Earth’s Children were blessed. The Mother could rest.
The group finished the final line, and stood silently for a while; then they broke up and relaxed. A large container of tea was brought out, and each one took out individual cups from pouches and pockets.
“The question now is, how do we tell the rest of the Zelandonii about the last Gift?” said the One Who Was First, as she casually sat on her stool.
The question brought an uproar. “Tell them!” “We can’t tell them!” “It would be too much for them.” “Think how much it would upset everything.”
The First waited until the disturbance settled down; then she looked at the assembled zelandonia with a fierce glare. “Do you think Doni made this known so you could withhold it from Her Children? Do you think Ayla suffered those agonies, or that she was required to sacrifice her baby just so the zelandonia would have something to argue about? The zelandonia are Those Who Serve The Mother. It is not for us to say whether or not Her children may know. It is our task to decide how to tell them.”
There was contrite silence; then the Zelandoni of the Fourteenth said, “It will take time to plan an appropriate ceremony. Perhaps we should wait until next year. This season is almost over. Everyone will be going back soon.”
“Yes,” the Zelandoni of the Third quickly agreed. “Perhaps the best way would be to let each zelandoni tell his own Cave, in his own way, after he’s had some time to think about it.”
“The ceremony will be held three days from now and Ayla will tell them,” the First announced unequivocally. “It was Ayla who was given the Gift. It is her place, her duty to tell the rest. She was called this season, and sent to this Summer Meeting for that reason.” The First glared at her fellow Doniers; then her expression softened, and her tone became cajoling. “Wouldn’t it be better to get it over with now? With the season so close to the end, there won’t be time for too many difficulties to arise before we leave—and you can be sure there will be difficulties—but this way we will have all winter to get our own Caves used to the idea. By next season there shouldn’t be any reason for problems.”
The First wished she really believed that. Unlike the rest of the zelandonia, the First had thought about a man’s contribution to creating new life for many years, even before her first conversation with Ayla. The fact that Ayla had come to her own similar conclusions was one of the reasons the woman had wanted her to become Zelandoni. Her observations were too perceptive, and she wasn’t restricted by Zelandonii beliefs fed to her with mother’s milk.
That was why Zelandoni had decided as soon as she heard Ayla tell about her experience in the cave, that the idea must be made known immediately, when everyone was still together. And while the zelandonia were still bewildered by it. She would have set the ceremony for the next day if she had thought it was possible to arrange it.
As she often did under the guise of resting or meditating, and seeming to ignore her surroundings, the woman waited and watched for a while as the zelandonia began to make plans. At first they were tentative.
She heard the Eleventh say, “Maybe a good approach might be to try to duplicate Ayla’s own experience.”
“We don’t have to show her entire experience, just the essence of it,” said the Twenty-third.
“If we had a cave large enough to hold everyone, it would help,” the Zelandoni of the Second Cave said.
“We’ll have to let the darkness of night act as the walls of a cave,” the Fifth said. “If we have just one fire in the middle, it will help to concentrate everyone’s attention.”
Good, the First thought, listening to the Doniers speaking among themselves. They are starting to think of how to plan the ceremony rather than thinking of objections to it.
“We should have drums for the Mother’s Song.”
“And singing.”
“The Ninth doesn’t sing.”
“Her voice is so distinctive, it doesn’t matter.”
“We can have singing in the background. Without words, just the sound.”
“If we slow the cadence of the drums, the Mother’s Song will have a greater impact, especially at the end when she speaks the last verse.”
Ayla seemed at a loss with all the attention as more suggestions were made for her part, but after a while even she seemed to be getting involved with the arrangements. “The visitors from the Mamutoi, the two young men, Danug and Druwez, they know how to play drums so that they actually sound like a voice speaking. It’s uncanny, but very mysterious. I think they could make the drums speak the final verse, if they brought their drums, or can find something similar.”
“I would like to hear it first,” said the Fourteenth.
“Of course,” Ayla said.
More than she realized, Ayla was incredibly wise in the ways of people, and much more sophisticated and knowledgeable than she knew. The tactics of the Zelandoni Who Was First in pushing the zelandonia into creating the ceremony were not lost on Ayla. On a sometimes subliminal and sometimes fully aware level, she had watched the First mold the rest to her will. The woman was quick to press her advantage, knew when to bluster, when to threaten, when to cajole, wheedle, criticize, praise—and the zelandonia were not easily led. As a group they were clever, shrewd, often cynical, and on the whole more intelligent than most. Ayla remembered Jondalar asking Zelandoni once what made a Zelandoni First. Even then, she knew just how much to say, just how much to hold back.
Zelandoni relaxed. They were into it now. It would gain momentum of its own accord. Her problem most of the time was to keep them from getting too carried away. This time she was going to let them take on just as much as they wanted. The more spectac
ular, the better. If I let them plan it big enough, and elaborate enough, they won’t have time to think about anything else until after the ceremony.
When the general outline for the ceremony had begun to take shape, and most of the zelandonia were developing a decided interest in the event, Zelandoni Who Was First hurled another surprise at them.
Getting up to get more tea, she made an ostensibly offhand comment. “I imagine we’ll also have to make plans for a Camp Meeting a day or so after the ceremony to answer questions that are bound to come up. We might as well get them out of the way all at once. That’s when we can announce the name for the relationship between a man and his children, and tell them that the men will name the boys from now on,” she said.