The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [345]
Ayla, holding a swaddled infant in her arms, smiled as he came through the entrance. “A boy, Jondalar!”
S’Armuna was lifting a second baby, preparing to tie the umbilical cord. “And a girl,” she said. “Twins! It’s a favorable sign. So few babies were born while Attaroa was leader, but now I think that will change. I think this is the Mother’s way of telling us the Camp of the Three Sisters will soon be growing and fall of life again.”
“Will you come back someday?” Doban asked the tall man. He was getting around much better, though he still used the crutch that Jondalar had made for him.
“I don’t think so, Doban. One long Journey is enough. It’s time to go home, settle down, and establish my hearth.”
“I wish you lived closer, Zelandon.”
“So do I. You are going to be a good flint knapper, and I would like to continue training you. And, by the way, Doban, you can call me Jondalar.”
“No. You are Zelandon.”
“You mean Zelandonii?”
“No, I mean Zelandon.”
S’Amodun smiled. “He doesn’t mean the name of your people. He has made your name Elandon, but honors you with S’Elandon.”
Jondalar flushed with embarrassment and pleasure. “Thank you, Doban. Maybe I should call you S’Ardoban.”
“Not yet. When I learn to work the flint like you, then they may call me S’Ardoban.”
Jondalar gave the young man a warm hug, clasped the shoulders of a few others, and chatted with them. The horses, packed and ready to go, had wandered off a short distance, and Wolf had dropped to the ground, watching the man. He got up when he saw Ayla and S’Armuna coming out of the lodge. Jondalar was glad to see them, too.
“…It is beautiful,” the older woman was saying, “and I’m overwhelmed that she cared so much that she wanted to do it, but … you don’t think it’s dangerous?”
“As long as you keep the carving of your face, how can it be dangerous? It may bring you closer to the Mother, give you deeper understanding,” Ayla said.
They hugged each other, then S’Armuna gave Jondalar a big hug. She stepped back when they called the horses, but she reached out and touched his arm to detain him another moment.
“Jondalar, when you see Marthona, tell her S’Armu … no, tell her Bodoa sends her love.”
“I will. I think it will please her,” he said, mounting the stallion.
They turned around and waved, but Jondalar was relieved to be going. He would never be able to think of this Camp without mixed feelings.
Snow began filtering down again as they rode away. The people of the Camp waved and wished them well. “Good Journey, S’Elandon.” “Safe travels, S’Ayla.”
As they disappeared into the softly obscuring white flakes, there was hardly a soul who did not believe—or want to believe—that Ayla and Jondalar had come to rid them of Attaroa and free their men. As soon as the horse-riding couple were out of sight, they would transform themselves into the Great Earth Mother and Her Fair Celestial Mate, and they would ride the wind across the skies, trailed by their faithful protector, the Wolf Star.
34
They started back to the Great Mother River with Ayla leading the way over the same trail that she had followed to find the S’Armunai Camp, but when they reached the river crossing, they decided to ford the smaller tributary and then head southwest. They rode across country over the windy plains of the ancient lowland basin that separated the two major mountain systems, heading for the river.
Despite the scant snowfall, they often had to take cover from blizzardlike conditions. In the intense cold, the dry snowflakes were picked up and blown from place to place by the unremitting winds until they were ground into frozen grit, sometimes mixed with the pulverized particles of rock dust—loess—from the margins of the moving glaciers. When the wind blew especially hard, it blasted their skin raw. The withered grass in the most exposed places had long since been flattened, but the winds that kept snow from accumulating, except in sheltered pockets, bared the sere and yellowed