The Land of Painted Caves (32 page)

“Perhaps you should teach the zelandonia this simplified sign language,” the First said. “I can see where it could be quite useful, to pass on information, or to clarify a point.”

“Or if you ever met one of the Clan and wanted to say something,” Jondalar said. “It helped me when we met Guban and Yorga just before we crossed the small glacier.”

“Yes, that too,” Zelandoni said. “Maybe we could make arrangements for a few teaching sessions next year, at the Summer Meeting. Of course, you could teach the Ninth Cave during the next cold season.” She paused again. “You’re right, though, it wouldn’t work in the dark. So they don’t go into caves at all?”

“They go into them; they just don’t go in very far. And when they do, they light the way very well. I don’t think they would go this far into a cave,” Ayla said, “except alone, or for special reasons. The mog-urs sometimes went into deeper caves.” Ayla vividly recalled a cave at the Clan Gathering, where she followed some lights and saw the mog-urs, the holy men.

They started walking again, each caught up in private thoughts. After a while Zelandoni started singing again. When they had gone another distance that was not quite as far as it had been to the first paintings on the walls, the sound of Zelandoni’s voice developed more resonance, seemed to echo from the walls of the cave, and Wolf began to howl again. The First stopped and this time faced the right wall of the cave. Ayla and Jondalar again saw mammoths, two of them, not painted but engraved, plus a bison, and what appeared to be some strange marks made with fingers in softened clay or something similar.

“I always knew he was a zelandoni,” the First said.

“Who?” Jondalar asked, although he thought he knew.

“Wolf, of course. Why do you think he ‘sings’ when we come to the places where the spirit world is near?”

“The spirit world is near, here in this place?” Jondalar said, looking around and feeling a touch of apprehension.

“Yes, we are very close to the Mother’s Sacred Underworld here,” said the Spiritual Leader of the Zelandonii.

“Is that why you are sometimes called the Voice of Doni? Because when you sing you can find these places?” Jondalar said.

“It’s one reason. It also means that sometimes I speak for the Mother, as when I am the Surrogate of the Original Ancestress, the Original Mother, or when I am the Instrument of She Who Blesses. A Zelandoni, especially One Who Is First, has many names. That’s why she usually gives up her personal name when she serves the Mother.”

Ayla was listening carefully. She really didn’t want to give up her name. It was all she had left of her own people, the name her mother had given her, although she suspected “Ayla” wasn’t exactly her original name. It was only as close as the Clan could say it, but it was all she had.

“Can all Zelandonia sing to find these special places?” Jondalar asked.

“They don’t all sing, but they all have a ‘Voice,’ a way to find them.”

“Is that why I was asked to make a special sound when we were examining that small cave?” Ayla asked. “I didn’t know that would be expected.”

“What sound did you make?” Jondalar asked, then smiled. “I’m sure you didn’t sing.” Then turning to Zelandoni he explained, “She can’t sing.”

“I roared like Baby. It brought back a nice echo. Jonokol thought it sounded like there was a lion in the back of that little cave.”

“What do you think it would sound like here?” Jondalar asked.

“I don’t know. Loud, I suppose,” Ayla said. “It doesn’t feel like it would be the right sound to make here.”

“What would be the right sound, Ayla?” Zelandoni asked. “You will have to be able to make some sound when you are Zelandoni.”

She paused to think about it. “I can make the sound of many different birds; maybe I could whistle,” Ayla said.

“Yes, she can whistle like a bird, like many birds,” Jondalar said. “She is such a good whistler, they will actually come and eat out of her hand.”

“Why don’t you try it now?” the Donier said.

Ayla thought for a while, then decided on a meadow lark, and brought forth a perfect imitation of a soaring lark. She thought she heard more resonance, but she would have to do it again in another part of the cave, or outside, to be sure. Somewhat after that, the sound of Zelandoni’s singing changed again, but in a slightly different way than it had before. The woman motioned to the right and they saw that a new passageway opened out.

