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 be- ginnings, 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 intohis 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."

"I'm fine," Ayla said. "It's just cool in here. I should have brought some- thing 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.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 Johar- ran 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 Zelan- doni and the wolf. Jondalar came back and joined them.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 imagina- tion. 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.

"Should we explore those two passageways now, or come back later, Tormaden?" Joharran asked. He wanted to go farther now, but felt that he should defer to the leader within whose territory the cave was. "I'm sure some people of the Nineteenth Cave would like to see this cave, and ex-"I'm sure he'd be interested in any case," Zelandoni said. "We all are, and all the Zelandonii will be. This is a rare and sacred cave.

The other world is very close here, I'm sure we all feel it. The Nineteenth Cave is very fortunate that it is so close to them, but I suspect that means you will be hosting more of the zelandonia, and others, of course, who will want to make a pilgrimage to this spiritual place," the First said. She was making it clear that no one Cave could lay claim to such a special find even if it was within their understood territory. This place belonged to all of Earth's Children. The Nineteenth Cave of the Zelandonii only held it in trust for the rest.

"I think that a closer look is necessary, but there is no hurry," Jonokol said. "Now that we know it is here, it won't go away. No one knows how much is here or how deep this cave is. Any explorations should be carefully planned, or we could wait until someone is called to it."

Zelandoni nodded slightly to herself. She understood, more than he did himself, that her First Acolyte, who had wanted only to be an artist and didn't care if he ever became Zelandoni, had found a reason to make the commitment. He wanted this cave. It claimed him. He wanted to know it, toportant for him than anyone else. She is Zelandoni, whether she knows it or not, even whether she wants it or not. The old mamut knew. Perhaps the magician of the people she grew up with, the one she calls Mog-ur, recog- nized it. She cannot avoid it, she was born to it. And she could replace Jonokol as my acolyte. But as he says, there is no hurry. Let her have her mating, and her baby, then she can start her training.

"Of course, it would take some planning to explore all of it, but I'd like to take a closer look at that passageway at the back," Jondalar said. "Would- n't you, Tormaden? A couple of us could go back there and see where it goes."

"And some people are ready to leave," Marthona said. "It's cool in here, and no one brought warm clothes. I think I'll take a torch and start out, though I'm sure I'll want to come back."

"I'll go, too," Zelandoni said, "and Ayla was shivering earlier."

"I'm fine now," Ayla said. "I'd like to see what's back there."examined many women, the opening was feminine, maternal, a wondrous evocation of the female organ. Though both were the same, it didn't so much put her in mind of the vagina, but the upper round part suggested the birth canal, narrowing to the lower extension of the anal region. She under- stood exactly what Zelandoni meant when she said this was the womb of the Mother, although all caves were considered an entrance to Her womb.

Once they went in, the winding passage continued to be narrow and dif- ficult to negotiate, although the upper white walls widened out into a broadly curving archway. It wasn't very long, about the same length as the entrance gallery. When they reached the end, the walls opened out around a pillar of stone that gave the false impression that it supported something above, but in fact it was short of reaching the ground by more than twenty inches. The passage went around the large stone shaft on the right side, making a sharp turn to the left and meandering off a few more feet until it ended.

At the place where it turned around the column, the surface of the floor dropped down about three feet, but it was a wide horizontal space that extended up ten feet, making it one of the few really comfortable places to stand or sit and relax. Ayla took the opportunity and sat down to see how itentrance of the other passageway that was to the right of it, but it was a smaller tunnel, which would require crawling up into it on hands and knees, and there were pools of water on the floor. They all decided to save ex- ploring that place for another time.

As they left the cave, Wolf went ahead with Jondalar and the two lead- ers, Joharran and Tormaden. Jonokol walked beside Ayla and stopped her with a question. "Did you ask Zelandoni to invite me here?"

"After seeing what you did inside Fountain Rocks, I thought you ought to see this cave," she said, "or should it be called a deep?"

"Either one. When it gets named, it will be called a deep, but it's still a cave. Thank you for bringing me here, Ayla. I have never seen a more beautiful cave. I am overwhelmed," Jonokol said.

"Yes, I am, too. But I'm curious, how will this cave get named? Who will name it?" Ayla asked.make their own name," Jonokol said.

Ayla and Jonokol were the last ones out of the cave. The sun seemed especially bright when they reached the entrance, after the dark cave lit only by a few torches. When her eyes adjusted, Ayla was surprised to see Marthona waiting, along with Jondalar and Wolf.

