The Land of Painted Caves

Chapter 28

The first images Ayla was drawn to were the horses, though they were by no means the first paintings on the wall. She had seen some beautiful art since she had come to know that visual representations existed, but she had never seen anything like the horse panel on this wall.

In this humid cave, the surface of the wall was soft. In this place, through chemical and bacterial agents that neither she nor the artists could begin to understand, the surface layer of the limestone had decomposed into 'mondmilch', a material with a soft, almost luxurious texture, and a pure white colour. It could be scraped off a wall with almost anything, even a hand, and underneath was a hard white limestone, a perfect canvas for drawing. The ancients who painted these walls knew it, and knew how to use it.

There were four horse heads, painted in perspective, one on top of another, but the wall behind them had been scraped clean, which gave the artist the opportunity to show the detail, and the individual differences of each animal The distinctive stand-up mane, the line of the jaw, the shape of the muzzle, an open or closed mouth, a flaring nostril, all were depicted with such accuracy, they seemed alive.

Ayla turned to find the tall man to whom she was mated to share this moment with. 'Jondalar, look at those horses! Have you ever seen anything like it? It's like they're alive.'

He stood behind her and put his arms around her. 'I have seen some beautiful horses painted on walls, but nothing like this. What do you think, Jonokol?'

He turned to the First. 'Thank you for taking me with you on this trip. For this alone, the entire Journey would be worth it. And it's not just the horses. Look at those aurochs, and those rhinoceroses fighting.'

'I don't think they are fighting,' Ayla said.

'No, they do that before they share Pleasures, too,' Willamar said. He looked at the First and felt they shared the same experience. Although both of them had been here before, seeing the images through Ayla's eyes was like seeing them for the first time.

The Watcher couldn't erase her smile of smug satisfaction. She didn't have to say, 'I told you.' This was the best part of being a Watcher. Not seeing the work herself — she had seen it many times — but seeing the way people responded to it. Most people. 'Would you like to see more?'

Ayla just looked at her and smiled, but it was the loveliest smile she had ever seen. She really is a beautiful woman, the Watcher thought. I can understand Jondalar's attraction to her. If I were a man, I would be too.

Now that they had taken in the horses, Ayla could take the time to see the rest, and there was much more to see. The three aurochs to the left of the horses, mingled with the small rhinos, a deer, and below the confronting rhinos, a bison. On the right side of the horses there was an alcove, big enough for one at a time. Inside it were more horses, a bear or perhaps a big cat, an aurochs, and a bison with many legs.

'Look at that stampeding bison,' Ayla said. 'He's really running and breathing hard, and the lions,' she added, first smiling, then laughing out loud.

'What's so funny?' Jondalar asked.

'See those two lions? That female sitting down is in heat, and the male is very interested, but she's not. He is not the one she wants to share Pleasures with, so she's sitting down and won't let him get close to her. The artist who made them was so good, you can see the disdain in her expression, and though the male is trying to look big and strong — see how he's baring his teeth? — he knows that she thinks he's not good enough for her, and is a little afraid of her,' Ayla explained. 'How can an artist do that? Get that look just right.'

'How do you know all that?' asked the Watcher. No one had ever given that explanation before, but as Ayla spoke it seemed entirely right, they did seem to have those expressions.

'When I was teaching myself to hunt, I used to watch them,' Ayla said. 'I was living with the Clan then, and Clan women are not supposed to hunt, so I decided rather than hunt animals to eat, since I couldn't bring them back and they would go to waste, I'd hunt the meat-eaters that stole our food. I still got in bad trouble when they found out, though.'

The Watcher had started humming again, and Jonokol was singing many notes of harmony around her tones. The First was getting ready to join in when Ayla stepped out of the alcove.

'I liked the lions best. I think that frustrated lion would sound like this,' she said, then started the grunting buildup and let out a tremendous roar. It echoed off the rock of the cave all the way to the end of the passage ahead, then out toward the chamber with the bear skull.

The Watcher jumped back in shocked surprise and a little fear. 'How does she do that?' She glanced at the First and Willamar with an incredulous look.

Both of them just nodded. 'She still surprises us,' Willamar said when Ayla and Jondalar moved on. 'If you really listen, it's not as loud as it seems, but it is loud.'

