The Land of Painted Caves

by Jean M. Auel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “He looks like a wise old man,” Ayla said.

  “He’s called the ‘Old One,’ ” Zelandoni said, “or sometimes the ‘Wise Old One.’ ”

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

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

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

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

  “That’s what I got, too,” Jondalar said.

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

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

  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.

  From the dust of Her birth She created the other,

  A pale shining friend, a companion, a brother.

  They grew up together, learned to love and to care,

  And when She was ready, they decided to pair.

  Around Her he’d hover. Her pale shining lover.

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

  The dark empty void and the vast barren Earth,

  With anticipation, awaited the birth.

  Life drank from Her blood, it breathed from Her bones.

  It split Her skin open and sundered Her stones.

  The Mother was giving. Another was living.

  Her gushing birth waters filled rivers and seas,

  And flooded the land, giving rise to the trees.

  From each precious drop new grass and leaves grew,

  And lush verdant plants made all the Earth new.

  Her waters were flowing. New green was growing.

  In violent labor spewing fire and strife,

  She struggled in pain to give birth to new life.

  Her dried clotted blood turned to red-ochered soil,

  But the radiant child made it all worth the toil.

  The Mother’s great joy. A bright shining boy.

  Mountains rose up spouting flames from their crests,

  She nurtured Her son from Her mountainous breasts.

  He suckled so hard, the sparks flew so high,

  The Mother’s hot milk laid a path through the sky.

  His life had begun. She nourished Her son.

  He laughed and he played, and he grew big and bright.

  He lit up the darkness, the Mother’s delight.

  She lavished Her love, he grew bright and strong,

  But soon he matured, not a child for long.

  Her son was near grown. His mind was his own.

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

  For all that her full-bodied voice filled the space with sound, there was something comforting about it to Ayla. She didn’t hear every word, every sound—some verses just made her think more deeply about the meaning—but she had the feeling that if she were ever lost, she could hear that voice from almost anywhere. She watched Jonayla, who seemed to be listening hard too. Jondalar and Wolf both seemed to be as enraptured by the sound as she was. As the singing continued, Ayla was lulled into feeling the story but not really hearing every word, until Zelandoni came to the verse that Ayla loved best.

  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.

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

  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.

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

  They all were Her children, they filled Her with pride

  But 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 labor began,

  To share life with Woman, She created First Man.

  Again She was giving. One more was living.

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

  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 honors the Mother with the joy of their pairing.

  The Gifts are well earned, When honor’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.

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

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

  15

  As the First continued into the cave, she held her lamp high. For the first time they began to see a ceiling. As they neared the end of the passage, they entered an area where the ceiling was so low, Jondalar’s head almost brushed it. The surface was almost, but not quite, level and very light colored, but more than that, it was covered with paintings of animals in black outline. There were mammoths, of course, some almost completely drawn, including their shaggy fur and tusks, and some showing just the distinctive shape of their backs. There were also several horses, one quite large that dominated its space; many bison, wild goats, and goat-antelopes; and a couple of rhinoceroses. There was no order to their placement or size. They faced all directions, and many were painted on top of others, as though they were falling out of the ceiling at random.

  Ayla and Jondalar walked around, attempting to see it all and trying to make sense of it. Ayla reached up and brushed her fingertips across the painted ceiling. Her fingers tingled at the uniform roughness of the stone. She looked up and tried to take in the entire ceiling the way a woman of the Clan learned to see an entire scene with a quick glance. Then she closed her eyes. As she moved her hand across the rough ceiling, the stone seemed to disappear, and she felt nothing but empty space. In her mind a picture was forming of real animals in that space coming from a long distance, coming from the spirit world behind the stone ceiling and falling to the Earth. The ones that were larger or more finished had almost reached the world she walked in; the ones that were smaller or barely suggested were still on their way.

  Finally she opened her eyes, but looking up made her dizzy. She lowered her lamp and looked down at the damp floor of the cave.

  “It’s overwhelming,” Jondalar said.

  “Yes, it is,” Zelandoni said.

  “I didn’t know this was here,” he said. “No one talks about it.”

  “The zelandonia are the only ones who come here, I think. There is a little concern that youngsters might try to look for this and lose their way,” the First said. “You know how children love to explore caves. As you noticed, this cave would be very easy to get lost in, but some children have been here. In those passages we passed on the right near the entrance, there are some fingermarks made by children, and someone lifted at least one child up to mark the ceiling with fingers.”

  “Are we going any farther?” Jondalar asked.

  “No, from here, we’ll head back,” Zelandoni said. “But we can rest here for a while first, and while we’re here, I think we should fill the lamps again. We have a long way to go.”

  Ayla nursed her baby a little, while Jondalar and Zelandoni filled the lamps with more fuel. Then, after a last look, they turned around and began to retrace their steps. Ayla tried to look for the animals they had seen painted and engraved on the walls along the way, but Zelandoni was not constantly singing, and she wasn’t making her bird calls, and she was sure she missed some. They reached the junction w
here the large passage they were in reached the main one, and continued south. It was quite a long walk, it seemed, before they reached the place where they had stopped to eat and then turned in to the place of the two mammoths facing each other.

  “Do you want to stop here to rest and have a bite to eat, or go around the sharp bend first?” the First asked.

  “I’d rather make the turn first,” Jondalar said. “But if you are tired, we can stop here. How do you feel, Ayla?”

  “I can stop or I can go on, whatever you want, Zelandoni,” she said.

  “I am getting tired, but I think I’d like to get past that sinkhole at the turn before we stop,” she said. “It will be harder for me to get going once I stop, until I get my legs used to moving again. I’d like to have that hard part past me,” the woman said.

  Ayla had noticed that Wolf was staying closer to them on the way back, and he was panting a little. Even he was getting tired, and Jonayla was more restless. She had probably done her share of sleeping, but it was still dark and it confused her. Ayla shifted her from her back to her hip, then to the front to let her nurse awhile, then back to her hip. Her haversack was getting heavy on her shoulder, and she wanted to shift it to the other, but it would mean changing everything else around, too, and that would be difficult while they were moving.

  They worked their way carefully around the turn, especially after Ayla slipped a little on the wet clay, and then Zelandoni slipped, too. After they made it around the difficult corner, with little effort they reached the turnoff that had been on their right and was now on their left and Zelandoni stopped.

  “If you recall,” she said, “I told you there is an interesting sacred space down that tunnel. You can go in and see it, if you want. I’ll wait here and rest; Ayla can use her bird whistle to find it, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t think I want to,” Ayla said. “We’ve seen so much, I doubt that I could appreciate anything new. You said that you may not come back here again, but if you’ve been here several times before, I think it’s likely I may come back again, especially since it’s so close to the Ninth Cave. I’d rather see it with fresh eyes, when I’m not so tired.”