"Tormaden invited us for a meal," Marthona said. "He has hurried ahead to let them know to expect us. Actually, he invited you, but then he asked me to come, too, and all the rest of you who were in the cave just now.

Including you, Jonokol. Everyone else has other things to do, most people are busy at Summer Meetings."

"I know Joharran is having a gather at our camp with people from all the other Caves to plan the hunt," Jondalar said. "In fact, Tormaden will be going, too, after he introduces you to his camp. I was going to go, but it will still be going on after the meal, and I'll go later. It's not that I would usually be included in the planning of these things, but since we returned, Joharran has been getting me involved in them.""It's not every day one finds a cave like that, Ayla. All of us are excited about it," Marthona said, "and it's close to the Nineteenth Cave, in their territory. They will probably become a more important Cave now."

"You'll be getting more attention, too," Jondalar said.

"I get too much attention as it is," she said. "I don't want all that atten- tion. I just want to get mated, and have a baby, and be like everyone else."

Jondalar smiled at her and put his arm around her. "Give it some time,"

he said. "You're still new. When people get used to you, things will settle down."

"It's true, things will settle down, but you know you are never going to be like everyone else. For one thing, everyone else doesn't have horses and a wolf," Marthona said, looking down at the big carnivore with an ironic smile.

"Are you sure they know we're coming, Mardena?" the older woman said, stepping carefully across the small creek that emptied into The River.said. "A lot of people were already here and had set up camps."

"I think it's because of the horses," Lanidar said. "She has them in a special place so no one will think they are just regular horses and decide to hunt them. They would be easy to hunt. They don't run away."

"Everybody is talking about them, but we were out when they came. Is it true the horses let people sit on their backs?" the older woman asked.

"Why would anyone want to sit on the back of a horse?"

"I didn't see that, but I don't doubt it," Lanidar said. "The horses let me touch them. I was touching the young stallion, and the mare came and wanted me to touch her, too. They ate off my hands, both of them. She said I should feed both horses at the same time, so they don't get jealous. She said the mare is the mother of the stallion, and she can tell him what to do."

Mardena slowed and knit her brow as they approached the campsite and watched people talking and smiling around the long trenchfire. There seemed to be a lot of people. Maybe she was mistaken, maybe they were- n't expected."I suppose I should offer a formal greeting, since I'm the first one to see you." She held out both her hands to the older woman. Mardena watched as her mother stepped forward and took the young woman's hands. "I am Folara of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, Blessed of Doni, Daughter of Marthona, former Leader of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, Daughter of the Hearth of Willamar, Master Trader of the Zelandonii, Sister of Joharran, the Leader of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, Sister of Jondalar of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, Master Flint-Knapper and Returned Traveler, who is soon to be mated to Ayla, of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii. She has a bunch of names and ties of her own, but the one I like best is 'Friend of horses and Wolf.' In the name of the Great Earth Mother, Doni, you are welcome to the camp of the Ninth Cave."

"In the name of Doni, the Great Mother, I greet you, Folara of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii. I am Denoda, of the Nineteenth Cave of the Zelan- donii, Mother of Mardena of the Nineteenth Cave and Grandmother of Lanidar of the Nineteenth Cave, once mated to..."

Folara has a lot of important names and ties, Mardena thought as her mother began her recitation. She's not yet mated, I wonder what her kin-duction. Ayla stepped forward and greeted Mardena and Lanidar, and then Willamar greeted Denoda in the name of the entire Ninth Cave. Names and ties could take all day if someone didn't cut it short. He finished by saying, "I remember you, Denoda. You were a friend of my older sister, weren't you."

"Yes," she said, smiling. "Do you ever see her? Since she moved so far away, I haven't seen her in years."

"Sometimes I visit her Cave when I go to the coast of the Great Waters of the West to trade for salt. She is a grandma. Her daughter has three children, and a grandam as well. Her son's mate has a boy."

A movement around Ayla's legs caught Mardena's attention.

"That's the wolf!" she almost screamed in her fear.

"He won't hurt you, mother," Lanidar said, trying to calm her. He didn't want her to leave suddenly."Wolves have good eyes, but they learn to recognize people with their noses. If you give him a chance to smell your hand, he will remember you later. That is his formal introduction," Ayla explained. The woman held out her hand and allowed the wolf to smell it. "If you'd like to greet him, he likes to be stroked on the head."

