The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"But there are some who are twisted, like Attaroa," Ayla said.

"That's true." The man nodded, having to agree. "And there are some who only give what they must and would rather not give at all, but that doesn't make them bad."

"But one bad person can bring out the worst in good people, like Attaroa did to S'Armuna and Epadoa."

"I suppose the best we can do is try to keep the evil and cruel ones from causing too much harm. Maybe we should count ourselves lucky there aren't more like her. But Ayla, don't let one bad person spoil the way you feel about people."

"Attaroa can't make me feel any different about the people I know, and I'm sure you are right about most people, Jondalar, but she has made me more wary, and more cautious."

"It doesn't hurt to be a little cautious, at first, but give people a chance to show their good side before you judge them bad."

The highland on the north side of the river paced along with them as they continued their westward trek. Wind-sculptured evergreens on the rounded tops and level plateaus of the massif were silhouetted against the sky. The river split out again into several channels across a lowland basin that formed an embayment. The southern and northern boundaries of the valley maintained their characteristic differences, but the base rock was cracked and down-faulted to great depths between the river and the limestone foreland of the high southern mountain. Toward the west was the steep limestone edge of a fault line. The course of the river turned northwest.

The east end of the lowland basin was also bordered by a fault ridge, caused not so much by uplifting of the limestone as by the depression of the land of the embayment. Toward the south, the land spread out on a level grade for some distance before it rose up toward the mountains, but the granite plateau in the north drew closer to the river, until it was rising steeply just across the water.

They camped within the low embayment. In the valley near the river, the smooth gray bark and the bare branches of beech made an appearance among the spruce, fir, pine, and larch; the area was protected enough to shelter the growth of a few large-leafed deciduous trees. Milling around near the trees in seeming confusion was a small herd of mammoths, both females and males. Ayla edged closer to see what was going on.

One mammoth was down, a giant of an elder with enormous tusks that crossed in front. She wondered if it was the same group they had seen earlier breaking ice. Could there be two mammoths who were so old in the same region? Jondalar walked up beside her.

"I'm afraid he's dying. I wish there was something I could do for him," Ayla said.

"His teeth are probably gone. Once that

happens, there is nothing anyone can do, except what they are doing. Staying with him, keeping him company," Jondalar said.

"Perhaps none of us can ask for more," Ayla said.

In spite of their relatively compact size, each adult mammoth consumed large quantities of food every day, primarily woody-stemmed tall grass and occasional small trees. With such a rough diet, their teeth were essential. They were so important that a mammoth's lifespan was determined by its teeth.

A woolly mammoth developed several sets of large grinding molars throughout its span of some seventy years, usually six to a side both upper and lower. Each tooth weighed about eight pounds and was especially adapted to grinding coarse grasses. The surface was made up of many extremely hard, thin, parallel ridges—plates of dentine covered with enamel—and had higher crowns and more ridges than the teeth of any other of its species, before or since. Mammoths were primarily grass eaters. The shreds of bark that they tore from trees, particularly in winter, the spring forbs, and the occasional leaves, branches, and small trees, were only incidental to their main diet of tough fibrous grass.

The earliest and smallest grinders were formed near the front of each jaw, and the rest grew in behind and moved forward in a steady progression during the animal's life, with only one or two teeth in use at any one time. As hard as it was, the important grinding surface wore down as it moved toward the front, and the roots dissolved. Finally the last thin useless fragments of tooth were dropped as the new ones moved into place.

The final teeth were in use by age fifty, and when they were nearly gone, the old gray-hair could not chew the tough grass any more. Softer leaves and plants could still be eaten, spring plants, but in other seasons they were not available. In desperation, the undernourished elder often left the herd, searching for greener pastures, but found only death. The herd knew when the end was close, and it wasn't uncommon to see them sharing the elder's last days.

The other mammoths were as protective of the dying as they were of newborns, and they gathered around trying to make the fallen one get up. When all was over, they buried the dead ancestor under piles of dirt, grass, leaves, or snow. Mammoths were even known to bury other dead animals, including humans.

Ayla and Jondalar and their four-legged traveling companions found their way getting steeper and more difficult when they left behind the lowland and the mammoths. They were approaching a gorge. A foot of the ancient massif of the north had stretched too far south and was split by the dividing waters of the river. They climbed higher as the river rushed through the narrow defile, moving too fast to freeze but carrying with it ice floes from quieter sections farther west. It was strange to see moving water after so much ice. In front of the high-peaked ramparts to the south were mesas, massiflike hills topped with extensive plateaus, carrying thick stands of conifers, their branches sprinkled with snow. The thin limbs of deciduous trees and brush were etched in white from a coating of freezing rain, which accentuated each twig and branch, captivating Ayla with their winter beauty.

The altitude continued to increase, the lowlands between the ridges never dipping quite as low as the preceding ones. The air was cold, crisp, and clear, and even when it was cloudy, no snow fell. Precipitation decreased as winter deepened. The only moisture in the air was the warm breath expelled by humans and animals.

The river of ice became smaller each time they passed a frozen tributary valley. At the west end of the lowland was another gorge. They climbed the rocky ridge, and when they reached the highest place, they looked ahead and stopped, awed by the sight. Ahead the river had split again. The travelers didn't know it was the last time that it would divide into the branches and channels that had characterized its progress across the flat plains over which it had flowed for so much of its length. The gorge just before the lowlands curved sharply as it gathered the separate channels into one, causing a furious whirlpool that carried ice and floating debris into its depths, before disgorging it in a gush farther downstream, where it rapidly refroze.

They stopped at the highest place, looked down, and watched a small log whirling around and around, going deeper and deeper with each spiraling turn.

"I would not want to fall into that," Ayla said, shuddering at the thought.

"Nor would I," Jondalar responded.

Ayla's gaze was drawn to another site in the distance. "Where are those clouds of steam coming from, Jondalar?" she asked. "It's freezing, and the hills are covered with snow."

"There are pools of hot water over there, water warmed by the hot breath of Doni Herself. Some people are afraid to go near such places, but the people I want to visit live near such a deep hot well, or so they told me. The hot wells are sacred to them, even though some smell very bad. It's said they use the water to cure illness."

"How long before we reach those people you know? The ones who use water to cure illness," she asked. Anything that might add to her wealth of medical knowledge always piqued her interest. Besides, food was getting scarcer, or they didn't want to take the time to look for it —but they had gone to bed hungry a couple of days.

The slope of the land increased noticeably beyond the last flat basin. They were hemmed in by highlands on both sides as the mountains pressed in. The mantel of ice to the south was increasing in height as they continued west. Far to the south and still somewhat west, two peaks soared far above all the other rugged mountaintops, one higher than the other, like a mated pair watching over their brood of children.

Where the highland leveled out near a shallower place in the river, Jondalar turned south, away from the river, toward a cloud of rising steam in the distance. They climbed a low ridge and looked down from the top across a snow-covered meadow at a steaming pool of water near a cave.