The Mammoth Hunters

3

Ayla spent time in the afternoon rubbing down and currying Whinney with a soft piece of leather and the dried spiny head of a teasel. It was as relaxing for her as it was for the horse.

Jondalar worked companionably beside her using a teasel on Racer to soothe his itchy places while he smoothed the colt's shaggy winter coat, though the young animal wanted to play more than stand still. Racer's warm and soft inner layer had grown in much thicker, reminding the man how soon the cold would be upon them, which set him to thinking about where they would spend the winter. He still wasn't sure how Ayla felt about the Mamutoi, but at least the horses and the people of the Camp were getting used to each other.

Ayla noticed the easing of tensions, too, but she was worried about where the horses would spend the night when she was inside the earthlodge. They were used to sharing a cave with her. Jondalar kept assuring her they would be fine, horses were used to being outside. She finally decided to tether Racer near the entrance, knowing Whinney wouldn't wander far afield without her colt, and that the mare would wake her if any danger presented itself.

The wind turned cold as darkness fell, and there was a breath of snow in the air when Ayla and Jondalar went in, but the Mammoth Hearth in the middle of the semisubterranean dwelling was snug and warm as people gathered. Many had stopped to pick at cold leftovers from the earlier meal which had been brought in: small white starchy groundnuts, wild carrots, blueberries, and slices of mammoth roast. They picked up the vegetables and fruit with fingers or a pair of sticks used as tongs, but Ayla noticed that each person, except for the youngest children, had an eating knife for the meat. It intrigued her to watch someone take hold of a large slice with the teeth, then cut off a small bite with an upward flick of the knife – without losing a nose.

Small brown waterbags – the preserved waterproof bladders and stomachs of various animals – were passed around and people drank from them with great relish. Talut offered her a drink. It smelled fermented and somewhat unpleasant, and filled her mouth with a slightly sweet but strong burning taste, she declined a second offer. She didn't like it, though Jondalar seemed to enjoy it.

People were talking and laughing as they found places on platforms or on furs or mats on the floor. Ayla's head was turned, listening to a conversation, when the level of noise dropped off noticeably. She turned around and saw the old Mamut standing quietly behind the fireplace in which a small fire burned. When all conversation ceased, and he had everyone's attention, he picked up a small unlit torch and held it to the hot flames until it caught. In the expectant hush of held breaths he brought the flame to a small stone lamp that was in a niche in the wall behind him. The dried lichen wick sputtered in the mammoth fat, then flared up, revealing a small ivory carving of an ample, well-endowed woman behind the lamp.

Ayla felt a prickle of recognition, though she had never seen one like it before. That's what Jondalar calls a donii, she thought. He says it holds the Spirit of the Great Earth Mother. Or a part of it, maybe. It seems too small to hold all of it. But then how big is a spirit?

Her mind wandered back to another ceremony, the time when she was given the black stone which she carried in the amulet bag around her neck. The small lump of black manganese dioxide held a piece of the spirit of everyone in the entire Clan, not just her clan. The stone had been given to her when she was made a medicine woman, and she had given up a part of her own spirit in exchange, so that if she saved someone's life, that person incurred no obligation to give her something of like kind and value in return. It had already been done.

It still bothered her when she recalled that the spirits had not been returned after she was death-cursed. Creb had taken them back from Iza, after the old medicine woman died, so they would not go with her to the spirit world, but no one had taken them from Ayla. If she had a piece of the spirit of every member of the Clan, had Broud caused them to be cursed with death, too?

Am I dead? she wondered, as she had wondered many times before. She didn't think so. She had learned that the power of the death curse was in the believing, and that when loved ones no longer acknowledged your existence, and you had no place to go, you might as well die. But why hadn't she died? What had kept her from giving up? And more important, what would happen to the Clan when she really did die? Might her death cause harm to those she loved? Perhaps to all the Clan? The small leather pouch felt heavy with the weight of the responsibility, as though the fate of the entire Clan hung around her neck.

