The Land of Painted Caves

Chapter 14

'Do you think we should even try to take the horses inside that cave?' Ayla said the next morning.

'Most of the cave has high ceilings, but it is a cave. That means once we get away from the entrance, it's dark, except for the light we bring with us, and the floor is uneven. You have to be careful because it falls down to a lower level in several places. It should be empty now, but bears use it in winter. You can see their wallows and their scratch marks,' Zelandoni said.

'Cave bears?' Ayla asked.

'From the size of the scratches, it's very likely that some cave bears have been inside. There are smaller marks, but I don't know if they are from smaller brown bears, or young cave bears,' the Donier explained. 'It's a very long walk to the primary area, and just as long back. It will take us, or at least it will take me, all day. I haven't done it for some years and, to be honest, I suspect this will be my last time.'

'Why don't I take Whinney inside and see how she behaves,' Ayla said. 'I should take Grey, too. I think I will use halters for both of them.'

'And I'll take Racer,' Jondalar said. 'We can walk them in by themselves, and see how they take to it, before we connect the pole-drags.'

Zelandoni watched as they put halters on the horses and walked the animals toward the mouth of the large cave. Wolf followed them. The Donier didn't plan to take them through the entire cavern. She herself didn't know exactly how extensive this sacred site was, though she had a good idea.

It was a massive cavern more than ten miles long made up of a maze of galleries, some connected and some going off in every direction, with three underground levels, and about seven miles to the part she wanted to show them. It would be a long walk, but she had mixed feelings about using the pole-drag. Even if she was slower, she felt she could still make the trek and while it might be easier, she didn't really want to be going into the sacred cavern looking backward.

When Jondalar and Ayla came out, they were shaking their heads and comforting the horses. 'I'm sorry,' Ayla said. 'I think it could be the scent of bears, but both Whinney and Racer were very nervous in that cave. They shied away from the bear wallows, and the darker it got, the more uneasy and agitated they became. I'm sure Wolf will come with us, but the horses don't like it in there.'

'I'm sure I can walk it, but it will take more time,' Zelandoni said with a feeling of relief. 'We will need to bring food and water with us, and warm clothes. It will get cold in there. And plenty of lamps and torches. Also those thick mats you made out of the cattail leaves, in case we want to sit. There will be some rocks or cave growths on the ground, but they will likely be damp and muddy.'

Jondalar packed most of their supplies in his sturdy backframe, but Zelandoni also had one, like Jondalar's though not as big, made of stiff rawhide attached to a frame. The slender round poles of the frame came from the new stems of fast-growing trees, like the variety of willow known as poplar that shot up straight in one season. Jondalar and Zelandoni also had implements and pouches dangling from their waist thongs. Ayla had her haversack, and the rest of her equipment, and of course, Jonayla.

They made one last check of their campsite before they left, with Ayla and Jondalar also trying to make sure the horses would be fine for the day while they were deep in the cavern. They lit one torch to start with from the fire before they banked it down. Then Ayla signalled to Wolf to stay with them, and they started into Mammoth Cavern.

Though the entrance was rather large, it was nothing to the actual size of the cave, but it gave natural light for the first part of the trek and their single torch was sufficient. As they continued into the enormous space, the only thing to be seen was the inside of a huge cave that had obviously been used by bears. Ayla wasn't sure, but she thought that no matter how big a cave was, only one bear at a time would use it in any one season. Many large oval depressions cratered the ground, which implied that bears had used the cave for a very long time, and the bear claw scratches on the walls left no doubt about what had made the bear hollows. Wolf stayed close, walking beside her, occasionally brushing against her leg, which was reassuring.

After they had proceeded deeply enough into the cave that no outside light could be detected and the only way they could find their way was with the light sources they brought with them, Ayla began to feel the cold inside the cave. She had brought a warm tunic with long sleeves and a separate head covering for herself, and an elongated parka with a hood for her infant. She stopped and untied Jonayla's carrying blanket, but as soon as she was away from her mother's warmth, she too noticed the cold and began to fuss. Ayla quickly dressed both of them, and when the baby was close to her mother again and felt her warmth, she settled down. The others also put on warmer clothing.

