The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  “Zelandoni,” Ayla said, looking at the large, motherly woman, “I had an idea when I was hiding in the small cave with him, and the more I have thought about it since, the more I believe it is true. It’s about the way life begins. I don’t think it is the blending of spirits that starts new life. I think life begins when a man and a woman couple. I think men start life to grow inside women.”

  It was a startling idea coming from the young woman, especially since no one had ever said anything like it to Zelandoni before, but it wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar idea, though the only person she knew of who had ever thought of such a thing was herself.

  “I have thought about it for a long time since then, and I am now even more convinced that life begins when a man puts his member inside a woman, into the place that a baby comes from, and leaves his essence. I think that is what starts a new life, not the mixing of spirits,” Ayla said.

  “You mean when they share the Gift of Pleasure from the Great Earth Mother,” Zelandoni said.

  “Yes,” Ayla said.

  “Let me ask you some questions. A man and a woman share Doni’s Gift many times. There are not that many children born. If a life was started every time they shared Pleasures, there would be many, many more children,” Zelandoni said.

  “I have thought of that. It’s clear that a life doesn’t start every time they share Pleasures, so there must be something else besides Pleasures. Maybe they must share Pleasures many times, or maybe at special times, or maybe the Great Mother decides when life will start and when it won’t. But it isn’t their spirits that She blends, it’s the man’s essence, and maybe a special essence of the woman, too. I’m certain Jonayla was started right after Jondalar and I got down from the glacier, that first morning when we woke up and shared Pleasures.”

  “You say you thought about it for a long time. What made you think of it in the first place?” Zelandoni asked.

  “I first thought about it when I was in my small cave hiding with Durc,” Ayla said.

  “They told me I had to take him outside and leave him because he was deformed,” tears threatened as Ayla said it, “but I looked at him carefully and he wasn’t deformed. He didn’t look like them and he didn’t look like me. He looked like the Clan and like me. His head was long and big in the back, and he had big browridges like theirs, but he had a high forehead like mine in front. He looked something like Echozar, except I think his body will be more like ours when he grows up. He was never as thick or as stocky as Clan boys, and his legs were long and straight, not bowed like Echozar’s. He was a mixture, but he was strong and healthy.”

  “Echozar is mixed, but his mother was Clan. When would she have shared Pleasures with a man like us? Why would a man like us want to share Pleasures with a flathead woman?” Zelandoni asked.

  “Echozar told me his mother had been cursed with death because her mate had been killed when he tried to protect her from a man of the Others. When they found out she was pregnant, they let her stay, until Echozar was born,” Ayla said. Jonayla had let go of the nipple and was fussing a bit. Ayla put her over her shoulder and patted her back.

  “You mean a man like us forced his mother? I suppose such things happen, but I can’t understand them,” Zelandoni said.

  “It happened to one of the women I met at the Clan Gathering. She had a daughter who was mixed. She said she was forced by some men of the Others, men who looked like me, she said. Her own daughter was killed when one of the men grabbed her and her daughter fell from her arms. When she found that she was pregnant again, she wished for another girl, which made her mate angry. Clan women are only supposed to wish for boys, but many women secretly wish for girls anyway. When the girl was born deformed, he made her keep the girl to teach her a lesson.”

  “What a sad story, to be so badly treated by her mate after being attacked and suffering such a loss,” the donier said.

  “She asked me to talk to Brun, the leader of my clan, to arrange a mating between her daughter, Ura, and my Durc. She was afraid her daughter would never find a mate otherwise. I thought it was a good idea. Durc was deformed in the eyes of the Clan, too, and would have just as much trouble finding a mate. Brun agreed. Now Ura is promised to Durc. After the next Clan Gathering, she is supposed to move to Brun’s clan … no, it’s Broud’s clan now. She must be there by now. I don’t think Broud will be very kind to her.” Ayla paused, thinking about Ura having to move to a strange clan. “It will be hard for her to leave her clan, and her mother who loves her, and move to a clan where she might not be very welcome. I hope Durc turns out to be the kind of man who will help her.” Ayla shook her head, then the baby let out a little burp, and she smiled. She left her propped up on her shoulder for a while longer, still patting her back.

