The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  Until Zelandoni had set her to the task, she hadn’t really paid that much attention to those kinds of celestial movements before. She had only noticed that the sun rose somewhere in the east and set in the west, and that the moon went through phases from full to dark and back to full again. Like most people, she was aware that the nighttime orb was in the sky during the day occasionally, and though people noticed it, they didn’t often pay attention because it was so pale. There was a particular color, however, a shade of nearly transparent white, hardly more than a wash of water with a little white kaolin from a nearby deposit that was called “pale,” after the pale moon of day.

  Now she knew much more. That was why she was watching the place on the horizon where the sun rose and set, the placement of certain constellations and stars, and the different timings of the risings and settings of the moon. It was a full moon, and while it wasn’t rare to have a full moon during the Winter Shortday or the Summer Longday, it was not especially common either. One of the events coincided with the full moon perhaps once every ten years, but since the full moon was always opposite the sun, it always rose at the same time that the sun set, and because the sun was high in the sky in summer, the full moon stayed low in the sky all night. She sat facing south and turning her head right and left to try to keep track of both of them.

  The first night that the sun seemed to set in the same place that it had the night before, she wasn’t sure if she had seen it right. Was it far enough to the right on the horizon? Had the correct number of days passed? Was the time right? she wondered. She noted certain constellations, and the moon, and decided she’d wait until the next night. When the sun set at the same place again, she was so excited, she wished Zelandoni were with her so she could share it.

  30

  She could hardly wait until Marthona woke up the next morning to tell her that she thought it was the time of the Summer Longday. The woman’s reaction was mixed. She was pleased for Ayla, but she also knew that it would not be long before Ayla would be going to the Summer Meeting and she’d be left alone. Not really alone, she knew; all the others would still be there, but Ayla had been wonderful company, enough so that she hardly noticed the absence of so many of her loved ones. She even noticed that the infirmities that kept her from the Summer Meeting seemed less. The young woman’s medicinal skills, the special teas, poultices, massages, and other practices all seemed to help. She was feeling much better. Marthona was going to miss her greatly.

  The sun seemed to stand still, to set in almost the same location for seven days, but only three that Ayla felt certain of. There did seem to be some movement on the two before and the two after, although less than normal, and then to her amazement, she could see that the place where the sun set had definitely reversed. It was exciting to watch the change in direction, and to realize that the sun would keep going back the way it had come until the Winter Shortday.

  She had watched the previous Winter Shortday, along with Zelandoni and several other people, but she hadn’t felt the same sense of excitement, although that one was always more important to most people. It was the Shortday that promised that the deep cold of winter would end and the warmth of summer would return, and was celebrated with great enthusiasm.

  But this Summer Longday was very important to Ayla. She had seen and verified it herself, and she felt a great sense of accomplishment, and relief. It also meant her year of watching was over. She would watch a few more days, and continue to mark, just to see if, and how, the setting places changed, but she was already thinking of leaving for the Summer Meeting.

  The next night, after she had again verified that the sun had reversed its direction, Ayla was feeling restless up on the high cliff. She had been jumpy and nervous all day, and thought it might be her pregnancy, or perhaps the relief of knowing she would not have to spend many more lonely nights watching the skies. She tried to compose herself and began repeating the words to the Mother’s Song to calm herself. It was still her favorite, but as she repeated the verses to herself, she only felt more tension.

  “Why am I so jittery? I wonder if a storm is coming. That sometimes makes me tense,” she said to herself. She realized she was talking to herself. Perhaps I should meditate, she thought. That should help me relax. Maybe I’ll make a cup of tea.

  She went back to the place where she had been sitting, stirred up the fire, filled a small cooking container with water from her waterbag, and sorted through the collection of herbs she kept in a medicine bag attached to her waist thong. She kept the dried leaves in packets, tied with various types and thicknesses of cord and twine, with various numbers of knots tied on the ends, so she could distinguish between them, the way Iza had taught her.

  As she felt the various packets in the simple leather pouch, even with a fire and moonlight, it was too dark to see the differences, and she had to distinguish between the various herbs and medicines by feel and smell alone. She recalled her first medicine bag, given to her by Iza. It had been made from the entire waterproof hide of an otter with its innards removed through the large opening in the neck. She had made several reproductions of it and still had the last version of it that she had made. Though worn and shabby, she couldn’t bear to throw it out. She had thought about making a new one again. It was a Clan medicine bag, and displayed a unique power. Even Zelandoni had been impressed when she first saw it, realizing it was special just from the look of it.

  Ayla selected a couple of packets. Most of her herbs were medicinal, but some only mildly so and posed no harm if drunk for pleasure, such as mint or chamomile, which were good for soothing upset stomachs and aiding digestion, but were tasty in their own right. She decided on a mint mixture that included an herb to help her relax, and felt for the packet and sniffed it. It definitely was mint. Pouring some into the palm of her hand, she added it to the steaming water, and after it had steeped for a while, she poured herself a cup. She drank it down, partly for thirst, and then poured a second cup to sip on. The taste seemed a little off; she would have to get some fresher mint, she thought, but it wasn’t that bad, and she was still thirsty.

