He lay on top of her, catching his breath after the sudden and powerful exertion. She closed her eyes with contentment. After a time he rolled off and cuddled next to her, as she backed into him. Nesting together like two ladles, they lay quietly, happily entwined together.
After quite a long time, Ayla said softly, “Jondalar?”
“Hmmm?” he mumbled. He was in a pleasant, languorous state, not sleepy, but not wanting to move.
“How many more rivers like that will we have to cross?” she asked.
He reached over and kissed her ear. “None.”
“None?”
“None, because there are no other rivers quite like the Sister,” Jondalar explained.
“Not even the Great Mother River?”
“Not even the Mother is as fast and treacherous, or as dangerous as the Sister,” he said, “but we won’t be crossing the Great Mother River. We’ll stay on this side most of the way to the plateau glacier. When we get close to the ice, there are some people I’d like to visit who live on the other side of the Mother. But that’s a long way from here, and by then she will be little more than a mountain stream.” He rolled over on his back. “Not that we don’t have some good-size rivers to get across yet, but across these plains, the Mother branches into many channels that split off and join again. By the time we see her all together again, she will be so much smaller that you’ll hardly recognize her as the Great Mother River.”
“Without all the water from the Sister, I’m not sure if I’d recognize her,” Ayla said.
“I think you would. As big as the Sister is, when they join, the Mother is still bigger. There is a major river that feeds from the other side just before the Wooded Hills that turn her east. Thonolan and I met some people who took us across on rafts at that place. Several more feeders come in from the big mountains to the west, but we’ll be going north up the center plain, and we won’t even see them.”
Jondalar sat up. The conversation had put him in the mood to think about getting on their way, although they wouldn’t be leaving until the following morning. He was rested and relaxed, and he didn’t feel like staying in bed any more.
“We won’t be crossing many rivers at all until we reach the highlands to the north,” he continued. “At least, that’s what Haduma’s people told me. They say there are a few hills, but it’s pretty flat country.
Most of the rivers we’ll see will be channels of the Mother. They say she wanders all over the place through here. It’s good hunting grounds, though. Haduma’s people cross the channels all the time to hunt here.”
“Haduma’s people? I think you told me about them, but you never said much,” Ayla said, getting up as well, and reaching for her pack-saddle basket.
“We didn’t visit with them long, just long enough for a…” Jondalar hesitated, thinking about the First Rites he had shared with the pretty young woman, Noria. Ayla noticed a strange expression, as though he was slightly embarrassed, but also pleased with himself. “ … Ceremony, a festival,” he finished.
“A festival to honor the Great Earth Mother?” Ayla asked.
“Ah … yes, as a matter of fact. They asked me … ah, they asked Thonolan and me, to share it with them.”
“Are we going to visit Haduma’s people?” Ayla said from the opening, holding a Sharamudoi chamois skin to dry herself with after she washed in the creek by the willows.
“I’d like to, but I don’t know where they live,” Jondalar said. Then, seeing her puzzled expression, he quickly explained. “Some of their hunters found our camp, and then they sent for Haduma. She was the one who decided to have the festival, and she sent for the rest.” He paused, thinking back. “Haduma was quite a woman. She was the oldest person I’ve ever met. Even older than Mamut. She’s the mother of six generations.” At least I hope so, he thought. “I really would like to see her again, but we can’t take the time to look for them. I imagine she’s dead by now, anyway, although her son, Tamen, would still be alive. He was the only one who spoke Zelandonii.”
Ayla went out, and Jondalar was feeling a strong need to pass his water. He quickly pulled his tunic over his head and went outside, too. While he was holding his member, watching the steaming arc of strong-smelling yellow water pouring on the ground, he wondered if Noria ever did have the baby Haduma said she would, and if that organ he was holding was responsible for it.
He noticed Ayla heading toward the willows with only the chamois skin thrown over her shoulders. He supposed he ought to go and wash, too, although he’d had his fill of cold water today. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t get into it, if he had to, crossing the river, for example, but it hadn’t seemed that washing frequently in cold water was so important when he was traveling with his brother.
