Taking his skull lamp, Dardok held it close to the wall, and Kit saw in the dull glow cast by the greasy light the unmistakeable bulk of a large, long-horned aurochs painted on the stone wall. The beast was rendered in ochre, red, and brown with black ears and eyes; its mouth was open and its forelegs bent as if it was running. As Kit watched, Big Hunter moved the little lamp back and forth below the image, and to Kit’s amazement the carefully drawn creature seemed to take on breath and life right before his eyes. The flickering light rippled along the uneven surface of the stone, lending the illusion of movement.
The trick of light was delightful, and Kit chuckled aloud, which brought curious looks from his companions. Dardok gave a gruff snort and shifted the skull lamp to another position, revealing an elk with huge splayed antlers. The hunter with the second lamp stepped across to the other wall and held up his lamp. Kit saw a phalanx of earth-coloured horses-six chubby, short-maned, thick-necked beasts-all in profile, each head in a slightly different attitude, all running together, their forelegs churning in unison.
There were more-scores of them, an entire panoply stretching down the gently arching wall of the cave: a brown bison with its young one, a pair of leaping antelope, a cave lion roaring with its mouth open to show its fangs, a bear on its hind legs, an ox, a bear, a fat-bellied cow with a skinny calf nuzzling up to suck, and even the head and shoulders of a woolly mammoth with its high-domed head and red shaggy pelt. All the paintings were drawn with exquisite skill, but in something of a naive style-as if executed by highly skilled schoolchildren. The way the artists had captured the demeanour of individual creatures with just a few lines-a stroke here for a mouth, a bit of shading there for a bulge of muscle-was remarkable and revealed a long familiarity with the animal life depicted. At the same time, there was a distinctly fanciful element in the portrayal-as if the artist were at play with his subjects or engaged in a light-hearted dance.
Drawn deeper into the gallery, Kit saw that, apart from the creatures on display, there were sections consisting of symbols-spirals and wavy lines, dots and circles of various sizes, shapes that looked like eggs, and many handprints. The handprints were made the way a kindergartner makes a hand by outlining his own digits with a crayon; on the cave wall, however, instead of drawing around the hand and fingers, the pigment had been sprayed somehow over the hand, leaving a shadow print on the surrounding rock, a void where the artist’s hand used to be. Were these the painter’s signatures? Or were they simply a way of announcing a presence-like the “Bill woz’ ere” graffiti one saw scrawled in London subways?
And then Kit saw something that made his heart beat a little quicker. There on the wall opposite him was a spray of smaller figures. Kit moved in for a closer look at the pattern of swirls and spirals, squiggles and dots-the strange characters of a deranged alphabet. Despite the crude tools used to make them, each was precisely rendered, and each unique. Bending near, he peered at them in the dimly flickering light and knew he had seen these queer pictograms before: on the Skin Map.
Mind reeling with amazement, Kit gaped at the devious signs. How could this be? How was it possible? He drew a deep breath and forced himself to rein in his racing thoughts. Okay, think! What does it mean? The first thing that came to mind was that either Arthur Flinders-Petrie had been here, or someone who had access to his map-because, on closer inspection, Kit noticed that the technique of the artist was very different from that displayed in the surrounding paintings. Each pictogram was precise and cleanly drawn, with no false starts or smudged lines. Obviously, the person who painted the symbols on the wall knew exactly what he was doing.
Standing there in the quivering darkness of the cave, Kit heard again the words of Sir Henry Fayth: No coincidence under heaven.
“No such thing as coincidence,” whispered Kit, brushing the stone with a trembling fingertip. It was true.
The light shifted abruptly, and Kit glanced around to see that the clansmen were moving on. “Wait!” he called instinctively, his voice ringing hollow along the gallery walls. The last clansman looked back but did not stop, and Kit was soon enveloped in darkness. With a groan of frustration, Kit abandoned the Skin Map symbols and hurried after the light, determined to return as soon as possible to study the symbols some more and try to commit them to memory.
Dardok led them by winding turns deeper and ever deeper into the cavern until at last they came to a stretch of wall where there were few paintings. Placing his skull lamp on a flat rock, Big Hunter busied himself with something in the shadows; Kit edged closer and saw that Dardok was kindling several more lamps, lighting them from the single flame of his own. As soon as they were lit, he handed them out, giving one to Kit as well.
Besides the lanterns, there was a supply of shells from river clams, twigs, and clumps of earth. Taking up smooth river rocks obtained from a little heap beside the place where Dardok was lighting lamps, the clansmen began pounding the dirt clods. At first this activity appeared meaningless to Kit; but as he watched, the men took up some of the clamshells, also obtained from the river, heaped some of the pounded earth into the shells, and then added water from a dripping stalactite to make a thin mud.
It’s a workshop, Kit realised. They’re making paint.
This mud was mixed on the half shell with a grubby forefinger, each artist making his own. When the paint was ready, Dardok produced hazel twigs. These were handed around and promptly popped into their mouths. The clansmen chomped away for a while, gnawing on the sticks, fraying the ends to form rudimentary paintbrushes. Every now and then they removed them for examination before chewing again. When all was ready, there followed a lengthy consultation that Kit could follow only in part. He sensed the buzz of thoughts flitting among the group-he could always tell when they were discussing something-but the impressions did not settle and crystallise as when En-Ul addressed him directly. Moments later the huddle broke and the clansmen took up places along the wall, singly or in pairs, and began to work.
Kit found a comfortable perch on a low rock and settled back to watch as the hunters-turned-artists sketched their designs. Each artist, following contours of the rock only he could see, roughed out a basic body shape-an ox, a deer, or a bear-and began filling in the body, dabbing the paint with their crude brushes. They worked quickly, adding shade and colour to the shapes they created. Kit gradually became aware of an odd sound-a low droning hum almost below the threshold of hearing. Rising and falling like waves washing on a distant shore, the sound waxed and waned: the clansmen were humming while they worked-not vocalising exactly, something more like purring. The sound seemed to come not from their throats, but from their chests; and once it started, it went on and on and on.
Kit watched the progress of the painting, and it occurred to him that if he made some paint he might imitate Arthur Flinders-Petrie and copy the glyphs onto himself; he could become his own Skin Map, and thereby carry them out of the cave for further study. Taking one of the clamshells, he filled it with some of the pounded earth, mixed in some water, and then started back to the main channel of the cave. Passing Dardok, he paused and whispered, “I need a drink.” He held the image of a man cupping water to his mouth. Dardok glanced around at him and gave a grunt of assent before resuming his work.