The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

Near her source, she was fresher, sprightlier, a leaner, shallower stream that tumbled over her wide rocky bed as she raced down the steep mountainside. But the westward route of the travelers along the swiftly flowing river had become a continuous uphill climb, one that took them ever closer to their inevitable rendezvous with the thick layer of unmelting ice that capped the broad high plateau of the rugged highland ahead.

The shapes of glaciers followed the contours of the land. Those on mountaintops were craggy tors of ice, those on level ground spread out like pancakes, with a nearly uniform thickness, rising slightly higher in the middle, leaving behind gravel banks and gouging out depressions that became lakes and ponds. At its farthest advance, the southernmost lobe of the vast continental cake of ice, whose nearly level top was as high as the mountains around them, missed by less than five degrees of latitude a meeting with the northern reaches of the mountain glaciers. The land between the two was the coldest anywhere on earth.

Unlike mountain glaciers, frozen rivers creeping slowly down the sides of mountains, the unmelting ice on the rounded, nearly flat highland—the glacier Jondalar was so concerned about still to the west of them—was a plateau glacier, a miniature version of the great thick layer of ice that spread across the plains of the continent to the north.

As Ayla and Jondalar continued along the river, they gained altitude with each step. They made the ascent with an eye toward sparing the heavily laden horses, most often leading them instead of riding. Ayla was particularly concerned for Whinney, who was hauling the major portion of the burning stones that they hoped would ensure the survival of their traveling companions when they crossed the icy surface, a terrain that horses would never attempt on their own.

In addition to Whinney's pole drag, both horses carried heavy packs, though the load on the mare's back was lighter, to compensate for the travois she pulled. Racer's load was piled so high that it was somewhat unwieldy, but even the backpacks of the woman and man were substantial. Only the wolf was free of additional burdens, and Ayla had begun to eye his unfettered movements, thinking that he, too, could carry a share.

"All this effort to carry rocks," Ayla remarked one morning as she shrugged on her backpack. "Some people would think we were strange to be hauling this heavy load of stones up these mountains."

"Many more think we're strange for traveling with two horses and a wolf," Jondalar countered, "but if we're going to get them across the ice, we're going to have to get these stones up there. And there is one thing to be glad for."

"What is that?"

"How easy it will be once we reach the other side."

The upper course of the river traversed the northern foreland of the range of mountains to the south, which was so huge that the travelers had little real sense of its immense scale. The Losad

unai lived in a region, just south of the river, of more rounded, massiflike limestone mountains with extensive areas of relatively level plateaus. Though worn down by eons of wind and water, the eroded eminences were lofty enough to bear glistening crowns of ice throughout the year. Between the river and the mountains was a landscape of dormant vegetation overlaying a flysch zone of sandstone. This in turn was covered by a light mantle of winter snow that blurred the lower boundary of the unmelting ice, but the shimmer of glacial blue revealed its nature.

Farther south, gleaming in the sun like giant shards of broken alabaster, the exalted crags of the central zone, almost a separate range within the great mass of uplifted earth, soared high above the nearer heights. As the travelers continued their climb toward the higher western chain within the complex range, the silent march of the central mountains followed their progression, watched over by a brooding pair of jagged peaks towering far above the rest.

To the north, across the river, the ancient crystalline massif rose steeply, its undulating surface occasionally overtopped by rocky crags and covered by block fields with raised meadows in between. Looking ahead, westward, higher rounded hills, some topped with small icy crowns of their own, reached across the frozen river, no boundary to frost, to join the ice of the younger folded ridges of the southern range.

Dry, powdery snow drifted down less frequently as their Journey took them closer to the coldest part of the continent, the region between the farthest northern extension of the mountain glacier and the southernmost reaches of the vast, continent-spanning ice sheets. Not even the windy loess steppes of the eastern plains could match the severity of its bitter cold. The land was saved from the desolation of frozen ice sheets only by the moderating maritime influence of the western ocean.

The highland glacier they planned to go over, without the air warmed by the unfrozen ocean keeping the encroaching ice at bay, could have expanded and become impossible to cross. The maritime influences that allowed passage to the western steppes and tundras also kept the glaciers away from the land of the Zelandonii, sparing it the heavy layer of ice that covered other lands at the same latitude.