Ayla was brought out of her musing by a rhythmic sound. With a hammer-shaped section of an antler, Mamut was beating on the skull of a mammoth, painted with geometric lines and symbols. Ayla thought she detected a quality beyond rhythm and she watched and listened carefully. The hollow cavity intensified the sound with rich vibrations, but it was more than the simple resonance of the instrument. When the old shaman played on the different areas marked on the bone drum, the pitch and tone changed with such complex and subtle variations it seemed as though Mamut was drawing speech from the drum, making the old mammoth skull talk.

Low and deep in his chest, the old man began intoning a chant in closely modulated minor tones. As drum and voice interwove an intricate pattern of sound, other voices joined in from here and there around the room, fitting into the established mode, yet varying it independently. The drum rhythm was picked up by a similar sound across the room. Ayla looked over and saw Deegie playing another skull drum. Then Tornec began tapping with an antler hammer on another mammoth bone, a shoulder bone covered with evenly spaced lines and chevrons painted in red. The deep tonal resonances of the skull drums, and the higher-pitched tones of the scapula, filled the earthlodge with a beautiful haunting sound. Ayla's body pulsed with movement and she noticed others moving their bodies in time to the sound. Suddenly it stopped.

The silence was filled with expectancy, but it was left to fade away. No formal ceremony was planned, only an informal gathering of the Camp to spend a pleasant evening in one another's company, doing what people do best – talking.

Tulie began by announcing that agreement had been reached, and the nuptials of Deegie and Branag would be formalized the next summer. Words of approval and congratulations were spoken out, though everyone expected it. The young couple beamed their pleasure. Then Talut asked Wymez to tell them about his trading mission, and they learned that it involved exchanges of salt, amber, and flint. Several people asked questions or made comments while Jondalar listened with interest, but Ayla did not comprehend and resolved to ask him later. Following that, Talut asked about Danug's progress, to the young man's discomfiture.

"He has talent, a deft touch. A few more years of experience, and he'll be very good. They were sorry to see him leave. He's learned well, it was worth the year away," Wymez reported. More words of approval were spoken out by the group. Then there was a lull filled with small private conversations before Talut turned to Jondalar, which caused rustlings of excitement.

"Tell us, man of the Zelandonii, how do you come to be sitting in the lodge of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi?" he asked.

Jondalar took a swallow from one of the small brown waterbags of fermented drink, looked around at the people waiting expectantly, then smiled at Ayla. He's done this before! she thought, a little surprised, understanding that he was setting the pace and the tone to tell his story. She settled down to listen as well.

"It is a long story," he began. People were nodding. That's what they wanted to hear. "My people live a long way from here, far, far to the west, even beyond the source of the Great Mother River that empties into Beran Sea. We live near a river, too, as you do, but our river flows into the Great Waters of the west.

"The Zelandonii are a great people. Like you, we are Earth's Children; the one you call Mut, we call Doni, but She is still the Great Earth Mother. We hunt and trade, and sometimes make long Journeys. My brother and I decided to make such a Journey." For a moment, Jondalar closed his eyes and his forehead knotted with pain. "Thonolan… my brother… was full of laughter and loved adventure. He was a favorite of the Mother."

The pain was too real. Everyone knew it was not an affectation for the sake of the story. Even without his saying so, they guessed the cause. They also had a saying about the Mother taking the ones she favored early. Jondalar hadn't planned to show his feelings like that. The grief caught him by surprise and left him somewhat embarrassed. But such loss is universally understood. His unintended demonstration drew their sympathy and caused them to feel for him a warmth that went beyond the normal curiosity and courtesy they usually extended to non-threatening strangers.

He took a deep breath and tried to pick up the thread of his tale. "The Journey was Thonolan's in the beginning. I planned to accompany him only a short way, only as far as the home of some relatives, but then I decided to go with him. We crossed over a small glacier, which is the source of Donau – the Great Mother River – and said we would follow her to the end. No one believed we would do it, I'm not sure if we did, but we kept going, crossing many tributaries and meeting many people.

