The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"It means I already own a piece of his spirit," Ayla said.

"But you don't even know him! How can you own a piece of his spirit?"

"A medicine woman saves lives. She could claim a piece of the spirit of everyone she saves, could 'own' pieces of everyone before many years have gone by. So when she is made a medicine woman, she gives a piece of her spirit to the Clan, and receives a piece of every Clan person in return. That way, no matter who she saves, the debt is already paid. That's why a medicine woman has status in her own right." Ayla looked thoughtful, then said, "This is the first time I'm glad the Clan spirits were not taken back..." She paused.

Jondalar started to speak. Then he noticed that she was staring into the empty air, and he realized she was looking inside herself.

". . . When I was cursed with death," she continued. "I've worried about that for a long time. After Iza died, Creb took all the spirit pieces back, so they would not go with her to the next world. But when Broud had me cursed, no one took them back from me, even though to the Clan I am dead."

"What would happen if they knew that?" Jondalar asked, indicating with a discreet twist of his head the two Clan people who were watching them.

"I would not exist to them any more. They would not see me; they would not let themselves see me. I could stand right in front of them and scream, and they would not hear it. They would think I was a bad spirit trying to trap them into the next world," Ayla said, closing her eyes and shuddering with the memory.

"But why did you say you were glad that you still had the spirit pieces?" Jondalar asked.

"Because I can't say one thing and mean something else. I can't lie to him. He would know it. But I can refrain from mentioning. That's allowed, out of courtesy, for the sake of privacy. I don't have to say anything about the curse, even though he would probably know I was holding something back, but I can talk about being a medicine woman of the Clan, because it's true. I still am. I still own the spirit pieces." She frowned then, with worry. "But someday I will really die, Jondalar. If I go to the next world with the spirit pieces of everyone in the Clan, what will happen to them?"

"I don't know, Ayla," he said.

She shrugged, putting the thought aside. "Well, it's this world I need to worry about now. If he will accept me as a medicine woman of the Clan, then he won't have to be so concerned about owing a debt to me. It's bad enough for him to owe a kinship debt to one of the Others, but worse if it's a woman, especially one who used a weapon."

"But you hunted when you lived with the Clan," Jondalar reminded her.

"That was a special exception, and only because I survived a moon-cycle curse of death for hunting and using a sling. Brun allowed it because my Cave Lion totem protected me. He thought of it as a testing, and I think it finally gave him a reason to accept a woman with such a strong totem. He's the one who gave me my hunting talisman and called me the Woman Who Hunts."

Ayla touched the leather bag she always wore around her neck, and thought of her first one, the simple drawstring pouch that Iza had made for her. As her mother, Iza had put the piece of red ochre inside it when Ayla was accepted by the Clan. That amulet was nothing like the finely decorated one she wore now, which had been given to her at her Mamutoi adoption ceremony, but it still held her special tokens, including that original piece of red ochre. All the signs her totem had given to her were in it, as well as the red-stained oval from the tip of a mammoth tusk that was her hunting talisman, and the black stone, the small chunk of black manganese dioxide that held the spirit pieces of the Clan, which had been given to her when she became the medicine woman of Brun's clan.

"Jondalar, I think it would help if you would talk to him. He's unsure. His ways are very traditional, and too many unusual things have been going on. If he had a man to talk to, even one of the Others, rather than a woman, it might ease his mind. Do you remember the sign for a man to greet a man?"

Jondalar made a motion, and Ayla nodded. She knew it lacked finesse, but the meaning was clear. "Don't attempt to greet the woman yet. It would be in bad taste, and he might consider it an insult. It is not customary or appropriate for men to talk to women without a good reason, especially strangers, and you will need his permission even then. With kin, there are fewer formalities, and a close friend could even relieve his needs—share Pleasures—with her, though it's considered polite to ask his permission first."

"Ask his permission, but not hers? Why do the women allow themselves to be treated as though they are less important than men?" Jondalar asked.

"They don't think of it that way. They know, within themselves, that women and men are just as important, but men and women of the Clan are very different from each other," Ayla tried to explain.

"Of course they are different. All men and women are different ... I'm glad to say."

"I don't just mean different in the way you can see. You can do anything a woman can do, Jondalar, except have a baby, and although you are stronger, I can do almost everything you can do. But men of the Clan cannot do many things that women do, just as women cannot do the things that men do. They don't have the memories for it. When I taught myself to hunt, many people were more surprised that I had the ability to learn, or even the desire, than that I had gone against the way of the Clan. It wouldn't have astounded them any more if you had given birth to a baby. I think the women were more surprised than the men. The idea would never occur to a Clan woman."

"I thought you said the people of the Clan and the Others are very much alike," Jondalar said.

"They are. But in some ways, they are more different than you can imagine. Even I c

an't imagine it, and I was one of them, for a while," Ayla said. "Are you ready to talk to him now?"

"I think so," he said.

The tall, blond man walked toward the powerful, stocky man who was still sitting on the ground, with his thigh bent at an unnatural angle. Ayla followed. Jondalar lowered himself to sit in front of the man, glancing at Ayla, who nodded approval.

He had never been so close to an adult flathead male before, and his first thought was a memory of Rydag. Looking at this man, it was even more obvious that the boy had not been full Clan. As Jondalar recalled the strange, bright, sickly child, he realized that Rydag's features had been greatly modified in comparison—softened was the word that came to him. This man's face was large, both long and wide, and jutted out somewhat, led by a sizable, protruding, sharp nose. His fine-haired beard, which showed signs of having been recently trimmed to a uniform length, did not entirely succeed in hiding a rather receding jaw, with no chin.

His facial hair blended into a mass of thick, softly curled, light brown hair covering a huge, long head, that was full and rounded at the back. But the man's heavy brow ridges took up most of his forehead, which sloped back into a hairline that started low. Jondalar had to restrain an urge to reach up and touch his own sharply rising high forehead and domed head. He could understand why they were called flatheads. It was as if someone had taken a head that was shaped like his, but somewhat larger, and made of material as malleable as wet clay, then reshaped it by pushing down and flattening his forehead, forcing the bulk of the size toward the back.

The man's heavy brows were accentuated by bushy eyebrows, and his gold-flecked, almost hazel eyes showed curiosity, intelligence, and an undercurrent of pain. Jondalar could understand why Ayla wanted to help him.

Jondalar felt clumsy making the gesture for greeting; but he was heartened by the look of surprise on the face of the man of the Clan, who returned the gesture. Jondalar wasn't sure what to do next. He thought about what he would do if he were meeting any stranger from another Cave or Camp, and he tried to remember the signs he had learned to make with Rydag.

He gestured, "This man is called..." then spoke his name and primary affiliation, "Jondalar of the Zelandonii."