The dissolving rock below the ground had a profound effect on the land above it, and the landscape, called karst, displayed unusual and distinctive features. As caves became larger, and their tops extended closer to the surface, they collapsed, creating steep-walled sinkholes. Occasional remnants of the cavern roofs left natural bridges. Streams and rivers running along the surface would suddenly disappear into the sinkholes and flow underground, sometimes leaving valleys that had been formed earlier by rivers, high and dry.
Water was becoming harder to find. Running water quickly sank into cavities and potholes in the rocks. Even after a heavy rainfall, the water disappeared almost instantly, with no rivulets or streams running across the ground. Once the travelers had to go to a small pool at the bottom of a sinkhole for the precious fluid. Another time, water suddenly appeared in a large spring, flowed across the surface for a while, then disappeared underground again.
The ground was barren and rocky, with thin surface soil that exposed underlying rock. Animal life was scarce as well. Except for some mouflon, with their tightly curled wool coats thickened for winter, and heavy curling horns, the only animals they saw were a few rock marmots. The quick, wily little creatures were adept at evading their many predators. Whether it was wolves, arctic foxes, hawks, or golden eagles, a high-pitched whistle from a lookout sent them scurrying into small holes and caves.
Wolf tried to follow them in pursuit, to no avail, but since long-legged horses were not normally perceived as dangerous, Ayla managed to down a few with her sling. The furry little rodents, fattened for winter hibernation, tasted much like rabbit, but they were small, and for the first time since the previous summer, they often fished the Great Mother River for their dinner.
At first their uneasiness made Ayla and Jondalar very careful traveling through the karst landscape, with its strange formations, caves, and holes, but familiarity lessened their concern. They were walking to give the horses a rest. Jondalar had Racer on a long lead but let him stop to graze a mouthful of the sparse dry grass now and then. Whinney was doing the same, biting off a mouthful, then following Ayla, though she was not using the halter.
"I wonder if the danger Jeren was trying to warn us about was this barren land full of caves and holes," Ayla was saying. "I don't like it much here."
"No, I don't either. I didn't know it would be like this," Jondalar said.
"Haven't you been here before? But I thought you came this way," the woman said, looking surprised. "You said you followed the Great Mother River."
"We did follow the Great Mother River, but we stayed on the other side. We didn't cross until we were much farther south. I thought it would be easier to stay on this side coming back, and I was curious about this side. The river makes a very sharp turn not far from here. We were heading east then, and I wondered about the highland that forced her south. I knew this would be the only chance I'd ever have to see it."
"I wish you had told me before."
"What difference does it make? We're still following the river."
"But I thought you were familiar with this area. You don't know any more about it than I do." Ayla wasn't quite sure why it bothered her so much, except that she had counted on him to know what to expect, and now she found that he didn't. It made her feel nervous about the strange place.
They had been walking along, involved in the conversation that was edging toward a grievance, if not an argument, and not paying much attention to where they were going. Suddenly Wolf, who had been trotting alongside of Ayla, yipped and nudged her leg. They both turned to look and stopped short. Ayla felt a sudden surge of fright, and Jondalar blanched.
24
The woman and man looked toward the ground ahead and saw nothing. The land in front of them had ceased to be there. They had nearly stepped over the edge of a precipice. Jondalar felt the familiar tightening in his groin as he stared down at the steep drop-off, but he was surprised to see that far below was a long, flat green field, with a stream running through it.
The floors of big sinkholes were usually covered with a deep layer of soil, the insoluble residue of the limestone, and some of the deep sinkholes joined together and opened out into elongated depressions, creating large areas of land deep below the normal surface. With both soil and water, the vegetation below was rich and inviting. The problem was that neither of them could see any way to get down to the green meadow at the bottom of the steep-sided hole.
"Jondalar, there's something wrong about this place," Ayla said. "It's so dry and barren, hardly anything can live up here; down there is a beautiful meadow with a stream and trees, but nothing can reach it. Any animal that tried would die in the fall. It's all mixed up. It feels wrong."
"It does feel wrong. And maybe you're right, Ayla. Maybe this is what Jeren was trying to warn us about. There's not much here for hunters, and it's dangerous. I've never known of a place where you had to worry about falling over a cliff when you're just walking across the land."
Ayla bent down, grabbed Wolf's head with both her hands, and touched her forehead to his. "Thank you, Wolf, for warning us when we weren't paying attention," she said. He whined his affection and licked her face in response.
They backed up and led the horses around the deep hole, without saying much. Ayla couldn't even remember what was so important about the argument they almost had. She only thought that they should never have gotten so distracted that they didn't even see where they were going.
As they continued north, the river on their left began flowing through a gorge that was becoming deeper as the rocky cliffs got higher. Jondalar wondered whether they should try to follow close to the water or keep to the highland above, but he was glad they were following the river's course and not attempting to cross it. Rather than valleys with grassy slopes and broad floodplains, in karst regions the large rivers that could be seen from the surface tended to flow in steep-sided limestone gorges. As difficult as it was to use waterways as travel routes with no stream edge to walk along, it was even harder to get across them.
Remembering the great gorge farther south, with long stretches where there were no banks, Jondalar decided to stay on the highland. As they continued to climb, he was relieved to see a long thin stream of water falling down the face of the rock into the water of the river below. Although the waterfall was across the river, it meant some water was available on the higher ground, even though most of it quickly disappeared into the cracks of the karst.
But karst was also a landscape with many caves. They were so frequent that Ayla and Jondalar, and the horses, spent the next two nights protected from the weather by stone walls, without having to put up the tent. After examining several, they began to develop a sense about which openings in the rock were likely to be suitable for them.
Although water-filled caverns deep underground were continuing to increase in size, most enterable caves near the surface were no longer growing larger. Instead, the space inside was decreasing, sometimes rapidly when the general conditions were wet, though hardly changing at all during dry spells. Some caves could only be entered in dry weather; they would fill up during heavy rains. Some, though always open, had running streams covering the floors. The travelers looked for dry caves, usually somewhat higher up, but water, along with limestone, had been the instrument that had shaped and sculpted all of them.
Rainwater, slowly seeping through the rock of the roof, absorbed the dissolved limestone. Each drip of calcareous water, even the tiniest droplet of moisture in the air, was saturated with calcium carbonate in solution, which was redeposited inside the cave. Though usually pure white, the hardened mineral could be beautifully translucent, or mottled and shaded with gray, or faintly colored with tints of red or yellow. Pavements of travertine were created, and immovable draperies festooned the walls. Icicles of stone hanging from the ceiling strained with each wet drop to meet their counterparts growing slowly from the floor. Some were joined in thin-waisted columns, which grew thicker with time in the ever-changing cycle of the living earth.