The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [185]
Then faintly, from far away, she heard Jondalar’s voice, full of agonized fear and love, calling to her, pulling her back and Mamut as well, by the sheer strength of his love and his need. In an instant she was back, feeling chilled to the bone in the warmth of late summer sunshine.
“Jondalar brought us back!” she said aloud. At the time she hadn’t been aware of it. He was the one she had opened her eyes to, but then he was gone and Ranec was there instead bringing a hot drink to warm her. Mamut had told her that someone had helped them to return. She hadn’t realized that it was Jondalar, but suddenly she knew, almost as though she was meant to know.
The old man had said he would never use the root again and warned her against it, but he also said that if she ever did, to make sure someone was there who could call her back. He’d told her the root was more than deadly. It could steal her spirit; she could be lost in the black void forever, and would never be able to return to the Great Earth Mother. It hadn’t mattered then, anyway. She’d had no roots left. She had used the last of them with Mamut. But now, in front of her, there was the plant.
Just because it was there didn’t mean she had to take it, she thought. If she left it, she would never have to worry that she might use it again and lose her spirit. She had been told the drink was forbidden to her, anyway It was for mog-urs who dealt with the spirit world, not medicine women who were only supposed to make it for them, but she had already drunk it, twice. And besides, Broud had cursed her; as far as the Clan was concerned, she was dead. Who was there to forbid her now?
Ayla didn’t even ask herself why she was doing it when she picked up the broken branch and used it as a digging stick to carefully extract several of the plants without damaging the roots. She was one of the few people on earth who knew their properties and how to prepare them. She could not leave them. It wasn’t that she had any particular intention of using them, which in itself was not unusual. She had many preparations of plants that might never be used, but this was different. The others had potential medicinal uses. Even the golden thread, Iza’s magic medicine to fight off impregnating essences, was good for stings and bites when applied externally, but, as far as she knew, this plant had no other use. The root was spirit magic.
“There you are! We were beginning to worry,” Tholie called out when she saw Ayla coming down the path. “Jondalar said if you didn’t get back soon, he’d send Wolf after you.”
“Ayla, what took you so long?” Jondalar said, before she could answer. “Tholie said you were coming right back.” He had unthinkingly spoken Zelandonii, which let her know just how worried he had been.
“The path kept on going, and I decided to follow it a little farther. Then I found some plants I wanted,” Ayla said, holding up the material she had collected. “This area is so much like the place I grew up. I haven’t seen some of these since I left.”
“What was so important about those plants that you had to collect them now? What is that one for?” Jondalar said, pointing to the golden thread.
Ayla understood him well enough, now, to know that the angry tone was the result of his concern, but his question caught her by surprise. “That’s … that’s for bites … and stings,” she said, flustered, and embarrassed. It felt like a lie; even though her answer was perfectly true, it was not complete.
Ayla had been raised as a woman of the Clan, and Clan women could not refuse to answer a direct question, especially when posed by a man, but Iza had stressed very strongly never to tell anyone, particularly a man, what power the tiny golden threads held. Iza herself would not have been able to resist answering Jondalar’s question fully,