Jondalar existed in a world populated by frightening dreams. He relived the cave lion attack over and over again. "Thonolan!" he screamed. "Wait!" But his brother never waited. Jondalar could only watch as the cave lion raked its claws through Thonolan and came towards Jondalar. He screamed as the claws came down on his leg. The cave lion roared as its claws sliced though Jondalar's flesh as though it were the softest leather. Jondalar fell and his world went black. And then, he was back at the mouth of the cave, calling for his brother to wait.
He thought he could feel someone beside him, but he didn't know the difference between reality and delirium. At one point, he saw a woman with blond hair bending over him, but the next moment the woman had faded, replaced by Thonolan's serious face. He hadn't truly smiled since Jetamio died. He was saying something, but the roaring in Jondalar's ears wouldn't quiet enough to allow him to hear what his younger brother was saying. He kept asking Thonolan to repeat himself, but whenever Thonolan raised his voice, the sound in Jondalar's head grew louder.
Finally, after drifting forever in a world of spirits and dreams, Jondalar saw the woman he'd seen earlier. She was standing next to a horse and murmuring quiet words to comfort the beast. Another figure stood near them, but Jondalar couldn't see him clearly. The horse appeared to be giving birth, and the woman was apparently helping it. As the head of the foal appeared, the shadowed figure moved forwards, easing the baby horse out of its mother. Jondalar saw that the figure was that of a child, and that the child didn't look like a child should, but in his semi-conscious state, Jondalar couldn't identify why this child was different.
The foal was completely out of the mother, and she bent to lick its head. As he watched the spectacle, Jondalar though, 'That's the first time I've ever seen anyone midwife a horse.' He must have spoken out loud, or the woman and child were donii who could hear his thoughts, because both of them turned towards him in surprise. He struggled to prop himself up on one elbow and studied the two people sharing the cave with him. The woman was trying to stare at him without being obvious. When she felt his eyes on her, she turned red and looked down at the ground. Jondalar wondered what he'd done to offend her. Then, his attention turned to the child, and he realized why the child had seemed odd. It was a child of mixed spirits, a half-flathead abomination! He shuddered and tried to scoot back, away from the creature, but he was brought up short by a fiery shot of pain that passed all the way though him. He tried to retain the groan, but it escaped him anyway.
The sound made the woman look up, though she refused to meet his eyes. She glanced at the fire that was burning in the hearth and waved an arm. The abomination-child moved over to the hearth and returned with a cup of liquid. The woman took it from the abomination-child. She moved closer to Jondalar, offering him the cup. When it became obvious that he wouldn't take it, she tilted his head back and fed him the liquid in small drops. He grimaced at the bitter taste of willow bark, but recognized it as a pain-reliever. The relief that it brought wasn't much, but every little bit helped.
The abomination-child had stayed by the hearth. Now, he dipped something out of another leather pot. Jondalar smelled the broth and realized how hungry he was. The woman fed it to him in the same manner as the willow bark tea, and he began to feel slightly more human. With the refreshment of food and the slight numbing effect of the willow bark, however, he was able to bring his mind to his physical circumstances. He was in a cave, but he'd expected that. He looked around, trying to see the form of his brother. There was another bed-like thing next to his, but it was empty. The woman who had fed him the broth and the abomination-child were both watching him, though the abomination-child was staring much more directly than the woman. But his brother was nowhere in sight.
"Thonolan!" Jondalar shouted. "Thonolan!" Both the woman and the abomination-child looked shocked, but Jondalar didn't care. He grabbed the woman's arm and gripped it. "Where's my brother?" he shouted. "Where is Thonolan?" The woman didn't answer, and neither did the abomination-child. The woman's eyes, which Jondalar was seeing for the first time, were filled with compassion and sorrow. Jondalar let go of her arm, knowing what he hadn't been able to accept until then. He began to sob, his shoulders heaving with the force of his grief. The movement sent pain all through his body, but pain in his soul was much stronger. He found himself in the woman's arms, and she was rocking him back and forth, crying with him. He kept crying out his brother's name, more and more softly until it was only a broken whisper. "Why did you have to go on?" Jondalar whispered. "Oh Thonolan… why did you have to keep going? Why did you leave me? You were the only one that I could ever love! Why did you have to take him, Doni?"
