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

“I think I’m awake, and don’t feel tired. I would like some more tea, though. My mouth still feels dry,” Ayla said. Her cup was refilled.

“Our questions should help you to interpret your own experience,” the Donier said. “No one else really can.” Ayla nodded. “Do you know how long you were in the cave?” the First asked.

“Marthona said almost four days,” Ayla said, “but I don’t recall too much after I first came out. Some people were there waiting for me. They carried me back on a litter, and the next few days are not clear.”

“Do you think you would be able to explain some things to us?”

“I’ll try.”

“The ice walls you spoke of—if I remember correctly, you told us once of falling down into a crevasse on your way across the g

lacier. By some miracle, you landed on a ledge and Jondalar pulled you out. Is that right?” the First asked.

“Yes. He threw me a rope and told me to wrap it around my waist. He attached the other end to his horse. Racer pulled me out,” Ayla clarified.

“Few people who fall into crevasses are fortunate enough to get out. You came very close to death then. It is not uncommon for acolytes, when they are being called, to experience again those times when they were near the spirit world. Would you say that was a possible interpretation of the ice walls?” the First asked.

“Yes,” Ayla said, then looked at the large woman. “I didn’t think about it before, but that could explain some of the other things, too. I almost died crossing a flooded river on our way here, and I’m sure it was Attaroa’s face I saw. She would have killed me for sure if Wolf hadn’t saved me.”

“I’m sure that accounts for some of the visions. Though I haven’t heard the full story of your Journey here, obviously most people have,” said the visiting Zelandoni. “But what was that black void? Was it a reference to the Mother’s Song or did it have some other significance? You almost had me terrified.” There was some quiet laughter and a few smiles at her comment, but some nods of agreement as well.

“And what about the warm sea, and the creatures burrowing in the mud and in the trees? That was all very strange,” said another, “not to mention all the mammoths and reindeer, and the bison and horses.”

“One question at a time, please,” the First said. “There are many things we’d all like to know, but we are in no rush. Do you have any interpretations for those things, Ayla?”

“I don’t have to interpret, I know what they are,” Ayla said. “But I don’t understand them.”

“Well, what were they?” Zelandoni of the Third Cave asked.

“I think most people know that when I lived with the Clan, the woman who was like a mother to me was a medicine woman who taught me most of what I know about healing. She also had a daughter and we all lived at the hearth of her sibling, her brother, who was called Creb. Most people of the Clan knew Creb as The Mog-ur. A mog-ur was a man who knew the spirit world, and The Mog-ur was like the One Who Was First, the most powerful of all the mog-urs.”

“He was like a zelandoni, then,” the visiting Zelandoni said.

“In a sense. He wasn’t a healer. The medicine women are the healers, they are the ones who know healing plants and practices, but it is the mog-ur who calls upon the spirit world to aid in the healing,” Ayla explained.

“The two parts are separate? I always thought of them as inseparable,” the woman unknown to Ayla said.

“You might also be surprised to know that only men were allowed to contact the spirit world, to be mog-urs, and only women were healers, medicine women,” Ayla said.

“That is surprising.”

“I don’t know about the other mog-urs, but The Mog-ur had a special ability in the way he called upon the spirit world. He could go back to their beginnings and show others the way. He even took me back once, although he wasn’t supposed to, and I think he was very sorry that he did. He changed after that; he lost something. I wish it had never happened.”

“How did it happen?” the First asked.

“There was a root they used only for the special ceremony with all the mog-urs at the Clan Gathering. It had to be prepared a particular way, and only the medicine women of Iza’s line knew how.”

“You mean they have Summer Meetings, too?” the Zelandoni of the Eleventh asked.

“Not every summer, only once in seven years. When it was time for the Clan Gathering, Iza was sick. She couldn’t make the trip, and her daughter was not yet a woman, and the root had to be prepared by a woman, not a girl. Although I didn’t have the Clan memories, Iza had been training me to be a medicine woman. It was decided that I would have to be the one to prepare the root for the mog-urs. Iza explained how I would have to chew the root and then spit it out into a special bowl. She cautioned me not to swallow any of the juice while I was chewing. When we got to the Clan Gathering, the mog-urs were not going to allow me to make it. I was born to the Others, not to the Clan, but finally at the last moment Creb came for me and told me to prepare myself.

“I went through the ritual, but it was difficult for me and I ended up swallowing some, and I had made a little too much. Iza had told me it was too precious to be wasted, and by then I wasn’t thinking clearly. I drank what was left in the bowl so it wouldn’t go to waste, and without meaning to, I went into the cave nearby and deep inside I found the mog-urs. No woman was ever supposed to participate in the men’s ceremonies, but I was there, and had also swallowed the drink.

“I can’t really explain what happened after that, but somehow Creb knew I was there. I was falling into a deep black void; I thought I would be lost in it forever, but Creb came for me, pulled me back. I’m sure he saved my life. The people of the Clan have a special quality to their minds that we don’t, just as we have a quality that they don’t. They have memories; they can remember what their ancestors knew. They don’t really have to learn what they need to know, like we do. They only have to need to know it, or to be ‘reminded’ to remember. They can learn something new, but it’s more difficult for them.

“Their memories go back a long way. In certain circumstances they can go back to their beginnings, to a time so long ago, there were no people and the earth was different. Perhaps back to the time when the Great Earth Mother gave birth to her son and first made the land green with her birth waters. Creb had the ability to direct the other mog-urs and lead them back to those times. After he saved me, he took me with him and the other mog-urs back into the memories. If you go back far enough, we all have the same memories, and he helped me to find mine. I shared the experience with them.

“In the memories, when the earth was different, so long ago it is hard to imagine, those who came before people once lived in the depths of the ocean. When the water dried and they were stranded in the mud, they changed and learned to live on land. They changed many times after that, and with Creb, I was able to go there with them. It was not quite the same for me as it was for them, but still, I was able to go there. I saw the Ninth Cave before the Zelandonii lived there; I recognized the Falling Stone when I first arrived. And then I went someplace Creb was not able to go. He blocked out the other mog-urs so they wouldn’t know I was there, and then he told me to leave, to get out of the cave before they discovered me. He never told them I was there. I would have been killed outright if they knew, but he was never the same after that.”