The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  Ayla and Yorga both wished it was possible to visit with each other and share their experiences. They felt they were almost kin, since there was probably a kinship debt between Guban and Jondalar, and Yorga felt closer to Ayla, in the brief time they had known each other, than to any of the other women she had met. But Clan and Others didn’t visit.

  Guban woke up in the middle of the night, but he was still groggy. By morning he was alert, but reaction to the stresses of the previous day left him exhausted. When Jondalar ducked his head in the tent in the afternoon, Guban was surprised at how glad he was to see the tall man, but he didn’t know what to make of the crutches he held.

  “I use same thing after lion attack me,” Jondalar explained. “Help me walk.”

  Guban was suddenly interested and wanted to try them, but Ayla would not allow it. It was too soon. Guban finally acquiesced, but only after announcing that he would try them the next day. In the evening, Yorga let Ayla know that Guban wanted to talk to Jondalar about some very important matters and was requesting her help with translation. She knew it was serious, guessed what it was about, and talked to Jondalar in advance so she could help him to understand what the difficulties might be.

  Guban was still concerned about owing a kinship debt to Ayla, beyond the acceptable medicine woman spirit exchange, since she helped save his life using a weapon.

  “We need to convince him that the debt is owed to you, Jondalar. If you tell him that you are my mate, you could tell him that since you have responsibility for me, any debts owed to me are actually owed to you.”

  Jondalar agreed, and after some preliminaries to establish procedures, they began the more serious discussion. “Ayla is my mate, she belongs to me,” he said, while Ayla translated with the full range of subtleties. “I am responsible for her, debts owed to her are owed to me.” Then, to her surprise, Jondalar added, “I, too, have an obligation that weighs on my spirit. I owe a kinship debt to the Clan.”

  Guban was curious.

  “The debt has weighed heavily on my spirit because I haven’t known how to repay it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Guban signed. “Perhaps I can help.”

  “I was attacked by a cave lion, as Ayla mentioned. Marked, chosen by the Cave Lion, which is now my totem. It was Ayla who found me. I was near death, and my brother, who was with me, already walked the spirit world.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. It is hard to lose a brother.”

  Jondalar only nodded. “If Ayla had not found me, I, too, would be dead, but when Ayla was a child, and near death, the Clan took her in and raised her. If the Clan had not taken Ayla in when she was a child, she would not have lived. If Ayla had not lived and been taught to heal by a Clan medicine woman, I would not be alive. I would be walking in the next world now. I owe my life to the Clan, but I don’t know how to pay that debt, or to whom.”

  Guban nodded with great sympathy. It was a serious problem and a large debt.

  “I would make a request of Guban,” Jondalar continued. “Since Guban owes a kinship debt to me, I ask him to accept my kinship debt to the Clan in exchange.”

  The man of the Clan considered the request gravely, but he was grateful to learn of the problem. Exchanging a kinship debt was far more acceptable than simply owing his life to a man of the Others, and giving him a piece of his spirit. Finally he nodded. “Guban will accept the exchange,” he said, feeling great relief.

  Guban took his amulet from around his neck and opened it. He shook the contents into his hand and picked out one of the objects, a tooth, one of his own first molars. Though he had no cavities, his teeth were worn down in a peculiar way, mainly because he used them as a tool. The tooth in his hand was worn, but not nearly so badly as his permanent teeth.

  “Please accept this as a token of kinship,” Guban said.

  Jondalar was embarrassed. He hadn’t realized there would be an exchange of some personal token to mark the exchange of debts, and he didn’t know what to give to the man of the Clan that would be as meaningful. They were traveling very light, and he had very little to give. Suddenly it came to him.

  He took a pouch from a loop of his belt and poured its contents into his hand. Guban looked surprised. In Jondalar’s hand were several claws and two canine teeth of a cave bear, the cave bear he had killed the previous summer shortly after they had started on their long Journey. He held out one of the teeth. “Please accept this as a token of kinship.”

