by Jean M. Auel
'Yes, I recall,' the First said. 'I don't need to see this last place this time. I'll let the more energetic ones go ahead.'
'I'll wait with you,' Willamar said. 'I have seen it, too.'
When the group got back together, they all started to walk along the wall that had been on the right and was now on their left. They passed the panel of scraped mammoths and finally came to the black paintings that they had only glimpsed from a distance. As they approached the first of the images, the Watcher started humming again, and the visitors could feel the cave responding.
Chapter 28
The first images Ayla was drawn to were the horses, though they were by no means the first paintings on the wall. She had seen some beautiful art since she had come to know that visual representations existed, but she had never seen anything like the horse panel on this wall.
In this humid cave, the surface of the wall was soft. In this place, through chemical and bacterial agents that neither she nor the artists could begin to understand, the surface layer of the limestone had decomposed into 'mondmilch', a material with a soft, almost luxurious texture, and a pure white colour. It could be scraped off a wall with almost anything, even a hand, and underneath was a hard white limestone, a perfect canvas for drawing. The ancients who painted these walls knew it, and knew how to use it.
There were four horse heads, painted in perspective, one on top of another, but the wall behind them had been scraped clean, which gave the artist the opportunity to show the detail, and the individual differences of each animal The distinctive stand-up mane, the line of the jaw, the shape of the muzzle, an open or closed mouth, a flaring nostril, all were depicted with such accuracy, they seemed alive.
Ayla turned to find the tall man to whom she was mated to share this moment with. 'Jondalar, look at those horses! Have you ever seen anything like it? It's like they're alive.'
He stood behind her and put his arms around her. 'I have seen some beautiful horses painted on walls, but nothing like this. What do you think, Jonokol?'
He turned to the First. 'Thank you for taking me with you on this trip. For this alone, the entire Journey would be worth it. And it's not just the horses. Look at those aurochs, and those rhinoceroses fighting.'
'I don't think they are fighting,' Ayla said.
'No, they do that before they share Pleasures, too,' Willamar said. He looked at the First and felt they shared the same experience. Although both of them had been here before, seeing the images through Ayla's eyes was like seeing them for the first time.
The Watcher couldn't erase her smile of smug satisfaction. She didn't have to say, 'I told you.' This was the best part of being a Watcher. Not seeing the work herself — she had seen it many times — but seeing the way people responded to it. Most people. 'Would you like to see more?'
Ayla just looked at her and smiled, but it was the loveliest smile she had ever seen. She really is a beautiful woman, the Watcher thought. I can understand Jondalar's attraction to her. If I were a man, I would be too.
Now that they had taken in the horses, Ayla could take the time to see the rest, and there was much more to see. The three aurochs to the left of the horses, mingled with the small rhinos, a deer, and below the confronting rhinos, a bison. On the right side of the horses there was an alcove, big enough for one at a time. Inside it were more horses, a bear or perhaps a big cat, an aurochs, and a bison with many legs.
'Look at that stampeding bison,' Ayla said. 'He's really running and breathing hard, and the lions,' she added, first smiling, then laughing out loud.
'What's so funny?' Jondalar asked.
'See those two lions? That female sitting down is in heat, and the male is very interested, but she's not. He is not the one she wants to share Pleasures with, so she's sitting down and won't let him get close to her. The artist who made them was so good, you can see the disdain in her expression, and though the male is trying to look big and strong — see how he's baring his teeth? — he knows that she thinks he's not good enough for her, and is a little afraid of her,' Ayla explained. 'How can an artist do that? Get that look just right.'
'How do you know all that?' asked the Watcher. No one had ever given that explanation before, but as Ayla spoke it seemed entirely right, they did seem to have those expressions.
'When I was teaching myself to hunt, I used to watch them,' Ayla said. 'I was living with the Clan then, and Clan women are not supposed to hunt, so I decided rather than hunt animals to eat, since I couldn't bring them back and they would go to waste, I'd hunt the meat-eaters that stole our food. I still got in bad trouble when they found out, though.'
The Watcher had started humming again, and Jonokol was singing many notes of harmony around her tones. The First was getting ready to join in when Ayla stepped out of the alcove.
'I liked the lions best. I think that frustrated lion would sound like this,' she said, then started the grunting buildup and let out a tremendous roar. It echoed off the rock of the cave all the way to the end of the passage ahead, then out toward the chamber with the bear skull.
