CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) (22 page)

Kalar took Zena
with her to search for a suitable site.  It had to give them a good view
of the lake and be placed against the rocks on the other side, to protect them
from winds as well as predators that might creep up unseen from behind. 
In front, they would have the fire, if they could keep it going during the
rains to come.  That was always a problem.  If the fire was lit
inside the shelter, they could hardly breathe, but if they left it outside, it
was soon extinguished by the torrential afternoon rains.  Night after
night, Kalar had opened herself for a picture from the Mother that might help
them with the problem, but so far, no message had come.

Perhaps Zena would
solve that one, too, Kalar thought wryly as she wandered around the lake.

She came to a
place where large boulders littered a gentle hillside.  One boulder,
especially, provided a wonderful view of the lake and all the land around
it.  Zena had already climbed up on the boulder; she stood there, arms
outstretched, as if embracing everything before her.  Kalar watched,
intrigued.  Zena looked so serious, as she often did.  But she looked
dazed, too, as if she were seeing something far away.

The small gazelle
clambered stiffly up beside Zena and nuzzled her hand.  For once, Zena
paid scant attention.  She felt as if her mind were somewhere else, almost
as if another were seeing through her eyes.  A picture began to form, of
the lake, but it was not the lake as she saw it today.  The reeds were
thicker, and there were many birds...

Three-Legs nuzzled
her hand again, harder, and the picture disappeared.  Zena laughed and
pulled the insistent calf close against her.  She would have to watch her
pet carefully, now that there was another tribe living nearby.  Like the
Big Ones, they might not understand that Three-Legs was not food.

Kalar pronounced the
site with the boulders perfect for their needs.  There was a large level
area where they could gather, just below the rocks, and plenty of space for the
shelter.  They lugged their materials to the place and began to
build.  A day later, just as the rains began, they attached the last
bundle of thatch, bound with vines so it would not blow away, and snuggled
happily inside.  This shelter was much better than the old one, they decided,
glad now that they had built it.

Cere sat Zena in
front of her and began to comb her tangled hair with a bunch of twigs she had
bound together with a vine.  The hair was thick and unruly, and the comb
broke.  Sighing, Cere set it aside.  Tomorrow, she decided, she would
hold Zena's hair under water, to clean it, so the combing would be easier.

Freed from Cere's
pulling, Zena began to work on a project that had formed in her mind as they
had traveled.  They needed one more sling, and there was little chance
that they would come across another antelope.  She had decided to try
making another big basket of vines, like the one they had used to carry
Three-Legs.  It would have to be sturdier, though, to carry an infant
safely.  She set to work with some vines she had brought with her into the
shelter, trying to weave them back and forth more closely than she had
before.  Cere saw what she was doing, and came to help.  Her long,
slender fingers were nimble and quick, and Zena soon turned the project over to
her.  When the basket was finished, they padded it with soft grasses, and
put Cere's infant, a girl-child called Filar, inside.  She stuck her thumb
in her mouth and slept.

After that, all of
them tried making big baskets that were carried across their shoulders, as well
as the small ones they normally carried in one hand.  The larger ones were
wonderfully useful.  They could hold twigs and sticks for the fire, large
melons and tubers, or piles of clean grasses to line the shelter where they
slept.  Cere's were always the best.  None of them could weave as
neatly and securely as she, and whenever one of them wanted a new basket, they
asked her to make it in return for food or the performance of various
tasks.  Cere loved basket making and was always delighted to oblige.

The females living
in their old shelter were fascinated by the slings.  They had watched
curiously as Kalar and the others built the new shelter, and had even imitated
some of their techniques, piling on clumps of twigs and grasses where the old
roof leaked.  But it was the slings they really coveted.  Every day,
they came a little closer to the place where Cere worked, holding their infants
tightly against their chests as they stared at her handiwork. 

The children of
both groups were not so restrained.  They spent a few moments examining
each other, then  began to play noisily together, splashing through the
shallows and hiding from each other behind rocks and trees.  Only Zena
stayed away.  She was growing fast, and play was less appealing now than
watching the birds and animals, or helping the adults, or working on one of the
projects that often sprang full-blown into her mind, as if they had been there
all along, only she had not seen them before. 

The children's
spontaneity seemed to give the women of the other tribe courage. The one who
appeared to lead them pointed at the sling Zena was using, then at herself, as
if asking to try it.  Zena took the sling off and placed it around her
shoulders.  The strange female's eyes lit up in delight as she displayed
herself proudly to her companions.  They all began to point and gesture
excitedly, wanting more of the slings. 

Zena and Cere
looked at each other in dismay.  There were many of these women, too many
to make slings for all of them.  Zena held up a hand for silence, and
gestured for the women to follow her.  She led them to the place where the
vines they used for baskets grew, and had each of them collect a bunch of long
strands.  Then she sat them down beside Cere to watch closely while she
worked.  Cere moved her fingers slowly, so they could imitate. 
Frowning in concentration, they began to copy her.  At first, their
efforts were clumsy, but they quickly became more adept at weaving the vines
securely together and tying them in neat, strong knots.  

Zena helped them
for a time, then she went off to sit by herself on the big boulder above the
resting place.  She kept Three-Legs close beside her, worried that the men
of the other tribe might harm her pet.  The women and children seemed to
accept the little gazelle as a strange kind of young one; they laughed at its
antics and fondled it gently.  But she was not sure about the men. 
Males were different, she thought, more apt to kill quickly.  That was
true even among children.  Yesterday, Kalar had become intensely angry
with Lupe and Dorn.  The two boys had killed all the baby birds in a nest,
though they had no need for food.

"These are
the Mother's creatures," she had told them, not raising her voice but
speaking with such severity that they had trembled before her. 
"Never should you kill more than you need, lest there be none for the next
year.  You should thank the Mother for Her abundance, not use it for
play!"

