Chapter Fourteen

Jonayla- 26,000BC -Zelandonii region of France

'The First Zelandoni is busy,' the Zelandoni said, barring my way into the meeting tent. 'I recommend that you go back to your cave and stop trying to see her. Stop being so demanding.'

'But I need to see her.'

'What you need is not important. You are just one of many she is a mother to now. She has many to look after. You can't expect her to make time for you when she had so much to do.'

'But I am her daughter.'

'And so am I.'

I shook my head. 'I am her real daughter. I was born from her body.'

'And I am her spiritual daughter. And the spirit is more important that the body. The Zelandonia, her spiritual daughters and sons, have need of her, and she needs to tend to our needs first.'

'But…'

'Go. I'm sure she'll find some time for you at some point. But for now, she has more important things to attend to.'

'How do you know that?' I asked. 'You don't know why I want to speak to my mother do you?'

'I know because I am Zelandoni and I can sense what is important and what is not. And what you want of her is not as important as what she is doing at the moment. Look, you need someone to talk to. Why don't you go and talk to Jondalar?'

I sighed. 'He's gone on the hunt,' I said. 'So I can't talk to him.'

The Zelandoni shrugged her shoulders. 'Not my problem.'

'But…'

'If you don't go, then I will call out some of the bigger Zelandonia males to remove you,' she said. 'And believe me, you don't want to be carried through the summer meeting by them. Think of the disgrace your mother would feel about what her daughter was up to. Think about how she would feel knowing that her daughter couldn't behave herself.'

I twisted my mouth downwards. 'You know when she finds out that I wanted to talk to her, and you wouldn't let me in, that's she's going to be seriously angry don't you?'

'I doubt it,' she said, and then lifts an arm and points toward the Ninth Cave. 'Go,' she says. 'Now.'

I stared up into her face. Looking passed the tattoos straight into her eyes. And saw only disgust and revulsion. Aimed at me. Aimed at someone that wasn't Zelandoni. Wasn't one of their holy order. Aimed at a normal member of the Zelandonii people.

I might have been the daughter of the First Zelandoni, I might have come from the cave of the old First Zelendonii, but that didn't mean anything to her. To that Zelandoni, I was nothing. I was worse than nothing, I was normal and apparantly, not worthy of the time of any Zelandonia, especially my mother.

'Fine,' I say. 'But I will tell her you wouldn't let me in to talk to her when I do see her.'

She snorted. 'I think she's going to be too busy to see you for quite some time,' she said. 'And when she does have the time, and is not too tired, I don't think she'll be bothered. She knows that her time is precious and not to be wasted by silly little girls.'

I didn't go back to the shelter I shared with my parents and sister in the Ninth cave. I was too embarressed too. Too worried that somehow, they would guess and make fun of me. As they'd made fun of me so many times before. But instead of calling me a little girl, saying that I must be cursed to never become a woman, and reminding me that my friends had already had first rites and some even had their own children, I was worried that they would look at me differently, that the boys my age would look to see if they could see the blood, say crude things or even say that no one would want me when I was so old.

I was fifteen summers old that year, and as they say, never been kissed. My mother, in the moments she could get away from the incessant demands for her time, had told me that she had thought she would never become a woman either. I had listened, happy to have something in common with her. But then she had spoilt it by saying that she had been eleven years old when she first bled.

Eleven?

She had been telling me she was a late bloomer, trying to comfort me, trying to make me realise that I wasn't abnormal, but the fact that she'd had her first bleed at around, if not younger than most of my friends didn't help me feel better. She might have known a little of how I felt, because the Clan girls became women much younger than eleven, but the thing was, she was normal, and I at that time thought I was extremely unnatural and just wrong.

So I hadn't gone back to the Ninth Cave, and I hadn't gone to talk to anyone in the other cave's tents. I wanted to avoid everyone so I had headed for the river and walked down it for a while before sitting down, pulling off my boots and putting my feet on the rocks at the edge of the river, feeling the fast flowing water running over my toes.

'Jonayla.'

I sighed when I heard my sister.

'Jonayla, where are you? I know that you are here. And I know that you are upset. And I know why.'

That was the thing about my sister. Anani, she who seemed to know everyone else's business long before they did. Anani, the Prophet they called her. She was only seven years old then, but she already had the Zelandonia panting after her, listening to her prophecies with their mouths open and tongues drooling in amazement. Anani, she who knew that Lorala was pregnant before she started feeling sick. Anani, she who knew that Jaradal had broken his leg before the hunters brought him back. Anani, she who knew that Thonolia, the daughter Filonia of the Losadunai, had set off on a journey to visit the people of her father Thonolan and would arrive at the Ninth cave the next day.

So of course Anani knew what had happened, the fact was, she probably knew that it was coming months before. And she hadn't said a word to me about it. She hadn't warned me. She had seen the boys, and some of the girls, tease me, and hadn't told me that soon the teasing would be at an end.

Which of course, it wasn't.

'Go away Anani,' I said. 'I don't want to talk to you.'

'Have you told Mama? You should tell Mama.'

'Don't you know?' I sneered. 'I would have thought that Anani the Prophet would already know that little bit of information.'

'Jonayla,' she said, pushing aside some of the long grass and sitting down next to me. 'You're mad because I never told you.'

'Did a prophecy tell you that?'

She shook her head. 'I can tell just from seeing your face, and hearing the harshness of your voice.' She reached out and wiped a tear away from my cheek. 'You should tell Mama.'

'I tried to, but one of the Zelandonia wouldn't let me in to see her. Said that she was too busy for me.'

'Mama is never too busy for us,' she said, putting her little hand on my arm. 'She always stops what she's doing…'

'Maybe for you she does,' I spat at her. 'But they let you through to see her don't they? Not me though, they always turn me away. Doesn't matter what has happened. I could be dying and they'd still turn me away and tell me she was too busy to see me.'

'Come on,' she said, standing up and putting her hand out to me.

I looked up at her. 'What?'

'We're going to see Mama.'

'They won't let me see her.'

'Oh yes they will,' she said. And she winked at me. 'I will make sure of it.'

