She thought of the youngster who had shown an inclination for toolmaking before he was hardly toddling. "Did you always know you would work the stone?" she asked.
"For a while I thought I might be a carver, perhaps even serve the Mother, or work with Those Who Served Her." A touch of pain and poignant yearning crossed his features. "Then I was sent to live with Dalanar and learned to be a stone knapper instead. It was a good choice – I enjoy it and have some skill. I would never have been a great carver."
"What is a 'carver,' Jondalar?"
"That's it! That's what is missing!" Ayla jumped with startled consternation. "There are no carvings, no paintings, no beads, no decorations at all. Not even colors."
"I don't understand…"
"I'm sorry, Ayla. How could you know what I'm talking about? A carver is someone who makes animals out of stone."
Ayla frowned. "How can someone make an animal out of stone? An animal is blood and meat; it lives and breathes."
"I don't mean a real animal. I mean an image, a representation. A carver makes the likeness of an animal out of stone – makes the stone look like an animal. Some carvers make images of the Great Earth Mother, too, if they receive a vision of Her."
"A likeness? Out of stone?"
"Out of other things, too. Mammoth ivory, bone, wood, antler. I've heard that some people make images out of mud. For that matter, I've seen some pretty good likenesses out of snow."
Ayla had been shaking her head, struggling to understand, until he said snow. Then she remembered one winter day when she had piled bowls of snow against the wall near the cave. Hadn't she, for a while, imagined the likeness of Brun in that pile of snow?
"A likeness out of snow? Yes," she nodded, "I think I understand."
He wasn't sure if she did, but he could think of no way to make it plainer with no carving to show her. How drab her life must have been, he thought, growing up with flatheads. Even her clothes are no more than serviceable. Did they just hunt and eat and sleep? They don't even appreciate the Gifts of the Mother. No beauty, no mystery, no imagination. I wonder if she can understand what she missed.
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 bump there, until the nucleus of flint was shaped like a somewhat flattened egg. Then she exchanged the hammer-stone for a sturdy 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 space screened by thick columns of stalactites 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 assisted 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.