"I'm not sure what that means – a death curse," Echozar continued. "She only told me once, and then she couldn't finish. She said everyone turned away from her, as though they could not see her. They said she was dead, and even though she tried to make them look at her, it was like she wasn't there, like she was dead. It must have been terrible."
"It was," Ayla said softly. "It's hard to go on living if you don't exist to the ones you love." Her eyes misted with memory.
"My mother took me and left them to go and die, like she was supposed to, but Andovan found her. He was old even then, and living alone. He never did tell me why he left his Cave, it was something about a cruel leader…"
"Andovan…" Ayla interrupted. "Was he S'Armunai?"
"Yes, I think so," Echozar said. "He didn't talk about his people much."
"We know about their cruel leader," Jondalar said, grimly.
"Andovan took care of us," Echozar continued. "He taught me to hunt. He learned to speak the sign language of the Clan from my mother, but she never could say more than a few words. I learned both, though it surprised her that I could make his word sounds. Andovan died a few years ago, and with him my mother's will to live. The death curse finally took her."
"What did you do then?" Jondalar asked.
"I lived alone."
"That is not easy," Ayla said.
"No, it's not easy. I tried to find someone to live with. No clan would let me near them. They threw stones at me and said I was deformed and unlucky. No Cave would have anything to do with me, either. They said I was an abomination of mixed spirits, half-man and half-animal. After a while I got tired of trying. I didn't want to be alone any more. One day I jumped off a cliff into the river. The next thing I knew, Dalanar was looking at me. He took me to his Cave. Now I am Echozar of the Lanzadonii," he finished proudly, glancing at the tall man he idolized.
Ayla thought of her son, grateful he had been accepted as a baby, and grateful there were people who loved him and wanted him when she had to leave him behind.
"Echozar, don't hate your mother's people," she said. "It is not that they are bad, they are just so ancient that it's hard for them to change. Their traditions go back so far, and they don't understand new ways."
"And they are people," Jondalar said to Dalanar. "That's one thing I've learned on this Journey. We met a couple just before we started over the glacier – that's another story – but they're planning meetings about the problems they've been having with some of us, especially some young Losadunai men. Someone has even approached them about trading."
"Flatheads having meetings? Trading? This world is changing faster than I can understand," Dalanar said. "Until I met Echozar, I wouldn't have believed it."
"People may call them flatheads, and animals, but you know your mother was a brave woman, Echozar," Ayla said, then held out her hands to him. "I know how it feels to have no people. Now I am Ayla of the Mamutoi. Will you welcome me, Echozar of the Lanzadonii?"
He took her hands and she felt them tremble. "You are welcome here, Ayla of the Mamutoi," he said.
Jondalar stepped forward with his hands outstretched. "I greet you, Echozar of the Lanzadonii," he said.
"I welcome you, Jondalar of the Zelandonii," Echozar said, "but you don't need to be welcomed here. I've heard about the son of Dalanar's hearth. There's no doubt you were born of his spirit. You are much like him."
Jondalar grinned. "Everyone says so, but don't you think his nose is a little bigger than mine?"
"I don't. I think yours is bigger than mine," Dalanar laughed, clapping the younger man's shoulder. "Come inside. The food is getting cold."
Ayla lingered a moment to talk to Echozar, and when she turned to go in, Joplaya detained her.
"I want to talk to Ayla, Echozar, but don't go in yet. I want to talk to you, too," she said. He walked away quickly to leave the two women alone, but not before Ayla saw the adoration in his eyes when he looked at Joplaya.
"Ayla, I…" Joplaya began. "I… think I know why Jondalar loves you. I want to say… I want to wish you both happiness."
Ayla studied the dark-haired woman. She sensed a change in her, a drawing in, a feeling of grim finality. Suddenly Ayla knew why she had been so uneasy about the woman.
"Thank you, Joplaya. I love him very much; it would be hard to live without him. It would leave me with a great emptiness inside that would be very hard to bear."
"Yes, very hard to bear," Joplaya said, closing her eyes for a moment.
"Aren't you going to come in and eat?" Jondalar said, coming back out of the cave.
"You go ahead, Ayla. There's something I have to do first."
44
Echozar glanced at the large piece of obsidian, then looked away. The ripples in the shiny black glass distorted his reflection, but nothing could change it, and he didn't want to see himself today. He was dressed in a deerskin tunic, fringed with tufts of fur and decorated with beads made of hollow bird bones, dyed quills, and sharp animal teeth. He had never owned anything so fine. Joplaya had made it for him, for the ceremony that officially adopted him into the First Cave of the Lanzadonii.
As he walked into the main area of the cave, he felt the soft leather, smoothing it with reverence knowing her hands had made it. It almost hurt just to think about her. He had loved her from the first. It was she who had talked to him, listened to him, tried to draw him out. He would never have faced all those Zelandonii at the Summer Meeting that year if it hadn't been for her, and when he saw how the men flocked around her, he wanted to die. It had taken months to work up the courage to ask her: How could anyone who looked like him dare to dream of a woman like her? When she didn't refuse, he nourished his hope. But she had put off giving him an answer for so long, he was sure it was her way of saying no.
Then, on the day Ayla and Jondalar arrived, when she asked him if he still wanted her, he couldn't believe it. Wanted her! He had never wanted anything so much in his life. He waited for a time when he could talk to Dalanar alone. But the visitors were always with him. He didn't want to bother them. And he was afraid to ask. Only the thought of losing his one chance for more happiness than he ever dreamed possible gave him the courage.
Then Dalanar said she was Jerika's daughter and he'd have to talk it over with her, but all he had asked was did Joplaya agree, and did he love her. Did he love her? Did he love her? O Mother, did he love her!
Echozar took his place among the people waiting expectantly, and he felt his heart beat faster when he saw Dalanar get up and walk toward a hearth in the middle of the cave. A small wood sculpture of a well-rounded female was stuck in the ground in front of the hearth. The ample breasts, full stomach, and broad buttocks of the donii were accurately portrayed, but the head was little more than a knob with no features and the arms and legs were only suggested. Dalanar stood beside the hearth and faced the assembled group.
"First I want to announce that we are going to the Zelandonii Summer Meeting again this year," Dalanar began, "and we invite any who want to join us to come. It's a long trip for us, but I hope to persuade one of the younger zelandoni to return and make a home with us. We have no lanzadoni, and we need One Who Serves the Mother. We are growing, soon there will be a Second Cave, and someday the Lanzadonii will have their own Summer Meetings.
"There is another reason for going. Not only will the mating of Jondalar and Ayla be sanctified at the Matrimonial, we will have another reason to celebrate it this year, too."