The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  “Get away from him,” the man said, but the bravado was belied by the fear she detected in his voice.

  Ayla paused, frankly appraised the man, and realized his objection was for the benefit of the band of men, not because he particularly cared about the one who was wounded.

  She continued her examination. “He’ll have a headache for a few days, but he’ll be fine. If I had seriously meant to harm him, I would not have held back. He would be dead, Charoli.”

  “How do you know my name?” the young man blurted out, frightened but trying not to show it. How did this stranger know who he was?

  Ayla shrugged. “We know more than your name.”

  She glanced in the direction of the man and woman of the Clan. To most of the people there, they seemed impassive, but Ayla could see their shock and uneasiness in the subtle shadings of expression and posture. They were warily watching the people of the Others, trying to make sense out of the strange turn of events.

  For the time being, the man thought, they seemed to be in no danger of further attack, but that big man, why had he helped them … or seemed to help them. Why would a man of the Others fight men of his kind to help them? And what about the woman? If she was a woman. She used a weapon, one he understood, better than most men he knew. What kind of woman used a weapon? Against men of her own kind? Even more disquieting was the wolf, an animal that seemed to be threatening those men that had been hurting his woman … his own very special new woman. Perhaps the tall man had a Wolf Totem, but totems were spirits, and that was a real wolf. All he could do was wait. Hold the pain inside himself and wait.

  Seeing his subtle glance at Wolf, and guessing his fears, Ayla decided to get all the shocks over with at once. She whistled, a distinctive, imperative sound that resembled the call of a bird, but no bird anyone had ever heard. Everyone stared at her, apprehensively, but when nothing happened immediately, they relaxed. Too soon. Before long, they heard hoofbeats, and then two docile horses, a mare and an unusual brown stallion, appeared and went straight to the woman.

  What kind of strangeness was this? Was he dead, and in the world of the spirits? the man of the Clan wondered.

  The horses seemed to frighten the young men even more than the people of the Clan. Though they buried it under sarcasm and bravado, prodding each other into more and more daring and degrading activities, each of them carried a tight knot of guilt and fear deep inside. Someday, each man was sure, he would be discovered and held accountable. Some of them actually wished for it, to get it over with before things got even worse, if it wasn’t too late already.

  Danasi, the one who had been subject to derision because he was having trouble subduing the woman, had talked about it to a couple of the others that he thought he could trust. Flathead women were one thing, but that girl, not even a woman yet, who cried and fought. Granted, it was exciting at the time—women at that stage were always exciting—but afterward he had been ashamed, and fearful of Duna’s retribution. What would She do to them?

  And now, suddenly here was a woman, a stranger, with a big fair-haired man—wasn’t Her lover supposed to be bigger and more fair than other men?—and a wolf! And horses that came at her call. No one had ever seen her before, yet she knew who they were. She had a strange way of speaking, she must have come from far away, but she knew their language. Did they speak where she came from? Was she a dunai? A Mother spirit in human form? Danasi shuddered.

  “What do you want with us?” Charoli said. “We weren’t bothering you. We were just having a little fun with some flatheads. What’s wrong with having a little sport with some animals?”

  Jondalar watched Ayla struggle to restrain herself. “And Madenia?” he asked. “Was she animal, too?”

  They knew! The young men looked at each other, and then to Charoli for guidance. The man’s accent was not the same as hers. He was Zelandonii. If the Zelandonii knew, they wouldn’t be able to go there and hide if they needed to, pretending to be on a Journey, the way they’d planned. Who else knew? Was there any place they could go?

  “These people are not animals,” Ayla said, with a cold rage that made Jondalar look twice. He had never seen her quite so angry, but she was so controlled that he wasn’t sure if the young men knew it. “If they were animals, would you even try to force them? Do you force wolves? Do you force horses? No, you are looking for a woman, and no woman wants you. These are the only women you can find,” she said. “But these people are not animals.” She glanced at the Clan couple. “You are the animals! You are hyenas! Snuffling around the middens and smelling rotten, smelling of your evil. Hurting people, forcing women, stealing what is not yours. I will tell you, if you don’t return now, you will lose everything. You will have no family, no Cave, no people, and you will never have a woman at your hearth. You will spend your life as a hyena, always taking the leavings of others, and having to steal from your own people.”

  “They know about that, too!” one of the men said.

  “Don’t say anything!” Charoli said. “They don’t know, they’re only guessing.”

  “We know,” Jondalar said. “Every people know.” His command of their language was not perfect, but perfectly understandable.

  “That’s what you say, but we don’t even know you,” Charoli said. “You’re a stranger, not even Losadunai. We’re not going back. We don’t need anyone. We have our own Cave.”

  “Is that why you need to steal food and force women?” Ayla said. “A Cave without women at your hearths is no Cave.”

  Charoli tried to assume a casual tone. “We don’t need to listen to this. We’ll take what we want, when we want—food, women. No one has stopped us before, and no one is going to now. Come on, let’s get away from here,” he said, turning to leave.

  “Charoli!” Jondalar said, calling after the young man and catching up in a few strides.

  “What do you want?”

  “I have something to give you,” the big man said.

