before that, my people were the Clan, but I don't remember the people I was born to,' Ayla explained.
'I see,' the Watcher said. 'I would like to know more, but now we still have more of this cave to see.'
'You are right,' the First said. Once it came up, she had been interested in how this Zelandoni would react to the information that Ayla brought. 'Let's continue.'
While Ayla had been thinking about the bear skull on the stone, the Watcher had shown the others more of the section they were in. Ayla noticed several areas as they walked on, a large scraped panel of mammoths, some horses, aurochs, and ibex.
'I should tell you, Zelandoni Who Is First,' the Watcher said, 'the last chamber along this axis that is going the length of the cave is rather difficult. It requires climbing up some high steps and stooping over to go through a place with a low ceiling, and there isn't much to see except some signs, a yellow horse, and some mammoths at the end. You might want to think about it before proceeding.'
'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.