"Once, during the first summer, we stopped to hunt, and while we were drying the meat, we found ourselves surrounded by men pointing spears at us…"

Jondalar had found his stride again, and held the camp enthralled as he recounted his adventures. He was a good storyteller, with a flair for drawing out the suspense. There were nods and murmurs of approval and words of encouragement, often shouts of excitement. Even when they listen, people who speak with words are not silent, Ayla thought.

She was as fascinated as the rest, but found herself for a moment watching the people who were listening to him. Adults held young children in their laps while the Older children sat together watching the charismatic stranger with glistening eyes. Danug, in particular, seemed captured. He was leaning forward, in rapt attention.

"Thonolan went into the canyon, thinking he was safe with the lioness gone. Then we heard the roar of a lion…"

"What happened then?" Danug asked.

"Ayla will have to tell you the rest. I don't remember much after that."

All eyes turned toward her. Ayla was stunned. She didn't expect it; she had never spoken to a crowd of people before. Jondalar was smiling at her. He'd had the sudden thought that the best way to get her used to talking to people was to make her do it. It wouldn't be the last time she'd be expected to recount some experience, and with her control over the horses still fresh in everyone's mind, the story of the lion would be more believable. It was an exciting story, he knew, and one that would add to her mystery – and perhaps, if she satisfied them with this story, she wouldn't have to bring up her background.

"What happened, Ayla?" Danug said, still caught up in the tale. Rugie had been feeling shy and reticent around her big brother who had been gone for so long, but remembering former times when they sat around telling stories, she decided at that moment to climb into his lap. He welcomed her with an absentminded smile and hug, but looked at Ayla expectantly.

Ayla looked around at all the faces turned toward her, tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, though her palms were sweaty.

"Yes, what happened?" Latie repeated. She was sitting near Danug, with Rydag in her lap.

The boy's big brown eyes were filled with excitement. He opened his mouth to ask, too, but no one understood the sound he made – except Ayla. Not the word itself, but its intent. She had heard similar sounds before, had even learned to speak them. The people of the Clan were not mute, but they were limited in their ability to articulate. They had instead evolved a rich and comprehensive sign language to communicate, and used words only for emphasis. She knew the child was asking her to continue the story, and that to him the words had that meaning. Ayla smiled, and directed her words to him.

"I was with Whinney," Ayla began. Her way of saying the mare's name had always been an imitation of the soft nicker of a horse. The people in the lodge didn't realize she was saying the animal's name. Instead, they thought it was a wonderful embellishment to the story. They smiled, and spoke words of approval, encouraging her to continue in the same vein.

"She soon have small horse. Very big," Ayla said, holding her hands out in front of her stomach to indicate that the horse was very pregnant. There were smiles of understanding. "Every day we ride, Whinney need go out. Not far, not west. Always go east, easy to go east. Too easy, nothing new. One day, we go west, not east. See new place," Ayla continued, directing her words to Rydag.

Jondalar had been teaching her Mamutoi, as well as the other languages he knew, but she wasn't as fluent as she was in his language, the one she'd first learned to speak. Her manner of speaking was odd, different in a way that was hard to explain, and she struggled to find words, feeling shy about it. But when she thought of the boy who couldn't make himself understood at all, she had to try. Because he had asked.

"I hear lion." She wasn't sure why she did it. Perhaps it was the expectant look on Rydag's face, or the way he turned his head to hear, or an instinct for it, but she followed the word "lion" with a menacing growl, that sounded for all the world like a real lion. She heard little gasps of fear, then nervous chuckles, then smiling words of approval from the assembled group. Her ability to mimic the sounds of animals was uncanny. It added unexpected excitement to her story. Jondalar was nodding and smiling his approval, too.

"I hear man scream." She looked at Jondalar and her eyes filled with sorrow. "I stop, what to do? Whinney is big with baby." She made the little squealing sounds of a foal, and was rewarded with a beaming smile from Latie. "I worry for horse, but man scream. I hear lion again. I listen." She managed, somehow, to make a lion's roar sound playful. "It is Baby. I go in canyon then, I know horse not be hurt."

