Ayla was eager to be up and moving the next morning, though it was no less sultry than it had been the day before. As she struck sparks with flint from her firestone, she wished she didn’t have to bother with a fire. The food she had set by the night before and some water would have been enough for their morning meal, and thinking about the Pleasures she and Jondalar had shared, she wished she could forget about Iza’s magic medicine. If she didn’t drink her special tea, maybe she could find out if they had started a baby. But Jondalar got so upset at the idea of her getting pregnant on this Journey, that she had to drink the tea.
The young woman didn’t know how the medicine worked. She just knew that if she drank a couple of bitter swallows of a strong decoction of golden thread every morning until her moon time, and a small bowl of the liquid from boiled antelope sage root each day that she was bleeding, she didn’t get pregnant.
It would not be so hard to take care of a baby while they were traveling, but she didn’t want to be alone when she gave birth. She didn’t know if she would have lived through Durc’s birth if Iza hadn’t been there.
Ayla slapped a mosquito on her arm, then checked her supply of herbs while the water was heating. She had enough of the ingredients of her morning tea to last a while, which was just as well, since she had not noticed any of those plants growing around the marsh. They liked higher elevations and drier conditions. Checking the pouches and packages within her worn otter-skin medicine bag, she decided she had adequate quantities of most of the medicinal herbs that she needed in case of emergency, though she would have liked to replace some of last year’s harvest with fresher plants. Fortunately she hadn’t had much occasion to use her healing herbs so far.
Shortly after they started traveling west again, they came to a fairly large, fast stream. As Jondalar unfastened the pack baskets that hung down quite low on Racer’s flanks, and loaded them into the bowl boat mounted on the travois, he took the time to study the rivers. The small river joined the Great Mother at a sharp angle, from upstream.
“Ayla, do you notice how this tributary comes into the Mother? It just goes straight in and flows downstream without even spreading out. I think this is the cause of that fast current we got caught in yesterday.”
“I think you are right,” she said, seeing what he meant. Then she smiled at the man. “You like to know the reasons for things, don’t you?”
“Well, water doesn’t suddenly start running fast for no reason. I thought there had to be an explanation.”
“You found it,” she said.
Ayla thought Jondalar seemed to be in a particularly good mood as they continued on after crossing the river, and that made her happy. Wolf was staying with them rather than wandering off and that pleased her, too. Even the horses seemed more spirited. The rest had been good for them. She was feeling alert and rested as well and, perhaps because she had just checked her medicines, she was particularly aware of the details of the plant and animal life of the great river mouth and the adjacent grassland they were traveling through. Though it was subtle, she noticed slight changes.
Birds were still the dominant form of wildlife around them, with those of the heron family most prevalent, but the abundance of other fowl was only less by comparison. Large flocks of pelicans and beautiful mute swans flew overhead, and many kinds of raptors, including black kites and white-tailed eagles, honey buzzards, and hawklike hobbies. She saw greater numbers of small birds hopping, flying, singing, and flashing their brilliant colors: nightingales and warblers, blackcaps, whitethroats, red-breasted flycatchers, golden orioles, and many other varieties.
Little bitterns were common in the delta, but the elusive, well-camouflaged marsh birds were heard more often than seen. They sang their characteristic, rather hollow, grunting notes all day, and more intensely with the coming of evening. But when anyone approached, they held their long beaks straight up and blended so well into the reeds among which they nested that they seemed to disappear. She saw many flying over the waters hunting for fish, however. Bitterns were quite distinctive in flight. Their coverts—the small feathers along the front of the wings and just over the base of the tail, which covered the quill ends of the larger flight feathers—were quite pale, and presented a strong contrast to their dark wings and back.
But the marshlands also accommodated a surprising number of animals that required a variety of different environments: roe deer and wild boars in the woods; hares, giant hamsters, and giant deer on the fringes, for example. As they rode, they noticed many creatures they hadn’t seen for a while and pointed them out to each other: saiga antelope racing past plodding aurochs; a small tabby-striped wildcat stalking a bird and watched by a spotted leopard in a tree; a family of foxes with their kits; a couple of fat badgers; and some unusual polecats with white, yellow, and brown marbled coats. They saw otters in the water, and minks, along with their favorite food, muskrats.
And there were insects. The large yellow dragonflies winging past at great speed, and delicate damselflies in glowing blues and greens decorating the drab flower spikes of plantains were the beautiful exceptions to the irritating swarms that suddenly appeared. It seemed to happen in one day, though the ample moisture and warmth in the sluggish side streams and fetid pools had been nursing the tiny eggs all along. The first clouds of small gnats had appeared in the morning, hanging over the water, but the dry grassland nearby was still free of them, and they were forgotten.
By evening it was impossible to forget them. The gnats burrowed into the heavy, sweat-soaked coats of the horses, buzzed around their eyes, and crept into their mouths and nostrils. The wolf fared little better. The poor animals were beside themselves with agony from the millions of mites. The annoying insects even got into the hair of the humans, and both Ayla and Jondalar found themselves spitting and rubbing their eyes to get rid of the tiny beasts as they rode. The swarms of gnats were thicker closer to the delta, and they began to wonder where they would camp for the night.
Jondalar spied a grassy hill on their right, and he thought the elevation might give him a broader view. They rode to the top of the rise and looked down at the sparkling water of an oxbow lake. It lacked the lush growth of the delta—and the stagnant pools that fostered the emerging imagoes—but a few trees and some brush lined the edges, bracketing a wide, inviting beach.