He had no way of knowing that the woman who was holding him had gone through grief just as intense. Ayla had lost the only mother she'd ever known, and then the only father. She'd been exiled from her people twice, and had almost lost her son as many times. She understood grief and, though she didn't know what the man kept repeating, she knew what was going on in his heart. She continued to rock him, crooning the tuneless monotone that she had used to put both Uba and Durc to sleep. And soon, her tears were for her own losses, not those of the strange man. She cried for Iza, and for Creb. She cried for the mother she had never known, and for the people who would think her dead. She wept for the Clan, the people she loved and would never see again. She even wept for Broud. Later, she would wonder what had brought her to do such a thing, but in that moment, she saw him only as a fellow creature who would one day die and whom no one but the members of his small clan would remember. She cried for the Mog-urs at the Clan Gathering, who could only see the past, and not the future. She cried for herself as well, cried for the world. She though that, if only she wept enough tears, the world would become a better place and all those she'd lost would be restored and she would be Ayla of the Clan again, not Ayla of No People.
Gradually, Jondalar calmed, though his mind was nowhere near rational. He saw the world in two parts: the parts that had come, where Thonolan was still alive, and those yet to come, when he would never be there with Jondalar again. As his racking sobs quieted, he remembered specific incidents from his life with his brother. There was Thonolan's birth, when everyone knew instantly that he would be blessed by Her. There were the countless episodes from their childhood, too many to remember individually, yet which Jondalar seemed in that moment to remember perfectly. There were the recent times as well, the countless incidents from their Journey. When he was finally calm, the woman helped him sit up and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, picked up the forgotten bowl of broth and resumed feeding it to him.
Durc watched his mother feed the man of the Others. He didn't like the man, and he hoped that he wouldn't have to stay long. Ayla had been busy tending to Whinney, but Durc hadn't missed the flash of revulsion that had showed in the man's eyes when he saw Durc. Durc hadn't seen that in so long that he'd almost forgotten what that look was like, but seeing it in the man's eyes brought back many memories for the boy, and none of them were pleasant.
As Ayla tended to the man, Durc kept back in the shadows. He didn't want to be seen, didn't want that flash of utter revulsion to show in the man's face again. His mother would be fine, but he, Durc, would be, as always, the outsider. He hated it, and couldn't help resenting the man of the Others fiercely for interrupting the home that he and his mother had created. They weren't always happy, and they weren't always well fed, but they had each other and that was what truly mattered. Durc knew that his mother would go to the ends of the earth to keep him safe, and he would go farther to keep her happy. The arrival of this strange man threatened to destroy her happiness and thus everything Durc lived for.
Durc watched Ayla closely, then, when he knew she wouldn't notice, slipped out of the cave. He wanted nothing more than to just run and never stop, but he contented himself with checking on Whinney and the foal. Ayla had promised Durc that he could name this one himself, and Durc was already thinking of several possible names. Tal, perhaps, or maybe Zurc. He smiled at that last. Maybe it would be Zurc. After all, Ayla had promised him that Whinney's baby could be his. What better way to make his Durc's than to give him a name that resembled his own?
Durc brushed Whinney and the colt down with the teasel, then led them to the stream. As they drank greedily, Durc scanned the ground for flint or firestones out of habit. He'd been skeptical of the firestones at first, but Ayla had long since proved their use. It had been he who had discovered them, but Ayla had recognized their value and taught both him and herself how to use them. It was that day that Durc had truly realized just how special his mother truly was. No one in the Clan would ever have thought of making fire with stones! No one would have thought of bringing horses and wolves into the cave either. Both Durc and Ayla had a special bond with the animals, both with Whinney and Baby. Whinney was Ayla's friend, the creature who would do whatever Ayla wanted through love and friendship. Baby, though. Baby was Durc's special playmate. The two had literally grown up together, and at times, Durc thought of Baby more like his sibling than just an animal. It was from Baby that Durc had truly learned to hunt, though Ayla had helped. Baby was a part of the world that they lived in now, and he had shown Durc some of that world's most attractive and dangerous secrets.
Durc grinned again, remembering one of those secrets. He wondered when he would ever have the chance to attract female cave lions to him, and if he would survive the encounter. He knew that he could do it, but he'd never tried to exercise his skill. A cave lioness would only be disappointed to respond to the mating signals only to find that a man had given them, not another lion.
His expression sobered. He'd rather a female lion return his mating calls than a woman of the Others. He hadn't wanted any of the Clan women, and he doubted that any woman of the Others would want him either. After all, he was deformed and should not have been allowed to survive. He'd seen the way the man of the Others had reacted, and he knew that any woman of the Others would almost certainly be the same way.