At first Ayla didn’t see anything except some reddish-colored rounded flint outcroppings, which had been a common sight on all the walls. Then, high on the wall, she noticed some black marks that did not look natural. Suddenly her mind made sense of what her eyes were seeing. Painted on the wall in black outline were the shapes of mammoths. As she observed more closely, she saw three mammoths facing left, as though marching out of the cave. Then behind the last one, the outline of the back of a bison, and slightly confused with that, the distinctive shape of the head and back of another mammoth facing right. A short distance and a little higher up was a face with a distinctive beard shape, an eye, two horns, and the hump of another bison. Six animals in all, or enough of an impression to identify that many, had been painted on the wall. Ayla felt a sudden chill and shuddered.
“I’ve camped in front of this cave many times, and I didn’t know these were here. Who made these paintings?” Jondalar asked.
“I don’t know,” Zelandoni said. “No one knows for sure—the Ancients, the Ancestors. They are not mentioned in the Elder Legends. It is said that long ago there were many more mammoths around here, and woolly rhinoceroses, too. We find many old bones and tusks yellowed with age, but now we rarely see the animals. It has become quite an event when they are spotted, like the rhinoceros those boys tried to kill last year.”
“There seemed to be quite a few where the Mamutoi live,” Ayla said.
“Yes, we went on a big hunt with them,” Jondalar said, and added thoughtfully, “but it is different there. It’s much drier and colder. Not as much snow. When we hunted mammoth with the Mamutoi, the wind just blew the snow around the dry grass still standing on the open land. Here, when you see mammoths heading north in a hurry, you know a big snow storm is on the way. The farther north you go, the colder it is, and after a certain distance, it gets drier too. Mammoths flounder in heavy snow, and cave lions know it and follow them. You know the saying ‘Never go forth, when mammoths go north,’ ” Jondalar said. “If the snow doesn’t catch you, the lions will.”
Since they had stopped, Zelandoni took out a new torch from her backframe and used the one Jondalar was holding to light it. Although his was not burned out yet, it was smoldering and had been giving off a lot of smoke. When she was through, he hit his torch against a stone to knock off the burnt charcoal from the end, which caused it to burn brighter. Ayla felt her baby still squirming a little in the blanket on her back. Jonayla had been sleeping, the darkness and the motion of her mother walking lulling her, but she might be waking, Ayla thought. Once they started walking again, the infant settled down.
“The men of the Clan hunted mammoth,” Ayla said. “I went along with the hunters once, not to hunt—women of the Clan don’t hunt—but to help dry the meat and carry it back.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “I don’t think the people of the Clan would ever come into a cave like this.”
“Why not?” Zelandoni asked as they walked deeper into the cave.
“They wouldn’t be able to talk, or maybe I should say they couldn’t understand each other very well. It’s too dark, even with torches,” Ayla said. “Besides, it’s hard to talk with your hands when you are holding a torch.”
The comment made Zelandoni again aware of her odd way of saying certain sounds, as was often the case when Ayla talked about the Clan, especially the differences between them and the Zelandonii. “But they can hear and they have words. You’ve told me some of their words,” she said.
“Yes, they have some words,” Ayla said, then continued to explain that to the Clan, the sounds of speech were secondary. They had names for things, but movement and gestures were primary. It wasn’t only hand signs; body language was even more important. Where the hands were held when the signs were made; the posture, bearing, and stance of the person communicating; the ages and genders of those both making the signs and to whom they were given; and often barely perceptible indications and expressions, a slight movement of a foot or hand or eyebrow, were all part of their sign language. One couldn’t even see it all if one focused only on looking at the face, or just listening to the words.
From an early age, children of the Clan had to learn how to perceive language, not just hear it. As a result, very complex and comprehensive ideas could be expressed with very little obvious movement and even less sound—but not over a great distance or in the dark. That was a major disadvantage. They had to see it. Ayla told them of one old man who had been going blind, who finally gave up and died because he couldn’t communicate anymore; he couldn’t see what people were saying. Of course, sometimes the Clan did need to speak in the dark, or shout over a distance. That was why they had developed some words, used some sounds, but their use of speaking words was much more limited. “Just as our use of gestures is limited,” she said. “People like us, the ones they call ‘the Others,’ also use posture, expression, and gesture to speak, to communicate, but not as much.”
“What do you mean?” Zelandoni said.
“We don’t use sign language as consciously, or as expressively, as the Clan. If I make a beckoning gesture,” she said, showing the movement as she explained, “most people know it means to ‘come.’ If I make it quickly or with some agitation, it implies urgency, but from any distance there’s usually no way to tell if the urgenc
y is because someone is hurt or if the evening meal is getting cold. When we look at each other and see the shape of the words or the expressions on a face, it tells us more, but even in the dark, or in a fog, or from a distance we can still communicate with almost as much understanding. Even shouting from a great distance, we can explain very complete and difficult ideas. Such ability to speak and understand under almost any circumstance is a real advantage.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Jondalar said. “When you taught the Mamutoi Lion Camp to ‘speak’ the Clan way with signs, so Rydag could communicate, everyone, particularly the youngsters, made a game of it, had fun giving each other signals. But when we got to the Summer Meeting, it became more serious when we were around everybody else but wanted to let someone from the Lion Camp know something privately. I remember one time in particular when Talut was telling the Lion Camp not to say something until later, because there were some people nearby whom he didn’t want to know. I don’t recall what it was now.”
“So, if I understand you correctly, you could say something in words, and at the same time say something else, or clarify some meaning privately, with these hand signs,” the One Who Was First said. She had stopped walking, and the frown of concentration indicated that she was thinking of something she felt was important.
“Yes, you could,” Ayla said.
“Would it be very difficult to learn this sign language?”
“It would be if you tried to learn it completely, with all of its shades of meaning,” Ayla said, “but I taught the Lion Camp a simplified version, the way children are taught at first.”
“But it was enough to communicate,” Jondalar said. “You could have a conversation … well, maybe not about the finer points of some intricate idea.”
“Perhaps you should teach the zelandonia this simplified sign language,” the First said. “I can see where it could be quite useful, to pass on information, or to clarify a point.”
“Or if you ever met one of the Clan and wanted to say something,” Jondalar said. “It helped me when we met Guban and Yorga just before we crossed the small glacier.”
“Yes, that too,” Zelandoni said. “Maybe we could make arrangements for a few teaching sessions next year, at the Summer Meeting. Of course, you could teach the Ninth Cave during the next cold season.” She paused again. “You’re right, though, it wouldn’t work in the dark. So they don’t go into caves at all?”
“They go into them; they just don’t go in very far. And when they do, they light the way very well. I don’t think they would go this far into a cave,” Ayla said, “except alone, or for special reasons. The mog-urs sometimes went into deeper caves.” Ayla vividly recalled a cave at the Clan Gathering, where she followed some lights and saw the mog-urs, the holy men.
They started walking again, each caught up in private thoughts. After a while Zelandoni started singing again. When they had gone another distance that was not quite as far as it had been to the first paintings on the walls, the sound of Zelandoni’s voice developed more resonance, seemed to echo from the walls of the cave, and Wolf began to howl again. The First stopped and this time faced the right wall of the cave. Ayla and Jondalar again saw mammoths, two of them, not painted but engraved, plus a bison, and what appeared to be some strange marks made with fingers in softened clay or something similar.
“I always knew he was a zelandoni,” the First said.
“Who?” Jondalar asked, although he thought he knew.
“Wolf, of course. Why do you think he ‘sings’ when we come to the places where the spirit world is near?”
“The spirit world is near, here in this place?” Jondalar said, looking around and feeling a touch of apprehension.