The people had joined in singing the Mother's Song, and they had reached a part that seemed especially profound:

"When She was ready, Her waters of birth,

Brought back the green life to the cold barren Earth.

And the tears of Her loss, abundantly spilled,

Made dew drops that sparkled and rainbows that thrilled."

"Birth waters brought green. But Her tears could be seen."

"With a thunderous roar Her stones split asunder,

And from the great cave that opened deep under,

She birthed once again from Her cavernous room,

And brought forth the Children of Earth from Her womb ."

"From the Mother forlorn, more children were born."

"Each child was different, some were large and some small,

Some could walk and some fly, some could swim and some crawl.

But each form was perfect, each spirit complete,

Each one was a model whose shape could repeat."

"The Mother was willing. The green earth was filling."

Suddenly Ayla perceived a feeling that she'd had before, but not for a long time: a sense of foreboding came over her. Ever since the Clan Gathering, where Creb had learned in some inexplicable way that she was different, she had sometimes felt this peculiar fear, this strange disorientation, as though he had changed her. She felt a tingling, a prickling, a goosebump-raising nausea and weakness, and she shivered as her memory of a darkness deeper than any cave became real. In the back of her throat she tasted the dark cool loam and growing fungus of ancient primeval forests.

An angry roar shattered the silence, and the watching people jumped back with fear. The huge cave bear pushed at the gate to the cage and sent it crashing to the ground. The maddened bear was loose! Broud was standing on his shoulders; two other men were clinging to his fur. Suddenly one was in the monstrous animal's grip, but his agonized scream was cut short when a powerful bear hug snapped his spine. The mog-urs picked up the body and, with solemn dignity, carried it into a cave. Creb, in his bearskin cloak, hobbled in the lead.

Ayla stared at a white liquid sloshing in a cracked wooden bowl. She felt an anxious worry, she had done something wrong. There wasn't supposed to be any liquid left in the bowl. She held it to her lips and drained it. Her perspective changed, a white light was inside her, and she seemed to be growing larger and looking down from high above at stars blazing a path. The stars changed to small flickering lights leading through a long endless cave. Then a red light at the end grew large, filling her vision, and with a sinking, sickening feeling, she saw the mog-urs sitting in a circle, half-hidden by stalagmite pillars.

She was sinking deeper into a black abyss, petrified with fear. Suddenly Creb was there with the flowing light inside her, helping her, supporting her, easing her fears. He guided her on a strange trip back to their mutual beginnings, through salt water and painful gulps of air, loamy earth, and high trees. Then they were on the ground, walking upright on two legs, walking a great distance, going west toward a great salty sea. They came to a steep wall that faced a river and a flat plain, with a deep recess under a large overhanging section; it was the cave of an ancient ancestor of his. But as they approached the cave, Creb began fading, leaving her.

The scene grew hazy, Creb was fading faster, was nearly gone. She scanned the landscape, searching desperately for him. Then she saw him at the top of the cliff, above his ancestor's cave, near a large boulder, a long, slightly flattened column of rock that tilted over the edge, as though frozen in place as it was about to fall. She called out, but he had faded into the rock. Ayla felt desolate; Creb was gone and she was alone. Then Jondalar appeared in his place.

She sensed herself moving with great speed over strange worlds and felt the terror of the black void again, but it was different this time. She was sharing it with Mamut, and the terror overcame both of them. Then faintly, from far away, she heard Jondalar's voice, full of agonized fear and love, calling to her, pulling her back and Mamut as well, by the sheer strength of his love and his need. In an instant she was back, feeling chilled to the bone.

"Ayla, are you all right?" Zelandoni said. "You're shivering."

Chapter 27

"I'm fine," Ayla said. "It's just cool in here. I should have brought something warmer." Wolf, who had been exploring the new cave, had appeared at her side and was pushing against her leg. She reached down and felt his head, then kneeled down and hugged him.

"It is cool, and you are pregnant. You feel things more," Zelandoni said, but she knew there was more to it than Ayla was saying. "You know about the meeting tomorrow, don't you?"

"Yes, Marthona told me. She will be coming with me, since I have no mother of my own to come," Ayla said.

"Do you want her to come?" Zelandoni asked.

"Oh, yes. I was grateful that she offered. I didn't want to be the only woman there without a mother, at least someone who is like a mother," Ayla said.

The First nodded. "Good."

People were getting over their first feelings of awe at the new cave and were beginning to move around in it. Ayla saw Jondalar walking the length of the large room with purposeful strides, and smiled. She knew that he used his body to measure, she had seen him do it before. The width of his clenched fist was one measurement, the length of his hand another. He used his open arms to gauge spaces, and he often paced off distances by naming his steps with the counting words. That was why she had started doing it. He looked into the gallery at the back, holding his torch high, but didn't enter.

A cluster of people were watching him. Tormaden, the leader of the Nineteenth Cave, was talking to Morizan, the young man from the Third Cave. They were the only two people who were not from the Ninth Cave. Willamar, Marthona, and Folara were standing next to Proleva and Joharran and his two closest advisers and their mates. Dark-haired Solaban and his pale blond mate, Ramara, were talking to Rushemar and Salova, who was holding little Marsola on her hip. Ayla noticed that neither Proleva's son, Jaradal, nor Ramara's son, Robenan, was with them and guessed that the two boys who played together had gone off to do something at the main camp. Jonokol was smiling at Ayla as she walked toward them with Zelandoni and the wolf. Jondalar came back and joined them.

"I would guess this room is the height of three tall men to the ceiling," he said, "and about the same or a little more across, about six of my strides. Probably the length is something short of three times that much, around sixteen steps, but I have a long stride. The darker stone of the lower part of the walls comes to about here," he held his hand about midchest height, "that's about five of my feet, one after another."

Jondalar had judged the distances fairly well. He was six feet six inches tall, and the white walls, which began at the middle of his chest, were around five feet up and went all the way to the nineteen-foot ceiling. The room was about twenty-two feet across and fifty-five feet in length, with some water pooled in the middle. The space was not large enough to hold everyone at the Summer Meeting, but more than enough to hold an entire Cave, except perhaps the Ninth, and certainly big enough for the entire zelandonia.

Jonokol walked to the middle of the room and stared up at the walls and ceiling with an entranced grin. He was in his element, lost in his imagination. He knew that these beautiful white walls hid something spectacular that wanted to come out. He wasn't in a hurry. Whatever was done with them had to be exactly right. He was beginning to get some ideas, but he needed to consult with the First, to meditate with the zelandonia, to reach inside those spaces and find the imprint of the other world that the Mother had left there. She had to tell him what was there.