The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [201]
She had looked at the two megaceroses for quite a while before she suddenly saw the mammoth. It was inside the body of the first giant deer, and it wasn’t a complete mammoth, just the line of the back and head, but the distinctive shape was enough. It made her wonder which was painted first, the mammoth or the megaceros. Seeing it made her look more closely at the rest of the wall. Above the back of the first megaceros, in front of the head of the second, two additional animals were painted in black outline, and again they were not complete. There was a side view of the head and neck of a mountain goat with its two horns that arched back, and a front view of just the horns of a different mountain goat–like animal, which she thought might be an ibex or a chamois.
Advancing a little farther, they came to another section of animals painted in black outline, which contained another megaceros with his giant antlers. There was also part of a smaller deer, a wild mountain goat, and the suggestion of a horse with the stand-up mane and the beginning of the back, and another figure that was more surprising and frightening. It was a partial figure, just the lower body and legs that looked human, with three lines either going into or emanating from his backside. Were they meant to be spears? Was someone suggesting that a human had been hunted with spears? But why put something like that on the wall? She tried to recall if she had ever seen an animal represented with spears in it. Or was it meant to represent something else, something coming out of the body? The lower back was not the most logical place to aim in order to hunt something. A spear in the buttocks, or even the lower back, was not likely to be fatal. Maybe it was meant to show pain, a pain in the back that hurt as much as a spear.
She shook her head. She could make all the guesses she wanted to, but that wouldn’t bring her any closer to the real reason. “What do those lines in that figure mean?” she asked the local Zelandoni, pointing to the painting that was suggestively human.
“Everyone asks,” he said. “No one knows. It was done by the Ancients.” Then he turned to the First. “Do you know anything about it?”
“There is nothing specifically mentioned in the Histories or Elder Legends, but I can say this,” the First said. “The meaning of any of the images in a Sacred Site is seldom obvious. You know yourself that when you travel to the spirit world, things are seldom what they seem. The fierce can be tame, the gentlest, the most ferocious. It’s not necessary for us to know what something in here means. We already know it was important to the one who put it there, or it would not be here.”
“But people always ask. They want to know,” the young man said. “They make guesses and want to know if they are true, if they guessed right.”
“People should know, you don’t always get what you want,” the First said.
“But I’d like to tell them something.”
“I’m telling you something. It’s enough,” the woman said.
Although she had been tempted, Ayla was glad now that she hadn’t been the one to ask what the young man had asked. The First always said anyone could ask her any question, but Ayla had noticed before that the woman who was her mentor could make a person feel less than bright for asking certain questions. The thought occurred to her that while anyone could ask her any question, it didn’t mean she could necessarily answer every question that she was asked. But as the First she couldn