'Hello Anani' the Zelandoni who had refused to let me enter the tent said when she saw my sister. 'It is really nice to see you, and I know that the other Zelandonia will be pleased that you have come.'

'We've come to see my mother,' Anani said.

'Yes, yes of course,' the Zelandoni fawned. 'And you are very welcome too, but…' she glared at me. 'Only Zelandoni and their acolytes may enter the meeting.'

My sister raised one eyebrow. 'I am not an acolyte.'

'Yes, but you are as good as one. A few more years, and I'm sure that the Zelandonia will be throwing themselves at you to train you. Even I would be interested…'

'My mother will train me,' Anani said. 'And has already started. As she has been training Jonayla.'

The Zelandoni curled her lip up at the mention of my name. 'Then she is wasting her time, time she should spend with the Zelandonia instead of with someone who can never join us. Someone who has been cursed to always be a child.'

I half expected Anani to say that I was a child no longer, and my face reddened in readiness, but thankfully she didn't say a word.

'Stand aside,' she said instead. 'We need to see our mother.'

'And I have told you that she cannot come in,' the Zelandoni said. 'Only you can.'

'And I say she can.' She looked up at the woman. 'I would have thought you would have been too busy preparing for what is about to happen to you than standing guard outside a meeting, stopping the daughter of the First Zelandoni from entering.'

'What do you mean?' The woman's face paled, and her eyes grew wide.

'You'll see,' Anani said, and pushed passed the woman, pulling me into the tent.

It was a lot darker inside the tent than in the bright sunlight and I had difficulty seeing where Mama was first of all but then through the dimness of my vision, I saw the brightness of her still blonde hair, poking up amongst the shorter men and women who clamoured around her.

'I am doing all that I can,' she was saying to a red faced older Zelendoni. 'But you have to give me time to…'

'We don't have any time, it has to be done now.'

'And so do a lot of other things,' my Mama sighed. 'You all think that what you see is the most urgent, but I am only one woman and cannot do everything.'

'But…'

'And neither should I have to.'

'But you are the First,' the woman said. 'You have to…'

'I might be First, but I am just a woman,' Mama said. 'And prone to all the frailities that rule our world. Now leave me, I need to talk to my daughter.'

The Zelendoni glanced toward me, and frowned. 'She can wait, this can not. She is not even one of the Zelendonia.'

'And yet she is my daughter and has need of me.'

'Let her go to Folora or one of the other women,' the Zelendoni stepped between me and my Mama. 'If it was Anani coming to see you, then that would be well and good, as one day she will be one of us, but Jonayla…'

'Jonayla what?' Mama asked.

'She should not be trying to waste your time with trivialities. If she has problems, then she had other family members.'

'But they are not her mother.' Mama sighed. 'Look, I am First, and you all have a call on my time, but my family, and especially my daughters, if they have need of me, then they have to come first.'

'But… but…' the Zelendoni flustered.

But Mama ignored her and pushed her aside and stepped toward me. 'Jonayla, is something troubling you?' she asked as she pulled me into her arms.

'Oh Jonayla,' Mama said after I'd told her I was finally a woman. 'I am so relieved.' She kissed me on the cheek and then pushed me away a little and stared at me. 'My little girl finally a woman,' she murmured. 'I have so looked forward to this day.'

'First Zelendoni,' one of the other Holy women called her.

Mama ignored her.

'And for it to happen during the summer meeting, and one ran at our own cave.' She smiled. 'Now you won't have to wait for First Rites and…'

'First Rites?' I started to tremble. As time had gone on, the thought of First Rites had become frightening and more than a little disgusting. I didn't want any of those who had teased me touching me, nor did I want to share First Rites with those who had looked sadly at me, believing I would never be a woman, or who had walked away from me as if I was tainted.

'Yes, yes,' My Mama had continued.

She hadn't noticed that I had started to tremble. 'You can have your First Rites this summer and then, well you never know, this time next year, you might have a little baby and…'

'A baby?' I shook my head.

'First Zelendoni, we need you,' the Holy woman called for Mama again.

'Just a moment,' Mama said, turning to her. 'Jonayla has just told me that it is time for her First Rites and…'

'She's now a woman?' the Holy woman asked. And stared at me in such a way that it made me think that she thought I was lying. 'Well, that is good, but we have things to do and we can't do them if you are not with us. If you don't want to be the First anymore, then there are plenty who would want to step into your boots.'

'I said I would just be a moment,' Mama said. 'I need to talk to my daughter.'

'What is there to talk about? If she's now a woman, then she should go to the enclosure, and the lesser Zelendonis can prepare her for what is to happen. You have far bigger jobs than to…'

'Than to what? Look after my daughter? She has just become a woman. I need to take her to the enclosure. I need to make sure she is all right. I need to sort out which man will be the one to…'

'Mama,' I said.

This time she ignored me.

'I have to make sure the man is going to treat her well, and make her first time…'

'Mama.'

She glanced at me. 'Yes Jonayla.'

'I am not going to have First Rites.'

She shook her head. 'What are you talking about? Of course you are going to have First Rites. Every new woman has First Rites.'

'But…'

'Ayla,' the Holy woman said. 'The girl doesn't want First Rites, she is obviously not ready, she is still a girl, maybe next year she can have them, or the year after, when she is ready. It does not matter. She might be your daughter, but she is only one little girl. And you are the First Zelendoni and have important work to do.'

'My duaghter is not going to wait for First Rites,' Mama said. 'She will have them this year.'

'No I won't,' I said. I stepped away from my Mama who was starring at the Holy woman. 'I don't want First Rites.'

'Jonayla, don't be silly,' my Mama responded.

But she still didn't look at me.

Anani tugged at my arm.

'I am not being silly…'

'Ayla,' the Holy woman said. 'We need you.'

Mama sighed, and glanced toward me. 'We will talk about this later,' she said, and then nodded at the Holy woman.

And walked away.

'You need to go to the young women's enclosure,' Anani said, tugging at my arm again.

I shook my head. 'No I don't, I responded as I watched my Mama already surrounded by other Holy women and men. 'I am not going to the enclosure. I am not going to have First Rites.'

