The Valley Of Horses_ A Novel Part 36

Ayla picked up the small boulder of flint and examined it closely, trying to decide where to start. She would not make a hand axe-even Droog considered them rather simple tools, though very useful. But she didn't think that was the technique Jondalar wanted to see. She reached for an item missing from the man's tool kit: the foot bone of a mammoth-the resilient bone that would support the flint while she worked it, so the stone would not shatter. She pulled it around until it was comfortably between her legs.

Next she picked up her hammerstone. There was no real difference between her stone striker and his, except hers was smaller to better fit her hand. Holding the flint firmly on the mammoth-bone anvil, Ayla struck with force. A piece of the cortex, the outer covering, fell away, exposing the dark gray material inside. The piece she had flaked off had a thick bulge where the hammerstone had struck-the bulb of percussion-and tapered to a thin edge on the opposite end. It could have been used as a cutting implement, and the first knives ever made were just such sharp-edged flakes, but the tools Ayla wanted to make required a far more advanced and complex technique.

She studied the deep scar left on the core, the negative impression of the flake. The color was right; the texture was smooth, almost waxy; there was no foreign matter imbedded within it. Good tools could be made from this stone. She struck off another piece of the cortex.

As she continued to chip away, Jondalar could see she was shaping the stone as she removed the chalky coating. When it was off, she continued to knock off a bit here, an unwanted b.u.mp there, until the nucleus of flint was shaped like a somewhat flattened egg. Then she exchanged the hammerstone for a st.u.r.dy length of bone. Turning the core on its side, and working from the edge toward the center, she struck off pieces from the top end with the bone hammer. The bone was more elastic and the pieces of flint that fell away were longer and thinner with a flatter bulb of percussion. When she was through, the large stone egg had a rather flat oval top, as though the tip had been sliced off.

Then she stopped, and, reaching for the amulet hanging around her neck, she closed her eyes and sent a silent thought to the spirit of the Cave Lion. Droog had always called upon the help of his totem to accomplish the next step. Luck was needed as well as skill, and she was nervous with Jondalar watching her so closely. She wanted to do it right, sensing there was more importance to the making of these tools than to the tools themselves. If she spoiled the stone, it would cast doubt on the ability of Droog and the entire Clan, no matter how many times she might explain that she was not an expert.

Jondalar had noticed her amulet before, but, watching her hold it in both her hands with closed eyes, he wondered what significance it held. She seemed to handle it with reverence, almost as he would handle a donii. But a donii was a carefully sculpted figure of a woman in all her motherly abundance, a symbol of the Great Earth Mother, and the wondrous mystery of creation. Certainly no lumpy leather pouch could hold the same meaning.

Ayla took up the bone hammer again. In order to cleave a flake from the core that would have the same dimension as the flat oval top, but with sharp straight edges, there was one important preliminary step-a striking platform. She had to detach a small chip that would leave a dent at the edge of the flat face that had a surface perpendicular to the flake she ultimately wanted.

Grasping the nucleus of the flint firmly to hold it steady, the woman took careful aim. She had to gauge the force as well as the placement: not enough and the chip would have the wrong angle, too much and she would shatter the carefully shaped edge. She took a breath and held it, then brought the bone hammer down with a sharp tap. The first was always important. If it went well, it presaged good luck. A small chip flew away, and she let herself breathe again when she saw the indentation.

Changing the angle at which she held the core, she struck again, with more force. The bone hammer landed squarely in the dent, and a flake fell away from the prefabricated core. It had the shape of a long oval. One side was the flat surface she had made. The reverse side was the inner bulbar face, which was smooth, thicker at the end that was struck, and narrowed down to a razor-sharp edge all the way around.

Jondalar picked it up. "This is a difficult technique to master. You need strength and precision both. Look at the edge! This is not a crude tool."

Ayla expelled a tremendous sigh of relief and felt the warm glow of accomplishment-and something more. She had not let the Clan down. In truth, she represented them better because she was not born to the Clan. Though he would have tried, this man, so skilled in the craft himself, had he been observing a member of the Clan, would have been too aware of the performer to objectively judge the performance.

Ayla watched him turning the flake of stone over in his hand, then, suddenly, felt a peculiar inner shift. She was gripped by an uncanny chill, and seemed to be observing the two of them from a distance, as though she were outside herself.

A vivid memory burst upon her of a time when she had experienced a similar disorientation. She was following lighted stone lamps deep into a cave and she watched herself clutching at the damp stone as she was inexplicably drawn toward a small lighted s.p.a.ce screened by thick columns of stalact.i.tes in the heart of the mountain.