  “Jondalar and I heard several other stories on our Journey about young men of the Others forcing women of the Clan. I think it’s something they like to dare each other to do, but the people of the Clan don’t like it.”

  “I suspect you’re right, Ayla, much as the thought distresses me. Some young men seem to enjoy doing whatever they are not supposed to. But to force a woman, even a Clan woman, that bothers me even more,” the One Who Was First said.

  “I’m not sure all the mixed children are the result of some man of the Others forcing a woman of the Clan, or the other way around. Rydag was mixed,” Ayla said.

  “That’s the child who was taken in by the mate of the leader of the Mamutoi people you lived with, isn’t it?” Zelandoni asked.

  “Yes. His mother was Clan, and like them, he couldn’t really speak, except for a few sounds that no one could understand very well. He was a weak child. That’s why he died. Nezzie said Rydag’s mother was alone, and followed them. That’s not like women of the Clan. She must have been cursed for some reason, or she would not have been alone, especially not so far along in her pregnancy. And she must have known someone of the Others, someone who treated her kindly, or she would have hid from the Mamutoi, not followed them. Perhaps it was the man who started Rydag.”

  “Perhaps,” was all Zelandoni said. But thinking about those who were mixed, she wondered if Ayla knew any more about Echozar. She was more interested in him, since he had been accepted by Dalanar’s people and allowed to mate Jerika’s daughter. “What about Echozar’s mother? You said she was cursed? I’m not sure what that means.”

  “She was shunned, ostracized. She was considered a ‘bad luck’ woman, because her mate was killed when she was attacked, and especially after she gave birth to a ‘deformed’ child. The Clan doesn’t like mixed children, either. A man named Andovan found her alone, ready to die with her baby after she was turned out of her clan. Echozar said he was an older man, living alone for some reason, but he took her and her baby in. I think he was S’Armunai, but he was living on the edge of Zelandonii territory, and he knew how to speak Zelandonii. I think he may have escaped from Attaroa. He raised Echozar, taught him to speak Zelandonii and some S’Armunai. His mother taught him the Clan signs. Andovan had to learn them, too, because she couldn’t speak his language. But Echozar could. He was like Durc.”

  She paused again, her eyes getting misty. “Durc could have learned to talk, if he’d had somebody to teach him. He talked a little before I left, and he could laugh. How could they think Durc would look like the Clan if he was my baby? Born to me? But he didn’t look like me, either, not like Jonayla does, and he wouldn’t, if it was Broud that started him.”

  “Who is this Broud?”

  “He was Ebra’s son, she was Brun’s mate. Brun was the leader of the clan. He was a good leader. Broud was the one who made me leave the clan when he became leader. I grew up with him hating me. He always hated me,” Ayla said.

  “But you say he was the one who started the child you had? And you think that comes from sharing Pleasures. Why did he want to share Pleasures with you if he hated you?” Zelandoni asked.

  “There was no sharing of Pleasures with him. No Pleasure in it for me. Broud
forced me. I don’t know why he did it the first time, but it was horrible. He hurt me. I hated it and I hated him for doing it. He knew I hated it, that’s why he did it. Maybe he knew in the beginning that I would hate it, but I know that’s why he kept doing it.”

  “And your clan allowed it!” Zelandoni said.

  “Women of the Clan must couple whenever a man wishes, whenever he gives her the signal. That’s what they are taught.”

  “I can’t understand that,” the donier said. “Why would a man even want a woman if she didn’t want him?”