'You have to,' Anani said.

'No I don't,' I said.

'You are just being silly like Mama said.'

'Silly or not, I am not going to let some idiot grope me. No way.'

'But you will bring shame on Mama and me, and on Jondalar if you don't.'

I glanced at my sister. 'Is that all you are bothered about? You don't care about me, you just don't want me to embarrass you anymore than I obviously have already.'

'That's not what I meant,' she responded.

I shook my head. And then walked away from her. I pushed passed the smirking Holy woman by the tent flap, blinked in the sunlight and then ignoring my little sister's cries to come back, started to run.

Just wanting to get as far away from my sister, and my Mama, and all of the Zelendonia and my people and cave as I could.

And I didn't care about where I was going.

'Hello darling,' someone said to me as I sat by the river.

I looked up and saw my cousin Jaradal leering at me.

'What do you want?' I spat, really not wanting to be anywhere near one of my tormentors at that moment.

'Hmmm,' he laughed, and the sound of it felt like a red hot ember in my head. 'What do I want from my sweet cousin who is finally a woman? I wonder?'

'What? What do you mean?' I stood up and started to back away from him. 'If you try to touch me, I'll...'

'You'll scream?' he mocked. 'But no one will hear you out here.'

'The Mother will.'

He nodded his head. 'Yes she will, and she'd tell me off for not being patient.'

'Patient? What do you mean by patient?'

I continued to back away from him, but my foot twisted on a stone and I fell backward, landing with a splash in a shallow pool to the side of the river.

'My sweet little cousin, and she's all wet. Better take those clothes off before you get ill. Won't be able to have your First Rites if you're ill will you?'

'My First Rites? How…?'

He snorted. 'Well that's what usually happens after your first bleed, and you've just started that haven't you.' He tilted his head to one side. 'You know, you really should get out of those wet clothes. I promise not to look. Not yet anyway.'

'Not yet?'

'Well I'll look when I do your First Rites and make you a full woman. I'd have to wouldn't I?'

'You? You're not doing it. I'm not having them anyway, but if I was, it wouldn't be you who...'

'Oh but it's all planned. Has been for years. Since you were little, and used to follow me around like that Wolf of your mother's follows her. Everyone thought it was so sweet, but it used to really embarrass me.'

'Well I'm sorry that I embarrassed you when I was a little girl. But you more than made up for it with how you treated me. And that's why...'

He smirked. 'It's been fun teasing you the last few years about still not being a woman. But it's going to be far better, knowing that you know hate me, to shame you with First Rites.'

'I won't...'

'Too late, your mother talked to mine earlier, about me doing your First Rites, and then they came to see me, and I,' he winked at me. 'Agreed straight away. I'm going to have some fun with you little cousin, and I'm going to teach you never to embarrass me again.'

'No you're not. I'll tell them and...'

'You'll tell them what? That you don't want big bad Jaradal who will be leader one day? That you want some non entity to do your First Rites?' He laughed again and stepped toward me. Bent down, grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. And then pulled me into his arms. 'I am going to do your First Rites Jonayla,' he whispered in my ear. 'And there isn't a thing you can do about it.'

He lowered his face to mine, so I bbought my head forward and banged it into his nose hard.

'I think there is one thing I can do,' I said, pushing him away.

'You...' he muttered, holding his nose, blood dripping through his fingers. 'I'm going to make you pay for that.'

'I don't doubt you would try,' I said. 'But I'm not going to give you the chance.' And I turned, and I ran, but this time, I knew exactly where I was going, as far away from him, and those who dared to call themselves my people as I could.

888

I had no food, no waterskin, no fire making kit or other tools, only the clothes on my body, no bedding, and after feeling so angry at my mother that I threw the sling, which she had always made me wear around my head, into the river, no weapon so when I saw the cave lion up ahead, prowling through the sparse trees, I should have turned back and headed back home to safety.

But I didn't, and the reason for that was that my mother's totem was the Cave Lion. And I was angry with her. And suspicious too. Her totem suddenly turning up to block my path, and nearly make me go home was just too big a coincidence for me.

I had to wonder if somehow she had sent them, or her totem had.

I also carried on because the cave lion totem annoyed me. My mother's totem was the cave lion, she said my father's was too, but when I was born, and my mother insisted I be given a totem spirit, the First Zelendonii chose the rabbit.

I would have rather gone without. Especially when years later, my newborn sister was announced as having the cave lion as her totem.

'I'm not going back,' I muttered under my breath. 'You can send a herd of Mammoths for all I care mother, and I am not going to come back to you.'

I edged around the cave lions and then headed toward a lake we'd passed many times.

I glanced around when I heard a bush rustle behind me and then started running, as fast as I could, all the while wishing to Doni that it was just a small animal.

Seemed she wasn't listening to me though as a moment after I started running, I heard something rushing toward me.

'Please don't eat me,' I panted, running toward a rocky outcrop in front of me. 'Please don't eat me.' I gasped as something banged into me, knocking the breath out of my lungs as I fell, cutting my knees on the rocks. I scrabbled up, twisting myself around so I could meet my death and know what was going to kill me. And I saw teeth, dripping with blooded drool, the two large teeth of the Dirk toothed tiger standing over me.

It lowered its head, opened its mouth wide and growled as it aimed for my throat.

I tensed as I waited for the teeth to rip through the soft flesh of my neck, feeling the animal's hot breath on my face. And I squeezed my eyes tight, waiting for the end, but also remembering everything else. I was about to die. I was about to be mauled by a wild animal, a ferocious beast, and the fault for that, the thing that had led me to that situation, was my mother. My special mother, who everyone wanted to know, who everyone loved. My mother who spend time away from me, who had always spent time away from me, to be with others, to be a Zelendonii. My mother who said that she wanted to just be a mate and mother, but who had neglected me, left me behind to be teased. My mother who had then gone on to have another child, who was as special and sought out as she was, leaving me totally in the shade. Pushed aside and nothing. Just a discarded bit of old rotten meat that no one wants. And now I was to die, and when they found my body, my mother would wail and cry and talk about how she had lost her daughter, and how she had already lost so much, and it wasn't fair, and then she would go back to her life, and she would only remember me slightly as the inconvenient daughter, the one who was not like her. And so I waited for death. The weight of it crushing my body so I could barely breathe.