Ayla saw puzzled looks. The word she spoke was unfamiliar, although Rydag might have known it if his circumstances had been different. She had told Jondalar it was the Clan word for infant.

"Baby is lion," she said, trying to explain. "Baby is lion I know, Baby is… like son. I go in canyon, make lion go away. I find one man dead. Other man, Jondalar, hurt very bad. Whinney take back to valley."

"Ha!" a voice said derisively. Ayla looked up and saw that it was Frebec, the man who had been arguing with the old woman earlier. "Are you trying to tell me you told a lion to go away from a wounded man?"

"Not any lion. Baby," Ayla said.

"What is that… whatever you are saying?"

"Baby is Clan word. Mean child, infant. Name I give lion when he live with me. Baby is lion I know. Horse know, too. Not afraid." Ayla was upset, something was wrong, but she wasn't sure what.

"You lived with a lion? I don't believe that," he sneered.

"You don't believe it?" Jondalar said, sounding angry. The man was accusing Ayla of lying, and he knew only too well how true her story was. "Ayla does not lie," he said, standing up to untie the thong that was gathered around the waist of his leather trousers. He dropped down one side of them and exposed a groin and thigh disfigured with angry red scars. "That lion attacked me, and Ayla not only got me away from him, she is a Healer of great skill. I would have followed my brother to the next world without her. I will tell you something else. I saw her ride the back of that lion, just as she rides the horse. Will you call me a liar?"

"No guest of the Lion Camp is called a liar," Tulie said, glaring at Frebec, trying to calm a potentially ugly scene. "I think it is evident that you were badly mauled, and we have certainly seen the woman… Ayla… ride the horse. I see no reason to doubt you, or her."

There was a strained silence. Ayla was looking from one to the other, confused. The word "liar" was unfamiliar to her, and she did not understand why Frebec said he didn't believe her. Ayla had grown up among people who communicated with movement. More than hand signs, the Clan language included posture and expressions to shade meanings and give nuances. It was impossible to lie effectively with the entire body. At best, one could refrain from mentioning and even that was known, though allowed for the sake of privacy. Ayla had never learned to lie.

But she did know something was wrong. She could read the anger and hostility that had sprung up as easily as if they'd shouted it. She also knew they were trying to refrain from mentioning it. Talut saw Ayla look at the dark-skinned man, then look away. Seeing Ranec gave him an idea of a way to ease tensions and get back to storytelling.

"That was a good story, Jondalar," Talut boomed, giving Frebec a hard look. "Long Journeys are always exciting to hear about. Would you like to hear a story of another long Journey?"

"Yes, very much."

There were smiles all around as people relaxed. It was a favorite story of the group, and not often was there an opportunity to share it with people who hadn't heard it before.

"It's Ranec's story…" Talut began.

Ayla looked at Ranec expectantly. "I would know how man with brown skin comes to live at Lion Camp," she said.

Ranec smiled at her, but turned to the man of his hearth. "It's my story, but yours to tell, Wymez," he said.

Jondalar was seated again, not at all sure he liked the turn the conversation had taken – or perhaps Ayla's interest in Ranec – though it was better than the near-open hostility, and he was interested, too.

Wymez settled back, nodded to Ayla, then, smiling at Jondalar, he began. "We have more in common than a feel for the stone, young man. I, too, made a long Journey in my youth. I traveled south toward the east first, past Beran Sea, all the way to the shores of a much larger sea farther south. This Southern Sea has many names, for many people live along its shores. I traveled around its eastern end then west along the south shore through lands of many forests, much warmer, and rainier, than here.

"I won't try to tell you all that happened to me. I will save that for another time. I will tell you Ranec's story. As I traveled west, I met many people and stayed with some of them, and learned new ways, but then I would get restless and travel again. I wanted to see how far west I could go.

