The Mammoth Hunters ec-3 Page 5

  Jondalar also knew what such a gathering meant, and it bothered him. Would Ayla tell much of her story? Would the Lion Camp be as welcoming afterward? He thought about taking her aside to caution her, but he knew it would just make her angry and upset. In many ways she was like the Mamutoi, direct and honest in the expression of her feelings. It wouldn't do any good anyway. She didn't know how to lie. At best, she might refrain from speaking.

  3

  Ayla spent time in the afternoon rubbing down and currying Whinney with a soft piece of leather and the dried spiny head of a teasel. It was as relaxing for her as it was for the horse.

  Jondalar worked companionably beside her using a teasel on Racer to soothe his itchy places while he smoothed the colt's shaggy winter coat, though the young animal wanted to play more than stand still. Racer's warm and soft inner layer had grown in much thicker, reminding the man how soon the cold would be upon them, which set him to thinking about where they would spend the winter. He still wasn't sure how Ayla felt about the Mamutoi, but at least the horses and the people of the Camp were getting used to each other.

  Ayla noticed the easing of tensions, too, but she was worried about where the horses would spend the night when she was inside the earthlodge. They were used to sharing a cave with her. Jondalar kept assuring her they would be fine, horses were used to being outside. She finally decided to tether Racer near the entrance, knowing Whinney wouldn't wander far afield without her colt, and that the mare would wake her if any danger presented itself.

  The wind turned cold as darkness fell, and there was a breath of snow in the air when Ayla and Jondalar went in, but the Mammoth Hearth in the middle of the semisubterranean dwelling was snug and warm as people gathered. Many had stopped to pick at cold leftovers from the earlier meal which had been brought in: small white starchy groundnuts, wild carrots, blueberries, and slices of mammoth roast. They picked up the vegetables and fruit with fingers or a pair of sticks used as tongs, but Ayla noticed that each person, except for the youngest children, had an eating knife for the meat. It intrigued her to watch someone take hold of a large slice with the teeth, then cut off a small bite with an upward flick of the knife – without losing a nose.

  Small brown waterbags – the preserved waterproof bladders and stomachs of various animals – were passed around and people drank from them with great relish. Talut offered her a drink. It smelled fermented and somewhat unpleasant, and filled her mouth with a slightly sweet but strong burning taste, she declined a second offer. She didn't like it, though Jondalar seemed to enjoy it.

  People were talking and laughing as they found places on platforms or on furs or mats on the floor. Ayla's head was turned, listening to a conversation, when the level of noise dropped off noticeably. She turned around and saw the old Mamut standing quietly behind the fireplace in which a small fire burned. When all conversation ceased, and he had everyone's attention, he picked up a small unlit torch and held it to the hot flames until it caught. In the expectant hush of held breaths he brought the flame to a small stone lamp that was in a niche in the wall behind him. The dried lichen wick sputtered in the mammoth fat, then flared up, revealing a small ivory carving of an ample, well-endowed woman behind the lamp.

  Ayla felt a prickle of recognition, though she had never seen one like it before. That's what Jondalar calls a donii, she thought. He says it holds the Spirit of the Great Earth Mother. Or a part of it, maybe. It seems too small to hold all of it. But then how big is a spirit?

  Her mind wandered back to another ceremony, the time when she was given the black stone which she carried in the amulet bag around her neck. The small lump of black manganese dioxide held a piece of the spirit of everyone in the entire Clan, not just her clan. The stone had been given to her when she was made a medicine woman, and she had given up a part of her own spirit in exchange, so that if she saved someone's life, that person incurred no obligation to give her something of like kind and value in return. It had already been done.

  It still bothered her when she recalled that the spirits had not been returned after she was death-cursed. Creb had taken them back from Iza, after the old medicine woman died, so they would not go with her to the spirit world, but no one had taken them from Ayla. If she had a piece of the spirit of every member of the Clan, had Broud caused them to be cursed with death, too?