She had taken the
bloody stones from the boys' hands and looked at them with despair in her eyes,
as if feeling the pain they had inflicted on the birds.

Then she had
turned and screamed at them, frightening them so badly they had not spoken for
the rest of the day.

"Go, and do
not come back to my presence until you have spoken words of sorrow to the
Mother for what you have done."

The two boys had
run off, shamefaced.  Lett had followed them to make sure they did as
Kalar had asked.

Zena stared at the
landscape before her and thought of these things.  She never had the
desire to kill, except for food as she needed it, and then she always blessed
the food, as Cere and Kalar had taught her.  All creatures came from the
Mother, and if they gave their lives for Zena or any of the others, they should
be thanked, and remembered to the Mother, so She would receive them back into
Her heart.  

Zena sighed heavily,
aware that the senseless killing had hurt her too.  She could not
understand it.  Kalar had told her there was a force in males, some much
more than others, that had to be controlled, lest it be used to harm others or
hurt the Mother's creatures.  Always, she had said, the men needed a wise
one to help them control this force.

The thought
confused Zena.  The men she had known were so kind.  Agar had helped
her with Three-Legs, and Bran was always good to her, even if he teased. 
She thought it strange, too, that the Mother should make men this way. 
Next time she talked to Kalar, she would have to ask why this should be so.

She sat on, aware
of a sadness in her that had a deeper source than the puzzling behavior of
males.  It came instead from something deep inside herself, from the
questions always in her mind, questions that had no answers, about men, about
mating, about why some had words and some did not, why the Mother gave young
ones only to females, why animals behaved as they did.  She wanted to know
especially why the Mother allowed bad things to happen, like the killing of the
birds or the harming of other animals for no reason.  That seemed wrong to
Zena, and she wanted to fix it, as she wanted to fix all things.

None of the others
seemed to be bothered by these questions, she reflected, except for
Kalar.  But when she had questions, the Mother gave her answers, in
pictures.  Why did the Mother not answer her, Zena, when she wanted to
know something?  Kalar had told her she must be patient, and wait many
hours, many days or moons even, to receive the pictures.  That seemed a
long time to Zena.  She wanted to know the answers right away. 

She remembered
that a picture had almost come into her mind when she had stood on this
boulder, before they had built the shelter, but it had been swept away, when
Three-Legs had nuzzled her.  Zena decided she would try to get it
back. 

She stood, arms
raised, as she had stood before, and closed her eyes.  Three-Legs nuzzled
her again.  She frowned sternly at the little gazelle and put her hand on
its back so it would be content and not bother her.  Then she closed her
eyes again and waited.

Slowly, a picture
began to form in her mind, though she did not think it was like the one she had
almost seen before.  This one felt different, and it was not here, by the
lake.  Instead, Zena realized that she was standing in the clearing by the
river, near the shelter there.  The air smelled smoky, and there were
noises, loud, terrifying noises that made her want to clap her hands over her
ears, to protect them.  The sounds came from animals, she thought.

She saw Kalar,
standing near the river.  The wise woman's face was contorted with
fear.  She was screaming, calling out a message.  Zena heard her
voice, but she could not make out the words.  There was too much noise; it
was worse now, a thunderous racket that got louder and louder. 

And then Kalar was
running, running as if her life depended on it.

Zena
screamed.  She did not like this picture, did not want to see it.
 Sobbing, she thrust it from her mind.  She pushed it away so hard
that when Cere came running to ask what was wrong, Zena could not tell her what
she had seen.  The river, the noise, and the confusion were gone. 
All that remained was Kalar's terrified face.

Zena rubbed her
eyes hard, to make the face go away too.  Ignoring Cere's questions, she
jumped from the boulder and ran off to play with the children.  For all
the time that remained at the lake, she played with frantic abandon, as if
willing herself to be a child again, a child like them, who did not get
pictures from the Mother.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Zena and the
children from both tribes sat under a clump of trees, shading themselves from
the hot sun.

"We do
words," she told the children.  "Pictures too."

They looked at her
expectantly.  Zena had created games for them, games of naming things and
making scratches in the earth that looked liked the named object, then trying
to count the pictures.  The children loved the games, and so did Zena. 
They distracted her, kept her thoughts busy so they could not return to her
frightening vision on the boulder. 

"Fish!" 
Zena called out. 

Sima and Lupe
immediately began to scratch a fishlike picture on the ground.  Dorn
managed a good imitation.  The children from the other tribe copied them
enthusiastically, but their scratches did not look much like a fish.  Zena
did not press them.  They were eager to learn even if they were slower
than Sima and the boys, who had been playing word games with her since infancy.

"Bird!"
Zena instructed.  This one was harder, but they scratched away
industriously.

"Many,"
Zena said, pointing to all the scratched pictures.  She held up her
fingers. Sima pulled down one of Zena's fingers for each drawing, saying a word
they had devised for each.  When she got to the end of the fingers, she
frowned, unable to think what to do next.

Zena laughed and
rumpled her hair, too hot and thirsty to start on another hand. Instead, she
led the children to the lake to drink and cool off; then she wandered over to
join Kalar and Cere.  They, too, were sitting under big shade trees
surrounded by eager students.  Cere was helping the adults from the other
tribe to make baskets, and Kalar was speaking to them of the Mother, as she had
many times before.  They had grasped the idea immediately, almost with
relief, as if the Mother had long resided in their hearts and minds, and
Kalar's words had confirmed their belief.  It seemed obvious to them that
a force greater than themselves must exist, since the sun rose each day, the
moon each night, and storms came, and life renewed itself continuously. 
That the force was Mother was obvious, too.  Each of them had a mother, so
the earth itself and everything in it must have a mother as well.