The Valley Of Horses

7

Ayla wiped the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead and smiled at the little yellow horse who had nudged her, trying to insinuate her muzzle under the woman's hand. The filly didn't like to let Ayla out of her sight and followed her everywhere. Ayla didn't mind, she wanted the company.

"Little horse, how much grain should I pick for you?" Ayla motioned. The small, hay-colored foal watched her motions closely. It made Ayla think of herself when she was a young girl just learning the sign language of the Clan. "Are you trying to learn to talk? Well, understand, anyway. You'd have trouble talking without hands, but you seem to be trying to understand me."

Ayla's speech incorporated a few sounds; her clan's ordinary language wasn't entirely silent, only the ancient formal language was. The filly's ears perked up when she spoke a word out loud.

"You're listening, aren't you, little filly?" Ayla shook her head. "I keep calling you little filly, little horse. It doesn't feel right. I think you need a name. Is that what you are listening for, the sound of your name? I wonder what your dam called you? I don't think I could say it if I knew."

The young horse was watching her intently, knowing Ayla was paying attention to her when she moved her hands in that way. She nickered when Ayla stopped.

"Are you answering me? Whiiinneeey!" Ayla tried to mimic her and made a fair approximation of a horse's whinny. The young horse responded to the almost familiar sound with a toss of her head and an answering neigh.

"Is that your name?" Ayla motioned with a smile. The foal tossed her head again, bounded off a ways, then came back. The woman laughed. "All little horses must have the same name, then, or maybe I can't tell the difference." Ayla whinnied again and the horse whinnied back, and they played the game for a while. It made her think of the game of sounds she used to play with her son, except Durc could make any sound she could. Creb had told her she made many sounds when they first found her, and she knew she could make some no one else could. It had pleased her when she discovered her son could make them, too.

Ayla turned back to picking grain from the tall einkorn wheat. Emmer wheat grew in the valley, too, and rye grass similar to the kind that grew near the clan's cave. She was thinking about naming the horse. I've never named anyone before. She smiled to herself. Wouldn't they think I was strange, naming a horse. Not any stranger than living with one. She watched the young animal racing and frisking playfully. I'm so glad she lives with me, Ayla thought, feeling a lump in her throat. It's not so lonely with her around. I don't know what I'd do if I lost her now. I am going to name her.

The sun was on its way down when Ayla stopped and glanced at the sky. It was a big sky, vast, empty. Not a single cloud measured its depth nor arrested the eye from infinity. Only the distant incandescence in the west, whose wavering circumference was revealed in afterimage, marred the rich, uniformly blue expanse. Judging the amount of daylight left by the space between the radiance and the top of the cliff, she decided to stop.

The horse, noticing her attention was no longer on her task, whinnied and came to her. "Should we go back to the cave? Let's get a drink of water first." She put her arm around the neck of the young horse and walked toward the stream.

The foliage near the running water at the base of the steep southern wall was a slow-motion kaleidoscope of color, reflecting the rhythm of the seasons; now deep somber greens of pine and fir dabbed with vivid golds, paler yellows, dry browns, and fiery reds. The sheltered valley was a bright swatch amidst the muted beige of the steppes, and the sun was warmer within its wind-protected walls. For all the fall colors, it had felt like a warm summer day, a misleading illusion.

"I think I should get more grass. You're starting to eat your bedding when I put it down fresh." Walking beside the horse, Ayla continued her monologue, then unconsciously stopped the hand motions, her thoughts alone carrying on the thread. Iza always collected grass in fall for winter bedding. It smelled so good when she changed it, especially when the snow was deep and the wind blowing outside. I used to love falling asleep listening to the wind and smelling summer-fresh hay.

When she saw the direction they were going, the horse trotted ahead. Ayla smiled indulgently. "You must be as thirsty as I am, little whiiinneey," she said, making the sound out loud in response to the filly's call. That does sound like a name for a horse, but naming should be done properly.

"Whinney! Whiiinneeey!" she called. The animal perked up her head, looked toward the woman, then trotted to her.

Ayla rubbed her head and scratched her. She was shedding her prickly baby coat and growing in longer winter hair, and she always loved a scratching. "I think you like that name, and it suits you, my little horse baby. I think we should have a naming ceremony. I can't pick you up in my arms, though, and Creb isn't here to mark you. I guess I'll have to be the mog-ur and do it." She smiled. Imagine, a woman mog-ur.

