The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [271]
She changed, then sat beside Creb at the fire, grateful that the silence between them was no longer strained.
“Creb, I’m so glad we talked last night. I went down to the stream; the ice is breaking loose. Summer’s coming, we’ll be able to take some long walks again.”
“Yes, Ayla, summer’s coming. If you want, we’ll take long walks again. In summer.”
Ayla felt a chill. She had a horrible feeling she would never take a long walk with him again, and she had the feeling Creb knew it, too. She reached for him, and they held each other as though for the last time.
By midmorning the rain eased to a dreary drizzle and by afternoon stopped altogether. A wan, tired sun broke through the solid cloud cover but did little to warm or dry the drenched earth. Despite the dismal weather and sparse fare, the clan was excited by so notable an occasion for a feast. A change in leadership was rare enough, but a new mog-ur at the same time made it exceptional. Oga and Ebra would have a part to play in the ceremony, and Brac as well. The seven-year-old would be the next heir apparent.
Oga was a tight bundle of stretched nerves. She jumped up every other moment to check every fireplace where food was cooking. Ebra tried to calm her, but Ebra wasn’t so settled herself. Trying to seem more grown-up, Brac was issuing commands to the small children and busy women. Brun finally stepped in and called him off to the side to practice his part once more. Uba took the children to Vorn’s hearth to get them out of the way, and after most of the preparations were completed, Ayla joined her. Aside from helping to cook, Ayla’s only role would be to make datura for the men since Creb had told her not to make the drink from the roots.
By evening, only a few wisps of clouds remained to dart fitfully before the full moon that lit the bare, lifeless landscape. Inside the cave, a large fire burned in a space behind the last hearth, defined by a circle of torches.
Ayla sat alone on her fur staring at the small hearth fire that snapped and crackled nearby. She still hadn’t been able to shake her uneasiness. She decided to walk to the cave’s entrance to look at the moon until the festivities began, but just as she stood up, she saw Brun’s signal and turned heavy steps the other way. When everyone was in their correct places, Mog-ur came out of the place of the spirits followed by Goov, both cloaked in bearskins.
As the great holy man called forth the spirits for the last time, the years seemed to fall from him. He made the eloquent, familiar gestures with more power and force than the clan had seen for years. It was a masterful performance. He played his audience with the skill of a virtuoso, drawing forth their response with perfect timing in peak after suspenseful peak of evocative emotion, to a climax that wrung out their last drop and left them drained. Beside him, Goov was a faded copy. The young man was an adequate mog-ur, even a good one, but he couldn’t match The Mog-ur. The most powerful magician the Clan had ever known had conducted his last and finest ceremony. When he turned it over to Goov, Ayla wasn’t the only one who cried. The dry-eyed clan wept with their hearts.
Ayla’s mind wandered as Goov went through the motions that retired Brun and raised Broud to the rank of leader. She was watching Creb and remembered the first time she saw his one-eyed, scarred face and reached out to touch him. She recalled his patience when he was trying to teach her to communicate, and her sudden burst of understanding. She reached for her amulet and felt a tiny scar on her throat where he had expertly nicked her to draw her blood as a sacrifice to the ancient spirits that allowed her to hunt. And she cringed with the memory of her clandestine visit to a small cave deep in a mountain. Then she remembered his look of loving sadness and his cryptic, enigmatic statement of the night before.
She only picked at her food at the feast celebrating the succession of the next generation to the realms of authority. The men filed into the small sacred cave to complete