  Then, without warning, Jondalar doubled up his fist and rammed it into Charoli’s face. Charoli’s head jerked back and he was lifted off his feet by the stunning blow.

  “That’s for Madenia!” Jondalar said, looking down at the man sprawled out on the ground. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Ayla looked at the dazed young man. A trickle of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, but she made no move to offer assistance. Two of his friends helped him up. Then she turned her attention to the band of young men, eyeing each one individually. They were a sorry-looking lot, unkempt and dirty, their clothes tattered and grimy. Their gaunt faces spoke of hunger, too. No wonder they had stolen food. They were in need of the help and support from the family and friends of a Cave. Perhaps the unrestricted life of roaming freely with Charoli’s band had begun to lose its appeal and they were ready to return.

  “They are looking for you,” she said. “Everyone has agreed that you have gone too far, even Tomasi, who is kin to Charoli. If you return to your Caves and take what’s coming to you, you may have a chance to join your families again. If you wait until they find you, it will go worse for you.”

  Is that why She was here? Had She come to warn them, Danasi wondered, before it was too late? If they returned before they were found, and tried to make amends, would their Caves take them back?

  After Charoli’s band left, Ayla approached the Clan couple. They had watched with amazement both Ayla’s direct confrontation of the men and Jondalar’s final punch that had knocked the other man down. Men of the Clan never hit other men of the Clan, but all the men of the Others were strange. They looked something like men, but they didn’t act much like men, especially the man that had been struck. All the clans knew about him, and the man on the ground had to admit that he felt a certain satisfaction in seeing that one downed. He was even more pleased to see them all go.

  Now he wished the other two would go. Their actions had been so unexpected that they made him uncomfortable. He just wanted to get back to
his clan, although he didn’t know how he was going to do it with a broken leg. Ayla’s next gesture took both the man and woman completely by surprise. Even Jondalar could see their stunned confusion. She gracefully lowered herself to a cross-legged position in front of the man and looked demurely down at the ground.

  Jondalar was surprised himself. She had done that to him on occasion, usually when she had something important to say to him and was frustrated because she couldn’t find the words to express herself, but this was the first time he had ever seen her use that posture in its proper context. It was a gesture of respect. She was requesting permission to address him, but it astonished the tall man to see Ayla, who was so capable and independent, approach this flathead, this man of the Clan, with such deference. She had tried to explain to him once that it was courtesy, tradition, their manner of speaking, and not necessarily denigrating, but Jondalar knew that no Zelandonii woman, or any other woman he knew, would ever approach anyone, man or woman, in that way.

  As Ayla sat patiently waiting for the man to tap her shoulder, she wasn’t even sure if the sign language of these Clan people was the same as the language of the clan that had raised her. The distance between them was great, and these people had a different look. But she had noticed similarities of spoken languages, although the farther apart people lived, the less alike the language was. She could only hope that the sign language of these people would also be similar.

  She thought their gestural language, like much of their knowledge and patterns of activities, came from their memories; the racial memories, akin to instinct, that each child was born with. If these people of the Clan came from the same ancient beginnings as the ones she had known, their language should be, at least, similar.

  As she waited nervously, she began to wonder if the man had any idea what she was trying to do. Then she felt a tap on her shoulder and took a deep breath. It had been a long time since she had spoken with people of the Clan, not since she had been cursed.… She had to forget about that. She couldn’t let these people know that she was dead as far as the Clan was concerned or they would cease to see her, just as though she didn’t exist. She looked up at the man, and they studied each other.

  He could see no hint of Clan in her. She was a woman of the Others. She was not like one of those that seemed oddly deformed by a mixture of spirits, the way so many were born these days. But where had this woman of the Others learned the correct way to address a man?

  Ayla had not seen a Clan face for many years, and his was a true Clan face, but it was not quite like the faces of the people she had known. His hair and beard were a lighter brown and appeared soft, and not quite as curly. His eyes were lighter, too, brown, but not the deep, liquid, almost black eyes of her people. His features were stronger, more accentuated: his brow ridges were heavier, his nose sharper, his face jutted out farther, his forehead even seemed to sweep back more abruptly, and his head was longer. He seemed somehow more Clan than her Clan.

  Ayla started speaking with the gestures and words of the everyday language of Brun’s clan, the language of the Clan she had learned as a child. It was immediately apparent that he did not understand. Then the man made some sounds. They had the tone and quality of voice of the Clan, rather guttural with the vowels almost swallowed, and she strained to understand.

  The man had a broken leg and she wanted to help him, but she also wanted to know more about these Clan people. In a certain way, she felt more comfortable around them than the people of the Others. But to help him, she needed to communicate with him, to make him understand. He spoke again and made signs. The gestures seemed as though they ought to be familiar, but she couldn’t make sense of them, and his word sounds were not familiar to her at all. Was the language of her Clan so different that she wouldn’t be able to communicate with the clans in this region?

  40

  Ayla thought about how to make herself understood to the man of the Clan, glancing at the young woman sitting nearby, who looked nervous and upset. Then, remembering the Clan Gathering, she tried the ancient, formal, and primarily silent language that was used to address the world of the spirits, and to communicate with other clans that had a different common language.