Ten mog-urs were sitting in a circle around a fire, but it was The Mog-ur-Creb himself-whose powerful mind, amplified and a.s.sisted by the drink Iza had told Ayla how to make for the magicians, discovered her presence. She had consumed the powerful substance too, unintentionally, and her mind was reeling out of control. It was The Mog-ur who drew her back from the deep abyss within, and took her with him on a frightening and fascinating journey of the mind back to primordial beginnings.

In the process, the greatest holy man of the Clan, whose brain was unique even among his own kind, forged new pathways in her brain where only vestigial tendencies had been. But while it resembled his, her brain was not the same. She could move back with him and his memories to their mutual beginning, and through each stage of development, but he could not go as far when she came back to herself-and went a step beyond.

Ayla did not understand what had hurt Creb so deeply, she only knew it had changed him, and their relationship. Nor did she understand the changes he had wrought, but for an instant she felt with utter certainty that she had been sent to the valley for a purpose that included the tall blond man.

As she saw herself and Jondalar on the rocky beach of the remote valley, aberrant currents of light and motion, forming out of a numinous thickening of the air and disappearing into emptiness, surrounded them, joining them. She felt a vague sense of her own destiny as a pivotal nexus of many strands linking past, present, and future through a crucial transition. A deep cold swept over her, she gasped, and, with a startled jerk, she was looking at a furrowed brow and a concerned face. She shuddered to dispel an eerie sense of unreality.

"Are you all right, Ayla?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine."

An unaccountable chill had raised gooseflesh and the hair on the back of his neck. He felt a strong urge to protect her, but he didn't know what threatened. It lasted only an instant, and he tried to shrug it off, but uneasiness lingered.

"I think the weather is about to change," he said. "I felt a cold wind." They both looked up at the clear blue sky unmarked by clouds.

"It's the season for thunderstorms-they can blow up fast."

He nodded, and then, to grasp at substance, he turned the subject back to the hard practicalities of toolmaking.

"What is your next step, Ayla?"

The woman bent back to her task. With careful concentration, she flaked off five more sharp-edged ovals of flint, and after a final examination of the b.u.t.t of stone to see if one more usable flake might be detached, she threw it aside.

She turned then to the six flakes of gray flint and picked up the thinnest of them. With a smooth, flattened round stone, she retouched one long sharp edge, blunting it for a back and shaping a point at the narrow end opposite the bulge made by the impact of percussion. When she was satisfied, she held it out to Jondalar in the flat of her palm.

He took it and inspected it carefully. In cross section it was rather thick, but tapered to a thin, sharp cutting edge along its length. It was wide enough to be held in the hand comfortably, and the back was dulled so it would not cut the user. In some ways it resembled a Mamutoi spear point, he thought, but it was never intended to be hafted to shaft or handle. It was a handheld knife, and from observing her using a similar one, he knew it was surprisingly efficient.

Jondalar put it down and nodded to her to continue. She picked up another thick stone flake, and, using the canine tooth of an animal, she chipped off fine splinters from the end of the oval. The process dulled it only slightly, enough to strengthen the edge so the sharp rounded end would not crush when used to sc.r.a.pe hair and grain from hides. Ayla put it down and picked up another piece.

She put a large smooth beach stone on the mammoth-foot-bone anvil. Then, using pressure with the pointed-tooth retoucher against the stone, she made a V-shaped notch in the middle of one long sharp edge, large enough to shave the end of a spear shaft to a point. On a longer oval flake, using a similar technique, she made a tool which could be used to pierce holes in leather, or bore holes in wood, antler, or bone.

Ayla didn't know what other kinds of tools she might need, and she decided to leave the last two stone flakes as blanks for later. Pushing the mammoth bone out of the way, she gathered up the ends of the hide and carried it to the midden around the wall to shake it out. Splinters of flint were sharp enough to cut even the toughest of bare feet. He hadn't said anything about her tools, but she noticed Jondalar turning them over and holding them in his hand as though to try them.

"I'd like to use your lap cover," he said.

She gave it to him, glad her demonstration was over and antic.i.p.ating his. He spread the leather hide over his lap, then closed his eyes and thought about the stone, and what he would do with it. Then he picked up one of the flint nodules he had brought to the site and inspected it.

The hard siliceous mineral had been torn loose from chalk deposits laid down during the cretaceous period. It still bore traces of its origin in the chalky outer covering, though it had been disgorged with the raging flood through the narrow canyon upstream and flung onto the rocky beach. Flint was the most effective material, occurring naturally, for making tools. It was hard, and yet, due to its minute crystal structure, it could be worked; its shape was limited only by the skill of the knapper.

