Perhaps a wolf had been seen near the Meeting and people were led to believe it was watching her. But this wasn't a creature skulking around the outskirts of the group, who may have been watching her from a distance, as he'd imagined. There was direct communication, understanding, and trust between them. The Zelandoni of the Twenty- sixth Cave had never seen anything like it and it piqued his interest in Ayla even more. Young mother or not, perhaps she did belong in the zelandonia.
It was well into the morning by the time the small group approached the unremarkable cave in the face of a low limestone cliff. There were four of them: the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth Cave; his acolyte, a quiet young man named Falithan, although he often referred to himself as the First Acolyte of the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth; Jonokol, the talented artist who had been the First's acolyte the year before; and Ayla.
She had enjoyed talking to Jonokol along the way, though it made her realise how much he had changed in the last year. When she first met him he was more artist than acolyte, and had joined the zelandonia because it allowed him to freely exercise his talent. He'd had no great desire to become a Zelandoni, he was content to remain an acolyte, but that had changed. He had become more serious, she thought. He wanted to paint the white cave that she, or rather Wolf, had found the previous summer, but not just for the joy of the art. He knew it was a remarkably hallowed place, a sacred refuge created by the Mother, whose white calcite walls offered a extraordinary invitation to be made into a distinctive place to commune with the world of the spirits. He wanted to know that world as a Zelandoni so he could do justice to its sanctity when he created the images from the next world that he was sure would speak to him. Jonokol would soon be Zelandoni of the Nineteenth Cave and give up his personal name, Ayla realised.
The entrance to the small cave seemed barely large enough for a person to enter and it seemed to get smaller as she looked farther inside. It made Ayla wonder why anyone would want to go inside it. Then she heard a sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and gooseflesh appear on her arms. It was like a yodel, but faster and more high pitched, an ululating wail that seemed to fill the cave hole in front of them. She turned and saw that it was Falithan who was making the sound. Then a strange muted echo reverberated faintly back to them that did not quite synchronise with the original sound, but seemed to originate from deep inside the cave. When he finished, she saw Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth smiling at her.
'It's quite a remarkable sound he makes, isn't it?' the man said.
'Yes, it is,' Ayla said. 'But why did he make it?'
'It's one way we test the cave. When a person sings or plays a flute or makes a sound like Falithan in a hollow, if the cave responds, sings back with a sound that is true and distinctive, it means the Mother is telling us that She hears, and She is telling us that one can enter the spirit world from here. Then we know it is a sacred place,' the Twenty-sixth said.
'Do all sacred caves sing back?' Ayla asked.
'Not all, but most do, and some only in certain places, but there is always something special about sacred sites,' he said.
'I'm sure the First would be able to test a cave like this, she has such a beautiful and pure voice,' Ayla said, and then she frowned. 'What if you want to test a cave but you can't sing, or play a flute or make a sound like Falithan. I can't do any of those things.'
'Surely you can sing a little.'
'No, she can't,' Jonokol said. 'She speaks the words of the Mother's Song, and hums in a monotone.'
'You have to be able to test a sacred site with sound,' the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth Cave said. 'That's an important part of being Zelandoni. And it must be a true sound of some kind. You can't just yell or scream.' He seemed gravely concerned, and Ayla was crestfallen.
'What if I can't make the right kind of sound? A true sound?' Ayla said, realising at that moment that she did want to be a Zelandoni someday. But what if she couldn't just because she couldn't make a proper sound.
Jonokol looked as unhappy as Ayla. He liked the foreigner Jondalar had brought back with him from his Journey, and he felt he owed her a debt. She was not only the one who found the beautiful new cave; she had made sure he was among the first to see it, and had agreed to become the First's acolyte, which had allowed him to move to the Nineteenth Cave, which was near it.
'But you can make a true sound, Ayla,' Jonokol said. 'You can whistle. I have heard you whistle just like a bird, and you can make many other animal sounds. You can whinny like a horse, you can even roar like a lion.'
'That I'd like to hear,' the Donier said.
'Go ahead, Ayla. Show him,' Jonokol said.
Ayla closed her eyes and gathered up her thoughts to concentrate. She put her mind back to the time when she was living in her valley and raising a young lion alongside a horse, as though they were both her children. She remembered the first time Baby managed to make a full-throated roar. She had decided to practise making the sound, too, and a few days later answered him with a roar of her own. It wasn't quite as thunderous as his, but he recognised it as a respectable roar. Like Baby, she had always built up to it with a series of distinctive grunts, and began with a series of
'If I didn't know better, I'd vow there was a lion in here,' the young acolyte of the Twenty-sixth said with a smile when the echoes died down. 'Can you really whinny like a horse, too?'
That one was easy. It was the true name of Ayla's horse, Whinney, the one she named her when she was a foal, though now she more often said it like a word rather than a whinny. She made the sound the way she usually greeted her friend when she hadn't seen her for a while, a happy, welcoming
This time the Donier of the Twenty-sixth Cave laughed out loud. 'And I imagine you can whistle like a bird, too.'
Ayla smiled, a big delighted grin, then whistled through a series of bird calls that she had taught herself when she was still alone in her valley, and had learned to coax birds to eat out of her hand. The bird trills and chirps and whistles reverberated with the strangely muted echoing of the cave.
'Well, if I had any doubts about this being a sacred cave, I couldn't any more. And you won't have any problem testing with sound, Ayla, even if you can't sing or play a flute. Like Falithan, you have your own way,' the Zelandoni said. Then he signalled to his acolyte, who removed his backframe and took out of it four small bowls with handles that had been carved out of limestone.
The acolyte next brought out an object that looked like a small white sausage; it was a piece of the intestine of some animal filled with fat. He untwisted one end and squeezed out some of the slightly congealed fat into the bowl of each lamp, then put a strip of a dried boletus mushroom into each. Then he sat down and prepared to make a small fire. Ayla watched him, and almost offered to make a fire with one of her firestones, but the First had made a point the previous year to make a ceremony of showing the firestone, and though many of the Zelandonii now knew how to use it, Ayla wasn't sure how she wanted to show those who hadn't seen it the first time.
Using materials he had brought with him, Falithan soon had a small fire going and from it, using another strip of dried mushroom to transfer the fire, he melted some of the fat to make it more easily absorbed then lit the mushroom wicks.
When the fire was well established in each grease lamp, the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth said, 'Well, shall we explore this tight little cave? But you will have to assume that you are another animal, Ayla, a snake. Do you think you can slither in here?'
Ayla nodded her assent, though she felt some doubt.
Holding on to the handle of the small bowl-shaped lamp, the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth Cave put his head into the small opening first, getting down on his knees and one hand, and finally down on his stomach. Pushing the small oil lamp in front of him, he squirmed into the unique little space. Ayla followed him, then Jonokol and finally Falithan, each of them holding a lamp. She now understood why the Zelandoni had discouraged the First from attempting to enter the place. Though Ayla had occasionally been surprised at what the large woman could do if she set her mind to it, this cave really was too small for her.
The short walls were more or less perpendicular to the floor, but curved together at the ceiling, and appeared to be rock covered with a damp soil. The floor was a wet clayey mud that stuck to them, but actually helped them to slide through some of the tighter places, but it didn't take long for the cold clammy muck to seep into their