  The man nodded and made a gesture. Ayla felt a great wash of relief when she found that she understood him, and a rush of excitement. These people did come from the same beginnings as her Clan! Sometime, in some far distant past, this man had the same ancestors as Creb and Iza. With a sudden insight, she recalled a strange vision, and knew that she, too, shared roots, even more ancient, with him, but her line had diverged, taken a different path.

  Jondalar watched, fascinated, as they began to talk with signs. It was hard to follow the quick flowing movements they made, which gave him a sense of much greater complexity and subtlety to the language than he had supposed. When Ayla had taught people of the Lion Camp some of the Clan sign language so that Rydag could communicate with them for the first time in his life—the formal language because it was easier for the youngster to learn—she had taught them only the basic rudiments. The boy had always enjoyed talking with her more than anyone. Jondalar had guessed that Rydag could communicate with her more fully, but he was beginning to understand the range and depth of the language.

  Ayla was surprised when the man skipped over some of the formalities of introduction. He didn’t establish names, places, or kinship lines. “Woman of the Others, this man would know where you learned to speak.”

  “When this woman was a young child, family and people were lost to an earthquake. This woman was raised by a clan,” she explained.

  “This man knows of no clan that took in a child of the Others,” the man signed.

  “The clan of this woman lives far away. Does the man know of the river known to the Others as Great Mother?”

  “It is the boundary,” he motioned impatiently.

  “The river goes on for a greater distance than many know, to a great sea, far to the east. The clan of this woman lives beyond the end of Great Mother,” Ayla signed.

  He looked incredulous, then studied her. He knew that, unlike the people of the Clan whose language included the understanding of unconscious body movements and gestures, which made it almost impossible to say one thing and mean something else, the people of the Others, who spoke with sounds, were different. He couldn’t be sure about her. He could see no signs of dissimulation, but her story seemed so far-fetched.

  “This woman has been traveling since the beginning of last warm season,” she added.

  He became impatient again, and Ayla realized he was in great pain. “What does the woman want? Others are gone, why does the woman not go?” He knew that she had probably saved his life and had helped his mate, which meant he owed her an obligation; that would make them the next thing to kin. The thought was unsettling.

  “This woman is a medicine woman. This woman would look at the man’s leg,” Ayla explained.

  He snorted with disdain. “The woman cannot be a medicine woman. The woman is not Clan.”

  Ayla did not argue. She thought a moment, then decided to try another approach. “This woman would speak to the man of the Others,” she requested. He nodded approval. She stood up, then backed away before she turned around and went to talk to Jondalar.

  “Are you able to communicate with him very well?” he asked her. “I know you are making a good attempt, but the Clan you lived with is so far away, I can’t help but wonder how successful you are.”

  “I started out using the everyday language of my clan, and we couldn’t understand each other. I should have known their ordinary signs and words would not be the same, but when I used ancient formal language, we had no trouble communicating,” Ayla explained.

  “Did I understand you right? Are you saying that the Clan can communicate in a way that is understood by all of them? No matter where they live? That’s hard to believe.”

  “I suppose it is,” she said, “but their ancient way is in their memories.”
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  “You mean they are born knowing how to speak in that way? Any baby can do it?”

  “Not exactly. They are born with their memories, but they have to be ‘taught’ how to use them. I’m not sure how it works, I don’t have the memories, but it seems to be more like ‘reminding’ them of what they know. Usually they only have to be reminded once, and then it’s set. That’s why some of them thought I wasn’t very smart. I was so slow to learn, until I taught myself to memorize fast, and even then it wasn’t easy. Rydag had the memories, but he didn’t have anyone to teach him … to remind him. That’s why he didn’t know the sign language until I came.”

  “You, slow to learn! I’ve never seen anyone learn languages so fast,” Jondalar said.

  She shrugged off the comment. “That’s different. I think the Others have a kind of memory for word language, but we learn to speak the sounds of those around us. To learn a different language, you just have to memorize another set of sounds, and sometimes another way of putting them together,” she said. “Even if you aren’t perfect, you can understand each other. His language is more difficult, for us, but communication isn’t the problem I’m having with him. Obligation is the problem.”

  “Obligation? I don’t understand,” Jondalar said.

  “He’s in terrible pain, though he’ll never let you know it. I want to help him, I want to set that leg. I don’t know how they’re going to get back to their clan, but we can worry about that later. First I need to fix his leg. But he is already in our debt, and he knows that if I can understand his language, I understand the obligation. If he believes we saved his life, it’s a kinship debt. He doesn’t want to owe us more,” Ayla said, trying to explain a very complex relationship in a simple way.

  “What’s a kinship debt?”

  “It’s an obligation …” Ayla tried to think of a way to put it that would make it clear. “It’s usually between hunters of a clan. If one man saves another man’s life, he ‘owns’ a piece of the other’s spirit. The man that would have died gives up a piece to be restored to life. Since a man doesn’t want any pieces of his spirit to die—to walk the next world before he does—if another man owns a piece of his spirit, he will do anything to save that man’s life. That makes them kin, closer than brothers.”