Ayla's head swam from the dregs of ceremonial drink she had inadvertently swallowed in preparing it.  She stumbled back to the area where the children were sleeping and scooped Durc up, tucking him into her wrap. She rose, and stood at the edge of the circle of dancing women, swaying with the rhythm being pounded out on an upturned bowl.  

Bowl! Iza's bowl! Where was it? She had used the ancient ceremonial bowl to prepare the drink for the mog-urs, but she had not gotten it back from them.  She stumbled away from the other women and went into the cave.  There! By the place where she had given the mog-urs the drink, was the bowl.  She lifted it up and found some of the roots still sloshing in milky liquid at the bottom.  She had made too much! She couldn't throw it away, it could never be thrown away, that was why she hadn't been able to practice, and now she had made too much. 

Ayla lifted the bowl to her lips and drank.  The walls of the cave receded into the distance.  She felt like a bug crawling over the ground, her eyes caught by tiny details of the world around her.  The flicker of a torch caught her eye, and she stared, hypnotized, drawing closer.  Her eyes caught the next torch, and the next, and her feet moved as though of their own volition down the long tunnel deeper into the earth.  

At the end of the tunnel, the mog-urs sat in their circle, as Creb joined all of their minds with his and drew them back through the ancient memories to their primordial beginnings.  Ayla was caught up in the pull, terrified of the void suddenly about her.  As her mind screamed in terror, she felt a presence not her own, and realized Creb was there with her.  He drew her into the circle of joined consciousness, traveling through their evolution from tiny multicellular beings through to primates, their paths diverging from her own only as they approached the present. Then she was alone.  Creb could follow no more. She found her own way back to herself, and then a little beyond.  She had a fleeting glimpse of the cave again, followed by a confusing kaleidoscope of landscapes, laid out not with the randomness of nature, but in regular patterns.  Boxlike structures reared up from the earth and long ribbons of stone spread out, along which strange animals crawled at great speeds; huge birds flew without flapping their wings.  Finally she was overcome by the strange incomprehensible visions and dropped into a deep slumber.