The Shelters of Stone (28 page)

Though Ayla kept her voice neutral and told the story with signs and movements, the people were already caught up in her tale. To them, totems were an aspect of the Mother and they understood the disasters that the Great Earth Mother could wreak when she was not happy.

“Iza told me they were following a river when they saw
carrion birds circling overhead. Brun and Grod saw me first, but passed by. They were looking for food, and would have been glad if the carrion birds had spotted prey killed by a hunting animal. They might be able to keep a four-legged hunter away long enough to take some of the meat. They thought I was dead, but they don’t eat people, not even one of the Others.”

There was a grace and easy flow to Ayla’s movements as she spoke. She made the signs and gestures with practiced ease. “When Iza saw me lying on the ground beside the river, she stopped to look. She was a medicine woman and interested. My leg had been clawed by a big cat, she thought probably a cave lion, and the wound had festered. At first, she thought I was dead, too, but then she heard me moan, so she examined me closer and discovered that I was breathing. She asked Brun, the leader, who was her sibling, if she could take me with them. He did not forbid it.”

“Good!” “Yes!” came responses from the audience. Jondalar smiled to himself.

“Iza was pregnant at the time, but she picked me up and carried me until they made camp for the night. She wasn’t sure if her medicine would work on the Others, but she knew of a case where it had before, so she decided to try. She made a poultice to draw out the infection. She carried me all the next day, too. I remember the first time I woke up and saw her face, I screamed, but she held me and comforted me. By the third day, I was able to walk a little, and by then, Iza decided I was meant to be her child.”

Ayla stopped there. There was a profound silence. It was a moving story.

“How old were you?” Proleva finally asked.

“Iza told me later that she thought I could count about five years at the time. I was perhaps the age of Jaradal, or Robenan,” she added, looking at Solaban.

“Did you say all that with the gestures, too?” Solaban asked. “Can they really say so much without words?”

“There is not a sign for every word I said, but they would have understood essentially the same story. Their language
is more than just the motions of the hands. It is everything; even a flicker of an eyelid or a nod of the head can convey meaning.”

“But with that kind of language,” Jondalar added, “they cannot tell a lie. If they tried, an expression or posture would give them away. When I first met her, Ayla didn’t even have a concept for saying something that is not true. She even had trouble understanding what I meant. Though she understands now, she still can’t do it. Ayla can’t lie. She never learned how. That’s how she was raised.”

“There may be more merit than one would realize in speaking without words,” Marthona said quietly.

“I think it is obvious from watching her that this kind of sign language is a natural way of communicating for Ayla,” Zelandoni said, thinking to herself that her motions would not be so smooth and graceful if she was faking. And what reason would she have to lie about it—could it be true that she can’t tell a lie? She wasn’t entirely convinced, but Jondalar’s arguments had been persuasive.

“Tell us more about your life with them,” Zelandoni of the Eleventh said. “You don’t have to continue with the signs, unless you want to. It is beautiful to watch, but I think you have made your point. You said they buried their dead. I’d like to know more of their burial practices.”

“Yes, they bury their dead. I was there when Iza died.”

The discussion continued all afternoon. Ayla gave a moving account of the ceremony and ritual of the burial, then told them more about her childhood. People asked many questions, interrupting often to discuss and request more information.

Joharran finally noticed it was getting dark. “I think Ayla is tired, and we’re all hungry again,” he said. “Before we break up, I think we should talk about a hunt before the Summer Meeting.”

“Jondalar was telling me they have a new hunting weapon to show us,” Manvelar said. “Perhaps tomorrow or the next day would be a good day to hunt. That would give
the Third Cave time to develop some plans to offer about where we should go.”

“Good,” Joharran said, “but now, Proleva has arranged another meal for us, if anyone is hungry.”

The meeting had been intense and fascinating, but people were glad to be up and moving around. As they walked back toward the dwellings, Ayla thought about the meeting, and all the questions. She knew she had answered everything truthfully, but she also knew she hadn’t volunteered much beyond what was asked. In particular, she had avoided any mention of her son. She knew that to the Zelandonii he would be thought of as an abomination, and though she could not lie, she could refrain from mentioning.

I
t was dark inside when they reached Marthona’s dwelling. Folara had gone to stay with her friend Ramila, rather than wait alone for her mother, Willamar, Ayla, and Jondalar to return. They had seen her during the evening meal, but the discussions had continued on a more informal basis, and the young woman knew they were not likely to return early.

Not even a faint glow from dying coals in the fireplace could be seen when they pushed aside the entry drape.

“I’ll get a lamp or a torch and get a fire start from Joharran’s,” Willamar said.

“I don’t see any light there,” Marthona said. “He was at the meeting and so was Proleva. They probably went to get Jaradal.”

“How about Solaban’s?” Willamar said.

“I don’t see a light there, either. Ramara must be gone. Solaban was at the meeting all day, too.”

“You don’t have to bother getting fire,” Ayla said. “I have the firestones I found today. I can have one going in a heartbeat.”

“What are firestones?” Marthona and Willamar said almost in unison.

“We’ll show you,” Jondalar said. Though she couldn’t see his face, Ayla knew he was grinning.

“I will need tinder,” Ayla said. “Something to catch a spark.”

“There is tinder by the hearth, but I’m not sure I can find the fireplace without stumbling over something,” Marthona said. “We can get a fire start from someone.”

“You’d have to go in and find a lamp or a torch in the dark, wouldn’t you?” Jondalar said.

“We can borrow a lamp,” Marthona said.

“I think I can make enough spark lights to find the fireplace,” Ayla said, taking out her flint knife and feeling in her pouch for the firestones she had found.