On the other side of the alcove was a panel of mostly reindeer, male reindeer. Even female reindeer had antlers, the only deer that did, but they were small. The six reindeer on the panel had well-developed antlers, with brow tines and a full curving backsweep. There were also a horse, a bison, and an aurochs. But she didn't think all the painting were done by the same person. The bison was rather stiff, and the horse looked unrefined, especially after seeing the beautiful examples earlier. The person who made it was not as good an artist.

The Watcher walked to an opening at the right side that led to a narrow passageway that had to be taken single file because of the shape of the side walls and the rock pendants hanging from the ceiling. On the right side was a complete drawing in black of a megaceros, the giant deer whose defining characteristic was a hump on the withers, along with a small head and a sinuous neck. Ayla wondered why these artists showed them without antlers, since that was the defining characteristic to her, and the reason for the hump.

On the same panel in a vertical position facing up, was the line of the back and two frontal horns of a rhinoceros, with its double arcs that represented ears. On the left side of the entrance was the shape of the head and back of two mammoths. Farther down the left wall were two more rhinos, facing in opposite directions. The one facing right was complete. It also had a broad dark stripe around its mid-section as many rhinos in this cave did. Above it, the one facing left was only suggested by the line of the back and the little double-arc ears.

Even more interesting to Ayla was the line of hearths along the corridor, likely used to make the charcoal to make the drawings. The fires had blackened the walls near them. Were they the hearths of the ancients, of the artists who created all the incredible paintings and drawings in this magnificent cave? It made them seem more real, like people, not like spirits from another world. The floor sloped down steeply and there were three abrupt drops of over three feet each along its length. The middle of the corridor had engravings made with fingers rather than black drawings. Just before the second drop in the level of the floor, there were three pubic triangles, with a vulvar cleft at the downward pointed end, on opposite sides, two on the left and one on the right.

The First was getting tired, but she knew she would never again make this trip, and even if she did, she wouldn't be able to walk the length of this cave. Jonokol and Jondalar, one on each side, had helped the First down the drops in the level of the floor, and when the floor of the corridor got especially steep. Although it was difficult going for her, Ayla noticed that she made no mention of not going on. At one point she heard the woman comment, almost to herself, that she would never see this cave again.

The amount of walking she had been doing on the Journey had made her healthier, but she was enough of a healer to know that she wasn't as well or as strong as she had been in her youth. She was determined to see this very special cave one last time in its entirety.

The last painted panel in the corridor was just before the last big drop in the floor level. On the right were four rhinoceroses that were partly painted and partly engraved. One was hard to see; two were quite small and had black bands circling their bellies, and had the typical ears. The last was much bigger but incomplete. A large male ibex, identified by the horns that swept back almost the full length of its body, was painted in black on a rock pendant that overlooked the group from its elevated position. On the left side, the wall had been scraped to prepare it for several animals: six full or partial horses, two bison, and two megaceros, one of each complete, two little rhinos, and several lines and marks.

The biggest step down followed: a thirteen-foot progression of uneven terraces caused by flowing water and depressions in the fill dirt of the cave floor, with big bear nests dug into it. Jondalar, Jonokol, Willamar, and Ayla all helped the First get down. It would be just as difficult getting her up again, but they were all determined. Rock pendants hung from the ceiling, their fine, light surfaces reflecting the light from the torches, but they were not decorated. The right wall had very little art, but it did have some.

The Watcher started humming again, and the First joined her, and then Jonokol. Ayla waited. They faced the right wall first, but for no reason that Ayla could understand, it didn't resonate well. One panel had three black rhinoceroses — one complete with a black band around its middle, another that was just an outline, and a third that was just a head — three lions, a bear, the head of a bison, and a vulva. She had the feeling they were telling a story, perhaps about women, and she wished she knew what it was. They turned around and faced the left wall. Now the cave sang back.

At a quick look, the first part of the left wall seemed to be divided into three major sections. Very near the beginning of the space were three lions side by side facing right, shown in perspective by the line of the back. The biggest one farthest away was about eight feet long, painted in black and showing his scrotum so there was no doubt about his gender. The middle one was made with a red line, and also showed he was male. The one closest was smaller and female. As she looked at the drawing, Ayla wasn't sure about the middle one. There wasn't a third head, and it may have been there for perspective, and therefore it was just a lion couple. Though simple, the lines were very expressive. Above their backs, she could faintly make out three engraved mammoths made with a finger. Lions predominated in this part of the cave. To the right of the lions was a rhinoceros, and to the right of that were three more lions facing left that seemed to be staring at the other lions and two rhinos, which gave a certain balance to the panel.

