by Jean M. Auel
"Exactly. The problem is control, and the quality of the stone."
"Yes. It would have to be fresh. Dalanar, the man who taught me, lives near an exposed cliff of chalk that bears flint at ground level. Maybe some of his stone would work. But even then, it would be hard. We've made some fine axes, but I don't know how you'd make a decent spear point that way."
Wymez reached for another package wrapped in fine soft leather. He opened it carefully and exposed several flint points.
Jondalar's eyes opened in surprise. He looked up at Wymez, then at Danug, who was smiling with pride for his mentor, then he picked up one of the points. He turned it over in his hands tenderly, almost caressing the beautifully worked stone.
The flint had a slippery feel, a smooth, not-quite-oily quality, and a sheen that glistened from the many facets in the sunlight. The object had the shape of a willow leaf, with near perfect symmetry in all dimensions, and it extended the full length of his hand from the base of his palm to his fingertips. Starting at one end in a point, it spread out to the breadth of four fingers in the middle, then back to a point at the other end. Turning it on edge, Jondalar saw that it did indeed lack the characteristic bowed shape of the blade tools. It was perfectly straight, with a cross section about the thickness of his small finger.
He felt the edge professionally. Very sharp, just slightly denticulated by the scars of the many tiny flakes that had been removed. He ran his fingertips lightly over the surface and felt the small ridges left behind by the many similar tiny flakes that had been detached to give the flint point such a fine, precise shape.
"This is too beautiful to use for a weapon," Jondalar said. "This is a work of art."
"That one is not used for a weapon," Wymez said, pleased by the praise of a fellow craftsman. "I made it as a model to show the technique."
Ayla was craning her neck to look at the exquisitely crafted tools nestled in the soft leather on the ground, not daring to touch. She had never seen such beautifully made points. They were of variable sizes and types. Besides the leaf-shaped ones, there were asymmetrical shouldered points that tapered sharply back on one side to a projecting shank, which would be inserted in a handle so it could be used as a knife, and more symmetrical stemmed points with a centered tang that might be spear points or knives of another kind.
"Would you like to examine them closer?" Wymez asked.
Her eyes gleaming with wonder, she picked each one up, handling them as though they were precious jewels. They very nearly were.
"Flint is… smooth… alive," Ayla said. "Not see flint like this before."
Wymez smiled. "You have discovered the secret, Ayla," he said. "That is what makes these points possible."
"Do you have flint like this nearby?" Jondalar asked, incredulous. "I've never seen any quite like it, either."
"No, I'm afraid not. Oh, we can get good-quality flint. A large Camp to the north lives near a good flint mine. That's where Danug has been. But this stone has been specially treated… by fire."
"By fire!?" Jondalar exclaimed.
"Yes. By fire. Heating changes the stone. Heating is what makes it feel so smooth" – Wymez looked at Ayla – "so alive. And heating is what gives the stone its special qualities." While he was talking, he picked up a nodule of flint that showed definite signs of having been in a fire. It was sooty and charred, and the chalky outer cortex was a much deeper color when he cracked it open with a blow from a hammerstone. "It was an accident the first time. A piece of flint fell in a fireplace. It was a big, hot fire – you know how hot a fire it takes to burn bone?"
Ayla nodded her head knowingly. Jondalar shrugged, he hadn't paid much attention, but since Ayla seemed to know, he was willing to accept it.
"I was going to roll the flint out, but Nezzie decided, since it was there, it would make a good support for a dish to catch drippings from a roast she was cooking. It turned out that the drippings caught fire, and ruined a good ivory platter. I replaced it for her, since it turned out to be such a stroke of good fortune. But I almost discarded the stone at first. It was all burnt like this, and I avoided using it until I was low on material. The first time I cracked it open, I thought it was ruined. Look at it, you can see why," Wymez said, giving them each a piece.
"The flint is darker, and it does have that slick feel," Jondalar said.