Wolf started down at a run, and the horses followed with no urging. It was all the woman and man could do to stop them long enough to lift off the pack baskets and unhitch Whinney’s travois. They all splashed into the clear water in a rush that was slowed only by the resistance of the water. Even nervous Wolf, who disliked crossing rivers, showed no hesitation as he paddled around in the lake.
“Do you think he’s finally starting to like water?” Ayla asked.
“I hope so. We have many more rivers to cross.”
The horses dipped their heads to drink, snorted and blew water out of their noses and mouths, and then went back to the shallows. They dropped down on the muddy bank to roll and scratch themselves, and Ayla couldn’t help laughing out loud at their grimacing faces and their eyes rolling and flashing in sheer delight. When they got up they were coated with mud, but when it dried, sweat, dead skin, insect eggs, and other causes of itching fell away with the dust.
They camped on the edge of the lake and started out early the next day. By evening they wished they could find another campsite as pleasant. A wave of mosquitoes followed the hatching of the gnats, raising red itching bumps that forced Ayla and Jondalar to don protective, and heavier, clothing, though it felt uncomfortably warm after being accustomed to the bare minimum. Neither of them was quite sure when the flies appeared. There had always been a few horseflies around, but now it was the smaller biting flies that suddenly increased. Even though it was a warm evening, they crawled into their sleeping furs early, just to escape the flying hordes.
They did not break camp until late morning the next day, not until after Ayla had searched for herbs that could be used to soothe their bites and to make insect repellents. She found brownwort, with its loose spike of strangely shaped brown flowers, in a damp and shady place near the water, and she collected the whole plants to make into a wash, for their skin-healing and itch-relieving properties. When she saw the large leaves of plantain she picked them to add to the solution; they were excellent for healing anything from bites to boils, even severe ulcers and wounds. From farther out on the steppes where it was drier, she gathered wormwood flowers to add as a general antidote for poisons and toxic reactions.
She was quite pleased to find bright yellow marigolds for their antiseptic and quick-healing vitues, to take the sting out of bites, and because they were so effective in keeping insects away when a strong solution was splashed on. And growing at the sunny edge of the woods, she found wild marjoram, which was not only a good insect repellent when made into an infusion for an external wash, but drinking it as a tea gave a person’s sweat a spicy odor that gnats, fleas, and most flies found distasteful. She even tried to get the horses and Wolf to drink some, though she wasn’t sure how successful she was.
Jondalar watched her preparations, asking her questions and listening to her explanations with interest. When his irritating bites were relieved and he was feeling better, it occurred to him how lucky he was to be traveling with someone who could do something about insects. He would have just had to put up with them if he were alone.
By midmorning they were on their way again, and the changes Ayla had noticed before increased dramatically. They were seeing less marsh and more water, with fewer islands. The northern arm of the delta was losing its network of meandering waterways and all becoming one. Then, with little warning, the northern and one of the middle arms of the great river delta came together, doubling the size of the channel, and creating an enormous body of running water. A short distance beyond, the river increased again as the southern arm, which had joined with the other main channel, combined with the rest, bringing together all four arms to form a single deep channel.
The great waterway had received hundreds of tributaries and the runoff of two ice-mantled ranges as she swept across the breadth of a continent, but the granite stumps of ancient mountains had blocked her seaward passage farther south. Finally, unable to resist the inexorable pressures of the advancing river, they were finally broached, but the obdurate bedrock yielded reluctantly. The Great Mother, hemmed in by the narrow passage, gathered up her flowing outskirts for one brief length before making a sharp turn and debouching through the massive delta into the expectant sea.
It was the first time that Ayla had seen the full magnitude of the enormous river, and though he had been that way before, Jondalar had seen it from a different perspective. They were stunned, held by the sight. The awesome expanse seemed more like a flowing sea than a river, the shimmering, roiling surface betraying but a hint of the great power hidden within its depths.
Ayla noticed a broken branch moving toward them, hardly more than a stick carried along by the deep, swift current, but something about it caught her attention. It took longer than she expected to reach them, and as it drew near, she caught her breath in surprise. It was not a branch at all; it was a complete tree! As it floated serenely by, Ayla stared in wonder at one of the largest trees she had ever seen.
“This is the Great Mother River,” Jondalar said.
He had traveled her entire length once before, and he knew the distance she had traveled, the terrain she had crossed, and the Journey still ahead of them. Though Ayla didn’t entirely comprehend all the implications, she did understand that, gathered together in one place for the last time, at the end of her long Journey, the vast, deep, powerful Mother River had reached her culmination; this was as Great as she would ever be.
They continued upstream beside the brimming waterway, leaving the steamy river mouth behind, and with it many of the insects that plagued them, and they discovered that they were leaving the open steppes as well. The broad grasslands and flat marshes gave way to undulating hills covered with extensive woodlands interspersed with green meadows.
It was cooler in the shade of the open woods. This was such a welcome change that when they came upon a large lake surrounded by trees near a beautiful green meadow, they were tempted to stop and make camp though it was only the middle of the afternoon. They rode alongside a creek toward a sandy shore, but as they neared, Wolf began a low growl deep in his throat and, with hackles raised, assumed a defensive posture. Both Ayla and Jondalar scanned the area, trying to see what was disturbing the animal.
“I don’t see anything wrong,” Ayla said, “but there is something here that Wolf doesn’t like.”
