by Jean M. Auel
Well, not entirely alone. She watched Wolf poking his nose into every little crack and cranny, and smiled. Ayla was glad he was with her. Although she was unaccustomed to so many people, especially all at one time and in one place, she didn’t really want to be alone. She’d had her fill of that in the valley she found after she left the Clan, and she wasn’t sure she could have stood it if she hadn’t had Whinney and, later, Baby for company. Even with them it had been lonely, but she knew how to obtain food and make the things she needed, and she had learned the joy of utter freedom—and its consequences. For the first time, she could do whatever she wanted, even adopt a baby horse or lion. Living alone, dependent entirely on herself, had taught her that one person could live, for a while, in reasonable comfort if she was young, and healthy, and strong. It was only when she became seriously ill that she realized how completely vulnerable she was.
It was then that Ayla fully understood that she would not be alive if the Clan had not allowed an injured and weak little girl, orphaned by an earthquake, to live with them, though she had been born to the ones they knew as the Others. Later, when she and Jondalar lived with the Mamutoi, she came to realize that living with a group, any group, even one that believed the wishes and desires of individuals were important, limited individual freedom, because the needs of the community were equally important. Survival depended upon a cooperative unit, a Clan or a Camp or a Cave, a group who would work together and help each other. There was always a struggle between the individual and the group, and finding a workable balance was a constant challenge, but not without benefits.
The cooperation of the group provided more than essentials for individuals. It also granted leisure time to devote to more enjoyable tasks, which among the Others allowed an aesthetic sense to bloom. The art they created wasn’t so much art for itself as it was an inherent part of living, part of their daily existence. Nearly every member of a Zelandonii Cave enjoyed pride of workmanship and, in varying degrees, appreciated the results of one another’s skills. From the time they were young, each child was allowed to experiment to find the area in which they excelled, and practical crafts were not considered more important than artistic talents.
Ayla remembered that Shevonar, the man who died during the bison hunt, had been a spear-maker. He was not the only person of the Ninth Cave who could make a spear, but specialization of a craft developed greater skill, which gave status to the individual who made it, often economic status. Among the Zelandonii, and most other people she had met or lived with, food was shared, though the hunter or gatherer who supplied it gained standing for giving it. A man or woman could survive without ever foraging for food, but without some specialized craft or particular talent that gave a person prestige, no one could live well.
Though it was still a difficult concept for her, Ayla had been learning how goods and services were bartered by the Zelandonii. Nearly everything that was made or done had value, even though its practical worth was not always obvious. The value was generally agreed upon by consensus or individual bargaining. The result was that truly fine workmanship was rewarded over and above the ordinary, partly because people preferred it, which created demand, and partly because it often took longer to make or do something well. Both talent and workmanship were highly valued, and most members of a Cave had a well-developed aesthetic sense within their own canon.
A well-made spear that was beautifully decorated had more value than an equally well-made spear that was only functional, but that had infinitely more value than a poorly made spear. A basket that was clumsily woven might serve as well as a basket that was carefully made with subtle textures and patterns or colored in various tones, but it was not nearly as desirable. The barely serviceable one might be used for roots just dug from the ground, but once the roots were cleaned or dried, a more beautiful basket might be preferred to store them. Expedient tools and objects that served an immediate need were often made and then discarded, while one that was beautiful and well made was usually kept.
It wasn’t only handicrafts that were valued. Entertainment was considered essential. Long, cold winters often kept people confined to their dwellings within the shelter for long periods of time, and they needed ways to alleviate the pressures of close quarters. Dancing and singing were enjoyed both as individual efforts and as community participation, and those who could play a flute well were as highly valued as those who made spears or baskets. Ayla had already learned that Story-Tellers were especially esteemed. Even the Clan had storytellers, Ayla recalled. They had particularly enjoyed the retelling of stories they knew.
The Others also liked hearing the stories retold, but they liked novelty, too. Riddles and word games were enthusiastically played by young and old alike. Visitors were welcomed, if only because they usually brought new stories. They were urged to tell about their lives and adventures, whether or not they had dramatic narration skills, because it added a measure of interest and gave people something to discuss for long hours as they sat around winter fires. Although almost anyone could weave an interesting tale, those who showed a real talent for it were urged, coaxed, and cajoled to pay visits to neighboring Caves, which was the impetus that gave rise to the traveling Story-Tellers. Some of them spent their Uves, or at least several years, traveling from Cave to Cave, carrying news, bringing messages, and telling stories. No one was more welcomed.
Most people could be quickly identified by the designs on their clothing, and the necklaces and other jewelry they wore, but over time the Story-Tellers had adopted a distinctive style of clothing and design that announced their profession. Even young children knew when they arrived, and almost all other activities stopped when one or more of the traveling entertainers made an appearance. Even planned hunting trips were often canceled. It would be a time for spontaneous feasts, and although many could, no Story-Teller ever had to hunt or forage to survive. They were always given gifts as an encouragement to return, and when they grew too old or tired of traveling, they could settle down with any Cave they chose.