  Am I dead? she wondered, as she had wondered many times before. She didn't think so. She had learned that the power of the death curse was in the believing, and that when loved ones no longer acknowledged your existence, and you had no place to go, you might as well die. But why hadn't she died? What had kept her from giving up? And more important, what would happen to the Clan when she really did die? Might her death cause harm to those she loved? Perhaps to all the Clan? The small leather pouch felt heavy with the weight of the responsibility, as though the fate of the entire Clan hung around her neck.

  Ayla was brought out of her musing by a rhythmic sound. With a hammer-shaped section of an antler, Mamut was beating on the skull of a mammoth, painted with geometric lines and symbols. Ayla thought she detected a quality beyond rhythm and she watched and listened carefully. The hollow cavity intensified the sound with rich vibrations, but it was more than the simple resonance of the instrument. When the old shaman played on the different areas marked on the bone drum, the pitch and tone changed with such complex and subtle variations it seemed as though Mamut was drawing speech from the drum, making the old mammoth skull talk.

  Low and deep in his chest, the old man began intoning a chant in closely modulated minor tones. As drum and voice interwove an intricate pattern of sound, other voices joined in from here and there around the room, fitting into the established mode, yet varying it independently. The drum rhythm was picked up by a similar sound across the room. Ayla looked over and saw Deegie playing another skull drum. Then Tornec began tapping with an antler hammer on another mammoth bone, a shoulder bone covered with evenly spaced lines and chevrons painted in red. The deep tonal resonances of the skull drums, and the higher-pitched tones of the scapula, filled the earthlodge with a beautiful haunting sound. Ayla's body pulsed with movement and she noticed others moving their bodies in time to the sound. Suddenly it stopped.

  The silence was filled with expectancy, but it was left to fade away. No formal ceremony was planned, only an informal gathering of the Camp to spend a pleasant evening in one another's company, doing what people do best – talking.

  Tulie began by announcing that agreement had been reached, and the nuptials of Deegie and Branag would be formalized the next summer. Words of approval and congratulations were spoken out, though everyone expected it. The young couple beamed their pleasure. Then Talut asked Wymez to tell them about his trading mission, and they learned that it involved exchanges of salt, amber, and flint. Several people asked questions or made comments while Jondalar listened with interest, but Ayla did not comprehend and resolved to ask him later. Following that, Talut asked about Danug's progress, to the young man's discomfiture.

  "He has talent, a deft touch. A few more years of experience, and he'll be very good. They were sorry to see him leave. He's learned well, it was worth the year away," Wymez reported. More words of approval were spoken out by the group. Then there was a lull filled with small private conversations before Talut turned to Jondalar, which caused rustlings of excitement.

  "Tell us, man of the Zelandonii, how do you come to be sitting in the lodge of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi?" he asked.

  Jondalar took a swallow from one of the small brown waterbags of fermented drink, looked around at the people waiting expectantly, then smiled at Ayla. He's done this before! she thought, a little surprised, understanding that he was setting the pace and the tone to tell his story. She settled down to listen as well.

  "It is a long story," he began. People were nodding. That's what they wanted to hear. "My people live a long way from here, far, far to the west, even beyond the source of the Great Mother River that empti
es into Beran Sea. We live near a river, too, as you do, but our river flows into the Great Waters of the west.

  "The Zelandonii are a great people. Like you, we are Earth's Children; the one you call Mut, we call Doni, but She is still the Great Earth Mother. We hunt and trade, and sometimes make long Journeys. My brother and I decided to make such a Journey." For a moment, Jondalar closed his eyes and his forehead knotted with pain. "Thonolan… my brother… was full of laughter and loved adventure. He was a favorite of the Mother."

  The pain was too real. Everyone knew it was not an affectation for the sake of the story. Even without his saying so, they guessed the cause. They also had a saying about the Mother taking the ones she favored early. Jondalar hadn't planned to show his feelings like that. The grief caught him by surprise and left him somewhat embarrassed. But such loss is universally understood. His unintended demonstration drew their sympathy and caused them to feel for him a warmth that went beyond the normal curiosity and courtesy they usually extended to non-threatening strangers.

