The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"Jondalar! That man!" He caught the startled tone in her voice and turned to look at her. She was ashen.

"What's wrong, Ayla?"

"He looks like Durc! Or maybe the way my son will look when he grows up. Jondalar, that man is part Clan!"

Jondalar looked closer. It was true. The man Joplaya was urging toward them had the look of the Clan. But as they approached, Ayla noticed one striking difference between this man and the men of the Clan she knew. He was almost as tall as she.

When he neared, she made a motion with her hand. It was subtle, hardly noticeable to anyone else, but the man's large brown eyes opened wide with surprise.

"Where did you learn that?" he asked, making the same gesture. His voice was deep, but clear and distinct. He had no problem speaking; a sure sign he was a mixture.

"I was raised by a clan. They found me when I was a little girl. I don't remember any family before that."

"A clan raised you? They cursed my mother because she gave birth to me," he said bitterly. "What clan would raise you?"

"I didn't think her accent was Mamutoi," Jerika interjected. Several people were standing around them.

Jondalar took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He had known from the beginning Ayla's background would come out sooner or later. "When I met her, she couldn't even talk, Jerika, at least not with words. But she saved my life after I was attacked by a cave lion. She was adopted by the Mamutoi into the Mammoth Hearth because she is so skilled in healing."

"She is Mamut? One Who Serves the Mother? Where is her mark? I don't see any tattoo on her cheek," Jerika said.

"Ayla learned to heal from the woman who raised her, a medicine woman of the people she calls Clan—flatheads—but she's as good as any zelandoni. The Mamut was only starting to train her to Serve the Mother before we left; she was never initiated. That's why she has no mark," Jondalar explained.

"I knew she was zelandoni. She has to be to control animals like that, but how could she learn healing from a flathead woman?" Dalanar exclaimed. "Before I met Echozar, I thought they were little more than animals. I understand from him that they can talk, in a way, and now you say they have healers. You should have told me, Echozar."

"How would I know? I'm not a flathead!" Echozar spat the word out. "I only knew my mother, and Andovan."

Ayla was surprised at the venom in his voice. "You said your mother was cursed? And yet she survived to raise you? She must have been a remarkable woman."

Echozar looked directly into the gray-blue eyes of the tall blond woman. There was no hesitation, no drawing back to avoid staring at him. He felt strangely drawn to this woman he had never seen before, comfortable with her.

"She didn't talk about it much," Echozar said. "She was attacked by some men, who killed her mate when he tried to protect her. He was the brother of the leader of her clan, and she was blamed tor his death. The leader said she brought bad luck. But later, when she learned she was expecting a child, he took her as a second

woman. When I was born, he said it proved she was a bad-luck woman. She had not only killed her mate, she gave birth to a deformed baby. Then he cursed her, a death curse." He was talking more openly to this woman than he normally did, and he was surprised at himself.

"I'm not sure what that means—a death curse," Echozar continued. "She only told me once, and then she couldn't finish. She said everyone turned away from her, as though they could not see her. They said she was dead, and even though she tried to make them look at her, it was like she wasn't there, like she was dead. It must have been terrible."

"It was," Ayla said softly. "It's hard to go on living if you don't exist to the ones you love." Her eyes misted with memory.

"My mother took me and left them to go and die, like she was supposed to, but Andovan found her. He was old even then, and living alone. He never did tell me why he left his Cave, it was something about a cruel leader..."

"Andovan..." Ayla interrupted. "Was he S'Armunai?"

"Yes, I think so," Echozar said. "He didn't talk about his people much."

"We know about their cruel leader," Jondalar said, grimly.

"Andovan took care of us," Echozar continued. "He taught me to hunt. He learned to speak the sign language of the Clan from my mother, but she never could say more than a few words. I learned both, though it surprised her that I could make his word sounds. Andovan died a few years ago, and with him my mother's will to live. The death curse finally took her."

"What did you do then?" Jondalar asked.

"I lived alone."

"That is not easy," Ayla said.

"No, it's not easy. I tried to find someone to live with. No clan would let me near them. They threw stones at me and said I was deformed and unlucky. No Cave would have anything to do with me, either. They said I was an abomination of mixed spirits, half-man and half-animal. After a while I got tired of trying. I didn't want to be alone any more. One day I jumped off a cliff into the river The next thing I knew, Dalanar was looking at me. He took me to his Cave. Now I am Echozar of the Lanzadonii," he finished proudly, glancing at the tall man he idolized.

Ayla thought of her son, grateful he had been accepted as a baby, and grateful there were people who loved him and wanted him when she had to leave him behind.