Jondalar was looking for the distinctive characteristics of chalcedony flint, the purest and clearest. Any stones with cracks or fissures he discarded, as well as those that made a sound when tapped with another stone-indicating, to his ear, flaws or inclusions. He finally selected one.

Supporting it with his thigh, he held it with his left hand, and, with his right, he reached for the hammerstone and juggled it to get the right feel. It was new, still unfamiliar, and each hammerstone had its own individuality. When it felt right, he held the flint firmly, and struck. A large piece of the gray-white cortex fell away. Inside, the flint was a paler shade of gray than the one Ayla had worked, with a bluish sheen. Fine-grained. A good stone. A good sign.

He struck again, and again. Ayla was familiar enough with the process to recognize his expertise immediately. He far surpa.s.sed any skill she had. The only one she'd ever seen who could shape the stone with such certain confidence was Droog. But the shape Jondalar was giving to his stone was not like any made by the Clan toolmaker. She bent closer to watch.

Rather than egg-shaped, Jondalar's core was becoming more cylindrical, but not exactly circular. By flaking pieces from both sides, he was creating a ridge which ran the length of the cylinder. The ridge was still rough and wavy when the cortex was removed, and he put the hammerstone down to pick up a solid length of antler that had been cut off below the first fork to eliminate all branches.

With the antler hammer, he chipped off smaller pieces to make the ridge straight. He was preparing his core also, but he was not planning to remove thick flakes with a predetermined shape-that much was obvious to Ayla. When he was finally satisfied with the ridge, he picked up another implement, one she had been curious about. This was also made from a section of a big antler, longer than the first, and, rather than being cut off below the fork, two branches projected from the central stem, and the bottom of it had been shaped into a point.

Jondalar got up and held the flint core with his foot. Then he placed the point of the forked antler just above the ridge he had so carefully shaped. He held the upper protruding branch so that the lower one faced front and jutted out. Then, with a heavy length of a long bone, he tapped the jutting tine.

A thin blade fell away. It was as long as the cylinder of stone, but only about a sixth as wide as the length. He held it up to the sun and showed it to Ayla. Translucent light filtered through. The ridge he had so carefully shaped ran down the center of the outside face for the full length, and it had two very sharp cutting edges.

With the point of the antler punch placed directly on the flint, he had not had to aim as carefully or gauge distance as closely. The force of the percussion was directed exactly where he wanted it, and with the force of the blow dispersed between two intermediate resilient objects-the bone hammer and the antler punch-there was almost no percussion bulge. The blade was long and narrow, and uniformly thin. Without having to judge the strength of his strike as carefully, he had far more control over the results.

Jondalar's stone-working technique was a revolutionary improvement, but as important as the blade it produced was the scar it left behind on the core. The ridge he had made was gone. In its place was a long trough with two ridges on either side. That had been the purpose of the careful pre-working. He moved the tip of the punch over so that it was above one of the new ridges, then tapped again with the bone hammer. Another long narrow blade fell off, leaving two more ridges behind. He moved the punch again, above another of the ridges, detached another blade, and created more ridges.

When he finally ran out of usable material, not six, but twenty-five blades were lined up in a row-more than four times the useful cutting edge from the same amount of stone: more than four times the number of blanks. Long and thin, with surgically sharp edges, the blades were usable as cutting implements as they were, but they were not his finished product. They would be further shaped for a mult.i.tude of uses, primarily to make other tools. Depending on the shape and quality of the flint nodule, not four, but up to six or seven times the usable number of blanks for tools could be made from stones of the same size with the more advanced technique. The new method not only gave the toolmaker more control, it gave his people an unparalleled advantage.

Jondalar picked up one of the blades and gave it to Ayla. She checked the sharpness of the edge lightly with her thumb, exerted some pressure to test its strength, and turned it over in her hand. It curved up at the ends; it was the nature of the material, but more noticeable in the long thin blade. She held her palm out flat and watched it rock on its bowed back. The shape did not, however, limit its function.

"Jondalar, this is...I don't know the word. It's wonderful...important. You made so many...You are not through with these, are you?"

He smiled. "No, I'm not through."

"They are so thin and fine-they are beautiful. They might break more easily, but I think with the ends retouched, they'd be strong sc.r.a.pers." Her practical side was already imagining the blanks into tools.

"Yes, and like yours, good knives-though I'd want to put a tang on it for a handle."

"I don't know what 'tang' is."

