The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [184]
That’s it! That’s golden thread, Iza’s magic plant, she thought. That’s what I need for my morning tea, so I won’t start a baby growing. And there’s a lot of it. I was running so low that I didn’t know if I’d have enough to last for the whole Journey. I wonder if there’s antelope sage root around here, too? There ought to be. I’ll have to come back and look.
She found a plant with large basal leaves and wove them together with twigs for a makeshift gathering container, then picked as many of the small plants as she could, without depleting the area entirely. Iza had taught her long ago always to leave some from which the next year’s growth would start.
On the way back, she took a small detour through a thicker, more shaded patch of forest, to look for more of the waxy white plant that would soothe the horses’ eyes, though they did seem to be improving. She scanned the ground under the trees carefully. With so much that was familiar, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but when she saw the green leaves of one particular kind of plant, she gasped and felt a cold chill go through her.
18
Ayla dropped to the moist ground and sat staring at the plants, breathing the rich forest air, while memories came flooding back. Even in the Clan the secret of the root was little known. The knowledge had belonged to Iza’s line, and only those descended from the same ancestors—or the one to whom she had taught it—knew the complicated processing required to produce the final result. Ayla remembered Iza explaining the unusual method of drying the plant so that its properties would concentrate in the roots, and she recalled that they actually got stronger with long storage, if kept out of the light.
Though Iza had told her, carefully and repeatedly, how to make the drink from the dry roots, she couldn’t let Ayla practice preparing it before she went to the Clan Gathering; it could not be used without proper ritual and, Iza had stressed, it was too sacred to throw away. That was why Ayla had drunk the dregs she had found in the bottom of Iza’s ancient bowl, after she made it for the mog-urs, even though it was forbidden to women, so it wouldn’t have to be thrown out. She wasn’t thinking straight by then. There was so much going on, other beverages that clouded her mind, and the root drink was so powerful that even the little she had swallowed while making it had a strong effect.
She had wandered along narrow passages through the deep honeycombed caves, and by the time she saw Creb and the other mog-urs, she couldn’t have retreated even if she’d tried. That was when it happened. Somehow Creb had known she was there, and he had taken her with them, back into the memories. If he hadn’t, she would have been lost in that black void forever, but something happened that night that changed him. He wasn’t The Mog-ur afterward, he had no heart for it any more, until that last time.
She’d had some of the roots with her when she left the Clan. They were in her medicine bag in the sacred red-colored pouch, and Mamut had been very curious when she told him about them. But he didn’t have the power of The Mog-ur, or perhaps the plant affected the Others differently. She and Mamut were both drawn into the black void and almost didn’t return.
Sitting on the ground, staring at the seemingly innocuous plant that could be made into something so powerful, she recalled the experience. Suddenly she shivered with another chill and sensed a shadow of darkness, as though a cloud were passing overhead, and then she wasn’t just remembering, she was reliving that strange Journey with Mamut. The green woods faded and dimmed as she felt herself drawn back into her