The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  Then she was startled out of her brooding thoughts by a loud crack. She felt the sickening sensation of the solid ice giving way beneath her feet, and she was suddenly reminded of an earthquake many years before. Instinctively she tried to reach for something to hold on to, but the falling ice and snow offered nothing. She felt herself dropping, nearly suffocating in the midst of the avalanching snow bridge that had collapsed beneath her feet, and she had no idea how she had ended up on the narrow ledge.

  She looked up, afraid to move even that much, for fear the slightest shift in weight would jar her precarious support loose. Above, the sky looked almost black, and she thought she saw the faint glimmerings of stars. An occasional sliver of ice or puff of snow dropped belatedly from the edge, finally letting go of its precarious hold and showering the woman with fragments on the way down.

  Her ledge was a narrow jutting extension of an older surface long buried by new snows. It rested on a large jagged boulder that had been torn from solid rock as the ice slowly filled a valley and overflowed down the sides of an adjacent one. The majestically flowing river of ice accumulated great quantities of dust, sand, gravel, and boulders that it gouged out of hard rock, which were slowly carried toward the faster-moving current at the center. These moraines formed long ribbons of rubble on the surface as they moved along the current. When the temperature eventually rose enough to melt the massive glaciers, they would leave evidence of their passage in ridges and hills of unsorted rock.

  While she was waiting, afraid to move and holding herself very still, she heard faint mutterings and muted rumblings in the deep icy cavern. She thought at first that she imagined them. But the mass of ice was not as solid as it seemed on the hard surface above. It was constantly readjusting, expanding, shifting, sliding. The explosive boom of a new crack opening or closing at some distant point, on the surface or deep within the glacier, sent vibrations through the strangely viscous solid. The great mountain of ice was riddled with catacombs: passages that came to an abrupt halt, long galleries that turned and twisted, dropped off or soared upward; pockets and caves that opened invitingly, then sealed shut.

  Ayla began to look around her. The sheer walls of ice glowed with a luminous, unbelievably rich blue light that had a deep undertone of green. With a sudden jolt, she realized she had seen that color before, but in only one other place. Jondalar’s eyes were the same rich, stunning blue! She longed to see them again. The fractured planes of the huge ice crystal gave her the sensation of mysterious flitting movement just beyond her peripheral vision. She felt that if she turned her head quickly enough she would see some ephemeral shape disappearing into the mirrored walls.

  But it was all illusion, a magician’s trick of angles and light. The crystal ice filtered out most of the red spectrum of the light from the burning orb in the sky, leaving the deep blue-green, and the edges and planes of the tinted, mirrored surfaces played games of refraction and reflection with each other.

  Ayla glanced up when she felt a shower of snow. She saw Jondalar’s head extending beyond the rim of the crevasse, then a length of rope came snaking down toward her.

  “Tie the rope around your waist, Ayla,” he called, “and make sure you tie it well. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  He was doing it again, Jondalar said to himself. Why did he always recheck what she did when he knew she was more than capable of doing it herself? Why did he tell her to do something that was perfectly obvious? She knew the rope had to be tied securely. That was why she had gotten angry and stomped off ahead and was now in this dangerous predicament … but she should have known better.

  “I’m ready, Jondalar,” she called, after wrapping it around her and fastening it with many knots. “These knots won’t slip.”

  “All right. Now hang on to the rope. We’re going to pull you up,” he said.

  Ayla felt the rope grow taut, then lift her from the ledge. Her feet were dangling in air as she felt herself slowly rising toward the edge of the crevasse. She saw Jondalar’s face, and his beautiful, worried blue eyes, and she gripped the hand he held out to her to help her over the rim. Then she was on the surface again, and Jondalar was crushing her in his arms. She clung to him as tightly.

  “I thought you were gone for sure,” he said, kissing and holding her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Ayla. I know you can load your own packs. I just worry so much.”

  “No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been so careless with my eye protectors, and I should never have rushed ahead of you like that. I’m still not familiar with ice.”

