Plains of Passage (107 page)
T
he people of the Cave of the Sacred Hot Springs were anticipating the Festival to Honor the Mother with great enthusiasm. In the deep of winter, when life was usually most dull and boring, Ayla and Jondalar had arrived and provoked enough excitement to keep the Cave stimulated for a long time, and with the inevitable storytelling that would result, the interest would last for years. From the moment they rode up, sitting on the backs of horses and followed by the Wolf Who Liked Children, everyone had been buzzing with speculation. They had enthralling stories to tell about their travels, arresting new ideas to share, and fascinating devices like spear-throwers and thread-pullers to demonstrate.
Now everyone was talking about something magical that the woman would show them during the ceremony, something having to do with fire, like their burning stones. Losaduna had mentioned it while they were eating their evening meal. The visitors had also promised to give a demonstration of the spear-thrower in the field outside the cave so everyone could see its possibilities, and Ayla was going to show what could be done with a sling. But even the promised demonstrations did not pique their curiosity as much as the mystery involving fire.
Ayla discovered that constantly being the center of attention could be as exhausting, in a different kind of way, as constantly traveling. All evening people had plied her with eager questions and sought her opinion and ideas on subjects about which she had no knowledge. By the time the sun was setting, she was tired and didn’t feel like talking any more. Soon after dark she left the gathering around the fire in the central part of the cave to go to bed. Wolf went with her and Jondalar followed shortly afterward, leaving the Cave free to gossip and speculate in their absence.
In the sleeping area allocated to them within the ceremonial and dwelling space of Losaduna, they puttered around with preparations for the next day, then crawled into their furs. Jondalar held her and considered making the initial overtures that Ayla considered his “signal” to couple, but she seemed nervous and distracted, and he wanted to save himself. One never knew what to expect at a Mother Festival, and
Losaduna had hinted that it might be a good idea to hold back and wait to honor the Mother until after the special ritual they had planned.
He had spoken with the One Who Served the Mother about his concerns regarding his ability to have children born to his hearth, whether the Great Mother would find his spirit acceptable for a new life. They had decided on a private ritual before the festival to appeal directly to the Mother for Her help.
Ayla lay awake long after she heard the heavier breathing of sleep from the man beside her, tired but unable to fall asleep herself. She shifted position frequently, trying not to disturb Jondalar with her restless turnings. Though she dozed off, sound sleep was slow in coming, and her thoughts drifted in strange patterns as she wavered between wakeful imaginings and fitful dreams…
The meadow was freshly green with the lush new growth of spring, brightened by the varied hues of colorful flowers. In the distance, the ivory-white scarp face of a rock wall, pocked with caves and textured with black streaks sweeping up and around into roomy cliff overhangs, almost gleamed in the light blazing down from high in the clear azure sky. Reflected sunlight glinted from the river that flowed along its base, hugging close one moment, then veering away, generally tracing the contours of the wall without following it exactly.
About halfway down the field that spread out across level ground away from the river, a man stood watching her, a man of the Clan. Then he turned and headed toward the cliff, leaning on a staff and dragging afoot, yet walking at a good pace. Though he didn’t say or signal a word, she knew he wanted her to follow him. She hurried toward him, and when they came abreast, he glanced at her with his one good eye. It was a deep liquid brown, full of compassion and power. She knew his bearskin cloak covered the stump of an arm that had been amputated at the elbow when he was a boy. His grandmother, a medicine woman of renowned reputation, had cut off the useless, paralyzed limb when it became gangrenous after he was mangled by a cave bear. Creb had lost his eye during the same encounter.
As they neared the rock wall, she noticed a strange formation near the top of an overhanging cliff. A longish, somewhat flat, column-shaped boulder, darker than the creamy matrix of limestone that held it, leaned over the edge as if frozen in place just as it started to tumble down. The stone not only gave the feeling that it would fall any moment, making her uneasy, but she knew something about it was important; something she should remember, something she had done, or was supposed to do—or wasn’t supposed to do.