All the paintings in this section were located at a level that could be reached by a person standing on the ground, except for one mammoth engraved high up on the wall. Many of the paintings were on top of bear claw markings, but there were also a few claw marks on top of them. So bears had visited after the people left.

There was a niche in the centre of the next section. To the left of it were faded red lions and dots superimposed by black lions. Then a section with a rhino with multiple horns, eight in perspective, so that it appeared to be eight rhinos side by side and many more rhinos. To the right of the rhino panel was the niche, and painted inside it was a horse. Two black rhinos and a mammoth were painted above it, and impressions of animals emerging from deep in the rocks, the horse coming out of the niche, a massive bison coming from a crack, from the Other World, then mammoths, and a rhinoceros.

The section to the right of the niche had primarily two animals, lions and bison — lions hunting bison. The bison were crowded together in a herd on the left side, and the lions were straining toward them from the right, as though waiting for a signal to pounce. The lions were beautifully fierce, as she knew they should be; the cave lion was her totem. To Ayla, this was the most spectacular chamber in the whole cave. There was so much, she could not absorb it all, but she wanted to. The big panel ended at a ridge that formed a kind of second niche, a shallow one, with a complete black rhinoceros emerging from the world of the spirits. On the other side of the niche a bison was drawn with its head on one plane, seen full face, and its body in profile on another perpendicular to it, very effective.

Below the bison was a triangular cavity with two lion heads and the forequarters of another lion facing right. Above the lions was a black rhinoceros with streaks of red showing wounds and blood coming out of its mouth. Beyond that a wide rock pendant showed the place where the ceiling descended until it was perpendicular to the right wall. Three lions and another animal were painted on its internal surface, but visible from the chamber. Just before the ceiling descended, a protrusion of rock stood out and descended vertically, ending in a rounded point. It had four faces all richly decorated.

'To understand it fully, you need to see all the way around it,' the Watcher said, showing Ayla the full composite figure. The forequarters of a bison on top of human legs with a large vulva between them, shaded black, with vertical engraving at the lower point. It was the bottom of a woman's body with a bison head above, and a lion around the back of the pendant. 'The shape of that pendant has always looked to me like a man's organ.'

'It does, doesn't it,' Ayla agreed.

'There are a couple of small rooms that have some interesting paintings,' the Watcher said. 'If you like, I'll show you.'

'Yes. I'd like to see as much as I can before we have to leave,' Ayla said.

'You can see here, behind the male pendant, there are three lions. And after the bleeding rhino, there is a little corridor that leads to a beautiful horse,' the Watcher said, leading her to show the way. 'And here is the big bison at the end of the panel. Inside this area is a big lion, and some little horses. The area across the way is very hard to get into.'

Ayla walked back toward the beginning of the chamber to where the First was resting on a stone. The rest of the visitors were nearby.

'Well, what do you think, Ayla?' the woman asked.

'I am so glad you brought me here. I think this is the most beautiful cave I have ever seen. It's more than a cave, but I don't know a word for it. When I lived with the Clan I didn't know you could see something in real life and make something that looked like it out of something else.' Ayla looked around for Jondalar, and smiled when she saw him. He came closer and stood with his arm around her, which was what she wanted. She needed to share this with him. 'Then when I went to live with the Mamutoi and saw the things Ranec could make out of ivory, and others could make using leather and beads, and sometimes just a stick making marks on a smooth floor of dirt, I was amazed.'

She stopped and looked down at the damp clay floor of the cave. All the people with their flickering torches were gathered together in one place. The pool of light didn't spread very far and the animals painted on the walls were just hints in the darkness, more like the fleeting glimpses that most people saw in the world outside.

'On this trip, and before, we have seen other paintings and drawings that were beautiful, and some that were not so beautiful, but remarkable just the same. I don't know how people do this, and I can't begin to know why. I think it's done to please the Mother and I'm sure it must, and maybe to tell Her story, or some other stories. Maybe people do it just because they can. Like Jonokol, he thinks of something to paint, and he can do it, so he does it. It's the same when you sing, Zelandoni. Most people can sing, more or less, but no one can sing like you. When you sing, I don't want to do anything but listen. It makes me feel good inside. That's how I feel when I look at these painted caves. It's how I feel when Jondalar looks at me with his eyes full of love. It feels like the ones who made these images are looking at me with eyes full of love.'

