THE SHELTERS OF STONE

A deeper black on the right, no longer reflecting the small flames off damp stone walls, indicated that the distance to that side had increased; perhaps a niche or another passageway. Behind them and ahead, the tenebrious gloom was palpable, the blackness almost suffocatingly thick. The wisp of air was the only manifestation of a corridor that led back to the outside. Ayla wished she could reach for Jondalar's hand.

As they proceeded, the lamps the acolytes carried were not the only light. Several shallow, bowl-shaped stone lamps had been placed on the floor at intervals along the dark corridor, casting a light that seemed amazingly bright in the darkness within the cave. A couple of them were sputtering, however. They either needed more fat to melt into the bowl or a new moss wick, and Ayla hoped someone would tend to them soon.

But the lamps gave Ayla an eerie sense that she had been in this place before, and an irrational fear that she would be again. She didn't want to follow the woman in front of her. She had not thought of herself as one who feared caves, but there was something about this one that made her want to turn around and run, or touch Jondalar for reassurance. Then she remembered walking the dark corridor of another cave, following the small fires of lamps and torches, and finding herself watching Creb and the other mog-urs. She shivered at the memory and suddenly realized that she was cold.

"You might want to stop and put on your warm clothing," the woman in front said, turning back and holding up the lamp for Ayla and Jondalar. "It's rather cold deep in a cave, especially in summer. In winter, when it's snowy and icy outside, it actually feels rather warm. The deep caves stay the same all year."

The stop for something as ordinary as putting on her long-sleeved tunic had steadied Ayla. Although she had been ready to turn around and run out of the cave, when the acolyte started walking again, Ayla took a deep breath and followed her.

Although the long passageway had seemed narrow and the temperature had become progressively colder, after another fifty feet the rocky corridor closed in even more. A greater humidity in the air was verified by a sheen of moisture reflected off the walls, the stalactite icicles projecting down from the ceiling, and their stalagmitic mates growing up from the floor. At slightly more than two hundred feet into the dark, damp, and chilly cave, the floor of the passageway ascended, not blocking the way, but making it difficult to proceed. It was tempting to turn back here, to think this was far enough, and many a faint-heart had. It tested determination to continue beyond this point.

Holding the torch, the woman in front climbed up the rocky incline to a small, constricted opening higher up. Ayla watched the wavering light as she climbed, then breathed deeply and started up over sharp stones until she reached the woman. She followed her through a narrow aperture, scrambling over more rocks to get through the opening that descended into the heart of the stone cliff.

The nearly subliminal passage of air in the first section was noticeable now only for its lack. After the confined gap, no movement of air could be detected at all. The first indication that someone had come this way before was three red dots painted on the left-hand wall. Not long afterward, Ayla saw something else in the flickering light of the torch the woman in front held. She couldn't quite believe her eyes and wished the acolyte would stop for a moment and hold the light closer to the left wall. She stopped and waited for the tall man behind her to catch up.

"Jondalar," she said in a quiet voice, "I think there is a mammoth on that wall!"

"Yes, there is, more than one," Jondalar said. "I think if there wasn't something that Zelandoni felt was more important to do right now, this cave would be shown to you with the proper ceremony. Most of us were brought in here when we were children. Not young children, old enough to understand, but still children. It's frightening, but wonderful, when you see this place for the first time, if it's done right. Even when you know it's all part of the ceremony, it's exciting."

"Why are we here, Jondalar?" she asked. "What is so important?"

The acolyte in front had turned around and come back when she noticed that she wasn't being followed anymore.

"Didn't anyone tell you?" she said.

"Jonokol just said Zelandoni wanted Jondalar and me," she said.

"I'm not absolutely certain," Jondalar said, "but I think we're here to help Zelandoni locate Thonolan's spirit and, if he needs it, to help him find his way. We're the only ones who saw the place where he died, and with the stone you wanted me to pick up-Zelandoni said that was a very good idea, by the way-she thinks we may," Jondalar said.

"What is this place?" Ayla asked.