  Guban restrained his eagerness. A cave bear tooth was a powerful token, it bestowed high status, and the giving of one showed great honor. It pleased him to think that this man of the Others had acknowledged his position, and the debt he owed the entire Clan so appropriately. It would make the proper impression when he told the rest about this exchange. He accepted the token of kinship, closed it inside his fist, and gripped it firmly.

  “Good!” Guban said with finality, as though completing a trade. Then he made a request. “Since we are now kin, perhaps we should know the location of each other’s clan, and the territory they use.”

  Jondalar described the general location of his homeland. Most of the territory across the glacier was Zelandonii or related, and then he described specifically the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii. Guban described his homeland, and Ayla got the impression they were not as far from each other as she had supposed.

  Charoli’s name came up before they were through. Jondalar talked about the problems the young man had been creating for everyone, and he explained in some detail what they planned to do to stop him. Guban thought the information was important enough to tell other clans, and he wondered to himself if his broken leg might not turn out to be a great asset.

  Guban would have much to tell to his clan. Not only that the Others themselves had problems with the man, and planned to do something about it, but that some of the Others were willing to fight their own kind to help people of the Clan. There were also some who could speak properly! A woman who could communicate very well, and a man with limited but useful ability, which in some ways could be more valuable because he was a male, and he was now kin. Such contact with Others, and the insights and knowledge about them, could bring him even more status, especially if he had full use of his leg again.

  Ayla applied the birchbark cast in the evening. Guban went to bed feeling very good. And his leg hardly pained him at all.

  Ayla woke up in the morning feeling very uneasy. She had a strange dream again, very vivid, with caves and Creb in it. She mentioned it to Jondalar; then they talked about how they were going to get Guban back to his people. Jondalar suggested the horses, but he was very worried about delaying any longer. Ayla felt that Guban would never consent. The tame horses upset him.

  When they got up, they helped Guban out of the tent, and while Ayla and Yorga prepared a morning meal, Jondalar demonstrated the crutches. Guban insisted on trying, over Ayla’s objections, and after a little practicing, was surprised at how effective they were. He could actually walk without putting any weight on his leg.

  “Yorga,” Guban called to his woman, after he put the crutches down, “make ready to leave. After the morning meal, we will go. It is time to return to the clan.”

  “It’s too soon,” Ayla said, using the Clan gestures at the same time. “You need to rest your leg, or it will not heal properly.”

  “My leg will rest while I walk with these.” He motioned toward the crutches.

  “If you must go now, you can ride one of the horses,” Jondalar said.

  Guban looked startled. “No! Guban walks on own legs. With the help of these walking sticks. We will share one more meal with new kin, and then we go.”

  41

  After sharing their morning meal, both couples prepared to go their separate ways. When Guban and Yorga were ready, they simply looked at Jondalar and Ayla for a moment, avoiding the wolf and two horses packed with gear. Then, leaning on his crutches, Guban began hobbling away. Yorga fell in behind him.

  There were no g
oodbyes, no thank-yous; such concepts were foreign to the people of the Clan. It wasn’t customary to comment on one’s departure, it was obvious, and acts of assistance or kindness, especially from kin, were expected. Understood obligations required no thanks, only reciprocity, should it ever be necessary. Ayla knew how difficult it could be if Guban ever had to reciprocate. In his mind, he owed them more than he might ever be able to repay. He had been given more than his life; he had been given a chance to retain his position, his status, which meant more to him than simply being alive—especially if that meant living as a cripple.

  “I hope they don’t have far to go. Traveling any distance on those walking sticks is not easy,” Jondalar said. “I hope he makes it.”

  “He’ll make it,” Ayla said, “no matter how far it is. Even without the walking sticks, he would get back, if he had to crawl the whole way. Don’t worry, Jondalar. Guban is a man of the Clan. He will make it … or die in the trying.”

