The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel
The left wall had a small projection, a protrusion. Behind it was a niche that spread out into a panel. The first thing she noticed were two magnificent megaceroses painted in black outline, one superimposed on the other. The one in front was a male carrying an imposing rack of palmate antlers. His neck was thick with the muscles needed to support such a heavy load. His head seemed small in comparison to the powerfully built neck. The hump on his withers, more like a black bump, which she knew from butchering the giant deer, was a tight bundle of tendons and sinew that was also necessary to support the weight of the antlers he carried on his head. The megaceros behind the first one also displayed the powerful neck and the hump on the withers, but there were no antlers. She thought it could have been a female, but she believed it was probably another male who had shed his antlers after the fall rut. After the mating season, there was no need for the grand display that showed his enormous strength and attracted the females, and he would need to conserve his energy reserves to survive the glacial winter that would soon be upon them.
She had looked at the two megaceroses for quite a while before she suddenly saw the mammoth. It was inside the body of the first giant deer, and it wasn’t a complete mammoth, just the line of the back and head, but the distinctive shape was enough. It made her wonder which was painted first, the mammoth or the megaceros. Seeing it made her look more closely at the rest of the wall. Above the back of the first megaceros, in front of the head of the second, two additional animals were painted in black outline, and again they were not complete. There was a side view of the head and neck of a mountain goat with its two horns that arched back, and a front view of just the horns of a different mountain goat–like animal, which she thought might be an ibex or a chamois.
Advancing a little farther, they came to another section of animals painted in black outline, which contained another megaceros with his giant antlers. There was also part of a smaller deer, a wild mountain goat, and the suggestion of a horse with the stand-up mane and the beginning of the back, and another figure that was more surprising and frightening. It was a partial figure, just the lower body and legs that looked human, with three lines either going into or emanating from his backside. Were they meant to be spears? Was someone suggesting that a human had been hunted with spears? But why put something like that on the wall? She tried to recall if she had ever seen an animal represented with spears in it. Or was it meant to represent something else, something coming out of the body? The lower back was not the most logical place to aim in order to hunt something. A spear in the buttocks, or even the lower back, was not likely to be fatal. Maybe it was meant to show pain, a pain in the back that hurt as much as a spear.
She shook her head. She could make all the guesses she wanted to, but that wouldn’t bring her any closer to the real reason. “What do those lines in that figure mean?” she asked the local Zelandoni, pointing to the painting that was suggestively human.
“Everyone asks,” he said. “No one knows. It was done by the Ancients.” Then he turned to the First. “Do you know anything about it?”
“There is nothing specifically mentioned in the Histories or Elder Legends, but I can say this,” the First said. “The meaning of any of the images in a Sacred Site is seldom obvious. You know yourself that when you travel to the spirit world, things are seldom what they seem. The fierce can be tame, the gentlest, the most ferocious. It’s not necessary for us to know what something in here means. We already know it was important to the one who put it there, or it would not be here.”
“But people always ask. They want to know,” the young man said. “They make guesses and want to know if they are true, if they guessed right.”
“People should know, you don’t always get what you want,” the First said.
“But I’d like to tell them something.”
“I’m telling you something. It’s enough,” the woman said.
Although she had been tempted, Ayla was glad now that she hadn’t been the one to ask what the young man had asked. The First always said anyone could ask her any question, but Ayla had noticed before that the woman who was her mentor could make a person feel less than bright for asking certain questions. The thought occurred to her that while anyone could ask her any question, it didn’t mean she could necessarily answer every question that she was asked. But as the First she couldn’t exactly say she didn’t know. It wasn’t what people wanted to hear from her, and even if she didn’t always answer the question, she never lied. Everything she said was true.
Ayla didn’t lie either. Children of the Clan learned early that their way of communicating made lying nearly impossible. After she met her own kind of people, she noticed that people had trouble keeping track of lies, and it seemed to her that lying was more trouble than it was worth. Perhaps, instead, the First had developed a way to avoid answering a question by making the one who asked question his own intelligence for asking. Ayla found herself turning aside and smiling to herself, thinking she had deduced something significant about the powerful older woman.
She had. The First saw her turn away, and caught the glimpse of a smile she had tried to hide. She thought she guessed the reason, and was glad Ayla had turned aside. She didn’t mind that her acolyte learned some things on her own, but it was best not to make an issue of them. The time might come when she would have to employ similar strategies.
Ayla turned her attention back to the wall. The young Zelandoni had moved on and was now holding his torch up to show the next section, which had a pair of goats and some dots. Beyond that were two more goats, some dots, and some curved lines. Some of the animals, and lines and dots, were in red, some in black. They were entering a little antechamber with five black and red dots and in the back some red dots and lines. They came back out of the opening of the niche, and turned a corner. On the wall on the other side there was another human-like figure with lines going into or emanating from it, seven of them going in all directions. It was a very roughly drawn figure, hardly even recognizable as human, except it really couldn’t be anything else. There were two legs indicated, two very short arms, and a misshapen head drawn in black outline. She wanted to ask the First what it meant, but she probably didn’t know either, though she might have some ideas. Perhaps later they could talk about it. Four mammoths painted in red were also in this section, very simplified, sometimes only suggested, just enough to identify the animal. There were also the horns of a goat and more dots.