  He took a deep breath and tried to pick up the thread of his tale. "The Journey was Thonolan's in the beginning. I planned to accompany him only a short way, only as far as the home of some relatives, but then I decided to go with him. We crossed over a small glacier, which is the source of Donau – the Great Mother River – and said we would follow her to the end. No one believed we would do it, I'm not sure if we did, but we kept going, crossing many tributaries and meeting many people.

  "Once, during the first summer, we stopped to hunt, and while we were drying the meat, we found ourselves surrounded by men pointing spears at us…"

  Jondalar had found his stride again, and held the camp enthralled as he recounted his adventures. He was a good storyteller, with a flair for drawing out the suspense. There were nods and murmurs of approval and words of encouragement, often shouts of excitement. Even when they listen, people who speak with words are not silent, Ayla thought.

  She was as fascinated as the rest, but found herself for a moment watching the people who were listening to him. Adults held young children in their laps while the Older children sat together watching the charismatic stranger with glistening eyes. Danug, in particular, seemed captured. He was leaning forward, in rapt attention.

  "Thonolan went into the canyon, thinking he was safe with the lioness gone. Then we heard the roar of a lion…"

  "What happened then?" Danug asked.

  "Ayla will have to tell you the rest. I don't remember much after that."

  All eyes turned toward her. Ayla was stunned. She didn't expect it; she had never spoken to a crowd of people before. Jondalar was smiling at her. He'd had the sudden thought that the best way to get her used to talking to people was to make her do it. It wouldn't be the last time she'd be expected to recount some experience, and with her control over the horses still fresh in everyone's mind, the story of the lion would be more believable. It was an exciting story, he knew, and one that would add to her mystery – and perhaps, if she satisfied them with this story, she wouldn't have to bring up her background.

  "What happened, Ayla?" Danug said, still caught up in the tale. Rugie had been feeling shy and reticent around her big brother who had been gone for so long, but remembering former times when they sat around telling stories, she decided at that moment to climb into his lap. He welcomed her with an absentminded smile and hug, but looked at Ayla expectantly.

  Ayla looked around at all the faces turned toward her, tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, though her palms were sweaty.

  "Yes, what happened?" Latie repeated. She was sitting near Danug, with Rydag in her lap.

  The boy's big brown eyes were filled with excitement. He opened his mouth to ask, too, but no one understood the sound he made – except Ayla. Not the word itself, but its intent. She had heard similar sounds before, had even learned to speak them. The people of the Clan were not mute, but they were limited in their ability to articulate. They had instead evolved a rich and comprehensive sign language to communicate, and used words only for emphasis. She knew the child was asking her to continue the story, and that to him the words had that meaning. Ayla smiled, and directed her words to him.

  "I was with Whinney," Ayla began. Her way of saying the mare's name had always been an imitation of the soft nicker of a horse. The people in the lodge didn't realize she was saying the animal's name. Instead, they thought it was a wonderful embellishment to the story. They smiled, and spoke words of approval, encouraging her to continue in the same vein.

  "She soon have small horse. Very big," Ayla said, holding her hands out in front of her stomach to indicate that the horse was very pregnant. There were smiles of understanding. "Every day we ride, Whinney need go out. Not far, not west. Always go east, easy to go east. Too easy, nothing new. One day, we go west, not east. See new place," Ayla continued, directing her words to Rydag.

  Jondalar had been teaching her Mamutoi, as well as the other languages he knew, but she wasn't as fluent as she was in his language, the one she'd first learned to speak. Her manner of speaking was odd, different in a way that was hard to explain, and she struggled to find words, feeling shy about it. But when she thought of the boy who couldn't make himself understood at all, she had to try. Because he had asked.

