Nothing, however, moved Ayla so much as when Kylie started dancing. Ayla noticed first that she wore loose bracelets on each arm, similar to the Sungaea dancer's. Each bracelet was made of a set of five thin strips of mammoth ivory, perhaps a half-inch wide, incised with diagonal cut marks radiating out from a central diamond shape in a way that created an overall zigzag pattern when all five were held together. A small hole had been bored through at each end to tie them together, and they rattled together when she moved in a certain way.
Kylie stayed in one place, more or less, sometimes slowly assuming impossible positions which she held, and other times making acrobatic movements, which caused the loose bracelets she wore on each arm to rattle as emphasis. The motions of the supple, strong woman were so graceful and smooth she made it look easy, but Ayla knew she could never have made them. She was enthralled with the performance, and found herself making spontaneous comments after she was through, the way the Mamutoi so often did.
"How do you do that? It was wonderful! Everything. The sounds, the movements. I have never seen anything like it," Ayla said. The smiles of appreciation showed her comments were well received.
Deegie sensed that the musicians felt satisfied and their need for intense concentration had passed. They were more relaxed now, ready for a rest, and ready to satisfy their curiosity about the mysterious woman who had apparently come out of nowhere and was now a Mamutoi. The coals in the fireplace were stirred, wood added, and cooking rocks, and water for tea poured into a wooden cooking bowl.
"Certainly you've seen something like it, Ayla," Kylie said.
"No, not at all," Ayla protested.
"What about the rhythms you were showing me?" Deegie said.
"That's not the same at all. Those are just simple Clan rhythms."
"Clan rhythms?" Tharie asked. "What are Clan rhythms?"
"The Clan are the people I grew up with," Ayla started to explain.
"They are deceptively simple," Deegie interrupted, "but they evoke strong feelings."
"Can you show us?" the young man who played the skull drum asked.
Deegie looked at Ayla. "Shall we, Ayla?" she asked, then went on to explain to the others. "We've been playing around with them a little.".
"I guess we could," Ayla said.
"Let's do it," Deegie said. "We need something to make a deep steady beat, muffled, no resonance, like something striking the ground, if Ayla can use your drum, Marut."
"I think wrapping a piece of leather around this striker might work," Tharie said, volunteering her leg-bone instrument.
The musicians were intrigued. The promise of something new was always interesting. Deegie kneeled on the mat in Tharie's place, and Ayla sat cross-legged close to the drum and tapped it to get the feel. Then Deegie hit the leg-bone instrument in a few places until Ayla indicated the sound was right.
When they were ready, Deegie began beating a slow steady pace, changing the tempo slightly until she saw Ayla nod, but not changing the tone at all. Ayla closed her eyes, and when she felt herself moving to Deegie's steady beat, she joined in. The timbre of the skull drum was too resonant to replicate exactly the sounds Ayla remembered. It was difficult to create the sense of a sharp crack of thunder, for example; the sharp staccato beats came out more like a sustained rumbling, but she had been practicing with a drum like it. Soon she was weaving an unusual contrapuntal rhythm around the strong, steady beat, a seemingly random pattern of staccato sounds that varied in tempo. The two sets of rhythms were so distinct they bore no relationship to each other, yet a stressed beat of Ayla's rhythms coincided with every fifth beat of Deegie's steady sound, almost as if by accident.
The two rhythms had the effect of producing an increasing sense of expectation, and after a while, a slight feeling of anxiety until the two beats, though it seemed impossible that they ever would, came together. With each release, another surge of tension mounted. At the moment when it seemed no one could stand it any more, Ayla and Deegie stopped before a concluding beat, and left a heightened expectation hanging in the air. Then, to Deegie's surprise as much as anyone, a windy, reedy, flutelike whistle was heard, with a haunting, eerie not-quite melody, that sent a shiver through the listeners. It ended on a note of closure, but a sense of otherworldliness still lingered.
No one said a word for some moments. Finally Tharie said, "What strange, asymmetrical, compelling music." Then several people wanted Ayla to show them the rhythms, eager to try them out.
"Who played the wind reed?" Tharie asked, knowing it wasn't Manen, who had been standing beside her.
"No one did," Deegie said. "It wasn't an instrument. Ayla was whistling."
"Whistling? How does anyone whistle like that?"
"Ayla can imitate any whistling sound," Deegie said. "You ought to hear her bird calls. Even they think she's a bird. She can get them to come and eat out of her hand. It's part of her way with animals."
"Would you show us a bird whistle, Ayla?" Tharie said, in a tone that sounded unbelieving.
She didn't think it was really the place, but went through a quick repertoire of bird whistles, which brought the astonished looks Deegie had expected.
Ayla was grateful when Kylie offered to show her around. She was shown some of the costumes and other paraphernalia, and discovered that some of the headpieces were actually face masks. Most things were garishly colored, but worn at night, by firelight, the colors of the costumes would stand out, yet appear normal. Someone was grinding red ochre from a small pouch, and mixing it into fat. With a chill, she again remembered Creb rubbing a paste of red ochre on Iza's body before her burial, but she was told it would be used to decorate and add color to the faces and bodies of the players and dancers. She noticed ground charcoal and white chalk, too.
Ayla watched a man sewing beads on a tunic, using an awl, and it occurred to her how much easier it would be with a thread-puller, but she decided to have Deegie bring one over. She was getting too much attention as it was, and it made her uncomfortable. They looked at strings of beads and other jewelry, and Kylie held up two conical spiral seashells to her ears.
"Too bad your ears are not pierced," she said. "These would look nice on you."
"They are nice," Ayla said. She noticed the holes in Kylie's ears then, and in her nose as well. She liked Kylie, and admired her, and felt a rapport that could lead to friendship.
"Why don't you take them anyway? You can talk to Deegie or Tulie and have them do it. And you really should have a tattoo, Ayla. Then you can go wherever you want, and won't have to keep explaining that you belong to the Mammoth Hearth."
"But I'm really not Mamut," Ayla said.
"I think you are, Ayla. I'm not sure what the rites are, but I know Lomie would not hesitate if you told her you were ready to dedicate yourself to the Mother."
"I'm not sure if I am ready."
"Maybe not, but you will be. I feel it in you."
When she and Deegie left, Ayla realized she had been given something very special, a private look behind the scenes that few people were allowed to see. It was a place of mystery, even uncloaked and explained, but how much more magical and supernatural it must seem, she thought, when seen from outside. Ayla glanced toward the flint-working area as they were leaving, but Jondalar was not there.