When they started out again, the First began to sing. Both Ayla and Jondalar looked at her, rather surprised. She started with a soft hum, but after a while, though she didn't use words, her singing grew louder, with greater changes in scale and in pitch, more like tonal exercises. Her voice was so full and rich it seemed to fill the huge cave, and her companions thought it was beautiful.

They had gone about a half mile into the cavern, and were walking three abreast in the large space, with Zelandoni in the middle between Ayla and Jondalar, when the sound of the woman's voice seemed to change, to gain an echoing resonance. Suddenly Wolf surprised them all and joined in with the eerie howl of wolfsong. It sent a shiver down Jondalar's back, and Ayla felt Jonayla squirming and seeming to crawl up her back. Then suddenly without saying a word but still singing, the Donier reached out with both hands and stopped her companions. They looked at her and seeing that she was gazing at the left wall, they also turned to see what was there. That was when they saw the first sign that the cavern was more than a huge, rather frightening, empty grotto that seemed to go on forever.

At first Ayla didn't see anything except some reddish-coloured rounded flint outcroppings, which had been a common sight on all the walls. Then, high on the wall, she noticed some black marks that did not look natural. Suddenly her mind made sense of what her eyes were seeing. Painted on the wall in black outline were the shapes of mammoths. As she observed more closely, she saw three mammoths facing left, as though marching out of the cave. Then behind the last one, the outline of the back of a bison, and slightly confused with that, the distinctive shape of the head and back of another mammoth facing right. A short distance and a little higher up was a face with a distinctive beard shape, an eye, two horns, and the hump of another bison. Six animals in all, or enough of an impression to identify that many, had been painted on the wall. Ayla felt a sudden chill and shuddered.

'I've camped in front of this cave many times, and I didn't know these were here. Who made these paintings?' Jondalar asked.

'I don't know,' Zelandoni said. 'No one knows for sure — the Ancients, the Ancestors. They are not mentioned in the Elder Legends. It is said that long ago there were many more mammoths around here, and woolly rhinoceroses, too. We find many old bones and tusks yellowed with age, but now we rarely see the animals. It has become quite an event when they are spotted, like the rhinoceros those boys tried to kill last year.'

'There seemed to be quite a few where the Mamutoi live,' Ayla said.

'Yes, we went on a big hunt with them,' Jondalar said, and added thoughtfully, 'But it is different there. It's much drier and colder. Not as much snow. When we hunted mammoth with the Mamutoi, the wind just blew the snow around the dry grass still standing on the open land. Here, when you see mammoths heading north in a hurry, you know a big snow storm is on the way. The farther north you go, the colder it is, and after a certain distance, it gets drier too. Mammoths flounder in heavy snow, and cave lions know it and follow them. You know the saying "Never go forth, when mammoths go north," ' Jondalar said. 'If the snow doesn't catch you, the lions will.'

Since they had stopped, Zelandoni took out a new torch from her backframe and used the one Jondalar was holding to light it. Although his was not burned out yet, it was smouldering and had been giving off a lot of smoke. When she was through, he hit his torch against a stone to knock off the burnt charcoal from the end, which caused it to burn brighter. Ayla felt her baby still squirming a little in the blanket on her back. Jonayla had been sleeping, the darkness and the motion of her mother walking lulling her, but she might be waking, Ayla thought. Once they started walking again, the infant settled down.

'The men of the Clan hunted mammoth,' Ayla said. 'I went along with the hunters once — not to hunt, women of the Clan don't hunt — but to help dry the meat and carry it back.' Then, as an afterthought, she added, 'I don't think the people of the Clan would ever come into a cave like this.'

'Why not?' Zelandoni asked as they walked deeper into the cave.

'They wouldn't be able to talk, or maybe I should say they couldn't understand each other very well. It's too dark, even with torches,' Ayla said. 'Besides, it's hard to talk with your hands when you are holding a torch.'

The comment made Zelandoni again aware of her odd way of saying certain sounds, as was often the case when Ayla talked about the Clan, especially the differences between them and the Zelandonii. 'But they can hear and they have words. You've told me some of their words,' she said.

