THE SHELTERS OF STONE

Joharran was surprised at her reaction, then recalled that she had been raised by them and understood why she would feel offended. He tried to stutter an apology. "I… I… I'm sorry. It's what everyone thinks."

Zelandoni stepped in to calm the situation. "Ayla, you must remember, we haven't had time to consider everything you have said. We have always thought of your Clan people as animals, and something half human and half animal as an abomination. I'm sure you must be correct, this… Rydag was a child."

She's right, Ayla said to herself, and it isn't as if you didn't know how the Zelandonii felt. Jondalar made that clear the first time you mentioned Durc. She tried to compose herself.

"But, I'd like to understand something," Zelandoni continued, searching for a way to ask her questions without offending the stranger. "The person named Nezzie was the mate of the headman of the Lion Camp, is that correct?"

"Yes." Ayla could see where she was leading and glanced at Jondalar. She felt sure he was trying to repress a smile. It made her feel better; he knew, too, and was taking some perverse delight in the discomfiture of the powerful donier.

"This child, this Rydag, was hers?"

Jondalar almost wished Ayla would say yes, just to make them think. It had taken a lot for him to overcome the beliefs of his people, bred into him since childhood, practically with his mother's milk. If they thought a woman who had given birth to an "abomination" could become the mate of a headman, it might shake that belief a bit, and the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that for their own good, for their own safety, his people had to change, had to accept the fact that the Clan were people, too.

"She nursed him," Ayla explained, "along with her own daughter. He was the son of a Clan woman who was alone and died shortly after his birth. Nezzie adopted him, just as Iza adopted me when I had no one to take care of me."

It was still a shock, and in some ways even more startling because the headman's mate had voluntarily chosen to care for the newborn who could have been left to die with its mother. A silence descended upon the group as each one paused to consider what had just been learned.

Wolf had stayed behind in the valley where the horses were grazing to explore the new territory. After a time that was appropriate to him and for his own reasons, he decided to return to the place that Ayla had made him understand was home, the place he should go when he wanted to find her. Like all of his kind, the wolf moved with efficient speed and such effortless grace, he seemed to be floating as he loped through the wooded landscape. Several people were in Wood River Valley picking berries. One man caught a glimpse of Wolf moving like a silent wraith between the trees.

"That wolf is coming! And he's by himself!" the man shouted. He scrambled out of the way as fast as he could.

"Where's my baby?" a woman cried in a panic. She looked around, saw her toddler, and ran to pick her up and carry her away.

When Wolf reached the path that led to the ledge, he ran up it with the same supple, fast-moving pace.

"There's that wolf! I don't like the idea of a wolf coming up here, right onto our ledge," another woman said.

"Joharran said we should allow him to come and go as he wants, but I'm going to get my spear," a man said. "Maybe he won't hurt anyone, but I don't trust that animal."

People backed out of the way to give him a wide berth when Wolf reached the ledge at the top of the path and headed directly for Marthona's dwelling. One man knocked over several spear shafts when he bumped into them in his hurry to put plenty of clearance between himself and the efficient, four-legged hunter. The wolf sensed the fear of the people around him and didn't like it, but he continued toward the location Ayla had indicated he was to go.

The silence within Marthona's dwelling was shattered when Willamar, catching sight of the entrance drape moving, suddenly jumped up and shouted. "There's a wolf! Great Mother, how did that wolf get here?"

"It's all right, Willamar," Marthona said, trying to calm him. "He's allowed in here." Folara caught her eldest brother's eye and smiled, and though Joharran was still nervous around the animal, he could give her a knowing smile back.

"That's Ayla's wolf," Jondalar said, getting up to ward off any hasty reactions as Ayla rushed to the entrance to settle the animal, who had been more scared than Willamar to be greeted by such loud, frantic noise in the place he had been shown to come. Wolf's tail was between his legs, his hackles were raised, and his teeth were bared.