  When she finished it, she composed herself, then began to breathe deeply, the way she had been taught. Slowly, deeply, she said to herself. Think of Clear, think of the color called Clear, of a clear creek running over round stones, think of a clear cloudless sky with only the light of the sun, think of emptiness.

  She found herself staring at the moon, less than a quarter last time she looked, but now big and round in the night sky. It seemed to grow larger, filling her vision, and she felt herself being pulled into it faster and faster. She tore her eyes away from the moon and got up.

  She walked slowly toward the large, tilted boulder. “That stone is glowing! No, I’m imagining things again. It’s just the moonlight. It’s a different kind of stone from the rest; maybe it just shines more in the light of a full moon,” she said out loud.

  She closed her eyes, it seemed for a long time. When she opened them, the moon attracted her again; the large full moon was drawing her in. Then she looked around. She was flying! Flying without wind or sound. She looked down. The cliff and river were gone and the land below was unfamiliar. For an instant she thought she would fall. She felt dizzy. Everything was spinning. Bright colors formed a vortex of shimmering light around her, spinning faster and faster.

  Ayla came to a sudden halt and was back on the top of the cliff again. She found herself concentrating on the moon, big and huge, and growing larger, filling her vision. She was pulled into it, and then she was flying again, flying the way she had done when she used to assist Mamut. She looked down and saw the stone. It was alive, glowing with spirals of pulsating light. She was drawn toward it, felt captured by the movement. She stared as lines of energy, emerging from the ground, wound around the huge, perilously balanced column, then disappeared into a corona of light at the top. She was floating just above the glowing rock, staring down into it.

  It was brighter than the moon and l
ighted the landscape around it. No wind blew, not the slightest breeze, no leaf or branch stirred, but the ground and the air around her were alive with movement, filled with shapes and shadows flitting about, fleeting, insubstantial forms darting in random motion, glowing with faint energy akin to the light from the stone. As she watched, their motion took shape, developed purpose. The shapes were coming toward her, coming after her! She felt a tingling sensation; her hair rose straight up. Suddenly she was scrambling down the steep path, stumbling and slipping with fear. When she reached the abri, she ran toward the porch, lit by the moonlight.

  Lying beside Marthona’s bed where he had been told to stay, Wolf raised his head and whimpered.

  Ayla raced across the porch toward Down River, then down to The River, and followed the path along it. She felt charged with energy, and ran now for the joy of it, no longer chased, but pulled by some incomprehensible attraction. She splashed across the river at the Crossing, and kept going, it seemed forever. She was approaching a tall cliff that jutted out by itself, a familiar cliff, yet totally unfamiliar.

  She came to an inclined path and started climbing, her breath tearing from her throat in ragged gasps, but she was unable to stop. At the top of the path was the dark hole of a cave. She ran into it, into a black so thick she could almost grasp it in her hands, then stumbled on the uneven floor and fell heavily. Her head hit the stone wall.

  When she woke, there was no light; she was in a long black tunnel, but somehow she could see. The walls glowed with faint iridescence. Moisture glistened. When she sat up, her head hurt, and for a moment she could only see red. She felt as though the walls were racing past her, but she hadn’t moved. Then the iridescence shimmered again, and it was no longer dark. The rock walls glowed with eerie color, fluorescent greens, glowing reds, lustrous blues, pale luminous whites.

  She got up and stood next to the wall, and felt the slick cold wetness as she followed the wall, which became an icy blue-green. She was no longer in a cave, but in a sheer crevasse deep in a glacier. Large plane surfaces reflected fleeting, darting, ephemeral shapes. Above her the sky was a deep purple blue. A glaring sun blinded her, and her head hurt. The sun came closer and filled the crevasse with light, but it was a crevasse no longer.

  She was in a swirling river, being carried along in its current. Objects floated past, caught in eddies and whirling back-currents that turned faster and faster. She was caught in a whirlpool, turning, turning, round and round. It sucked her down. In a vertigo of spinning motion, the river closed over her head, and everything was black.

  She was in a deep, empty, wrenching void, flying; flying faster than she could comprehend. Then her motion slowed and she found herself in a deep fog that glowed with light closing in on her. The fog opened to reveal a strange landscape. Geometric shapes in fluorescent greens, glowing reds, lustrous blues repeated themselves over and over again. Unfamiliar structures rose high in the air. Broad ribbons of white rolled out along the ground, luminous white, full of shapes speeding along it, speeding after her.

  She was petrified with fear and felt a tickle probing the edge of her mind that seemed to recognize her. She shrank back, pulled away, feeling her way along the wall as fast as she could. She came to an end as panic filled her. She dropped down to the ground and felt a hole ahead. It was a small hole she could enter only by crawling. She skinned her knees on the rough ground, but didn’t notice. The hole grew smaller; she could go no farther. Then she was speeding through a void again, so fast she lost all sense of motion.