The Watcher jumped back in shocked surprise and a little fear. 'How does she do that?' She glanced at the First and Willamar with an incredulous look.
Both of them just nodded. 'She still surprises us,' Willamar said when Ayla and Jondalar moved on. 'If you really listen, it's not as loud as it seems, but it is loud.'
On the other side of the alcove was a panel of mostly reindeer, male reindeer. Even female reindeer had antlers, the only deer that did, but they were small. The six reindeer on the panel had well-developed antlers, with brow tines and a full curving backsweep. There were also a horse, a bison, and an aurochs. But she didn't think all the painting were done by the same person. The bison was rather stiff, and the horse looked unrefined, especially after seeing the beautiful examples earlier. The person who made it was not as good an artist.
The Watcher walked to an opening at the right side that led to a narrow passageway that had to be taken single file because of the shape of the side walls and the rock pendants hanging from the ceiling. On the right side was a complete drawing in black of a megaceros, the giant deer whose defining characteristic was a hump on the withers, along with a small head and a sinuous neck. Ayla wondered why these artists showed them without antlers, since that was the defining characteristic to her, and the reason for the hump.
On the same panel in a vertical position facing up, was the line of the back and two frontal horns of a rhinoceros, with its double arcs that represented ears. On the left side of the entrance was the shape of the head and back of two mammoths. Farther down the left wall were two more rhinos, facing in opposite directions. The one facing right was complete. It also had a broad dark stripe around its mid-section as many rhinos in this cave did. Above it, the one facing left was only suggested by the line of the back and the little double-arc ears.
Even more interesting to Ayla was the line of hearths along the corridor, likely used to make the charcoal to make the drawings. The fires had blackened the walls near them. Were they the hearths of the ancients, of the artists who created all the incredible paintings and drawings in this magnificent cave? It made them seem more real, like people, not like spirits from another world. The floor sloped down steeply and there were three abrupt drops of over three feet each along its length. The middle of the corridor had engravings made with fingers rather than black drawings. Just before the second drop in the level of the floor, there were three pubic triangles, with a vulvar cleft at the downward pointed end, on opposite sides, two on the left and one on the right.
The First was getting tired, but she knew she would never again make this trip, and even if she did, she wouldn't be able to walk the length of this cave. Jonokol and Jondalar, one on each side, had helped the First down the drops in the level of the floor, and when the floor of the corridor got especially steep. Although it was difficult going for her, Ayla noticed that she made no mention of not going on. At one point she heard the
woman comment, almost to herself, that she would never see this cave again.
The amount of walking she had been doing on the Journey had made her healthier, but she was enough of a healer to know that she wasn't as well or as strong as she had been in her youth. She was determined to see this very special cave one last time in its entirety.
The last painted panel in the corridor was just before the last big drop in the floor level. On the right were four rhinoceroses that were partly painted and partly engraved. One was hard to see; two were quite small and had black bands circling their bellies, and had the typical ears. The last was much bigger but incomplete. A large male ibex, identified by the horns that swept back almost the full length of its body, was painted in black on a rock pendant that overlooked the group from its elevated position. On the left side, the wall had been scraped to prepare it for several animals: six full or partial horses, two bison, and two megaceros, one of each complete, two little rhinos, and several lines and marks.
The biggest step down followed: a thirteen-foot progression of uneven terraces caused by flowing water and depressions in the fill dirt of the cave floor, with big bear nests dug into it. Jondalar, Jonokol, Willamar, and Ayla all helped the First get down. It would be just as difficult getting her up again, but they were all determined. Rock pendants hung from the ceiling, their fine, light surfaces reflecting the light from the torches, but they were not decorated. The right wall had very little art, but it did have some.
The Watcher started humming again, and the First joined her, and then Jonokol. Ayla waited. They faced the right wall first, but for no reason that Ayla could understand, it didn't resonate well. One panel had three black rhinoceroses — one complete with a black band around its middle, another that was just an outline, and a third that was just a head — three lions, a bear, the head of a bison, and a vulva. She had the feeling they were telling a story, perhaps about women, and she wished she knew what it was. They turned around and faced the left wall. Now the cave sang back.