Wolf looked up at Denoda as she lightly stroked his head, with his mouth open and his tongue lolling out the side. She smiled at him. "He is a warm, living animal," she said. She turned to her daughter. "Come, Mardena. You should meet him, too. Very few people ever get to meet a wolf, and walk away to tell about it."

"Do I have to?" Mardena said.

It was obvious that Mardena was uncommonly frightened, and Ayla knew Wolf would smell it. She held him firmly. He didn't always respond well to such evident fear.

"Since they offered, it's the polite thing to do, Mardena. And you'll never be able to visit again if you don't. You will be too afraid. You don't need toloved him more than anything in her life, and she was embarrassed by him, by the fact that she gave birth to him.

"Go ahead, mother," he said. "I met him."

Finally, Mardena put one foot toward the woman and the wolf, and then another. When she reached them, Ayla took her hand and, holding it in hers, brought it to the wolf's nose. She could almost smell her fear, but the woman did overcome it and face the animal. Ayla thought Wolf probably smelled her own hand more than Mardena's. Then she took the hand and led her to touch the fur on his head.

"Wolf fur can be a little rough, but you'll notice how smooth it is on his head," Ayla said, letting go of her hand. Mardena kept it there a moment longer before pulling it away.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Denoda said. "Sometimes you make more of things than you need to, Mardena.""Everybody worked on it," Ayla said. "When I told them I had invited you and thought I'd dig a pit oven, they thought it would be a good time to dig a big roasting pit. They said they planned to do it anyway, but this gave them a reason. I cooked some of the things the way I learned when I was a girl.

Try the willow grouse, it's the one I killed with the spear-thrower yesterday, but if the taste is not to your liking, please don't hesitate to have something else instead. I learned on our Journey that there are many ways of cooking things, and not everyone likes all of them."

"Welcome to the Ninth Cave, Mardena."

It was the First Among Those Who Served The Mother! Mardena didn't think she had ever spoken to her before, except in unison during a cere- mony.

"Greetings, Zelandoni Who Is First," Mardena said, feeling a little nerv- ous to be talking to the huge woman who was sitting on a raised stool. It was similar to the one she used in the zelandonia lodge, but it was left at the Camp for when she wanted to spend time with her Cave."She taught me some birdsongs."

"Would you like to show me?"

"If you want. I've been practicing the meadow lark," he said, then pro- ceeded to imitate the beautiful sound. Everyone turned to look, even his mother and grandmother.

"That's very good, young man," Jondalar said, beaming at the young- ster. "It's nearly as good as Ayla's meadow lark."

"We're ready," Proleva called. "Come and eat."

Ayla led the three guests to the pile of bone-and-wood platters first and urged them to try everything. Then everyone else fell into line. Usually, those who shared a lodge had their morning meal together, but this had become the first of what would be many meals that would be shared, not only with their own Cave, but with other friends and relatives. There would even be a few occasions when the entire Summer Meeting would all feastDenoda, then turned to Ayla.

"We'll finish up here, Ayla. I think you have something you want to talk to Mardena about," she said.

"Yes. Would you and Lanidar, and Denoda if she wants, like to take a walk with me?"

"Where are we going?" Mardena said with a touch of edginess.

"To see some horses," Ayla said.

"Can I come along, Ayla?" Folara said. "If you don't want me to, just go ahead and say so, but I haven't seen the horses for a while."

Ayla smiled. "Of course you can," she said. It might actually make it easier to get Mardena to agree to let Lanidar watch them if someone so friendly and unafraid of them was there. She turned to look for the boy and saw him sitting next to Lanoga, who was holding Lorala, and they seemed to be talking easily. Tremeda's two-year boy was sitting on the ground nearby."I don't understand," Mardena said.

"I'm sure you've heard of Laramar? He's the one who makes the barma?" Folara said.

"Yes," Mardena said.

"Everyone has," Denoda said.

"Then perhaps you've heard of his mate, Tremeda. She does nothing but drink the barma he makes, and have children that she won't take care of," Folara said, full of derision.

"Or can't," Ayla said. "She can't seem to stop herself from drinking the barma, either."

"And Laramar is often drunk and just as irresponsible. He doesn't even care about the children of his hearth," Folara said with disgust. "Ayla found out that Tremeda had lost her milk, and Lanoga was trying to feed Lorala on nothing but mashed-up roots because that's all she knew how to make.