And it wasn’t that Ayla ever said anything to him, but since she never let cold water stop her, he felt he could hardly use that as an excuse to avoid washing himself—and he had to admit he liked the fact that she
usually smelled so fresh. But sometimes she actually broke through ice to reach water, and he wondered how she stood it so cold.
At least she was up and around. He had thought they might have to make camp for several days, as chilled as she was, or even that she might get sick. Maybe all that cold washing has made her accustomed to cold water, he said to himself. Maybe a little washing wouldn’t hurt me, either. He came to the realization that he had been watching the way her bare bottom peeked below the edge of the hide, moving back and forth enticingly as she walked.
Their Pleasures had been exciting and more satisfying than he would have imagined, considering how quickly they were over, but as he watched Ayla drape the soft skin over a branch and wade into the creek, he had an urge to start all over again, only this time he would Pleasure her slowly, lovingly, enjoying every part of her.
The rains continued intermittently as they started across the lowland plains nestled between the Great Mother River and the tributary that nearly matched her in size, the Sister. They headed northwest, although their route was far from direct. The central plains resembled the steppes to the east and were in fact an extension of them, but the rivers traversing the ancient basin from north to south played a dominant role in the character of the land. The frequently changing, branching, and widely meandering course of the Great Mother River, in particular, created enormous wetlands with the vast dry grasslands.
Oxbow lakes developed in the sharply curved bends of the larger channels that sprawled over the land, and the marshes, wet meadows, and lush fields that gave diversity to the magnificent steppes were a haven to unbelievable numbers and varieties of birds, but they also caused detours for land-bound travelers. The diversity of the skies was complemented by a rich plant life and a variegated population of animals that paralleled that of the eastern grasslands, but was more concentrated, as though a larger landscape had shrunk while its community of living creatures remained the same size.
Surrounded by mountains and highlands that funneled more moisture to the land, the central plains, especially in the south, were also more wooded, often in subtle ways. Rather than stunted dwarfs, the brush and trees that crowded close to watercourses were often full size and filled out. In the southeastern section, near the broad turbulent confluence, bogs and swamps stood in valleys and hollows, and these became enormous during flood seasons. Small soggy fen woods of alder, ash, and birch mired the unwary between knolls capped with groves of willow, occasionally spiced with oak and beech, while pines took root in sandier soils.
Most soils were either a mixture of rich loess and black loams or sands and alluvial gravels, with an occasional outcrop of ancient rock interrupting the flat relief. Those isolated highlands were usually forested with conifers, which sometimes extended down to the plains, providing a place for several species of animals that could not live on the open ground exclusively; life was richest at the margins. But with all the complexity, the primary vegetation was still grass. Tallgrass and short steppe grasses and herbs, feather grasses and fescues, the central steppic plains were an extraordinarily rich, abundantly productive grassland blowing in the wind.
As Ayla and Jondalar left the southern plains and approached the cold north, the season seemed to progress more quickly than usual. The wind in their faces carried a hint of the earth-chilling cold of its source. The inconceivably massive accumulation of glacial ice, stretching over vast areas of northern lands, lay directly in front of them, within a walking distance much less than they had already traveled.
With the changing season, the increasing force of the icy air held a deep undercurrent of its potential power. The rains diminished and finally ceased altogether as ragged streaks of white replaced the thunder-heads, the clouds torn to shreds by the strong steady winds. Sharp blasts tore the dry leaves from deciduous trees and scattered them in a loose carpet at their feet. Then, in a sudden change of mood, a sudden updraft lifted the brittle skeletons of summer growth, churned them around furiously and, tiring of the game, resettled them in another place.
But the dry, cold weather was more to the travelers’ liking, familiar, even comfortable with their fur-lined hoods and parkas. Jondalar had been told correctly; hunting was easy in the central plains and the animals were fat and healthy after a summer of eating. It was also the time of year when many grains, fruits, nuts, and roots were ripe for harvesting. They had no need to use their emergency traveling food, and they even replenished supplies they had used when they killed a giant deer, then decided to stop and rest for a few days while they dried the meat. Their faces glowed with vigorous health and the happiness of being alive and in love.
