"THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Auel Jean M., Ауэл Джин М.)

10

Ayla woke often during the night, and her eyes were open as the first morning glow crept in through the smoke hole and sent its faint illuminating fingers into the tenebrious crannies to disperse the dark and bring the hidden shapes out of the concealing shadows. By the time the obscuring night had retreated to a dim half-light, she was wide awake and could not go back to sleep.

Moving quietly away from Jondalar's warmth, she slipped outside. The night chill enveloped her bare skin and, with its cooling hint of the massive layers of ice to the north, clothed her with gooseflesh. Looking out across the misty river valley, she saw the vague formations of the still unlighted land on the opposite side, silhouetted against the glowing sky. She wished they were already over there.

Rough warm fur brushed against her leg. Absently she patted the head and scratched the ruff of the wolf who had appeared beside her. He sniffed the air and, finding something interesting, raced off down the slope. She looked for the horses and made out the yellowish coat of the mare grazing in one of the grassy leas near the water. The dark brown horse was not visible, but she was sure he was nearby.

Shivering, she walked through the damp grass toward the small creek and sensed the rising of the sun in the east. She watched the western sky shade from glowing gray to pastel blue, with a scattering of pink clouds, reflecting the glory of the morning sun hidden behind the crest of the slope.

Ayla was tempted to walk up and see the rising sun, but she was stopped by a glint of dazzling brilliance from the other direction. Though the gully-scarred slopes across the river were still wrapped in a somber gray gloom, the mountains to the west, bathed in the clear light of the new day's sun, stood out in vivid relief, etched with such perfect detail that it seemed she could reach out and touch them. Crowning the low southern range, a glittering tiara sparkled from the icy tips. She watched the slowly changing patterns with wonder, held by the magnificence of the back side of the sunrise.

By the time she reached the little stream of clear water that was racing and skipping down the slope, the morning chill had burned off. She put down the waterbag she had taken from the lodge and, checking her wool, was glad to see that her moon time seemed to be over. She unfastened her straps, took off her amulet, and stepped into a shallow pool to wash. When she was through, she filled the waterbag at the splashing cascade that ran into the slight depression of the pool, then got out and pushed the water off with one hand and then the other. Putting her amulet back on and picking up the washed wool and her straps, she hurried back.

Jondalar was knotting a tie around their rolled-up sleeping furs when she stepped down into the semisubterranean earthlodge. He looked up and smiled. Noticing that she wasn't wearing her leather straps, his smile took on a decidedly suggestive look.

"Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to roll up the furs this morning," he said.

She flushed when she realized he was aware that she was past her moon time. Then she looked directly into his eyes, which were full of teasing laughter, love, and burgeoning desire, and smiled back. "You can always unroll them again."

"There go my plans for an early start," he said, pulling an end of the thong that released the knot on the sleeping roll. He unrolled it and stood up as she walked to him.

After their morning meal, it took little time for them to finish packing. Gathering all their possessions and the boat, along with their animal traveling companions, they moved down to the river. But deciding the best way to get across was another matter. They stared at the expanse of water rushing past, so wide that details of the bank on the other side were difficult to see. With its fast current sliding over and around itself in subdued ripples and eddies, making small choppy waves, the sound of the deep river was almost more revealing than its look. It spoke its power in a muted, gurgling roar.

While he was making the circular craft, Jondalar had thought often about the river and how to use the boat to get across. He had never made a bowl boat before, and he had only ridden in one a few times. He had become fairly adept at handling the sleek dugout canoes when he lived with the Sharamudoi, but when he tried his hand at propelling the round bowl boats of the Mamutoi, he found them very clumsy. They were buoyant, hard to tip over, but difficult to control.

The two peoples not only had different types of materials at hand to construct their floating craft, they used boats for different purposes. The Mamutoi were primarily hunters of the open steppes; fishing was only an occasional activity. Their boats were used primarily to get themselves and their possessions across waterways, whether small tributaries or the rivers that swept down, continent-wide, from the glaciers of the north to the inland seas of the south.

The Ramudoi, the River People moiety of the Sharamudoi, fished the Great Mother River – though they referred to it as hunting when they went after the thirty-foot sturgeons – while the Shamudoi half hunted chamois and other animals that lived on the high cliffs and mountains that overlooked the river and, near their home, confined it in a great gorge. The Ramudoi lived on the river during the warm seasons, taking full advantage of its resources, including the large durmast oaks that lined its banks, which were used to make their beautifully crafted and maneuverable boats.