Ayla started back toward the river again but veered upstream when she noticed she was near the open place where she had dug the pit trap. She had filled in the hole, but the young horse spooked around it, sniffing and snorting and pawing the ground, bothered by some lingering odor or memory. The herd had not returned since the day they raced down the length of the valley, away from her fire and her noise.

She led the filly to drink nearer the cave. The cloudy stream, engorged with fall runoff, had receded from its high point, leaving a slurry of rich brown mud at the water's edge. It squished under Ayla's feet and left a brownish red stain on her skin, and it reminded her of the red ochre paste Mog-ur used for ceremonial purposes, like namings. She swished her finger around in the mud and made a mark on her leg, then smiled and scooped up a handful.

I was going to look for red ochre, she thought, but this might do as well. Closing her eyes, Ayla tried to remember what Creb had done when he named her son. She could see his ravaged old face, with a flap of skin covering the place where an eye should have been, his large nose, his overhanging brow ridges and low sloping forehead. His beard had gotten thin and scraggly, and his hairline had receded, but she remembered him the way he had looked that day. Not young, but at the peak of his power. She had loved that magnificent, craggy old face.

Suddenly all her emotions came flooding back. Her fear that she would lose her son and her utter joy at the sight of a bowl of red ochre paste. She swallowed hard several times, but the lump in her throat would not go down, and she wiped a tear away, not knowing she left a smudge of brown in its place. The little horse leaned against her, nuzzling for affection, almost as though she sensed Ayla's need. The woman knelt down and hugged the animal, resting her forehead against the sturdy neck of the little filly.

This is supposed to be your naming ceremony, she thought, gaining control of herself. The mud had squeezed out between her fingers. She scooped up another handful, then reached toward the sky with the other hand, as Creb had always done with his abbreviated one-handed gestures, calling for the spirits to attend. Then she hesitated, not sure if she should invoke the Clan spirits at the naming of a horse – they might not approve. She dipped her fingers into the mud in her hand and made a streak down the foal's face, from her forehead to the end of her nose, as Creb had drawn a line with the paste of red ochre from the place where Durc's brow ridges met to the tip of his rather small nose.

"Whinney," she said aloud, and finished with the formal language. "This girl's… this female horse's name is Whinney."

The horse shook her head, trying to rid herself of the wet mud on her face, making Ayla laugh. "It will dry up and wear off soon, Whinney."

She washed her hands, adjusted the basketful of grain on her back, and walked slowly to the cave. The naming ceremony had reminded her too much of her solitary existence. Whinney was a warm living creature and eased her loneliness, but by the time Ayla reached the rocky beach, tears had come unbidden, unnoticed.

She coaxed and guided the young horse up the steep path to her cave, which roused her out of her grief somewhat. "Come on, Whinney, you can do it. I know you're not an ibex or a saiga antelope, but it only takes getting used to."

They reached the top of the wall that was the front extension of her cave and went in. Ayla rekindled the banked fire and started some grain cooking. The young filly was now eating grass and grain and didn't need specially prepared food, but Ayla made mashes for her because Whinney liked them.

She took a brace of rabbits, caught earlier in the day, outside to skin them while it was still light, brought them in to cook, and rolled up the skins until she was ready to process them. She had accumulated a large supply of animal skins: rabbits, hares, hamsters, whatever she caught. She wasn't sure how she was going to use them, but she carefully cured and saved them all. During the winter she might think of a use for them. If it got cold enough, she'd just pile them around her.

Winter was on her mind as the days grew shorter and the temperature fell. She didn't know how long or harsh it would be, which worried her. A sudden attack of anxiety sent her checking her stores, though she knew exactly what she had. She looked through baskets and bark containers of dried meat, fruits and vegetables, seeds, nuts, and grains. In the dark corner farthest from the entrance, she examined piles of whole, sound roots and fruits to make sure no signs of rot had appeared.

Along the rear wall were stacks of wood, dried horse dung from the field, and mounds of dry grass. More baskets of grain, for Whinney, were stashed in the opposite corner.

Ayla walked back to the hearth to check the grain cooking in a tightly woven basket and turn the rabbits, then past her bed and personal belongings along the wall near it, to examine herbs, roots, and barks suspended from a rack. She had sunk the posts for it in the packed earth of the cave not too far from the fireplace, so the seasonings, tea, and medicines would benefit from the heat as they dried, but would not be too close to the fire.

