THE SHELTERS OF STONE

"Well, let's see how the necklace looks on you, Ayla," Marthona said, putting it around her neck and holding the back closed.

Ayla admired the necklace, noting how well it lay on her chest, and then she found herself studying the reflection of her face. She seldom saw herself, and her own features were more unfamiliar than those of the people around her whom she had met only recently. Though the reflecting surface was reasonably good, the lighting inside the room was dim, and her image was somewhat dark. She appeared rather drab, colorless, and flat-faced to herself.

Ayla had grown up among the Clan thinking of herself as big and ugly because, although she was thinner-boned than the women of the Clan, she was taller than the men, and she looked different, both in their eyes and her own. She was more accustomed to judging beauty in terms of the stronger features of the Clan, with their long broad faces and sloped-back foreheads, heavy overhanging browridges, sharp prominent noses, and large, richly colored brown eyes. Her own blue-gray eyes seemed faded in comparison.

After she had lived among the Others for a while, she didn't feel that she looked so strange anymore, but she still could not see herself as beautiful, though Jondalar had told her often enough that she was. She knew what was considered attractive to the Clan; she didn't quite know how to define beauty in terms of the Others. To her, Jondalar, with his masculine and therefore stronger features and vivid blue eyes was far more beautiful than she.

"I think it suits her," Willamar said. He had strolled over to add his opinion. Even he hadn't known Marthona had the necklace. It was her dwelling that he had moved into; she had made room for him and his possessions, and she made him comfortable. He liked the way she ordered and arranged things, and he had no desire to poke into every nook and cranny or bother her belongings.

Jondalar was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder, grinning. "You never told me grandam gave that to you when I was born, mother."

"She didn't give it to me for you. It was meant for the woman you would mate. The one with whom you would make a hearth, to which she could bring her children-with the blessing of the Mother," she replied, taking the necklace from around Ayla's neck and putting it into her hands.

"Well, you've given it to the right person," he said. "Are you going to wear it tonight, Ayla?"

She looked at it, frowning slightly. "No. All I have is that old outfit and this is too beautiful to wear with that. I think I'll wait until I have something appropriate to wear with it."

Marthona smiled and nodded slightly in approval.

As they were leaving the sleeping room, Ayla could see another hole cut into the limestone wall above the sleeping platform. It was somewhat larger and seemed to go into the wall rather deeply. A small stone lamp burned in front, and in the light behind it she could make out from her view a part of the full rounded figurine of an amply endowed woman. It was a donii, Ayla knew, a representation of Doni, the Great Earth Mother, and, when She chose, a receptacle for Her Spirit.

Above the niche, she noticed on the stone wall above the sleeping place, another of those mats, similar to the one on the table, made with fine fibers woven into an intricate pattern. She wished she could examine it closely, find out how it was made. Then she realized that she probably could. They weren't traveling anymore. This was going to be her home.

Folara rushed out of the dwelling after Ayla and Jondalar left and hurried to another one nearby. She had almost asked if she could go with them, then she caught her mother's eye and the bare shake of her head, and it made her realize that they might want to be alone. Besides, she knew her friends would be full of questions for her. She scratched on the panel of the next structure. "Ramila? It's me, Folara."

A moment later a plump, attractive, brown-haired young woman pulled back the drape. "Folara! We were waiting for you, but then Galeya had to go. She said to meet her by the stump."

They both walked out from under the overhang, talking animatedly together. As they approached the tall stump of a lightning-struck juniper tree they saw a thin, wiry young woman with red hair hurrying toward it from another direction, struggling to carry two wet and bulging, fairly large waterbags.

"Galeya, did you just get here?" Ramila asked.

"Yes, have you been waiting long?" Galeya said.

"No, Folara came for me only a few moments ago. We were just walking here when we saw you," Ramila said, taking one of the bags as they started back.

"Let me carry your waterbag the rest of the way, Galeya," Folara said, relieving her of the other bag. "Is this for the feast tonight?"