"It happened that I was experimenting with Aterian spear points trying to improve on their technique. Since I was just trying out new ideas, I thought it didn't matter if the stone was less than perfect. But as soon as I started working with it, I noticed the difference. It happened shortly after I returned, Ranec was still a boy. I've been perfecting it ever since."
"What kind of difference do you mean?" Jondalar asked.
"You try it, Jondalar, you'll see."
Jondalar picked up his hammerstone, an oval stone, dented and chipped from use, that fit comfortably in his hand, and began knocking off the balance of the chalky cortex in preparation for working it.
"When flint is heated very hot before it is worked," Wymez continued while Jondalar worked, "control over the material is much greater. Very small chips, much finer, thinner, and longer, can be removed by applying pressure. You can make the stone take almost any shape you want."
Wymez wrapped his left hand with a small rag of leather to protect it from the sharp edges, then positioned another piece of flint, recently flaked from one of the burned hunks, in his left hand, to demonstrate. With his right hand, he picked up a short, tapered bone retoucher. He placed the pointed end of the bone against the edge of the flint and pushed with a strong forward and downward motion, and detached a small, long, flat sliver of stone. He held it up. Jondalar took it from him, then experimented on his own, quite obviously surprised and pleased with the results.
"I've got to show this to Dalanar! This is unbelievable! He's improved on some of the processes – he has a natural feel for working with the stone, like you, Wymez. But you can almost shave this stone. This is caused by heating?"
Wymez nodded. "I wouldn't say you can shave it. It's still stone, not quite as easy to shape as bone, but if you know how to work stone, heating makes it easier."
"I wonder what would happen with indirect percussion… have you tried using a piece of bone or antler with a point to direct the force of a blow from a hammerstone? You can get blades that are much longer and thinner that way."
Ayla thought that Jondalar had a natural feel for working with the stone, too. But more than that, she sensed in his enthusiasm and spontaneous desire to share this marvelous discovery with Dalanar, an aching desire to go home.
In her valley, when she had been hesitant about facing the unknown Others, she had thought Jondalar only wished to leave so he could be with other people. She had never quite understood before just how powerful was his desire to return to his home. It came as a revelation, an insight; she knew that he could never be truly happy any other place.
Though she desperately missed her son and the people she loved, Ayla hadn't felt homesickness in Jondalar's sense, as a yearning to go back to a familiar place, where people were known, and customs were comfortable. She had known when she left the Clan she could never return. To them, she was dead. If they saw her, they would think she was a malicious spirit. And now, she knew she would not go back to live with them even if she could. Though she had been with the Lion Camp only a short time, she already felt more comfortable and at home than she had in all the years she lived with the Clan. Iza had been right. She was not Clan. She was born to the Others.
Lost in thought, Ayla had missed some further discussion. Hearing Jondalar mention her name brought her back.
"…I think Ayla's technique must be close to theirs. That's where she learned. I have seen some of their tools, but I had never seen them made before she showed me. They are not without skill, but it's a long step from preshaping a core to an intermediary punch, and that makes the difference between a heavy flake tool and a fine, light blade tool."
Wymez smiled and nodded. "Now, if we could only find a way to make a blade straight. No matter how you do it, the edge of a knife is never quite as sharp after it's been retouched."
"I've thought about that problem," Danug said, making a contribution to the discussion. "How about cutting a groove in bone or antler, and gluing in bladelets? Small enough to be almost straight?"
Jondalar thought about it for a moment. "How would you make them?"
"Couldn't you start with a small core?" Danug suggested, a little tentatively.
"That might work, Danug, but a small core could be hard to work with," Wymez said. "I've thought about starting with a bigger blade and breaking it into smaller ones."