She had no clan to tend and didn't need all the medicines, but she had kept Iza's pharmacopoeia well stocked after the old woman became too weak, and she was accustomed to gathering the medicines along with food. On the other side of the herb rack was an assortment of various materials: chunks of wood, sticks and branches, grasses and barks, hides, bones, several rocks and stones, even a basket of sand from the beach.

She didn't like to dwell too much on the long, lonely, inactive winter ahead. But she knew there would be no ceremonies with feasting and storytelling, no new babies to anticipate, no gossiping, or conversations, or discussions of medical lore with Iza or Uba, no watching the men discuss hunting tactics. She planned instead to spend her time making things – the more difficult and time-consuming, the better – to keep herself as busy as possible.

She looked over some of the solid chunks of wood. They ranged from small to large so she could make bowls of various sizes. Gouging out the inside and shaping it with a hand-axe used as an adze, and a knife, then rubbing it smooth with a round rock and sand could take days; she planned to make several. Some of the small hides would be made into hand coverings, leggings, footwear linings, others would be dehaired and worked so well that they would be as soft and pliable as baby's skin, but very absorbent.

Her collection of beargrass, cattail leaves and stalks, reeds, willow switches, roots of trees, would be made into baskets, tightly woven or of looser weave in intricate patterns, for cooking, eating, storage containers, winnowing trays, serving trays, mats for sitting upon, serving or drying food. She would make cordage, in thicknesses from string to rope, from fibrous plants, barks and the sinew and long tail of the horse; and lamps out of stone with shallow wells pecked out to be filled with fat and a dried moss wick which burned with no smoke. She had kept the fat of carnivorous animals separate for that use. Not that she wouldn't eat it if she had to, it was just a matter of taste preference.

There were flat hipbones and shoulder bones to be shaped into plates and platters, others for ladles or stirrers; fuzz from various plants to be used for tinder or stuffing, along with feathers and hair; several nodules of flint and implements to shape it with. She had passed many a slow winter day making similar objects and implements, necessary for existence, but she also had a supply of materials for objects she was not accustomed to making, though she had watched men make them often enough: hunting weapons.

She wanted to make spears, clubs shaped to fit the hand, new slings. She thought she might even try a bola, although skill with that weapon took as much practice as the sling. Brun was the expert with the bola; just making the weapon was a skill in itself. Three stones had to be pecked round, into balls, then attached to cords and fastened together with the proper length and balance.

Would he teach Durc? Ayla wondered.

Daylight was fading and her fire was nearly out. The grain had absorbed all the water and softened. She took a bowlful for herself, then added water and prepared the rest for Whinney. She poured it into a watertight basket and brought it to the animal's sleeping place against the wall on the opposite side of the cave mouth.

For the first few days down on the beach, Ayla had slept with the little horse, but she decided the foal should have her own place up in the cave. While she used dried horse dung for fuel, she found little use for fresh droppings on her sleeping furs, and the foal seemed unhappy about it as well. The time would come when the horse would be too big to sleep with, and her bed wasn't big enough for both of them, though she often lay down and cuddled the baby animal in the place she had made for her.

"It should be enough," Ayla motioned to the horse. She was developing a habit of talking to her, and the young horse was beginning to respond to certain signals. "I hope I gathered enough for you. I wish I knew how long the winters are here." She was feeling rather edgy and a little depressed. If it hadn't been dark, she would have gone for a brisk walk. Or better, a long run.

When the horse started chewing on her basket, Ayla brought her an armload of fresh hay. "Here, Whinney, chew on this. You're not supposed to eat your food dish!" Ayla felt like paying special attention to her young companion with petting and scratching. When she stopped, the foal nuzzled her hand and presented a flank that was in need of more attention.

"You must be very itchy." Ayla smiled and began scratching again. "Wait, I have an idea." She went back to the place where her miscellaneous materials were assembled and found a bundle of dried teasel. When the flower of the plant dried, it left an elongated egg-shaped spiny brush. She snapped one from its stem, and with it gently scratched the spot on Whinney's flank. One spot led to another and before she stopped, she had brushed and curried Whinney's entire shaggy coat, much to the young animal's evident delight.

Then she wrapped her arms around Whinney's neck and lay down on the fresh hay beside the warm young animal.