“There is a single mammoth down that tunnel, but it’s quite a long ways, and I don’t think we should take the time to visit it now,” the Donier said, and added in an offhand way, “There’s nothing in there,” indicating another opening almost directly across on the left. She continued singing past another passage opening off to the right. “There’s a ceiling in there that brings us close to Her, but it’s a long walk in and I think we should wait until we’re coming out to decide if we want to visit it.” Somewhat farther on she warned them, “Be careful ahead. The passageway changes direction. It makes a sharp turn to the right, and at the turn there is a deep hole that leads to an underground section of the cave, and it’s very wet. Perhaps you should follow me now.”

“I think I should light another torch, too,” Jondalar said. He stopped and took another one out of his backframe, and lit it from the one he was holding. The floor was already wet with small puddles and damp clay. He snuffed out the torch that was nearly burned out and put the stub in a pocket of the pack he was carrying. It had been drilled into him from a young age that one didn’t litter the floor of a sacred place unnecessarily.

To rid it of the burned ash, Zelandoni tapped the torch she was holding on a stalagmite that seemed to be growing up from the ground. It burned more brightly immediately. Ayla smiled when she caught sight of Wolf. He brushed against her leg and she scratched behind his ears, a reassuring touch for both of them. Jonayla was moving around again as well. Whenever Ayla stopped walking, the baby noticed it. She would have to feed her soon, but it seemed that they were heading into a more dangerous part of the cave, and she wanted to wait until they were past it. Zelandoni started out again. Ayla followed and Jondalar brought up the rear.

“Watch your footing,” the First said, holding the torch high so that the light spread out more. It lit a stone wall on the right, then suddenly the torchlight disappeared, but a glowing light outlined the edge. The floor was very uneven, rocky, and covered with slippery clay. The moisture had seeped through Ayla’s footwear, but the soft leather soles gripped well. When she reached the lighted edge of the stone wall and looked around, Ayla saw the large woman standing behind it, and a passageway continuing on to the right.

North, I think we’re heading north now, she said to herself. She had been trying to pay attention to the direction they had been moving since they entered the cave. There had been a few slight turns in the passageway, but they had traveled essentially west. This was the first major change in direction. Ayla looked ahead and saw nothing beyond the light of the torch held by Zelandoni, except the dark, yawning intensity found only in subterranean depths. She wondered what else there was farther on in this cavernous hollow.

Jondalar’s torchlight preceded him around the edge of the wall that changed their direction. Zelandoni waited until they were all together, including Wolf, before she spoke. “A little ways ahead, where the ground levels out, there are some good stones to sit on. I think we should stop there and have something to eat and fill our small waterbags,” she said.

“Yes,” Ayla said. “Jonayla has been moving around waking up, and I need to feed her. I think she would have been awake some time ago, but the darkness and movement while I walked have kept her quiet.”

Zelandoni started humming again until they reached a place where the cave resonated with a different sound. She sang with more tonal clarity as they neared a small side tunnel on the left. She stopped where it opened out.

“This is the place,” she said.

Ayla was glad to unload her haversack and spear-thrower. They each found a comfortable stone and Ayla took out three mats woven of the cattail leaves to sit upon. As soon as she moved her infant to her breast, Jonayla was more than ready to nurse. Zelandoni took three stone lamps out of her pack, a decorated one made of sandstone, which Ayla had seen her use before, and two of limestone. The stone of all of them had been shaped and abraded into small bowls with straight handles formed on a level with the rim. The First also found the carefully wrapped package of wicking materials and extracted six strips of dried boletus mushroom.

“Ayla, where is that tube of tallow you had?” the woman asked.

“It’s in the meat parfleche in Jondalar’s backframe.” Ayla said.

Jondalar took out the food packages and the large waterbag that he had been carrying on his back as well and brought them to Ayla. He opened the rawhide meat container and she pointed out the intestine stuffed with clean white grease that had been rendered from the hard fat near the kidneys, which gave it a little more body. He brought it to the Donier.