  “I don’t think Clan women minded too much. They even had little ways to encourage a man to give them the signal. Iza told me about them, but I never wanted to use them. Certainly not with Broud. I hated it so much, I couldn’t eat, I didn’t want to get up in the morning, I didn’t want to leave Creb’s hearth. But when I found out I was going to have a baby, I was so happy, I didn’t even care about Broud anymore. I just put up with him, and ignored him. He stopped after that. It wasn’t fun for him if I didn’t resist, if he couldn’t force me against my will.”

  “You said you could only count eleven years when your child was born? You were very young, Ayla. Most girls are not even women yet, at that age. A few may become women that young, but not most.”

  “I was old for the Clan, though. Some girls of the Clan become women at seven years, and by the time they can count ten years, most girls have become women. Some of Brun’s clan thought I would never become a woman. They thought I would never have children, because my totem was too strong for a woman,” Ayla said.

  “But obviously you did.”

  Ayla paused, thinking. “Only women can give birth. But if women get pregnant by a mixing of spirits, why did Doni create men? Just for company, just for Pleasures? I think there has to be some other reason. Women can be company for each other, they can support each other, take care of each other, they can even give each other Pleasures.

  “Attaroa of the S’Armunai hated men. She kept them locked up. She would not allow them to share the Gift of Pleasure with women. The women shared their homes with other women. Attaroa thought if she did away with men, the spirits of women would be forced to blend and they would have only girls, but it wasn’t working. Some of the women shared Pleasures, but they could not couple, they could not mix their essences. Very few children were born.”

  “But some children were born?” Zelandoni asked.

  “Some, but they weren’t all girls—Attaroa crippled two of the boys. Most of the women did not feel the way Attaroa did. Some of them sneaked in to visit their men, some of the women Attaroa used to guard the men helped them. The women with children were the ones who had a man to share their fires the first night the men were free. They were the ones who were mated, or wanted to be. I think the only reason they had children was because they visited a man. It wasn’t that they shared a hearth and were together long enough for a man to show he was worthy so his spirit would be chosen. They saw their men seldom, and only for a little while, barely long enough to couple. It was dangerous, Attaroa would have had them killed if she found out. I think it was the coupling that made the women pregnant.”

  Zelandoni nodded. “Your reasoning is interesting, Ayla. We are taught that it is a mixing of spirits, and that seems to answer most questions about how life begins. But most people don’t question it, they just accept it. Your childhood was different, you are more ready to question, but I would be careful about whom you discuss this idea with. There are some who would be quite upset. I have wondered sometimes why Doni made men. It is true that women could take care of themselves and each other if they had to. I have even wondered why she made male animals. Mother animals often take care of their young alone, and the males and females don’t spend much time together, only at certain times of the year when they share Pleasures.”

  Ayla felt encouraged to press her point. “When I lived with the Mamutoi, there was a man of the Lion Camp. His name was Ranec and he lived with Wymez, the flint-knapper.”

  “The one Jondalar talks about?”

  “Yes. Wymez went on a very long Journey when he was a young man, he could count ten more years before he returned. Wymez traveled south of the Great Sea, around the eastern end of it, and then west again. He mated a woman he met there, and was trying to bring her and her son back to the Mamutoi, but she died on the way. He brought only the son of his mate with him when he returned. He told me his mate had skin almost as black as night, all of her people did. She had Ranec after they were mated and Wymez said he looked different from all the other children because he was so light, but he looked very dark to me. His skin was brown, he was nearly as dark as Racer, and his hair was tight black curls,” Ayla said.

  “You think that this man was brown because his mother was almost black, and her mate was light? That could be caused by a mixing of spirits, too,” Zelandoni said.

  “It could,” Ayla admitted. “It’s what the Mamutoi believed, but if everyone else there was black except Wymez, wouldn’t there be many more black spirits for his mother’s spirit to mix with? They were mated, they must have shared Pleasures.” She looked at her baby, then at Zelandoni again. “It would have been interesting to see what our children would have looked like if I had joined with Ranec.”

  “That’s who you were going to mate?”

