"Thonolan travels the next world now, Folara," he said, "and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that woman."

"Oh, Jondй! What happened?"

"It's a long story, and this is not the time to tell it," he said, but Ayla watched from the foot of the path while people surrounded him, welcoming him with smiles, hugs, kisses, pats, handshakes using both hands, and many words. She noticed a hugely fat woman, a brown-haired man whom Jondalar hugged, and an older woman that he greeted warmly and then kept his arm around. Probably his mother, she thought, and wondered what the woman would think of her.

These people were his family, his kin, his friends, people he had grown up with. She was a stranger, a disturbing stranger who brought animals and who knew what other threatening foreign ways and outrageous ideas. Would they accept her? What if they didn't? She couldn't go back, her people lived more than a year's travel to the east. Jondalar had promised that he would leave with her if she wanted-or was forced-to go, but that was before he saw everyone, before he was greeted so warmly. How would he feel now?

She felt a nudge behind her and reached up to stroke Whinney's sturdy neck, grateful that her friend had reminded her that she was not alone. When she lived in the valley, after she left the Clan, for a long time the horse had been her only companion. She hadn't noticed the slack in Whinney's rope as the horse moved closer to her, but she gave Racer a bit more lead. The mare and her offspring usually found friendship and comfort in each other, but when the mare came into season it had disturbed their usual pattern.