"Well, I think we should just put everything in it," Jondalar said, picking up one of his pack baskets. Then he put it down and picked up the other one instead. "It's probably a good idea to put the heaviest things on the bottom, and this one has my flint and tools in it."

Ayla nodded. She, too, had been thinking about getting them all across the river with their belongings intact, and she had tried to anticipate some of the potential problems, remembering her few excursions in the Lion Camp's bowl boats. "We should leave a place for each of us on opposite sides, so it stays balanced. I'll leave room for Wolf to be with me."

Jondalar wondered how the wolf would behave in the fragile floating bowl, though he refrained from saying anything. Ayla saw his frown, but kept her peace. "We should each have a paddle, too," he said, handing one to her.

"With all of this, I hope we'll be able to fit," she said, putting the tent in the boat, thinking she might use it for a seat.

Though it was cramped, they managed to get everything into the hide-covered boat, except the poles. "We may have to leave those behind. There's no room for them," Jondalar said. They had just replaced the ones they had lost.

Ayla smiled and held up some cord she had kept out. "No we won't. They'll float. I'll just tie them to the boat with this so they won't drift away," she said.

Jondalar wasn't sure that was a good idea, and he was framing an objection as he thought about it, but Ayla's next question distracted him.

"What are we going to do about the horses?" she said.

"What about the horses? They can swim across, can't they?"

"Yes, but you know how nervous they can get, especially about something that they haven't done before. What if they get frightened by something in the water and decide to go back? They won't try again to cross the river by themselves. They won't even know we're on the other side. We would have to come back and lead them across, so why not just lead them to begin with?" Ayla explained.

She was right. The horses probably would get apprehensive, and could just as easily go back as across, Jondalar thought. "But how are we going to lead them when we're in the boat?" he said. This was becoming complicated. Trying to manage a boat could be difficult enough without trying to manage panicked horses, besides. He was feeling more and more worried about crossing this river.

"We put on their halters with lead ropes, and tie the ropes to the boat," Ayla said.

"I don't know… That may not be the best way. Maybe we should think about it some more," he said.

"What is there to think about?" she said, as she was wrapping cord around the three poles. Then she measured out a length and fastened it to the boat. "You were the one who wanted to get started," she added, while she put Whinney's halter on, attached a lead rope to it, then fastened it to the boat on the opposite side of the poles. Holding the slack, she stood beside the boat, then turned to Jondalar. "I'm ready to go."

He hesitated, then nodded decisively. "All right," he said, getting Racer's halter from his pack basket and calling the horse to him. The young stallion lifted his head and neighed when the man first tried to slip the halter over his head, but after Jondalar talked to him and stroked his face and neck, Racer calmed down and allowed it. He tied the rope to the boat, then faced Ayla. "Let's go," he said.

Ayla signaled to Wolf to get into the boat. Then, with both of them still holding the lead ropes, to maintain control of the animals, they pushed the boat into the water and scrambled to get in.

From the beginning, there was trouble. The swift current took hold of the small craft and swept it along, but the horses were not quite ready to enter the wide stream. They reared back as the boat was trying to pull away, jerking the boat so violently that it nearly tipped over, making Wolf stumble to regain his footing and eye the situation nervously. But the load was so heavy that the boat righted itself quickly, though it rode very low in the water. The poles had stretched out in front, trying to follow the strong current.

The pull on the horses by the river trying to propel the boat downstream, and the anxious words of encouragement from Ayla and Jondalar, finally convinced the balky animals to enter the water. First Whinney put in a tentative hoof and found bottom, then Racer, and, with the constant tug, they both finally jumped in. The bank fell off sharply, and they were soon swimming. Ayla and Jondalar had no choice but to let the current carry them along downstream until the entire, unlikely combination of three long poles, followed by a round, heavily laden boat carrying a woman, a man, and a very tense wolf, with two horses behind, stabilized. Then they let go of the lead ropes and each took up a paddle and attempted to change their direction so that they were moving across the current.

Ayla, on the side facing the opposite shore, was not at all familiar with using a paddle. It took several tries, with Jondalar giving advice while he was trying to row away from the shore, before she got the hang of it, and managed to use it in cooperation with him to direct the boat. Even then, it was slow going, with the long poles in front and the horses behind, eyes rolling with fear as they were involuntarily pulled along by the current.

They did begin to make progress in crossing the river, though they were traveling much faster downstream. But ahead, the large swift waterway, surging down the gradual decline of the land on its way to the sea, was making a sharp curve toward the east. A back current, eddying off a projecting sand spit of the near shore, caught the poles that were racing along in front of the boat.