She closed her eyes trying to recall. She saw darkness, thick, velvet, palpable darkness, as utterly lacking in light as only a cave deep in a mountain could be. A tiny flickering of light appeared in the distance and she groped her way
along a narrow passage toward it. As she neared, she saw Creb with other mog-urs, and she suddenly felt great fear. She didn’t want that memory and quickly opened her eyes.
And found herself on the bank of the small river that wound its way along the base of the wall. She looked across the water and saw Creb trudging up a path toward the falling stone formation. She had gotten behind him and now didn’t know how to cross the river to catch up. She called after him, “Creb, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to follow you into the cave.”
He turned around and beckoned to her again, signaling great urgency. “Hurry,” he signed from across the river, which had become wider and deeper, and full of ice. “Don’t wait any longer! Hurry!”
The ice was expanding, taking him farther away. “Wait for me! Creb, don’t leave me here!” she cried.
“Ayla! Ayla, wake up! You’re dreaming again,” Jondalar said, shaking her gently.
She opened her eyes and felt a great sense of loss and a strangely intense fear. She noticed the hide-covered walls of the dwelling space and a reddish glow from the fireplace as she looked at the shadowed silhouette of the man beside her. She reached out and clung to him. “We have to hurry, Jondalar! We have to leave here right away,” she said.
“We will,” he said. “As soon as we can. But tomorrow is the Mother Festival, and then we have to decide what we need to take to cross the ice.”
“Ice!” she said. “We have to cross a river of ice!”
“Yes, I know,” he said, holding her and trying to calm her. “But we have to plan how we’re going to do it with the horses and Wolf. We’ll need food, and a way to get water for all of us. The ice is frozen solid up there.”
“Creb said to hurry. We have to leave!”
“As soon as we can, Ayla. I promise, as soon as we can,” Jondalar said, feeling a nagging edge of worry. They did need to leave and get across the glacier as soon as possible, but they couldn’t go before the Mother Festival, could they?
Though it did little to warm the freezing air, the late afternoon sun streamed through the branches of trees, which broke up the coruscating rays but did not block the blinding western light. To the east, the glaciered mountain peaks, reflecting the brilliant orb that was descending into fiery clouds, were suffused with a soft rosy glow that seemed to emanate from within the ice. The light would soon be failing, but Jondalar and Ayla were still in the field outside the cave, although he was watching along with everyone else.
Ayla took a deep breath, then held it, not wanting to obstruct her view with the steamy fog of her breath while she took careful aim. She shifted the two stones in her hand, then placed one in the pocket of the sling, whirled it around and flung it, letting go of one end. Then, starting at the end she still held, she quickly ran it through her hand to retrieve the loose end, dropped the second stone in the cup, whirled and cast it. She could cast two stones faster than anyone had ever imagined.
“Oooh!” “Look at that!” People who had been standing at the large mouth of the cave during the demonstrations of spear-throwing and rock-slinging let out the breaths they, too, had been holding and made comments of surprise and appreciation. “She broke up both snowballs from all the way across the field.” “I thought she was good with the spear-thrower, but she’s even better with that sling.”
“She said it would take practice to learn to throw spears with accuracy, but how much practice did it take to throw rocks like that?” Larogi said. “I think it would be easier to learn to use the spear-thrower.”
The demonstration was over, and as night was closing in, Laduni stepped in front of the people and announced that the feast was almost ready. “It will be served at the central hearth, but first, Losaduna will dedicate the Festival to the Mother at the Ceremonial Hearth, and Ayla is going to give another demonstration. What she is going to show you is remarkable.”
As the people excitedly began making their way back into the cave away from the large open mouth, Ayla noticed Madenia talking with some friends and was glad to see that she was smiling. Many had commented on how pleased they were to see her joining in the group’s activities, though she was still shy and withdrawn. Ayla could not help thinking what a difference it made when people cared. Unlike her experience, where everyone felt Broud had the right to force her any time he wanted, and thought she was odd for resisting and hating him, Madenia had the support of her people. They took her side. They were angry at those who had forced her, understood what an ordeal it had been, and wanted to correct the wrong that had been done to her.
