The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [237]
“When it’s her time to walk in the next world, she will go. When the spirit calls, no one can stop her,” Ebra said.
Ayla shivered, though the night was warm, and a sudden sense of foreboding washed over her—a vague, uneasy feeling like a chill wind that hinted of the end of summer warmth. Mog-ur signaled and she quickly got up, but she couldn’t shake the feeling as she walked to the cave.
Iza’s bowl, white-lined with a patina from generations of use, was on her sleeping fur where Ayla had put it. She took the red-dyed pouch out of her medicine bag and emptied the contents. In the torchlight she began examining the roots. Though Iza had explained many times how to estimate the correct quantity, Ayla still wasn’t sure how many to use for the ten mog-urs. The strength of the potion depended not only on number, but on the size of the roots and how long they had aged.
She had never seen Iza make it. The woman had explained many times the drink was too venerable, too sacred to be made for practice. Daughters usually learned by watching their mothers, from repeated explanations, and even more from the innate knowledge they were born with. But Ayla was not born to the Clan. She picked out several roots, then added one more to be sure the magic would be effective. Then she went to the place just inside the entrance, near a supply of fresh water, where Creb had told her to wait, and watched the beginning of the rites.
The sound of wooden drums was followed by the thudding of spear butts, and then the staccato of the long, hollowed-out tube. Acolytes moved among the men with bowls of datura tea, and soon they were moving to the heavy beat. The women stayed in the background; their time would come later. Ayla stood by anxiously, her wrap draped loosely around her, waiting. The men’s dance grew more frenzied, and she wondered how much longer she’d have to wait.
Ayla jumped at a tap on her shoulder—she hadn’t heard the mog-urs coming out of the back of the cave—but she relaxed when she recognized Creb. The magicians moved silently out of the cave and arranged themselves around the bearskin. The Mog-ur stood in front, and from her vantage point she got a fleeting impression that the cave bear, mounted upright with its mouth open, was about to attack the crippled man. But the monstrous animal towering over The Mog-ur was held in suspended motion, a mere illusion of strength and ferocity.
She saw the great magician signal the acolytes who were playing the wooden instruments. They stopped at the next accented beat and the men looked up, a little stunned to see the mog-urs where just an instant before, or so it seemed, there had been none. But the sudden appearance of the magicians was an illusion, too, and now the young woman knew how it was done.
The Mog-ur waited, letting the suspense build, until he was sure everyone’s attention was riveted on the giant figure of the cave bear highlighted by the ceremonial fire and flanked by the holy men. His signal was inconspicuous and he made a point of looking in another direction, but it was the one Ayla was waiting for. She slipped out of her wrap, filled the bowl with water, and clutching the roots in her hand, she took a deep breath and walked toward the one-eyed man.
There was a startled gasp as Ayla walked into the circle of light. Clothed in her wrap, tied with a long cord that hid her shape with loose folds and pockets, and acting like any other female, she had begun to seem one of them. But without the disguising bulges, her true form stood out in sharp contrast to women of the Clan. Rather than the round, almost barrel-shaped body structure characteristic of both men and women, Ayla was lean. From side view she was slender, except for her milk-filled breasts. Her waist dipped in, then filled out to rounded hips, and her legs and arms were long and straight. Not even the red and black circles and lines painted on her naked body could hide it.
Her face lacked the jutting jaw, and with her small nose and high forehead it seemed more flat than they