The long shafts of birch, free-floating except for the cords that held them, turned back around and hit the hide-covered boat with a hard bump near Jondalar, making him fear that it had caused a hole. It jarred everyone aboard, and gave a spin to the small round bowl boat, which jerked on the lead ropes of the horses. The horses whinnied in panic, swallowing mouthfuls of water, and tried desperately to swim away, but the relentless current pulling the boat to which they were tied inexorably pulled them along.

But their efforts were not without effect. They caused the little boat to be jerked back and twist around, which yanked on the poles, making them bang into the boat again. The turbulent current, and the jerking and bumping of the overloaded craft, made it bob and bounce and ship water, adding more weight. It was threatening to sink.

The frightened wolf had been cowering with his tail between his legs beside Ayla on the folded tent, while she was frantically trying to steady the boat with a paddle she didn't know how to use, with Jondalar shouting instructions she didn't know how to apply. The whinnying of the panicked horses turned her attention to them and, seeing their fear, she suddenly realized she had to cut them free. Dropping her paddle to the bottom of the boat, she took her knife from the sheath at her waist. Knowing that Racer was more excitable, she worked at his rope first, and with only a little effort the sharp flint blade cut through.

His release caused more bumping and spinning, which was just too much for Wolf. He leaped from the boat into the water. Ayla watched him swimming frantically, quickly cut through Whinney's rope, and jumped in after him.

"Ayla!" Jondalar screamed, but he was jerked around again as the suddenly released and lighter-weight boat started rotating and crashing into the poles. When he looked up, Ayla was trying to tread water, encouraging the wolf who was swimming toward her. Whinney, and beyond her, Racer, were heading for the far shore, and the current was taking him even faster downstream, away from Ayla.

She glanced back and caught one last glimpse of Jondalar and the boat as it rounded the bend of the river and felt a heart-stopping moment of fear that she would never see him again. The thought flashed through her mind that she should not have left the boat, but she had little time to worry about it just then. The wolf was coming to her, struggling against the current. She took a few strokes toward him, but when she reached him, he tried to put his paws on her shoulders and lick her face and in his eagerness he dunked her under the water. She came up sputtering, hugged him with one arm, and looked for the horses.

The mare was swimming for the shore, pulling away from her. She took a deep breath and whistled, loud and long. The horse pricked up her ears and turned toward the sound. Ayla whistled again, and the horse altered direction and tried to swim to her as she reached out toward Whinney with strong strokes. Ayla was a good swimmer. Going generally with the current, though at a diagonal across it, it nevertheless took some effort to reach the wet shaggy animal. When she did, she almost cried with relief. The wolf reached them soon after, but he kept on going.

Ayla rested for a moment, holding on to Whinney's neck, and only then noticed how cold the water was. She saw the rope trailing in the water, attached to the halter Whinney still wore, and it occurred to her how dangerous it could be for the horse if the rope got tangled in some floating debris. The woman spent a few moments trying to unfasten the knot, but it was swollen tight, and her fingers were stiff with cold. She took a deep breath and started swimming again, not wanting to put an added burden on the horse and hoping the exercise would help warm her.

When they finally gained the far shore, Ayla stumbled out of the water, exhausted and shivering, and fell to the ground. The wolf and the horse were little better. They both shook themselves, spraying water everywhere, then Wolf dropped down, breathing hard. Whinney's shaggy coat was heavy even in summer, though it would be much thicker in winter when the dense underfur grew in. She stood with her feet spraddled and her body quivering, her head hanging down and her ears drooping.

But the summer sun was high, and the day had warmed, and once she had rested, Ayla stopped shivering. She stood up, looking for Racer, sure that if they had made it across, the stallion would have, too. She whistled, her call for Whinney first, since Racer usually came along whenever she whistled for his dam. Then she made Jondalar's call whistle for him, and she suddenly felt a stab of worry about the man. Had he made it across the river in that flimsy little boat? And if he had, where was he? She whistled again, hoping the man would hear and respond, but she wasn't unhappy when the dark brown stallion came galloping into view, still wearing the halter, with a short length of lead rope hanging from it.

"Racer!" she called out. "You did make it. I knew you would."

Whinney greeted him with a welcoming nicker and Wolf with enthusiastic puppy barks that worked their way into a full-throated howl. Racer responded with loud neighs, which Ayla was sure contained a sound of relief at finding his familiar friends. When he reached them, Racer touched noses with Wolf, then stood near his dam with his head over her neck, drawing comfort after the frightening river crossing.