Jondalar looked at the inviting lake once more. “It’s early to make camp, anyway. Let’s just go on,” he said, turning Racer aside and heading back toward the river. Wolf stayed behind a while longer, then caught up with them.
As they rode through the pleasant wooded regions, Jondalar was just as happy that they decided not to stop early at the lake. During the afternoon, they passed several more lakes of various sizes; the area was full of them. He thought he should have known that from his previous passage down the river, until he remembered that he and Thonolan had come downstream in a Ramudoi boat, only stopping at the edge of the river occasionally.
But more than that, he felt that there ought to be people living in such an ideal location, and he tried to remember if any of the Ramudoi had talked about other River People living downstream. He didn’t bring up any of his thoughts to Ayla, though. If they weren’t making themselves known, they didn’t want to be seen. He couldn’t help but wonder, however, what had caused Wolf to react so defensively. Could it have been the scent of human fear? Hostility?
As the sun was beginning its descent behind the mountains that loomed large in front of them, they stopped at a smaller lake that was a catch basin for several rivulets coming from higher ground. An outlet led directly to the river, and large trout and river-dwelling salmon had swum upstream into the lake.
Ever since they reached the river and added fish on a regular basis to their diet, Ayla had occasionally worked on a net she was weaving, similar to the kind Brun’s clan had used to catch large fish from the sea. She had to make the cordage first, and she tried out several kinds of plants that had stringy, fibrous parts. Hemp and flax seemed to work particularly well, though hemp was rougher.
She felt she had a large enough section of netting to try it out in the lake, and, with Jondalar holding one end and she the other, they started some distance out and walked back toward the shore pulling the net between them. When they pulled in a couple of big trout, Jondalar became even more interested, and he wondered if there was a way to attach a handle to the netting so one person could catch a fish without wading into the water. The thought stayed on his mind.
In the morning they headed for the mountain ridges strung out ahead through a rare, rich, and diverse woodland. The trees, a wide assortment of deciduous and coniferous varieties, that, like the plants of the steppes, were distributed in a mosaic pattern of distinctive woods, broken by meadows and lakes, and in some lowlands, peat bogs or marshes. Certain trees grew in pure stands or in association with other trees or vegetation depending on minor variations in climate, elevation, availability of water, or soil, which could be loamy or sandy or sand mixed with clay, or several other combinations.
Evergreen trees preferred north-facing slopes and sandier soils and, where the moisture was sufficient, grew to great heights. A dense forest of huge spruces, soaring to a hundred sixty feet, occupied a lower slope that blended into pines that seemed to reach the same height but, though tall at a hundred thirty feet, were growing on the higher ground just above. Tall stands of deep green fir made way for thick communities of high, fat, white-barked birch. Even willows reached over seventy-five feet.
Where the hills faced south and the soil was moist and fertile, large-leaved hardwoods also attained amazing heights. Clusters of giant oaks with perfectly straight trunks and no spreading branches, except for a crown of green leaves at the top, climbed to over a hundred forty feet. Immense linden and ash trees reached nearly the same height, with magnificent maples not far behind.
In the distance ahead, the travelers could see the silvery leaves of white poplars mixed in with a stand of oaks, and when they reached the place, they found the oak woods alive with breeding tree sparrows nesting in every conceivable cranny. Ayla even found nests of the sparrows with eggs and young birds in them, built inside the nests of magpies and buzzards, that were themselves inhabited by eggs and young. There were also many robins in the woods, but their young were already fledged.
On the slanted hillsides, where breaks in the leafy canopy allowed more sunlight to reach the ground, undergrowth was luxuriant, with flowering clematis and other lianas often trailing down from the high branches of the canopy. The riders approached a stand of elms and white willows covered with vines climbing up their trunks and trailing plants hanging down. There they found the nests of many spotted eagles and black storks. They passed aspens quivering over dewberries and thick sallows near a stream. A mixed stand of majestic elms, elegant birches, and fragrant lindens marching up a hillside, overshadowed a thicket of edibles that they stopped to gather: raspberries, nettles, hazel brush with not-quite-ripe hazelnuts, just the way Ayla liked them, and a few stone pines bearing rich, hard-shelled pine nuts within their cones.
Farther on, a stand of hornbeams crowded out beeches, only to be replaced by them again later on—and one fallen giant hornbeam, thickly covered with a yellow-orange coating of honey mushrooms, set Ayla to picking in earnest. The man joined her in collecting the delicious edible fungi she found, but it was Jondalar who discovered the bee tree. With the help of a smoky torch and his axe, he climbed a makeshift ladder made from the fallen trunk of a fir with the stumps of sturdy branches still attached, and he braved a few stings to collect some honeycombs. They gobbled up most of the rare treat then and there, eating the beeswax and a few bees along with it, laughing like children at the sticky mess they made of themselves.
These southern regions had long been the natural preserves of temperate trees, plants, and animals, crowded out by the dry, cold conditions of the rest of the continent. Some pine species were so ancient that they had even seen the mountains grow. Nurtured in small areas favorable to their survival, the relict species were available, when the climate changed again, to spread quickly into lands newly open to them.
The man and woman, with the two horses and the wolf, continued their westward direction beside the broad river, heading toward the mountains. Details were becoming sharper, but the snowy ridges were an ever-present sight, and their progress toward them was so gradual that they hardly noticed that they were getting closer. They made occasional forays into the hills of the wooded countryside to the north, which could be rugged and steep, but for the most part they stayed close to the level plain near the trench of the river. The terrains were different, but the wooded plains had many plants and trees in common with the mountains.