She entered the dwelling first, holding the nodule of iron pyrite in front of her in her left hand and her knife in the right. For a moment she felt as though she were entering a deep cave. The darkness was so intense, it seemed to push back at her. A quick chill shook her. She struck the firestone with the back of her flint blade.

“Ooohhh,” Ayla heard Marthona say as a bright spark lit up the charcoal black interior for an instant and then died.

“How did you do that?” Willamar asked. “Can you do it again?”

“I did it with my flint knife and a firestone,” Ayla said, and struck the two together to show that she could, indeed, do it again. The long-lived spark allowed her to take a few steps toward the fireplace. She struck it again and moved a little closer to it. When she reached the cooking hearth, she saw that Marthona had found her way there, too.

“I keep my tinder here, on this side,” Marthona said. “Where do you want it?”

“Near the edge here is fine,” Ayla said. She felt Marthona’s hand in the dark, and the soft, dry bits of some kind of fibrous substance it held. Ayla put the tinder on the ground, bent over close, and struck the firestone again. This time the spark jumped to the small pile of quick-burning material and made a faint red glow. Ayla blew at it gently and was rewarded with a little flame. She piled a bit more tinder on it. Marthona was ready with some small bits of wood, and then bigger kindling,
and in what seemed hardly more than a heartbeat, a warm fire lit the inside of the dwelling.

“Now, I want to see this firestone,” Willamar said after lighting a few lamps.

Ayla gave him the small nodule of iron pyrite. Willamar studied the grayish-gold stone, turning it over to see all sides. “It just looks like a stone, with an interesting color. How do you make fire with it?” he asked. “Can anyone do it?”

“Yes, anyone can,” Jondalar said. “I’ll show you. Can I have some of that tinder, mother?”

While Marthona got more tinder, Jondalar went to his traveling pack for his fire-making kit and removed the flint striker and firestone. Then he made a small pile of the soft fibers—probably cattail or fireweed fibers mixed with a bit of pitch and crumbled dry rotted wood from a dead tree, he thought. It was the tinder his mother had always preferred. Bending close to the quick-catching tinder, Jondalar struck the flint and iron pyrite together. The spark, not as easy to see next to the burning fire, still landed on the pile of starting material, singed it brown, and sent up a whiff of smoke. Jondalar blew up a small flame and added more fuel. Soon a second fire was burning in the ash-darkened circle surrounded by stones that was the hearth of the dwelling.

“Can I try it?” Marthona said.

“It does take a little practice to draw off a spark and make it land where you want, but it’s not hard to do,” Jondalar said, giving her the stone and the striker:

“I’d like to try, too, when you’re done,” Willamar said.

“You don’t have to wait,” Ayla said. “I’ll get the flint striker from my fire-starting kit and show you. I’ve been using the back of my knife, but I’ve already chipped it and I’d rather not break the blade.”

Their first attempts were tentative and awkward, but with Ayla and Jondalar showing them the technique, both Marthona and Willamar began to get a feel for it. Willamar was the first to get a fire going, but then had trouble doing it a second time. Once Marthona made a fire, she had mastered the technique, but with practice and advice from the two
experts, mixed with much laughter, it wasn’t long before both of them were drawing sparks from the stone and making fires with ease.

Folara came home to find all four of them smiling with delight on their knees around the hearth, which held several little fires. Wolf came in with her. He’d grown tired of staying in one place all day with Ayla, and when he found Jaradal with Folara, who encouraged him, he couldn’t resist joining them. They were pleased to show off their acquaintance with the curiously friendly predator, and the association made him less threatening to the other people of the Cave.

After Wolf greeted everyone appropriately and drank some water, he went to the corner near the entrance that he had claimed as his own and curled up to rest after a wonderfully tiring day with Jaradal and some of the other children.

“What’s going on?” Folara said after the excitement of greetings, when she noticed the hearth. “Why do you have so many fires in the fireplace?”

“We’ve been learning to make fire with stones,” Willamar said.

“With Ayla’s firestone?” Folara said.

“Yes. It’s so easy,” Marthona said.

“I promised to show you, Folara. Would you like to try now?” Ayla said.

“Have you really done it, mother?” Folara asked.

“Of course.”

“And you, too, Willamar?”

“Yes. It takes some practice, but it’s not hard,” he said.

“Well, I guess I can’t be the only one in the family who doesn’t know how,” Folara said.

While Ayla was showing the young woman the finer points of making a fire with stones, with advice from Jondalar and the new expert, Willamar, Marthona used the existing fires to heat cooking stones. She filled her tea-making basket with water and began to slice some cold cooked bison meat. When the cooking stones were hot, she put several in the teapot basket, bringing forth a steaming cloud, then added a couple along with a bit more water to a container made of willow
withes tightly interwoven with fibers attached to a wooden base. It contained vegetables that had been cooked that morning: daylily buds, cut pieces of the green stems of poke, elder shoots, thistle stems, burdock stems, coiled baby ferns, and lily corms, flavored with wild basil, elderberry flowers, and pignut roots for added spice.

By the time Marthona had a light supper ready, Folara had added her small fire to the ones still burning in the hearth. Everyone got their own eating dishes and cups for tea and sat on cushions around the low table. After the meal, Ayla brought a bowl of leftovers and an extra piece of meat to Wolf, poured herself another cup of tea, and rejoined the others.

“I want to know more about these firestones,” Willamar said. “I’ve never heard of people making fire like that before.”

“Where did you learn to do that, Jondé?” Folara asked.

“Ayla showed me,” Jondalar said.

“Where did you learn, Ayla?” Folara said.

“It wasn’t anything I learned or planned or thought about, it just happened.”

“But how could something like that ‘just happen’?” Folara asked.