bowl of water. But they are hard to chew, and it takes a long time, and the one who is preparing it is not supposed to swallow any of the juice. It could be that it's a necessary ingredient, the juice that accumulates in the mouth,' Ayla said.
'That's all? It seems to me if you just use a small amount, like one would test anything new, it shouldn't be that dangerous,' Zelandoni said.
'There are some Clan rituals involved. The medicine woman who prepares the root for the mog-urs is supposed to purify herself first, bathe in a river using soaproot, and she is not supposed to wear clothing. Iza told me that was so the woman would be unsullied and open, with nothing hidden, so that she would not contaminate the holy men, the mog-urs. The Mog-ur, Creb, painted my body with red and black colours, mostly circles around the female parts, to isolate them, I think,' Ayla said. 'It is a very sacred ceremony to the Clan.'
'We could use the new cave you found. It is a very sacred place, and private. This would be a good use for it,' the First said. 'Anything else?'
'No, except when I tried the root with Mamut, he made sure that the people of the Lion Camp kept chanting so we would have something to hold on to, something that would keep us tethered to this world, and help us find our way back.' She hesitated, looked down at the empty cup still in her hands, and added softly. 'I'm not sure how, but Mamut said Jondalar may have helped bring us back.'
'We will make sure all the zelandonia are there. They are very good at sustained chanting. Does it make any difference what is chanted?' the First asked.
'I don't think so. Just something familiar,' Ayla said.
'When should we plan to do it?' Zelandoni asked, more excited than she thought she would be.
'I don't think it matters.'
'Tomorrow morning? As soon as you can get everything ready?'
Ayla shrugged, as if she didn't care. At that moment, she didn't. 'It's as good a time as any, I suppose,' she said.
Chapter 39
Jondalar was filled with as much anxiety and despair as Ayla. He had tried to avoid everyone as much as possible since the big ceremony where everyone was told about men and why they were created. He recalled parts of that night only vaguely. He did remember smashing Laramar in the face over and over again, and he couldn't erase from his mind the picture of that man moving up and down on top of Ayla. When he woke up the next day, his head was pounding, and he was still somewhat dizzy and very nauseous. He couldn't remember ever being so sick the next day, and wondered what was in the drinks he consumed.
Danug was there and he thought he ought to feel grateful to him, but he didn't know why. He asked Danug questions, trying to fill in the blanks. As Jondalar learned what he had done, he started to recall what had happened and was appalled, and full of remorse and shame. He had never much liked Laramar, but nothing he had ever done could be as bad as what Jondalar had done to him. He was so filled with self-hatred, he could not think of anything else. He was sure everyone felt the same way about him, and he was convinced that Ayla could not possibly love him anymore. How could anyone love someone so despicable?
Part of him wanted to leave everything behind and just go, as far away as he could get, but something held him back. He told himself he had to face his punishment, at least find out what it would be and somehow make amends, but it was more that things felt unfinished and he couldn't go leaving everything so unresolved. And deep inside, he wasn't sure he could simply walk away from Ayla and Jonayla. He couldn't bear the thought of never seeing them again, even if only from a distance.
His mind became a confusion of pain, guilt, and desperation. He could think of nothing he might do to make his life right again, and every time he saw anyone, he was sure they were looking at him with the same disgust and loathing that he felt about himself. Part of his self-recrimination stemmed from the fact that as despicably as he'd behaved, and as ashamed as he was, every time he closed his eyes to try to sleep at night, he would see Laramar on top of Ayla, and feel the same rage and frustration he'd felt then. He knew in his heart that under the same circumstances, he would do it again.
Jondalar's mind dwelled on his problems constantly. He could hardly think of anything else. It was an incessant itch, like continually picking on the scab of a minor cut, never giving it a chance to heal, making it worse and worse until it became a running infection. He tried to get away from people as often as he could, and began taking long walks, usually beside the bank of The River, most often upstream. Each time he went he'd walk a little farther, stay a little longer, but he always reached a point where he could not go on and would have to turn around and walk back. Occasionally, he would get Racer and instead of walking along the river, would ride out across the open grassland. He resisted taking his horse too often because it was then that he was most tempted to keep on going, but this day he wanted to ride out and put some distance between himself and the camp.
As soon as she was fully awake, Ayla got up and went to The River. She hadn't slept well; at first she was too edgy and restless to fall asleep, and then she was awakened by dreams that she couldn't quite remember, but that left her uneasy. She thought about what she needed to do to make the Clan ceremony as close to correct as possible. While she looked for soaproot to purify herself, she also kept an eye out for a nodule of flint or even a leftover piece of reasonable size. She wanted to make a cutting tool in the Clan way that she could use to cut off a piece of leather to make a Clan amulet.
When she came to the mouth of the small stream as it emptied into The River, she turned to follow it instead. She had to walk upstream some distance before she found a few soaproot plants, in the woods behind the camp of the Ninth Cave. It was late in the season and most had been picked, and then the variety she found wasn't the same plant that the Clan used, and she had wanted the ritual to be right. Although, since she was a woman, it would never be a Clan ceremony anyway. Only men of the Clan consumed the roots. The woman's job was only to prepare them. As she stooped to pull the soaproots out, she thought she caught a glimpse of Jondalar in the woods, walking alongside the small stream, but when she stood up, she didn't see him and wondered if it was her imagination.
The stallion was glad to see Jondalar. The other horses were, too, but he didn't want to take them. He was in the mood for a long run alone. When they reached the open plains, Jondalar urged the horse into a thundering gallop across the land. Racer seemed just as eager to live up to his name. Jondalar wasn't paying much attention to where they were going, or where they were. Suddenly, he was literally jerked out of his moody meditation when he heard a loud belligerent neigh, the sound of hoofs, and felt his mount begin to rear. They were in the middle of a herd of horses. It was only his years of riding and quick reflexes that enabled him to keep his seat. He lunged forward and grabbed a handful of the stand-up mane of the steppe horse and held on, struggling to calm the stallion and get him back under control. Racer was a healthy stallion in his prime. Though he'd never had the experience of living in the auxiliary male herd that stayed near the fringes of a primary herd of females and young, keeping the herd stallion constantly on guard and ready to defend his own, or of the play-fighting with other young males as he was growing up, yet he was instinctively ready to challenge the herd male.
Jondalar's first thought was to get his horse as far away from the herd as possible, as fast as he could, but it was all he could do to turn the stallion around and head back toward the campsite. When Racer settled down and they were finally heading steadily back, Jondalar began to wonder if it was fair to keep the virile stallion away from other horses, and for the first time, he seriously contemplated the idea of letting him go. He wasn't ready to give him up yet, but he began to rethink taking long rides alone on the brown stallion.
On the way back, he found himself moodily introspective again. He remembered the day of the big meeting, and watching Ayla sitting stiffly while Brukeval reviled her. He had ached to comfort her, to force Brukeval to stop, to tell him he was wrong. He had completely understood everything Zelandoni said; he'd heard most of it over the years from Ayla and he was more ready than most to accept it. The thing that was new to him was the name given to the relationship — far mother, shortened to fa'ther — and he thought about Zelandoni's final words, that the men would name the boys; fathers would name their sons. He said the word over to himself. Father. He was a father. He was Jonayla's father.
He wasn't fit to be Jonayla's father! It would shame her to name him her father. He had nearly killed a man, with his fists. If it hadn't been for Danug, he would have. Ayla had lost a baby when she was alone, in the deep
