Clan of the Cave Bear (66 page)
The first morning light found the cave empty. The women were already up working by firelight, and the rest couldn’t sleep. The preliminary preparations for the feast had consumed days, but the work was nothing compared with the task ahead. Full daylight was upon them long before the glowing disc burst over the tops of the mountains, flooding the cave site with burning rays from a sun already high.
Excitement was tangible, tension unbearable. With the competitions over, the men had nothing to do until the ceremonies, and they were restless. Their nervous agitation infected the older boys, and they in turn stirred up the rest of the youngsters, driving the busy women to distraction; milling men and chasing children all got in their way.
The turbulence subsided temporarily when the women served cakes of crashed millet mixed with water and baked on hot stones. The breakfast of bland biscuits was eaten with solemnity. They were reserved for this one day alone out of every seven years, and, except for nursing babies, were the only food anyone would eat until the feast. The millet cakes were a token only and did little more than whet the appetite. By midmorning, hunger, stimulated by delicious smells emanating from various fires, intensified the turmoil, raising excited anticipation to a fever pitch as the time for the Bear Ceremony drew near.
Creb had not approached either Ayla or Uba with instructions to prepare themselves for the ritual that would be held later, and they were sure the mog-urs had found neither of them acceptable. They were not alone in wishing Iza had been well enough to make the journey. Creb had used every power of persuasion at his command to convince the other magicians to let one of them make the drink, but as much as they wanted the ritual and, for them, the rare experience of the drink made from the roots, Ayla was too strange and Uba too young. The mog-urs refused to accept Ayla as a woman of the Clan, much less a medicine woman of Iza’s line. The celebration of Ursus affected more than the clans that were in attendance; the consequences, good or bad, of any rituals performed at any Clan Gathering redounded to the entire Clan. The mog-urs would not chance the possibility of invoking bad luck that would cast misfortune on all Clan people everywhere. The stakes were too high.
Eliminating that traditional ritual of the ceremony contributed to the devaluation of Brun and his clan. For all the efforts of his men in the competitions, Brun’s acceptance of Ayla posed more threat to the clan’s position than anything ever had before. It was too unconventional. Only Brun’s adamant stand in the face of increasing opposition kept the issue undecided, and he wasn’t at all sure he would win out in the end.
Not long after the millet cakes were served, the leaders arranged themselves near the mouth of the cave. They waited quietly for the attention of the assembled clans. The silence spread out like the ripples of a stone cast in a pond as the presence of the leaders was made known. Men moved quickly into positions defined by clan and personal rank. The women dropped their work, signaled suddenly
well-behaved children, and silently followed suit. The Bear Ceremony was about to begin.
The first beat of the smooth hard stick on the hollowed-out wooden bowl-shaped drum resounded like a sharp crack of thunder in the expectant hush. The slow, stately rhythm was picked up by the stamping of wooden spears against the ground, adding a muted depth. A contrapuntal rhythm of sticks beating on a long, hollow, wooden tube wove around the strong steady beat in a seemingly random pattern of sound, apparently independent from it. Yet the staccato rhythms, played at varying tempos, had a stressed beat that coincided with every fifth thrum of the basic rhythm as if by accident. They combined to produce an increasing sense of expectation, almost of anxiety, until the beats came together. Each release began another surge of tension in wave after hypnotic wave of sound and sensation.
All sound came to a sudden halt on a final, satisfying beat. As if they had materialized out of thin air, the bearskin-cloaked mog-urs stood nine abreast in front of the cage of the cave bear, with The Mog-ur alone in front of them. The feel of the strong beat still echoed inside the heads of the people in the overpowering silence. The Mog-ur held a flat, long oval of wood attached at one end to a cord. As he spun it round and round, a barely audible whir increased to a loud roar filling the silence. The deep, haunting resonance of the bullroarer raised gooseflesh as much for its significance as for its sonorous timbre. It was the voice of the Spirit of the Cave Bear warning all other spirits away from this ceremony devoted to Ursus alone. No totemic spirits would come to their aid; they had placed themselves entirely under the protection of the Great Spirit of the Clan.