The travelers realized they had come to a major change in the character of the river when they reached a large tributary rushing down from the highlands. They crossed it with the help of the bowl boat, but shortly afterward they came upon another fast river just as they were making a swing around to the south, where the Great Mother River had come from after skirting the lower end of the range. The river, unable to climb the northern highlands, had made a sharp turn and broached the ridge to reach the sea.
The bowl boat proved its usefulness again in crossing the second tributary, though they had to travel upstream from the confluence along the adjoining river until they found a less turbulent place to cross. Several other smaller streams entered the Mother just below the turn. Then, following the left bank around, the journeyers made a slight jog to the west and another swing back around. Though the great river was still on their left, they were no longer facing mountains. The range was now on their right and they were looking due south at dry open steppes. Far ahead, distant purple prominences hugged the horizon.
Ayla kept watching the river as they traveled upstream. She knew that all the tributaries were carried downstream and that the great river was now less full than it had been. The broad expanse of running water did not appear any different, yet she felt that the waters of the Great Mother were diminished. It was a feeling that went deeper than knowing, and she kept trying to see if the immense river had altered in any noticeable way.
Before long, however, the huge river’s appearance did change. Buried deep beneath the loess, the fertile soil that had begun as rock dust ground fine by the huge glaciers and strewn by wind, and the clays, sands, and gravels deposited over millennia by running water, was the ancient massif. The enduring roots of archaic mountains had formed a stable shield so unyielding that the intractable granite crust, which had been forced against it by the inexorable movements of the earth, had buckled and risen into the mountains whose icy caps now glistened in the sun.
The hidden massif extended under the river, but an exposed ridge, worn down with time though still high enough to block the river’s exodus to the sea, had forced the Great Mother to veer north, seeking an outlet. Finally, the ungiving rock grudgingly surrendered a narrow passage, but before she gathered herself together with its tight constraints, the huge river had run parallel to the sea across the level plain, languidly spread out into two arms interlinked by meandering channels.
The relict forest was left behind as Ayla and Jondalar rode south into a region of flat landscape and low rolling hills covered with standing hay, next to a huge river marsh. The countryside resembled the open steppes beside the delta, but it was a hotter, drier land with areas of sand dunes, mostly stabilized by tough, drought-resistant grasses, and fewer trees even near water. Brush, primarily wormwood, wood sage, and aromatic tarragon, dominated the stands of woody growth that were trying to force a meager existence from the dry soil, sometimes crowding out the dwarfed and contorted pines and willows that clung close to the banks of streams.
The marshland, the often-flooded area between the arms of the river, was second in size only to the great delta and as rich with reeds, swamps, water plants, and wildlife. Low islands with trees and small green meadows were enclosed by muddy yellow main channels or side lanes of clear water filled with fish, often unusually large.
They were riding through an open field quite near the water when Jondalar reined in Racer to a halt. Ayla pulled up beside him. He smiled at her puzzled expression, but before she spoke he silenced her with a finger to his lips and pointed toward a clear pool. Underwater plants could be seen waving to the motion of unseen currents. At first she saw nothing unusual; then, gliding effortlessly out of the green-tinged depths, an enormous and beautiful golden carp appeared. On another day they saw several sturgeon in a lagoon; the giant fish were fully thirty feet long. Jondalar was reminded of an embarrassing incident involving one of the tremendously large fish. He thought about telling Ayla, then changed his mind.
Reed beds, lakes, and lagoons along the river’s meandering course invited birds to nest, and great flocks of pelicans glided by on uplifting currents of warm air, barely flapping their broad wings. Toads and edible frogs sang their evening chorus, and sometimes provided a meal. Small lizards skittering over muddy banks were ignored by the passing travelers, and snakes were avoided.
There seemed to be more leeches in these waters, making them more wary and selective of the places they chose for swimming, though Ayla was intrigued by the strange creatures that attached themselves and drew blood without their knowing it. But it was the smallest of the creatures that were the most troublesome. With the swampy marsh nearby, there were also insects to plague them, more it seemed than before, sometimes forcing them and the animals into the river just to get relief.
The mountains to the west pulled back as they neared the southern end of the range, putting a wider sweep of plains between the great river they were following and the line of craggy crests marching south with them on their left flank. The snow-covered chain ended in a sharp bend, where another branch of the range, going in an east-west direction and defining the southern boundary, met the branch beside them. Near the farthest southeast corner, two high peaks jutted above all the rest.
Continuing south along the river and moving farther away from the major range, they gained the perspective of distance. Looking back, they began to see the full extent of the long line of lofty crests going west. Ice glistened on the highest tors, while snow mantled their steep sides and covered the adjoining ridges in white—a constant reminder that the short season of summer heat on the southern plains was only a brief interlude in a land ruled by ice.
After leaving the mountains behind, the view of the west seemed vacant; uninterrupted arid steppes presented a featureless plain as far as they could see. Without the variety of the forested hills to change the pace, or the rugged heights to break their view, one day blended into another with little change as they followed the left bank of the marshy waterway south. At one place the river came together for a time, and they could see steppes and a richer growth of trees on the opposite side, though there were still islands and reed beds within the great stream.