Sometimes several Story-Tellers traveled together, often with their families. Particularly talented groups might include singing and dancing or the playing of instruments: various kinds of percussions, rattles, rasps, flutes, and occasionally tightened strings that were struck or plucked. A local Cave’s musicians, singers, dancers, and those who had stories to tell and liked to tell them often participated as well. Stories were often dramatized as well as narrated, but no matter how it was expressed, the story and the teller were always the focal point.
Stories could be anything: myths, legends, histories, personal adventures, or descriptions of far-off or imaginary places, people, or animals. A part of every Story-Teller’s repertoire, because it was always in demand, were the personal happenings of neighboring Caves, gossip, whether funny, serious, sad, real, or invented. Everything and anything was fair game, as long as it was well told. The traveling Story-Tellers also carried private messages, from a person to a friend or relative, from a leader to a leader, from one Zelandoni to another, although such private communication could be very sensitive. A Story-Teller had to prove very trustworthy before being entrusted with particularly confidential or esoteric messages between leaders or the zelandonia, and not all Were.
Beyond the crest, which was a high point of the area for some distance around, the land dropped down, then leveled out. Ayla climbed over the top ridge and started down, traversing at an angle along a faint trail that had been recently cleared through the hillside of dense brambles and a few scraggly pines. She veered away from the path at the bottom of the hill where the sloping canebrake of berry vines gave way to sparse grass. At an ancient dry streambed, whose tightly packed stones gave little space to establish new growth, she turned and followed it uphill.
Wolf seemed especially curious. It was new territory to him, too, and he was diverted by every pile and pocket of earth that offered his nose a new smell. They started up the rocky riverbed that had cut through the limest
one in the days when water rushed along it, then he bounded ahead and disappeared behind a hill of rubble. Ayla expected him to reappear any moment, but after what seemed to be an unusually long time, she became concerned. She stood near the mound of rocks, looked all around, and finally whistled the sharp, distinctive tones that she had specifically developed to call the wolf. Then she waited. It was some time before she saw the overgrown brambles behind the mound moving and heard him scrabbling out from under the thorny briar.
“Where have you been, Wolf?” she said as she bent down to look into his eyes. “What is under all these berry vines that it took you so long to get here?”
She decided to try to find out and took off her pack to get out the small axe Jondalar had made for her. She found it at the bottom of the pack. It was not the most effective tool for hacking through the long woody stems full of thorns, but she managed to create an opening that allowed her to see, not the ground, as she had expected, but a dark, empty space. Now, she was curious.
She worked at the vines some more and enlarged the opening enough for her to force her way through it with only a few scratches. The ground sloped down into what was obviously a cave with a comfortably wide entrance. With daylight coming through the hole she had made, she continued down, using the counting words to name her steps. When she reached thirty-one, she noticed that the slope leveled out and the corridor had widened. Faint daylight still filtered into the cave from the entrance, and with eyes adjusted to the near darkness, she saw that she had entered a much larger area. She looked around, then made a decision and headed back outside.
“I wonder how many people know about this cave, Wolf?”
She used her axe to widen the opening a little more, then went out and scanned the area. A short distance away, but surrounded by prickly briars, was a pine tree with needles that were brown. It appeared to be dead. With the small stone axe, she hacked her way through the tough woody vines a short distance, then tested a low branch to see if it was brittle enough to break. Though she’d had to hang on it with all her weight, she finally managed to snap off a section of a branch. Her hand felt sticky, and she smiled when she looked at the branch and saw some dark blobs of pitch. The pitchy branch would make a good enough torch without additional materials, once she got it lit.
She collected some dry twigs and bark from the dead pine, then walked to the middle of the rocky dry streambed. She got her fire kit out of her backpack and, using the crushed bark and twigs as tinder, and her firestone and a striking flint, she soon had a little fire started. From it, she lit the pine branch torch. Wolf watched her, and when he saw her heading back toward the cave, he raced ahead over the pile of rocks and wriggled his way in as he had the first time, under the hole Ayla had cut through the tangle of blackberry vines. Long before, when the dry bed was the river that had created the cave, the roof had extended farther out, but it had since collapsed, creating the pile of rubble that was in front of the present opening in the side of the hill.
She climbed the rocky mound and eased through the opening she had made. With the light from the flickering torch, she proceeded down the rather slick ramp of moist sandy-clay soil, again naming her steps with the counting words. This time it took only twenty-eight steps before the ground leveled out; with a torch to show the way, her stride was longer. The wide entry gallery opened onto a large, roundish, U-shaped room. She held the torch high, looked up, and caught her breath.
The walls, glinting with crystallized calcite, were nearly white, a pure, clean, resplendent surface. As she moved slowly into the cave, the light from the flickering torch sent animated shadows of the natural relief chasing each other over the walls as though they were alive and breathing. She walked closer to the white walls, which started a little below her chin—about five feet up from ground level—with a rounded ledge of brownish stone, and extended up in a curve that arced inward to the roof. She would not have thought of it before her visit to the deep cave of Fountain Rocks, but she could imagine what an artist like Jonokol might do in a cave like this.