Ayla joined them and gave him a hug, then patted and stroked him before removing his halter. He was so used to the device that it didn't seem to bother him, and it did not interfere with his grazing, but Ayla thought the dangling rope could create problems, and she knew she wouldn't like to wear something like that all the time. She then took Whinney's halter off and tucked them both into the waist thong of her tunic. She thought about removing her wet clothes, but she felt the need to hurry, and they were drying on her.

"Well, we've found Racer. Now it's time to find Jondalar," she said aloud. The wolf looked at her expectantly, and she directed her comments at him. "Wolf, let's find Jondalar!" She mounted Whinney and started off downstream.

After many spins, turns, and bumps, the small, round, hide-covered boat, with Jondalar's assistance, was calmly following the current again, this time with the three poles trailing behind. Then, with the single paddle and considerable effort, he began to propel the small craft across the large river. He discovered that the three trailing poles tended to stabilize the floating bowl, keeping it from rotating and making it easier to control.

All the while, as he worked his way toward the land that was slipping past, he was berating himself for not jumping into the river after Ayla. But it had happened so fast. Before he knew it, she was out of the boat and he was being carried away on the swift stream. It was pointless to jump into the river after she was out of sight. He couldn't have swum back to her against the current, and they would lose the boat and everything in it.

He tried to console himself with the knowledge that she was a strong swimmer, but his concern caused him to increase his efforts to get across the river. When he finally reached the opposite shore, far downstream of their starting point, and felt the bottom grate against the rocky beach that jutted out from the inside corner of a bend, he breathed a ragged sigh. Then he climbed out and dragged the heavily loaded small boat up on the shore and sank down, giving in to his exhaustion. After a few moments, though, he stood up and started walking back along the river in search of Ayla.

He stayed close to the water, and when he came to a small tributary stream that was adding its measure to the river, he just waded through it. But some time later, when he reached another river of more than respectable size, he hesitated. This was not a river that could be waded, and if he attempted to swim across so close to the major watercourse, he'd be swept into it. He'd have to walk upstream beside the smaller river until he found a more suitable place to attempt a crossing.

Ayla, riding on Whinney, reached the same river not long after, and she also headed upstream for a distance. But a decision about where to cross on horseback required different considerations. She didn't go nearly as far as Jondalar did before she turned her horse into the water. Racer and Wolf followed behind, and, with only a short swim across the middle, they were soon across. Ayla started down toward the large river but, looking back, she saw Wolf heading the other way.

"Come on, Wolf. This way," she called. She whistled impatiently, then signaled Whinney to continue. The canine hesitated, started toward her, then went back again before he finally followed her. When she reached the large river, she turned downstream and urged the mare to a gallop.

Ayla's heart beat faster when she thought she saw a round, bowl-shaped object on a rocky beach ahead. "Jondalar! Jondalar!" she shouted, racing toward it at full speed. She jumped down before her horse came to a full stop and rushed toward the boat. She looked inside it, and then around the beach. Everything seemed to be there, including the three poles, everything except Jondalar.

"Here's the boat, but I can't find Jondalar," she said aloud. She heard Wolf yip, as if in response. "Why can't I find Jondalar? Where is he? Did the boat float here by itself? Didn't he make it across?" Then it struck her. Maybe he went looking for me, she thought. But if I was coming down the river, and he was going upstream, how did we miss each other…

"The river!" she almost shouted. Wolf yipped again. Suddenly she recalled his hesitation after they had crossed the large tributary. "Wolf!" she called.

The large four-legged animal ran toward her and jumped up, putting his paws on her shoulders. She grabbed the thick fur of his neck with both hands, looked at his long muzzle and intelligent eyes, and remembered the young, weak boy who had reminded her so much of her son. Rydag had sent Wolf to look for her once, and he had traveled across a long distance to find her. She knew he could find Jondalar, if she could only make him understand what she wanted.

"Wolf, find Jondalar!" she said. He jumped down and began sniffing around the boat, then started back the way they had come, upstream.

Jondalar had been waist-high in water, carefully picking his way across the smaller river, when he thought he heard a faint bird whistle that sounded somehow familiar – and impatient. He stopped and closed his eyes, trying to place it, then shook his head, not even sure if he'd actually heard it, and continued across. When he reached the other side and started walking toward the major river, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally his worry about finding Ayla began to push it out of his mind, though it kept nagging at him.

He'd been walking for quite a while in his wet clothes, knowing that Ayla was wet, too, when it occurred to him that he perhaps should have taken the tent, or at least something for shelter. It was getting late, and anything could have happened to her. She might even be hurt. The thought made him scan the water, the bank, and the vegetation nearby more carefully.

