The Land of Painted Caves (17 page)

It had always amazed Ayla how skilled he was. When he was still at the Ninth Cave, she had often watched him when he practiced on the outside wall of a limestone cliff, or a slab of stone that had broken off, or on a section of rawhide with a piece of charcoal, or even on a smoothed-out area of dirt on the ground. He did it so often and with such ease, he almost seemed profligate, wasteful of his talent. But just as she had had to practice to gain skill with her sling or Jondalar’s spear-thrower, she knew Jonokol had needed to practice to gain his level of proficiency. It was just that to her the ability to think of a living, breathing animal and reproduce its likeness on a surface was so extraordinary, it couldn’t be anything but a great and amazing Gift from the Mother. Ayla was not alone in those feelings.

After they rested awhile, the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth Cave continued leading the way into the cave. They encountered a few more tight places before they reached a place where slabs of rock blocked their way; it was the end of the cave. They could go no farther.

“I notice that you felt compelled to make drawings on the wall of this cave,” the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth said, smiling at Jonokol.

Jonokol wasn’t sure he would put it quite that way, but he had drawn two horses, so he nodded assent.

“I have been thinking that Sun View should have a ceremony for this space. I am now more sure than ever that it is sacred, and I would like to acknowledge that. It could be a place for young people who want to test themselves to come, even those who are quite young.”

“I think you are right,” the artist acolyte said. “It’s a difficult cave, but staightforward. It would be hard to get lost in here.”

“Would you join us in the ceremony, Jonokol?”

Ayla guessed the Zelandoni wanted Jonokol to make more drawings in this Sacred Cave that was so close to them, and wondered if his drawings would add more status to the place.

“I believe a mark of closure is needed here, to show it is as far as one can go within the cave—in this world,” Jonokol said, then smiled. “I think Ayla’s lion spoke from the next world. Let me know when you plan to have the ceremony.”

Both the Zelandoni and his acolyte, Falithan, smiled their pleasure. “You are welcome to come, too, Ayla,” the Twenty-sixth said.

“I will have to see what the First has planned for me,” she said.

“Of course.”

They turned around and started back, and Ayla was glad. Her clothes were soggy and caked with mud, and she was getting cold. It didn’t seem to take as long to return, and she was happy that she didn’t get stuck again. When they reached the entrance, Ayla breathed a sigh of relief. Her oil lamp had gone out just before they saw light coming in from outside. This may be a truly Sacred Cave, she thought, but she didn’t think it was a particularly pleasant cave, especially having to crawl on her stomach most of the way.

“Would you like to come to visit Sun View, Ayla? It’s not very far,” Falithan said.

“I am sorry. Some other time I would love to visit, but I told Proleva I would be back in the afternoon. She is watching Jonayla, and I really do need to go back to the camp,” Ayla said. She didn’t add that her breasts were aching; she was feeling the need to nurse and getting very uncomfortable.

8

W
hen Ayla returned, Wolf was waiting at the edge of the Summer Meeting Camp to greet her. He had somehow known she was coming. “Where’s Jonayla, Wolf? Find her for me.” The animal dashed out in front of her, then turned to look back and make sure she was following him.

He led her directly to Proleva, who was at the camp of the Third Cave, nursing Jonayla. “Ayla! You’re back! If I’d known you were coming, I would have held off. I’m afraid she’s full now,” the woman said.

Ayla took her child and tried to nurse her, but the infant just wasn’t hungry, which seemed to make Ayla’s breasts ache even more. “Has Sethona nursed? I’m full, too. Full of milk.”

“Stelona was helping me today, and she always has plenty of milk, even though her baby is eating some regular food. She offered to feed Sethona not long ago when I was talking to Zelandoni about the Matrimonial. Since I knew I’d be feeding Jonayla soon, I thought that would be perfect. I just didn’t know when you would be back, Ayla.”

“I didn’t either,” Ayla said. “I’ll see if I can find someone else who needs milk, and thank you for taking care of Jonayla today.”

Walking toward the big zelandonia lodge, Ayla saw Lanoga carrying Lorala on her hip. Three-year Ganamar, the next to the youngest in the family, was holding on to her tunic with one hand, the thumb of his other hand firmly in his mouth. Ayla hoped that Lorala might want to nurse; she was usually ready anytime. When she mentioned it, Lanoga told her, much to her relief, that she was looking for someone to feed the child.

They sat on one of several logs with seating pads on them that were arranged around a darkened fireplace outside the entrance of the big lodge and Ayla gratefully took the older baby in exchange for her own. Wolf sat down near Jonayla, and Ganamar plopped down beside him. All the children of Laramar’s hearth were comfortable around the animal, though Laramar was not. He still tensed up and backed away when the big wolf came near him.