At a quick look, the first part of the left wall seemed to be divided into three major sections. Very near the beginning of the space were three lions side by side facing right, shown in perspective by the line of the back. The biggest one farthest away was about eight feet long, painted in black and showing his scrotum so there was no doubt about his gender. The middle one was made with a red line, and also showed he was male. The one closest was smaller and female. As she looked at the drawing, Ayla wasn't sure about the middle one. There wasn't a third head, and it may have been there for perspective, and therefore it was just a lion couple. Though simple, the lines were very expressive. Above their backs, she could faintly make out three engraved mammoths made with a finger. Lions predominated in this part of the cave. To the right of the lions was a rhinoceros, and to the right of that were three more lions facing left that seemed to be staring at the other lions and two rhinos, which gave a certain balance to the panel.
All the paintings in this section were located at a level that could be reached by a person standing on the ground, except for one mammoth engraved high up on the wall. Many of the paintings were on top of bear claw markings, but there were also a few claw marks on top of them. So bears had visited after the people left.
There was a niche in the centre of the next section. To the left of it were faded red lions and dots superimposed by black lions. Then a section with a rhino with multiple horns, eight in perspective, so that it appeared to be eight rhinos side by side and many more rhinos. To the right of the rhino panel was the niche, and painted inside it was a horse. Two black rhinos and a mammoth were painted above it, and impressions of animals emerging from deep in the rocks, the horse coming out of the niche, a massive bison coming from a crack, from the Other World, then mammoths, and a rhinoceros.
The section to the right of the niche had primarily two animals, lions and bison — lions hunting bison. The bison were crowded together in a herd on the left side, and the lions were straining toward them from the right, as though waiting for a signal to pounce. The lions were beautifully fierce, as she knew they should be; the cave lion was her totem. To Ayla, this was the most spectacular chamber in the whole cave. There was so much, she could not absorb it all, but she wanted to. The big panel ended at a ridge that formed a kind of second niche, a shallow one, with a complete black rhinoceros emerging from the world of the spirits. On the other side of the niche a bison was drawn with its head on one plane, seen full face, and its body in profile on another perpendicular to it, very effective.
Below the bison was a triangular cavity with two lion heads and the forequarters of another lion facing right. Above the lions was a black rhinoceros with streaks of red showing wounds and blood coming out of its mouth. Beyond that a wide rock pendant showed the place where the ceiling descended until it was perpendicular to the right wall. Three lions and another animal were painted on its internal surface, but visible from the chamber. Just before the ceiling descended, a protrusion of rock stood out and descended vertically, ending in a rounded point. It had four faces all richly decorated.
'To understand it fully, you need to see all the way around it,' the Watcher said, showing Ayla the full composite figure. The forequarters of a bison on top of human legs with a large vulva between them, shaded black, with vertical engraving at the lower point. It was the bottom of a woman's body with a bison head above, and a lion around the back of the pendant. 'The shape of that pendant has always looked to me like a man's organ.'
'It does, doesn't it,' Ayla agreed.
'There are a couple of small rooms that have some interesting paintings,' the Watcher said. 'If you like, I'll show you.'
'Yes. I'd like to see as much as I can before we have to leave,' Ayla said.
'You can see here, behind the male pendant, there are three lions. And after the bleeding rhino, there is a little corridor that leads to a beautiful horse,' the Watcher said, leading her to show the way. 'And here is the big bison at the end of the panel. Inside this area is a big lion, and some little horses. The area across the way is very hard to get into.'
Ayla walked back toward the beginning of the chamber to where the First was resting on a stone. The rest of the visitors were nearby.
'Well, what do you think, Ayla?' the woman asked.
'I am so glad you brought me here. I think this is the most beautiful cave I have ever seen. It's more than a cave, but I don't know a word for it. When I lived with the Clan I didn't know you could see something in real life and make something that looked like it out of something else.' Ayla looked around for Jondalar, and smiled when she saw him. He came closer and stood with his arm around her, which was what she wanted. She needed to share this with him. 'Then when I went to live with the Mamutoi and saw the things Ranec could make out of ivory, and others could make using leather and beads, and sometimes just a stick making marks on a smooth floor of dirt, I was amazed.'
She stopped and looked down at the damp clay floor of the cave. All the people with their flickering torches were gathered together in one place. The pool of light didn't spread very far and the animals painted on the walls were just hints in the darkness, more like the fleeting glimpses that most people saw in the world outside.