She looked down at the floor because she was fighting back tears. She could usually control her tears, but she was having trouble this time.

'I think that's how the Mother must feel, too,' Ayla finished, her eyes glistening in the flickering light.

Now I know why she's mated, the Watcher thought. She's going to be a remarkable Zelandoni; she already is, but she couldn't do it without him. Maybe that's what the Mother meant him to do. Then she started to hum. Jonokol joined her. His singing always seemed to make others' songs sound better. Then Willamar joined in just singing syllables. His voice was adequate, but it added to the music they sang together. Then Jondalar joined them. He had a good voice, but he didn't sing except when others did. Then with the voices making a background chorus that resonated inside the stone cave that was so beautifully decorated, the One Who Was First Among Those Who Served The Great Earth Mother began where she had left off with the Mother's Song.

And Her luminous friend was prepared to contest,The thief who held captive the child of Her breast.Together they fought for the son She adored.Their efforts succeeded, his light was restored.His energy burned. His brilliance returned. But the bleak frigid dark craved his bright glowing heat.The Mother defended and would not retreat.The whirlwind pulled hard, She refused to let go.She fought to a draw with Her dark swirling foe.She held darkness at bay. But Her son was away. When She fought the whirlwind and made chaos flee,The light from Her son glowed with vitality.When the Mother grew tired, the bleak void held sway,And darkness returned at the end of the day.She felt warmth from Her son. But neither had won. The Great Mother lived with the pain in Her heart,That She and Her son were forever apart.She ached for the child that had been denied,So She quickened once more from the life force inside.She was not reconciled. To the loss of Her child.When She was ready, Her waters of birth,Brought back the green life to the cold barren Earth.And the tears of Her loss, abundantly spilled,Made dew drops that sparkled and rainbows that thrilled.Birth waters brought green. But Her tears could be seen.With a thunderous roar Her stones split asunder,And from the great cave that opened deep under,She birthed once again from Her cavernous room,And brought forth the Children of Earth from Her womb.From the Mother forlorn, more children were born. Each child was different, some were large and some small,Some could walk and some fly, some could swim and some crawl.But each form was perfect, each spirit complete,Each one was a model whose shape could repeat.The Mother was willing. The green earth was filling. All the birds and the fish and the animals born,Would not leave the Mother, this time, to mourn.Each kind would live near the place of its birth,And share the expanse of the Great Mother Earth.Close to Her they would stay. They could not run away. They all were her children, they filled Her with prideBut they used up the life force She carried inside.She had enough left for a last innovation,A child who'd remember Who made the creation.A child who'd respect. And learn to protect. First Woman was born full grown and alive,And given the Gifts she would need to survive.Life was the First Gift, and like Mother Earth,She woke to herself knowing life had great worth.First Woman defined. The first of her kind. Next was the Gift of Perception, of learning,The desire to know, the Gift of Discerning.First Woman was given the knowledge within,That would help her to live, and pass on to her kin.First Woman would know, How to learn, how to grow. Her life force near gone, The Mother was spent,To pass on Life's Spirit had been Her intent.She caused all of Her children to create life anew,And Woman was blessed to bring forth life, too.But Woman was lonely. She was the only.The Mother remembered Her own loneliness,The love of Her friend and his hovering caress.With the last spark remaining, Her labour began,To share life with Woman, She created First Man.Again She was giving. One more was living. To Woman and Man the Mother gave birth,And then for their home, She gave them the Earth,The water, the land, and all Her creation.To use them with care was their obligation.It was their home to use, But not to abuse. For the Children of Earth the Mother provided,The Gifts to survive, and then She decided,To give them the Gift of Pleasure and sharing,That honours the Mother with the joy of their pairing.The Gifts are well earned, When honour's returned. The Mother was pleased with the pair She created,She taught them to love and to care when they mated.She made them desire to join with each other,The Gift of their Pleasures came from the Mother.Before She was through, Her children loved too.Earth's Children were blessed. The Mother could rest.

The silence was profound when they finished. Each person standing there felt the power of the Mother and the Mother's Song, more than they ever had. They looked at the paintings again and were more conscious of the animals that seemed to be emerging from the cracks and shadows of the cave, as though the Mother was creating them, giving birth to them, bringing them from the Other World, the spirit world, the Mother's great underworld.