  “But I let you, and I should have known better.”

  “I should have known better,” Ayla said at the same time. They smiled at each other at the inadvertent matching of words.

  Ayla felt a tug at her waist and saw that the other end of the rope was fastened to the brown stallion. Racer had pulled her out of the crevasse. She fumbled to untie the knots around her waist while Jondalar held the sturdy horse close by. She finally had to use a knife to cut the rope. She had made so many knots and had pulled them so tight—and they’d grown even tighter as she was lifted out—that they were impossible to untie.

  Detouring around the crack that had so nearly proved disastrous, they continued their southwesterly course across the ice. They were growing seriously concerned as their supply of burning stones was becoming depleted.

  “How much longer before we reach the other side, Jondalar?” Ayla asked in the morning after melting water for them all. “We don’t have many burning stones left.”

  “I know. I had hoped that we would be there by now. The storms have caused more delay than I planned on, and I’m getting worried that the weather will turn while we are on the ice. It can happen so fast,” Jondalar said, scanning the sky carefully as he spoke. “I’m afraid it may be coming soon.”

  “Why?”

  “I got to thinking about that silly argument we had before you fell into the crevasse. Remember how everyone was warning us about the evil spirits that ride ahead of the snow-melter?”

  “Yes!” Ayla said. “Solandia and Verdegia said they make you feel irritable, and I was feeling very irritable. I still do. I am so sick and tired of this ice, I have to force myself to keep going. Could that be what it is?”

  “That’s what I was wondering. Ayla, if it’s true, we have to hurry. If the foehn comes while we’re up on this glacier, we may all fall into the cracks,” Jondalar said.

  They tried to ration the peaty brown stones more carefully, drinking their water barely melted. Ayla and Jondalar started carrying their waterbags full of snow underneath their fur parkas so their body heat would melt enough for them and Wolf. But the conservation wasn’t enough. Their bodies couldn’t melt enough for the horses that way, and when the last of the burning stones were gone, there was no water for the horses. She had run out of feed for them, too, but water was more important. Ayla noticed them chewing ice, but it worried her. Both dehydration and eating ice could chill them so that they wouldn’t be able to maintain sufficient body heat to keep warm on the freezing cold glacier.

  Both horses had come to her looking for water, after they had set up their tent, but all Ayla could do was give them a few sips of her own water and break up some ice for them. There had been no afternoon storm that day, and they had kept going until it was almost too dark to see. They had traveled a good distance, and should have been glad, but she felt strangely uncomfortable. She had trouble getting to sleep that night. She tried to shrug it off, telling herself she was just worried about the horses.

  Jondalar lay awake for a long time, too. He thought the horizon was looking closer, but he was afraid it was wishful thinking and didn’t want to mention it. When he finally dozed off, he awoke in the middle of the night to find Ayla wide awake, too. They got up at the first faint shift from black to blue, and they started out with stars still in the sky.

  By midmorning the wind had shifted, and Jondalar was sure his worst fears were about to materialize. The w
ind wasn’t so much warm as less cold, but it was coming from the south.

  “Hurry, Ayla! We’ve got to hurry,” he said, almost breaking into a run. She nodded and kept up with him.

  By noon the sky was clear, and the brisk breeze blowing in their faces was so warm that it was almost balmy. The force of the wind increased, enough to slow them down as they leaned into it. And its warmth blowing across the cold surface of the ice was a deadly caress. The drifts of dry powdery snow became wet and compact, then turned to slush. Little puddles of water began to form in small depressions on the surface. They became deeper and took on a vivid blue color that seemed to glow out of the center of the ice, but the woman and man had no time, or heart, to appreciate the beauty. The horses’ need for water was easily satisfied, but it gave them little comfort now.

