The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. I wanted him to meet Thonolia. I'm sure she's the child of his spirit."

"I am sure, too. She looks just like my sister, and they were both born to the same hearth. I wish my mother could see her, but I think it will please her to know that there is something left of him in this world, a child of his spirit," Jondalar said.

The young woman noticed Ayla. "But you didn't return alone," she said.

"No, he didn't," Laduni said, "and wait until you see some of his other traveling companions. You won't believe it."

"And you came at just the right time. We're having a Mother Festival tomorrow," Laronia said.

37

The people of the Cave of the Sacred Hot Springs were anticipating the Festival to Honor the Mother with great enthusiasm. In the deep of winter, when life was usually most dull and boring, Ayla and Jondalar had arrived and provoked enough excitement to keep the Cave stimulated for a long time, and with the inevitable storytelling that would result, the interest would last for years. From the moment they rode up, sitting on the backs of horses and followed by the Wolf Who Liked Children, everyone had been buzzing with speculation. They had enthralling stories to tell about their travels, arresting new ideas to share, and fascinating devices like spear-throwers and thread-pullers to demonstrate.

Now everyone was talking about something magical that the woman would show them during the ceremony, something having to do with fire, like their burning stones. Losaduna had mentioned it while they were eating their evening meal. The visitors had also promised to give a demonstration of the spear-thrower in the field outside the cave so everyone could see its possibilities, and Ayla was going to show what could be done with a sling. But even the promised demonstrations did not pique their curiosity as much as the mystery involving fire.

Ayla discovered that constantly being the center of attention could be as exhausting, in a different kind of way, as constantly traveling. All evening people had plied her with eager questions and sought her opinion and ideas on subjects about which she had no knowledge. By the time the sun was setting, she was tired and didn't feel like talking any more. Soon after dark she left the gathering around the fire in the central part of the cave to go to bed. Wolf went with her and Jondalar followed shortly afterward, leaving the Cave free to gossip and speculate in their absence.

In the sleeping area allocated to them within the ceremonial and dwelling space of Losaduna, they puttered around with preparations for the next day, then crawled into their furs. Jondalar held her and considered making the initial overtures that Ayla considered his "signal" to couple, but she seemed nervous and distracted, and he wanted to save himself. One never knew what to expect at a Mother Festival, and Losaduna had

hinted that it might be a good idea to hold back and wait to honor the Mother until after the special ritual they had planned.

He had spoken with the One Who Served the Mother about his concerns regarding his ability to have children born to his hearth, whether the Great Mother would find his spirit acceptable for a new life. They had decided on a private ritual before the festival to appeal directly to the Mother for Her help.

Ayla lay awake long after she heard the heavier breathing of sleep from the man beside her, tired but unable to fall asleep herself. She shifted position frequently, trying not to disturb Jondalar with her restless turnings. Though she dozed off, sound sleep was slow in coming, and her thoughts drifted in strange patterns as she wavered between wakeful imaginings and fitful dreams...

The meadow was freshly green with the lush new growth of spring, brightened by the varied hues of colorful flowers. In the distance, the ivory-white scarp face of a rock wall, pocked with caves and textured with black streaks sweeping up and around into roomy cliff overhangs, almost gleamed in the light blazing down from high in the clear azure sky. Reflected sunlight glinted from the river that flowed along its base, hugging close one moment, then veering away, generally tracing the contours of the wall without following it exactly.

About halfway down the field that spread out across level ground away from the river, a man stood watching her, a man of the Clan. Then he turned and headed toward the cliff, leaning on a staff and dragging a foot, yet walking at a good pace. Though he didn't say or signal a word, she knew he wanted her to follow him. She hurried toward him, and when they came abreast, he glanced at her with his one good eye. It was a deep liquid brown, full of compassion and power. She knew his bearskin cloak covered the stump of an arm that had been amputated at the elbow when he was a boy. His grandmother, a medicine woman of renowned reputation, had cut off the useless, paralyzed limb when it became gangrenous after he was mangled by a cave bear. Creb had lost his eye during the same encounter.

As they neared the rock wall, she noticed a strange formation near the top of a overhanging cliff. A longish, somewhat flat, column-shaped boulder, darker than the creamy matrix of limestone that held it, leaned over the edge as if frozen in place just as it started to tumble down. The stone not only gave the feeling that it would fall any moment, making her uneasy, but she knew something about it was important; something she should remember, something she had done, or was supposed to do—or wasn't supposed to do.

She closed her eyes trying to recall. She saw darkness, thick, velvet, palpable darkness, as utterly lacking in light as only a cave deep in a mountain could be. A tiny flickering of light appeared in the distance and she groped her way along a narrow passage toward it. As she neared, she saw Creb with other mog-urs, and she suddenly felt great fear. She didn't want that memory and quickly opened her eyes.

And found herself on the bank of the small river that wound its way along the base of the wall. She looked across the water and saw Creb trudging up a path toward the falling stone formation. She had gotten behind him and now didn't know how to cross the river to catch up. She called after him, "Creb, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to follow you into the cave."

He turned around and beckoned to her again, signaling great urgency. "Hurry," he signed from across the river, which had become wider and deeper, and full of ice. "Don't wait any longer! Hurry!"

The ice was expanding, taking him farther away. "Wait for me! Creb, don't leave me here!" she cried.

"Ayla! Ayla, wake up! You're dreaming again," Jondalar said, shaking her gently.

She opened her eyes and felt a great sense of loss and a strangely intense fear. She noticed the hide-covered walls of the dwelling space and a reddish glow from the fireplace as she looked at the shadowed silhouette of the man beside her. She reached out and clung to him. "We have to hurry, Jondalar! We have to leave here right away," she said.

"We will," he said. "As soon as we can. But tomorrow is the Mother Festival, and then we have to decide what we need to take to cross the ice."

"Ice!" she said. "We have to cross a river of ice!"

"Yes, I know," he said, holding her and trying to calm her. "But we have to plan how we're going to do it with the horses and Wolf. We'll need food, and a way to get water for all of us. The ice is frozen solid up there."

"Creb said to hurry. We have to leave!"

"As soon as we can, Ayla. I promise, as soon as we can," Jondalar said, feeling a nagging edge of worry. They did need to leave and get across the glacier as soon as possible, but they couldn't go before the Mother Festival, could they?

Though it did little to warm the freezing air, the late afternoon sun streamed through the branches of trees, which broke up the coruscating rays but did not block the blinding western light. To the east, the glaciered mountain peaks, reflecting the brilliant orb that was descending into fiery clouds, were suffused with a soft rosy glow that seemed to emanate from within the ice. The light would soon be failing, but Jondalar and Ayla were still in the field outside the cave, although he was watching along with everyone else.

Ayla took a deep breath, then held it, not wanting to obstruct her view with the steamy fog of her breath while she took careful aim. She shifted the two stones in her hand, then placed one in the pocket of the sling, whirled it around and flung it, letting go of one end. Then, starting at the end she still held, she quickly ran it through her hand to retrieve the loose end, dropped the second stone in the cup, whirled and cast it. She could cast two stones faster than anyone had ever imagined.

"Oooh!" "Look at that!" People who had been standing at the large mouth of the cave during the demonstrations of spear-throwing and rock-slinging let out the breaths they, too, had been holding and made comments of surprise and appreciation. "She broke up both snowballs from all the way across the field." "I thought she was good with the spear-thrower, but she's even better with that sling."