clothing. The chill made Ayla aware that her breasts were full of milk and she tried to get up on her elbows so she wouldn't have to put all her weight on them, though it was difficult while holding the lamp. Small spaces didn't particularly bother Ayla, but when she got stuck in one place that curved sideways, she began to feel a touch of panic.
'Just relax, Ayla. You can make it,' she heard Jonokol say, then felt a push against her feet from behind. With his help she squeezed through.
The cave was not uniformly small. When they got beyond the constriction, the cave opened up a little. They could actually sit up, and holding their lamps up, see each other. They stopped and rested for a while, then Jonokol couldn't resist. He took a small, chisel-pointed piece of flint from a pouch tied to his waist thong and with a few quick strokes, engraved a drawing of a horse on the wall on one side, and then in front of it, another.
It had always amazed Ayla how skilled he was. When he was still at the Ninth Cave, she had often watched him when he practised on the outside wall of a limestone cliff, or a slab of stone that had broken off, or on a section of rawhide with a piece of charcoal, or even on a smoothed-out area of dirt on the ground. He did it so often and with such ease, he almost seemed profligate, wasteful of his talent. But just as she had had to practise to gain skill with her sling or Jondalar's spear-thrower, she knew Jonokol had needed to practise to gain his level of proficiency. It was just that to her the ability to think of a living, breathing animal and reproduce its likeness on a surface was so extraordinary, it couldn't be anything but a great and amazing Gift from the Mother. Ayla was not alone in those feelings.
After they rested a while, the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth Cave continued leading the way into the cave. They encountered a few more tight places before they reached a place where slabs of rock blocked their way; it was the end of the cave. They could go no farther.
'I notice that you felt compelled to make drawings on the wall of this cave,' the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth said, smiling at Jonokol.
Jonokol wasn't sure he would put it quite that way, but he had drawn two horses, so he nodded assent.
'I have been thinking that Sun View should have a ceremony for this space. I am now more sure than ever that it is sacred, and I would like to acknowledge that. It could be a place for young people who want to test themselves to come, even those who are quite young.'
'I think you are right,' the artist acolyte said. 'It's a difficult cave, but staightforward. It would be hard to get lost in here.'
'Would you join us in the ceremony, Jonokol?'
Ayla guessed the Zelandoni wanted Jonokol to make more drawings in this sacred cave that was so close to them, and wondered if his drawings would add more status to the place.
'I believe a mark of closure is needed here, to show it is as far as one can go within the cave — in this world,' Jonokol said, then smiled. 'I think Ayla's lion spoke from the next world. Let me know when you plan to have the ceremony.'
Both the Zelandoni and his acolyte, Falithan, smiled their pleasure. 'You are welcome to come, too, Ayla,' the Twenty-sixth said.
'I will have to see what the First has planned for me,' she said.
'Of course.'
They turned around and started back, and Ayla was glad. Her clothes were soggy and caked with mud, and she was getting cold. It didn't seem to take as long to return, and she was happy that she didn't get stuck again. When they reached the entrance, Ayla breathed a sigh of relief. Her oil lamp had gone out just before they saw light coming in from outside. This may be a truly sacred cave, she thought, but she didn't think it was a particularly pleasant cave, especially having to crawl on her stomach most of the way.
'Would you like to come to visit Sun View, Ayla? It's not very far,' Falithan said.
'I am sorry. Some other time I would love to visit, but I told Proleva I would be back in the afternoon. She is watching Jonayla, and I really do need to go back to the camp,' Ayla said. She didn't add that her breasts were aching; she was feeling the need to nurse and getting very uncomfortable.
Chapter 8
When Ayla returned, Wolf was waiting at the edge of the Summer Meeting Camp to greet her. He had somehow known she was coming. 'Where's Jonayla, Wolf? Find her for me.' The animal dashed out in front of her, then turned to look back and make sure she was following him.
He led her directly to Proleva, who was at the camp of the Third Cave, nursing Jonayla. 'Ayla! You're back! If I'd known you were coming, I would have held off. I'm afraid she's full now,' the woman said.
Ayla took her child and tried to nurse her, but the infant just wasn't hungry, which seemed to make Ayla's breasts ache even more. 'Has Sethona nursed? I'm full, too. Full of milk.'
'Stelona was helping me today, and she always has plenty of milk, even though her baby is eating some regular food. She offered to feed Sethona not long ago when I was talking to Zelandoni about the Matrimonial. Since I knew I'd be feeding Jonayla soon, I thought that would be perfect. I just didn't know when you would be back, Ayla.'
'I didn't either,' Ayla said. 'I'll see if I can find someone else who needs milk, and thank you for taking care of Jonayla today.'
Walking toward the big zelandonia lodge, Ayla saw Lanoga carrying Lorala on her hip. Three-year Ganamar, the next to the youngest in the family, was holding on to her tunic with one hand, the thumb of his other hand firmly in his mouth. Ayla hoped that Lorala might want to nurse, she was usually ready anytime. When she mentioned it, Lanoga told her, much to her relief, that she was looking for someone to feed the child.
They sat on one of several logs with seating pads on them that were arranged around a darkened fireplace outside the entrance of the big lodge and Ayla gratefully took the older baby in exchange for her own. Wolf sat down near Jonayla, and Ganamar plopped down beside him. All the children of Laramar's hearth were comfortable around the animal, though Laramar was not. He still tensed up and backed away when the big wolf came near him.
Ayla had to wipe her breast off before she could nurse the child; the wet mud had soaked through. While Ayla was feeding Lorala, Jondalar returned from an afternoon of spear-throwing practice and Lanidar was with him. He smiled shyly at her and more warmly at Lanoga. Ayla gave him a quick appraising look. He was a twelve-year now, close to a thirteen-year, and he'd grown quite a bit in the past year. Even more in self-confidence, she noticed. He was taller and he wore a unique spear-thrower holder, a kind of harness that she could see accommodated his deformed right arm. It also held a quiver of several of the specialised spears that were used with a spear-thrower, which were shorter and lighter than the usual spears meant to be cast by hand, more like long darts tipped with sharp flint. His well-developed left arm looked almost as strong as a grown man's, and she suspected he had been practising with the weapon.
Lanidar was also wearing a manhood belt with a red fringe, a narrow finger-woven strip of various colours and fibres. Some were natural vegetal colours like ivory flax, beige dogbane, and taupe nettles. Others were the natural fibres of animal fur, usually the dense, long coat of winterkills like white mouflon, grey ibex, dark red mammoth, and black horsetail. Most of the fibres could also be dyed to change or intensify the natural colours. The belt not only announced that he had reached physical maturity and was ready for a donii-woman and manhood rites, but the designs indicated his affiliations. Ayla was able to identify the symbolism that proclaimed he was of the Nineteenth Cave of the Zelandonii, though she couldn't yet identify his primary names and ties by their distinctive patterns.
The first time Ayla had seen a manhood belt, she had thought it was beautiful. She'd had no way then of knowing its meaning, however, when Marona, the woman who had expected to mate Jondalar, tried to embarrass her by tricking her into wearing it, along with the winter undergarments of a young man. She still thought the belt ties were beautiful, though they reminded her of the unpleasant incident. She had, however, kept the soft buckskin garments the woman had given her. Ayla wasn't born to the Zelandonii, and in spite of their intended use, she didn't have the ingrained culture-driven sense that they were inappropriate. They were comfortably soft suede leather, velvety to the touch, and she decided she would wear them sometimes, after she made some adjustments