Jondalar and Ayla fell easily back into their traveling routine, although it seemed to Ayla that they had been traveling forever. She longed to reach the end of their Journey. Memories of the quiet winter in the earthlodge of the Lion Camp flashed into her mind as they plodded forward through the monotony of the winter landscape. She recalled small incidents with pleasure, forgetting the misery that had overshadowed her days the whole time when she'd thought that Jondalar had stopped loving her.

Although all their water had to be melted, usually from river ice rather than snow—the land was bleak and barren with few snowdrifts —Ayla decided there were some benefits to the freezing cold. The tributaries to the Great Mother River were smaller, and frozen solid, making them easier to cross. But they invariably hurried across the right-bank openings because of the fierce winds that roared through valleys of the rivers and streams. These blasts funneled frigid air from the high-pressure areas of the southern mountains, adding wind chill to the already freezing air.

Shivering even in her heavy furs, Ayla felt relieved when they finally made it across a wide valley to the protective barrier of nearby higher ground. "I'm so cold!" she said through chattering teeth. "I wish it would warm up a little."

Jondalar looked alarmed. "Don't wish that, Ayla!"

"Why not?"

"We have to be across the glacier before the weather turns. A warm wind means the foehn, the snow-melter, that will break the season. Then we'll have to go around to the north, through Clan country. It will take much longer, and with all the trouble Charoli has been causing them, I don't think they will be very welcoming," Jondalar said.

She nodded with understanding, looking across to the north side of the river. After studying it for some distance, Ayla said, "They have the better side."

"What makes you say that?"

"Even from here you can see that there are plains that have good grass, and that would bring more animals to hunt. On this side are mostly scrub pines—that means sandy earth and poor grass, except for a few places. This side must be just enough closer to the ice to be colder, and less rich," she explained.

"You may be right," Jondalar said, thinking her evaluation was astute. "I don't know what it's like in summer; I've only been here in winter."

Ayla had judged accurately. The soils of the northern plains of the valley of the great river were primarily loess over a limestone bedrock, and more fertile than the southern side. In addition, the mountain glaciers of the south crowded closer, making the winters more harsh and the summers cooler, barely warm enough to melt the accumulated snows and ground frost of winter back to the previous summer's snow line—almost. Most of the glaciers were growing again, slowly, but enough to signal a shift from the current milieu, the slightly warmer interval, back to colder times, and one last glacial advance before the long melt that would leave ice only in polar regions.

The dormant state of the trees often left Ayla unsure of their variety, until she tasted a twig tip or bud or bit of inner bark. Where alder dominated near the river, and along the lower valleys of its tributaries, she knew they would be in peaty fen woods if it were summer; where it was mixed with willow and poplar would be the wettest parts, and the occasional ash, elm, or hornbeam, hardly more than woody brush, indicated drier ground. The rare dwarfed oak, struggling to survive in more protected niches, barely hinted at the massive oak forests that would one day cover a more temperate land. Trees were absent entirely from the sandy soils of the raised heath land, able to nourish only heather, whins, sparse grasses, mosses, and lichens.

Even in the frigid climate, some birds and animals thrived; cold-adapted animals of the steppes and mountains abounded, and hunting was easy. Only rarely did they use the supplies given to them by the Losadunai, which they wanted to save for the crossing anyway. Not until they reached the frozen wasteland would they need to rely entirely on the resources they carried.

Ayla saw an uncommon pygmy snow owl and pointed it out to Jondalar. He became adept at finding willow grouse, which tasted like the white-feathered ptarmigan that he had grown so fond of, particularly the way that Ayla cooked them. Its mixed coloration gave it better camouflage in a landscape not entirely covered by snow. Jondalar seemed to recall that there had been more snow the last time he had come that way.

The region was influenced by both the continental east and the maritime west, revealed by the unusual mixture of plants and animals that seldom lived near each other. The small furry creatures were an example that Ayla noticed, although during the freezing season, the mice, dormice, voles, susliks, and hamsters were seldom seen, except when she broke through a nest for the vegetable foods they had stored. Though she sometimes took the animals too, for Wolf or, particularly if she found giant hamsters, for themselves, the little animals more commonly gave sustenance to martens, foxes, and the small wildcats.