And then the weight was gone, and I opened my eyes to find the dirk tooth tiger lying next to me, a gore back in its side. I glanced over to the other side of me, and that's when I saw it, the beast that had saved me. A wooly rhinoceros which pawed at the ground, before fixing me with its brown eyes and snorting.'Jonayla.'

I turned my head toward the sound of the voice but saw no one.

'Jonayla.'

'Who is there?' I asked.

'Come Jonayla, come to me.'

Rising to my feet, I turned and walked passed the wooly rhinoceros, away from the dead dirk toothed tiger, and toward the cliff where I could just make out a shadow in its side which I knew had to be a cave.

'Jonayla.'

'Who are you?' I say, stumbling over rocks and scrub plants, my bare feet finding gaps as I walk toward the cliff. 'Who is calling me?'

'I can help you.'

The voice is almost a whisper in my head, pulling me along toward it as if it was a rope tied around my waist.

'Hurry Jonayla, hurry. I will help you.'

'What help do I...'

'Come.'

I ignored the buzzing I could now hear in my head, and another voice seemingly far away from me also calling out my name, and reached the bottom of the cliff and started to climb up to the cave.

'Yes,' the voice said. 'Yes. Come.'

Pulling myself up onto a ledge, I stood before the shadow I'd saw, the entrance to a cave, in which a man, short and stout, waited for me, his hand stretched out toward me.

'Jonayla,' he said, his voice almost a grunt now I was closer. 'Come in.'

As I stepped into the cave, reaching out for the grizzled and thick hand of the man, I heard a scream behind me. I twisted around and looked down to where the wooly rhinoceros still stood, by then stopping my mother from reaching me.

'Jonayla, please,' my mother screamed. 'Don't go in there. Don't go to him.'

'Jonayla,' the man said, pulling at me hand.

I turned away from my mother and walked into the cave, and into the embrace of the man who would offer me such wonders.

And horrors.

The man led me toward a fire in the middle of the cave, which was attended to by what appeared to be the spirit of a short but heavily muscled dead woman who sat turning a haunt of meat cooking over the fire and occasionally poking it with a stick. She didn't look up as we approached her, just shivered a little. Standing next to her was another spirit. He was leaning on a stick, with his hand hand touching the woman's shoulder, as if he was trying to calm the fear she felt for the man who had brought me into the cave. His other arm was shriveled, and small and mostly hid by the hide he was wearing. At some stage he had lost the bottom half of it. One of his legs was thin and sickly looking, too short compared to his other. But even though his body was lopsided, it was his head that drew my attention. It was far too large compared to his body, or in comparison to the man who still held me in his grasp, or the woman staring into the flames. His face was scared, and he only had one eye.

'Who are they?' I said, looking up at the man.

'They are nothing,' he replied, pushing me to sit on a log by the fire. 'Don't look at them.'

But I couldn't help looking at them, there was something about them which drew my gaze to them. It was almost as if I knew them.

Maybe heard about them in a story long ago.

The spirit man glanced up and looked at me with his one good eye.

A look both powerful and helpless that it made me shudder.

'Don't look at them,' the man shrieked, and swiped a hand at me.

'But...'

'If you look at them, you will become like them,' the man said. 'You will die, and become a spirit and be trapped forever.'

'They are trapped?' I asked. 'Here?'

I flinched as the man smacked me in the face.

'Shut up worthless female,' he said. He lurched away, putting his hands on his head. 'Why did she have to have a girl?' he muttered, his head turned away from me. 'Why do I always have to deal with stupid girls?'

I could hear him breathing heavily, and then saw him hit the cave wall.

Pulling his hand away bloodied, he turned around and sort of smiled. But his lips just sort of curled back a little to reveal brown and dirty teeth. The smile didn't reach his eyes at all, which I noticed were like the eyes of a wild and dangerous animal.

Shaking my head, and wondering why I allowed myself to enter the cave, why I didn't realise that there was such evil and hate coming from him, almost as a stench, I started to rise because I intended to leave and go to my mother.

'You are nothing to her you know,' he said. 'Your mother. She came to find you, but not out of love, she came to drag you back to your cave, so she could make you marry your cousin. So she could finally get rid of the embarrassment of having you as a child, and give all the love she should have shared with you, to your sister.'

'She does love...'

'Where was she when you were being bullied and teased? Where was she went you needed comfort because you had not become a woman? Where was she as you grew from baby to child, and into what you have become today? I'll tell you where she was. She was busy. Too busy for her child. Busy chasing something which she should not have had.' He snorted. 'She is a woman, she should have been at her hearth, tending to the needs of her mate and children, but instead she attended meetings, gave advice to others, and left you to the man of your hearth and to anyone who would look after you for a few hours. She doesn't love you, she only loves herself. She has never cared about you, not truly, she pretended but deep down, you have always known that you are nothing to her. Haven't you?'

As he had started to speak, I had sat back down on the log, each word vibrating in my head as memory after memory flooded my brain. Of being left with my father, or given to someone who I barely knew. I even have memories of crawling through rotting meat and bits of rubbish, baskets stinking of urine and other bodily functions as nearby a man and woman lay unconscious on a pile of screwed up hides, surrounded by strange smelling water skins.

I gasped. 'She left me with Tremeda and Laramar.'

'See,' the man said. 'She didn't care about you. What sort of mother would leave you with dirty drunks? I'll tell you, the sort who doesn't care if you live or die. All she has ever cared about is what she wants. She wants you to mate your cousin, she doesn't care what that will do to your life.'

'I don't want to mate him.'

'You will have no choice,' he said. 'Unless...'

I glanced up at him. 'Unless what?'

He smiled. 'I said I can help you, and I will. I can give you the power. More power than your mother, or your sister. I can make you the most powerful woman to ever live. I can give you power so your people, and those you meet, will have no choice than to respect you. Do you want to be respected?'