Before the day was over, however, the Great Mother was spreading out again. Following her, the journeyers continued south, veering only slightly west. As they drew closer, the distant purple hills gained altitude and began to exhibit their own character. In contrast to the sharp peaks of the north, the mountains to the south, though they reached summits high enough to keep a blanket of snow and ice until well into summer, were rounded, giving the appearance of uplands.
The southern mountains also affected the course of the river. When the travelers neared them, they noticed the great stream changing, with a pattern they had seen before. Meandering channels came together and straightened, then joined with others, and finally with the main arms. Reed beds and islands disappeared and the several channels formed one deep, broad channel as the huge waterway came sweeping around a wide bend toward them.
Jondalar and Ayla followed her around the inside turn until they were again facing west, toward the sun setting in a deep red hazy sky. There were no clouds that Jondalar could see, and he wondered what was causing the vibrant uniform color that reflected off the craggy pinnacles to the north, the rugged uplands across the river, and tinged the rippling water with the hue of blood.
They continued upstream along the left bank, looking for a good place to camp. Ayla found herself studying the river again, intrigued by the magnificent stream. Several tributaries of various sizes, some rather large, had flowed into the broad river from both sides, each contributing to her prodigious volume downstream. Ayla understood that the Great Mother was smaller now, by the volume of each river they had passed, but she was so vast that it was still hard to see any diminishing of her tremendous capacity. Yet at some deep level the young woman felt it.
Ayla woke before dawn. She loved the mornings, when it was still cool. She made her bitter-tasting contraceptive medicine, then readied a cup of tarragon-and-sage tea for the sleeping man and another for herself. She drank it watching the morning sun wake up the mountains to the north. It began with the first pink hint of predawn defining the two icy peaks, spreading slowly at first, reflecting a rosy glow in the east. Then suddenly, even before the edge of the glowing ball of fire sent a tentative gleam above the horizon, the blazing mountaintops heralded its coming.
When the woman and man started out again, they expected to see the great river spread out; so they were surprised when she remained within a single wide channel. A few brush-covered islands formed within the broad stream, but she didn’t split into separate waterways. They were so used to seeing her meandering across the level grasslands in a wide unruly path that it seemed strange to see the enormous flood contained for any distance. But the Great Mother invariably took the lowest path as she wound her way around and between high mountains across the continent. The river flowed east through the southernmost plains of her long passage. The low ground was at the foot of the eroded mountains, which constrained and defined her right bank.
On her left bank, between the river and the sharply folded glistening crests of granite and slate to the north, lay a platform, a foreland of limestone, primarily, covered with a mantle of loess. It was a rough and rugged land subject to violent extremes. Harsh black winds from the south desiccated the land in summer; high pressure over the northern glacier hurled frigid blasts of freezing air across the open space in winter; fierce gale storms rising in the sea frequently bore down from the east. The occasional soaking rains and the fast-drying winds, along with the temperature extremes, caused the limestone underlying the porous loess soil to fracture, which created steeply scarped faces on flat open plateaus.
Tough grasses survived on the dry, windy landscape, but trees were almost entirely absent. The only woody vegetation were certain kinds of brush that could withstand both arid heat and searing cold. An occasional thin-branched tamarisk bush, with its feathery foliage and spikes of tiny pink flowers, or a buckthorn, with black round berries and sharp thorns, dotted the landscape, and even a few small, bushy, black currant shrubs could be seen. Most prevalent were several varieties of artemisia, including a wormwood unknown to Ayla.
Its black stalks looked bare and dead, but when she picked some, thinking it would make fuel for a fire, she discovered it was not dry and brittle but green and living. After a brief wet squall, loose-toothed leaves with a silvery down on the underside uncurled and grew out from the stalks and numerous small yellowish flowers, like tightly cupped centers of daisies, appeared on branching spikes. Except for its darker stems, it resembled the more familiar, lighter-colored species that often grew alongside fescue and crested hair grass, until the wind and sun dried the plains. Then it once again appeared lifeless and dead.
With its variety of grasses and brush, the southern plains supported hosts of animals. None they hadn’t seen on the steppes farther north, but in different proportions, and some of the more cold-loving species, such as the musk-ox, never ventured so far south. On the other hand, Ayla had never seen so many saiga antelope in one place before. They were a widespread animal, seen almost everywhere on the open plains, but were not usually very numerous.
Ayla stopped and was watching a herd of the strange, clumsy-looking animals. Jondalar had gone to investigate an inlet in the river with some slender tree trunks stuck into the bank that looked out of place. There were no trees on this side of the river, and the arrangement seemed purposeful. When he caught up, she seemed to be looking off in the distance.
“I couldn’t tell for sure,” he said. “Those logs might have been put there by some River People; someone could tie a boat there. But it could be driftwood from upstream, too.”
Ayla nodded, then pointed toward the dry steppes. “Look at all those saigas.”
Jondalar didn’t see them at first. They were the color of the dust. Then he saw the outline of their straight horns with coiled ridges, tipped slightly forward at the ends.
“They remind me of Iza. The spirit of the Saiga was her totem,” the woman said, smiling.
The saiga antelopes always made Ayla smile, with their long overhanging noses and peculiar gait, which did not hinder their speed, she noted. Wolf liked to chase them, but they were so fast that he seldom got very close to them, at least not for long.
