THE SHELTERS OF STONE

They decided on an area that they thought would work for the spear-thrower demonstration, then they saw one of the young men who had helped hold up the travois when they crossed rivers to keep the goods they were transporting dry. He was from Three Rocks, the West Holding of the Twenty-ninth Cave, also known as Summer Camp, and had traveled with them the rest of the way. They chatted a while, then his mother came along and invited them to have a meal with them. The sun was already high, and they hadn't eaten since early in the day, and gratefully accepted. Even Wolf was given a bone with some meat on it. They were extended a special invitation to help with the pine-nut harvest in the fall.

On their way back to their camp, they passed by the large lodge of the zelandonia. The First was just coming out and stopped to tell them that all the people who were involved with the First Matrimonial that she had spoken with so far were willing to delay the ceremony until the arrival of Dalanar and the Lanzadonii. They were introduced to several of the other zelandonia, and the people from the Ninth Cave observed with interest their various reactions to the wolf.

By the time they started back to the camp of the Ninth Cave, the sun was dropping over the horizon in a blaze of gold coruscating in resplendent beams through red clouds. When they reached the bank of The River, flowing smoothly with hardly a ripple at that point, they continued upstream until they crossed the small creek that joined it. They stopped for a moment to watch the evening sky transform itself in a show of dazzling radiance as gold transmuted into shades of vermilion that waned into shimmering purple, then darkened to deep blue as the first glittering sky fires appeared. Soon the sooty black night became a backdrop to the multitude of blazing lights that filled the summer sky, with a concentrated accumulation wending its way like a path across the vault above. Ayla recalled the line from the Mother's Song, "The Mother's hot milk laid a path through the sky." Is that how it was made? she wondered as they turned toward the welcoming fires of their nearby camp.

When Ayla awoke the next morning, everyone else seemed to be up and gone already and she was feeling uncharacteristically lazy. Her eyes were accustomed to the dim light inside the dwelling, and she lay in her sleeping roll, looking at the designs carved and painted on the sturdy wooden center pole and the smudges of soot that already blackened the edges of the smoke hole, until she had to pass water-she felt the need even more often lately. She didn't know where the community waste trenches had been dug, so she used the night basket. She wasn't the only one who had used it, she noticed. I'll empty it later, she thought. It was one of the unpleasant chores that were shared by those who felt it was a duty and those who were shamed into it if it was noticed that they hadn't recently.

When she walked back to her sleeping roll to shake it out, she looked more closely around the inside of the summer camp shelter. She had been surprised at the structures that had been made while she and Jondalar were visiting the day before. Though she had noticed the lodges of the people who had set up their camps near the main area, she was still expecting to see the traveling tents, but most people did not use the tents they had traveled with at the Summer Meeting camp. During the warm season, the traveling tents would be used by various people for temporary treks to hunt, or gather produce, or visit as they ranged over their territory. The summer lodge was a more permanent structure, a circular, straight-sided, rather substantial dwelling. Though made differently, Ayla understood they were similar in purpose to the lodges used by the Mamutoi during their Summer Meetings.

Though it was dark inside-the only light came from the open entrance and an occasional sliver of sunlight that found its way through cracks in the wall where pieces joined-Ayla saw that, besides the center pole of pine, the dwelling had an interior wall of panels woven out of flattened bullrush stems and painted with designs and animals. They were attached to the inside of poles that encircled the center pole and provided a fairly large enclosed space that could be left open or divided into smaller areas with movable interior panels. The ground was covered with mats, which were made of bullrushes, tall phragmite reeds, cattail leaves, or grasses, and sleeping rolls were spread out around a slightly off-center fireplace. The smoke escaped through a hole above it, near the center pole. A smoke hole cover could be adjusted from the inside with short poles that were attached to it.