Isle of Woman (Geodyssey)

by Piers Anthony

  By the next morning the child was dead. His little body was cold. The woman hugged him, but could not bring him back.

  The man went to the back of the cave and used a stone to dig a hole. The woman gathered up the small collection of little stones that the child had played with. They laid the body in the hole, and the woman put several of the stones on it. Perhaps they were also to amuse the child. She added a tuber, for the child to eat. Blaze knew that the child would never play with the stone or eat the food, but he felt better seeing those things there.

  Blaze felt the need to make his own offering. At a loss, he cast about for something meaningful. Then he thought of it. He brought out his precious needle and laid it on the little jacket, near one of the cinched sleeves.

  The man scooped the gravel back into the hole, burying the body. The woman placed the rest of the stones on top, decorating it.

  They returned to the fire. There was nothing else to do.

  Blaze realized that the couple had no further reason to stay here. They could now return to their tribe, and probably make another child. He knew that their kind had only one child at a time; probably the woman was unable to have another until the first one was old enough—or gone.

  This meant it was time for Blaze to go too. His foot was now taking weight well enough, and he should be able to find his way back to his camp. It might take two days, because he had been carried some distance, but he could do it.

  But the beasts did not go immediately. Instead they gathered more wood and tubers, piling both up within the cave. Blaze realized that they were doing it for him! They did not really need the fire for themselves, and they could forage whenever they were hungry. They were making it possible for him to be comfortable for some time without them.

  Not only was this a nice gesture, it showed that they did something he had doubted they could do: they could plan ahead. They knew what he would need, and were providing it.

  Blaze did not have any adequate way to express his gratitude. The beasts had saved his life by bringing him here, even as they lost the life of their own child. The beasts were good people.

  When the chore of provisioning was done, the two organized for their own trek, which might be a long one. They stepped out of the cave, and paused.

  Blaze heard a shout. “Beast men! Kill them!”

  Blaze launched himself up and out of the cave. There were members of a hunting party from his tribe. They must have seen the smoke and tracked down its source, then found the tracks in the snow. “No!” he shouted. “No, leave them alone! These are my friends!”

  “Blaze!” a man cried. “We thought you were dead!”

  “These kind folk saved me,” Blaze called back. “They took care of me when I hurt my leg. Now stand back and let them go; I owe them my life.”

  Amazed, they stepped back and lowered their spears. Blaze turned to the beasts. “Friends,” he said. “No hurt.”

  Somewhat warily, they looked at the party of men. There were eight there, armed and ready. Too many to fight, especially when one beast was a woman. They hesitated.

  Blaze walked out toward the hunting party. “Move away. Show them you mean no harm. Let them go. Let them go!”

  Reluctantly, the men retreated farther, leaving a clear avenue. Still the beasts were unsure, perhaps fearing treachery. No, that was surely too complicated a concept for them; they simply distrusted the band of enemy men, sensibly enough. They did not understand what Blaze was telling them.

  “Walk with me,” Blaze said. He gestured forward, then stepped out himself. “Walk.”

  The man took a step, and then the woman did. Blaze used his staff to help him walk. He led them past the hunters and on to the open forest. Then he stopped. “Go in peace,” he said. “We will not hunt you. Friends.”

  They moved on. Blaze stood and watched them go. The other members of the party came up to join him, but did not pursue the beasts.

  “Now I’ll tell you all about it,” Blaze said. “Right after I douse the fire in the cave.” He did not mention the burial, for fear someone might disturb it.

  It was good to be alive and back with his own kind. He was eager to rejoin his family. But he knew he would never forget his days with the beast folk—or let his family forget.

  In the course of a few thousand years—an eyeblink in terms of prehistory—the superior technology and organization of modern mankind drove Neandertal man to extinction. At the time of this story Neandertal had been largely ghettoized in the mountains. The contacts may not always have been hostile, but the limitation of Neandertal’s range to the least hospitable regions meant his inevitable decline. Some late Neandertals did begin to improve their technology, but it was really too late. By about 35,000 years ago they were gone.

  Some believe that modern mankind derives from Neandertal. This is quite doubtful. The three varieties of mankind—Archaic, Neandertal and Modern—coexisted for up to 100,000 years as separate species, each in its own section of the world. The other two species may have lacked the aquatic phase of development, so have been furry all over, never developing clothing as sophisticated as modern mankind’s. Their women may have developed their breasts only when nursing, and remained infertile until their chests became flat again. That would have limited their rate of reproduction. There are hints that their life-styles differed significantly from that of modern mankind’s, as their extremely rugged bodies suggest. But also their brains. Neandertal did have a brain which may have been larger than ours, but it was different in structure. It seemed to have more in back and below, while ours had more in front and above, the cerebral cortex. This suggests that we improved our powers of reasoning, especially related to language (try working something out without talking to yourself in your mind!), while he improved his powers of perception and memory. Neandertal didn't need to reason things out, when he already knew where everything was, and remembered perfectly how to do what he did. You might think of him as the ultimate conservative: if it was good enough for his grandfather, it was good enough for him. Yet compared to other creatures except modern mankind, he was a genius.