These saiga seemed to favor the black-stemmed wormwood in particular, and they banded together in much larger than usual herds. A small herd of ten or fifteen animals was common, usually females, with one and often two young; some mothers were not much more than a year old themselves. But in this region the herds were numbering more than fifty. Ayla wondered about the males. The only time she saw them in any abundance was during their rutting season, when each tried to Pleasure as many females as he could, as many times as he could. Afterward there were always carcasses of male saigas to be found. It was almost as though the males wore themselves out with Pleasures, and for the rest of the year left the sparse feed they commonly ate for the females and the young.
There were also a few ibex and mouflon on the plains, often preferring to stay near the steep scarped faces, which the wild goats and sheep could climb with ease. Huge herds of aurochs were scattered over the land, most of them with solid-color coats of a deep reddish black, but a surprising number of individuals had white spots, some quite large. They saw faintly spotted fallow deer, red deer, and bison, and many onagers. Whinney and Racer were aware of most of the four-legged grazers, but the onagers, in particular, caught their attention. They watched the herds of horselike asses and sniffed long at their similar piles of dung.
There was the usual complement of small grassland animals: susliks, marmots, jerboas, hamsters, hares, and a crested porcupine species that was new to the woman. Keeping their numbers in check were the animals that preyed on the rest. They saw small wildcats, larger lynxes, and huge cave lions, and they heard the laughing cackle of hyenas.
In the days that followed, the great river changed her course and direction often. While the landscape on the left bank, through which they were traveling, remained much the same—grassy low rolling hills and flat plains with sharp-edged scarp faces and jagged mountains behind—they noticed that the opposite bank became more rugged and diverse. Tributary rivers cut deep valleys, and trees climbed the eroded mountains, occasionally covering an entire slope right down to the water’s edge. The indented foothills and rough terrain, which defined the south bank, contributed to the broad curves swinging in every direction, even back on itself, but overall her course was eastward toward the sea.
Within the mighty turns and twists, the great body of water flowing toward them did spread out and break up into separate channels, but it did not develop into a marshland like the delta again. It was simply a huge river or, over more level ground, a meandering series of large parallel streams with richer brush and greener grass nearer the water.
Though it had sometimes seemed annoying, Ayla missed the chorus of marsh frogs, though the flutey trill of variegated toads was still a refrain in the aleatoric medley of night music. Lizards and steppe vipers took their place and along with them the distinctively beautiful demoiselle cranes, who thrived on the reptiles, as well as insects and snails. Ayla enjoyed watching a pair of the long-legged birds, bluish-gray with black heads and white tufts of feathers behind each eye, feeding their young.
She did not, however, miss the mosquitoes. Without their marshy breeding ground, those bothersome biting insects had largely disappeared. That was not true of the gnats. Clouds of them still plagued the wayfarers, particularly the furry ones.
“Ayla! Look!” Jondalar said, pointing out a simple construction of logs and planks at the edge of the river. “This is a boat landing. This was made by River People.”
Though she did not know what a boat landing was, it was obviously not an accidental arrangement of materials. It had been purposely constructed for some human use. The woman felt a surge of excitement. “Does that mean there are people around here?”
“Probably not right now—there’s no boat at the landing—but not far. This must be a place that is used frequently. They wouldn’t go to the trouble of making a landing if they didn’t use it a lot, and they wouldn’t use a place that was far away very often.”
Jondalar studied the landing for a moment, then looked upstream and across the river. “I’m not certain, but I’d say whoever built this lives on the other side of the river, and they land here when they cross. Maybe they come over to hunt, or collect roots, or something.”
Proceeding upriver, they both kept looking across the wide stream. Except in general, they hadn’t paid much attention to the territory on the other side until now, and it occurred to Ayla that there may have been people over there that they hadn’t noticed before. They had not gone far when Jondalar caught a movement on the water, some distance upstream. He stopped to verify his sighting.
“Ayla, look over there,” he said when she stopped beside him. “That could be a Ramudoi boat.”
She looked and saw something, but she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. They urged the horses on. When they got closer, Ayla saw a boat unlike anything she had ever seen before. She was only familiar with boats made in the Mamutoi style, hide-covered frames made in the shape of a bowl like the one that was mounted on the travois. The one she saw on the river was made of wood and came to a point in front. It held several people in a row. As they drew abreast, Ayla noticed more people on the opposite shore.
“Hola!” Jondalar called out, waving his arm in greeting. He shouted some other words in a language that was unfamiliar to her, though there seemed to be a vague similiarity to Mamutoi.
The people in the boat did not respond, and Jondalar wondered if he had not been heard, though he thought they had seen him. He called out again, and this time he was sure they had heard him, but they did not wave back. Instead they began paddling for the other side as fast as they could.
Ayla noticed that one of the people on the opposite shore had seen them, too. He ran toward some other people and pointed across the river at them, then he and some of the others left in a hurry. A couple of people stayed until the boat reached shore; then they left.
“It’s the horses, again, isn’t it?” she said.
Jondalar thought he saw a tear glisten. “It wouldn’t have been a good idea to cross the river here, anyway. The Cave of Sharamudoi that I know live on this side.”
“I suppose so,” she said, signaling Whinney to move on. “But they could have crossed in their boat. They could at least have answered your greeting.”
“Ayla, think how strange we must look, sitting on these horses. We must seem like something from some spirit world with four legs, and two heads,” he said. “You can’t blame people for being afraid of something they don’t know.”
