The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children 6)

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Ayla climbed the steep path to the top of the cliff. She carried a load of wood in a carrier that hung from a tumpline across her forehead and set it down near the battered column of basalt that seemed to grow at a precarious angle out of the edge of the limestone cliff. She stopped to gaze at the whole panorama. As often as she had seen it this past year that she had been marking the risings and settings of the moon and sun, the expansive view never failed to move her. She watched The River below flow in sinuous curves from north to south. Darkening clouds hugged the crests of the hills across The River to the east, obscuring their sharp outline. They would likely become more clear near dawn tomorrow, when she needed to see where the sun rose to compare it with the day before.

She turned the other way. The sun, blindingly brilliant, was on its downward path; it would soon be sunset and the bottoms of the few white fluffy clouds were tinged with pink, promising a grand show. Her eyes continued their movement to the horizon. She was almost sorry to see that the view toward the west was clear. She would have no excuse to avoid coming up tonight, she thought, as she headed back down to the Ninth Cave.

When she reached her dwelling under the sheltering limestone overhang, it was cold and empty. Jondalar and Jonayla must have gone to Proleva’s for their meal tonight, Ayla thought, or maybe Marthona’s. She was tempted to go look for them, but what was the use if she had to go out anyway?

She found tinder, flint, and a firestone near the cold hearth and started a fire. When it was well established, she added some cooking stones to it, then checked the waterbag and was glad to find it full. She poured some water into a wooden cooking bowl for tea. She searched around the hearth area and found some cold soup in a tightly woven basket that had been coated with river clay to make the cooking and storage pot even more watertight, something most of the women had started doing only within the last few years. With a ladle carved out of an ibex horn, she scooped up some of the contents from the bottom, and with her fingers picked out a few bites of cold meat and a rather soggy root of some kind, then moved the pot closer to the fire, and with bentwood tongs pushed some hot coals around it.

She added a few more sticks of wood to the fire, then sat down cross-legged on a low cushion while she waited for the stones to heat so she could bring the tea water to a boil, and closed her eyes. She was tired. The past year had been particularly difficult for her because she had to be awake during the night so much. She almost drifted off to sleep sitting up, but jerked awake when her head bobbed down.

With her fingers, she flicked a few drops of water on the cooking stones, watched them disappear with a hiss and a wisp of vapor, then using the bentwood tongs with the charred ends she picked up a cooking stone from the fire and dropped it into the bowl of water. The water roiled and sent up a cloud of steam. She added a second stone and when the water calmed down, she dipped her little finger in to test the heat. It was hot, but not as hot as she wanted. She added a third stone from the fire and waited for it to settle, then scooped out a large cupful of steaming water and dropped in a few pinches of dried leaves from a row of covered baskets on a shelf near the hearth and set down the tightly woven cup to wait for the tea to steep.

She checked a pouch that was dangling from a peg pounded into a support post. It held two small, flat sections of a megaceros antler and a flint burin that she had been using to gouge marks on the flat pieces cut out of the giant deer horn. She checked the tool to see if its chisel-like end was still sharp; with use, pieces spalled off. For a handle, the opposite end had been inserted into a section of antler from a roe deer that had been softened in boiling water. It hardened again when it dried. On one piece of flat antler she had been keeping a record of the sun’s and moon’s settings. On the second, she made tally marks to show the number of days from one full moon to the next—with the full moon, the absence of the moon, and the opposite-facing half disks indicated among the tally marks. She tied the pouch to her waist thong; then she ladled some warm soup into a wooden bowl and drank it down, stopping only to chew the pieces of meat.

From her sleeping room, she got her fur-lined cloak with the hood and wrapped it around her shoulders—it was cold at night even in summer—picked up the cup of hot tea, and left her dwelling. She again went toward the rising path at the back of the abri, just beyond the edge of the overhang, and started up, wondering where Wolf was. He was often her only companion on her long nightly vigils, lying on the ground at her feet as she sat on the top of the cliff bundled up in warm clothes.