  Surely Neandertal man was not a beast. But in the end the reasoning powers of mankind, armed with full language, proved to be more effective for survival than physical strength and memory.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  CAVE

  The art of mankind flowered everywhere, but most of it was in perishable forms that did not survive for us to appreciate. The fancy sewing is gone, and the sand painting, and most of the wood carvings. The songs and dances left no physical records. Only some of the stone weapons—there is art in craftsmanship too—and “mother goddess” figurines endured. With one noticeable exception: some of their paintings were preserved in unlikely places.

  Yet physical records are not the only kind. We know there was music, because we retain our love for it, and for dancing. There was also storytelling,

  which sharpened our imagination and polished our appreciation of evocative language. The arts are still with us, helping to define our nature. This is a story of the Magdalenian culture of Europe, about 17,000 years ago.

  CRYSTAL was so excited she could not stand still. “I saw it! I saw it!” she cried, dancing in place.

  Ember paused in her work and smiled at her ten-year-old daughter. “You must tell us all,” she said. “Tonight, by the main fire.” She was working by a lesser fire now, smoking the meat left over from the last significant kill. Dried meat didn’t taste as good as fresh meat, but it stored much better, and was a protection against lean spells. It took time to do it right, neither burning nor spoiling the meat, but she had an excellent eye for it and knew what she was doing.

  Her remark made the girl pause. “All? I couldn’t!”

  Ember understood the problem. There would be all the children of the tribe, there to listen to the stories told by the men. Crystal was shy. But Ember knew that her child had a flair for expression, and a marvelous experience to relate. Th
is would be good for her. She was not afflicted with the nervous facial tic that too frequently vexed Ember herself, so would not suffer public embarrassment. “You will manage,” she said confidently. Indeed, she would speak to Scorch, to be sure of that. Scorch knew what to do.

  In the evening the tribe relaxed around the good fire Scorch kept. The men settled down to polishing flint and ivory, while the women worked on garments and ornaments. The entertainments were nominally for the children, but everyone listened. It was the good time of the day.

  A man played a tune on a bone flute, and three of the older girl children danced to it, stepping and whirling around the fire so that they were outlined against its light. They were supposed to be careful about how much of their bodies they showed, being properly modest, but first one and then the others stripped away their jackets on the pretext of being too warm. Then, bare-breasted, they spun so that their skirts flung out, showing their legs up to the thickening thighs. Some older women frowned, but kept silent. Soon enough these girls would be finding mates; that was the idea.

  Now the storyteller made an announcement. “Tonight Crystal will tell us about her adventure.”

  Ember gave her daughter a shove, so that she stumbled to the fire. There were thirty pairs of eyes on her, stopping her tongue. She couldn’t say a word. She was on the verge of becoming a woman, but she looked thin and frightened. Ember remembered how she had been at that age. Yet soon enough she had become bold, and got her mate, and had seldom regretted it. All Crystal needed was encouragement.

  Then Scorch got up. He put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “We’ll tell them,” he said. “We went up to the cave on the morning slope—”

  There was a titter from somewhere in the audience.

  Crystal nudged him. He looked at her. “What’s that, child?” he asked as if perplexed. “I didn’t hear you.”

  She forced out a word. “Evening.”

  “Oh, that’s right. It’s on the evening slope. I had forgotten. So we walked up the ridge—”

  There was another titter. Crystal nudged him again. “Streambed, Daddy,” she whispered.

  “I can’t hear you,” he complained.

  “Stream,” she said louder, flushing.

  “Oh, that’s right! The streambed. So we splashed up through the water—”

  This time there was open laughter. Scorch was known as a funny man, and he was not disappointing the children. Crystal had to nudge him a third time. “It’s dry,” she said. “You know there’s no water.”

  “No water!” he exclaimed. “But it’s a streambed! Are you sure?”

  He was teasing her, but she liked it. “Daddy, it was just this morning. There’s nothing but rocks.”

  He shook his head. “It’s a good thing your memory’s better than mine. So we climbed down from the streambed into this hole—”

  “There’s a big mound of rubble!” Crystal said, exasperated. “Covered with ferns and brambles. Why can’t you tell it right?”

  “How should I tell it?” he asked plaintively.

  “Say how we went there because they needed more fire,” she said. “More torches and lamps, so they could see to paint. Tell them how we carried bags of fat for the stone lamps and put them on the floor, so there would always be enough. And how we saw all the paintings of animals, and—”

  “No, you tell them, Crystal,” he said.

  “But I can’t—”

  “Yes you can.”

  “I’m—I can’t talk before everyone.”

  “Yes you can. You’ve been doing it.”

  “But I’m scared!”

  “No you aren’t. Not anymore. Tell them everything.” He squeezed her shoulder encouragingly.

  Crystal looked out from the fire and realized that it was true. She was already talking before the group. He had tricked her into it.

  Ember nodded. Scorch was a good father, even if he had not been her dream man. She could not complain.

