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“When I opened my eyes that first tiive birth to Racer, I thought the lion had killed me and I had awakened in the spirit world,” Jondalar said “Maybe I should get down, too, and show them I am a man and not attached to Racer like some kind of man-horse spirit”

Jondalar dismounted, but he held on to the rope attached to the halter he hadto back away fro the staff and chanting loudly Whinney was behind the kneeling wo her Ayla used neither ropes nor halters to guide her horse She directed the horse entirely with the pressures of her legs and the movements of her body

Catching a few sounds of the strange language the spirits spoke, and seeing Jondalar dis with the spirits to go away, pro to placate theifts

“I think you should tell the very upset”

Jondalar held the rope close to the stallion’s head Racer was alar to rear, and thedidn’t help Even Whinney looked ready to spook, and she was usually

“We are not spirits,” Jondalar called out when the mamut paused for a breath “I am a visitor, a traveler on a Journey, and she”—he pointed toward Ayla—”is Mamutoi, of the Mammoth Hearth”

The people glanced at each other with questioning looks, and the , but still shook the staff now and then while studying the tricks, but at least they had been e everyone could understand Finally the mamut spoke

“Why should we believe you? Hoe know you are not trying to trick us? You say she is of the Mammoth Hearth, but

where is her mark? She has no tattoo on her face”

Ayla spoke up “He didn’t say I was a mamut He said I was of the Ma me before I left, but I am not fully trained”

The mamut conferred with a man and a wo toward Jondalar, “he is as he says, a visitor Though he speaks well enough, it is with the tones of a foreign tongue You say you are Ma about the way you speak is not Mamutoi”

Jondalar caught his breath and waited Ayla did have an unusual quality to her speech There were certain sounds she could not quite make, and the way she said them was curiously unique It was perfectly clear what she meant, and not unpleasant—he rather liked it—but it was noticeable It wasn’t quite like the accent of another language; it was more than that, and different Yet it was just that: an accent, but of a language nize as speech Ayla spoke with the accent of the difficult, guttural, vocally li orphan girl and raised her

“I was not born to the Marowl had ceased “I was adopted by the Mammoth Hearth, by Mamut, himself”

There was a flurry of conversation a the people, and another private consultation between the mamut and the woman and man

“If you are not of the spirit world, how do you control that wolf and make horses take you on their backs?” the ht out with it