He picked up a blade to explain. "I can blunt the back of this and shape a point, and I would have a knife. If I pressure off a few flakes on the inner face, I can even straighten out the curve somewhat. Now, about halfway down the blade, if I use pressure to break off the edge and make a shoulder, and leave just a p.r.o.ng on the lower end, that is a tang."

He picked up a small segment of antler. "If I fit the tang into a piece of bone, or wood, or antler like this, the knife will have a handle. It's easier to use with a handle. If you boil antler for a while, it will swell and soften, and then you can force the tang into the middle where it's softer. When the antler dries, it shrinks and tightens around the tang. Often it will hold without binding or glue for a long time."

Ayla was excited about the new method, and wanted to practice it as she had always done after watching Droog, but she wasn't sure if it would violate Jondalar's customs or traditions. The more she learned about the ways of his people, the less sense they made. He didn't seem to mind her hunting, but he might not want her to make his kind of tools.

"I would like to try....Is there...objection to women making tools?"

Her question pleased him. It took skill to make her kind of tools. He was sure even the best toolmaker had inconsistent results, though the worst could probably turn out some that were usable-even smashing a flint boulder by accident usually produced a few pieces that were usable. But he would have understood if she had tried to justify her method. Instead, she seemed to recognize his technique for what it was-a vast improvement-and wanted to try it. He wondered how he would feel if someone showed him as radical an improvement.

I'd want to learn it, he said to himself with a wry grin.

"Women can be good flint knappers. Joplaya, my cousin, is one of the best. But she's a terrible tease-so I would never tell her that. She'd never let me forget it." He smiled at the memory.

"In the Clan, women can make tools, but not weapons."

"Women make weapons. After they have children, Zelandonii women seldom hunt, but if they learned when they were young, they understand how weapons are used. Many tools and weapons are lost or broken on a hunt. A man whose mate knows how to make new ones always has a fresh supply. And women are closer to the Mother. Some men think women-made weapons are luckier. But if a man has bad luck-or lacks skill-he'll always blame the toolmaker, especially if it's a woman."

"Could I learn?"

"Anyone who can make tools the way you did can certainly learn to make them this way."

He answered her question in a slightly different sense than she meant it. She knew she was capable of learning-she had been trying to a.s.sure herself that it was allowable. But his answer made her stop and think.

"No...I don't think so."

"Of course you can learn."

"I know I can learn, Jondalar, but not anyone who makes tools the Clan way can learn to make them your way. Some could, I think Droog could, but anything new is difficult for them. They learn from their memories."

He thought at first she was joking, but she was serious. Could she be right? Given the opportunity, would fla...Clan toolmakers be, not unwilling, but unable to learn?

Then it occurred to him that he would not have thought them capable of making tools at all not so long ago. They made tools, they communicated, and they took in a strange orphan child. He had learned more about flatheads in the past few days than anyone knew, except Ayla. It could be useful to know more about them, perhaps. There seemed to be more to them than anyone realized.

Thinking about flatheads suddenly made him recall the day before, and an unexpected flush of embarra.s.sment rushed him. With their concentration on toolmaking, he had forgotten. He had been looking at the woman, but not really seeing her golden braids shining in the sunlight, offering marked contrast to her deep rich tan; or her eyes, blue gray and clear, like the translucent color of fine flint.

O Mother, she was beautiful! He became acutely conscious of her sitting so close to him and felt a movement in his groin. He could not have kept his sudden shift of interest out of his eyes if he'd tried. And he didn't try.

Ayla felt his change in mood; it washed over her, caught her unprepared. How could anyone's eyes be so blue? Not the sky, not the blue gentians growing in the mountain meadows near the clan's cave were so deeply, vibrantly hued. She could feel that...that feeling starting. Her body tingled, ached for him to touch her. She was leaning forward, pulled, drawn to him, and only with supreme effort of will did she close her eyes and pull away.

Why does he look at me that way when I'm...abomination? When he can't touch me without jerking away as if he were burned? Her heart was pounding; she was panting as though she had been running, and she tried to slow her breaths.

She heard him get up before she opened her eyes. The leather lap cover had been flung aside and his carefully wrought blades were scattered. She watched him walking away with stiff movements, his shoulders hunched, until he was around the wall. He seemed miserable, as miserable as she was.

Once he cleared the wall, Jondalar broke into a run. He raced down the field until his pumping legs ached and his breath raled in ragged sobs; then he slowed and jogged to a halt, heaving great gasps.