  Ayla smiled. “He had laughing eyes, and smiling white teeth. He was clever and funny, he made me laugh, and he was the best carver I have ever seen. He made a special donii for me, and a carving of Whinney. He loved me. He said he wanted to join with me more than anything he ever wanted in his life. He looked like no one I have ever seen, before or since. He was so different, even his features were different. I was fascinated by him. If I hadn’t already loved Jondalar, I could have loved Ranec.”

  “If he was all that, I don’t blame you,” Zelandoni said, smiling back. “It’s interesting, there are rumors about some dark-skinned people living with a Cave to the south, beyond the mountains on the shore of the Great Sea. A young man and his mother, it was said. I never really believed it, you never know how much truth there is in such stories, and it seemed so incredible. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  “Ranec did resemble Wymez, in spite of the difference in skin color and features. They were the same size, had the same-shaped body, and they walked exactly alike,” Ayla said.

  “You don’t have to go that far afield to find resemblances,” Zelandoni said. “Many children bear a similarity to the mate of the mother, but there are some who look like other men of the Cave, some who hardly know the mother at all.”

  “It could have happened during a festival or ceremony to honor the Mother. Don’t many women share Pleasures with men who are not their mates then?” Ayla asked.

  Zelandoni was quiet, thinking. “Ayla, this idea of yours will require deep thought, and consideration. I don’t know if you understand the implications. If it is true, it would cause changes that neither you nor I can even imagine. Such a revelation could only come from the zelandonia, Ayla. No one would accept such an idea unless they believed it came from one who speaks for the Great Earth Mother Herself. Who have you talked to about this?”

  “Only Jondalar, and now you,” Ayla said.

  “I suggest that you say nothing to anyone else just yet. I will talk to Jondalar and impress upon him the necessity of speaking to no one, either.” They both sat quietly, immersed in their own thoughts.

  “Zelandoni,” Ayla said, “do you ever wonder what it would feel like to be a man?”

  “That’s a strange thing to wonder about.”

  “I was thinking about something Jondalar said. It was when I wanted to go hunting, and he didn’t want me to go. I know that part of the reason was that he was planning to come back here and build our home, but there was more to it than that. He said something about wanting a purpose. ‘What’s a man’s purpose if women have children and provide for them, too?’ That’s how he said it. I never thought about a purpose for living
before. What would it feel like to think my life had no meaning?”

  “You can carry that a step further, Ayla. You know part of your purpose is to bring forth the next generation, but what is the purpose of having another generation? What is the purpose of life?”

  “I don’t know. What is the purpose of life?” Ayla asked.

  Zelandoni laughed. “If I could answer that, I’d be equal to the Great Mother Herself, Ayla. Only She can answer that question. There are many who claim our purpose is to honor Her. Perhaps our purpose is just to live, and to care for the next generation so that they may live. That may be the best way to honor Her. The Mother’s Song says She made us because She was lonely, that She wanted to be remembered, and acknowledged. But there are those who say there is no purpose. I doubt if that question can be answered in this world, Ayla. I’m not sure if it can be answered in the next.”

  “But at least women know they are necessary for there to be a next generation. How must it feel not to have even that much purpose?” Ayla said. “How would it feel to think life would go on just the same whether you were here or not, whether your kind, your gender, was here or not?”

  “Ayla, I have never had any children. Should I feel my life has no purpose?” Zelandoni asked.

  “It’s not the same. Perhaps you could have had children, and if you could not, you are still a woman. You still belong to the gender that brings forth life,” Ayla said.

  “But we are all human. Including men. We’re all just people. Both men and women continue on to the next generation. Women have boys as often as they have girls,” the donier said.

  “That’s just it. Women have boys as often as girls. What do the men have to do with it? If you felt that you and all of your kind had no part in creating that next generation, would you feel as human? Or would you feel less important? Something added on at the last moment, something unnecessary?” Ayla was leaning forward, strongly making her points, passionate in her feelings about them.