he noted how it was made.

The sturdy frame was constructed of poles made from slender trees. The thicker butt ends had been buried in the ground; the tops were bent together and joined. Leather hides covered the frame on the outside, but the entrance flap he had seen from inside was barred on the outside with a gatelike closure that could be secured shut with lashings.

Once inside, he continued his examination of the structure. It was completely bare, lacking even a sleeping pallet. He could not stand up straight, except in the very middle, but he bent over to get close to the side, then walked slowly around the small, dark space, studying it very carefully. He noticed that the hides were old and torn, some in such shreds that they seemed almost rotten, and they had been only roughly sewn together, as though done in a hurry. There were gaps at the seams through which he could see some of the area beyond his cramped quarters. He lowered himself to the ground and sat watching the entrance of the earthlodge, which was open. A few people walked past, but none entered.

After a time, he began to feel an urge to pass his water. With his hands tied, he could not even bare his member to relieve himself. If someone didn't come and untie him soon, he would wet himself. Besides that, his wrists were getting raw where the ropes were rubbing. He was getting angry. This was ridiculous! It had gone far enough!

"Hey, out there!" he shouted. "Why am I being held like this? Like an animal in a trap? I have done nothing to harm anyone. I need my hands free. If someone doesn't untie me soon, I will wet myself." He waited for a while, then shouted again. "Someone out there, come and untie me! What strange kind of people are you?"

He

stood up and leaned against the structure. It was well made, but it gave a little. He stepped back and, aiming with his shoulder, ran into the framing, trying to break it down. It gave a little more, and he rammed it again. With a feeling of satisfaction, he heard a piece of wood crack. He stepped back, ready to try again, when he heard people running into the earthlodge.

"It's about time someone came! Let me out of here! Let me out of here now!" he shouted.

He heard the rustlings of someone unlashing the gate. Then the entrance flap was thrown back to reveal several women holding spears aimed at him. Jondalar ignored them and pushed his way out of the opening.

"Untie me!" he said, turning to the side so they could see him raising up the hands that were tied behind his back. "Get these ropes off me!"

The older man who had helped him drink water stepped forward. "Zelandonii! You ... far ... away," he said, obviously struggling to remember the words.