The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [202]
Ayla didn’t lie either. Children of the Clan learned early that their way of communicating made lying nearly impossible. After she met her own kind of people, she noticed that people had trouble keeping track of lies, and it seemed to her that lying was more trouble than it was worth. Perhaps, instead, the First had developed a way to avoid answering a question by making the one who asked question his own intelligence for asking. Ayla found herself turning aside and smiling to herself, thinking she had deduced something significant about the powerful older woman.
She had. The First saw her turn away, and caught the glimpse of a smile she had tried to hide. She thought she guessed the reason, and was glad Ayla had turned aside. She didn’t mind that her acolyte learned some things on her own, but it was best not to make an issue of them. The time might come when she would have to employ similar strategies.
Ayla turned her attention back to the wall. The young Zelandoni had moved on and was now holding his torch up to show the next section, which had a pair of goats and some dots. Beyond that were two more goats, some dots, and some curved lines. Some of the animals, and lines and dots, were in red, some in black. They were entering a little antechamber with five black and red dots and in the back some red dots and lines. They came back out of the opening of the niche, and turned a corner. On the wall on the other side there was another human-like figure with lines going into or emanating from it, seven of them going in all directions. It was a very roughly drawn figure, hardly even recognizable as human, except it really couldn’t be anything else. There were two legs indicated, two very short arms, and a misshapen head drawn in black outline. She wanted to ask the First what it meant, but she probably didn’t know either, though she might have some ideas. Perhaps later they could talk about it. Four mammoths painted in red were also in this section, very simplified, sometimes only suggested, just enough to identify the animal. There were also the horns of a goat and more dots.
“If we go to the middle of this room, we can see the whole wall, especially if the ones with lamps stay near it,” the local Zelandoni said.
They all shuffled around until they were in position to see the entire display; then they looked at the entire wall of painted panels. At first there was some shuffling and clearing of throats, a few murmurs and whispers, but soon everything was still as the people focused on the stone wall that they had studied closely. When they saw all the images together, they began to feel the sense of the mystical potential the bare rock had acquired. For a moment in the flickering flames and wispy smoke of the lamps, the figures seemed to move and Ayla had the impression that the walls were transparent, that she was seeing through the solid stone and catching a vague glimpse of some other place. She felt a chill, then blinked a few times and the wall became solid again.
The Zelandoni led them out again, pointing out a few places where there were dots and marks on the walls. As they moved out of the decorated area of the cave, and got closer to the entrance, the daylight that penetrated the space made the cave seem more clear. They could see the shape of the walls and the rocks that had fallen to the ground. When they stepped out of the cave, the light seemed exceptionally bright after all that time in the dark. They squinted and closed their eyes, waiting for them to adjust. It took a while before Ayla noticed Wolf, and a moment longer before she saw his agitation. He yipped at her and started in the direction of the living shelter, then turned around and headed back toward her and yipped before he trotted the other way again.
She looked at Jondalar. “Something must be wrong,” she said.
21
Jondalar and Ayla both ran back to the Cave, following