She almost ran into a rose-colored starling as it swooped down and caught a locust right in front of her face. Then she realized why the birds had gathered in such large numbers. They were drawn to the immense food supply, whose bold colors were easy to see. But the sharp contrasts that attracted the birds also enabled the locusts to locate each other when they needed to fly to new feeding grounds, and even the huge flocks of birds did little to reduce the swarms of locusts as long as the vegetation remained abundant enough to support the new generations. Only when the rains stopped and the grasslands returned to their normal dry condition that could feed only small numbers, would the locusts become well-camouflaged, innocuous grasshoppers again.
The wolf found them shortly after they left the swarm behind. By the time the voracious insects were settled on the ground for the night, Ayla and Jondalar were camped far away. When they started out the next morning, they headed north again and slightly east, toward a high hill to get a view above the flat landscape that might give them some idea of the distance to the Great Mother River. Just beyond the crest of the hill they saw the edge of the area that had been visited by the cloud of locusts, the swarming mass blown by the strong winds toward the sea. They were overwhelmed by the devastation.
The beautiful, springlike countryside full of bright flowers and new grass was gone, stripped clean. As far as they could see the land was denuded. Not a leaf, not a blade of grass, not a single hint of green dressed the bare soil. Every bit of vegetation had been devoured by the ravenous horde. The only signs of life were some starlings searching out the last few locusts that had fallen behind. The earth had been ravaged, laid open, and left indecently exposed. Yet she would recover from this indignity, brought on by creatures of her own making in their natural cycles of life, and from hidden root and windblown seed she would clothe herself in green once again.
When the woman and man looked the other way, they were greeted with an entirely different vista, one that set their pulses racing. Toward the east, a vast expanse of water glinted in the sun; it was Beran Sea.
As she looked, Ayla realized that it was the same sea she had known in her childhood. At the southern end of a peninsula that jutted down from the north into that great body of water was the cave where she had lived with Bran's clan when she was young. Living with the people of the Clan had often been difficult. Still she had many happy memories of her childhood, although thoughts of the son she had been forced to leave behind inevitably saddened her. She knew this was as close as she would get to the son she would never see again.
It was best for him to live with the Clan. With Uba as his mother, and old Bran to train him to hunt with a spear, and a bola, and a sling, and to teach him the ways of the Clan, Durc would be loved and accepted, not reviled and made fun of the way Rydag had been. But she couldn't help wondering about him. Was his clan still living on the peninsula, or had they moved closer to some of the other clans that lived on the mainland or in the high eastern mountains?
"Ayla! Look, down there. That's the delta, and you can see Donau, or at least a small part of it. On the other side of the large island, see that brown muddy water? I think that's the main northern arm. There it is, the end of the Great Mother River!" Jondalar said, excitement filling his voice.
He, too, was overcome with memories that were tinged with sadness. The last time he had seen that river, he had been with his brother, and now Thonolan was gone to the world of the spirits. Suddenly he remembered the stone with the opalescent surface that he had taken from the place where Ayla had buried his brother. She had said it held the essence of Thonolan's spirit, and he planned to give it to his mother and Zelandoni when he returned. It was in his pack basket. Maybe he should get it out and carry it with him, he thought.
"Oh, Jondalar! Over there, by the river, is that smoke? Are people living near that river?" Ayla said, excited at the prospect.
"There could be," Jondalar said.
"Let's hurry then." She started back down the hill with Jondalar riding beside her. "Who do you think it might be?" she asked. "Someone you know?"
"Maybe. The Sharamudoi sometimes come this far in their boats to trade. That's how Markeno met Tholie. She was with a Mamutoi Camp that had come for salt and shells." He stopped and glanced around, looking more closely at the delta and the island just across a narrow channel; then he studied the land downstream. "In fact, I don't think we are very far from the place where Brecie had Willow Camp set up… last summer. Was it just last summer? She took us there after her Camp rescued Thonolan and me from the quicksand…"
Jondalar closed his eyes, but Ayla saw the pain. "They were the last people my brother ever saw… except for me. We traveled together for a while longer. I kept hoping he would get over her, but he didn't want to live without Jetamio. He wanted the Mother to take him," Jondalar said. Then, looking down, he added, "And then we met Baby."
Jondalar looked up at Ayla, and she saw his expression change. The pain was still there, and she recognized that special look that showed when his love for her was almost more than he could bear; more than she could bear. But there was something else, too, something that frightened her.
"I could never understand why Thonolan wanted to die… then." He turned away and, urging Racer to a faster pace, called back, "Come on. You said you wanted to hurry."
Ayla signaled Whinney to a fast run, trying to be more careful, and she trailed behind the man on the galloping stallion who was racing toward the river. But the ride was exhilarating and had the effect of driving away the strange, sad mood that the place had evoked in both of them. The wolf, excited by the fast pace, ran along with them, and when they finally reached the water's edge and stopped, Wolf lifted his head and voiced a melodious wolf song of long drawn-out howls. Ayla and Jondalar looked at each other and smiled, both thinking it was an appropriate way to announce that they had arrived at the river that would be their companion for the greater part of the rest of their Journey.
"Is this it? Have we reached the Great Mother River?" Ayla said, her eyes sparkling.
"Yes. This is it," Jondalar said, then looked toward the west, upstream. He did not want to dampen Ayla's excitement at reaching the river, but he knew how far they had yet to go.
They would have to retrace his steps all the way back across the breadth of the continent to the plateau glacier that covered the highland at the headwaters of the extensive river, and then beyond, almost to the Great Water at the edge of the earth, far to the west. Along its winding, eighteen-hundred-mile course, Donau – the river of Doni, the Great Earth Mother of the Zelandonii – swelled with the waters of more than three hundred tributaries, the drainage of two glaciered mountain chains, and acquired a burden of sediment.
Often splitting into many channels as she meandered across the flatter stretches of her length, the great waterway transported the prodigious accumulation of silt suspended within her voluminous spill. But before reaching the end of her course, the fine gritty soil settled out into an immense fan-shaped deposit, a mud-clogged wilderness of low islands and banks surrounded by shallow lakes and winding streams, as though the Great Mother of rivers was so exhausted from her long journey that she dropped her heavy load of silt just short of her destination, then staggered slowly to the sea.