Suddenly he heard the whistle again, this time much louder and closer, followed by a yip, yip, yip, and then a full-blown wolf howl and the sound of hoofbeats. Turning around, he broke into a great welcoming smile as he saw the wolf coming straight for him with Racer close behind, and best of all there was Ayla riding Whinney.

Wolf jumped up on the man, put his huge paws on Jondalar's chest, and reached up to lick his jaw. The tall man grabbed his ruff, as he'd seen Ayla do, and then gave the four-legged beast a hug. Then he pushed the wolf away as Ayla raced up on the horse, jumped down, and ran to him.

"Jondalar! Jondalar!" she said as he took her in his arms.

"Ayla! Oh, my Ayla," he said, crushing her to his chest.

The wolf jumped up and licked both of their faces, and neither one of them pushed him away.

The large river, which the two riders along with the horses and the wolf had crossed, emptied into the brackish inland body of water that the Mamutoi called Beran Sea just north of the huge delta of the Great Mother River. As the travelers neared the many-mouthed culmination of the watercourse that had wound its way across the breadth of the continent for nearly two thousand miles, the downward slope of the land leveled off.

The magnificent grasslands of this flat southern region surprised Ayla and Jondalar. A rich new growth, unusual so late in the season, burgeoned across the open landscape. The violent thunderstorm with its downpour of flooding rains, exceptional in its timing and very widespread, was responsible for the unseasonal greening. It brought a springlike resurgence to the steppes of not only grass, but colorful blooms: dwarf iris in purple and yellow, deep red multipetaled peonies, spotted pink lilies, and vetch in variable colors from yellow and orange to red and purple.

Loud whistling and squawking called Ayla's attention to the vociferous black-and-rose birds that were wheeling and dipping, separating and coming together in large flocks, creating a confusion of ceaseless activity. The heavy concentration of the noisy, gregarious, rose-colored starlings that had gathered nearby made the young woman uneasy. Though they bred in colonies, fed in flocks, and roosted together at night, she didn't recall ever seeing so many of them at one time.

She noticed kestrels and other birds were also congregating. The noise was growing louder, with a strident humming undercurrent of expectation. Then she noticed a large dark cloud, though, strangely, except for that one cloud, the sky was clear. It seemed to be moving closer, riding on the wind. Suddenly the great horde of starlings became even more agitated.

"Jondalar," she called to the man who had ridden ahead of her. "Look at that strange cloud."

The man looked, then stopped as Ayla pulled abreast again. While they watched, the cloud grew visibly larger, or perhaps closer.

"I don't think that's a rain cloud," Jondalar said.

"I don't think it is, either, but what else could it be?" Ayla said. She had an unaccountable desire to seek shelter of some kind. "Do you think we should put up the tent and wait it out?"

"I'd rather keep going. Maybe we can outdistance it, if we hurry," Jondalar said.

They urged the horses to a faster gait across the green field, but both the birds and the strange cloud outpaced them. The strident noise rose in intensity, overpowering even the raucous starlings. Suddenly Ayla felt something hit her arm.

"What was that?" she said, but even before she got the words out, she was hit again, and again. Something landed on Whinney, then bounced away, but more came. When she looked at Jondalar, riding just ahead of her, she saw more of the flying, jumping things. One landed just in front of her, and in the moment before it got away, she slapped her hand on it.

She picked it up carefully to look at it more closely. It was an insect, about the length of her middle finger, thick-bodied with long rear legs. It looked like a large grasshopper, but it wasn't a drab green color that would blend easily into the background, like the ones she had seen jumping through dry grass. This insect was striking for its brightly colored stripes of black, yellow, and orange.

The difference was wrought by the rain. During the season that was normally dry, they were grasshoppers, shy, solitary creatures, who could abide others of their kind only long enough to mate, but a remarkable change took place after the hard rainstorm. With the growth of tender new grass, the females took advantage of the abundance of food by laying many more eggs, and many more larvae survived. As the grasshopper population grew, surprising changes took place. The young grasshoppers developed startling new colors, and they began to seek out each other's company. They were no longer grasshoppers; they had become locusts.

Soon, large bands of brightly colored locusts joined with other bands, and when they exhausted their local food supply, the locusts took to the air in masses. A swarm of five billion was not uncommon, easily covering sixty square miles and eating eighty thousand tons of vegetation in a single night.