'Yes.'

'And feared?'

'No, not feared, I just want...'

'But what about the bullies, or those who have laughed at you? Do you not want to shut their laughter up, turn it into fear? Not just have respect, but make them respect you because you are better than them?'

'I...' I looked down at my trembling hands, and remembered the many times others had belittled me, had hurt me, had bullied and mocked me.

'They had no right to treat you like that,' the man said. 'Does it not make you angry that they treated you like that?'

'Yes.'

'Then do something about it.'

I looked up at the man again. 'What can I do?'

'At the moment, nothing,' he pulled a flint knife from a gap in his hide tunic. 'But a little nick of this knife, and a mixing of our blood, and then you will be able to do a lot. So how about it?' He stepped toward me, the flint knife raised. 'Well?'

'Do it.'

He smiled and flicked the flint knife over my hand, cutting it slightly and then put his bloodied hand over mine.

I stared into his brown eyes as I felt a sensation starting from the sharp scratch on my hand, move up my arm and reach the very centre of me from which it radiated around my body. And when it reached my head, it washed over me like a wave, and pulled me into darkness.

'It is done,' I heard him say just before I blacked out.

888

'Welcome,' the man said as I opened my eyes. 'Welcome to my world. And if you ever leave again, well it's up to you.'

'What?' I lurched up from my prone position, seeing I was no longer in a cave, but at the edge of a large body of water, which stretched as far as the eye could see. 'Where am I?'

'This one day will be known as the Black Sea, but in my world, it is the inland sea near the cave of those who learn to obey me.'

'But what am I doing here? Why have you brought be here?'

'I have a job for you, one that I will not let you leave this place until I am sure that you will do it. And in the meantime, you too will learn to obey me, and only me.'

He stepped toward me and grabbed my arm, twisting it around behind my face. Leaning close, he whispered in my ear. 'Your mother was insolent to me, but she had protection. Even the man of my hearth stopped me giving her rightful punishment, but he can't do that anymore.'

He nodded over to where a man stood nearby, his face lowered so he was looking at his feet.

'The mighty Brun, the mate of my mother, once leader of our people, once the lead male of the lead cave, but look at him now, belittled, nothing. My slave. He does what I tell him to do, without a moan or a whine, he knows after so long that if he doesn't obey that he will be punished. And he doesn't like being punished. And neither will you.'

'Brun?' I shook my head, and as I did, something cleared within it. 'And the man and woman, the spirits I saw in the cave, they were...'

'Brun's siblings,' the man snorted. 'Iza the Medicine woman and Creb the Holy Mog-ur. Now also my slaves.'

'Then you're...' I gasp.

'I have had many names. Broud was my first one, but I have taken many others since then, Agamemnon, Neoptolemus, Alexander the Great, Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, Lord of Bouillon, Bill Alter, Captain Bosunnof, and of course Brac, the child of my hearth, he was the first I took.'

I shook my head. 'I don't understand.'

'And you are not supposed to. How can one of the Others possibly understand all I have experienced, how I took life after life, and lived far into the future but was stopped by the spirit of your mother.'

'My mother's... She's a spirit?' I tried to push him away. 'What have you done to my mother? You killed her?'

'In your time she is alive. Alive and well and busy with her many duties. Time has passed since I brought you here. Your body no longer lays in the cave. It is back in your Ninth Cave, and the old Zelendonii, Zolena I think she's called, a fat old woman who does not know her place, she tends to you. Alone. Your mother has abandoned you though, as has your sister. And your father, he has joined Laramar and Tremeda in drinking too much.' He laughed. 'But I don't want to talk about your mother or her revolting friends. I want to talk about me. Your mother stopped me in the far future. She ended a part of my life. I was alive, taking the souls and bodies of countless men, but she stopped me. But she didn't beat me. Because one moment I was Captain Bosunnof, just arrived on a new planet in the far future, and then I was Broud again and standing by the edge of this sea. And nearby were so many others, people of the Clan, I even recognised a few faces, and people of the Others who had lived here after my people were gone. There were so many spirits, and the power coming from them was immense, and unused. I don't think most of them even realised they were dead, which suited me fine. It meant that they weren't ready for me, they weren't ready for the power I had yielded in my long life, which I still held. I was able to take their power, and add it to my own. And then is how I gained control of this world of the afterlife. Where I have a new name, one which you will learn to call me.'

'And that is?'

'I am called Master.'

888

'I am such a fool.'

Sitting on a log by a roaring hearth fire, I stared into flames, hardly feeling the heat flooding from it. I shook my head and glanced toward the woman sitting next to me.

'You did not know,' she motioned, putting a wooden cup in my hands and curling her fingers around mine. 'And how could you know? Broud always had problems, especially with your mother, but now, he has grown very powerful, far more than any man should ever be. In the end you accepted what he offered but even if you had refused him, it would not have mattered. You were in his sight, and he had plans for you. Once he decided he was going to bring you here, then you were coming. It was only when you would arrive that was not decided.' She sighed. 'You did not have a choice, none of us had a choice. Not once he arrived. We have all been under his control since.'

I glanced at her. 'Is that why you didn't warn me about him back in the cave? Because you couldn't.'

She nodded her head. 'I wanted to warn you. You look so like her, so like my Ayla, when I saw you enter that cave, looking just like she had looked on the day I last saw her, I wanted to drag you away from him. I wanted to get you as far away as I could, or at least let you know you were in danger, but all I could do was tend to the fire and listen as he tricked you. Tricked you into believing that my daughter found you inconvenient and an embarrassment when I could feel her outside, trying to get to you, her love and worry for you a heavy weight. He controlled me, he controls all of us trapped spirits, he even controls my brother, the most powerful Mog-ur who ever lived.' She stood up. 'And now he controls you.'

888

Jerking away from a kick in my side, I peered up warily and saw Broud standing over me, a sadistic look on his face.

'Get up.'

I glanced toward the mouth of the cave. 'But its still night,' I muttered.

'Insolent female,' he growled as he curled his fingers into a fist. 'You need to learn to do as you are told without arguing.'