  Crystal plunged in. “We went down this slope and into this cave. There were all kinds of things there. The trunks of small trees, and branches, so they could make ladders to go down deeper in, and rope piled in coils, and someone was making a—a—”

  “Scaffold,” Scorch murmured.

  She flashed him a smile, and continued her story.

  Crystal was really impressed by the cave. It was such a big hole in the ground, and there was so much happening there. She felt really privileged to accompany her father this summer. The cave was very special, and they didn’t let just anyone in. Because of the magic. Someone had tried to protest that the presence of a girl would spoil the magic, but Scorch had scoffed at that. “There’s already a woman in there,” he remarked with a certain wry smile Crystal didn’t understand.

  Crystal helped him set up some lamps. They took pieces of stone from the rubble, finding ones with indentations suitable for fat. They put in the fat, and then put in fiber wicks. When they had several, Scorch stood. “Now we must test one,” he said.

  He lit a lamp, getting the fat to melt and get into the wick, and finally to catch fire and sizzle. It smoked awfully, but in a moment it settled down and made a nice even flame. Then he led the way into the main part of the cave.

  Crystal was awed by the size of the great chamber they entered. It was absolutely huge, the biggest room she had ever seen. As her father held up the lamp, its light showed the white wall, looking like an enormous angry white cloud, with billows and curves and shadows.

  Along the base of that cloud, where the darker land seemed to begin, were animals. First there was a small russet horse just about to leave the cave. Then there was an aurochs, crudely drawn: its belly almost dragged on the ground and its two horns looked like thin straight sticks. That must have been drawn a long time ago, by someone who hadn’t really learned how to do it, working by the dim daylight near the mouth of the cave. But farther in were more competent aurochs, with muscular bellies that did not drag, and grandly sweeping horns. What a magnificent display!

  They picked their way across the uneven floor toward the narrow holes that led deeper into the earth. Crystal saw that under the large aurochs were smaller animals, as if a group of them were fleeing a fire. They were aurochs cows and calves, horses, deer, and even a bear. They were all wonderful in their realism; the flickering shadows made them seem alive, about to move or around the cave.

  But something bothered her. “Daddy—how did they reach up there?” she asked. “To paint the animals?”

  He smiled. “They had to stand on trees,” he explained. “With cut-off branches for their feet.” He gestured, so that she understood that it was a ladder, with each branch a step. “Sometimes a beam put crosswise, held up at each end by cut-off trunks. It wasn’t easy.”

  She believed it. She wished she could have been there to watch them. But she knew that these pictures had been made before her time. Now the artists of the tribe were going farther back in the cave, to find walls that hadn’t already been done.

  They reached the entrance to the next chamber. Beside it was the biggest of all the aurochs, larger than life-size, its head and horns reaching over the opening. It was a guardian of the secrets beyond, she realized. As long as it was there, no bad things would get in.

  Now Crystal followed her father through a winding corridor that was narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. The ceiling formed a white vault. Animals were painted all along the upper section, some of them right above where the two of them were walking. The first animal was a massive brown cow with a black head, her muscles and bulges right there in relief, as if she had been walking by when solidified into stone. There were other cows, and horses.

  The way narrowed, then opened out again, and there were more animals. Then at the end was something astonishing: “A horse!” Crystal exclaimed. “On its back!”

  “So it is,” Scorch agreed, smiling. “I thought you would like it.”

  “What’s in the next chamber?” she asked brightly. “Upsid
e-down bulls?”

  “You may look if you wish,” he said, giving her the lamp. “Put this down here, so that it will be there at need.” He gave her one of the unlit lamps.

  Thrilled to take the lead, Crystal held the lamp very carefully, for the last thing she wanted to do was lose its light, and went on around the wind in the narrowing passage. There was a two-colored horse on the outer curve behind a fat bison. The bison seemed to be looking right at her!

  The passage went on. She tried to follow it, but it got so narrow that it was impossible. How she wished she could explore the rest of it! There might be so many more chambers with wonderful animals. All she could do was sigh, set down the spare lamp, and work her way back as she had come.

  But she paused, remembering something Scorch had said. Then she pushed forward again, hoping she did not get stuck. She reached into the passage as far as she could and made a crude sketch of a woman with her fingernail. It didn’t show, but she knew it was there. She had added her art to this phenomenal gallery, where no one else could ever paint over it. And she had put into the cave the one thing it lacked: a human woman. Now it was complete.

  “What—you didn’t go to the end?” her father inquired with mock surprise. “I thought you would want to see the painting of your mother.”

  “She’s there,” Crystal replied.

  He glanced at her, surprised. She smiled. She had reversed the ploy, and managed to tease him back.

  They worked their way back, admiring the herd of horses on the south wall. They returned to the huge hall of the bulls, fetched more unlit lamps, then went down a passage leading south. This was much more constricted, and in places they had to get down on their hands and feet to get through. All along the sides were small pictures of horses.

  Then it opened out into a beautiful chamber. It was much smaller than the hall of the bulls, but larger than the one with the upside-down horse. The upper walls were yellow-white. There were the painted heads of seven ibexes, with their enormous horns, all of them facing in the same direction.