Then they heard a sound that sent a chill through them, the mewling of a lion cub. It changed to the sounds a young lion made when it called for its mother, then to the first attempts of a young male lion trying to roar, and finally the huffing and grunting that led up to a full blown roar of a male lion claiming his own.

'How does she do that?' the Watcher asked. 'It sounds like a lion going through stages of growth. How does she know that?'

'She raised a lion, took care of him when he was growing up, and taught him to hunt with her,' Jondalar said, 'and roared with him.'

'Did she tell you that?' the Watcher asked, a hint of doubt in her tone.

'Well, yes, sort of. He came back to visit her when I was healing in her valley, but he didn't like seeing me there, and attacked. Ayla stepped in front of me and he twisted himself around and stopped cold. Then she rolled around on the ground and hugged him, and got on his back and rode him, like she does Whinney. Except I don't think he would go where she wanted, only where he wanted to take her. He did bring her back, though. Then, after I asked her, she told me,' Jondalar said.

His story was straightforward enough to be convincing. The Watcher just shook her head. 'I think we should all light new torches,' she said. 'There should be at least one left for each of us, and I have some lamps, too.'

'I think we should wait with the torches until we all get back out of this corridor,' Willamar said.

'Yes, you're right,' Jonokol said. 'Will you hold mine?' he said to the Watcher.

Jonokol, Jondalar, Ayla, and Willamar literally lifted the First up some of the bigger drops, while the Watcher held up the torches to light the way. She threw one that had burned to almost nothing into one of the hearths that were lined up against the walls. When they reached the painted horses, everyone took a new torch. The Watcher stubbed out the ones that were partially burned and put them back in her backframe; then they started back the way they had come. No one said much, just looked again at the animals as they passed by. Before they reached the entrance they noticed how much light found its way deeper into the cave.

At the entrance, Jonokol stopped. 'Will you take me back into the large area in that other room?'

'Of course,' she said without asking why. She knew.

'I'd like to go with you, Zelandoni of the Nineteenth Cave,' Ayla said.

'I'm glad. I'd like you to. You can hold my torch,' he said with a grin.

She was the one who found the White Cave, and he was the first one she showed it to. She knew he was going to paint on those beautiful walls, although he might want some helpers. The three of them went back into the second room of the Bear Cave while the rest went out. The Watcher took them in a shorter way, and she knew where to take him, to the place where he had looked when they first went into this part of the cave. He found the secluded recess, and the ancient concretion he had seen before.

Taking out a flint knife, he went to the basin-topped stalagmite and in its base, in one accomplished movement, he carved the forehead, nose, mouth, jaw, and cheek, then two stronger lines for the mane and back of a horse. He looked at it a moment, then engraved the head of a second horse facing the opposite way on top of the first one. The stone of this one was a little harder to cut through, and the forehead line was not as precise, but he went back and cut individual hairs of a stand-up mane spaced at consistent intervals. Then he stepped back and looked.

'I wanted to add to this cave, but I wasn't sure if I should until after the First sang the Mother's Song deep in this cave,' the Zelandoni of the Nineteenth Cave of the Zelandonii said.

'I told you it was the Mother's choice, and you would know. Now I know. It was appropriate,' the Watcher said.

'It was the right thing to do,' Ayla said. 'Perhaps it is time for me to stop calling you Jonokol and start referring to you as the Zelandoni of the Nineteenth.'

'Perhaps in public, but between us I hope I will always be Jonokol and you will be Ayla,' he said.

'I would like that,' Ayla said; then she turned to the Watcher. 'In my mind I think of your name as the Watcher, as the one who watches over, but if you don't mind, I would like to know the name you were born with.'

'I was called Dominica,' she said, 'and I will always think of you as Ayla no matter what happens, even if you become the First.'

Ayla shook her head. 'That is not likely. I am a foreigner with a strange accent.'

'It doesn't matter,' Dominica said. 'We acknowledge the First, even if we don't know her or him. And I like your accent. I think it makes you stand out, as the One Who Is First should.' Then she led them back out of the cave.

All that evening Ayla thought about the remarkable cave. There had been so much to see, to take in, it made her wish she could see it again. People were talking that evening about what to do with Gahaynar, and she kept finding her mind straying back to the cave. He appeared to be recovering from the severe beating he had received. Though he would carry the scars for the rest of his life, he seemed to hold no ill feelings toward the people who had done it. If anything, he seemed grateful not only to be alive, but that the zelandonia were taking care of him.

