The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"So do I. You are going to be a good flint knapper, and I would like to continue training you. And, by the way, Doban, you can call me Jondalar."

"No. You are Zelandon."

"You mean Zelandonii?"

"No, I mean Zelandon."

S'Amodun smiled. "He doesn't mean the name of your people. He has made your name Elandon, but honors you with S'Elandon."

Jondalar flushed with embarrassment and pleasure. "Thank you, Doban. Maybe I should call you S'Ardoban."

"Not yet. When I learn to work the flint like you, then they may call me S'Ardoban."

Jondalar gave the young man a warm hug, clasped the shoulders of a few others, and chatted with them. The horses, packed and ready to go, had wandered off a short distance, and Wolf had dropped to the ground, watching the man. He got up when he saw Ayla and S'Armuna coming out of the lodge. Jondalar was glad to see them, too.

"...It is beautiful," the older woman was saying, "and I'm overwhelmed that she cared so much that she wanted to do it, but ... you don't think it's dangerous?"

"As long as you keep the carving of your face, how can it be dangerous? It may bring you closer to the Mother, give you deeper understanding," Ayla said.

They hugged each other, then S'Armuna gave Jondalar a big hug. She stepped

back when they called the horses, but she reached out and touched his arm to detain him another moment.

"Jondalar, when you see Marthona, tell her S'Armu ... no, tell her Bodoa sends her love."

"I will. I think it will please her," he said, mounting the stallion.

They turned around and waved, but Jondalar was relieved to be going. He would never be able to think of this Camp without mixed feelings.

Snow began filtering down again as they rode away. The people of the Camp waved and wished them well. "Good Journey, S'Elandon." "Safe travels, S'Ayla."

As they disappeared into the softly obscuring white flakes, there was hardly a soul who did not believe—or want to believe—that Ayla and Jondalar had come to rid them of Attaroa and free their men. As soon as the horse-riding couple were out of sight, they would transform themselves into the Great Earth Mother and Her Fair Celestial Mate, and they would ride the wind across the skies, trailed by their faithful protector, the Wolf Star.

34

They started back to the Great Mother River with Ayla leading the way over the same trail that she had followed to find the S'Armunai Camp, but when they reached the river crossing, they decided to ford the smaller tributary and then head southwest. They rode across country over the windy plains of the ancient lowland basin that separated the two major mountain systems, heading for the river.

Despite the scant snowfall, they often had to take cover from blizzardlike conditions. In the intense cold, the dry snowflakes were picked up and blown from place to place by the unremitting winds until they were ground into frozen grit, sometimes mixed with the pulverized particles of rock dust—loess—from the margins of the moving glaciers. When the wind blew especially hard, it blasted their skin raw. The withered grass in the most exposed places had long since been flattened, but the winds that kept snow from accumulating, except in sheltered pockets, bared the sere and yellowed fodder enough for the horses to graze.

For Ayla, the trek back was much faster—she was not trying to follow a trail over difficult terrain—but Jondalar was surprised at the distance they had to travel before reaching the river. He hadn't realized how far north they had been. He guessed that the S'Armunai Camp was not far from the Great Ice.

His speculation was correct. If they had gone north, they could have reached the massive frontal wall of the continental ice sheet in a walk of a handful or two of days. In early summer, just before they started on their Journey, they had hunted mammoths at the frozen face of the same vast northern barrier, but far to the east. Since then, they had traveled down the full length of the eastern side of a great curved arc of mountains, around the southern base, and up the western flank of the range almost to the land-spanning glacier again.

Leaving behind the last outliers and flysch foothills of the mountains that had dominated their travels, they turned west when they reached the Great Mother River and began approaching the northern foreland of the even larger and loftier range to the west. They were retracing their steps, looking for the place where they had left their equipment and supplies, following the same route they had begun earlier in the season, when Jondalar thought they had plenty of time ... until the night that Whinney was taken by the wild herd.

"The landmarks seem familiar—it should be around here," he said.

"I think you're right. I remember that bluff, but everything else looks so different," Ayla said, surveying the changed landscape with dismay.

More snow had accumulated and settled in this vicinity. The edge of the river was frozen, and, with the snow blown into drifts and filling every depression, it was hard to know where the bank ended and the river began. Strong winds and ice, which had formed on branches during an alternate freezing and thawing earlier in the season, had brought down several trees. Brush and brambles sagged under the weight of the frozen water clinging to them; covered with snow, they often appeared to the travelers to be hillocks or mounds of rocks until they broke through when they attempted to climb them.

The woman and man stopped near a small stand of trees and carefully scanned the area, trying to find something that would give them a hint of the site of their stashed tent and food.

"We must be close. I know this is the right area, but everything is so different," Ayla said, then paused and looked at the man. "Many things are different from what they seem, aren't they, Jondalar?"

He looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Well, yes, in winter things look different than in summer."

"I don't mean just the land," Ayla said. "It's hard to explain. It's like when we left, and S'Armuna told you to tell your mother that she sends her love, but she said Bodoa sends it. That was the name your mother called her, wasn't it?"