Ayla had to wipe her breast off before she could nurse the child; the wet mud had soaked through. While Ayla was feeding Lorala, Jondalar returned from an afternoon of spear-throwing practice and Lanidar was with him. He smiled shyly at her and more warmly at Lanoga. Ayla gave him a quick appraising look. He was a twelve-year now, close to a thirteen-year, and he’d grown quite a bit in the past year. Even more in self-confidence, she noticed. He was taller and he wore a unique spear-thrower holder, a kind of harness that she could see accommodated his deformed right arm. It also held a quiver of several of the specialized spears that were used with a spear-thrower, which were shorter and lighter than the usual spears meant to be cast by hand, more like long darts tipped with sharp flint. His well-developed left arm looked almost as strong as a grown man’s, and she suspected he had been practicing with the weapon.

Lanidar was also wearing a manhood belt with a red fringe, a narrow finger-woven strip of various colors and fibers. Some were natural vegetal colors like ivory flax, beige dogbane, and taupe nettles. Others were the natural fibers of animal fur, usually the dense, long coat of winterkills like white mouflon, gray ibex, dark red mammoth, and black horsetail. Most of the fibers could also be dyed to change or intensify the natural colors. The belt not only announced that he had reached physical maturity and was ready for a donii-woman and manhood rites, but the designs indicated his affiliations. Ayla was able to identify the symbolism that proclaimed he was of the Nineteenth Cave of the Zelandonii, though she couldn’t yet identify his primary names and ties by their distinctive patterns.

The first time Ayla had seen a manhood belt, she had thought it was beautiful. She’d had no way then of knowing its meaning, however, when Marona, the woman who had expected to mate Jondalar, tried to embarrass her by tricking her into wearing it, along with the winter undergarments of a young man. She still thought the belt ties were beautiful, though they reminded her of the unpleasant incident. She had, however, kept the soft buckskin garments the woman had given her. Ayla wasn’t born to the Zelandonii, and in spite of their intended use, she didn’t have the ingrained culture-driven sense that they were inappropriate. They were comfortably soft suede leather, velvety to the touch, and she decided she would wear them sometimes, after she made some adjustments to the leggings and tunic so they fit her womanly shape better.

People of the Ninth Cave looked at her strangely the first time she wore the undergarments of a young man as casual outer clothing in warm-weather to go hunting, but they got used to it. After a while she noticed that some of the younger women started wearing similar clothing. But it embarrassed and angered Marona when Ayla wore them, because she was reminded that her trick had not been appreciated by the Ninth Cave. Instead they felt that she had disgraced them by treating the foreigner, who was destined to become one of them, so maliciously. Distressing Marona had not been Ayla’s original intention when she first wore teen-age boy’s undergarments publicly, but the woman’s reaction was not lost on her.

As Ayla and Lanoga exchanged babies again, several laughing young men approached, most of them wearing manhood belts and several of them carrying spear-throwers. Jondalar attracted people wherever he went, but young men in particular looked up to him and liked to cluster around him. She was pleased to note that they greeted Lanidar in a friendly way. Since he had developed such skill with the new weapon, his deformed arm no longer caused the other young men to avoid him. She was also pleased to note that Bologan was among them, though he lacked both a manhood belt and a spear-thrower of his own. She knew Jondalar had made several of the hunting weapons for people to practice.

Ayla knew that both men and women went to the practice spear-throwing sessions that Jondalar had begun to hold, but although the two genders were very aware of each other, the young men liked to socialize with their age-mates who were going through the same stage of development and looking forward to the same rituals, and young women tended to avoid the “boys with belts.” Most of the young men glanced at Lanoga but pretended to ignore her, except Bologan. He did look at his sister and she looked back, and though they didn’t smile or nod a greeting, it was an acknowledgment.

The boys all smiled at Ayla in spite of her mud-caked clothing, most of them shyly, but a couple were more bold in their appraisal of the beautiful older woman whom Jondalar had brought home and mated. Donii-women were invariably older and knew how to handle cocky boys trying to be men, to keep them in check without discouraging them too much. The impudent smile of some whom she hadn’t met before was exchanged for a fleeting expression of apprehension when Wolf got up at her signal.

“Have you spoken to Proleva yet about the plans for tonight?” Jondalar asked Ayla as she started toward the camp of the Ninth Cave. He smiled at the baby and tickled her, and received a delighted giggle in return.

“No. I just returned from the new Sacred Cave the First wanted me to see, and then went to find Jonayla. I’ll ask her after I change,” Ayla said, as they touched cheeks. A couple of the young men, primarily the ones who were nervous about Wolf, looked surprised when Ayla spoke; it proclaimed her distant origins.

“Your clothes really are coated with mud,” Jondalar said, wiping his hand on his pants after touching her.

“The cave had a very wet clay floor, and we had to crawl like a snake most of the time. The mud is cold and heavy, too. That’s why I have to change.”

“I’ll walk back with you,” Jondalar said; he hadn’t seen Ayla all day. He took Jonayla in his arms so she would not get full of mud.