  "I hear lion." She wasn't sure why she did it. Perhaps it was the expectant look on Rydag's face, or the way he turned his head to hear, or an instinct for it, but she followed the word "lion" with a menacing growl, that sounded for all the world like a real lion. She heard little gasps of fear, then nervous chuckles, then smiling words of approval from the assembled group. Her ability to mimic the sounds of animals was uncanny. It added unexpected excitement to her story. Jondalar was nodding and smiling his approval, too.

  "I hear man scream." She looked at Jondalar and her eyes filled with sorrow. "I stop, what to do? Whinney is big with baby." She made the little squealing sounds of a foal, and was rewarded with a beaming smile from Latie. "I worry for horse, but man scream. I hear lion again. I listen." She managed, somehow, to make a lion's roar sound playful. "It is Baby. I go in canyon then, I know horse not be hurt."

  Ayla saw puzzled looks. The word she spoke was unfamiliar, although Rydag might have known it if his circumstances had been different. She had told Jondalar it was the Clan word for infant.

  "Baby is lion," she said, trying to explain. "Baby is lion I know, Baby is… like son. I go in canyon, make lion go away. I find one man dead. Other man, Jondalar, hurt very bad. Whinney take back to valley."

  "Ha!" a voice said derisively. Ayla looked up and saw that it was Frebec, the man who had been arguing with the old woman earlier. "Are you trying to tell me you told a lion to go away from a wounded man?"

  "Not any lion. Baby," Ayla said.

  "What is that… whatever you are saying?"

  "Baby is Clan word. Mean child, infant. Name I give lion when he live with me. Baby is lion I know. Horse know, too. Not afraid." Ayla was upset, something was wrong, but she wasn't sure what.

  "You lived with a lion? I don't believe that," he sneered.

  "You don't believe it?" Jondalar said, sounding angry. The man was accusing Ayla of lying, and he knew only too well how true her story was. "Ayla does not lie," he said, standing up to untie the thong that was gathered around the waist of his leather trousers. He dropped down one side of them and exposed a groin and thigh disfigured with angry red scars. "That lion attacked me, and Ayla not only got me away from him, she is a Healer of great skill. I would have followed my brother to the next world without her. I will tell you something else. I saw her ride the back of that lion, just as she rides the horse. Will you call me a liar?"

  "No guest of the Lion Camp is called a liar," Tulie said, glaring at Frebec, trying to calm a potentially ugly scene. "I think it is evident that you were badly mauled, and we have certainly seen the woman… Ayla… ride the horse. I see no reason to doubt you, or her."

  There was a strained silence. Ayla was looking
from one to the other, confused. The word "liar" was unfamiliar to her, and she did not understand why Frebec said he didn't believe her. Ayla had grown up among people who communicated with movement. More than hand signs, the Clan language included posture and expressions to shade meanings and give nuances. It was impossible to lie effectively with the entire body. At best, one could refrain from mentioning and even that was known, though allowed for the sake of privacy. Ayla had never learned to lie.

  But she did know something was wrong. She could read the anger and hostility that had sprung up as easily as if they'd shouted it. She also knew they were trying to refrain from mentioning it. Talut saw Ayla look at the dark-skinned man, then look away. Seeing Ranec gave him an idea of a way to ease tensions and get back to storytelling.

  "That was a good story, Jondalar," Talut boomed, giving Frebec a hard look. "Long Journeys are always exciting to hear about. Would you like to hear a story of another long Journey?"

  "Yes, very much."

  There were smiles all around as people relaxed. It was a favorite story of the group, and not often was there an opportunity to share it with people who hadn't heard it before.

  "It's Ranec's story…" Talut began.

  Ayla looked at Ranec expectantly. "I would know how man with brown skin comes to live at Lion Camp," she said.

  Ranec smiled at her, but turned to the man of his hearth. "It's my story, but yours to tell, Wymez," he said.

  Jondalar was seated again, not at all sure he liked the turn the conversation had taken – or perhaps Ayla's interest in Ranec – though it was better than the near-open hostility, and he was interested, too.