Ahead, across the water, they could see a spacious valley that dropped down from the mountains nearly to the level of the mighty stream beside them. A sizable river rushed through the middle of it and entered the Great Mother with a turbulence that sent eddies in both directions and broadened her width. Adding to the play of countercurrents, just beyond the tributary the southern range that bounded the river’s right bank curved back around.
In the valley, near the confluence of the two rivers, but up on a slope, they saw several dwellings made of wood, obviously a settlement. Standing around them were the people who lived there, gaping at the travelers passing by across the river.
“Jondalar,” Ayla said. “Let’s get off the horses.”
“Why?”
“So those people will at least see that we look like people, and the horses are just horses, not some two-headed creatures with four legs,” she said. Ayla dismounted and began walking in front of the mare.
Jondalar nodded, threw his leg over, and leaped down. Taking hold of the lead rope, he followed her. But the woman had just started out when the wolf ran up to her and greeted her in his customary way. He jumped up, put his paws on her shoulders, licked her, and nuzzled her jaw, gently, with his teeth. When he got down, something, perhaps a scent wafting across the wide river, made him conscious of the people who were watching. He went to the edge of the bank and, lifting his head, began a series of yips that led into a heart-stopping ululation of wolf song.
“Why is he doing that?” Jondalar said.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t seen anyone else for a long time, either. Maybe he’s glad to see them and wants to greet them,” Ayla said. “I would, too, but we can’t cross over to their side very easily, and they won’t come over here.”
Ever since leaving behind the deep curve of the river that had changed their direction toward the setting sun, the travelers had been bearing slightly south in their generally westward advance. But beyond the valley, where the mountains angled back, they began heading due west. They were as far south as they would go on their Journey, and it was the hottest season of the year.
During the highest days of summer, with an incandescent sun scourging the shadeless plains, even when ice as thick as mountains covered a quarter of the earth, the heat could be oppressive in the southern stretches of the continent. A strong, hot, unceasing wind that wore on their nerves made it worse. The man and woman, riding side by side, or walking the scorching steppes to let the horses rest, fell into a routine that made traveling, if not easy, at least possible.
They awakened with the first glimmer of dawn glistening off the highest peaks to the north and, after a light breakfast of a hot tea and cold food, were on their way before the day was fully light. As the sun rose higher, it struck the open steppes with such intensity that shimmering heat waves issued from the earth. A patina of dehydrating sweat gleamed the deeply tanned skin of the humans and soaked the fur of Wolf and the horses. The wolf’s tongue lolled out of his mouth as he panted with the heat. He had no urge to run off on his own to explore or hunt but kept pace with Whinney and Racer, who plodded along, their heads hanging low. Their passengers drooped listlessly, allowing the horses to proceed at their own speed, talking little during the suffocating heat of midday.
When they could not take it any longer, they looked for a level beach, preferably near a clear backwater or slow-moving channel of the Great Mother. Even Wolf did not resist the slower currents, though he still hesitated a bit when a river ran fast. When the humans he was traveling with turned toward the river, dismounted, and began to unfasten the baskets, he raced ahead and bounded into the water first. If it was a tributary river, they usually plunged into the cool refreshing water, crossing before removing pack basket or travois harness.
After feeling revived by their swim, Ayla and Jondalar looked for what was available to eat, if they didn’t have enough left over or hadn’t found something along the way. Food was abundant, even on the hot, dusty steppes, and particularly in the cool watery element—if one knew where and how to get it.
They nearly always managed to catch fish when they wanted to, using Ayla’s or Jondalar’s methods or a combination of the two. If the situation called for it, they used Ayla’s long net, walking in the water and holding it between them. Jondalar had devised a handle for some of her netting, creating a kind of dip net. He wasn’t entirely happy with it yet, but it was useful in certain circumstances. He also fished with a line and gorge—a piece of bone he had sharpened to a keen tapered point on both ends and tied in the middle with a strong cord. Pieces of fish, meat, or earthworms were threaded onto it for bait. Once it was swallowed, a quick jerk usually caused the gorge to lodge sideways in the throat of the fish with a point sticking in each side.
Sometimes Jondalar caught rather large fish with the gorge, and after losing one of these he made a gaff to help bring others in. He started with the forking branch of a tree, cut off just below the joint. The longer arm of the fork was used as the handle; the shorter one was sharpened into a backward point and used as a hook to haul the fish in. There were some small trees and high brush near the river, and the first gaffs he made worked, but he never seemed to find a sturdy enough forking branch to last very long. The weight and struggles of a big fish often broke it, and he kept looking for stronger wood.
He passed by the antler the first time he saw it, registering its existence and that it had probably been shed by a three-year-old red deer, but not really paying attention to its shape. But the antler stayed on his mind, until he suddenly remembered the backward-pointing brow tine, and then he went back to get it. Antlers were tough and hard, and very difficult to break, and it was just the right size and shape. With a little sharpening, it would make an excellent gaff.
Ayla still fished by hand on occasion, the way Iza had taught her. It amazed Jondalar to watch her. The process was simple, he kept telling himself, though he hadn’t been able to master it. It just took practice, and skill, and patience—infinite patience. Ayla looked for roots or driftwood or rocks that overhung the bank, and then for fish that liked to rest in those places. They always faced upstream, into the oncoming current, moving swim muscles and fins just enough to keep them in one place, so they would not be swept away by the current.