'Yes, they have some words,' Ayla said, then continued to explain that to the Clan, the sounds of speech were secondary. They had names for things, but movement and gestures were primary. It wasn't only hand signs, body language was even more important. Where the hands were held when the signs were made, the posture, bearing, and stance of the person communicating, the ages and genders of those both making the signs and to whom they were given; and often barely perceptible indications and expressions, a slight movement of a foot or hand or eyebrow, were all part of their sign language. One couldn't even see it all if one focused only on looking at the face, or just listening to the words.

From an early age, children of the Clan had to learn how to perceive language, not just hear it. As a result, very complex and comprehensive ideas could be expressed with very little obvious movement and even less sound — but not over a great distance or in the dark. That was a major disadvantage. They had to see it. Ayla told them of one old man who had been going blind, who finally gave up and died because he couldn't communicate anymore; he couldn't see what people were saying. Of course, sometimes the Clan did need to speak in the dark, or shout over a distance. That was why they had developed some words, used some sounds, but their use of speaking words was much more limited. 'Just as our use of gestures is limited,' she said. 'People like us, the ones they call "the Others", also use posture, expression, and gesture to speak, to communicate, but not as much.'

'What do you mean?' Zelandoni said.

'We don't use sign language as consciously, or as expressively, as the Clan. If I make a beckoning gesture,' she said, showing the movement as she explained, 'most people know it means to "come". If I make it quickly or with some agitation, it implies urgency, but from any distance there's usually no way to tell if the urgency is because someone is hurt or if the evening meal is getting cold. When we look at each other and see the shape of the words or the expressions on a face, it tells us more, but even in the dark, or in a fog, or from a distance we can still communicate with almost as much understanding. Even shouting from a great distance, we can explain very complete and difficult ideas. Such ability to speak and understand under almost any circumstance is a real advantage.'

'I never thought of it that way,' Jondalar said. 'When you taught the Mamutoi Lion Camp to "speak" the Clan way with signs, so Rydag could communicate, everyone, particularly the youngsters made a game of it, had fun giving each other signals. But when we got to the Summer Meeting, it became more serious when we were around everybody else but wanted to let someone from the Lion Camp know something privately. I remember one time in particular when Talut was telling the Lion Camp not to say something until later, because there were some people nearby that he didn't want to know. I don't recall what it was now.'

'So, if I understand you correctly, you could say something in words, and at the same time say something else, or clarify some meaning privately, with these hand signs,' the One Who Was First said. She had stopped walking, and the frown of concentration indicated that she was thinking of something she felt was important.

'Yes, you could,' Ayla said.

'Would it be very difficult to learn this sign language?'

'It would be if you tried to learn it completely, with all of its shades of meaning,' Ayla said, 'but I taught the Lion Camp a simplified version, the way children are taught at first.'

'But it was enough to communicate,' Jondalar said. 'You could have a conversation … well, maybe not about the finer points of some point of view.'

'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.

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 it 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 travelled 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 each 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,'

'That's one of the more interesting ideas I've heard,' Zelandoni said.

'But we'll never know for sure, will we?' Jondalar said.

'No, not likely,' the One Who Was First said. 'But the guesses people make often tell us something about the one doing the guessing.'

They waited together in silence; then Ayla had an urge to touch the wall between the mammoths. She reached out with her right hand and placed it palm down on the stone, then closed her eyes and held it there. She felt the hardness of the rock, the cold, rather damp sensation of the limestone. And then she thought she felt something else, like an intensity, a concentration, heat — maybe it was her own body heat warming the stone. She took her hand down and looked at it, then shifted her baby into a slightly different position.

They went back to the main passageway and headed north, with lamps for light now instead of torches. Zelandoni continued using her voice, sometimes humming, sometimes expressing greater tonal qualities, stopping when she thought there was something she wanted them to see. Ayla was particularly fascinated by the mammoth that had lines indicating fur hanging below, but that also had marks, perhaps bear claw marks, scratching through it. She was intrigued by the rhinoceroses. When they got to a place where the song in the large cave grew more resonant, Zelandoni stopped again.

