page78 (1/2)

Ayla shook her head “Why is this a different word?”

“Mae”

“A different language? What language did you teach me?”

Jondalar had a sinking feeling “I taught you e—Zelandonii I didn’t think …”

“Zelandonii—they live west?” Ayla felt uneasy

“Well, yes, but far to the west The Mamutoi live nearby”

“Jondalar, you taught e spoken by people who live far away, but not one spoken by people who live nearby Why?”

“I … didn’t think about it I just taught youterrible He hadn’t done anything right

“And you are the only one who can speak it?”

He nodded Her stoht he had been sent to teach her to speak, but she could only speak to hie everyone knows?”

“There is no language everyone knows”

“I mean the one you use when you speak to your spirits, or maybe to your Great Mother”

“We don’t have a language just for speaking to Her”

“How do you talk to people who don’t know your language?”

“We learn each other’s I know three languages, and a feords in some others”

Ayla was shaking again She thought she would be able to leave the valley and speak to the people she would ot up, and he stood also “I wanted to know all your words, Jondalar I have to kno to speak You must teach me You must”

“Ayla, I can’t teach you two es now It takes time I don’t even know them perfectly—it’s more than words …”

“We can start ords We will have to start fro What is the word fire in Mamutoi?”

He told her and started to object again, but she kept on, one word after another in the order in which she had learned the list, he stopped her again “Ayla, what good does it do to say a lot of words You can’t remember them all just like that”

“I know ”

She went back to the word fire and repeated all the words back to hih, he was staring at her in awe He recalled that it had not been the words she had trouble hen she was learning Zelandonii, but the structure and concept of the language

“How did you do that?”