He knew what he had done, even if no one else did. Balderan and the others had died for not much worse. He didn't know why he had been spared, except that silently, while Balderan was planning how to kill the foreign woman, he had begged the Mother to save him. He knew they would never get away and he didn't want to die.

'He seems sincere in his wish to make reparations,' Zelandoni First said. 'Perhaps because he knows now that he can be made to pay for his actions, but it appears that the Mother has decided to spare him.'

'Does anyone know to which Cave he was born?' The First asked. 'Does he have relatives?'

'Yes, he has a mother,' said one of the other Zelandonia. 'I don't know of any other kin, but I think she's quite old and is losing her memories.'

'That's the answer then,' said the First. 'He should be sent back to his Cave to care for his mother.'

'But how is that reparations? It's his own mother,' said another Zelandoni.

'It won't necessarily be easy if she continues to deteriorate, but it will relieve the Cave of having to look after her, and it will give him something worthwhile to do. I don't think it was something he planned to do as long as he was with Balderan, taking whatever he wanted without having to work for it. He should be made to work, to hunt for himself, or at least assist in communal hunts with his Cave, and to personally help his mother with whatever she needs.'

'I guess that's not something a man necessarily likes to do, to take care of an old woman,' the other Zelandoni said, 'even his own mother.'

Ayla had only been half listening, but she understood the gist of it and thought it was a good plan, and then went back to thinking about the Most Ancient Sacred Site. She finally decided that sometime in the next day or two, she would go back into the cave, alone, or perhaps with Wolf.

In the late morning the next day Ayla asked Levela if she would watch Jonayla again, and check to see how her meat was drying. She had put out another load of bison meat on the cords and thought this might be a good time to satisfy her desire to see the Most Ancient Sacred Site once more.

'I'm going to take Wolf and go back to the cave. I just want to see it again before we leave. Who knows how soon, if ever, we'll be back here again.'

She packed several torches and a couple of stone lamps, along with some lichen wicks and some tied-off sections of intestine filled with fat that she put in a double-layered leather pouch. She checked her fire-making kit to make sure she had adequate materials — a firestone and flint, tinder, kindling, and some larger pieces of wood. She filled her waterbag and packed a cup for herself and a bowl for Wolf to drink from. She took her medicine bag with some extra packets of tea, although she doubted that she would make tea inside the cave, her good knife, and some warm clothes for wearing inside the cave, but she didn't bother with foot coverings. She was used to going barefoot and the soles of her feet were nearly as hard as hooves.

She whistled for Wolf and started walking up the path to the cave. When she reached the large entrance, she glanced at the sheltered corner. There was no fire burning in the fireplace and when she peeked into the sleeping structure, she saw that it was empty. The Watcher wasn't there this day. Usually she was told when people would be coming to visit the Most Ancient Sacred Site, and Ayla just decided to go without making prior arrangements.

She started a small fire in the fireplace and lit a torch, then holding it high, she started in, signalling Wolf to follow. She was aware again of how large the cave was, and of the disordered nature of the first rooms. Columns detached from the ceiling and tipped over, and huge blocks and fallen rock and rubble scattered around the floor. The light penetrated into the cave quite a distance and she went in the way they originally had, to the left and straight ahead into the huge room with the bear wallows. Wolf stayed close to her side.

She kept to the right side of the passage, knowing that except for the large right-hand room, which she planned to visit on her way out, there would not be much to see until she was halfway into the cave. She did not plan to stay in the cave too long or to try to see everything again, just certain things. She proceeded into the chamber with the bear hollows and followed the right wall around until she came to the next room at the end of it, then looked for the thick blade-shaped rock that descended from the ceiling.

There it was as she remembered, painted in red, the leopard with the long tail and the hyena-bear. Was it a hyena or was it a bear? Yes, the shape of the head gave it the look of a cave bear, but the muzzle was longer and the tuft on the top of the head along with a bit of a mane looked like the stiff hair of a hyena. None of the other bears in this cave had that slender, long-legged shape — look at the second bear painted above it! I don't know what the artist was trying to say with this painting, she thought, but it looks to me like it is a painting of a hyena, even though it is the only hyena I have ever seen painted in any cave. But I've never seen a leopard, either. There is a bear, a hyena, and a leopard painted in this place, all strong, dangerous animals. I wonder what the Travelling Storytellers would say about this scene?

