The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"Echozar, don't hate your mother's people," she said. "It is not that they are bad, they are just so ancient that it's hard for them to change. Their traditions go back so far, and they don't understand new ways."

"And they are people," Jondalar said to Dalanar. "That's one thing I've learned on this Journey. We met a couple just before we started over the glacier—that's another story—but they're planning meetings about the problems they've been having with some of us, especially some young Losadunai men. Someone has even approached them about trading."

"Flatheads having meetings? Trading? This world is changing faster than I can understand," Dalanar said. "Until I met Echozar, I wouldn't have believed it."

"People may call them flatheads, and animals, but you know your mother was a brave woman, Echozar," Ayla said, then held out her hands to him. "I know how it feels to have no people. Now I am Ayla of the Mamutoi. Will you welcome me, Echozar of the Lanzadonii?"

He took her hands and she felt them tremble. "You are welcome here, Ayla of the Mamutoi," he said.

Jondalar stepped forward with his hands outstretched. "I greet you, Echozar of the Lanzadonii," he said.

"I welcome you, Jondalar of the Zelandonii," Echozar said, "but you don't need to be welcomed here. I've heard about the son of Dalanar's hearth. There's no doubt you were born of his spirit. You are much like him."

Jondalar grinned. "Everyone says so, but don't you think his nose is a little bigger than mine?"

"I don't. I think yours is bigger than mine," Dalanar laughed, clapping the younger man's shoulder. "Come inside. The food is getting cold."

Ayla lingered a moment to talk to Echozar, and when she turned to go in, Joplaya detained her.

"I want to talk to Ayla, Echozar, but don't go in yet. I want to talk to you, too," she said. He walked away quickly to leave the two women alone, but not before Ayla saw the adoration in his eyes when he looked at Joplaya.

"Ayla, I . . ." Joplaya began. "I ... think I know why Jondalar loves you. I want to say ... I want to wish you both happiness."

Ayla studied the dark-haired woman. She sensed a change in her, a drawing in, a feeling of grim finality. Suddenly Ayla knew why she had been so uneasy about the woman.

"Thank you, Joplaya. I love him very much; it would be hard to live without him. It would leave me with a great emptiness inside that would be very hard to bear."

"Yes, very hard to bear," Joplaya said, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Aren't you going to come in and eat?" Jondalar said, coming back out of the cave.

"You go ahead, Ayla. There's something I have to do first."

44

Echozar glanced at the large piece of obsidian, then looked away. The ripples in the shiny black glass distorted his reflection, but nothing could change it, and he didn't want to see himself today. He was dressed in a deerskin tunic, fringed with tufts of fur and decorated with beads made of hollow bird bones, dyed quills, and sharp animal teeth. He had never owned anything so fine. Joplaya had made it for him, for the ceremony that officially adopted him into the First Cave of the Lanzadonii.

As he walked into the main area of the cave, he felt the soft leather, smoothing it with reverence knowing her hands had made it. It almost hurt just to think about her. He had loved her from the first. It was she who had talked to him, listened to him, tried to draw him out. He would never have faced all those Zelandonii at the Summer Meeting that year if it hadn't been for her, and when he saw how the men flocked around her, he wanted to die. It had taken months to work up the courage to ask her: How could anyone who looked like him dare to dream of a woman like her? When she didn't refuse, he nourished his hope. But she had put off giving him an answer for so long, he was sure it was her way of saying no.

Then, on the day Ayla and Jondalar arrived, when she asked him if he still wanted her, he couldn't believe it. Wanted her! He had never wanted anything so much in his life. He waited for a time when he could talk to Dalanar alone. But the visitors were always with him. He didn't want to bother them. And he was afraid to ask. Only the thought of losing his one chance for more happiness than he ever dreamed possible gave him the courage.

Then Dalanar said she was Jerika's daughter and he'd have to talk it over with her, but all he had asked was did Joplaya agree, and did he love her. Did he love her? Did he love her? O Mother, did he love her!

Echozar took his place among the people waiting expectantly, and he felt his heart beat faster when he saw Dalanar get up and walk toward a hearth in the middle of the cave. A small wood sculpture of a well-rounded female was stuck in the ground in front of the hearth. The ample breasts, full stomach, and broad buttocks of the donii were accurately portrayed, but the head was little more than a knob with no features and the arms and legs were only suggested. Dalanar stood beside the hearth and faced the assembled group.

"First I want to announce that we are going to the Zelandonii Summer Meeting again this year," Dalanar began, "and we invite any who want to join us to come. It's a long trip for us, but I hope to persuade one of the younger zelandoni to return and make a home with us. We have no lanzadoni, and we need One Who Serves the Mother. We are growing, soon there will be a Second Cave, and someday the Lanzadonii will have their own Summer Meetings.

"There is another reason for going. Not only will the mating of Jondalar and Ayla be sanctified at the Matrimonial, we will have another reason to celebrate it this year, too."

Dalanar picked up the wooden representation of the Great Earth Mother and nodded. Echozar was nervous, even though he knew this was only an announcement ceremony and much more casual than the elaborate Matrimonial would be, with its purifying rituals and taboos. When they both stood before him, Dalanar began.

"Echozar, Son of Woman blessed of Doni, of the First Cave of the Lanzadonii, you have asked Joplaya, Daughter of Jerika mated to Dalanar, to be your mate. This is true?"

"It is true," Echozar said in a voice so weak it could hardly be heard.

"Joplaya, Daughter of Jerika mated to Dalanar..."

The words were not the same, but the meaning was, and Ayla shook with sobs as she recalled a similar ceremony when she stood beside a dusky man who looked at her the way Echozar looked at Joplaya.