Ayla woke up with a start. She stayed very still with her eyes open wide, filled with forboding. Something was wrong. She felt a cold draft, then caught her breath. What was that snuffling noise? She wasn't sure if she had heard it, over the sound of the horse's breath and heartbeat. Did it come from the back of the cave? It was so dark, she couldn't see.

It was so dark… That was it! There was no warm red glow from the banked fire in the hearth. And her orientation to the cave wasn't right. The wall was on the wrong side, and the draft… There it was again! The snuffling and coughing! What am I doing in Whinney's place? I must have fallen asleep and forgotten to bank the fire. Now it's out. I haven't lost my fire since I found this valley.

Ayla shuddered and suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She had no word, no gesture, no concept for the presentiment that washed over her, but she felt it. The muscles of her back tightened. Something was going to happen. Something to do with fire. She knew it, as certainly as she knew she breathed.

She'd had these feelings occasionally, ever since the night she had followed Creb and the mog-urs into the small room deep in the cave of the clan that hosted the Gathering. Creb had discovered her, not because he saw her, but because he felt her. And she had felt him, inside her brain in some strange way. Then she had seen things she couldn't explain. Afterward, sometimes, she knew things. She knew when Broud was staring at her, though her back was turned. She knew the malignant hatred he felt for her in his heart. And she knew, before the earthquake, that there would be death and destruction in the clan's cave.

But she had not felt anything so strongly before. A deep sense of anxiety, fear – not about the fire, she realized, and not for herself. For someone she loved.

She got up, silently, and felt her way to the hearth, hoping there might be a small ember that could be rekindled. It was cold. Suddenly she had an urgent need to relieve herself, found the wall and followed it toward the entrance. A cold gust whipped her hair back from her face and rattled the dead coals in the fireplace, blowing up a cloud of ashes. She shivered.

As she stepped out, a strong wind buffeted her. She leaned into it and hugged the wall as she walked to the end of the stone ledge opposite the path, where she dumped her refuse.

No stars graced the sky, but the overcast cloud layer dif fused the moonlight to a uniform glow, making the black outside less complete than the black within the cave. But it was her ears, not her eyes, that warned her. She heard snuffling and breathing before she saw the slinking movement.

She reached for her sling, but it wasn't at her waist. She hadn't brought it. She had grown careless around her cave, depending on the fire to keep unwanted intruders away. But her fire was out, and a young horse was fair game for most predators.

Suddenly, from the mouth of the cave, she heard a loud whooping cackle. Whinney neighed, and it had a note of fear. The little horse was inside the stone chamber, and its only access was blocked by hyenas.

Hyenas! Ayla thought. There was something about the mad cackling sound of their laughter, their scruffy spotted fur, the way their backs sloped down from well-developed forelegs and shoulders to smaller hind legs giving them a cowering look, that irritated her. And she could never forget Oga's scream as she watched, helpless, while her son was dragged away. This time they were after Whinney.

She didn't have her sling, but that didn't stop her. It wasn't the first time she had acted without thinking of her own safety when someone else was threatened. She ran toward the cave, waving her fist and shouting.

"Get out of here! Get away!" They were verbal sounds, even in Clan language.

The animals scuttled off. Partly it was her assurance that made them back down, and, though the fire had gone out, its smell still lingered. But there was another element. Her scent was not commonly known to the beasts, but it was becoming familiar, and the last time it had been accompanied by hard-flung stones.

Ayla felt around inside the dark cave for her sling, angry with herself because she couldn't remember where she had put it. That won't happen again, she decided. I'm going to make a place for it and keep it there.

Instead, she gathered up her cooking stones – she knew where they were. When one bold hyena ventured close enough for his outline to be silhouetted in the cave opening, he discovered that, even without the sling, her aim was true, and the stones smarted. After a few more attempts, the hyenas decided the young horse wasn't such easy game after all.

Ayla groped in the dark for more stones and found one of the sticks she had been notching to mark the passage of time. She spent the rest of the night beside Whinney, prepared to defend the foal with only a stick, if necessary.

Fighting off sleep proved to be more difficult. She dozed for a while just before dawn, but the first streak of morning light found her out on the ledge with sling in hand. No hyenas were in sight. She went back in for her fur wrap and foot coverings. The temperature had taken a decided drop. The wind had shifted during the night. Blowing from the northeast, it was funneled by the long valley until, baffled by the jutting wall and the bend in the river, it blasted into her cave in erratic bursts.