Ayla passed by the next series of images, looking but not lingering — possible insects, a line of rhinoceroses, lions, horses, mammoths, signs, dots, handprints; she smiled at the red drawing of the little bear, so like the other bears in this cave, but smaller. She recalled that at this point in the cave the Watcher had turned left, then continued to follow the right wall. The next space had evidence of cave bears, and the floor was about five feet lower, which led to the next room, the one with the deep hole in the middle.

This was the room where all the drawings, or engravings, were white because the white surfaces were covered with vermiculite, a soft light brown clay. Of all the white engravings, she particularly noticed the rhinoceros emerging from a crack in the wall and stayed to look at it. Why did the ancients paint these animals on the walls inside caves, she wondered? Why did Jonokol want to carve a drawing of two horses in that room near the entrance to this cave? His mind wasn't in any other place when he did it, like all the zelandonia who drank the tea in that sacred site of the Seventh Cave of the South Land Zelandonii. The artists probably wouldn't be capable of creating such remarkable images if they were. They had to think about what they were doing.

Did they make them for themselves or to show others? And what others? The other people of their cave or for the other zelandonia? Some of the larger rooms in certain caves could accommodate many people, and sometimes ceremonies were held in them, but many of the images were made in small caves or very cramped spaces in larger caves. They must have been made for themselves, for their own reasons. Were they looking for something in the spirit world? Perhaps a spirit animal of their own, like her lion totem, or a spirit animal that would bring them closer to the Mother? Whenever she tried to ask Zelandoni, she never got a satisfactory answer. Was that something she was supposed to find out for herself?

Wolf had been staying close, hugging the wall that Ayla was following. She carried the only light in the entire pitch-black cave; although his other senses gave him more information about his surroundings than her single torch, he liked being able to see as well.

The way that she knew she had reached the next section of the cave was the noticeable reduction in the height of ceiling. There were more mammoths and bison and deer on the walls and pendants, some in white engraving, some in one area drawn in black. This was the room with the cave bear skull on the flat-topped rock, and Ayla walked over to see it again. She stayed a while, thinking again of Creb and the Clan, before she continued. Banks of grey clay seemed to surround this chamber, which she climbed up to reach the last room, the one the First did not visit. She noticed traces of bear prints on the clay, which she hadn't seen the first time she was there. Two high steps brought her into the next space.

She found herself in the middle of the room; the ceiling was too low to walk along the sides. She decided it was time to light another torch, then wiped the remains of the first torch on the low ceiling to knock the fire off its small stub. Once she was certain the fire was out, she tucked what was left of the first torch into her backframe. She had to stoop in order to continue along the natural path, and at the base of a pendant she noticed a horizontal row of seven little red dots next to a series of black dots. Finally after another forty feet it was possible to stand erect again.

There were several more black torch marks; other people had evidently used this area to clean their torches. At the back the ceiling slanted down toward the floor. It was covered with a fine yellow coating of softened stone that had broken into vermiculations — little wormlike wavy lines. On this slanted surface the simple outline of a horse had been drawn primarily using two fingers. Because of the way the wall slanted, it was very difficult for the artist to draw, requiring that his or her head be bent backward the whole time, and never being able to get an overall view while the drawing was being worked on. It was slightly out of proportion, but it was the very last drawing in the cave. She noticed a couple of mammoths had also been outlined on the slanting ceiling.

Ayla detected an odour and looked around, then understood that Wolf had relieved himself. She smiled. It couldn't be helped. As she turned around to go back, she wondered if there was a way out of the cave from here, but it was just a random thought. She wasn't going to look for it. As she walked out closer to the wall, she felt her feet sink into the cold, soft clay floor; Wolf followed after her, walking in the same soft clay. After she climbed down out of this last room, the wall that had been on her right was now on her left. She passed the panel of scraped mammoths, then came to one of the sections she was looking forward to seeing again — the horses painted in black.

She studied the wall more carefully this time. She saw that the soft brown layer had been scraped off a large section of the wall to bring out the white limestone underneath, which included most of the previous engraving of a rhinoceros and a mammoth. The black colouring was charcoal, but because of the way the artist used it, some places were darker and and some lighter to make the horses and other animals look more lifelike. Although the horses were what drew her, they were not the first animals on the panel — aurochs were. And the lions inside the niche made her smile again. That female just wasn't interested in that young male. She was sitting down and not budging.