As the leading edge of the cloud of locusts began dropping down to feed on the new green grass, Ayla and Jondalar were engulfed by the insects swarming all around them, hitting and bouncing off them and their horses. It wasn't hard to urge Whinney and Racer to a gallop; it would have been all but impossible to restrain them. As they raced at top speed, pelted by the deluge of locusts, Ayla tried to look for Wolf, but the air was thick with flying, bouncing, hopping, leaping insects. She whistled as loud as she could, hoping he would hear above the strident roar.

She almost ran into a rose-colored starling as it swooped down and caught a locust right in front of her face. Then she realized why the birds had gathered in such large numbers. They were drawn to the immense food supply, whose bold colors were easy to see. But the sharp contrasts that attracted the birds also enabled the locusts to locate each other when they needed to fly to new feeding grounds, and even the huge flocks of birds did little to reduce the swarms of locusts as long as the vegetation remained abundant enough to support the new generations. Only when the rains stopped and the grasslands returned to their normal dry condition that could feed only small numbers, would the locusts become well-camouflaged, innocuous grasshoppers again.

The wolf found them shortly after they left the swarm behind. By the time the voracious insects were settled on the ground for the night, Ayla and Jondalar were camped far away. When they started out the next morning, they headed north again and slightly east, toward a high hill to get a view above the flat landscape that might give them some idea of the distance to the Great Mother River. Just beyond the crest of the hill they saw the edge of the area that had been visited by the cloud of locusts, the swarming mass blown by the strong winds toward the sea. They were overwhelmed by the devastation.

The beautiful, springlike countryside full of bright flowers and new grass was gone, stripped clean. As far as they could see the land was denuded. Not a leaf, not a blade of grass, not a single hint of green dressed the bare soil. Every bit of vegetation had been devoured by the ravenous horde. The only signs of life were some starlings searching out the last few locusts that had fallen behind. The earth had been ravaged, laid open, and left indecently exposed. Yet she would recover from this indignity, brought on by creatures of her own making in their natural cycles of life, and from hidden root and windblown seed she would clothe herself in green once again.

When the woman and man looked the other way, they were greeted with an entirely different vista, one that set their pulses racing. Toward the east, a vast expanse of water glinted in the sun; it was Beran Sea.

As she looked, Ayla realized that it was the same sea she had known in her childhood. At the southern end of a peninsula that jutted down from the north into that great body of water was the cave where she had lived with Bran's clan when she was young. Living with the people of the Clan had often been difficult. Still she had many happy memories of her childhood, although thoughts of the son she had been forced to leave behind inevitably saddened her. She knew this was as close as she would get to the son she would never see again.

It was best for him to live with the Clan. With Uba as his mother, and old Bran to train him to hunt with a spear, and a bola, and a sling, and to teach him the ways of the Clan, Durc would be loved and accepted, not reviled and made fun of the way Rydag had been. But she couldn't help wondering about him. Was his clan still living on the peninsula, or had they moved closer to some of the other clans that lived on the mainland or in the high eastern mountains?

"Ayla! Look, down there. That's the delta, and you can see Donau, or at least a small part of it. On the other side of the large island, see that brown muddy water? I think that's the main northern arm. There it is, the end of the Great Mother River!" Jondalar said, excitement filling his voice.

He, too, was overcome with memories that were tinged with sadness. The last time he had seen that river, he had been with his brother, and now Thonolan was gone to the world of the spirits. Suddenly he remembered the stone with the opalescent surface that he had taken from the place where Ayla had buried his brother. She had said it held the essence of Thonolan's spirit, and he planned to give it to his mother and Zelandoni when he returned. It was in his pack basket. Maybe he should get it out and carry it with him, he thought.

"Oh, Jondalar! Over there, by the river, is that smoke? Are people living near that river?" Ayla said, excited at the prospect.

"There could be," Jondalar said.

"Let's hurry then." She started back down the hill with Jondalar riding beside her. "Who do you think it might be?" she asked. "Someone you know?"

"Maybe. The Sharamudoi sometimes come this far in their boats to trade. That's how Markeno met Tholie. She was with a Mamutoi Camp that had come for salt and shells." He stopped and glanced around, looking more closely at the delta and the island just across a narrow channel; then he studied the land downstream. "In fact, I don't think we are very far from the place where Brecie had Willow Camp set up… last summer. Was it just last summer? She took us there after her Camp rescued Thonolan and me from the quicksand…"

Jondalar closed his eyes, but Ayla saw the pain. "They were the last people my brother ever saw… except for me. We traveled together for a while longer. I kept hoping he would get over her, but he didn't want to live without Jetamio. He wanted the Mother to take him," Jondalar said. Then, looking down, he added, "And then we met Baby."