  A soft mist began to rise, clinging close to the surface; the driving, warm south wind carried it away before it could get too high. Jondalar was using a long spear to feel the way ahead, but he was still almost running, and Ayla was hard-pressed to keep up. She wished she could jump on Whinney’s back and let the horse carry her away, but more and more cracks were opening in the ice. He was almost certain the horizon was closer, but the low-lying fog made distances deceptive.

  Little rivulets began streaming over the surface of the ice, connecting the puddles and making footing treacherous. They splashed through the water, feeling its icy chill penetrate, then squish through their boots. Suddenly, a few feet in front of them, a large section of what had seemed to be solid ice fell away, exposing a yawning gulf. Wolf yipped and whined, and the horses shied away, squealing with fear. Jondalar turned and followed the edge of the crack, looking for a way around.

  “Jondalar, I can’t keep going. I’m exhausted. I’ve got to stop,” Ayla said with a sob, then started crying. “We’ll never make it.”

  He stopped, then went back and comforted her. “We’re almost there, Ayla. Look. You can see how close the edge is.”

  “But we almost walked into a crevasse, and some of those puddles have become deep blue holes with streams falling into them.”

  “Do you want to stay here?” he said.

  Ayla took a deep breath. “No, of course not,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m crying like this. If we stay here, we’ll die for sure.”

  Jondalar worked his way around the large crack, but as they turned south again, the winds were as strong as any from the north had been, and they could feel the temperature rising. Rivulets turned into streams crisscrossing the ice and grew into rivers. They worked their way around two more large cracks and could see beyond the ice. They ran the last short distance, and then they stood looking down over the edge.

  They had reached the other side of the glacier.

  A waterfall of milky clouded water, glacier milk, was just below them, gushing out of the bottom of the ice. In the distance, below the snow line, was a thin cover of light green.

  “Do you want to stop here and rest a while?” Jondalar asked, but he looked worried.

  “I just want to get off this ice. We can rest when we reach that meadow,” Ayla said.

  “It’s farther than it looks. This is not the place to rush or be careless. We’ll rope ourselves together, and I think you should go first. If you slip, I can support your weight. Pick a way down carefully. We can lead the horses.”

  “No, I don’t think we should. I think we should take off their halters and packs, and the pole drag, and let them find their own way down,” Ayla said.

  “Maybe you’re right, but then we’ll have to leave the packs here … unless …”

  Ayla saw where he was looking. “Let’s put everything in the bowl boat and let it slide down!” she said.

  “Except a small pack with some necessities that we can take with us,” he said, smiling.

  “If we tie it all down well, and watch which way it goes, we should be able to find it.”

  “What if it breaks up?”

  “What would break?”

  “The frame could crack,” Jondalar said, “but even if it did, the hide would probably hold it together.”

  “And whatever was inside would still be all right, wouldn’t it?”

  “It should be.” Jondalar smiled. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  After the round boat was repacked, Jondalar picked up the small pack of essentials while Ayla led Whinney. Although somewhat fearful of slipping, they walked along the edge looking for a way down. As if to make up for the delays and dangers they had endured in the crossing, they soon found the gradual slope of a moraine, with all its gravel, that appeared possible, just beyond a somewhat steeper grade of slick ice. They dragged the boat to the icy slope; then Ayla unfastened the travois. They removed all the halters and ropes from both animals, but not the mammoth-hide horse boots. Ayla checked them to make sure they were securely tied; they had conformed to the shape of the horses’ hooves and now fit snugly. Then they led the horses to the top of the moraine.

  Whinney nickered, and Ayla calmed her, calling her by the whinny name she was most familiar with, and she spoke in their language of signals and sounds and made-up words. “Whinney, you need to make your own way down,” the woman said. “No one else can find your footing on this ice better than you can.”

  Jondalar reassured the young stallion. The descent would be dangerous, anything could happen, but at least they had gotten the horses across. They would have to get themselves down. Wolf was pacing nervously back and forth along the edge of the ice, the way he did when he was afraid to jump into a river.

