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While the wood and leather walls offered protection froned more to define an area of personal space and provide some measure of privacy, at least from eyes if not ears Some of the upper sections of the panels could be opened to adhborly conversations, if desired, but when thepanels were closed, it was considered courteous for visitors to use the entry and ask for admittance, not just call out from outside or walk in

Ayla exaht of stones fitted together The liion could be broken and often sheared off naturally, along the lines of its crystal structure, into large rather flat fragular sections of the flat stones, then covered with s of soft fur

Ayla turned her attention back to the conversation between Jondalar and hisa sip of the wine, she noticed the cup in her hand It was ht, probably a section cut off not too far from the tip since it was rather narrow in diameter She lifted it up to look underneath; the bottohtly lopsided, circular end, and wedged in tight She saw scratch marks on the side, but when she looked more closely, she was surprised to find that it was a picture of a horse froraved

She put the cup down, then inspected the low platform around which they were seated It was a thin slab of lis, all lashed together with thongs The top was covered with a mat of sons that suggested aniradations of an earthy reddish color Several pillows ed around it The leather ones were of a similar shade of red

Two stone lamps rested on the stone table One was beautifully carved and shaped into a shalloith a decorated handle, the other was a rough equivalent with a depression that had been quickly pecked out of the center of a hunk of limestone Both heldwater—and burning wicks The roughly made lamp had ticks, and the finished one, three Each wick shed the saher one had beenin the di space at the back of the abri, and would see only temporary use

The interior space, divided into four areas by hted by severalscreens, most colored or decorated in some way, also had wood frames, some with opaque panels, usually the stiff rawhide of uncured leather But a feere translucent, probably e animal’s intestines that had been cut open and dried flat, Ayla thought

At the left end of the back stone wall, adjacent to an exterior panel, was an especially beautiful screen that appeared to be made of the shadow skin—the parche sections from the inner side of ani A horse and sons, which included lines, dots, and squares, had been drawn on it in black and shades of yellow and red Ayla recalled that the Ma ceres on his were painted only in black His had come from the shadow skin of a white mammoth, and was his most sacred possession

On the floor in front of the screen was a grayish fur that Ayla was sure calow of a small fire, which seehted the horse screen, e its decorations

Shelves,and spaced at various intervals, lined the stone wall to the right of the screen and held an array of objects and ie area below the lowest shelf, where the slope of the as deepest Ayla recognized the functional use of s, but some had been carved and colored with such skill, they were objects of beauty as well

To the right of the shelves, a leather-paneled screen jutting out froinning of another rooested a division between the roo Ayla could see a raised platfor space, she thought Another sleeping space was loosely denned by screens, dividing it fro room

The draped entrance was part of the wall of wood-framed hide panels opposite the stone wall, and on the side across fro spaces was a fourth roo the entry wall near the cooking rooed baskets and bowls, beautifully decorated with carved, woven, or painted geoer containers were on the floor next to the wall, soetables, fruits, grains, dried meats

There were four sides to the roughly rectangular dwelling, though the outside walls were not perfectly straight nor the spaces entirely sy to follow the contours of the space under the overhanging shelf, and s

“You’ve changed things around, mother,” Jondalar said “It seems roomier than I remember”

“It is roomier, Jondalar There’s only three of us here now Folara sleeps in there,” Marthona said, indicating the second sleeping space “Willamar and I sleep in the other rooainst the stone wall “You and Ayla may use the main room We can move the table closer to the wall to make room for a bed platform, if you like”

To Ayla, the place seeer than the individual living spaces of each hearth—each fahouse of the Lion Ca as her small cave in the valley, where she had lived alone But, unlike this living area, the Mae was not a natural formation; the people of the Lion Camp had made it themselves