With anticipation, awaited the birth.
Life drank from Her blood, it breathed from Her bones.
It split Her skin open and sundered Her stones.
The Mother was giving. Another was living.
Her gushing birth waters filled rivers and seas,
And flooded the land, giving rise to the trees.
From each precious drop more grass and leaves grew,
And lush verdant plants made all the Earth new.
Her waters were flowing. New green was growing.
The First stopped at a place that felt like an ending to the impromptu chorus. Ayla stopped too, at the end of an extended melodious trill of a skylark, leaving Jonokol and the Watcher, who finished on a harmonizing tone. Jondalar and Willamar slapped their hands on their thighs in appreciation.
“That was marvelous,” Jondalar said. “Just beautiful.”
“Yes. That sounded quite good,” Willamar said. “I’m sure the Mother appreciated it as much as we did.”
The Watcher led them through the small chamber, then down to another recess. From the entrance the head of a bear painted in red could be seen. As they crouched down to get through a low corridor, more of the bear came into sight, and then the head of a second one appeared out of the darkness. Once they were through and could stand, they could see the head of a third bear lightly sketched under the head of the first one. The shape of the wall was skillfully used to add depth to the first bear, and although the second bear seemed to be complete, it was a hollow in the place of the hindquarters that gave that impression. It was almost as though the bear were emerging from the spirit world through the wall.
“Those are definitely cave bears,” Ayla said. “The shape of their forehead is so distinctive. It’s like that from the time they are little.”
“Have you seen little cave bears?”
“Yes, occasionally. The people I grew up with had a special relationship with Cave Bears,” Ayla said.
When they stood at the back of the niche, they could see two ibex partially painted in red on the right wall. The horns and the backs of the animals were formed by the natural fissures in the rock wall.
They went back through the corridor and climbed back up to the level of the deer, then followed the left-hand wall until they reached a large open area. As they walked around the chamber, Jonokol looked into a niche that held an ancient concretion with a top in the shape of a small basin. He took his waterbag and poured a little water in it. They went back out the way they went in and finally reached the large opening that led to the bears’ sleeping room. Not far from the entrance of the cave, on a big rock pillar that separated the two chambers, opposite the other paintings in the room full of chaotic rock formations, was a panel some twenty feet long by ten feet high that was covered in large red dots. There were other markings and signs, including the straight line with a cross bar near the top.
The Watcher led them through the opening into the bears’ sleeping room again, following the left wall. She stopped just before an opening. “There is much in here, but I wanted you to see certain things,” the Zelandoni said, looking directly at Ayla. “First,” she said, holding up the torch she was carrrying. There were some red marks on the wall that appeared to be random lines. Suddenly Ayla’s mind filled in the gaps and she could see the head of a rhinoceros. She saw the forehead, the start of the two horns, a short line for its eye, the end of its muzzle with a line drawn for the mouth, and then the suggestion of its chest. It startled her in its simplicity, yet once she saw the animal, it was clear.
“It’s a rhinoceros!” Ayla said.
“Yes, and you will not see any others inside this room,” the Watcher said.
The floor was hard stone, calcite, and the left wall was blocked by white-and-orange-colored columns. Once past the columns, there were almost no concretions except for the ceiling, which held strange rounded stone shapes and reddish deposits. The floor was full of pieces of stone of every size that had fallen from the ceiling. A somewhat circular area was broken by the fall of a heavy fragment from above, which caused a tilt in the floor. Near the entrance, on a rock pendant was a small, rudimentary sketch in red of a mammoth.
Beyond that, high up on the wall was a small red bear. It was apparent that the artist had to climb up the wall to paint it. Below it, on a rock sticking out of the wall, were two mammoths that utilized the relief of rock wall, and beyond it on another protrusion was a strange sign. On the opposite wall was an extraordinary panel of red paintings, which included the forequarters of a well-made bear. The shape of the forehead and the way the head was carried identified it as a cave bear.
“Jonokol, doesn’t this bear look very much like the red bear we just saw?” Ayla asked.
“Yes, it does. I suspect it was made by the same person,” he said.
“But I don’t understand the rest of the painting. It’s like two different animals joined together so that it seems to have two heads, one of them coming out of the chest of the bear, but then there’s a lion in the middle, and another lion head in front of the bear. I don’t understand this painting at all,” Ayla said.
“Perhaps it’s not meant to be understood by anyone but the one who made it. The artist used a lot of imaginat
ion, and may have been trying to tell a story that is not known anymore. There are no Elder Legends or Histories that I know of to explain it,” the First said.
“I think we just have to appreciate the quality of the work,” the Watcher said, “and let the Ancients keep their secrets.”
Ayla nodded agreement. She had seen enough caves now to know that it wasn’t so much how the images looked when they were done as what the artists accomplished while they were making the art. Farther into the gallery, beyond the second lion head and a fault in the wall was a panel painted with black: the head of a lion, a big mammoth, and finally a figure painted high above the floor on a pendant hanging from the ceiling; it was a large red bear, its back outlined with black. The mystery was how the artist painted it. It was easily visible from the floor, but whoever made it had to climb over many high concretions to reach it.