The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"She wants you to come outside," Ardemun said. Jondalar hadn't noticed him near the entrance. "She thinks you are clever, too clever. I think she wants you where she can have her women surround you."

"What if I don't want to go outside?" Jondalar said.

"Then she'll probably have you killed here and now." The words were said by a woman, speaking in perfect Zelandonii, without even a trace of an accent! Jondalar shot a look of surprise in the direction of the speaker. It was the shaman! "If you go outside, Attaroa will probably let you live a little longer. You interest her, but eventually she'll kill you anyway."

"Why? What am I to her?" Jondalar asked.

"A threat."

"A threat? I've never threatened her."

/>

"You threaten her control. She'll want to make an example of you."

Attaroa interrupted, and though Jondalar didn't understand her, the barely restrained fury of her words seemed to be directed at the shaman. The older woman's response was reserved but showed no fear. After the exchange, she spoke again to Jondalar. "She wanted to know what I said to you. I told her."

"Tell her I'll come outside," he said.

When the message was relayed, Attaroa laughed, said something, then sauntered out.

"What did she say?" Jondalar asked.

"She said she knew it. Men will do anything for one more heartbeat of their miserable lives."

"Perhaps not anything," Jondalar said, starting out, then he turned back to the shaman. "What is your name?"

"I am called S'Armuna," she said.

"I thought you might be. Where did you learn to speak my language so well?"

"I lived among your people for a time," S'Armuna said, but then she cut off his obvious desire to know more. "It's a long story."

Though the man had rather expected to be asked to give his identity in return, S'Armuna simply turned her back. He volunteered the information. "I am Jondalar of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii," he said.

S'Armuna's eyes opened with surprise. "The Ninth Cave?" she said.

"Yes," he said. He would have continued to name his ties, but he was stopped by the look on her face, though he could not fathom its meaning. A moment later her expression showed nothing, and Jondalar wondered if he had imagined it.

"She's waiting," S'Armuna said, leaving the earthlodge.

Outside, Attaroa was sitting on a fur-covered seat on a raised platform of earth, which had been dug from the floor of the large semisubterranean earthlodge just behind her. She was opposite the fenced area, and, as he walked past it, Jondalar sensed again that he was being watched through the cracks.

As he drew near, he was sure the fur on her seat was from a wolf. The hood of her parka, thrown back off her head, was trimmed with wolf fur, and around her neck she wore a necklace made primarily of the sharp canine teeth of wolves, although there were some from arctic fox, and at least one cave-bear tooth. She was holding a carved staff similar to the Speaking Staff Talut had used when there were issues to be discussed or arguments to be resolved. That stick had helped to keep the talk orderly. Whoever held it had the right to speak, and when someone else had something to say, it was necessary first to ask for the Speaking Staff.

Something else was familiar about the staff she held, though he couldn't quite place it. Could it be the carving? It bore the stylized shape of a seated woman, with an enlarging series of concentric circles representing breasts and stomach, and a strange triangular head, narrow at the chin, with a face of enigmatic designs. It wasn't like Mamutoi carving, but he felt he'd seen it before.

Several of her women surrounded Attaroa. Other women he hadn't noticed before, only a few of them with children, were standing nearby. She observed him for a while; then she spoke, looking at him. Ardemun, standing off to the side, began a stumbling translation into Zelandonii. Jondalar was about to suggest that he speak Mamutoi, but S'Armuna interrupted, said something to Attaroa, then looked at him.

"I will translate," she said.

Attaroa made a sneering comment that made the women around her laugh, but S'Armuna did not translate it. "She was speaking to me," was all she said, her face impassive. The seated woman spoke again, this time to Jondalar.

"I speak now as Attaroa," S'Armuna said, beginning to translate. "Why did you come here?"

"I did not come here voluntarily. I was brought here, tied up," Jondalar said, while S'Armuna translated almost simultaneously. "I am on my Journey. Or I was. I don't understand why I was tied up. No one bothered to tell me."

"Where did you come from?" Attaroa said through S'Armuna, ignoring his comments.