Once everyone was settled inside the enclosed space of the Ceremonial Hearth, the One Who Served the Mother came out of the shadows and stood behind a lighted fireplace surrounded by a circle of almost perfectly matched round stones. He picked up a small stick with a pitch-dipped end, held it to the fire until it caught, then turned around and walked to the stone wall of the cave.
With his body blocking the view, Ayla could not see what he was doing, but when a glowing light spread out around him, she knew he had lit a fire of some kind, probably a lamp. He made some motions and began
chanting a familiar litany, the same repetition of the various names of the Mother that he had chanted during Madenia’s cleansing ritual. He was invoking the spirit of the Mother.
When he backed away and turned to face the gathering, Ayla saw that the glow came from a stone lamp he had lit in a niche in the cave wall. The fire cast dancing shadows, larger than life, of a small dunai and highlighted the exquisitely carved figure of a woman with substantial motherly attributes—large breasts and rounded stomach, not pregnant but well endowed with reserves of stored fat.
“Great Earth Mother, Original Ancestor and Creator of All Life, Your children have come to show appreciation, to thank You for all Your Gifts, great and small, to honor You,” Losaduna intoned, and the people of the Cave joined in. “For the rocks and stones, the bones of the land that give of their spirit to nourish the soil, we have come to honor You. For the soil that gives of its spirit to nourish the plants that grow, we have come to honor You. For the plants that grow and give of their spirit to nourish the animals, we have come to honor You. For the animals that give of their spirit to nourish the meat-eaters, we have come to honor You. And for all of them that give of their spirit to feed and clothe and protect Your children, we have come to honor You.”
Everyone knew all the words. Even Jondalar, Ayla noticed, had joined in, though he said the words in Zelandonii. She soon began repeating the “honor” part, and though she didn’t know the rest, she knew they were important, and once she heard them, she knew she would never forget them.
“For Your great glowing son who lights the day, and Your fair shining mate who guards the night, we have come to honor You. For Your life-giving birth waters that fill the rivers and seas and rain down from the skies, we have come to honor You. For Your Gift of Life and Your blessing of women to bring forth life as You do, we have come to honor You. For the men, who were made to help women to provide for the new life, and whose spirit You take to help women create it, we come to honor You. And for Your Gift of Pleasures that both men and women take in each other, and that opens a woman so she can give birth, we have come to honor You. Great Earth Mother, Your children come together on this night to honor You.”
The silence that filled the cave after the communal invocation ended was profound. Then a baby cried, and it seemed entirely appropriate.
Losaduna stepped back and seemed to fade into the shadows. Then Solandia got up, picked up a basket that was near the Ceremonial Hearth, and poured ashes and dirt on the flames in the round fireplace, killing the ceremonial fire and plunging them into near darkness. There were a few surprised
oohhs
and
aahhs
from the crowd, as people
sat forward expectantly. The only light came from the small oil lamp that was burning in the niche, which made the dancing shadows of the Mother figure seem to grow, until they seemed to fill the entire space. Though the fire had never been put out like that before, the effect was not lost on Losaduna.
The two visitors and the people who lived at the Ceremonial Hearth had practiced earlier, and each knew what to do. When everyone had quieted down, Ayla walked into the darkened area toward a different fireplace. It had been decided that the capabilities of the firestone would be shown to the best advantage, and with the most dramatic effect, if Ayla started a new fire at a cold hearth as quickly as possible after the ceremonial fire was out. A quick-starting tinder of dried moss had been placed in the second fireplace, kindling beside it, and some larger sticks of wood for burning. Brown coal would then be added to keep the fire going.
When they were practicing, it had been discovered that wind helped to blow up the spark, particularly the draft that whipped in when the hide door of the ceremonial space was opened, and Jondalar was standing beside it. Ayla knelt down and, holding the iron pyrite in one hand and a piece of flint in the other, struck them together, creating a spark that could be clearly seen in the darkened area. She struck the two together again, holding them at a slightly different angle, which caused the spark she drew off to fall on the tinder.