Jondalar looked up at Ayla, and she saw his expression change. The pain was still there, and she recognized that special look that showed when his love for her was almost more than he could bear; more than she could bear. But there was something else, too, something that frightened her.

"I could never understand why Thonolan wanted to die… then." He turned away and, urging Racer to a faster pace, called back, "Come on. You said you wanted to hurry."

Ayla signaled Whinney to a fast run, trying to be more careful, and she trailed behind the man on the galloping stallion who was racing toward the river. But the ride was exhilarating and had the effect of driving away the strange, sad mood that the place had evoked in both of them. The wolf, excited by the fast pace, ran along with them, and when they finally reached the water's edge and stopped, Wolf lifted his head and voiced a melodious wolf song of long drawn-out howls. Ayla and Jondalar looked at each other and smiled, both thinking it was an appropriate way to announce that they had arrived at the river that would be their companion for the greater part of the rest of their Journey.

"Is this it? Have we reached the Great Mother River?" Ayla said, her eyes sparkling.

"Yes. This is it," Jondalar said, then looked toward the west, upstream. He did not want to dampen Ayla's excitement at reaching the river, but he knew how far they had yet to go.

They would have to retrace his steps all the way back across the breadth of the continent to the plateau glacier that covered the highland at the headwaters of the extensive river, and then beyond, almost to the Great Water at the edge of the earth, far to the west. Along its winding, eighteen-hundred-mile course, Donau – the river of Doni, the Great Earth Mother of the Zelandonii – swelled with the waters of more than three hundred tributaries, the drainage of two glaciered mountain chains, and acquired a burden of sediment.

Often splitting into many channels as she meandered across the flatter stretches of her length, the great waterway transported the prodigious accumulation of silt suspended within her voluminous spill. But before reaching the end of her course, the fine gritty soil settled out into an immense fan-shaped deposit, a mud-clogged wilderness of low islands and banks surrounded by shallow lakes and winding streams, as though the Great Mother of rivers was so exhausted from her long journey that she dropped her heavy load of silt just short of her destination, then staggered slowly to the sea.

The broad delta they had reached, twice as long as it was wide, began many miles from the sea. The river, too full to be held within a single channel in the flat plain between the ancient massif of raised bedrock to the east and the gentle rolling hills that dropped gradually from the mountains to the west, divided into four main arms, each taking a different direction. Channels interlaced the diverging arms, creating a labyrinth of meandering streams that spread out to form numerous lakes and lagoons. Great expanses of reed beds surrounded firm land that ranged from bare sandy spits to large islands complete with forests and steppes, populated by aurochs and deer, and their predators.

"Where was that smoke coming from?" Ayla asked. "There must be a Camp nearby."

"I think it might have been from that big island we saw downstream there, across the channel," Jondalar said, pointing in the general direction.

When Ayla looked, all she saw at first was a wall of tall phragmite reeds, their feathery purple tops bending in the light wind, more than twelve feet above the waterlogged ground from which they grew. Then she noticed the beautiful silvery-green leaves of sallow extending up beyond them. It took a moment before she made another observation that puzzled her. Sallow was usually a shrub that grew so close to water that its roots were often flooded in wet seasons. It resembled certain willows, but sallows never grew to the height of trees. Could she be mistaken? Could those be willow trees? She seldom made a mistake like that.

They started downstream, and when they were opposite the island they headed into the channel. Ayla looked back to make sure the dragging poles of the travois, with the bowl boat lashed between them, were not snagged; then she checked that the crossed ends in front moved freely as the poles floated up behind the mare. When they were repacking, getting ready to leave the large river behind, they originally planned to leave the boat. It had served its purpose in getting them and their things across, but after all the work it had taken to make it, even though the crossing had not gone exactly as they had planned, they both hated to abandon the small round boat.

Ayla was the one who thought about fastening it to the poles, even though it meant Whinney would have to wear the harness and drag it constantly, but it was Jondalar who realized that it would actually make crossing rivers easier. They could load up the boat with their gear so it wouldn't get wet, but rather than trying to lead the horses across with a rope fastened to a boat, Whinney could swim across at her own pace, pulling an easy, floating load. When they tried it out on the next river they had to cross, they even found it unnecessary to unharness her.

There was a tendency for the current to drag at the boat and poles, which worried Ayla, especially after the way Whinney and Racer had panicked when they were being pulled into a situation on the other river over which they had no control. She decided to redesign the leather straps of the harness so that she could cut it loose in an instant if it seemed to endanger her mare, but the horse compensated for the tug of the stream and accepted the burden with little trouble. Ayla had taken the time to let the horse get familiar with the new idea, and Whinney was used to the travois and trusted the woman.