“If we go to the middle of this room, we can see the whole wall, especially if the ones with lamps stay near it,” the local Zelandoni said.
They all shuffled around until they were in position to see the entire display; then they looked at the entire wall of painted panels. At first there was some shuffling and clearing of throats, a few murmurs and whispers, but soon everything was still as the people focused on the stone wall that they had studied closely. When they saw all the images together, they began to feel the sense of the mystical potential the bare rock had acquired. For a moment in the flickering flames and wispy smoke of the lamps, the figures seemed to move and Ayla had the impression that the walls were transparent, that she was seeing through the solid stone and catching a vague glimpse of some other place. She felt a chill, then blinked a few times and the wall became solid again.
The Zelandoni led them out again, pointing out a few places where there were dots and marks on the walls. As they moved out of the decorated area of the cave, and got closer to the entrance, the daylight that penetrated the space made the cave seem more clear. They could see the shape of the walls and the rocks that had fallen to the ground. When they stepped out of the cave, the light seemed exceptionally bright after all that time in the dark. They squinted and closed their eyes, waiting for them to adjust. It took a while before Ayla noticed Wolf, and a moment longer before she saw his agitation. He yipped at her and started in the direction of the living shelter, then turned around and headed back toward her and yipped before he trotted the other w
She looked at Jondalar. “Something must be wrong,” she said.
21
Jondalar and Ayla both ran back to the Cave, following Wolf. As they drew near, they could see a number of people in front of the shelter in the field where the horses grazed. When they got closer, they saw a scene that might have been funny if it hadn’t been so frightening. Jonayla was standing in front of Gray with her arms outstretched as though to protect the young mare, facing down six or seven men armed with spears. Whinney and Racer were ranged behind them, watching the men.
“What do you think you are doing?” Ayla shouted, reaching for her sling since she didn’t have her spear-thrower with her.
“What do you think we’re doing? We’re hunting horses,” one of the men replied. He heard her odd accent and added, “Who wants to know?”
“I am Ayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii,” Ayla said. “And you are not hunting those horses. Can’t you see those are special horses?”
“What makes them so special? They look like ordinary horses to me.”
“Open your eyes and look,” Jondalar said. “How often do you see horses stand still for a child? Why do you think those horses are not running away from you?”
“Maybe because they’re too stupid to know any better.”
“I think maybe you are too stupid to understand what you are seeing,” Jondalar said, getting angry at the insolent mouth of the young man who seemed to be speaking for the group.
He whistled a piercing series of tones. The hunters watched the stallion turn toward the tall blond man, then trot up to him. Jondalar stood in front of Racer and made a point of arming his spear-thrower, though he didn’t quite aim it at the men.
Ayla walked between her daughter and the men and signaled Wolf to her, then added a signal that meant “Guard the horses.” The wolf bared his teeth and snarled at the men, which made them crowd closer together and back up a few paces. Ayla picked up Jonayla and put her on Gray’s back. Then she grabbed Whinney’s stand-up mane, leaped up and threw her leg over, and landed on her back. Every action caused the hunters to react with increasing surprise.
“How did you do that?” the young speaker said.
“I told you these were special horses, and not to be hunted,” Ayla said.
“Are you a Zelandoni?”
“She’s an acolyte, a Zelandoni in training,” Jondalar said. “She’s First Acolyte of the Zelandoni Who Is First Among Those Who Serve The Mother, who will be here shortly.”
“The One Who Is First is here?”
“Yes, she is here,” Jondalar said, looking more closely at the men. They were all young, probably recently initiated into manhood and sharing a fa’lodge at a Summer Meeting—likely the one at the site of the next Sacred Cave they were planning to visit. “Aren’t you rather far from your Summer Meeting fa’lodge?” he asked.
“How do you know that?” the young man said. “You don’t know us.”
“But it’s not hard to guess. This is the time of Summer Meetings, you are all about the age when young men decide to leave their mother’s camp and stay in a fa’lodge, and to show how independent you are, you decided to go hunting and maybe even bring some meat back. But your luck hasn’t been too good, has it? And now you are hungry.”
“How do you know? Are you a Zelandoni, too?” the young man said.
“Just a guess,” Jondalar said; then he noticed the First arriving and all the others following behind. The One Who Was First could walk rather fast when she had a mind to, and she knew that if the wolf had come looking for them, there must have been some kind of trouble.
The First took in the scene quickly: young men with spears, too young to be very experienced; the wolf in a defensive stance in front of the horses with both the young girl and the woman on their bare backs without any of the usual accoutrements for riding, and a sling in Ayla’s hand, Jondalar with an armed spear-thrower standing in front of the stallion. Had Jonayla sent the wolf for her mother while she was trying to protect the horses from more than a handful of would-be hunters?