While Jondalar refilled the small waterbags they had with them from the large one he carried, Zelandoni put some globs of the tallow into the bowls of each of the three stone lamps, and used her torch to start them melting. She then laid two dried mushroom wicks into the pools of melted fat in each of the lamps so that more than half the length of each absorbent strip was in the liquid fat, leaving two small ends sticking out over each rim. When she lit them they sputtered a bit, but the heat drew the fat into the wicks and soon they had three additional sources of light, which made it seem quite bright inside the absolute darkness of the cave.

Jondalar passed out the food that had been cooked during their morning meal for their trek inside the cave. They put pieces of roasted red deer meat into their personal eating bowls, and used their cups for cold broth with cooked vegetables from another waterbag. The long pieces of wild carrots, small round starchy roots, trimmed thistle stems, shoots from hops, and wild onions were quite soft and required little chewing; they drank them into their mouths with the soup.

Ayla had also cut up some meat for Wolf. She gave it to him, then settled down to eat her own food while she finished nursing her daughter. She had noticed that though he explored a little during their walk, Wolf didn’t stray too far. Wolves could see amazingly well in the dark and sometimes she could see his eyes from the dark recesses of the cave reflecting even their small light. Having him nearby gave her a feeling of security. She felt sure that if something unforeseen happened to make them lose their fire, he would be able to lead them out of any cave using only his nose. She knew his sense of smell was so keen, he could easily retrace their steps.

While everyone was quietly eating, Ayla found herself paying attention to her surroundings, using all her senses. The light from their lamps illuminated only a limited area around them. The rest of the cave was black, a rich, all-encompassing darkness that was never found outside even in the deepest gloom of night, but while she could not see beyond the glow of the small double fires in each of their lamps, if she tried she could hear the the soft mutterings of the cave.

She had seen that in some areas the ground and stones were fairly dry. Others glistened with shimmering wetness as water from rain and snow and melting runoff seeped slowly, with inestimable patience, through earth and limestone, accumulating calcareous residue on its way, and depositing it drop by drop to create the stone icicles above them and the rounded stumps of stone below. She could hear faint soft drips, both nearby and farther away. After time beyond measure, they joined into the pillars and walls and draperies that shaped the inside of the cave.

There were tiny scrabblings and chitterings of minute creatures, and an almost undetectable movement of air, a muted soughing that she had to strain to perceive. It was almost drowned out by the noise of the breathing of the five living beings who had entered the silent space. She tried to smell the air and opened her mouth to sample it. It felt moist with a slight decaying taste of raw earth and ancient seashells compressed into limestone.

After their meal, Zelandoni said, “There is something I’d like you to see in this small tunnel. We can leave the packs here and pick them up on the way back, but each of us should carry a lamp.”

They all found a private corner to pass water and relieve themselves first. Ayla held the baby out to let her pass her wastes as well and cleaned her with some soft fresh moss she had brought with her. Then she used the carrying blanket to hold Jonayla on her hip, picked up one of the limestone lamps, and followed Zelandoni into the passageway that split off toward the left. The woman started singing again. Both Ayla and Jondalar were becoming familiar with the echoing timbre of the tone that informed them they were near a sacred site, a place that was closer to the Other World.

When Zelandoni stopped, she was looking at the right wall. They followed her gaze and saw two mammoths facing each other. Ayla thought they were particularly remarkable, and wondered what all the different placements of mammoths in this cave meant. Since they were created so long ago that no one knew who made them, or even the Cave or the People to whom the artists belonged, it wasn’t likely that anyone would know, but she couldn’t resist asking.

“Do you know why the mammoths are facing each other, Zelandoni?”

“Some people think they are fighting,” the woman said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think so,” Ayla said.

“Why not?” the First said.

“They don’t look fierce or angry. They seem to be having a meeting,” Ayla said.

“What do you think, Jondalar?” Zelandoni asked.

“I don’t think they are fighting, or planning to fight,” he said. “Maybe they just happened to meet.”

“Do you think whoever put them there would go to the trouble if they just happened to meet?” the First asked.

“No, probably not,” he said.

“Maybe each mammoth represents the leader of a group of people who are coming together to make a decision about something important,” Ayla said. “Or perhaps they have made the decision and this commemorates it.”