'We have a choice here of which way to go,' she said. 'I think we should go straight first, then turn around and come back to here and take the left passage for a while. Then turn around and go back the way we've come, and out of the cave. Or we can just take the left way, and then return.'

'I think you should decide,' Ayla said.

'I think Ayla's right. You have a better sense of the distance, and you know how tired you are,' Jondalar said.

'I am a little tired, but I may never come here again,' Zelandoni said, 'and tomorrow I can rest, either in camp, or with a horse dragging me on that seat thing you made. We'll go straight ahead until we find the next place that could lead us closer to the Mother's Sacred Underworld.'

'I think this whole cave is close to Her Underworld,' Ayla said, feeling a tingling sensation in the hand that had touched stone.

'You are right, of course, which is why it's more difficult to find the special places,' the First said.

'I think this cave could take us all the way to the Other World, even if it's in the middle of the earth,' Jondalar said.

'It is true that this cave is much larger and there is much more to see than we will in this one day. We won't go into the caves below at all,' Zelandoni said.

'Has anyone ever got lost in here?' Jondalar said. 'I should think it would be easy enough.'

'I don't know. Whenever we come here, we always make sure we have someone with us who is familiar with the cave and knows the way,' she said. 'Speaking of familiar, I think this is where we usually replenish the fuel in the lamps.'

Jondalar got out the fat again and after the woman added some to the stone bowls, she checked the wicks and pulled them out of the oil and up a little higher, making them burn brighter. Before they started out again, she said, 'It helps to find which way to go if you can make sounds that resonate, that make a sort of echo. Some people use flutes, so I think your bird whistling should work, Ayla. Why don't you try it.'

Ayla felt a little shy about it and wasn't sure which bird to choose. Finally she decided on a skylark and thought about the bird with its dark wings and long tail framed in white, with bold streaks on its breast and small crest on its head. Skylarks walked rather than hopped and roosted on the ground in well-hidden nests made of grass. When flushed out, a skylark warbled a rather liquid chirrup, but its early morning song was sustained for a long time as it flew high up in the sky. That was the sound she produced.

In the absolute dark of the deep cave, her perfect rendering of the song of a skylark had an eerie incongruity, a strangely inappropriate haunting quality that caused Jondalar to jerk with a shudder. Zelandoni tried to hide it, but she also felt a unexpected quiver. Wolf felt it, too, and didn't even try to hide it. His astonishing howl of wolfsong reverberated throughout the massive enclosed space, and that set Jonayla off. She began to cry, but Ayla soon understood it wasn't so much a cry of fear or distress as a loud wail that sounded like an accompaniment to Wolf.

'I knew he belonged to the zelandonia,' the First said, then decided to join in with her rich operatic voice.

Jondalar just stood there, astonished. When the sounds ended, he laughed rather tentatively, but then Zelandoni also laughed, which brought out his hearty animated laughter that Ayla loved and caused her to join in.

'I don't think this cave has heard so much noise in a long time,' said the One Who Was First. 'It should please the Mother.'

As they started out again, Ayla displayed a virtuosity of bird calls, and before very long, she thought she detected a change in the resonance. She stopped to look at the walls, first right, then on the left, and saw a frieze of three rhinoceroses. The animals were only outlined in black, but the figures contained a sense of volume and an accuracy of contour that made them remarkably realistic. It was the same with the animals that were engraved. Some of the animals she had seen, especially the mammoths, were drawn with just an outline of the head and the distinctive shape of the back, some added two curved lines for tusks, and others were remarkably complete, showing eyes and a suggestion of their woolly coats. But even without the tusks and other additions, the outlines were sufficient to display the sense of the complete animal.

The drawings made her wonder if the quality of her whistles, and Zelandoni's songs, had really changed in certain regions of the cave, and if some Ancestor had heard or felt the same qualities there, and marked them with mammoths and rhinos and other things. It was fascinating to imagine that the cave itself told people where it should be marked. Or was it the Mother Who was telling Her children through the medium of the cave where to look and where to mark? It made her wonder if the sounds they made really led them to places that were closer to the Mother's Underworld. It seemed that they did, but in a small corner of her mind, she had reservations and only wondered.

