THE SHELTERS OF STONE

Then the same men who had dug a pit in the sacred burial ground lifted the body of Shevonar and carried it between them. Joharran was at the front with the pole resting on his left shoulder, and Rushemar slightly behind him and on the other side rested it on his right. Solaban was at the rear on the same side as Joharran, but the pole rested on padding on his shoulder, since he was not as tall as Jondalar, who followed him.

The One Who Was First led the way toward the sacred burial ground. The men carrying the body followed her, and the rest of the Zelandonia placed themselves around the pallbearers. Relona with her two children and then Ranokol walked behind the swaying hammock. The rest of the people fell in behind in the same order they had assumed for the feast.

Ayla again walked with Marthona near the front. She noticed Laramar watching her as he headed toward the last of the people of the Ninth Cave, which put him in front of the leaders of the Third Cave. Although Manvelar tried to keep a slight distance behind the Ninth to create a gap that would separate the two Caves, Laramar, along with his tall, bony woman and her large brood of children, slowed down enough to keep the gap in front of him. Ayla became convinced that he did it on purpose to give the impression that he was the first of the Cave behind him rather than the last of the one ahead, though of course everyone knew his status and to which Cave he belonged.

The long line of people followed the path in single file as it narrowed in front of Big Rock, then used the few well-placed flattish stepping-stones to traverse Fish Creek, which ran down the middle of Little Valley. As the path closed in again in front of High Rock, they stayed in line until they reached the Crossing, but instead of continuing south after gaining the opposite bank, as they had done before to go to Two Rivers Rock, they turned left back toward the north and followed another trail.

No longer constrained by a narrow track between river and rock wall, they spread out and walked two or three abreast through the level field of the floodplain, then began to climb the slope of the rolling hills Ayla had seen across The River. The sun was descending in the west, nearing the tops of the cliffs behind when they came to an outcrop and a small, secluded, fairly level depression. The procession slowed and then stopped.

Ayla turned and looked back the way they had come. The view swept down a field of fresh summer green that stopped at the shadow cast by the sun setting behind the steep cliffs. The natural soft yellow of the limestone, streaked with the black wash of leached-out impurities, was darkening to deep purple, and a somber gloom cloaked the water flowing at the foot of the stone ramparts. It stretched across The River to shroud the row of brush and trees that lined its bank, though the tops of the tallest trees still threw an abbreviated silhouette beyond the creeping darkness.

Seen from this perspective, the wall of stone, fringed at the top with grass and an occasional bush, displayed a unified moody grandeur she hadn't expected, and she tried to identify the places whose names she had learned. Toward the south, crowding close to the water's edge, the sheer walls of High Rock and Big Rock straddled Little Valley. The cliffs that pulled back to create the recessed rear wall of the Gather Field led then to the sculptural relief of the shelters in the cliff of Down River and then, just as The River took a sharp turn to the east, the huge overhanging stone ledge that housed the Ninth Cave.

As they started to move again, Ayla noticed several people carrying torches. "Should I have brought a torch, Willamar?" she asked the man walking beside her. "It will probably be dark before we return."

"It's supposed to be dark," Marthona said; she was walking on the other side of Willamar, "and there will be many torches there. When people leave the burial ground, they will light torches to find their way, but they will not all go in the same direction. Some will go one way, some another, some will go down to The River, and some uphill toward a place we call Lookout. As Shevonar's elan and any other spirits that are near watch us go, they may try to follow us. We need to confuse them so that if they manage to get beyond the boundaries, they won't know which lights to follow."

As the procession approached the burial ground, Ayla noticed the moving light of flickering fire from behind the outcrop and an aromatic scent detectable from quite a distance away. They moved around the obstruction toward a circle of lit torches that produced as much smoke as light. Drawing closer, she saw the boundaries, a circle of carved poles just beyond the torches that surrounded and defined the sacred area.

"The torches have a very strong smell," she commented.