When she came to the fork in the trail, she took a quick sip of tea, then put the cup down and hurried around to the trenches. Though they were moved to a slightly different place every year or so, they were always in the same general area. She quickly relieved herself, then hurried back to the path, picked up her cup, and followed the other fork, the steep narrow path that led up to the top of the cliff.

Not far from the strange leaning stone embedded deep into the top of the cliff face was the black circular lens of a charcoal-filled fireplace within a ring of stones, and a few smooth river rocks that made good cooking stones. Next to a natural outcrop of rock, a depression had been carved out of the frangible limestone beside the column. A large panel of dried grass woven so that rain ran off the overlapping rows was leaning against the stone. Under it were a couple of bowls, including a cooking bowl, and a leather pouch that held some odds and ends such as a flint knife, a couple of packets of tea, and some dried meat. Beside it was a rolled-up fur and inside that a rawhide packet containing fire-making materials, a crude stone lamp and a few wicks, and some torches.

Ayla put the packet aside; she would not light a fire until after the moon rose. She spread out the fur and settled herself down in her accustomed place, using the outcrop as a backrest, with her back to The River to watch the horizon to the west. She took the antler plaques and flint burin from the pouch, and looked closely at the record of the setting sun she had made so far, then back at the top edge of the western landscape.

Last night it set just to the left of that small rise, she said to herself, squinting her eyes to keep out the long, bright rays of the sun

. The glowing hot light slipped behind a dusty haze near the ground, masking the searing incandescence to a glowing red disk. It was as perfectly round as its nighttime companion when it was full. Both celestial orbs were precisely circular, the only perfect circles in her environment. With the haze, the sun was easier to see, and it was easier to place its precise setting in relation to the silhouetted hilly line of the horizon in the distance. In the dimming light, Ayla gouged out a mark on her antler plaque.

Then she turned to face east, across The River. The first stars had made their appearance in the darkening sky. The moon would soon show his face, she knew, though sometimes it rose before the sun set, and sometimes it showed a paler face against a clear blue sky during the day. She had been watching the sun and moon rise and set for nearly a year, and while she hated the separation from Jondalar and Jonayla that her watch of the heavenly bodies had necessitated, she had been fascinated by the knowledge she had gained. Tonight, though, she felt unsettled. She wanted to go to her dwelling, crawl into her furs with Jondalar, and have him hold her, touch her, and make her feel as only he could. She stood up and sat back down, trying to find a more comfortable position, trying to prepare herself for her long, lonely night.

To pass the time and help keep herself awake, she concentrated on repeating in a low tone some of the many songs, and long histories and legends, often in rhyme, that she was committing to memory. Though she had an excellent memory, there was a lot of information she had to learn. She had no voice for melody and didn’t try to sing them as many of the zelandonia did, but Zelandoni had told her singing wasn’t necessary, so long as she knew the words and the meaning of them. The wolf seemed to enjoy the sound of her soft voice droning in metric monotony as he dozed beside her, but not even Wolf was with her tonight.

She decided to recite one of the Histories, a story that told about the before times, a story that was particularly difficult for her. It was an early reference to the ones the Zelandonii called Flatheads, the ones she thought of as her Clan, but her mind kept drifting away. The story was full of names that held no familiarity, events that had no meaning for her, and concepts that she didn’t quite understand, or perhaps, with which she didn’t agree. She kept thinking of her own memories, her own history, her early life with the Clan. Maybe she ought to switch to a legend. They were easier. They often told stories that were funny or sad, that explained or exemplified customs and behaviors.

She heard a faint sound, a panting breath, and turned to see Wolf coming up the path to join her. He bounded toward her, obviously happy to see her. She felt the same. “Hello, Wolf,” she said, roughing up the thick fur around his neck and smiling as she held his head and looked into his eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m in the mood for company tonight.” He licked her face, then tenderly took her jaw in his teeth. When he let go, she gently held his furry muzzle in her teeth for a moment. “I think you are glad to see me, too. Jondalar and Jonayla must be back, and she is probably sleeping. It relieves my mind to know you are looking after her, Wolf, when I can’t be there.”