As they set out again, Ayla continued her bird whistles. Somewhat farther along, she wasn't sure, but felt almost compelled to stop. She didn't see anything at first, but after taking a few more steps she looked on the left side of the broad cave. There she saw a rather remarkable engraved mammoth. It must have been in its full shaggy winter coat. It showed the hair on its forehead, around the eyes and on the face, and down the trunk.

'He looks like a wise old man,' Ayla said.

'He's called the "Old One",' Zelandoni said, 'or sometimes the "Wise Old One".'

'He does make me think of an old man who can claim many children to his hearth, and their children, and perhaps theirs,' Jondalar said.

Zelandoni started singing again, returning to the opposite wall, and came to more mammoths, many of them, painted in black. 'Can you use the counting words and tell me how many mammoths you see?' she said to both Jondalar and Ayla.

They both walked close to the cave wall, holding out their lamps to see better, and made a game of counting out the number word for each one they saw. 'There are some facing left, and others facing right,' Jondalar said. 'and there are two in the middle facing each other again.'

'It looks like those two leaders that we saw before have met again and brought some of their herd with them,' Ayla said. 'I count eleven of them.'

'That's what I got, too,' Jondalar said.

'That's what most people count,' Zelandoni said. 'There are a few more animals to see if we continue this way, but they are much farther on, and I don't think we need to visit them this time. Let's go back and take that other passage. I think you'll be quite surprised.'

They returned to the place where the two tunnels diverged, and Zelandoni led them into the other one. She hummed or sang softly as they went. They passed by more animals, mostly mammoths, but also a bison, perhaps a lion, Ayla thought, and she noticed more finger markings, some in distinctive shapes; others seemed more random. Suddenly the First raised the tone and timbre of her voice, and slowed her steps. Then she began the familiar words of the Mother's Song.

Her full, rich voice seemed to fill the entire space and depth of the great cave. Ayla was so moved, she not only felt shivers, she felt her throat constricting and tears forming.

The deep cave seemed to be singing back to the One Who Was First, the rounded shapes and sharp angles of the stone causing slight delays and altering tones so that the sound coming back to their ears was a fugue of strangely beautiful harmony.

For all that her full-bodied voice filled the space with sound, there was something comforting about it to Ayla. She didn't hear every word, every sound — some verses just made her think more deeply about the meaning — but she had the feeling that if she were ever lost, she could hear that voice from almost anywhere. She watched Jonayla, who seemed to be listening hard too. Jondalar and Wolf both seemed to be as enraptured by the sound as she was.

Ayla always cried at this part. She knew what it was like to lose a son and felt as one with the Great Mother. Like Doni, she also had a son who still lived, but from whom she would be forever apart. She hugged Jonayla to her. She was grateful for her new child, but she would always miss her first one.

Both Ayla and Jondalar looked around the great cavern, and caught each other's eye. This was certainly a sacred place. They had never been in such a huge cave and suddenly they both understood the meaning of the sacred origin story better. There might be others, but this had to be one of the places from which Doni gave birth. They felt they were in the womb of the Earth.

Both Zelandoni and Ayla looked at Jondalar and smiled, and their thoughts were similar. They both felt that he was a perfect example, he could have been First Man, and they were both grateful that Doni had created man to share life with woman. From their expressions, Jondalar could almost guess their thoughts, and felt a little embarrassed, though he didn't know why he should.

As she always did when she heard the Mother's Song, Ayla wondered why there were two lines at the end. It felt like something was missing, but maybe Zelandoni was right, it was just to give it finality. Just before the woman finished her song, Wolf felt the need to respond in the way wolves always communicated with each other. While the First continued her singing, he sang his wolfsong, yipping a few times then making a great, loud, eerie, full-throated howl, followed by a second, and a third. The resonances in the cave made it sound that wolves from a great distance were howling back, perhaps from another world. And then Jonayla started her wailing cry, that Ayla had come to understand was her way of responding to wolfsong.

In her mind, Zelandoni thought, whether Ayla wants it or not, it seems that her daughter is destined to become part of the zelandonia.