The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [95]
On an extension of the bed platform were baskets of various sizes and shapes; the larger ones held clothing arranged to show the decorative beadwork or feather and fur designs. In some of the baskets and hanging from pegs were carved ivory armbands and bracelets, and necklaces of animal teeth, freshwater mollusc shells, seashells, cylindrical lime tubes, natural and colored ivory beads and pendants, and prominent among them, amber. A large flake of mammoth tusk, incised with unusual geometric designs, was on the wall. Even hunting weapons and outer clothing that hung from pegs added to the overall effect.
The more she looked, the more she saw, but the objects that seemed to reach for and hold her attention were a beautifully made ivory Mother figure in a niche, and the carvings near his work area.
Ranec watched her, noting where her eyes stayed, and knowing what she was seeing. When her eyes settled on him, he smiled. He sat down at his workbench, the lower leg bone of a mammoth sunk into the floor so that the flat, slightly concave knee joint reached just about chest high when he sat on a mat on the floor. On the curved horizontal work surface, amid a variety of burins, chisellike flint tools which he used for carving, was an unfinished carving of a bird.
“This is the piece I’m working on,” he said, watching her expression as he held it out to her.
She carefully cradled the ivory sculpture in her hands, looked at it, then turned it over and examined it closer. Then looking puzzled, she turned it one way, and then the other again. “Is bird when I look this way,” she said to Ranec, “but now”—she held it up the other way—“is woman!”
“Wonderful! You saw it right away. It’s something I’ve been trying to work out. I wanted to show the transformation of the Mother, Her spiritual form. I want to show Her when She takes on Her bird form to fly from here to the spirit world, but still as the Mother, as woman. To incorporate both forms at once!”
Ranec’s dark eyes flashed, he was so excited he almost couldn’t speak fast enough. Ayla smiled at his enthusiasm. It was a side of him she hadn’t seen before. He usually seemed much more detached, even when he laughed. For a moment, Ranec reminded her of Jondalar when he was developing the idea for the spear-thrower. She frowned at the thought. Those summer days in the valley seemed so long ago. Now Jondalar almost never smiled, or if he did, he was angry the next moment. She had a sudden feeling that Jondalar would not like her to be there, talking to Ranec, hearing his pleasure and excitement, and that made her unhappy, and a little angry.
11
“Ayla, there you are,” Deegie said, passing through the Fox Hearth. “We’re going to start the music. Come along. You, too, Ranec.”
Deegie had collected most of the Lion Camp on her way through. Ayla noticed that she carried the mammoth skull and Tornec the scapula which was painted with red ordered lines and geometric shapes, and that Deegie had used the unfamiliar word again. Ayla and Ranec followed them outside.
Wispy clouds raced across a darkening sky to the north, and the wind picked up, parting the fur on hoods and parkas, but none of the people gathering in a circle seemed to notice. The outdoor fireplace, which had been constructed with mounds of soil and a few rocks to take advantage of the prevailing north wind, burned hotter as more bone and some wood was added, but the fire was an invisible presence overpowered by the coruscating glow descending in the west.
Some large bones that seemed to have been randomly left lying around took on a planned purpose as Deegie and Tornec joined Mamut and seated themselves on them. Deegie placed the marked skull down so that it was held