“Is there a problem here?” the Donier said. The young men knew who she was though none of them had ever seen her before. They had all heard descriptions of the First, and understood the meaning of the tattoos on her face, and the necklaces and clothing she wore.
“Not anymore, but these men were thinking of hunting our horses, until Jonayla stopped them,” Jondalar said, restraining the urge to smile.
She is a plucky child, the Donier thought, when her initial evaluation of the situation was confirmed. “Are you from the Seventh Cave of the South Land Zelandonii?” she asked the young men. The Seventh Cave, where they were heading next, was the most important Cave in this region.
She had a good idea of their Cave from the designs on the clothing they wore. She knew all the differentiating patterns and designs of clothing and jewelry in her immediate area, but the farther away they traveled, the less she would be able to identify people, although she might be able to make some educated guesses.
“Yes, Zelandoni Who Is First,” the young man who had spoken before replied, in a much more deferential tone. It was always smart to be careful around Zelandonia, but especially the One Who Was First.
The young Zelandoni of the local Cave arrived, and most of the others who had visited the Sacred Site. They were standing around watching to see what the powerful woman would do to the young men who had threatened the special horses.
The First turned to the hunters of the local Cave. “It appears that there are now seven more hungry mouths to feed. That will cut down on supplies in a hurry. I think we’ll have to stay a little longer, until a hunting expedition can be organized. You will have help, fortunately. We have several experienced hunters in our group, and with some proper direction, even those young men should be able to make a contribution. I’m sure they will be disposed to help in any way they can, under the circumstances,” she said, then gave the young man who seemed to speak for the group a hard stare.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Hunting is what we were doing.”
“But not very well,” someone in the crowd who was watching said, under his breath, but loud enough so that everyone heard. Some of the young men blushed and looked away.
“Has anyone spotted any herds recently?” Jondalar asked, directing his question to the two hunters of the Cave. “I think we’ll need to hunt more than one animal.”
“No, but it’s the right season for red deer to be migrating through, especially the does and young. Someone could go out and look, but it usually takes a few days,” one of the Cave hunters said.
“What direction would they be coming from?” Jondalar asked. “I can go and look this afternoon, on Racer. He can travel faster than anyone on foot. If I find anything, Ayla and I can go back and perhaps chase them this way. Wolf can help, too.”
“You can do that?” the young man blurted out.
“We told you they were special horses,” Jondalar said.
The deer meat had been spread out on cordage that was stretched across a slow, smoky fire overnight. As Ayla was packing it into her parfleche meat container, she wished it had had more time to dry, but they’d already stayed two days longer than the First had planned. Ayla thought she could continue drying it over fires along the way, or even after they arrived at the Seventh Cave of the South Land Zelandonii, since they would be staying for a while.
The Donier Tour group had grown again; the seven young men would be with them. They had proved quite helpful on the hunt, if a little too eager. They did know how to throw spears; they just didn’t know how to cooperate to drive animals toward one another or into some kind of a cul-de-sac so they could be effectively hunted. The young men were quite impressed with the spear-throwers used by the travelers from north of Big River, including the First’s acolyte, as were the two local hunters, who had heard of the weapon but had not seen one in action. With Jondalar’s help, most had already made spear-thrower
Ayla had also persuaded Dulana to come with them and enjoy at least part of her Summer Meeting. She was lonely for her mate and children and wanted to see them, though she was still nervous about the scars on her hands and face. She shared a sleeping place with Amelana. They had become friendly, especially since Dulana was willing to chat about pregnancy and giving birth from the point of view of her own experience. Amelana never felt comfortable just chatting with the First or her acolyte, even though Ayla had a child with her. The young woman had heard them discussing medicines and healing practices, and other knowledge and lore of the zelandonia, most of which she didn’t understand, and felt intimidated by the accomplished women.
She did, however, like the attention she was getting from all the young men, both the young hunters and Willamar’s apprentices, though the traders did back off when she was surrounded by all of the rather bumptious youths. They didn’t need to vie for her attention. They knew the youngsters would be with them only a few days, and they had the rest of the trip. While Jondalar with the help of Jonokol and Willamar was hitching the First’s special riding travois to Whinney, Ayla and the Donier were watching the byplay of Amelana and the young men.
“They remind me of a litter of wolf cubs,” Ayla said.
“When did you see wolf cubs?” Zelandoni said.
“When I was young and still living with the Clan,” Ayla said. “Before I started hunting meat-eaters, I used to watch them, sometimes for a long time, all morning, or all day, if I could stay away that long. I watched all kinds of four-legged hunters, not just wolves. That was how I learned to track very silently. Watching the young of any animal was always fascinating, but I particularly liked wolf cubs. They liked to play, just like those boys—I suppose I should call them young men, but they still act like boys. Look how they wrestle and punch and bump each other out of the way, all trying to get Amelana’s attention.”