Then she remembered that the Cave Lion was his totem, too, chosen by the Spirit of the powerful animal just as she had been. She knew it was not easy living with a powerful totem, the tests were difficult, but the gifts, and the knowledge that came inside, were always worth it. Creb had told her that the Great Cave Lion never chose someone who wasn’t worthy.

Rather than the smaller, one-shouldered Mamutoi haversack, they settled into heavy traveling packs, similar to the type Jondalar once used, designed to be worn on the back, with straps over the shoulders. They made sure the hoods of their parkas were free to slip on or off. Ayla had added tumplines, which could be worn across the forehead for added support, if they chose, though she usually dispensed with the tumpline in favor of wearing her sling wrapped around her head. Their food, fire-making materials, tent, and sleeping furs were packed inside.

Jondalar also carried two good-sized nodules of flint carefully selected from several he had found on the beach, and a pouch full of firestones. In a separate holder attached to the side, they both carried spears and spear-throwers. Ayla carried several good throwing stones in a pouch, and under her parka, attached to a thong she had tied around her tunic, was her otter skin medicine bag.

The hay, which Ayla had bound into a round bale, was tied on the mare. She gave both horses a critical appraisal, checking their legs, their stance, their carriage to make sure they were not overloaded. With a last look up the steep path, they started out down the long valley, Whinney following Ayla, Jondalar leading Racer by a rope. They crossed over the small river near the stepping-stones. Ayla considered removing some of Whinney’s load to make it easier for her to get up the graveled slope, but the sturdy mare made it with little trouble.

Once up on the western steppes, Ayla went a different way from the one they had arrived by. She took a wrong turn, then backtracked, until she found the one she was looking for. Finally, they arrived at a blind canyon strewn with huge, sharp-angled boulders, which had been sheared from crystalline granite walls by the cutting edge of frost and heat and time. Watching Whinney for signs of nervousness—the canyon had once been home to cave lions—they started in, drawn to the slope of loose gravel at the far end.

When Ayla had found them, Thonolan was already dead and Jondalar gravely injured. Except for a request to the Spirit of her Cave Lion to guide the man to the next world, she’d had no time for burial rites, but she couldn’t leave the body exposed to predation. She had dragged him to the end, and using her heavy spear, fashioned after the kind used by the men of the Clan, she levered aside a rock which held back an accumulation of loose stone. She had grieved as the gravel covered the lifeless, bloody form of a man she never knew, and now, never would; a man like herself, a man of the Others.

Jondalar stood at the foot of the slope wishing there was something he could do to acknowledge this burial place of his brother. Perhaps Doni had already found him, since She called him back to Her so soon, but he knew Zelandoni would try to find this resting place of Thonolan’s spirit and guide him if she could. But how could he tell her where this place was? He couldn’t even have found it himself.

“Jondalar?” Ayla said. He looked at her and noticed she had a small leather pouch in her hand. “You have told me his spirit should return to Doni. I don’t know the ways of the Great Earth Mother, I only know of the spirit world of the Clan totems. I asked my Cave Lion to guide him there. Maybe it is the same place, or maybe your Great Mother knows of that place, but the Cave Lion is a powerful totem and your brother is not without protection.”

“Thank you, Ayla. I know you did the best you could.”

“Maybe you don’t understand, just as I don’t understand Doni, but the Cave Lion is your totem, too, now. He chose you, as he chose me, and marked you, as he marked me.”

“You told me that before. I’m not sure what it means.”

“He had to choose you, when he chose you for me. Only a man with a Cave Lion totem is strong enough for a woman with a Cave Lion totem, but there is something you must know. Creb always told me, it is not easy living with a powerful totem. His Spirit will test you, to know you are worthy. It will be very hard, but you will gain more than you know.” She held up the small pouch. “I made an amulet for you. You don’t have to wear it around your neck, as I do, but you should keep it with you. I put a piece of red ochre in it, so it can hold a piece of your spirit and a piece of your totem’s, but I think your amulet should hold one more thing.”

Jondalar was frowning. He didn’t want to offend her, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted this Clan totem amulet.

“I think you should take a piece of stone from your brother’s grave. A piece of his spirit will stay with it, and you can carry it back with yours to your people.”

The knots of consternation on his forehead deepened, then suddenly cleared. Of course! That might help Zelandoni find this place in a spirit trance. Maybe there was more to Clan totems than he realized. After all, didn’t Doni create the spirits of all the animals?

“Ayla, how do you know exactly what to do? How could you learn so much, where you grew up? Yes, I’ll keep this and put a stone from Thonolan’s grave in it,” he said.

He looked at the loose, sharp-edged gravel sloping against the wall in a tenuous equilibrium, created by the same forces that had split the stone slabs and blocks from the steep canyon sides. Suddenly a stone, giving way to the cosmic force of gravity, rolled down amid a spattering of other rocks and landed at Jondalar’s feet. He picked it up. At first glance, it appeared to be the same as all the other innocuous little pieces of broken granite and sedimentary rock. But when he turned it over, he was surprised to see a shining opalescence where the stone had broken. Fiery red lights gleamed from the heart of the milky white stone, and shimmering streaks of blues and greens danced and sparkled in the sun as he turned it this way and that.

“Ayla, look at this,” he said, showing her the small piece of opal. “You’d never guess it from the back. You’d think it was just an ordinary stone, but look here, where it broke off. The colors seem to come from deep inside, and they’re so bright. It almost seems alive.”

“Maybe it is, or maybe it is a piece of the spirit of your brother,” she replied.

16

A cold eddy of air curled beneath the edge of the low tent; an exposed arm was quickly brought under a fur. A stiff breeze whistled through the flap across the opening; a frown of worry creased a sleeping brow. A gust caught the flap with a sharp crack and snapped it back and forth, o

pening the way for bellowing drafts, which brought both Ayla and Jondalar fully awake in an instant. Jondalar tied the loose end down, but the wind, increasing steadily through the night, made sleep fitful and uneasy as it gasped and groaned, heaved and howled around the small hide shelter.

In the morning, they struggled to fold the tent hide between them in the blustery wind and packed quickly, not bothering to make a fire. Instead they drank cold water from the icy stream nearby and ate traveling food. The wind abated around midmorning, but there was a tension in the atmosphere which made them doubt that the worst was over.

When the wind picked up again around noon, Ayla noticed a fresh, almost metallic scent to the air, more like an absence of smell than an actual odor. She sniffed, turning her head, testing, evaluating.

“There’s snow on this wind.” Ayla shouted to be heard above the roar. “I can smell it.”

“What did you say?” Jondalar said, but the wind whipped his words away and Ayla understood his meaning more from the shapes his mouth took as he spoke than from hearing him. She stopped to let him come abreast.

“I can smell snow on the way. We’ve got to find a place to shelter before it comes,” Ayla said, searching the broad, flat expanse with troubled eyes. “But where can we find shelter out here?”

Jondalar was equally worried as he scanned the empty steppes. Then he recalled the nearly frozen stream they had camped near the night before. They hadn’t crossed over, it would still be on their left no matter how much it meandered. He strained to see through blowing dust, but nothing was clear. He turned left anyway.

“Let’s try to find that little river,” he said. “There may be trees or high banks along it that will give us some protection.” Ayla nodded, following his lead. Whinney did not object either.

The subtle quality to the air that the woman had detected, and thought of as the smell of snow, had been an accurate warning. Before long, a light powdery sifting whirled and blew in an erratic pattern, defining and giving shape to the wind. It soon gave way to larger flakes that made it more difficult to see.

Tags: Jean M. Auel Earth's Children Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net