They were still talking about flint, Ayla realized. They never seemed to tire of it. The material and its potential never ceased to fascinate them. The more they learned, the more it stimulated their interest. She could appreciate flint and toolmaking, and she thought the points Wymez had shown them were finer than any she had ever seen, as much for their beauty as for their use. But she had never heard the subject discussed in such exhaustive detail. Then, she remembered her fascination with medical lore and healing magic. The times she had spent with Iza, and Uba, when the medicine woman was teaching them, were among her happiest memories.
Ayla noticed Nezzie coming out of the lodge, and got up to see if she could help. Though the three men smiled and made comments as she left, she didn't think they would even notice that she had gone.
That wasn't entirely true. Though none of the men made comments out loud, there was a break in their conversation as they watched her leave.
She's a beautiful young woman, Wymez thought. Intelligent, and knowledgeable, and interested in many things. She'd bring a high Bride Price, if she were Mamutoi. Think what status she'd bring to a mate, and pass on to her children.
Danug's thoughts ran along much the same lines, though they were not as clearly formed in his mind. Vague ideas about Bride Price and Matrimonials and even co-mating occurred to him, but he didn't think he would stand a chance. Mostly, he just wanted to be around her.
Jondalar wanted her even more. If he could have thought of a reasonable excuse, he would have gotten up and followed her. Yet he feared to clutch too tight. He remembered his feelings when women tried too hard to make him love them. Instead it had made him want to avoid them, and feel pity. He did not want Ayla's pity. He wanted her love.
A choking gorge of bile rose in his throat when he saw the dark-skinned man come out of the earthlodge, and smile at her. He tried to swallow it down, to control the anger and frustration he felt. He had never known such jealousy, and he hated himself for it. He was sure Ayla would hate him, or worse, pity him, if she knew how he felt. He reached for a large nodule of flint, and with his hammerstone, he smashed it open. The piece was flawed, shot through with the white crumbly chalk of its outer cortex, but Jondalar kept hitting the stone, breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces.
Ranec saw Ayla coming from the direction of the flint-knapping area. The growing excitement and attraction he felt every time he saw her could not be denied. He had been drawn from the beginning to the perfection of form she presented to his aesthetic sense, not just as a beautiful woman to look at, but in the subtle, unstudied grace of her movements. His eye for such detail was sharp, and he could not detect the slightest posturing or affectation. She carried herself with a self-possession, an unafraid confidence, that seemed so completely natural he felt she must have been born with it, and it generated a quality he could only think of as presence.
He flashed a warm smile. It wasn't a smile that could easily be ignored, and Ayla returned it with matching warmth.
"Have your ears been filled with flint-talk?" Ranec said, making the last two words into one, and thereby giving the phrase a slightly derogatory meaning. Ayla detected the nuance, but wasn't entirely sure of its meaning, though she thought it was meant to be humorous, a joke.
"Yes. They talk flint. Making blades. Making tools. Points. Wymez make beautiful points."
"Ah, he brought out his treasures, did he. You are right, they are beautiful. I'm not always sure if he knows it, but Wymez is more than a craftsman. He is an artist."
A frown creased Ayla's forehead. She remembered he had used that word to describe her when she used her sling, and she wasn't sure if she understood the word the way he used it.
"Are you artist?" she asked.
He made a wry grimace. Her question had touched at the heart of an issue about which he had strong feelings.
His people believed that the Mother had first created a spirit world, and the spirits of all things in it were perfect. The spirits then produced living copies of themselves, to populate the ordinary world. The spirit was the model, the pattern from which all things were derived, but no copy could be as perfect as the original; not even the spirits themselves could make perfect copies, that was why each was different.
People were unique, they were closer to the Mother than other spirits. The Mother gave birth to a copy of Herself and called her Spirit Woman, then caused a Spirit Man to be born of her womb, just as each man was born of woman. Then the Great Mother caused the spirit of the perfect woman to mingle with the spirit of the perfect man, and so give birth to many different spirit children. But She Herself chose which man's spirit would mingle with a woman's before She breathed Her life force into the woman's mouth to cause pregnancy. And to a few of Her children, women and men, the Mother gave special gifts.