"After several years I came to a place, not far from your Great Waters, I think, Jondalar, but across the narrow straits where the Southern Sea joins it. There, I met some people whose skin was so dark it seemed black, and there I met a woman. A woman I was drawn to. Perhaps at first it was her difference… her exotic clothes, her color, her dark flashing eyes. Her smile compelled… and the way she danced, the way she moved… she was the most exciting woman I ever met."

Wymez talked in a direct, understated way, but the story was so enthralling it needed no dramatics. Yet, the demeanor of the stocky, quietly reserved man changed perceptibly when he mentioned the woman.

"When she agreed to join with me, I decided to stay there with her. I always had an interest in working stone, even as a youngster, and I learned their way of making spear points. They chip off both sides of the stone, you understand?" He directed the question to Jondalar.

"Yes, bifacially, like an axe."

"But these points were not so thick and crude. They had good technique. I showed them some things, too, and I was quite content to accept their ways, especially after the Mother blessed her with a child, a boy. She asked me for a name, as was their custom. I chose Ranec."

That explains it, Ayla thought. His mother was dark-skinned.

"What made you decide to come back?" Jondalar asked.

"A few years after Ranec was born, difficulties began. The dark-skinned people I was living with had moved there from farther south, and some people from neighboring Camps didn't want to share hunting grounds. There were differences in customs. I almost convinced them to meet and talk about it. Then some young hotheads from both sides decided to fight about it instead. One death led to another for revenge, and then to attacks on home Camps.

"We set up good defenses, but there were more of them. It went on for some time and they kept killing us off, one after another. After a while, the sight of a person with lighter skin began to cause fear and hatred. Though I was one of them, they started distrusting me, and even Ranec. His skin was lighter than the others, and his features had a different cast. I talked to Ranec's mother, and we decided to leave. It was a sad parting, leaving family and many friends, but it wasn't safe to stay. Some of the hotheads even tried to keep us from going, but with help, we stole away in the night.

"We traveled north, to the straits. I knew some people lived there who made small boats which they used to cross the open water. We were warned that it was the wrong season, and it was a difficult crossing during the best of conditions. But I felt we had to get away, and decided to chance it.

"It was the wrong decision," Wymez said in a tightly controlled voice. "The boat capsized. Only Ranec and I made it across, and one bundle of her belongings." He paused for a moment before he continued the story. "We were still far from home, and it took a long time, but we finally arrived here, during a Summer Meeting."

"How long were you gone?" Jondalar asked.

"Ten years," Wymez said, then smiled. "We created quite a stir. No one expected to see me again, much less with Ranec. Nezzie didn't even recognize me, but my little sister was only a girl when I left. She and Talut had just completed their Matrimonial and were setting up the Lion Camp with Tulie and both of her mates, and their children. They invited me to join them. Nezzie adopted Ranec, though he is still the son of my hearth, and took care of him as though he were her own, even after Danug was born."

When he stopped talking, it took a moment to realize he was through. Everyone wanted to hear more. Even though most of them had heard many of his adventures, he always seemed to have new stories or new twists to old stories.

"I think Nezzie would be everyone's mother, if she could," Tulie said, recalling the time of his return. "I had Deegie at the breast then, and Nezzie couldn't get enough of playing with her."

"She does more than mother me!" Talut said, with a playful grin as he patted her broad backside. He had gotten another waterbag of the powerful drink and was passing it on after taking a swallow.

"Talut! I'll do more than mother you, all right!" She was trying to sound angry, but stifling a smile.

"Is that a promise?" he countered.

"You know what I meant, Talut," Tulie said, brushing aside the rather obvious innuendos between her brother and his woman. "She couldn't even let Rydag go. He's so sickly, he'd have been better off."

Ayla's eye was drawn to the child. Tulie's comment had bothered him. Her words had not been intentionally unkind, but Ayla knew he didn't like being spoken of as though he wasn't there. There wasn't anything he could do about it, though. He couldn't tell her how he felt, and without thinking, she assumed that because he couldn't speak, he didn't feel.

Ayla wanted to ask about the child, too, but felt it might be presumptuous. Jondalar did it for her, though it was to satisfy his own curiosity.

