The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“Yes.”

“And she told you how to prepare yourself. Do you have everything you need?”

“It’s necessary to purify myself. I don’t have exactly the same things, it’s a different season, but I can use other things to cleanse myself.”

“Your Mog-ur, your Creb, he controlled the experience for you?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“He must have been very powerful.”

“The Cave Bear was his totem. It chose him, gave him power.”

“In the ritual with the root, were others involved?”

Ayla hung her head, then nodded.

There was something she hadn’t told him, Mamut thought, wondering if it was important. “Did they assist him in controlling it?”

“No. Creb’s power was greater than all of them. I know, I felt it.”

“How did you feel it, Ayla? You never did tell me. I thought women of the Clan were barred from participating in the deepest rituals.”

She looked down again. “They are,” she mumbled.

He lifted her chin. “Perhaps you should tell me about it, Ayla.”

She nodded. “Iza never did show me how to make it, she said it was too sacred to be wasted for practice, but she tried to tell me exactly how to do it. When we got to the Clan Gathering, the mog-urs didn’t want me to make the drink for them. They said I was not Clan. Maybe they were right,” Ayla added, putting her head down again. “But, there was no one else.”

Was she pleading for understanding? Mamut wondered.

“I think I made it too strong, or too much. They didn’t finish it all. Later, after the datura and the women’s dance, I found it. I was dizzy, all I could think of was that Iza said it was too sacred to be wasted. So I drank it. I don’t remember what happened after that, and yet I’ll never forget it. Somehow, I found Creb and the mog-urs, and he took me all the way back to the beginning of the memories. I remember breathing the warm water of the sea, burrowing in the loam … Clan and the Others, we both come from the same beginnings, did you know that?”

“I’m not surprised,” Mamut said, thinking how much he would have given for that experience.

“But I was frightened, too, especially before Creb found me, and guided me. And … since then, I’m … not the same. Sometimes my dreams frighten me. I think he changed me.”

Mamut was nodding. “That could explain it,” he said. “I wondered how you could do so much without training.”

“Creb changed, too. For a long time, it wasn’t the same between us. With me, he saw something he hadn’t seen before. I hurt him, I don’t know how, but I hurt him,” Ayla said, as tears welled up.

Mamut put his arms around her as she cried softly on his shoulder. Then her tears became the threatened flood, and she sobbed and shook with more recent grief. Her sadness for Creb brought up the tears she had been holding back, the tears of her sorrow, confusion, and thwarted love.

Jondalar had been watching from the cooking hearth. He had wanted to go to her, somehow make amends, and was trying to think of what to say when Mamut went over to talk to her. When he saw Ayla crying, he was sure she had told the old shaman. Jondalar’s face burned with shame. He couldn’t stop thinking about the incident on the steppes, and the more he thought about it, the worse it became.

And afterward, he said to himself, all you did was walk away. You didn’t even try to help her, didn’t even try to tell her you were sorry, or how terrible you felt. Jondalar hated himself and wanted to leave, to pack up everything and leave, and not face Ayla or Mamut, or anyone, again, but he had promised Mamut he would stay until after the Spring Festival. Mamut already must think I am contemptible, he thought. Would breaking a promise be that much worse? But it was more than his promise that held him. Mamut had said Ayla might be in danger, and no ma

tter how much he hated himself, how much he wanted to run away, Jondalar could not leave Ayla to face that danger alone.

“Do you feel better now?” Mamut said, when she sat up and wiped her eyes.

“Yes,” she said.

“And you were not harmed?”

Ayla was surprised by his question. How did he know? “No, not at all, but he thinks so. I wish I could understand him,” she said, as tears threatened again. Then she tried to smile. “I didn’t cry so much when I lived with the Clan. It made them uneasy. Iza thought I had weak eyes, because they watered when I was sad, and she would always treat them with special medicine when I cried. I used to wonder if it was just me, or if all the Others had watery eyes.”

“Now you know.” Mamut smiled. “Tears were given to us to relieve pain. Life is not always easy.”