The wolf settled at her feet; she wrapped the cloak tightly around her, sat back down to wait for the moon to rise, and tried to concentrate on a legend about one of the Zelandonii ancestors, but instead she recalled the time that she nearly lost Wolf on their Journey. They were making a perilous crossing of a flooded river and had become separated from him. She remembered searching for him, cold and wet and nearly out of her mind with the fear that she had lost him. She felt again the sinking dread when she finally found him unconscious, afraid he was dead. Jondalar had found them both, and though he was cold and wet, too, he had done everything. She was so cold and exhausted, she was useless. He had put up the shelter, carried her and the half-drowned wolf inside, saw to the horses, took care of them all.

She wrenched her mind back to the present, feeling a need for Jondalar. Maybe the counting words, she thought. She started to say them, “One, two, three, four,” and remembered how delighted she had been the first time Jondalar had explained them to her. She had understood the abstract concept immediately, counting things she could see in her cave: she had one sleeping place; one, two horses; one, two … Jondalar’s eyes are so blue.

I must stop this, she thought. Ayla stood up and walked toward the columnar stone that seemed balanced so precariously close to the edge. Yet last summer when several men had tried to push it over, thinking it might pose a danger, they couldn’t budge it. It was the stone that she had seen from below on the day she and Jondalar first arrived, she remembered, the one that made a distinctive outline against the sky. She vaguely recalled seeing it before in a dream.

She reached out and put her hand on the large stone near the base, and suddenly snatched it away. Her fingertips seemed to tingle where she had touched the stone. When she looked at it again, in the dim light of the moon, it felt as though the stone had moved slightly, leaned closer to the edge, and was it glowing? She backed away, staring at the peculiar stone. I must be imagining it, she thought. She shut her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them, the stone looked like any other stone. She reached out to touch it again. It felt like rock, but as she held her hand on the rough stone, she thought she felt a tingling again.

“Wolf, I think this is one night the sky can do without me,” she said. “I’m starting to see things that aren’t there. And look! The moon is already up, and I missed its rising. I’m not doing any good out here tonight anyway.”

She thought about lighting a torch, but decided against taking the time to make a fire—the moon was bright enough. She picked her way carefully down the path by the light of the moon and stars with Wolf leading the way. She glanced back once more at the rock. It still seems to glow, she thought. Maybe I’ve been looking at the sun too much. Zelandoni did warn me to be careful.

It was much darker inside, but she could see by the reflection from the roof of the abri of a large communal fire that had been lit earlier in the evening and was still burning. Ayla entered her dwelling quietly. Everyone seemed to be sleeping, but a small lamp gave off a dim light. They often lit one for Jonayla. It took her longer to fall asleep when it was pitch dark. The lichen wick soaking in the melted fat burned for quite a while, and it had often served Ayla well when she came home late at night. She looked beyond the partition into the room where Jondalar was sleeping. Jonayla had crept in beside him again. She smiled at them, and started toward Jonayla’s bed, not wanting to disturb them. Then she stopped and shaking her head, went to their bed.

“Is that you, Ayla?” Jondalar said sleepily. “Is it morning already?”

“No, Jondalar. I came in early tonight,” she said as she picked up the tow-headed child and put her in her own bed. She tucked her in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then she went back to the bed she shared with Jondalar. When she got there, Jondalar was awake, propped up on one elbow.

“Why did you decide to come in early?”

“I couldn’t seem to concentrate.” She smiled at him sensuously, and removed her clothes, then crawled in beside him. The place was still warm from her sleeping daughter. “Do you remember that you once told me that anytime I wanted you, all I had to do was this?” she said as she gave him a long loving kiss.

He was quick to respond. “It’s still true,” he said, his voice gruff with his quickened desire. The nights had been long and lonely for him, too. Jonayla was cute and cuddly, and he loved her, but she was a little girl, and his mate’s daughter, not his mate. Not the woman who aroused his passion and, until recently, had satisfied it so well.