Ayla walked around the room next to the wall, very carefully The floor was muddy and uneven, and slippery. At the bottom of the U, where it curved around there was a narrow entrance to another gallery. She held the torch up and looked inside. The upper walls were white and curved, but the lower area was a narrow twisting corridor and she decided not to enter. She continued around, and to the right of the entrance to the gallery at the back there was another passageway, but she only looked inside. She had already decided that she would have to tell Jondalar and some others and bring them back to this cave.
Ayla had seen many caves, most filled with beautiful stone icicles suspended from ceilings or stalactite draperies hanging down the walls and corresponding deposits of stalagmites growing to meet them from the floors, but she had never seen a cave like this. Although it was a limestone cave, a layer of impermeable marl had formed that blocked the calcium carbonate-saturated drops of water and kept them from seeping through to form stalactites and stalagmites. Instead the walls were covered with calcite crystals, which grow very little, leaving large panels of white covering the bumps and dips of the natural relief of the stone. It was a rare and beautiful place, the most beautiful cave she had ever seen.
She noticed the light of her torch dimming. It was building up an accumulation of charcoal near the end, stifling the flame. In most caves she would have simply knocked it against any wall to dislodge the burned wood and refresh the fire, but that usually left a black mark. In this place she felt constrained to be careful; she couldn’t just knock off the charcoal and mar the unblemished white walls. She chose a place in the darker stone area, lower down. Some of the charcoal dropped on the ground when she rapped the torch against the stone, and she had a momentary urge to clean it up. There was a sacred quality to this place; it felt spiritual, otherworldly, and she didn’t want to desecrate it in any way.
Then she shook her head. It’s only a cave, she thought, even if it is special. A little charcoal on the ground won’t hurt it. Besides, she noticed that the wolf didn’t hesitate to mark the place. He had lifted his leg every few feet, proclaiming with his scent that this was his territory. But his scent marks didn’t reach the white walls.
Ayla walked back to the camp of the Ninth Cave as quickly as she could, excited to tell people about the cave. It was only when she arrived, and noticed several people were hauling away dirt from a pit oven that had just been dug and several others were preparing food to go into it, that she remembered she had invited some people over the following morning. She had planned to forage for food to cook, to find an animal to hunt or some edible plant food, and in her excitement over the cave she had forgotten all about it. She noticed that Marthona, Folara, and Proleva had taken out an entire haunch of a bison from the cold storage pit.
The first day they arrived, most of the Ninth Cave had worked to dig the large pit all the way down to the level of the permafrost to preserve the part of the meat, which they had hunted before they left, that had not been dried. The land of the Zelandonii was close enough to the northern glacier for permafrost conditions to prevail, but that did not mean the ground was permanently frozen year-round. In winter the soil became as hard as ice, frozen solid all the way to the surface, but in summer a layer on top thawed to varying depths from a few inches to several feet depending on the surface cover and the amount of sun or shade it received. Storing meat in a hole that was dug down to the frost kept it fresh longer, though most people didn’t mind if meat aged a little, and some people preferred the flavor of meat that was quite high.
“Marthona, I’m sorry,” Ayla said when she reached the main hearth. “I went to find more food for tomorrow’s morning meal, but I found a cave nearby and forgot all about it. It is the most beautiful cave I’ve ever seen, and I wanted to show it to you, and everyone.”
“I never heard of any caves nearby,” Folara said. “Certainly not any beautiful ones. How far is it?”
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��It’s just down the other side of that slope at the back of the main camp,” Ayla explained.
“That’s where we go to gather blackberries in late summer,” Proleva said. “There is no cave there.” Several other people had heard Ayla and had gathered around, Jondalar and Joharran among them.
“She’s right,” Joharran said. “I never heard of a cave there.”
“It was hidden by the canebrake, and a big pile of rubble in front of it,” Ayla said. “Wolf actually found it. He was sniffing around under the brambles and disappeared. When I whistled for him, it took him a long time to get back, so I wondered where he went. I hacked my way through and found a cave.”
“It can’t be very big, can it?” Jondalar asked.
“It’s inside that hill, and it’s a big cave, Jondalar, and very unusual.”
“Can you show us?” he said.
“Of course. That’s what I came here to do, but now I think I should help prepare the food for the meal tomorrow morning,” Ayla said.
“We’ve just lit the fire in the pit oven,” Proleva said, “and piled a lot of wood in it. It’ll take a while for it to burn down and heat the rocks that line it. We were just going to put the food up on the high rack until we were ready for it, so there’s no reason we can’t go now.”
“I invite people here to share a meal, and everyone else has done all the work. I should at least have helped dig the roasting pit,” Ayla said, feeling embarrassed. It seemed to her that she had shirked the hard work.