The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [442]
“I never thought I’d fall in love,” he said, relaxing again and idly caressing the dip at the small of her back and the smooth mound beyond. “Why did I have to travel beyond the end of the Great Mother River to find a woman I could love?”
He had been thinking about that ever since he woke up and realized they were almost home. It was good to be on this side of the glacier, but he was full of anticipation, wondering about everyone, and eager to see them.
“Because my totem meant you for me. The Cave Lion guided you.”
“Then why did the Mother cause us to be born so far apart?”
Ayla lifted her head and looked at him. “I’ve been learning, but I still know very little about the ways of the Great Earth Mother, and not much more about the protective spirits of the Clan totems, but I know this: you found me.”
“And then I almost lost you.” A sudden rush of cold fear clutched at him. “Ayla, what would I do if I lost you?” he said, his voice hoarse with the emotion he seldom showed openly. He rolled over, covering her body with his, and buried his head in her neck, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. “What would I do?”
She clung to him, wishing there was some way she could become a part of him, and she gratefully opened herself to him when she felt his need swell again. With an urgency as demanding as his love, he took her as she came to him with a need as driving.
It was over even more quickly, and with the release, the tension of their fierce emotion melted into a warm afterglow. When he started to move aside, she held him, wanting to cling to the intensity of the moment.
“I wouldn’t want to live without you, Jondalar,” Ayla said, picking up the conversation begun before their lovemaking. “A piece of me would go with you to the spirit world, I’d never be whole again. But we’re lucky. Think of all the people who never find love, and those who love someone who cannot love them back.”
“Like Ranec?”
“Yes, like Ranec. I still hurt inside when I think of him.”
Jondalar rolled over and sat up. “I feel sorry for him. I liked Ranec—or I could have.” Suddenly he was eager to be moving. “We’ll never get to Dalanar’s this way,” he said, starting to roll up sleeping furs. “I can’t wait to see him again.”
“But first, we have to find the horses,” Ayla said.
43
Ayla got up and went outside the tent. A mist hovered close to the ground and the air felt cold and damp on her bare skin. She could hear the roar of the waterfall in the distance, but the vapor thickened into a dense fog near the back end of the lake, a long narrow body of greenish water, so cloudy it was nearly opaque.
No fish lived in such a place, she was sure, just as no vegetation grew along the edge; it was too new for life, too raw. There was only water and stone, and a quality of time before time, of ancient beginnings before life began. Ayla shivered and felt a stark taste of Her terrible loneliness before the Great Mother Earth gave birth to all living things.
She stopped to pass her water, then hurried across the sharp-edged gravel shore, waded in, then ducked down. It was icy cold and gritty with silt. She wanted to bathe—it hadn’t been possible while they were crossing the ice—but not in this water. She didn’t mind the cold so much, but she wanted clear, fresh water.
She started back to the tent to dress and help Jondalar pack up. On the way, she looked through the mist across the lifeless landscape to a hint of trees below. Suddenly she smiled.
“There you are!” she said, sounding a loud whistle.
Jondalar was out of the tent in an instant. He smiled as broadly as Ayla to see the two horses galloping toward them. Wolf followed along behind, and Ayla thought he looked pleased with himself. He hadn’t been around that morning, and she wondered if he had played any part in the horses’ return. She shook her head, realizing she would probably never know.
They greeted