"Nezzie, would you tell us about Rydag? I think Ayla would be particularly interested – and so would I."

Nezzie leaned over and took the child from Latie, and held him on her lap while she gathered her thoughts.

"We were out after megaceros, you know, the giant deer with the great antlers," she began, "and planned to build a surround to drive them into – that's the best way to hunt the big-antlered ones. When I first noticed the woman hiding near our hunting camp, I thought it was strange. You seldom see flathead women, and never alone."

Ayla was leaning close, listening intently.

"She didn't run away when she saw me looking at her, either, only when I tried to get closer. Then I saw she was pregnant. I thought she might be hungry, so I left some food out near the place she was hiding. In the morning it was gone, so I left more before we broke camp.

"I thought I saw her the next day a few times, but I wasn't sure. Then that night, when I was by the fire nursing Rugie, I saw her again. I got up and tried to get closer to her. She ran away again, but she moved like she was in pain, and I realized she was in labor. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to help, but she kept running away, and it was getting dark. I told Talut, and he got some people together to go after her."

"That was strange, too," Talut said, adding his part to Nezzie's story. "I thought we'd have to circle around and trap her, but when I yelled at her to stop, she just sat on the ground and waited. She didn't seem too frightened of me, and when I beckoned to her to come, she got right up and followed behind me, like she knew what to do and understood I wouldn't hurt her."

"I don't know how she even walked," Nezzie continued. "She was in such pain. She was quick to understand that I wanted to help her, but I don't know how much help I was. I wasn't even sure she'd live to deliver her baby. She never cried out, though. Finally, near morning, her son was born. I was surprised to see he was one of mixed spirits. Even that young you could tell he was different.

"The woman was so weak I thought it might give her reason to live if I showed her that her son was alive, and she seemed eager to see him. But I guess she was too far gone, must have lost too much blood. It was as though she just gave up. She died before the sun came up.

"Everybody told me to leave him to die with his mother, but I was nursing Rugie anyway, and had a lot of milk. It wasn't that much trouble to put him to my breast, too." She hugged him protectively. "I know he's weak. Maybe I should have left him, but I couldn't love Rydag any more if he were my own. And I'm not sorry I kept him."

Rydag looked up at Nezzie with his big, glowing brown eyes, then put thin arms around her neck and laid his head on her breast. Nezzie rocked him as she held him.

"Some people say he's an animal because he can't talk, but I know he understands. And he's not an 'abomination' either," she added, with an angry look at Frebec. "Only the Mother knows why the spirits that made him were mixed."

Ayla was fighting to hold back tears. She didn't know how these people would react to tears; her watering eyes had always bothered people of the Clan. Watching the woman and the child, she was overwhelmed with memories. She ached to hold her son, and grieved anew for Iza, who had taken her in and mothered her, though she had been as different to the Clan as Rydag was to the Lion Camp. But more than anything, she wished there was some way she could explain to Nezzie how moved she was, how grateful she was for Rydag's sake… and her own. Inexplicably, Ayla felt it would somehow help repay Iza if she could find a way to do something for Nezzie.

"Nezzie, he knows," Ayla said softly. "He is not animal, not flathead. He is child of Clan, and child of Others."

"I know he is not an animal, Ayla," Nezzie said, "but what is Clan?"

"People, like mother of Rydag. You say flathead, they say Clan," Ayla explained.

"What do you mean, 'they say Clan'? They can't talk," Tulie interjected.

"Not say many words. But they talk. They talk with hands."

"How do you know?" Frebec asked. "What makes you so smart?"

Jondalar took a deep breath and held it, waiting for her answer.

"I lived with Clan before. I talked like Clan. Not with words, until Jondalar came," Ayla said. "The Clan were my people."

There was a stunned silence as the meaning of her words became clear.

"You mean you lived with flatheads! You lived with those dirty animals!" Frebec exclaimed with disgust, jumping up and backing away. "No wonder she can't talk right. If she lived with them she's as bad as they are. Nothing but animals, all of them, including that mixed-up perversion of yours, Nezzie."