Ayla got several of the new mothers to agree to nurse the baby, but LanogaMardena and Denoda stared at the talkative young woman. Most people liked to gossip, but they were not usually so open about the ones who were an embarrassment to their own Cave. Denoda's rank had slipped since her daughter gave birth to Lanidar, and her mate had severed the knot. They weren't the lowest, but not far from it. Their Cave was much smaller, how- ever. To be the last of such a large Cave was a low rank. But even if we were the first ranked, Lanidar will have trouble finding a mate, because of his affliction, Denoda thought.

"Would you like to go see some horses, Lanidar?" Ayla asked as they approached. "You can come, too, Lanoga."

"No, I can't. It's Stelona's turn to feed Lorala, and she's getting hungry. I didn't want to give her too much food until after she nurses."

"Maybe another time," Ayla said, smiling affectionately. "Are you ready, Lanidar?"

"Yes," he said, then he turned to the girl. "I have to go, Lanoga." She smiled shyly at him, and he smiled back.cepted him into the clan. It brought a smile of joy and pain. Mardena was watching her and wondered. Denoda had noticed her expression, too, and wasn't as shy about mentioning it.

"You looked at Lanidar with such a strange smile," she said.

"He reminds me of someone I used to know," Ayla said. "A man who was missing the lower part of his arm. He had been attacked by a cave bear when he was a child. His grandmother was a healer, and she had to cut it off because it was poisoning his body. He would have died if she hadn't."

"What a terrible thing!" Denoda said.

"Yes, it was. He was blinded in one eye, too, by that attack, and his leg was hurt. He had to walk with a stick from then on."

"The poor boy. He had to be taken care of the rest of his life, I suppose,"

Mardena said.

"No," Ayla said. "He made a valuable contribution to his people."Mardena was looking at her with jaw agape and her eyes open wide.

She could hardly believe the woman, but why would someone lie about something like that?

As Ayla talked, Denoda became particularly conscious of her unusual accent, but the story made her understand why she seemed to have taken a liking to Lanidar. When she mates, she is going to be related to some very powerful people, and if she likes him, she could help him a lot. This woman might be the best thing that ever happened to the boy, she thought.

Lanidar had been listening, too. Maybe I could learn to hunt, he thought, even if I only have one good arm. Maybe I could learn to do something besides picking berries.

They were approaching a construction that was like a surround, except that it didn't seem particularly sturdy. It was made of long, thin, straight alder and willow poles lashed together in horizontal Xs with other poles across the top, attached to shorter, somewhat sturdier poles sunk into the ground. Bushes and tree branches, already drying out, loosely filled in the spaces between. If a herd of bison, for example, or even a large male-six feet six inches at the top of the hump on his shoulders, with long blackThe boy whistled the loud, piercing call. Very soon the two horses, the mare following the young stallion, appeared from behind some trees that lined the small waterway and came trotting toward them. They stopped at the enclosure fence and watched the humans approaching. Whinney snorted and Racer whickered at them. Ayla answered with the distinctive whinny that was the sound she had originally named her horse, and both horses neighed back.

"She does know how to make a sound like a horse," Mardena said.

"I told you she could, mother," Lanidar said.

Wolf raced ahead, easily slipping under the fence. He sat in front of the mare while she dropped her head in what appeared to be a gesture of greeting. Then Wolf approached the young stallion, dropped down on his chest and forepaws, with his hindquarters up in the air in a playful pose, and yipped at Racer. The stallion nickered back, then they touched noses.

Ayla smiled at them as she ducked inside the fence. She hugged the mare around the neck, then turned and stroked the stallion, who was crowding in looking for attention, too.It comprised certain sounds and gestures from the Clan, some of the nonsense sounds she and her son had made to each other when he was a baby and they were alone, and certain onomatopoeic sounds she had be- gun to make in imitation of the animals around her, including horse snorts and whickers. Only she knew what she meant, but she had always used her invented language when she talked to the horses. She doubted if they fully understood, though certain sounds and gestures had meaning for them, since she used them as signals and directions, but they knew it was her way of addressing them and they responded by paying attention.

"What's she doing?" Mardena said to Folara. "She's talking to the horses,"

Folara said. "She often talks to them like that."

"What is she saying to them?" Mardena asked. "You'll have to ask her,"

Folara said.

"Do they know what she's saying? It doesn't make any sense to me,"