  Jondalar’s brow wrinkled into a thoughtful frown. He watched Ayla take Whinney’s lead rope; then he shook his head and found Racer’s. In spite of the difficulty for Guban, he had to admit he was glad they had refused his offer of riding back to their clan on the horses. There had been too many delays already.

  From their campsite, they continued riding through open woods until they reached a high point; then they stopped and looked out over the way they had come. Tall pines, standing straight as sentinels, guarded the banks of the Mother River for a long distance back; a winding column of trees leading away from the legion of conifers they could see below, spreading out over the flanks of the mountains that crowded close from the south.

  Ahead their uphill climb temporarily leveled off, and an extension of the pine forest, starting at the river, marched across a small valley. They dismounted to lead the horses into the dense woodland and entered a twilight space of profound and eerie silence. Straight dark boles supported a low canopy of spreading long-needled boughs that blocked sunlight and inhibited undergrowth. A layer of brown needles, accumulating for centuries, muffled both footsteps and hoofbeats.

  Ayla noticed a collection of mushrooms at the base of a tree, and she knelt to examine them. They were frozen solid, caught by a sudden frost of the previous autumn that had never let up. But no snow had filtered in to betray the season. It was as though the time of harvest had been captured and held in suspension, preserved in the still cold forest. Wolf appeared beside her and pushed his muzzle into her ungloved hand. She rubbed the top of his head, noticed his steamy breath and then her own, and had a fleeting impression that their small company of travelers were the only things alive.

  On the far side of the valley, the climb became precipitous and shimmery silver fir appeared, accented by stately deep green spruce. The long-needled pines became stunted with increasing elevation and finally disappeared, leaving the spruce and fir to march beside the Middle Mother.

  As he rode, Jondalar’s thoughts kept returning to the Clan people they had met—he would never again be able to think about them as anything other than people. I need to convince my brother. Perhaps he could try to make contact with them—if he is still leader. When they stopped to rest and make some hot tea, Jondalar spoke his thoughts out loud.

  “When we get home, I’m going to talk to Joharran about the Clan people, Ayla. If other people can trade with them, we could, too, and he should know that they are meeting with distant clans to discuss the troubles they are having with us,” Jondalar said. “It could mean trouble and I would not want to fight the likes of Guban.”

  “I don’t think there is any hurry. It will take a long time for them to reach any decisions. Change is difficult for them,” Ayla said.

  “What about trading—do you think they would be willing?”

  “I think Guban would be more willing than most. He’s interested in knowing more about us, and he was willing to try the walking sticks, even if he wouldn’t ride the horses. Bringing home such an unusual woman from a faraway clan shows something about him, too. He was taking a chance, even if she is beautiful.”

  “Do you think she is beautiful?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I can see why Guban would think so,” Jondalar said.

  “I guess what a man considers beautiful depends on who he is,” she said.

  “Yes, and I think you are beautiful.”

  Ayla smiled, making him all the more convinced of her beauty. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “It is true, you know. Remember all the attention you got at the Mother Ceremony? Did I ever tell you how glad I was that you picked me?” he said, smiling at the memory.

  She recalled something he had said to Guban. “Well, I belong to you, don’t I?” she said, then grinned. “It’s good that you don’t know Clan language too well. Guban would have seen that you were not speaking true when you said I was your mate.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. We may not have had a Matrimonial yet, but in my heart, we are mated. It wasn’t a lie,” Jondalar said.

  Ayla was moved. “I, too, feel that way,” she said softly, looking down because she wanted to show deference to the emotions that filled her. “I have since the valley.”

  Jondalar felt such a fierce surge of love fill him that he thought he would burst. He reached for her and took her in his arms, feeling at that moment, with those few words, that he had experienced a Mating Ceremonial. It didn’t matter if he ever had one that would be recognized by his people. He would go through with it, to please Ayla, but he didn’t need it. He only needed to get her home safely.

