The Valley of Horses (52 page)

“I don’t know, Jondalar. Maybe you haven’t found the right woman. Maybe the Mother has someone special for you. She doesn’t make many like you. You are really more than most women could bear. If all your love were concentrated on one, it could overwhelm her, if she wasn’t one to whom the Mother gave equal gifts. Even if you did love me, I’m not sure I could live with it. If you loved a woman as much as you love your brother, she would have to be very strong.”

“I can’t fall in love, but if I could, no woman could bear it,” he said with a laugh of dry irony and bitterness. “Be wary of gifts from the Mother.” His eyes, deep violet in the red glow of the fire, filled with apprehension. “What did you mean, ‘if I loved a woman as much as I love my brother’? If no woman is strong enough to ‘bear’ my love, are you thinking I need a … man?”

Serenio smiled, then chuckled. “I don’t mean you love your brother like a woman. You are not like Shamud, with the body of one and the inclinations of the other. You would have known it by now and sought your calling and,
like the Shamud, you would have found a love there. No,” she said, and felt a flush of warmth thinking about it, “you like a woman’s body too well. But you love your brother more than you have ever loved any woman. That’s why I wanted you so much tonight. You’ll be leaving when he goes, and I won’t see you again.”

As soon as she said it, he knew she was right. No matter what he thought he had decided, when the time came, he would have left with Thonolan.

“How did you know, Serenio? I didn’t, I came here thinking I was going to mate you, and settle down with the Sharamudoi if I couldn’t take you back with me.”

“I think everyone knows you will follow him, wherever he goes. Shamud says it is your destiny.”

Jondalar’s curiosity about Shamud had never been satisfied. On impulse, he asked, “Tell me, is Shamud a man or a woman?”

She looked at him a long time. “Do you really want to know?”

He reconsidered. “No, I don’t suppose it matters. Shamud didn’t want to tell me—maybe the mystery is important to … Shamud.”

In the silence that followed, Jondalar stared at Serenio, wanting to remember her as she was then. Her hair was still damp, and in disarray, but she had warmed and pushed most of the furs away. “What about you, Serenio? What will you do?”

“I love you, Jondalar.” It was a simple declarative statement. “It won’t be easy to get over you, but you gave me something. I was afraid to love. I lost so many loves that I pushed all feelings of love away. I knew I would lose you, Jondalar, but I loved you anyway. Now I know I can love again, and if I lose it, it doesn’t take away the love that was. You gave that to me. And maybe something more.” The mystery of a woman came into her smile. “Soon, perhaps, someone will come into my life that I can love. It’s a little early to tell for sure, but I think the Mother has blessed me. I didn’t think it was possible after the last one I lost—I’ve been many years without Her blessing. It may be a child of your spirit, I’ll know if the baby has your eyes.”

The familiar furrows appeared on his forehead. “Serenio, I must stay then. You have no man at your hearth to provide for you and the child,” he said.

“Jondalar, you don’t have to worry. No mother or her children ever lack for care. Mudo has said all those She blesses must be succored. That’s why She made men, to bring to mothers the gifts of the Great Earth Mother. The Cave will provide, as She provides for all Her children. You must follow your destiny, and I will follow mine. I won’t forget you, and if I have a child of your spirit, I will think of you, just as I remember the man I loved when Darvo was born.”

Serenio had changed, but she still made no demands, placed no burden of obligation on him. He put his arms around her. She looked into his compelling blue eyes. Her eyes hid nothing, not the love she felt, or her sadness in losing him, and not her joy in the treasure she hoped she carried. Through a crack, they could see the faint light that heralded a new day. He got up.

“Where are you going, Jondalar?”

“Just outside. I’ve had too much tea.” He smiled, and it reached his eyes. “But keep the bed warm. The night isn’t over yet.” He bent over and kissed her. “Serenio”—his voice was husky with feeling—“you mean more to me than any woman I have ever known.”

It wasn’t quite enough. He would leave, though she knew if she asked he would stay. But she did not ask, and in return he gave her the most he could. And that was more than most women would ever get.

“Mother said you wanted to see me.”