The horses were rejuvenated, too. It was their milieu, the climate and conditions to which they had been adapted. Their heavy coats fluffed out with winter growth, and they were frisky and eager each morning. The wolf, nose pointed into the wind, picking up scents familiar to the deep instinctive recesses of his brain, loped contentedly along, made occasional forays on his own, then suddenly appeared again, looking smug, Ayla thought.
River crossings presented no problems. Most waterways ran parallel
to the north-south direction of the Great Mother River, though they splashed through some that crossed the plain, but the patterns were unpredictable. The channels meandered so widely they weren’t always sure if a stream running across their path was a turn in the river or one of the few streams coming down from higher ground. Some parallel channels ended abruptly in a westerly flowing stream that, in turn, emptied into another channel of the Mother.
Though they sometimes had to detour from their northerly direction because of a wide swing of the river, it was the kind of open grassland that made traveling on horseback such an advantage over traveling on foot. They made exceptionally good time, covering such long distances each day that they made up for previous delays. Jondalar was pleased to think that they were even compensating, somewhat, for his decision to take the long way around so they could visit the Sharamudoi.
The crisp, cold, clear days gave them a wide panoramic view, obscured only by morning mists when the sun warmed the condensed moisture from the night to above freezing. To the east now were the mountains they had skirted when they followed the great river across the hot southern plains, the same mountains over whose southwest corner they had climbed. The glistening glaciered peaks moved imperceptibly closer as the range curved toward the northwest in a great arc.
On their left, the highest chain of mountains on the continent, bearing a heavy crown of glacial ice that reached halfway down its flanks, marched in ridges from east to west. The towering, shining peaks loomed in the purple distance as a vaguely sinister presence, an apparently insurmountable barrier between the travelers and their ultimate destination. The Great Mother River would take them around the broad northern face of the range to a relatively small glacier that covered, with an armor of ice, an ancient rounded massif at the northwestern end of the alpine foreland of the mountains.
Lower and closer, beyond a grassy plain broken up by pine woods, another massif rose. The granite highland overlooked steppe meadows and the Mother, but gradually decreased as they continued north, blending into the rolling hills that continued all the way to the foothills of the western mountains. Fewer and fewer trees broke the openness of the grassy landscape, and those that did began to take on the familiar dwarfed contortions of trees sculptured by wind.
Ayla and Jondalar had traveled nearly three-quarters of the entire distance, from south to north, of the immense central plains before the first snow flurries began.
“Jondalar, look! It’s snowing!” Ayla said, and her smile was radiant.
“It’s the first snow of winter.” She had been smelling snow in the air, and the first snow of the season always seemed special to her.
“I can’t understand why you look so happy about it,” he said, but her smile was contagious and he couldn’t help smiling back. “You’re going to be very tired of snow, and ice, before we see the last of it, I’m afraid.”
“You’re right, I know, but I still love the first snow.” After a few more paces, she asked, “Can we make camp soon?”
“It’s only a little past noon,” Jondalar said, looking puzzled. “Why are you talking about making camp already?”
“I saw some ptarmigan a little while ago. They have started to turn white, but with no snow on the ground, they are easy to see right now. They won’t be after it snows, and they always taste so good this time of year, especially the way Creb liked them, but it takes a long time to cook them that way.” She was remembering, looking off into the distance. “You have to dig a hole in the ground, line it with rocks, and build a fire in it, then put the birds in, all wrapped in hay, cover them up, and then wait.” The words had tumbled out of her mouth so fast, she almost tripped over them. “But it’s worth the wait.”
“Slow down, Ayla. You’re all excited,” he said, smiling with amusement and delight. He loved to watch her when she was filled with such enthusiasm. “If you are sure they will be that delicious, then I guess we ought to make an early camp, and go hunt ptarmigan.”