The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [364]
“That was Ayla,” Folara whispered to Aldanor. “No one can do a lion roar as well as she can.”
The herd scattered, jumping over things and almost running into people. The lion chased after them. Then five people came out dressed in deer hides and holding antlers on their heads, and portrayed them jumping into a river as though running away from something, and swimming across. Horses were next, one of them whinnying so realistically, it got an answering whinny from a distance.
“That was Ayla, too,” Folara informed the man beside her.
“She’s very good,” he said.
“She says she learned to mimic animals before she learned to speak Zelandonii.”
There were other demonstrations portraying and depicting animals, all showing an event or story of some kind. The troupe of traveling storytellers were also a part of the presentation, pressed into service as various animals, and their skills added a vivid realism. Finally the animals started coming together. When they were all gathered, a strange animal appeared. It walked on four legs and had hooved feet, but it was covered with a strange spotted hide that hung down the sides almost to the ground and partially covered its head, to which two straight sticks had been attached that were meant to represent some kind of horns or antlers.
“What is that?” Aldanor asked.
“It’s a magical animal, of course,” Folara said. “But it’s really Ayla’s Whinney, who is being a Zelandoni. The First says all of her horses and Wolf are Zelandonia. That’s why they choose to stay with her.”
The strange Zelandoni animal led all the other animals away, then several of the zelandonia and storytellers hurried back as themselves and began playing drums and flutes. Some began singing some of the older Legends; then others narrated the Histories and lore that the people knew and loved so well.
The zelandonia had prepared well. They used every trick they knew to capture and hold the attention of the large crowd. When Ayla, with her face painted in Zelandoni designs—all except for the area around her new tattoo, which was left bare to show the permanent mark of acceptance—stepped in front of the group, all two thousand people held their breaths, ready to hang on to her every word, her every motion.
Drums resounded, high-pitched flutes interwove with the slow, steady, inexorable bass, with some tones below the range of hearing, but felt deep in the bone, thrum, thrum, thrum. The cadence changed in rhythm, then matched the meter of a verse so familiar, the people joined in singing or saying the beginning of the Mother’s Song.
Out of the darkness, the chaos of time,
The whirlwind gave birth to the Mother sublime.
She woke to Herself knowing life had great worth,
The dark empty void grieved the Great Mother Earth.
The Mother was lonely. She was the only.
The First with her spectacular full, vibrant voice joined in. Drums and flutes played in between the singers and speakers as the Mother’s Song continued. Near the middle, people began to take notice that the voice of the First was so markedly rich and rare, they stopped singing so they could listen. When she reached the last verse, she stopped and only the drums played by Ayla’s visiting kin were left.
But the people almost thought they could hear the words. And then they were sure they could, but they were spoken with a strange, eerie vibrato. At first, the audience wasn’t quite sure what they were hearing. The two young Mamutoi men stood in front of the crowd with their small drums and played the last verse of the Mother’s Song in a strange staccato beat—drumbeats that sounded like words spoken in a throbbing voice as though someone were singing by rapidly varying the pressure of the breath, except it wasn’t someone’s breath, it was the drums! The drums were speaking words!
Th-e-e-e Mu-u-u-the-er wa-a-a-az pule-e-e-z-z-zed wi-i-i-ith …
The silence of the listeners was perfect as everyone strained to hear the drums speak. Ayla, thinking about the way she had learned to throw her voice