When she saw a trout or small salmon, she entered the water downstream, let her hand dangle in the river, then waded slowly upstream. She moved even more slowly when she got closer to the fish, trying not to stir the mud or disturb the water, which could cause the resting swimmer to dart away. Carefully, from the rear, she slipped her hand underneath it, touching lightly, or tickling, which the fish didn’t seem to notice. When she reached the gills, she grabbed hold swiftly and scooped the fish out of the water onto the bank. Jondalar usually ran to get it before it flopped back into the river.
Ayla also discovered freshwater mussels, similar to the ones that were in the sea near the cave of Brun’s clan. She looked for plants like pigweed, salt bush, and coltsfoot, high in natural salt, to restore their somewhat depleted reserves, along with other roots, leaves, and seeds that were beginning to ripen. Partridges were common on the open grassland and scrub near the water, with family coveys joining to form large flocks. The plump birds were good eating and not too hard to catch.
They rested during the worst heat of the day, after noon, while the food for their main meal cooked. With only stunted trees near the river, they set up their tent as a lean-to awning to provide a little shade from the searing heat of the open landscape. Late in the afternoon, when it started to cool down, they continued on their way. Riding into the setting sun, they used their conical woven hats to screen their eyes. They began looking for a likely place to stop for the night as the glowing orb dipped below the horizon, setting up their simple camp in twilight, and occasionally, when the moon was full and the steppes ablaze with its cool glow, they rode on into the night.
Their evening meal was fairly light, often food saved from midday with perhaps the addition of a few fresh vegetables, grains, or meat, if some had been encountered along the way. Something that could be eaten quickly and cold was prepared for morning. They usually fed Wolf, too. Though he foraged for himself at night, he had developed a taste for cooked meat and even enjoyed grains and vegetables. They seldom set up the tent, though the warm sleeping rolls were welcome. The nights cooled rapidly, and morning often brought a misty haze.
Occasional summer thunderstorms and drenching rains brought an unexpected and usually welcome cooling shower, though sometimes the atmosphere was even more oppressive afterward, and Ayla hated the thunder. It reminded her too much of the sound of earthquakes. The sheet lightning that crackled across the heavens, lighting the night sky, always filled them with awe, but it was the lightning that struck close that bothered Jondalar. He hated to be out in the open when it came, and he always felt like crawling into his sleeping roll and pulling the tent over him, though he resisted the urge and never would admit it.
As time passed, besides the heat, it was the insects that they noticed most. Butterflies, bees, wasps, even flies and a few mosquitoes were not particularly bothersome. It was the smallest of them all, the clouds of gnats, that gave them the most trouble. But if the people were bothered, the animals were miserable. The persistent creatures were everywhere, into eyes, noses, and mouths, and the sweaty skin under the shaggy coats.
Steppe horses usually migrated north during the summer. Their thick fur and compact bodies were adapted to the cold, and while there were wolves on the southern plains—no predator was more widespread—Wolf came from northern stock. Over time, wolves that lived in the southern regions had made several adaptations to the extreme conditions of the south, with its hot, dry summers, and winters that were nearly as cold as the land closer to the glaciers, but could also see much heavier snow. For example, they shed their fur in far greater amounts when the weather warmed, and their panting tongues cooled them more efficiently.
Ayla did everything she could for the suffering animals, but even daily dunkings in the river and various medications did not rid them entirely of the tiny gnats. Open running sores infested with their quick-maturing eggs grew larger despite the medicine woman’s treatments. Horses and Wolf alike shed handfuls of hair, leaving bare spots, and their thick rich coats became matted and dull.
Applying a soothing wash to a sticky open sore near one of Whinney’s ears, Ayla said, “I’m sick of this hot weather, and these terrible gnats! Will it ever be cool again?”
“You may wish for this heat before this trip is through, Ayla.”
Gradually, as they continued traveling upstream beside the great river, the rugged uplands and high peaks of the north angled closer, and the eroded chain of mountains to the south increased in elevation. In all the twists and turns of their generally westward direction, they had been heading just slightly north. They veered then toward the south, before making a sharp turn that began taking them northwest, then arced around to the north, and finally even east for a distance before curving around a point and going northwest again.
Though he couldn’t exactly say why—there weren’t any particular landmarks he could positively identify—Jondalar felt a familiarity with the landscape. Following the river would take them northwest, but he was sure it would curve back around again. He decided, for the first time since they had reached the great delta, to leave the security of the Great Mother River and ride north beside a tributary, into the foothills of the high, sharp-peaked mountains that were now much closer to the river. The route they followed up the feeder river gradually turned northwest.
Ahead the mountains were coming together; a ridge joining the long arc of the ice-topped northern range was closing in on the eroded southern highlands, which had become sharper, higher, and icier, until they were separated by only a narrow gorge. The ridge had once held back a deep inland sea that had been surrounded by the soaring chains. But over the vast millennia the outlet that spilled out the yearly accumulation of water began to wear down the limestone, sandstone, and shale of the mountains. The level of the inland basin was slowly lowered to match the height of the corridor that was being ground out of the rock until, eventually, the sea was drained, leaving behind the flat bottom that would become a sea of grass.
The narrow gorge hemmed in the Great Mother River with rugged, precipitous walls of crystalline granite. And volcanic rock, which once had been outcrops and intrusions in the softer more erodable stone of the mountains, soared up on both sides. It was a long gateway through the mountains to the southern plains and ultimately to Beran Sea, and Jondalar knew there was no way to walk beside the river as she went through the gorge. There was no choice but to go around.