And then he punched me so hard in the of my head that it made my teeth rattle and my vision swim. Followed immediately by him grabbing hold of my hair and dragging me to my feet.

'Come on female,' he hissed in my ear. 'I don't have time for any of your silliness.'

'Where are we going?'

'You will see,' he said. 'But for now, just shut up, your whiny voice is making my head hurt.'

I managed to grab my tunic before he dragged me away from where I'd been sleeping, and when he let me go for a moment, I quickly put it on.

'Here,' Iza grunted as she scurried toward me, my boots in her hands. 'You'll need these.'

Nodding my head, I'd gratefully put the boots on and turned around just as Broud smacked me in the face.

888

'What is this place?' I asked, reaching out and touching one of the large stones. 'It feels...'

'Powerful?' he snorted. 'Yes the power seems to jump from stone to stone doesn't it? The power of all time, of all those who have ever touched these stones and...'

I jerked my hand away, wiping it on the back of my tunic as if I could wipe Broud away.

It would have been better if I could have because what came next was what led to my life becoming a lot more difficult.

'I used to live here you know,' he said. 'In another life. Long after I was first Broud. 'I was a priest and this, the Henge of Stone, it was my temple.' He sighed. 'When I think about what I did in that life, what I achieved, the power I sent into these stones, power ready and waiting for me, it makes me shiver. The lives I took, little girls who thought they were being sacrificed to protect their people when really I was their god, and their spirits would come to me.' He laughed. 'If you look carefully at the stones, you can see their faces, screaming when they met their end by the knife in my hand.'

'That's horrible.'

'Horribly amazing. For me.' He shook his head. 'But enough of the past, or well actually the future, I didn't bring you here to talk about the power here, or the people who died, I brought you here so I could use the power contained in these stones to show you who your mother truly is.'

Broud led me through the stones to a flat one in the very middle of the circle. Putting his hands flat on each side of it, he threw back his head to stare up at the cloudy sky, his eyes wide, and started to almost chant something in words I did not understand.

Glancing down, I saw something red start to bubble up from deep within the stone and form around his fingers, dripping from the sides onto the grass whilst more of the blood, for that was what it was, formed into a pool which bubbled as if being heated by a fire, smoke rising up from it to fill the air with indistinct shapes which slowly turned more solid until they resembled smoked filled people.

'Are they spirits?' I asked, shivering as voices seemed to come from them. 'Are they...' I flinched as a crack of thunder rumbled in the sky and bolts of lightning slammed into the standing stones, which burst into flames and spread until we were surrounded by a circle of fire.

'I am he who commands,' Broud screamed as he lifted his hands, blood dripping from them and raised them into the sky. 'The blood sacrifices which were, which will be, which have happened and still are to happen, they shout out my rights and demand I am shown.'

Another lightning bolt hits the centre stone, splattering us with blood.

And then the smoke shapes form totally into people and I am drawn toward them as my mother and father, standing over my prone body in our hearth, argued.

'You can't go,' my father Jondalar said, his eyes filled with tears and his face red. 'Jonayla needs you.'

'Many need me,' my mother Ayla had replied. 'I have responsibilities and...'

'Your first responsibility is to your daughter.'

'In an ideal world yes but...'

'She is your daughter and needs you. You are her mother.'

I watched as he tried to pull her back into the hearth. She shrugged his arms away though.

'I am not a normal mother. I am mother to many and owe them...'

'What about Jonayla?'

My mother sighed. ' She has you. And Zolena is treating her. She will be fine. Within no time, we'll be organising her mating to Johorran's son as we planned. Don't worry. Soon she will be their problem.'

'See,' Broud said, still standing next to me. 'Your mother does not care about you.'

Wiping tears from my eyes,I couldn't disagree with him.

'Keep watching,' Broud hissed, putting his hand on the back of my head and forcing me to face the swirling smoke. 'You'll find what you see very interesting.'

The smoke shape of my father and that of my prone body were swept away, along with my hearth and the Ninth Cave, only my mother remained as the smoke formed into what looked like a strange cave, with straight walls and roof. I watched as my mother bent over the smoke shape of a sleeping girl who was not me.

'Fleisha,' my mother said. 'You have to wake up. You are in danger.'

She stepped away, and then was gone, and I watched as the girl sat up, and looked around nervously. Then she got out of bed and tiptoed to a strange opening and looked through to where a man and woman were talking.

'I will get a pretty penny for these Christians,' the man said.

'But they have children, can we give them up to the Romans? You know what would happen to them.'

'What about our children? They need to live too. Food is so dear these days, I don't like what will happen to them either but necessity breeds compliance to the rules of Rome, we must turn them in.'

'Well go then, but I want nothing to do with it.'

'You say that wife but you will still eat the food this money buys, and enjoy the feeling of it in your full belly.'

'I know, but if you have to do it, then hurry up. I want it over with.'

The girl scurried back into the room toward the smoke shape of a sleeping man. 'Julius.'

'What?" he looked bleary eyed at her. 'What is it Fleisha?'

'Ssh,' she put her finger to her lips. 'Julius we must get everyone up and out of here. We're in danger. Petar is about to betray us. He's going to give us to the Romans.'

'For you,' Broud whispered in my ear. 'This hasn't happened. In fact, it won't happen for a long time. Long after your mother is dead and a spirit. And still she will be helping others, the girl will be the descendant of your sister, and your mother will warn her so she can escape the Romans who would kill her for her religion, being a Christian. And she will do that again and again with her descendants, those from your sister's line and those from Durc's, her deformed son, but she won't help you still. She will never help you.'

I turned around. 'I don't believe you.'

'Well let's see shall we? First of all, let's look at one of Durc's Descendants and how she goes out of her way to help him, and then...'

I sighed and looked back at the swirling smoke swirled into the forms of a man and woman.

And then another woman, my mother approached them. 'Doran, you are in danger,' she said. 'Neoptolemus will find a special way to hurt you. You have to flee, do whatever you can to get away. And you must take the girl with you. Polyxena. She is your future.'

'But how will I get away?' the man asked.

My mother smiled. 'You will find a way to escape, or rather, it will find you.'