You stupid fool, what does it take to convince you? Just because she's decent enough to let you get some supplies together doesn't mean she wants any part of you...particularly that part! Yesterday, she was hurt and offended because you didn't...That was before you ruined it for yourself!

He didn't like to think about it. He knew what he had felt, what she must have seen, the revulsion, the disgust. So, what is different now? She lived with flatheads, remember? For years. She became one of them. One of their males...

He was purposely bringing out everything loathsome, defiled, unclean that was part of his way of life. Ayla was all of them! When he was a young boy hiding with the other young boys behind bushes, telling each other the foulest words they knew, "flathead female" was among them. When he was older-not much older, but enough to know what "woman-maker" meant-the same boys gathered in dark corners of the cave to talk in hushed voices about girls, and to plot with sneering laughter to get a flathead female, and to scare each other about the consequences.

Even then the thought of a flathead male and a woman was unthinkable. Only when he was a young man was it mentioned, and then not so any elder might hear. When young men wanted to be snickering boys again and told each other the coa.r.s.est, filthiest stories they could think of, it was of flathead males and women, and what would happen to a man who shared Pleasures with such a woman afterward, even unknowingly-especially unknowingly. That was the joke.

But they did not joke about abominations-or the women who bore them. They were polluted mixtures of spirits, an evil let loose upon the land that even the Mother, the creator of all life, abhorred. And the women who bore them, untouchable.

Could Ayla be that? Could she be defiled? Unclean? Filth? Evil? Honest, straightforward Ayla? With her Gift of healing? So wise, and fearless, and gentle, and beautiful. Could anyone that beautiful be unclean?

I don't think she would even understand the meaning! But what would someone think who didn't know her? What if they met her and she just told them who raised her? Told them about the...child? What would Zelandoni think? Or Marthona? And she would tell them, too. She'd tell them about her son and stand up to them. I think Ayla could stand up to anyone, even Zelandoni. She could almost be a zelandoni herself, with her skill in healing and her way with animals.

But if Ayla is not evil, then everything about flatheads is not true! No one will believe that.

Jondalar had not been paying attention to where he was going and was startled when he felt a soft muzzle in his hand. He hadn't seen the horses. He stopped to scratch and stroke the young colt. Whinney gradually moved toward the cave, grazing as she went. The colt bounded ahead to her when the man gave him a final pat. Jondalar was not in a hurry to face Ayla again.

But Ayla was not at the cave. She had followed him around the wall and watched him run down the length of the valley. She felt like running sometimes, but she wondered what made him suddenly need to run so hard. Was it she? She put a hand on the warm dirt over the roasting pit, and then she walked to the large rock. Jondalar, distracted again by his thoughts, was surprised when he looked up to see both animals cl.u.s.tered around her.

"I...I'm sorry, Ayla. I shouldn't have run off like that."

"Sometimes I need to run. Yesterday, I let Whinney run for me. She goes farther."

"I'm sorry about that, too."

She nodded. Courtesy again, she thought, custom. What does it really mean? In silence, she leaned against Whinney and the horse dropped her head over the woman's shoulder. Jondalar had seen them in a similar pose before, when Ayla was upset. They seemed to be drawing support from each other. He was finding satisfaction in stroking the colt, himself.

But the young horse was too impatient to put up with such inaction for long, as much as he loved attention. He tossed his head, raised his tail, and bounded off. Then with a bucking jump, he turned around, came back, and b.u.mped the man, as though asking him to come and play. Ayla and Jondalar both laughed, breaking the tension.

"You were going to name him," she said. It was just a statement, carrying no urging tones. If he didn't name the colt, she most probably would.

"I don't know what to name him. I've never had to think of a name before."

"I never did either, until Whinney."

"What about your...son? Didn't you name him?"

"Creb named him. Durc was the name of a young man in a legend. It was my favorite of all the legends and stories, and Creb knew it. I think he chose the name to please me."

"I didn't know your Clan had legends. How do you tell a story without talking?"

"The same way you'd tell one with words, except, in some ways, it's easier to show something than to tell it."

"I suppose that's true," he said, wondering what kind of stories they told, or rather, showed. He wouldn't have thought flatheads were capable of imagining stories.

They were both watching the colt, tail out, head reaching forward, enjoying a good run. What a stallion he's going to be, Jondalar thought. What a racer.

"Racer!" he said. "What do you think of naming him Racer?" He had used the word so often in reference to the colt that it fit him.

"I like it. It's a good name. But if it is to be his, he should be named properly."

"How do you name a horse properly?"

"I'm not sure if it is proper for a horse, but I named Whinney the way children of the Clan are named. I'll show you."