Ayla slowly walked the length of the painted wall until she came to the entrance of the long gallery that led to the last room of paintings, and saw the giant deer painted high up on the right. This was also where the hearths to make charcoal were lined up along the wall. The walkway started dropping down. When she made the last big drop and came to the last room, she walked even more slowly. She loved the lions, perhaps because they were her totem, but they were so real. She reached the end and examined the final pendant, the one that looked like a male organ. It had a female vulva painted on it, with human legs, and was part bison and part lion. She felt sure someone had been telling a story there, too. Finally, she turned around and started back and when she reached the beginning of the chamber, she stopped and looked around.

She wanted to leave with a memory, the way the First sang to the cave. She couldn't sing, but she smiled when she thought of something she could do. She could roar like she did the first time she was here. Like lions often did, she began the hunka-hunka buildup to her roar. When she finally let it out, it was the best roar she could make; it even made Wolf cringe a little.

They had planned to get off to an early start, but Amelana started into labour early in the morning, so of course, the visiting Zelandonia couldn't leave. Amelana had a healthy baby boy by evening, and her mother provided a celebratory meal afterward. They didn't start off on their return trip until the following morning, and by then the leave-taking was rather anticlimactic.

The composition of the travellers had changed again. With Kimeran, Beladora, and the two children gone, and Amelana no longer travelling with them, there were only eleven left and they had to organise themselves differently. With only Jonlevan to play with, who was a year younger, Jonayla missed her friends. Jondecam felt the loss of Kimeran, his uncle who was more brother, and didn't realise how much they had understood each other when they worked together. It saddened him to think he might never see him again. The only women were Ayla, Levela, and the First and they felt the loss of Beladora, and the young antics of Amelana. It took a while to settle into a travelling routine again.

They followed the river downstream, and when it joined the larger river, continued to follow it as it made its way south. They could see the large expanse of the Southern Sea a full day before they reached it, but the panorama offered a glimpse of more than a vast stretch of water. They saw herds of reindeer and megaceroses, a matriarchal crowd of woolly mammoths along with their young of every age, and a collection of woolly rhinoceroses. There were also the beginnings of a coming together of various ungulates like aurochs and bisons in preparation for the fall, when throngs in the thousands would gather for the fighting and mating. Horses were moving toward their winter grazing grounds. There was a cool breeze blowing in from the sea; the Southern Sea was a cold sea, and looking out over the expanse of cold water made Ayla realise the season would be turning soon.

They found the traders Conardi had spoken of, and Conardi himself. He made the introductions, and it turned out that Ayla's baskets were a desirable item. For people who travelled with things, which traders did, well-made containers were a necessity. Ayla spent the first evening they were camped there making more baskets. Jondalar's flint points and tools were also well liked. Willamar's skill and experience as a trader came to the fore. He organised all of them into a trading bloc and included Conardi in it.

He would offer combinations of things, often to more than one person, like a supply of dry meat and a basket to carry it in. He acquired many shells for beads, and was grateful to have some of Ayla's baskets in which to hold them. He also got salt for Ayla and a necklace for Marthona made by one of the shell collectors, and some other things that he wasn't telling everyone about.

Once they were done with their trading, they began the return trip. They travelled faster than their initial journey. For one thing, they knew the way, and they weren't stopping to visit or to see painted caves. And the changing weather was pushing them. They were well stocked with provisions so they didn't have to hunt as often. They did go to visit Camora again. She was very disappointed to learn that Kimeran had changed his plans and was staying with his mate's people. She and Jondecam were talking about him as though he were gone for good until the First reminded them that he did plan to return.

They had to wait again when they reached Big River because a storm had made the crossing too difficult until it settled down again. It was an anxious time because they didn't want to be stranded on the wrong side of the river for the season. Finally it cleared up and they made the crossing, although it was still rough. Once they reached The River they could hardly wait. They had to walk upstream because there were no rafts, and it would have been too strenuous to try to paddle upstream in any case.

When they finally spied the huge stone shelter that was the Ninth Cave, they were ready to break into a run, but they didn't have to. Lookouts had been posted to watch for them, and a signal fire was lit when they were spotted. Nearly the entire community of Caves turned out to meet them and welcome them back home.