'See,' Durc hissed. 'She helped Doran, I know because I was there, or will be.' He sighed. 'But it is enough for you to know is your mother helped someone else. But not you. She will never help you again. She will turn her back on you.'

'Why?'

'I have already told you why. You are an embarrassment to her. So she will ignore you, even ignore what will happen to you...'

'Happen to me,' I said, feeling scared. 'What's that supposed to mean? What is going to happen to me?'

'One day you leave this place, when you are ready to leave, and willing to do what I need you to do. That will be when your new life begins. A life which will be for far longer than any person has lived before. When you accepted my help and I brought you here, I changed you, back in the real world, you You can barely be even hurt. And you won't die. You will live forever, or at least until you have achieved what I want you to do. Only then will you be given rest. But your mother, she won't help you through those lives, she will be close and choose not to help, to leave you as you are, to suffer, and suffer you will I promise.'

I frowned. 'I don't like the sound of that.'

'Let's look at one of your lives, see if your mother is near, and if she helps you like she helped her descendants.'

The smoke swirled even more, rushing up to form into large strange looking mountains. Before which a girl stood.

'Do you recognise her?' Broud asked.

'Should I?' I replied.

'Her hair is black, her skin darker, but her face is the same.'

I shook my head.

'Look at her eyes.'

I squeezed my own shut as I looked at the girl. And then in the smoke shape of her, I glimpsed blue eyes. Just like my own.

'That's you,' Broud said. 'In the future. No longer do you call yourself Jonayla, she calls herself Jokanna and she has just lived through something horrible which will be talked about for thousands of years. She, you that is, has just seen so much death.'

'But...'

'But Jokanna is used to death, she's seen many die in her already long life, your long life, you live whilst other will die. But you know, Jokanna's life was important, what you will experience as her could have been a turning point for you. We made a deal back in the cave, you and me Jonayla, one which made you mine, mine forever, but Jokanna, she could have broken that deal, she could have chosen a different path, and gone with one who has more power even that I, but because she is stubborn, she will choose not to. Look at her now, standing there in front of that pyramid, watching as a great wave of people leave her behind. See how sad she looks.' He snorted. 'You will nearly escape me then.'

I shook my head. 'You are just talking in riddles,' I said. 'Nothing you are saying makes any sense to me.'

He smiled, a sort of grimace which showed his teeth but wasn't truly a smile, it was more of a snarl. 'It is not supposed to make sense. None of it is supposed to, one day you will understand more, but for now, seeing what is to come is not to be understood, I am not showing you these things so you will understand, I am showing you them so you can see the truth of your mother. Because look behind the girl, look behind the girl called Jokanna who is really you. Some way back toward the pyramid.'

'Pyramid?'

He sighed. 'The strange mountain like building with a pointy roof.'

He pushed me toward the strange mountain he called a pyramid, waving his hand through the girl he reckoned was me, so she disappeared before reappearing as we passed her.

'Look over there,' he said, pushing me nearer. 'The woman standing by the pyramid, you have to recognise her.'

I gasped as my eyes settled on the smokey form of my mother.

'The spirit of your mother will watch as you turn away from someone who could help you. She won't try to convince you, she won't do anything to help you. She will appear, watch you from afar and then leave you again, with nothing done to help you. She won't even try to comfort you or dry your tears.'

'But at least she'll be there. I might not know she is, she might not be able to help me, but at least she will be watching over me.'

'Watching you to make sure you are miserable,' he snorted. 'Oh and believe me, you will be. More and more as the years progress.' He waved his arm again and all around me the smoke swirled, and then settled into the form of the girl on her own. 'Time moves on,' Broud said. 'And the girl now calls herself Joyanna, but I can tell you, for her there is no joy in her life. She is alone, as she has been for some time, walking in the desert, desparately thirsty, but she can't die, you cannot die, you can only suffer.'

I glanced at him. 'If that is really me, and I can't die, why would you make me suffer like that?'

'Because you are her daughter and I hate her, but more than that, you will only be released once you have done what I want.'

'And that is?'

'I will tell you soon, but for now, just watch as you crawl through the desert. And look as your mother watches you, and doesn't try to help you once again.'

I twisted my head around and saw that on a nearby sandy hill my mother stood watching as the girl Broud said was me crawled along the sandy ground.

'She doesn't even give you a drink of water.'

'Maybe she can't.'

He snorted. 'She is a spirit, and a powerful one at that, she could make water spring out of the ground if she wanted but she doesn't, she just lets the girl, you, suffer and watches.'

'But...'

'She helps others, so many others, I could name names, no I will name names, she helped Forsha escape from the Huns, she helped Dana who was a princess and the true leader of a people but had to flee to continue to live, Delania should have died of a plague, but your mother was close and kept her safe, Susanna who was sent to another land, but always had your mother close to give her comfort and help, and then there was Anya who should have burned in a fire, but your mother kept the flames from her, all descendants of your sister who had your mother's loving kindness and guidance to help then. And then there was the descendants of your brother Durc, David who should have died,' Broud spat on the ground, and the smoke swirled around it. 'I planned for him to die, I sent the dead to kill him, but she, your mother, she saved him, she sent others to help him, and he lived and went on to produce more whelps of his line, and then there was Daniel who I did manage to kill, he jumped from a burning building, and I thought what I wanted was done, until his twin brother turned up. All through history the sons of Durc had only had one child, until then, because of your mother's meddling. Durc's line continued because of her, as the line of your sister continued. But you...'

'What about me?'

'You have no line, you will have no children. You will never age and die, you will continue as you are, until you do what I want.'

'I will never...'

His fist was in my face so fast, smashing into my nose, that I'd had no time to flinch or try to move away.

'You will do as I tell you,' he said. 'I promise. Because if you don't, then your suffering will continue forever and ever. But more than that, with each new identity you take on, your suffering will get worse. And you will become a monster.' He smirked again. 'Like the girl before you.'

I turned to see smoke forming into the girl again, into me, but this time she is on some sort of large moving thing, like the canoe my father made one year to travel along the river but so much bigger and not made of tree, but something very strange and shiny.