Jondalar could see tension in the set of Darvo’s shoulders and the wary look in his eyes. He knew the boy had been avoiding him, and he suspected the reason. The tall man smiled, trying to seem casual and relaxed, but the hesitancy
in his usual warm fondness made Darvo more nervous; he didn’t want his fears confirmed. Jondalar had not been looking forward to telling the boy, either. He took down a neatly folded garment from a shelf and shook it out.

“I think you are almost big enough for this, Darvo. I want to give it to you.”

For a moment the boy’s eyes lit with pleasure at the Zelandonii shirt with its intricate and exotic decoration; then the wariness returned. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he accused.

“Thonolan is my brother, Darvo…”

“And I’m nothing.”

“That’s not true. You must know how much I care about you. But Thonolan is so full of grief, he’s not reasonable. I fear for him. I can’t let him go alone, and if I don’t look after him, who will? Please try to understand, I don’t want to go farther east.”

“Will you come back?”

Jondalar paused. “I don’t know. I can’t promise. I don’t know where we’re going, how long we’ll travel.” He proffered the shirt, “That’s why I want to give you this, so you’ll have something to remember the ‘Zelandonii man.’ Darvo, listen to me. You will always be the first son of my hearth.”

The boy looked at the beaded tunic; then tears welled and threatened to break. “I’m not the son of your hearth!” he cried, then turned and ran from the dwelling.

Jondalar wanted to run after him. Instead, he placed the shirt on Darvo’s sleeping platform and walked slowly out.

Carlono frowned at the lowering clouds. “I think the weather will hold,” he said, “but if she really starts gusting, pull over to the shore, though you won’t find many places to land until you are through the gate. The Mother will split into channels when you reach the plain on the other side of the gate. Remember, keep to the left bank. She’ll swing north before you reach the sea, and then east. Soon after the turn, she is joined by a large river on the left, her last major tributary. A short distance beyond is the beginning of the delta—the outlet to the sea—but you still have a long way to go. The delta is huge, and dangerous; marsh and bogs and sandbars. The Mother separates again, usually into four, but sometimes more, main channels and many small ones. Keep
to the left channel, the northern one. There’s a Mamutoi Camp on the north bank, close to the mouth.”

The experienced river man had gone over it before. He had even drawn a map in the dirt to help guide them to the end of the Great Mother River. But he believed repetition would reinforce their memory, especially if they had to make quick decisions. He wasn’t happy about the two young men traveling on the unfamiliar river without an experienced guide, but they insisted; or rather, Thonolan did, and Jondalar wouldn’t let him go alone. At least the tall man had gained some skill in handling boats.

They were standing on the wooden dock with their gear loaded in a small boat, but their departure lacked the usual excitement of such adventures. Thonolan was leaving only because he could not stay, and Jondalar would much rather have been setting out in the opposite direction.

The spark had gone out of Thonolan. His former outgoing friendliness was replaced by moodiness. His generally morose disposition was punctuated by a flaring temper—often leading to increased recklessness and careless disregard. The first real argument between the two brothers had not come to blows only because Jondalar had refused to fight. Thonolan had accused his brother of wet-nursing him like an infant, demanding the right to his own life without being followed around. When Thonolan heard of Serenio’s possible pregnancy, he was furious that Jondalar would consider leaving a woman who probably carried the child of his spirit, to follow a brother to some unknown destination. He insisted that Jondalar stay and provide for her as any decent man would.

In spite of Serenio’s refusal to mate, Jondalar couldn’t help feeling Thonolan was right. It had been drilled into him since birth that a man’s responsibility, his sole purpose, was to provide support for mothers and children, particularly a woman who had been blessed with a child that in some mysterious way might have absorbed his spirit. But Thonolan would not stay, and Jondalar, afraid his brother would do something irrational and dangerous, insisted upon accompanying him. The tension between them was still oppressive.