   When Ayla found Proleva again, she learned that the Ninth Cave, along with the Third Cave—at the Third’s camp—were hosting a meeting of the leaders of the rest of the Caves, and their assistants, who were at this Summer Meeting. All their families would join them for the evening meal. Proleva had organized the preparation, which included some people to care for children so their mothers could help.

Ayla signaled Wolf to come along. She noticed one or two women who looked uneasily at the carnivore, but was glad to see several people who recognized and welcomed Wolf, knowing what a help he could be in watching over them. Lanoga stayed to help mind the children; Ayla returned to see what Proleva wanted her to do.

In the course of the evening, she did stop to nurse Jonayla, but there was so much work to do to prepare and cook the large feast, she hardly had the chance to hold her infant until after everyone ate, and then she was summoned to the zelandonia lodge. She took Jonayla with her, and signaled Wolf to follow.

It was late and dark outside as she walked toward the large summer lodge along a path that had been laid with a paving of flat stones. She carried a torch, though light from various fireplaces lit her way reasonably well. She left the torch outside, propped up in a pile of rocks constructed to hold hot torches. Inside, a small fire near the edge of a larger fire ring and a few flickering lamps scattered here and there were glowing softly but gave scant illumination. Little could be seen beyond the lambent flames in the fireplace. She thought she heard someone snoring softly on the other side of the shelter, but she only saw Jonokol and the First. They were just within the circle of light, sipping cups of steaming tea.

Without interrupting their conversation, the First nodded to Ayla and motioned for her to sit. Glad to finally have a chance to relax in quiet and comfort, she gratefully settled down on a well-stuffed seating cushion, one of several scattered around the fireplace, and began to nurse her child while she listened. Wolf sat down beside them. He was welcome inside the zelandonia lodge, most of the time. Ayla had been gone for some time during the day and he didn’t want to leave her or Jonayla.

“What was your impression of the cave?” the large woman said, directing her comment to the young man.

“It is very small, hardly big enough to squeeze through in places, but quite long. An interesting cave,” Jonokol said.

“Do you believe it is sacred?” she asked.

“Yes, I do believe it is.”

The First nodded. She hadn’t doubted the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth Cave, but it was nice to have a corroborating opinion.

“And Ayla found her Voice,” Jonokol added, smiling at Ayla, who was listening to the conversation, unconsciously rocking in a desultory fashion as she nursed her child.

“She did?” the older woman said.

“Yes,” Jonokol said with a smile. “The Twenty-sixth asked her to test the cave, and was surprised when she said she couldn’t sing or play a flute or do anything to test it. His acolyte, Falithan, sings a strong, high-pitched ululating wail that’s very unique. Then I suddenly remembered Ayla’s bird calls and reminded her that she could whistle like a bird, and whinny like a horse, even roar like a lion. So she did. All of them. Amazed the Twenty-sixth, too, especially that roar. Her test substantiated the cave. When the roar came back, it was diminished, but clear, more than audible, but seemed to be coming from a very distant place. The other place.”

“What did you think, Ayla?” the First asked, as she poured a cup of tea and handed it to Jonokol to give to her. She had noted that the infant had stopped nursing and had fallen asleep in Ayla’s arms with a dribble of milk running down the side of her mouth.

“It’s a difficult cave to get into, and long, but not complicated. It could be frightening, especially where it narrows down to some very tight passages, but no one could get lost in it,” Ayla said.

“From the way you describe this new cave, it makes me think that it might be especially good for young acolytes who want to test themselves, to find out if the life of a Zelandoni is actually for them. If they are afraid of a small dark place that offers no real danger, I doubt that they could handle some of the other ordeals that truly can be perilous,” the Woman Who Was First said.

It made Ayla wonder what some of those ordeals might be. She had been in enough risky situations in her life already; she wasn’t sure if she wanted to face more, but perhaps she should wait and see what would be asked of her.

   The sun was still low in the eastern sky, but a brilliant band of red, fading to purple at the edges, announced the coming day. A tinge of pink highlighted the thin, nebulous bank of stratus clouds on the western horizon, reflecting the back side of the glowing sunrise. As early as it was, almost everyone was already at the Main Camp. It had rained, off and on, for several days but this day looked more promising. Camping out when it rained was only endurable, never enjoyable.

“As soon as the First Rites and Matrimonial Ceremonies are over, Zelandoni wants to do some traveling,” Ayla said, looking up at Jondalar. “She wants to begin my Donier Tour with some of the closer Sacred Sites. We need to make that seat on a pole-drag for her.” They were walking back from seeing to the horses before heading toward the Meeting Campground for a morning meal. Wolf had started out with them, but was distracted and dashed into the brush.

Jondalar’s brow wrinkled. “A trip like that could be interesting, but some people are talking about a big hunt after the Ceremonies. Maybe going after a summer herd so we can begin drying meat for next winter. Joharran has been talking about how useful the horses can be in driving animals into surrounds. I think he’s counting on us to help. How do we decide which one to do?”