A high-pitched warble penetrated the deep-throated bass; its thin, wailing ululation sent cold shivers down the spines of the most fearless as the bullroarer wound down. Like nothing so much as a disembodied spirit, the eerie, unearthly trill pierced the bright morning air. Ayla, standing in the front row, could see the sound was coming from something held to the mouth of one of the mog-urs.
The flute, made from the hollow legbone of a large bird, had no finger holes. Its pitch was controlled by stopping and unstopping the open end. In the hands of a skillful player, a full five-note pentatonic scale could be drawn from the simple instrument. To the young woman, no less than
the rest, it was magic that created the unfamiliar music; it sounded like nothing ever heard on earth. It had come from the world of the spirits at the command of the holy man, for this ceremony alone. As the bullroarer symbolized and imitated the roar of the cave bear in physical form, the flute was the sound of the spiritual voice of Ursus.
Even the magician who played the instrument felt the sanctity of the sound that issued forth from the primitive pipe, though he himself had made it. Making and playing the magic flute was the esoteric secret of the magicians of his clan, a secret which usually brought those magicians to first rank. Only Creb’s unique ability had displaced the mog-ur who played the flute to second, but it was a powerful second. And it was he who most opposed the acceptance of Ayla.
The huge cave bear was pacing his cage. He had not been fed and he wasn’t used to going without food; he had never known a hungry day in his life. Water had been withheld from him as well, and he was thirsty. The crowd, smelling of tension and excitement, the unaccustomed sounds of wooden drums, bullroarer, and flute, all combined to make the animal nervous.
When he saw The Mog-ur limping toward his cage, he hauled his massive, overweight bulk up on his hind legs and roared a complaint. Creb jerked in startled reflex, but recovered quickly and masked it with a normal-seeming jerky step. His face, like the rest of the magicians’ faces, blackened with a paste of manganese dioxide, showed no sign of his rapidly beating heart as he tilted his head back to look up at the unhappy giant. He carried a small bowl of water, the shape and ivory gray color making it obvious that the bowl had once been a human skull. He put the macabre water container into the cage and stepped back while the shaggy bruin dropped down to drink.
While the animal lapped up the liquid, twenty-one young hunters surrounded his cage, each carrying a newly made spear. The leaders of the seven clans not fortunate enough to have a man selected for special honors had each chosen three of their best hunters for the ceremony. Then, Broud, Gorn, and Voord ran out of the cave and lined up outside the securely lashed door of the cage. They were naked except for small loincloths, and their bodies were daubed with red and black markings.
The small amount of water did little to satisfy the thirst
of the great bear, but the men so near his cage made him hopeful that more was coming. He sat up and begged, a gesture that had rarely gone without response before. When his efforts went unrewarded, he lumbered over to the nearest man and poked his nose through the heavy bars.
The music of the flute ended on an uncomfortably unfinished note, heightening the anticipation in the anxious silence. Creb retrieved the skull bowl, then shuffled to his place in front of the magicians lined up across the mouth of the cave. At an unseen signal, the mog-urs began the movements of the formal language in unison.
“Accept your water as a token of our gratitude, O Mighty Protector. Your Clan has not forgotten the lessons learned from you. The cave is our home, protecting us from the snow and cold of winter. We, too, rest quietly, nourished by the food of summer, warmed by furs. You have been one of us, lived with us, and know we keep your ways.”
Faces blackened, and dressed in identical cloaks of shaggy bear fur, the magicians resembled a well-rehearsed dance troupe moving as one as they spoke with stately flowing gestures. The Mog-ur’s eloquent one-handed symbols that matched yet modified the others, punctuated the elegant movements and added emphasis.
“We venerate you first among all Spirits. We beg you to speak for us in the world of the Spirits, to tell of the bravery of our men, the obedience of our women, to make a place for us when we return to the otherworld. We beseech your protection from the evil ones. We are your People, Great Ursus, we are the Clan of the Cave Bear. Go with honor, Greatest of Spirits.”
As the mog-urs made the symbols for the names of the great animal in his presence for the first time, the twenty-one young men thrust their spears between the stout trees of the cage, piercing the tremendous shaggy bulk of the revered creature. Not all drew blood, the cage was too large for all the spears to penetrate deeply, but the pain enraged the nearly full-grown cave bear. His angry roar shattered the silence. The people jumped back with fear.
