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visitors in their eagerness to greet returning relatives and friends, all talking and laughing at the same time. She was Ayla of No People. She had no place to go, no home to return to, no clan to welcome her with hugs and kisses. Iza and Creb, who had loved her, were dead, and she was dead to the ones she loved.
    Uba, Iza’s daughter, had been as much a sister as anyone could be; they were related by love if not by blood. But Uba would shut her heart and her mind to her if she saw Ayla now; would refuse to believe her eyes; would not believe her eyes; would not see her. Broud had cursed her with death. She was, therefore, dead.
    And would Durc even remember her? She’d had to leavehim with Brun’s clan. Even if she could have stolen him away, there would have been just the two of them. If something had happened to her, he would have been left alone. It was best to leave him with the clan. Uba loved him and would take care of him. Everyone loved him—except Broud. Brun would protect him, though, and would teach him to hunt. And he would grow up strong and brave, and be as good with a sling as she was, and be a fast runner, and …
    Suddenly she noticed one member of the Camp who had not run up the slope. Rydag was standing by the earthlodge, one hand on a tusk, gazing round-eyed at the band of happy laughing people walking back down. She saw them, then, through his eyes, arms around each other, holding children, while other children jumped up and down begging to be held. He was breathing too hard, she thought, feeling too much excitement.
    She started toward him, and saw Jondalar moving in the same direction. “I was going to take him up there,” he said. He had noticed the child, too, and they’d both had the same thought.
    “Yes, do it,” she said. “Whinney and Racer may get nervous again around all the new people. I’ll go and stay with them.”
    Ayla watched Jondalar pick up the dark-haired child, put him on his shoulders, and stride up the slope toward the people of the Lion Camp. The young man, nearly Jondalar’s match in height, whom Talut and Nezzie had welcomed so warmly, held out his arms to the youngster and greeted him with obvious delight, then lifted Rydag to his shoulders for the walk back down to the lodge. He is loved, she thought, and remembered that she, too, had been loved, in spite of her difference.
    Jondalar saw her watching them and smiled at her. She felt such a warm rush of feeling for the caring, sensitive man, she was embarrassed to think she had been feeling so sorry for herself only moments before. She wasn’t alone any more. She had Jondalar. She loved the sound of his name, and her thoughts filled with him and her feeling for him.
    Jondalar. The first one of the Others she had ever seen, that she could remember; the first with a face like hers, blue eyes like hers—only more so; his eyes were so blue it was hard to believe they were real.
    Jondalar. The first man she’d ever met who was taller thanshe; the first one who ever laughed with her, and the first to cry tears of grief—for the brother he had lost.
    Jondalar. The man who had been brought as a gift from her totem, she was sure, to the valley where she had settled after she left the Clan when she grew weary of searching for the Others like herself.
    Jondalar. The man who had taught her to speak again, with words, not just the sign language of the Clan. Jondalar, whose sensitive hands could shape a tool, or scratch a young horse, or pick up a child and put him on his back. Jondalar, who taught her the joys of her body—and his—and who loved her, and whom she loved more than she ever thought it was possible to love anyone.
    She walked toward the river and around a bend, where Racer was tied to a stunted tree by a long rope. She wiped wet eyes with the back of her hand, overcome with the emotion that was still so new to her. She reached for her amulet, a small leather pouch attached to a thong around her neck. She felt