excitement. Centaine straightened up slowly and stared at the scene that the dust clouds had obscured the previous evening.
Across the pan a great whale-backed mountain rose abruptly out of the desert, steep-sided and with a sym.
A metrically rounded summit. Aglow with all the rich reds and golds of the dawn, it looked like a headless monster.
Parts of the mountain were bald and bare, glowing red rock and smooth cliffs, while in other places it was heavily forested; trees much taller and more robust than those of the plain crowned the summit or grew up the steep sides. The strange reddish light suffused with dust and the silences of the African dawn cloaked the entire mountain in majestic serenity.
Centaine felt all her miseries and her woes fall away as she stared at it.
'The Place of All Life'! As H'ani said the name, her agitation passed and her voice sank to a whisper. This is the sight we have travelled so far and so hard to look upon for the last time.
Olwa had fallen silent as well, but now he bobbed his head in agreement. This is where we will make our peace at last with all the spirits of our people. Centaine felt the same sense of deep religious awe that had overcome her when first she had entered the cathedral of Arras, holding her father's hand, and looked up at the gemlike stained glass in the high gloomy recesses of the towering nave. She knew that she stood on the threshold of a holy place, and she sank slowly to her knees and clasped her hands over the swell of her stomach.
The mountain was further off than it had seemed in the red light of the dawn. As they marched towards it, it seemed to recede rather than draw closer. As the light changed, so the mountain changed its mood. It became remote and austere, and the stone cliffs glittered in the sunlight like a crocodile's scales.
O'wa sang as he trotted at the head of the file: See, spirits of the San We come to your secret place With clean hands, unstained by blood.
Al See, spirit of Eland and Mantis, We come to visit you with joyous hearts, and songs for your amusement The mountain changed again, began to quiver and tremble i in the rising heat. It was no longer massive stone, but rippled like water and wavered like smoke.
It broke free of the earth and floated in the air on a shimmering silver mirage.
O, bird mountain That flies in the sky We bring YOU praises.
O, Elephant Mountain, greater than Any beast of earth or sky, we hail you, O'wa sang, and as the sun swung through its zenith and the air cooled, so the Mountain of All Life settled to earth again and loomed high above them.
They reached the scree slopes, loose stone and debris that lay piled against the cliffs, and paused to look up at the high summit. The rocks were painted with lichen growth, sulphur-yellow and acid-green, and the little hyrax rock rabbits had stained the cliffs with seepage from their middens, like tears from an elephant's eyes.
On a ledge three hundred feet above them stood a tiny antelope. It took fright and with a bleat like a child's penny whistle, shot straight up the cliff, leaping from ledge to unseen ledge with all the nimbleness of a chamois, until it disappeared over the crest.
The y scrambled up the steep scree slope until they touched the base of the cliff. The rock was smooth and cool and overhung them, leaning out at a gentle angle like a vast cathedral roof.
Be not angry, ye spirits, that we come into your secret place, H'ani whispered, and tears were coursing down her ancient yellow cheeks. We come in humble peace, kind spirits, we come to learn what our offence has been, and how we can make amends. O'wa reached out and took his wife's hand and they stood like two tiny naked children before the smooth rock.
We come to sing for you and to dance, O'wa whispered. We come to make peace, and then with your favour to be reunited with the children of our clan who died of the great fever in a far place. There was such vulnerability in this intimate moment that Centaine felt embarrassed to watch them. She drew away from the two old people, and wandered alone along the narrow gallery before the cliff. Suddenly she stopped, and stared up in wonder at the high rock wall that hung out over her head.
Animals, she whispered.
She felt the goose-flesh of superstitious fear rise along her forearms, for the walls were decorated with paintings, frescoes of weirdly wrought animals, the childlike simplicity of form giving them a beauty that was dreamlike, and yet a touching resemblance to the beasts that they depicted. She recognized the darkly massive outlines of tusked elephants and horned rhinoceros, the wildebeest and sassaby with horns like crescent moons marching in closely packed phalanxes across the rock walls.
And people, Centaine whispered, as she picked out the sticklike human shapes that ran in pursuit of the herds of wild game. Fairy beings, the San's view of him self, armed with bows and crowned with wreaths of arrows, the men adorned with proudly erect penises, disproportionately large, and the women with prominent breasts and buttocks, the badges of feminine beauty.
The paintings climbed so high up the sheer walls that the artists must have built platforms, in the fashion of Michelangelo, to work from. The perspectives were naive, one human figure larger than the rhinoceros he was hunting, but this seemed to deepen the enchantment, and Centaine lost herself in wonder, sinking down at last to examine and admire a lovely flowing waterfall of overlapping eland, ochre and red, with dewlaps and humped shoulders, so lovingly depicted that their special place in San mythology could not be overlooked.
H'ani found her there, and squatted beside her.
Who painted these things? Centaine asked her.
The spirits of the San, long, long ago.
Where they not painted by men?
No! No! Men do not have the art, these are spirit drawings.
So the artists skills were lost. Centaine was disappointed . She had hoped that the old woman was one of , i the artists and that she would have an opportunity to J
watch her work.