'On this trip, and before, we have seen other paintings and drawings that were beautiful, and some that were not so beautiful, but remarkable just the same. I don't know how people do this, and I can't begin to know why. I think it's done to please the Mother and I'm sure it must, and maybe to tell Her story, or some other stories. Maybe people do it just because they can. Like Jonokol, he thinks of something to paint, and he can do it, so he does it. It's the same when you sing, Zelandoni. Most people can sing, more or less, but no one can sing like you. When you sing, I don't want to do anything but listen. It makes me feel good inside. That's how I feel when I look at these painted caves. It's how I feel when Jondalar looks at me with his eyes full of love. It feels like the ones who made these images are looking at me with eyes f
ull of love.'
She looked down at the floor because she was fighting back tears. She could usually control her tears, but she was having trouble this time.
'I think that's how the Mother must feel, too,' Ayla finished, her eyes glistening in the flickering light.
Now I know why she's mated, the Watcher thought. She's going to be a remarkable Zelandoni; she already is, but she couldn't do it without him. Maybe that's what the Mother meant him to do. Then she started to hum. Jonokol joined her. His singing always seemed to make others' songs sound better. Then Willamar joined in just singing syllables. His voice was adequate, but it added to the music they sang together. Then Jondalar joined them. He had a good voice, but he didn't sing except when others did. Then with the voices making a background chorus that resonated inside the stone cave that was so beautifully decorated, the One Who Was First Among Those Who Served The Great Earth Mother began where she had left off with the Mother's Song.
And Her luminous friend was prepared to contest,The thief who held captive the child of Her breast.Together they fought for the son She adored.Their efforts succeeded, his light was restored.His energy burned. His brilliance returned. But the bleak frigid dark craved his bright glowing heat.The Mother defended and would not retreat.The whirlwind pulled hard, She refused to let go.She fought to a draw with Her dark swirling foe.She held darkness at bay. But Her son was away. When She fought the whirlwind and made chaos flee,The light from Her son glowed with vitality.When the Mother grew tired, the bleak void held sway,And darkness returned at the end of the day.She felt warmth from Her son. But neither had won. The Great Mother lived with the pain in Her heart,That She and Her son were forever apart.She ached for the child that had been denied,So She quickened once more from the life force inside.She was not reconciled. To the loss of Her child.When She was ready, Her waters of birth,Brought back the green life to the cold barren Earth.And the tears of Her loss, abundantly spilled,Made dew drops that sparkled and rainbows that thrilled.Birth waters brought green. But Her tears could be seen.With a thunderous roar Her stones split asunder,And from the great cave that opened deep under,She birthed once again from Her cavernous room,And brought forth the Children of Earth from Her womb.From the Mother forlorn, more children were born. Each child was different, some were large and some small,Some could walk and some fly, some could swim and some crawl.But each form was perfect, each spirit complete,Each one was a model whose shape could repeat.The Mother was willing. The green earth was filling. All the birds and the fish and the animals born,Would not leave the Mother, this time, to mourn.Each kind would live near the place of its birth,And share the expanse of the Great Mother Earth.Close to Her they would stay. They could not run away. They all were her children, they filled Her with prideBut they used up the life force She carried inside.She had enough left for a last innovation,A child who'd remember Who made the creation.A child who'd respect. And learn to protect. First Woman was born full grown and alive,And given the Gifts she would need to survive.Life was the First Gift, and like Mother Earth,She woke to herself knowing life had great worth.First Woman defined. The first of her kind. Next was the Gift of Perception, of learning,The desire to know, the Gift of Discerning.First Woman was given the knowledge within,That would help her to live, and pass on to her kin.First Woman would know, How to learn, how to grow. Her life force near gone, The Mother was spent,To pass on Life's Spirit had been Her intent.She caused all of Her children to create life anew,And Woman was blessed to bring forth life, too.But Woman was lonely. She was the only.The Mother remembered Her own loneliness,The love of Her friend and his hovering caress.With the last spark remaining, Her labour began,To share life with Woman, She created First Man.Again She was giving. One more was living. To Woman and Man the Mother gave birth,And then for their home, She gave them the Earth,The water, the land, and all Her creation.To use them with care was their obligation.It was their home to use, But not to abuse. For the Children of Earth the Mother provided,The Gifts to survive, and then She decided,To give them the Gift of Pleasure and sharing,That honours the Mother with the joy of their pairing.The Gifts are well earned, When honour's returned. The Mother was pleased with the pair She created,She taught them to love and to care when they mated.She made them desire to join with each other,The Gift of their Pleasures came from the Mother.Before She was through, Her children loved too.Earth's Children were blessed. The Mother could rest.