Ranec referred to himself as a carver, a maker of objects carved in the likeness of living or spiritual things. Carvings were useful objects. They personified living spirits, made them visual, realizable, and they were essential tools for certain rites, necessary for the ceremonies conducted by the mamuti. Those who could create such objects were held in great esteem; they were gifted artists, whom the Mother had chosen.
Many people thought that all carvers, indeed, all people who could create or decorate objects to make them something more than simply utilitarian, were artists, but in Ranec's opinion, not all artists were equally gifted, or perhaps they didn't give equal care to their work. The animals and figures they made were crude. He felt such representations were an insult to the spirits, and to the Mother who created them.
In Ranec's eye the finest and most perfect example of anything was beautiful, and anything beautiful was the finest and most perfect example of spirit; it was the essence of it. That was his religion. Beyond that, at the core of his aesthetic soul, he felt that beauty had an intrinsic value of its own, and he believed there was a potential for beauty in everything. While some activities or objects could be simply functional, he felt that anyone who came close to achieving perfection in any activity was an artist, and the results contained the essence of beauty. But the art was as much in the activity as in the results. Works of art were not just the finished product, but the thought, the action, the process that created them.
Ranec sought out beauty, almost as a holy quest, with his own skilled hands but more with his innately sensitive eye. He felt a need to surround himself with it, and he was beginning to view Ayla, herself, as a work of art, as the finest, most perfect expression of woman he could imagine. It was not just her appearance that made her beautiful. Beauty was not a static picture; it was essence, it was spirit, it was that which animated. It was best expressed in movement, behavior, accomplishment. A beautiful woman was a complete and dynamic woman. Though he did not say it in so many words, Ayla was coming to represent for him a perfect incarnation of the original Spirit Woman. She was the essence of woman, the essence of beauty.
The dark man with the laughing eyes and the ironic wit, which he had learned to use to mask his deep longings, strove to create perfection and beauty in his own work. For his efforts, he was acclaimed by his people as the finest carver, an artist of true distinction, but, as with many perfectionists, he was never quite satisfied with his own creations. He would not refer to himself as an artis
t.
"I am a carver," he said to Ayla. Then, because he saw her puzzlement, he added, "Some people will call any carver an artist." He hesitated a moment, wondering how she would judge his work, then said, "Would you like to see some of my carvings?"
"Yes," she said.
The simple directness of her reply stopped him for a moment, then he threw his head back and laughed out loud. Of course, what else would she say? His eyes crinkling with delight, he beckoned her into the lodge.
Jondalar watched them go through the arched entrance together and felt a heaviness descend upon him. He closed his eyes and dropped his head to his chest in dejection.
The tall and handsome man had never suffered for lack of female attention, but since he lacked understanding of the quality that made him so attractive, he had no faith in it. He was a maker of tools, more comfortable with the physical than the metaphysical, better at applying his considerable intelligence to understanding the technical aspects of pressure and percussion on homogeneous crystalline silica – flint. He perceived the world in physical terms.
He expressed himself physically as well; he was better with his hands than with words. Not that he was inarticulate, just not especially gifted with words. He had learned to tell a story well enough, but he wasn't quick with glib answers and humorous retorts. He was a serious and private man, who didn't like to talk about himself, though he was a sensitive listener, which attracted confessions and confidences from others. At home, he had been renowned as a fine craftsman, but the same hands that could so carefully shape hard stone into fine tools were also skilled in the ways of a woman's body. It was another expression of his physical nature, and, though not as openly, he had been equally renowned for it. Women pursued him, and jokes were made of his "other" craft.
It was a skill he had learned as he had learned to shape flint. He knew where to touch, was receptive and responsive to subtle signals, and he derived pleasure from giving Pleasure. His hands, his eyes, his entire body, spoke more eloquently than any words he ever uttered. If Ranec had been a woman, he would have called him an artist.