She ran down the steep path with her waterbag and shattered a thin transparent film which had formed at the edge of the stream. The air had that enigmatic smell of snow. As she broke through the clear crust and dipped out icy water, she wondered how it could be so cold when it had been so warm the day before. It had changed fast. She had been too comfortable in her routine. It took only a change in the weather to remind her that she couldn't afford to become complacent.

Iza would have been upset with me for going to sleep without building the fire. Now I'll have to make a new one. I didn't think the wind would be able to blow into my cave either; it always comes from the north. That might have helped the fire go out. I should have banked it, but driftwood burns so hot when it's dry. It doesn't hold a fire well. Maybe I should chop down some green trees. They're harder to get started, but they burn slower. I should cut posts for a windscreen, too, and bring up more wood. Once it snows, it will be harder to get. I'll get my hand-axe and chop the trees before I make a fire. I don't want the wind to blow it out before I make a windscreen.

She picked up a few pieces of driftwood on her way back to the cave. Whinney was on the ledge and nickered a greeting, and butted her gently, looking for affection. Ayla smiled, but hurried into the cave, followed closely by Whinney, trying to get her nose under the woman's hand.

All right, Whinney, Ayla thought after she put the wood and water down. She patted and scratched the foal for a moment, then put some grain into her basket. She ate some cold leftover rabbit and wished she had some hot tea, but she drank cold water instead. It was cold in the cave. She blew on her hands and put them under her arms to warm them, then got out a basket of tools which she kept near the bed.

She had made a few new ones shortly after she arrived and had been meaning to make more, but something else always seemed more important. She picked out her hand-axe, the one she had carried with her, and took it outside to examine in better light. If handled properly, a hand-axe could be self-sharpening. Tiny spalls usually chipped off the edge with use, always leaving a sharp edge behind. But mishandling could cause a large flake to break off, or even break the brittle stone into fragments.

Ayla didn't notice the clop of Whinney's hooves coming up behind her; she was too accustomed to the sound. The young animal tried to put her nose in Ayla's hand.

"Oh, Whinney!" she cried, as the brittle flint hand-axe fell on the hard stone ledge and broke in several pieces. "That was my only hand-axe. I need it to chop wood." I don't know what is wrong, she thought. My fire goes out just when it turns cold. Hyenas come, as though they didn't expect to find a fire, all ready to attack you. And now, my only hand-axe breaks. She was getting worried, a streak of bad luck was not a good omen. I'll have to make a new hand-axe now, before I do anything else.

She picked up the pieces of the hand-axe – it might be possible to shape them to some other purpose – and put them near the cold fireplace. From a niche behind her sleeping place, she took out a bundle wrapped in the hide of a giant hamster and tied with a cord, and brought it down to the rocky beach.

Whinney followed, but when her nudging and butting caused the woman to push her away rather than pet her, she left Ayla to her stones and wandered around the wall into the valley.

Ayla unwrapped the bundle carefully, reverently; an attitude assimilated early from Droog, the clan's master toolmaker. It held an assortment of objects. The first she picked up was an oval stone. The first time she worked the flint, she had searched for a hammerstone that felt good in her hand and had the right resilience when struck against flint. All stone working tools were important, but none had the significance of the hammerstone. It was the first implement to touch the flint.

Hers had only a few nicks, unlike Droog's hammerstone, battered from repeated use. But nothing could have convinced him to give it up. Anyone could rough out a flint tool, but the truly fine ones were made by expert toolmakers who cared for their implements and knew how to keep a hammerstone spirit happy. Ayla worried about the spirit of her hammerstone, though she never had before. It was so much more important now that she had to be her own master toolmaker. She knew rituals were required to avert bad luck if a hammerstone broke, to placate the stone's spirit and coax it into lodging in a new stone, and she didn't know them.

She put the hammerstone aside and examined a sturdy piece of legbone from a grazing animal for signs of splintering from the last time she used it. After the bone hammer, she looked over a retoucher, the canine tooth of a large cat dislodged from a jawbone she had found in the pile at the bottom of the wall, and then she checked the other pieces of bone and stone.

She had learned to knap flint by watching Droog and then practicing. He didn't mind showing her how to work the stone. She paid attention and she knew he approved of her efforts, but she was not his apprentice. It wasn't worthwhile to consider a female; the range of tools they were allowed to make was limited. They could not make tools that were used to hunt or those used to make weapons. She had found out that the tools women used were not so different. A knife was a knife after all, and a notched flake could be used to sharpen a point on a digging stick or a spear.

