The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“The medicine women of the Clan are very skilled; she learned from them. No one could have done a better job on my arm. The skin was scraped, with dirt ground in, and it was torn open with the broken bone poking through. It looked like a piece of meat. The woman, Uba, cleaned it and set it right, and it did not even swell up with pus and fever. I had full use when it healed, and only in these later years have I felt a little ache now and then. Ayla learned from the granddaughter of the woman who fixed my arm. I was told she was considered the best,” Mamut announced, watching Rydag’s reaction. The boy looked at both of them quizzically, wondering how they could know the same people.

“Yes. And Iza was best, like her mother and her grandmother,” Ayla said, finishing up. She hadn’t been paying attention to the silent communication between the boy and the old man. “She knew all her mother knew, had mother’s memories, and grandmother’s memories.”

Ayla moved some stones from the fireplace closer to Mamut’s bed, scooped up a few live coals with two sticks and put them on the stones, then sprinkled powdered honeybloom root on the coals. She went to get covers for Mamut to keep the heat in, but while she was tucking them around him, he got up on one elbow and looked at her thoughtfully.

“The people of the Clan are different in a way that most people don’t realize. It’s not that they don’t talk, or that the way they talk is different. It’s that the way they think is a little different. If Uba, the woman who took care of me, was the grandmother of your Iza, and she learned from her mother’s and grandmother’s memories, how did you learn, Ayla? You don’t have Clan memories.” Mamut noticed an embarrassed flush, and a quick little gasp of surprise before Ayla looked down. “Or do you?”

Ayla looked up at him again, then down. “No. I do not have Clan memories,” she said.

“But …?”

Ayla looked back at him. “What do you mean, ‘but’?” she said. Her expression was wary, almost frightened. She looked down again.

“You do not have Clan memories, but … you have something, don’t you? Something of the Clan?”

Ayla kept her head bowed. How could he know? She had never told anyone, not even Jondalar. She hardly even admitted it to herself, but she had never been quite the same afterward. There were those times, that came on her …

“Does it have something to do with your skill as a medicine woman?” Mamut asked.

She looked up and shook her head. “No,” she said, her eyes pleading for him to believe her. “Iza teach me, I was very young, I think I was not yet age of Rugie when she begin. Iza knew I did not have memories, but she make me remember, make me tell her again and again until I do not forget. She is very patient. Some people tell her, is foolish to teach me. I cannot remember … I am too stupid. She tell them no, I am just different. I do not want to be different. I make myself remember. I say to myself, over and over, even when Iza is not teaching me. I learn to remember, my way. Then I make myself learn fast so they won’t think I am so stupid.”

Rydag’s eyes were opened big and round. More than anyone, he understood exactly how she had felt, but he didn’t know anyone had ever felt the same way, especially someone like Ayla.

Mamut looked at her with amazement. “So you memorized Iza’s Clan ‘memories.’ That’s quite an accomplishment. They go back generation after generation, don’t they?”

Rydag was listening closely now, sensing something very important to him.

“Yes,” Ayla said, “but I did not learn all her memories. Iza could not teach me all she knew. She told me she did not even know how much she knew, but she teach me how to learn. How to test, how to try carefully. Then, when I am older, she said I was her daughter, medicine woman of her line. I ask, how can I claim her line? I am not her true daughter. I am not even Clan, I do not have memories. Then she tell me I have something else, as good as memories, maybe better. Iza thought I was born to line of medicine women of the Others, best line, like her line was best. That is why I am medicine woman of her line. She said someday I would be best.”

“Do you know what she meant? Do you know what you have?” Mamut asked.

“Yes, I think so. When someone not well, I see what is wrong. I see look of eyes, color of face, smell of breath. I think about it, sometimes know just looking, other times, know what to ask. Then make medicine to help. Not always same medicine. Sometimes new medicine, like bouza in arthritis wash.”

“Your Iza may have been right. The best Healers have that gift,” the Mamut said, then a thought occurred to him, and he continued, “I have noticed one difference between you and the Healers I know, Ayla. You use plant remedies and other treatments to heal, Mamutoi Healers call upon the assistance of the spirits as well.”

“I do not know world of spirits. In Clan only mog-urs know. When Iza want help of spirits, she ask Creb.”

The Mamut stared hard into the eyes of the young woman. Ayla, would you like to have the help of the spirit world?”

“Yes, but I have no mog-ur to ask.”

“You don’t have to ask anyone. You can be your own mog-ur.”

“Me? A mog-ur? But I am a woman. A woman of the Clan cannot be a mog-ur,” Ayla said, stunned at the suggestion.

“But you are not a woman of the Clan. You are Ayla of the Mamutoi. You are a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth. The best Mamutoi Healers know the ways of the spirits. You are a good Healer, Ayla, but how can you be the best if you cannot ask the help of the spirit world?”

Ayla felt a great knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach. She was a medicine woman, a good medicine woman, and Iza said someday she would be the best. Now Mamut said she could not be the best without the help of the spirits, and he must be right. Iza always asked Creb to help, didn’t she?

“But I do not know world of spirits, Mamut,” Ayla said, feeling desperate, almost panicky.

Mamut leaned close to her, sensing the moment was right, and drawing from some inner source a power to compel. “Yes, you do,” he said, his tone commanding, “don’t you, Ayla?”

Her eyes flew open in fear. “I do not want to know spirit world!” she cried.

“You only fear that world because you don’t understand it. I can help you to understand it. I can help you to use it. You were born to the Hearth of the Mammoth, born to the mysteries of the Mother, no matter where you were born or where you go. You cannot help yourself, you are drawn to it, and it seeks you. You cannot escape it, but with training and understanding, you can control it. You can make the mysteries work for you. Ayla, you cannot fight your destiny, and it is your destiny to Serve the Mother.”

“I am medicine woman! That is my destiny.”