  A sudden gust of wind chilled Jondalar, driving away the flush of warmth he had felt and leaving him with a strange ambivalence. He got up and, walking away from the warmth of the small fire, took a deep breath. It left him gasping as the desiccating, freezing air seared his lungs. He ducked behind his fur hood and pulled it tight around his face to allow his body heat to warm the air he breathed. Though the last thing he wanted to feel was a warm wind, he knew such bitter cold was extremely dangerous.

  To the north of them the great continental glacier had dipped southward, as though straining to encompass the beautiful icy mountains within its overwhelming frozen embrace. They were in the most frigid land on earth, between the glistening mountain tors and the immense northern ice, and it was the depths of winter. The air itself was sucked dry by the moisture-stealing glaciers greedily usurping every drop to increase their bloated, bedrock-crushing mass, building up reserves to withstand the onslaught of summer heat.

  The battle between glacial cold and melting warmth for control of the Great Mother Earth was almost at a standstill, but the tide was turning; the glacier was gaining. It would make one more advance, and reach its farthest southward point, before it was beaten back to polar lands. But even there, it would only bide its time.

  As they continued to mount the highland, each moment seemed colder than the one before. Their increasing altitude was bringing them inexorably closer to their rendezvous with ice. Fodder was getting harder for the horses to find. The sere withered grass near the stream of solid ice was flat against the frozen ground. The only snow was made up of hard dry stinging grains, whipped by driving wind.

  They rode silently, but after they made camp and were cuddled together warmly within their tent, they talked.

  “Yorga’s hair is beautiful,” Ayla said, snuggling into their furs.

  “Yes, it is,” Jondalar said, with honest conviction.

  “I wish Iza could have seen it, or anyone from Brun’s clan. They always thought my hair was so unusual, though Iza always said it was my best feature. It used to be light like hers, but it’s darker now.”

  “I love the color of your hair, Ayla, and the way it falls in waves when you wear it loose,” Jondalar commented, touching a strand next to her face.

  “I didn’t know people of the Clan lived so far away from the peninsula.”

  Jondalar could tell her mind was not on hair, or on anything close and personal. Sh
e was thinking about the Clan people, as he had been earlier.

  “Guban looks different, though. He seems … I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. His brows are heavier, his nose is bigger, his face is more … out. Everything about him seems more … pronounced, more Clan, in a way. I think he is even more muscular than Brun was. He didn’t seem to notice the cold as much, either. His skin was warm to the touch even when he was lying on the frozen ground. And his heart beat faster.”

  “Maybe they’ve gotten used to cold. Laduni said a lot of them live north of here, and it hardly gets warm at all up there, even in summer,” Jondalar said.

  “You may be right. They think alike, though. What made you tell Guban you were repaying a kinship debt to the Clan? It was the best argument you could have made.”

  “I’m not sure. It’s true, though. I do owe my life to the Clan. If they hadn’t taken you in, you wouldn’t be alive, and then neither would I.”

  “And by giving him that cave bear tooth, you could not have given him a better token. You were quick to understand their ways, Jondalar.”

  “Their ways are not so different. The Zelandonii are careful about obligations, too. Any obligations left unpaid when you go to the next world can give the one you owe control over your spirit. I’ve heard that a few of Those Who Serve the Mother try to keep people in their debt, so they can control their spirits, but it’s probably just talk. Just because people say things doesn’t mean they’re true,” the man said.

  “Guban believes that his spirit and yours are now intertwined, in this life and the next. A piece of your spirit will always be with him, just as a piece of his will always be with you. That’s why he was so concerned. He lost his piece when you saved his life, but you gave him one back, so there is no hole, no emptiness.”

  “I wasn’t the only one who saved his life. You did as much as I did, and more.”

  “But I am a woman, and a woman of the Clan is not the same as a man of the Clan. It is not an even exchange because one cannot do what the other does. They don’t have the memories for it.”