Jondalar didn’t quite know how to say good-bye to Serenio; he was almost afraid to look at her. But she had a smile on her face when he bent to kiss her, and though her eyes seemed a little swollen and red, she allowed no emotion to show in them. He searched for Darvo and was disappointed
that the boy was not among those who had come down to the dock. Nearly everyone else was there. Thonolan was already in the small boat when Jondalar climbed in and settled himself in the rear seat. He took up his oar and, while Carlono untied the rope, he looked up one last time at the high terrace. A boy was standing near the edge. The shirt he was wearing would take a few years for him to fill out, but the pattern was distinctly Zelandonii. Jondalar smiled, then waved with his oar. Darvo waved back as the tall blond Zelandonii man dipped the double-ended paddle into the river.

The two brothers pulled into midstream and looked back at the dockful of people—friends. As they headed downstream, Jondalar wondered if they would ever see the Sharamudoi again, or anyone he knew. The Journey that had begun as an adventure had lost its edge of excitement, yet he was being drawn, almost against his will, farther away from home. What could Thonolan hope to find going east? And what could there possibly be for him in that direction?

The great river gorge was foreboding under the gray overcast sky. Naked rock reared out of the water from deep roots and rose in towering bulwarks on both sides. On the left bank, a series of ramparts of sharp, angular rock climbed in rugged relief all the way to the distant glaciered peaks; on the right, weathered and eroded, the rounded mountaintops gave the illusion of mere hills, but their height was daunting from the small boat. Large boulders and pinnacles broke the surface, parting the current into curls of white water.

They were a part of the medium in which they traveled, propelled by it like the debris floating on its skin and the silt within its silent depths. They did not control their speed or direction; they only steered a course around obstructions. Where the river stretched out more than a mile in width, and swells lifted and dipped the small craft, it seemed more like a sea. When the sides drew together, they could feel the change in energy as the flow was resisted; the current was stronger when the same volume of water surged through the constricted gates.

They had traveled more than a quarter of the way through, perhaps twenty-five miles, when the threatened rain broke forth in a furious squall, whipping up waves they feared would swamp the little wooden boat. But there was no shore, only the steep wet rock.

“I can steer if you bail, Thonolan,” Jondalar said. They hadn’t talked much, but some of the tension between them had dissipated as they paddled in harmony to keep the craft on course.

Thonolan shipped his oar and, with a square wooden scooplike implement, tried to empty the small vessel. “It’s filling as fast as I can bail,” he called over his shoulder.

“I don’t think this will last long. If you can keep up with it, I think we’ll make it,” Jondalar replied, struggling through the choppy water.

The heavy weather lifted, and, though clouds still menaced, they made their way through the entire gorge without further incident.

Like the relaxation that comes with the removal of a tight belt, the swollen muddy river spread out when she reached the plains. Channels twined around islands of willow and reed; nesting grounds for cranes and herons, transitory geese and ducks, and innumerable other birds.

They camped the first night on the flat grassy prairie of the left bank. The foot of the alpine peaks was pulling back from the river’s edge, but the rounded mountains of the right bank held the Great Mother River to her eastward course.

Jondalar and Thonolan settled into a traveling routine so quickly that it seemed they had not stopped for those years while they were living with the Sharamudoi. Yet it wasn’t the same. Gone was the light-hearted sense of adventure, seeking whatever lay around the bend for the simple joy of discovery. Instead, Thonolan’s drive to keep moving was tainted with desperation.

Jondalar had attempted once more to talk his brother into turning back, but it led to a bitter argument. He didn’t bring it up again. They spoke mostly to exchange necessary information. Jondalar could only hope that time would assuage Thonolan’s grief, and that someday he would decide to return home and take up his life again. Until then, he was determined to stay with him.

The two brothers traveled much faster on the river in the small dugout than they could have walked along the edge. Riding on the current, they sped along with ease. As Carlono had predicted, the river turned north when it reached a barrier of ancient mountain stumps, far older than the raw mountains around which the great river flowed. Though
ground down with their hoary age, they intervened between the river and the inland sea she strove to reach.

Undeterred, she sought another way. Her northward strategy worked, but not until, when she made her final swing to the east, one more large river brought a contribution of water and silt to the overburdened Mother. With her way finally clear, she could not hold herself to one path. Though she had many miles to go, she split up once again into many channels in a fan-shaped delta.