'You will call yourself Josanna and so desire a mother that you are willing to kill others so you can steal one.'

'I would never.'

'Oh yes you will. Watch.'

The girl Josanna wa sat with an older woman.

'I too lost my mother when I was a young girl. I suppose that is why I feel for you so much, even when Caterina…' the woman said.

'Why does she hate me so much? I haven't done anything bad to her but she just keeps pushing me away,' the girl Josanna, who Broud insists is me, said.

'She doesn't hate you. Caterina is just a bit mixed up. She thinks that…' she laughed. 'Well she thinks that you want me as your mother, but here you are, crying your eyes out, making me see that Caterina's ideas are just the silliness of a young girl. She thinks you are trying to push her away from me.'

'I would never,' Josanna said, but the look on her face, on my face, said she would.

I noticed she raised her head slightly, and looking behind me, I saw another of the large canoes moving silently through the water toward them.

'It's going to hit,' I said. 'someone needs to warn them.' I looked around and see, standing in the shadows, my mother.

'Josanna already knows about the other boat,' Broud said. 'In fact she will do something to make it so none of the others on the boat will know they are in danger until the last moment, and then it will be too late. And in the meantime, your mother will stand by, she won't warn those who are about to die, she won't stop what Josanna, what you are doing, she will just watch and judge you.'

The woman suddenly jumped up and ran away from Josanna.

'It's too late,' Josanna shouted after her. 'They're dead. They're already dead. When that ship hits us, its going to go right through cabin twenty five. All you'll do if you go to them is die too.'

'I don't want to live,' the woman shouted. 'Not without my girls.' And then she ran away from Josanna.

Right into the path of the other ship.

I watched as she turned around at the last moment, and squealed. And then it hit her.'

'Your mother did do something,' Broud whispered next to me as I watched the devastation. 'She used her power so the other boat hit in a slightly different place than it should have. The woman Josanna wanted as her new mother, she was pushed through cabin fifty two, but her daughters in cabin twenty five, they survived. Your mother helped them, and thwarted what you wanted. But in your long life, as much as she watched, she has never helped you one way or the other, she has not tried to rescue you from me, she will grow to hate you.'

'No.'

'Oh yes, she will hate you. Her own daughter. And with each day of your life, she will hate you more. So what do you say, will you help me?'

'Help you?' I shouted at him. 'If my mother learns to hate me, then it is because of what you will make me, so no, I will not help you. I will never help you. I would rather stay here than...'

'Then you will stay here and watch as I punish the spirits because of your disobedience.'

888

It was raining when we get back to the cave, and whilst we'd been gone, some of the spirits have dug a deep hole which had filled with rain to the top.

'Bring Iza out,' Broud said and then he glanced at me. If you are sure you intend to not do what I ask,then the punishments will have to start. And we'll begin with the woman who created all our problems when she picked up a child of the Others who should have been left to die.' He smirked. 'Lets see how you feel when others suffer because of you.'

'You can't.'

'Oh believe me, I can.' He glanced at where Iza was being led outside. 'Put her in the hole,' he said.

'She'll drown.'

Broud laughed. 'How can can someone drown when they are already dead?'

'What's the point in doing it then?'

'She won't die but she will suffer. And as she suffers, you will know it is your fault.'

'Don't do this Broud,' Creb said. 'Please, she is an old woman.'

'And you are a powerless old man who should shut up. Unless you want to go in the hole.'

'Yes,' Creb responded. 'Let Iza go and put me in.'

'Or me.'

Broud shook his head. 'Put her in,' he said.

'No. Please. Don't.' I tried to run toward Iza but Broud grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

'Don't move,' he muttered. 'Or more than the old woman will suffer.'

I flinched, knocking his arm away but didn't move toward her. Instead I watched as she was put in the hole without struggling or trying to get away.

Her face was far too pale and she looked terrified.

'Please Broud, don't do this,' Creb said. 'She's the sister of the man of your hearth.'

'Get her head under the water,' Broud said, turning away from Creb. 'Then the fun can start.' He glanced at me. 'And will continue until you obey me.'

With a splash, Iza is pushed into the hole and before she can take a breath,her head is pushed under the water.'

'No, stop.' I glanced around. 'Creb, surely you can stop this. Can't you do something?'

Creb shook his head and a tear dropped from his eye and ran over his cheek. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, water bubbled out between his lips and he started to cough and gasp for air.

'Creb is the first to feel Iza's pain but he won't be the last I promise.'

Creb fell to his knees and continued to choke. And next to him, a small clan girl started coughing too.

'Eternal pain and suffering,' Broud whispered. 'Caused by you.'

I sighed and looked at him. 'fine,' I said. 'I'll do what you want. Just stop hurting them.'

Broud smirked as he waved his arms and everything me started to fade.

I opened my eyes to look into the big blue eyes of my father Jondalar.

'You're awake,' my father said, his blue eyes lighting up with joy and relief. 'Oh Jonayla, we have been so worried about you?'

'We?' I asked.

For although I still did not trust Broud and was unsure of what he had shown me, I still couldn't help noticing that my mother wasn't by my sleeping platform too.

'But he didn't answer me, he was too busy rushing toward the other side of the cave, from which I could hear raised voices.

'I won't let you tell my people that,' someone shouted.

And then I heard my father's voice. 'Your people Zolena?

'You are not first anymore,' I heard my mother say. 'You can't take back what you gave away.'

I sighed and looked up at the rocky roof above me. I couldn't take back what I had given away either. I had no idea what Broud wanted me to do, but I had accepted his help and in return, promised to obey him. I couldn't take these things back, I was tied to him until I did them.

'Zolena,' I heard my mother shout.

Glancing over, I saw Zolena, she who used to be the First Zelendonii, leave the cave. And my mother ran after her. Followed by my father.

'Leave her,' he said, wrapping his arms around her as they both stood in the mouth of the cave.

'But...'

I sat up as I felt the first tremor which quickly became much stronger and fierce.

And then there was a massive crash and the cave went dark.

'Ayla,' I heard someone screaming from outside. 'Jondalar. No, no, no, please don't be dead.'