The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [141]
In the morning, Zelandoni took Ayla aside and told her that she had arranged for the young acolyte to show their Sacred Cave to her. “It isn’t very big, but it is very difficult. You may have to crawl through parts of it, so wear something to climb through caves and cover your knees. When I was young, I went into it once, but I don’t think I could do it now. I think the two of you will manage just fine, but it will be slow going. You are both strong young women, so it shouldn’t take too long, but because it is difficult, you might want to consider leaving your baby here.” She paused, then added, “I will watch her if you like.”
Ayla thought she detected a reluctance in Zelandoni’s voice. Taking care of babies could be tiring, and the First might have other plans. “Why don’t I ask Jondalar if he will. He likes to spend time with Jonayla.”
The two young women started out together, with the young acolyte showing the way. “Should I call you by your full title, a short version of it, or by your name?” Ayla asked after they had walked a short distance. “Different acolytes seem to have different preferences.”
“What do people call you?”
“I am Ayla. I know I’m the acolyte of the First, but I still have trouble thinking of myself that way, and ‘Ayla’ is what everyone calls me. I like it better. My name is the only thing I have left from my real mother, my original people. I don’t even know who they were. I don’t yet know what I’m going to do when I become a full Zelandoni. I know we’re supposed to leave our personal names behind, and I hope when the time comes, I’ll be ready to, but I’m not yet.”
“Some acolytes are happy to change names, some would rather not, but it all seems to work out. I think I’d like you to call me Shevola. It seems more friendly than acolyte.”
“So please call me Ayla.”
They walked further along a trail through a narrow canyon, dense with woods and brush, between two imposing cliffs, one of which held the stone shelter of the people. Wolf suddenly bounded up. He startled Shevola, who wasn’t used to wolves appearing suddenly. Ayla grabbed his head between her hands, roughing up his mane, and laughed.
“So you didn’t want to be left behind,” she said, actually glad to see him. She turned toward the acolyte. “He always used to follow me everywhere I went, unless I told him not to, until Jonayla was born. Now he’s drawn between us when I am in one place and she is in another. He wants to protect both of us, and can’t always make up his mind. I thought I’d let him choose this time. I think he must have decided that Jondalar could protect Jonayla well enough and come to find me.”
“Your control over animals is amazing, the way they go where you want and do what you want. One gets used to watching you after a while, but it is still hard to believe,” Shevola said. “Did you always have these animals?”
“No. Whinney was the first, unless you count the rabbit I found when I was a little girl,” Ayla said. “He must have gotten away from some predator, but he was hurt, and didn’t, or couldn’t, run away when I picked him up. Iza was the healer and I took him back to the cave so she could help him. She was more than surprised, and told me that healers were supposed to help people, not animals, but she helped him anyway. Maybe to see if she could. I suppose the idea that people could help animals must have stayed with me when I saw the little foal. I didn’t realize at first that the animal that fell into my pit trap was a nursing mare, and I don’t know why I killed the hyenas that were after her baby, except I hate hyenas. But once I did, I felt that the foal had become my responsibility, that I had to try to raise her. I’m glad I did. She has become my friend.”
Shevola was fascinated by the story Ayla told with such casualness, as though it were an ordinary thing. “Still, you have control over those animals.”
“I don’t know if I would call it that. With Whinney, I was like her mother. I took care of her and fed