But the large open bowl was a container that invited filling. They started using it to carry wood, dry dung, and other materials for burning that they picked up along the way for the evening fire, and sometimes they left their pack baskets in the boat after crossing water. There had been several streams of various sizes that had found their way to the inland sea, and Jondalar knew that many tributaries would cut across their path as they continued their Journey, traveling beside the Great Mother River.

As they waded into the clear water of the outside channel of the delta, the stallion shied and whinnied nervously. Racer was uneasy about rivers since his frightening adventure, but Jondalar had been very patient about guiding the sensitive young animal across the smaller waterways they had met, and the horse was overcoming his fear. It pleased the man, since many more rivers would have to be crossed before they reached his home.

The water was slow moving, but so transparent that they could see fish swimming among the water plants. After making their way through the tall reeds, they gained the long, narrow island. Wolf was the first to reach the tongue of land. He shook himself vigorously, then ran up the sloping shore of hard-packed wet sand mixed with clay, which led to a bordering woods of beautiful silver-green sallows grown to the size of trees.

"I knew it," Ayla said.

"What did you know?" Jondalar said, smiling at her satisfied expression.

"These trees are just like those bushes we slept in that night it rained so hard. I thought they were sallows, but I've never seen any the size of trees before. Sallows are usually bushes, but these could be willows."

They dismounted and led the horses into the cool airy woods. Walking in silence, they noticed the shadows of the leaves, swaying in the light breeze, dappling the rich, grassy, sunlit ground cover, and through the light open woodland they saw aurochs grazing in the distance. They were downwind, and, when the wild cattle caught their scent, the animals moved away rapidly. They've been hunted by people, Jondalar thought.

The horses clipped off mouthfuls of the green fodder with their front teeth as well, while they moved through the delightful wooded land, prompting Ayla to stop and begin untying Whinney's harness.

"Why are you stopping here?" Jondalar asked.

"The horses want to graze. I thought we might stop for a while."

Jondalar looked worried. "I think we should go a little farther. I'm sure there are people on this island, and I'd like to know who they are before we stop."

Ayla smiled. "That's right! You did say this was where the smoke was coming from. It's so beautiful here – I almost forgot."

The terrain had been gradually rising in elevation, and farther inland alders, poplars, and white willows began to appear in the sallow woods, lending variation to the light grayish-green foliage. Later a few firs and an ancient variety of pines, that had existed in that region as long as the mountains themselves, added a background of deeper green to the mosaic, with larch contributing a lighter shade, all highlighted by the greenish-gold tufts of ripening steppe grasses waving in the wind. Ivy climbed up tree trunks while liana hung down from branches of the denser forest canopy, and in the sunlit glens prostrate shrubs of pubescent oak and taller hazel brush played their tone against the living landscape.

The island rose no more than twenty-five feet above the water, then leveled out into a long field that was a steppeland in miniature with fescues and feather grasses turning gold in the sun. They crossed the narrow width of the island and looked down a far more precipitous slope of sand dunes, anchored with beach grass, sea holly, and sea kale. The sandy slopes led to a deeply curved inlet, almost a lagoon, outlined with tall, purple-topped reeds, mixed in with cattails and bulrushes, and many varieties of smaller aquatic plants. On the inlet, the water-lily pads were so thick that the water was hardly visible, and perched on them were uncountable numbers of herons.

Beyond the island was a wide, muddy-brown channel, the northernmost arm of the great river. Close to the end of the island they watched a stream of clear water enter the main channel, and Ayla was amazed to see the two currents, one transparent, one brown with silt, running next to each other, with a distinct division of color. Eventually, though, the brown water dominated as the main channel muddied the clear stream.

"Look at that, Jondalar," Ayla said, pointing to the sharp definition of the parallel running waters.

"That's how you know when you're on the Great Mother River. That arm that will take you directly to the sea," he said. "But look over there."

Beyond a grove of trees, off to the side of the inlet, a thin stream of smoke reached for the sky. Ayla smiled with anticipation, but Jondalar had reservations as they headed for the smoke. If that was smoke from a fireplace, why hadn't they seen anyone? The people must have seen them by now. Why hadn't they come to greet them? Jondalar shortened the rope he was using to lead Racer and patted his neck reassuringly.

When they saw the outline of a conical tent, Ayla knew they had arrived at a Camp, and she wondered what people these were. They could even be Mamutoi, she thought, as she signaled Whinney to follow close. Then she noticed Wolf standing in his defensive posture, and she whistled the signal she had taught him. He retreated to her side as they entered the small encampment.