  With Ayla’s urgings, Whinney was the first to go over the edge, picking her way carefully. Racer was close on her heels and soon outdistanced her. They came to a slick spot, slipped and slid, gained momentum, and moved down faster to keep up. They would be down safely—or not—by the time Ayla and Jondalar reached the bottom.

  Wolf was whining at the top, his tail tucked between his legs, not ashamed to show the fear he felt as he watched the horses go.

  “Let’s push the boat over and get started. It’s a long way down, and it won’t be easy,” Jondalar said.

  As they pushed the boat near the steeper icy edge, Wolf suddenly jumped in it. “He must think we’re getting ready to ride across a river,” Ayla said. “I wish we could float down this ice.”

  They both looked at each other and started to smile.

  “What do you think?” Jondalar said.

  “Why not? You said it should hold together.”

  “But will we?”

  “Let’s find out!”

  They shifted a few things around to make room, then climbed into the bowl-shaped boat with Wolf. Jondalar sent a hopeful thought to the Mother, and, using one of the travois poles, they pushed off.

  “Hold on!” Jondalar said as they started over the edge.

  They gained speed quickly, but headed straight ahead at first. Then they hit a bump and the boat bounced and spun around. They swerved sideward, then rode up a slight incline and found themselves in midair. They both screamed with the fearful excitement. They landed with a jolt that lifted them all up, the wolf included, then spun around again while they clutched the edge. The wolf was trying to crouch down and poke his nose over the side at the same time.

  Ayla and Jondalar held on for all they were worth; it was all they could do. They had absolutely no control over the round boat that was racing down the side of the glacier. It zigged and zagged, bounced and spun around as though leaping with joy, but it was heavily loaded, bottom heavy enough to resist tipping over. Though the man and woman screamed involuntarily, they couldn’t help smiling. It was the fastest, most thrilling ride either of them had ever taken, but it was not over.

  They didn’t think about how the ride would end, and, as they neared the bottom, Jondalar remembered the usual crevasse at the foot separating the ice from the ground below. A hard landing on gravel could throw them out and cause injury, or worse, but the sound didn’t make an impression on him when he fi
rst heard it. It wasn’t until they landed with a hard bump and a huge splash into the middle of a roaring waterfall of cloudy water that he realized their descent down the wet slippery ice had taken them back toward the river of meltwater that was gushing out of the bottom of the glacier.

  They landed at the bottom of the falls with another splash, and soon they were floating calmly in the middle of a small lake of cloudy green glacier melt. Wolf was so happy that he was all over both of them, licking their faces. He finally sat down and lifted his head in a howl of greeting.

  Jondalar looked at the woman, “Ayla, we made it! We made it! We’re over the glacier!”

  “We did, didn’t we?” she said, smiling broadly.

  “That was a dangerous thing to do, though,” he said. “We could have been hurt, or even killed.”

  “It may have been dangerous, but it was fun,” Ayla said, her eyes still sparkling with excitement.

  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and for all his concern about getting her home safely, he had to smile. “You’re right. It was fun, and fitting, somehow. I don’t think I’ll ever try to cross a glacier again. Twice in one lifetime is enough, but I’m glad I can say I did it, and I’ll never forget that ride.”

  “Now, all we have to do is reach that land over there,” Ayla said, pointing toward the shore, “and then find Whinney and Racer.”

  The sun was setting, and, between the blinding brightness at the horizon and twilight’s deceptive shadows, it was difficult to see. The evening chill had brought the temperature to below freezing again. They could see the comforting security of the black loam of solid ground, intermixed with patches of snow, around the perimeter of the lake, but they didn’t know how to get there. They had no paddle, and they had left the pole on top of the glacier.

  But although the lake seemed calm, the fast-flowing glacial melt gave it an undercurrent that was slowly taking them toward the shore. When they were close, they both jumped out of the boat, followed by the wolf, and pulled it up on the land. Wolf shook himself, spraying water, but neither Ayla nor Jondalar noticed. They were in each other’s arms, expressing their love and their relief at having actually reached solid ground.