  She wasn’t moving; the black around her was. It closed in, smothering her, drowning her, and she was in the river again and the current was pulling her. She was tired, exhausted; the river drew her into the current as it raced toward the sea, the warm sea. She felt a sharp pain deep inside, and felt the warm, salty waters flooding around her. She breathed in the smell of it, the taste of the waters, and felt she was floating peacefully in the tepid liquid.

  But it wasn’t water, it was mud. She gasped for breath as she tried to crawl out of the slime; then the beast that was chasing her grabbed her. She doubled up and cried out with pain as it crushed her. She was burrowing though the mud, trying to crawl out of the deep hole the crushing beast had pulled her into, trying to escape.

  Then she was free, climbing a tree, swinging from its branches, driven by drought and thirst to the edge of the sea. She plunged in, embraced the water, and grew larger, more buoyant. Finally standing upright, she gazed out at a vast grassland and waded toward it.

  But the water dragged against her. She fought to haul herself from the resistant tide; then exhausted, she collapsed. Waves lapping on the shore washed over her legs, pulling her back. She felt the pull, the pain, the grievous, wrenching, tearing pain that threatened to pull her insides out. With a gush of warm liquid, she gave in to the demand.

  She crawled a little farther, leaned back against a wall, closed her eyes, and saw a rich steppeland, bright with spring flowers. A cave lion loped toward her in slow, graceful motion. She was in a tiny cave, crunched into a small declivity. She grew to fill the cave as the cave expanded. The walls breathed, expanding, contracting, and she was in a womb, a huge black womb deep in the earth. But she was not alone.

  Their forms were vague, transparent; then the shapes coalesced into recognizable forms. Animals, every kind of animal she had ever seen, and birds, and fish, and insects, and some she was sure she had never seen before. They formed a procession, without order or pattern, one seeming to flow into the other. An animal became a bird or a fish, or another bird or animal or insect. A caterpillar became a lizard, then a bird, which grew into a cave lion.

  The lion stood and waited for her to follow. Together they went through passages, tunnels, corridors, the walls becoming shapes that thickened and took form as they approached, and grew translucent, fading into the wall as they passed. A procession of woolly mammoths lumbered along through a vast, grassy steppe; then a herd of bison overtook them, and formed their own rank in their place.

  She watched two reindeer approach each other. They touched noses; then the female dropped down to her knees, and the male reached down and licked her. Ayla was moved by the tender scene; then her attention was drawn by two horses, male and female. The female was in heat and moved in front of the male, making herself available as he prepared to mount.

  She turned in another direction and followed the lion down another long corridor. At the end of the tunnel, she came to a rather large, rounded womb-like niche. She heard a distant pounding that drew closer as a bison herd appeared and filled the niche. They stopped to rest and graze.

  But the pounding continued; the walls were throbbing in a slow, steady beat. The hard rock floor seemed to give under her feet and the throbbing became a deep, earthy voice, at first so faint she could hardly detect it. Then it grew louder and she recognized the sound. It was the talking drum of the Mamutoi! Only among the mammoth hunters had she ever heard a drum like that.

  The instrument, made of a mammoth bone, had such tonal resonance and variation when hit with a modified antler beater that it could be rapidly tapped at variously discrete areas in such a way that it approximated the sound of a voice speaking words. The words, spoken with a staccato throbbing, did not quite match a human voice, but they were words. They had a slightly ambiguous vibrato quality, which added a touch of mystery and expressive depth, but played by someone with sufficient skill, they were distinctly words. The drum could literally be made to talk.

  The rhythm and pattern of the words made by the drum began to sound familiar. Then she heard the high-pitched resonance of a flute, and singing along with it was a sweet, high voice, a voice that sounded like the Mamutoi woman Fralie, whom Ayla had known. Fralie had been pregnant, a precarious pregnancy that she nearly lost. Ayla had helped her, but even with her help, the baby had been born early. But her daughter had lived, and became healthy and strong.

  Sitting inside the round niche, Ayla discovered her face was wet wi
th tears. She was crying great, heaving sobs, as though she felt she had suffered a devastating loss. The sound of the drum grew stronger, overcoming her anguished lament. She was recognizing sounds, discerning words.

  Out of the darkness, the chaos of time,

  The whirlwind gave birth to the Mother sublime.

  She woke to Herself knowing life had great worth,

  The dark empty void grieved the Great Mother Earth.

  The Mother was lonely. She was the only.

  It was the Mother’s Song! Sung as she had never heard it sung before. If only she had the voice to sing, that’s how she would sing it. It was both deep and earthy like a drum, and high and resonant like a flute, and the deep, rounded niche reverberated with the rich, vibrant sound.

  The voice filled her head with the words; she felt them more than heard them, and the feeling was so much more than the words. She anticipated each line before it came, and when it came it was fuller, more eloquent, more profound. It seemed to go on forever, but she didn’t want it to stop, and as it neared the end, she felt a deep sadness.

  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.

  But when Ayla anticipated no more, the voice did not stop.

  Her last Gift, the Knowledge that man has his part.

  His need must be spent before new life can start.