The Camp was in an uproar. Even if some might have agreed with him, Frebec had gone too far. He had overstepped the bounds of courtesy to visitors, and had even insulted the headman's mate. But it had long been an embarrassment to him that he belonged to the Camp that had taken in the "abomination of mixed spirits," and he was still chafing under the barbs of Fralie's mother in the most recent round of their long-standing battle. He wanted to take out his irritation on someone.

Talut roared to the defense of Nezzie, and Ayla. Tulie was quick to defend the honor of the Camp. Crozie, smiling maliciously, was alternately haranguing Frebec and browbeating Fralie, and the others were voicing their opinions loudly. Ayla looked from one to another, wanting to put her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.

Suddenly Talut boomed a shout for silence. It was loud enough to startle everyone into quiet. Then Mamut's drum was heard. It had a settling, quieting effect.

"I think before anyone else says anything, we ought to hear what Ayla has to say," Talut said, as the drum stilled.

People leaned forward attentively, more than willing to listen to find out about the mysterious woman. Ayla wasn't sure she wanted to say any more to these noisy, rude people, but she felt she had no choice. Then, lifting her chin a bit, she thought, if they wanted to hear it, she'd tell them, but she was leaving in the morning.

"I no… I do not remember young life," Ayla began, "only earthquake, and cave lion who make scars on my leg. Iza tell me she find me by river… what is word, Mamut? Not awake?"

"Unconscious."

"Iza find me by river, unconscious. I am close to age of Rydag, younger. Maybe five years. I am hurt on leg from cave lion claw. Iza is… medicine woman. She heal my leg. Creb… Creb is Mog-ur… like Mamut… holy man… knows spirit world. Creb teach me to speak Clan way. Iza and Creb… all Clan… they take care of me. I am not Clan, but they take care of me."

Ayla was straining to recall everything Jondalar had told her about their language. She hadn't liked Frebec's comment that she couldn't talk right, any more than the rest of what he said. She glanced at Jondalar. His forehead was furrowed. He wanted her to be careful of something. She wasn't entirely sure of the reason for his concern, but perhaps it was not necessary to mention everything.

"I grow up with Clan, but leave… to find Others, like me. I am…" She stopped to think of the right counting word. "Fourteen years then. Iza tell me Others live north. I look long time, not find anyone. Then I find valley and stay, to make ready for winter. Kill horse for meat, then see small horse, her baby. I have no people. Young horse is like baby, I take care of young horse. Later, find young lion, hurt. Take lion, too, but he grow up, leave, find mate. I live in valley three years, alone. Then Jondalar come."

Ayla stopped then. No one spoke. Her explanation, so simply told, with no embellishments, could only be true, yet it was difficult to believe. It posed more questions than it answered. Could she really have been taken in and raised by flatheads? Could they really talk, or at least communicate? Could they really be so humane, so human? And what about her? If she was raised by them, was she human?

In the silence that followed, Ayla watched Nezzie and the boy, and then remembered an incident early in her life with the Clan. Creb had been teaching her to communicate with hand signs, but there was one gesture she had learned herself. It was a signal shown often to babies, and always used by children to the women who took care of them, and she recalled how Iza had felt when she first made the signal to her.

Ayla leaned forward and said to Rydag, "I want show you word. Word you say with hands."

He sat up, his eyes showing his interest, and excitement. He had understood, as he always did, every word that was said, and the talk about hand signs had caused vague stirrings within him. With everyone watching, she made a gesture, a purposeful movement with her hands. He made an attempt to copy her, frowned with puzzlement. Then, suddenly comprehension came to him from some deeply buried place, and it showed on his face. He corrected himself as Ayla smiled and nodded her head. Then he turned to Nezzie and made the gesture again. She looked at Ayla.

"He say to you, 'mother,'" Ayla explained.

"Mother?" Nezzie said, then closed her eyes, blinking back tears, as she held close the child she had cared for since his birth. "Talut! Did you see that? Rydag just called me 'mother.' I never thought I'd ever see the day Rydag would call me 'mother.'"