She looked over her implements and picked up a nodule of flint, then put it down. If she was going to do some serious flint knapping, she needed an anvil, something to support the stone while she worked it. Droog didn't need an anvil to make a hand-axe, he only used it for more advanced tools, but Ayla found she had more control if she had support for the heavy flint, though she could rough out tools without one. She wanted a firm flat surface, not too hard or the flint would shatter under hard blows. The foot bone of a mammoth was what Droog used, and she decided to see if she could find one in the bone pile.

She climbed around the jumbled mound of bones, wood, and stone. There were tusks; there had to be foot bones. She found a long branch and used it as a lever to move heavy pieces. It snapped when she tried to pry up a boulder. Then she found a small ivory tusk of a young mammoth which proved to be much stronger. Finally, near the edge of the pile closest to the inside wall, she saw what she was looking for and managed to extricate it from the mass of rubble.

As she dragged the foot bone back to her work area, her eye was caught by a gray-yellow stone that gleamed in the sunlight and flashed from facets. It looked familiar, but it wasn't until she stopped and picked up a piece of the iron pyrite that she remembered why.

My amulet, she thought, touching the small leather pouch hanging around her neck. My Cave Lion gave me a stone like this to tell me my son would live. Suddenly she noticed the beach was strewn with the brassy gray stones glittering in the sun; recognition had made her conscious of them, though she had overlooked them before. It made her aware, too, that the clouds were breaking up. It was the only one when I found mine. Here there's nothing special about them, they're all over.

She dropped the stone and dragged the mammoth foot bone down the beach, then sat down and pulled it between her legs. She covered her lap with the hamster hide and picked up the flint again. She turned it over and over, trying to decide where to make the first strike, but she couldn't settle down and concentrate. Something was bothering her. She thought it must be the hard, lumpy, cold stones she was sitting on. She ran up to the cave for a mat, and she brought down her fire drill and platform, and some tinder. I'll be glad when I get a fire going. The morning is half gone and it's still cold.

She settled herself on the mat, put the toolmaking implements within reach, pulled the foot bone between her legs, and laid the hide across her lap. Then she reached for the chalky gray stone and positioned it on the anvil. She picked up the hammerstone, hefted it a few times to get the right grip, then put it down. What's wrong with me? Why am I so restless? Droog always asked his totem for help before he started; maybe that's what I need to do.

She clasped her hand around her amulet, closed her eyes and took several slow deep breaths to calm herself. She didn't make a specific request – she just tried to reach the spirit of the Cave Lion with her mind and with her heart. The spirit that protected her was part of her, inside her, the old magician had explained, and she believed him.

Trying to reach the spirit of the great beast who had chosen her did have a soothing effect. She felt herself relax, and, when she opened her eyes, she flexed her fingers and reached again for the hammerstone.

After the first blows broke away the chalky cortex, she stopped to examine the flint critically. It had good color, a dark gray sheen, but the grain was not the finest. Still, there were no inclusions; about right for a hand-axe. Many of the thick flakes that fell away as she began to shape the flint into a hand-axe could be used. They had a bulge, a bulb of percussion, on the end of the flake where the hammerstone struck, but they tapered to a sharp edge. Many had semicircular ripples that left a deep rippled scar on the core, but such flakes could be used for heavy-duty cutting implements, like cleavers to cut through tough hide and meat, or sickles to cut grass.

When Ayla had the general shape she wanted, she transferred to the bone hammer. Bone was softer, more elastic, and would not crush the thin, sharp, if somewhat wavy edge, as the stone striker would have. Taking careful aim, she struck very close to the rippled edge. Longer, thinner flakes, with a flatter percussion bulge and less rippled edges were detached with each blow. In much less time than it took her to get prepared, the tool was finished.

It was about five inches long, in outline shaped like a pear with a pointed end, but flat. It had a strong, rather thin cross section, and straight cutting edges from the point down the sloping sides. Its rounded base was made to hold in the hand. It could be used as an axe to chop wood, as an adze – perhaps to make a bowl. With it a piece of mammoth ivory could be broken to a smaller size, as could animal bones when butchering. It was a strong, sharp hitting tool with many uses.

Ayla was feeling better, looser, ready to try the more advanced and difficult technique. She reached for another chalky nodule of flint and her hammerstone, and struck the outer covering. The stone was flawed. The chalky surface extended into the dark gray interior, all the way through the core. The inclusion made it unusable and interrupted the flow of her work and concentration. It put her on edge again. She put her hammerstone down on the rocky beach.