At the same time, Broud, Gorn, and Voord began to cut away the lashings on the door of the cage, scrambling up the trees until they reached the top of the palisade. Broud reached the top first, but Gorn managed to grab the short thick log put there earlier. The pain-maddened cave bear
reared up on his hind legs again, bellowed an angry roar, and lumbered toward the three young men. His massive domed head nearly reached the tallest tree trunks of the enclosure. He reached the opening, pushed at the gate, and sent it crashing to the ground. The cage was open! The monstrous, angry bear was loose!
The hunters with their spears raced to form a protective phalanx between the provoked brute and the anxious audience. Women, fighting an urge to run, held their babies tighter while older children clung to them in wide-eyed terror. Men gripped their spears ready to jump to the defense of vulnerable women and terrified children. But the people of the Clan held their place.
As the wounded cave bear lumbered out of the gaping hole in the fence of logs, Broud, Gorn, and Voord, poised at the top, leaped on the surprised bruin. Broud stood on his shoulders, reached over and seized the fur on his face, and yanked up. Meanwhile, Voord had landed on his back. He grabbed the shaggy hair and pulled down with all his weight, tightening the loose skin around his neck. Their combined efforts forced open the cavernous mouth of the struggling animal, and Gorn, sitting astride his shoulder, quickly shoved the log broadside into his mouth. The bear clamped down as Broud let go, wedging the log fast between his jaws, impeding his breath and disabling one weapon in the cave bear’s arsenal.
But the tactic did not disarm the bear entirely. The enraged bruin swiped at the creatures clinging to him. Sharp claws dug into the thigh of the man on his shoulder and dragged the screaming young hunter into his mighty arms. Gorn’s agonized cry was cut short as a powerful bear hug snapped his spine. A long wail rose from one of the watching women as the cave bear dropped the limp body of the courageous young man.
The bear waded into the squad of spear-wielding men who closed in on him. A swing of the raging animal’s powerful foreleg cleared a swath, knocking down three men and catching a fourth with a ripping gash that tore the muscles of his leg to the bone. The man doubled over in pain, in shock too severe to scream. The others stepped over and around him as they jostled to get in close enough to thrust spears into the belligerent beast.
Ayla clutched Durc in horrified awe, petrified that the bear would reach them. But when the man fell, his life’s
blood spilling on the ground, she didn’t think, she just acted. Shoving her baby at Uba, she dashed into the melee. Forcing her way through the close-packed men, she half-dragged, half-carried the wounded man clear of the milling, stomping feet. Leaning hard on the pressure point in his groin with one hand, she held the end of the thong of her wrap in her teeth and cut off a piece with her other hand.
The tourniquet was in place and she was wiping away blood with her baby’s carrying cloak before two other medicine women followed her lead. Fearfully skirting the dangerous struggle, they ran to help her. The three of them carried the wounded man into the cave, and in their frantic efforts to save his life, weren’t even aware when the huge bear finally succumbed to the spears of the hunters of the Clan.
The moment the cave bear was down, Gorn’s mate broke away from the restraining arms of those who sought to comfort her, and ran to his body sprawled in an unnatural position on the ground. She threw herself on him, burying her face in his hairy chest. Sitting back on her knees, in frantic gestures she pleaded with him to get up. Her mother and Norg’s mate tried to pull her away as the mog-urs approached them. The most holy magician leaned close and gently tilted her head up to look at her.
“Do not grieve for him,” The Mog-ur signaled with a tender look of compassion in his deep brown eye. “Gorn’s was the greatest honor. He was chosen by Ursus to accompany him to the world of the spirits. He will help the Great Spirit intercede for us. The Spirit of the Great Cave Bear selects only the finest, the bravest, to travel with him. The Feast of Ursus will be Gorn’s feast, too. His courage, his will to win, will be remembered in legend and told at every Clan Gathering. Just as Ursus returns, so will the spirit of Gorn. He will wait for you so that you may return together and mate again, but you must be as brave as he. Put your grief aside and share your mate’s joy in his journey to the next world. Tonight, the mog-urs will give him a special honor so that his bravery will be shared by everyone, so it will pass on to the Clan.”