The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [240]
She watched with fascinated horror as the mog-ur of Norg’s clan reached for the head, turned it over, and with a stone enlarged the foramen magnum, the great opening of the spinal column. The pink-gray jellied mass of Gorn’s brain lay exposed. The magician made silent gestures over the head, then reached into the opening with his hand and tore out a piece of the soft tissue. He held the quivering mass in his hand while the next mog-ur reached for the head. Even in her stupor, Ayla felt a deep revulsion, but she was held spellbound as each magician dipped into the grisly head and withdrew a portion of the brain of the man who had been killed by the cave bear.
A whirling, spinning vertigo brought Ayla to the brink of the deep emptiness. She swallowed to keep from being sick. Desperately, she clung to the edge of the void, but when she saw the great holy men of the Clan move their hands to their mouths and eat Gorn’s brain, she let go. The act of cannibalism drove her into an abyss of black space.
She screamed soundlessly, unable to hear herself. She was unable to see, unable to feel, devoid of any sensations, but she knew it. She hadn’t escaped into a mind-blanking sleep. The void had another quality, a terrifying, empty quality. Fear, all-encompassing fear, gripped her. She struggled to return, screamed silently for help, but was only drawn deeper. She sensed movement she could not sense as, faster and faster, she fell into the deep black infinity, into the endless cold void.
Suddenly, her motionless motion slowed. She felt a tickling sensation inside her brain, inside her mind, and a counterpull that slowly drew her back over the edge, out of the infinite hole. She sensed emotions alien to her, emotions not her own. Strongest was love, but mixed in was deep anger and great fear, and then, a hint of curiosity. With a shock, she realized Mog-ur was inside her head. In her mind, she felt his thoughts, with her emotions, his feelings. There was a distinctly physical quality to it, a sense of crowding without its unpleasantness, more like a touching that was closer than physical touching.
The mind-altering roots from Iza’s red bag accentuated a natural tendency of the Clan. Instinct had evolved, in Clan people, into memory. But memory, taken far enough back, became identical, became racial memory. The racial memories of the Clan were the same; and with perceptions sensitized, they could share their identical memories. The trained mog-urs had developed their natural tendency with conscious effort. They were all capable of some control over the shared memories, but The Mog-ur was born with a unique ability.
Not only could he share the memories, and control them, he could keep the link intact as their thoughts moved through time from the past to the present. The men of his clan enjoyed a richer, fuller ceremonial interrelationship than any other clan. But with the trained minds of the mog-urs, he could make the telepathic link from the beginning. Through him, all the mog-urs shared a union far closer and more satisfying than any physical one—it was a touching of spirits. The white liquid from Iza’s bowl that had heightened the perceptions and opened the minds of the magicians to The Mog-ur, had allowed his special ability to create a symbiosis with Ayla’s mind as well.
The traumatic birth that damaged the brain of the disfigured man had impaired only a portion of his physical abilities, not the sensitive psychic overdevelopment that enabled his great power. But the crippled man was the ultimate end-product of his kind. Only in him had nature taken the course set for the Clan to its fullest extreme. There could be no further development without radical change, and their characteristics were no longer adaptable. Like the huge creature they venerated, and many others that shared their environment, they were incapable of surviving radical change.
The race of men with social conscience enough to care for their weak and wounded, with spiritual awareness enough to bury their dead and venerate their great totem, the