Another piece of bad luck, another bad omen. She didn't want to believe that, didn't want to give in. She looked at the flint again, wondered if she could make some usable flakes from it, and picked up her hammerstone again. She broke off one flake, but it needed retouching, so she put her hammerstone down and reached for a stone retoucher. But she only glanced in the direction of her other implements. Her eye was on the flint when she picked up a stone from the beach – and caused an event that would change her life.

Not all inventions are wrought by necessity. Sometimes serendipity plays a part. The trick is recognition. All the elements were there, but chance alone had put them together in just the right way. And chance was the essential ingredient. No one, least of all the young woman sitting on a rocky beach in a lonely valley, would have dreamed of making such an experiment on purpose.

When Ayla's hand reached for the stone retoucher, it found instead a piece of iron pyrite of close to the same size. When she struck the exposed fresh flint from the flawed stone, the dry tinder from her cave happened to be nearby, and the spark produced when the two stones hit happened to fly into the ball of shaggy fiber. Most important, Ayla just happened to be looking in that direction when the spark flew, landed on the tinder, smoldered for a moment, and sent up a wisp of smoke before it died.

That was the serendipity. Ayla supplied the recognition and the other necessary elements: she understood the process of making fire, she needed fire, and she wasn't afraid to try something new. Even then, it took her a while to recognize, and appreciate, what she had observed. First the smoke puzzled her. She had to think about it before she made the connection between the wisp of smoke and the spark, but then the spark puzzled her more. Where had it come from? That was when she looked at the stone in her hand.

It was the wrong stone! It wasn't her retoucher, it was one of those shiny stones that were scattered all over the beach. But it was still a stone, and stone didn't burn. Yet something had made a spark that had made the tinder smoke. The tinder had smoked, hadn't it?

She picked up the ball of shaggy bark fiber, ready to believe she had imagined the smoke, but the small black hole left soot on her fingers. She picked up the iron pyrite again, and looked at it closely. How had the spark been drawn from the stone? What had she done? The flint flake, she had struck the flint. Feeling a little silly, she banged the two stones together. Nothing happened.

What did I expect? she thought. Then she banged them together again, with more force, striking sharply, and watched a spark fly. Suddenly, an idea that had been tenuously forming sprang into her mind full blown. A strange, exciting idea, and a little frightening, too.

She put the two stones down carefully on the leather lap cover, on top of the mammoth foot bone, then gathered together the materials to build a fire. When she was ready, she picked up the stones, held them close to the tinder, and struck them together. A spark flew and then died on the cold stones. She changed the angle, tried again, but the force was less. She struck harder and watched a spark land squarely in the middle of the tinder. It singed a few strands and died, but the wisp of smoke was encouraging. The next time she struck the stones, the wind gusted, and the smoldering tinder flared before it went out.

Of course! I have to blow on it. She changed her position so she could blow on the incipient flame, and made another spark with the stones. It was a strong, bright, long-burning spark, and it landed right. She was close enough to feel the heat as she blew the smoldering tinder into flame. She fed it shavings, and slivers, and, almost before she knew it, she had a fire.

It was ridiculously easy. She couldn't believe how easy. She had to prove it to herself again. She gathered together more tinder, more shavings, more kindling, and then she had a second fire, and then a third, and a fourth. She felt an excitement that was part fear, part awe, part joy of discovery, and a large dose of sheer wonder, as she stood back and gazed at four separate fires, each made from the firestone.

Whinney trotted back around the wall, drawn by the smell of smoke. Fire, once so fearful, smelled of safety now.

"Whinney!" Ayla called, running to the little horse. She had to tell someone, to share her discovery, even if just with a horse. "Look!" she motioned. "Look at those fires! They were made with stones, Whinney. Stones!" The sun broke through the clouds, and suddenly the whole beach seemed to glitter.

I was wrong when I thought there was nothing special about those stones. I should have known; my totem gave one to me. Look at them. Now that I know, I can see the fire that lives inside. She grew thoughtful then. But why me? Why was I shown? My Cave Lion gave one to me once to tell me Durc would live. What is he telling me now?

She remembered the strange premonition she'd had after her fire died and, standing in the midst of four fires, she shivered, feeling it again. Then, suddenly, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief, though she didn't even know she had been worried.