Hawklan was distressed when he heard Gavor’s tale of the happenings at the village since his departure-Isloman damaging his hand, the tinker’s wares being cast out of the village. Strange and worrying events. He nodded his satisfaction at Gavor’s account of the villagers’ actions and of Tirilen’s treatment of Isloman’s injury and her laying words over the abandoned wares, but the healer in him was not moved to return. Still he felt himself impelled away from Anderras Darion, or rather, drawn by some force towards the Gretmearc; a force that became stronger as he moved further from the village.
He was quite proud of the progress he was making. This was due in part to the good weather, but also to the fact that he knew where he was going. Not once did he need to consult the elaborate instructions that Isloman had painstakingly written for him in the florid script and formal grammar of the Carver’s writing.
This knowledge was a phenomenon with which he had been familiar ever since he had walked out of the snow-blocked mountains to open the Great Gate of Anderras Darion. He had recognized each thing as he came to it, but it was a recognition without memory. None of the castle’s countless rooms were strange to him, nor any of the miles of corridors. Even the mysteries of the terrifying labyrinth that guarded the Armoury became familiar as he moved into it. But nothing carried so much as a wisp of the past in its wake.
So it was now in the mountains. He knew the route as he took it. He knew mountain lore when he needed it-more even than Isloman had told him-how to read the weather signs, how to pace his walking, how to travel on the treacherous snow he might reach at the height of his journey, where and how to shelter-all were familiar.
And yet, he was not curious except insofar as he was intrigued by his own lack of curiosity. He had treated people who had lost their memories and he knew he exhibited none of their symptoms; no shapeless distress, no fretful questioning, no haunting elusive familiarity in the things around him, no sudden flashes of recollection that gradually became longer and longer. It was like nothing he had ever seen in anyone else. The knowledge was there. It always had been. But it did not announce its coming or its arrival in any way. He felt no more reaction to the unending revelations than he would if he looked at a chair and knew it for a chair. It puzzled him a little-but only a little. Something in his makeup was above such concerns.
On the fifth day out from the village, Hawklan woke and crawled out of his small shelter into a cold mist that obliterated the view in every direction, reducing visibility to a small circle of snow-covered earth of which he was the centre. He stretched and took a deep cold breath then wrapped his cloak tight around himself and drew its hood over his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw glistening pearls of moisture forming on the edges of the fabric.
He ate a little food and dismantled and packed his shelter, the snow crunching under his feet as he moved around. The sound made him pause. The mountains were normally quiet, but there was always a background murmur echoing around the valleys: a mixture of wind on the rocks and in the sparse vegetation, distant streams starting their busy journeys to the sea, count-less tiny birds, insects and other creatures pursuing their daily rounds. Now, in the mist, however, there was a different silence. Standing very still as he gazed into the greyness and watched his cloudy breath, the only thing that Hawklan could hear was the sound of his own pulse gently throbbing in his head. He found it pecu-liarly restful, and stood for quite a time before breaking the self-induced spell.
He looked round for Gavor. There in the snow were his characteristic footprints-one claw mark and one small hole. He was about to call out when a sudden cry startled him. It came from the direction in which Gavor had gone. Hawklan called out his friend’s name, but his voice fell dead in the damp mist, and seemed hardly to leave his mouth. An equally muffled reply returned to him.
‘Here, dear boy.’
Hawklan walked along the trail of tiny prints to-wards the voice and soon reached Gavor, looking a little the worse for wear and walking unsteadily round the motionless body of a small dead bird.
‘Gavor,’ he said in some annoyance, ‘I wish you wouldn’t kill things when I’ve food enough for both of us.’
‘Dear boy,’ said Gavor, ‘I’m well aware of your die-tary eccentricities. You know I wouldn’t dream of offending your delicate sensibilities. This one wasn’t on my breakfast menu I can assure you.’
Hawklan looked at him suspiciously. ‘What was that noise then?’ he asked.
Gavor cleared his throat.
‘Me, dear boy, I must confess. Me. Crying out in some considerable alarm.’
Hawklan waited, expecting some elaborate rigma-role to excuse this gratuitous killing, but Gavor offered none.
‘I was pottering around, looking for some tasty… er… leaf, to start the day, when this thing fell out of the sky.’
Hawklan’s suspicious look darkened. Gavor contin-ued.
‘Fell, dear boy. I assure you. Nearly hit me. Gave me quite a start I can tell you. I’m still a little shaky.’
Hawklan bent down and picked up the dead bird. It was exactly like the one that Gavor had chased out of the rocks.
‘Do you recognize it?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Gavor. ‘It’s the little beggar who was watching you. Or its double.’ Then he flapped his wings excitedly.
‘Ah, that’s it,’ he cried. ‘The noise. The noise. I rec-ognize it now.’
‘What noise?’
‘The noise its wings made. That whirring sound. I remember.’ Then, angrily. ‘It’s been following us all the way. I’ve heard it flying about and didn’t realize what it was. Scruffy little beggar.’
Hawklan looked down at the tiny figure in his hand.
‘Well, it’s not following now,’ he said, turning it over. ‘I wonder what killed it? I can’t see any injury. It looks healthy enough.’
‘Apart from being dead,’ chuckled Gavor, before adding, insincerely, ‘Sorry.’
Hawklan held the bird close to his face to examine it more thoroughly. He put his finger gently under its head and lifted it slightly. Abruptly its eyes opened. They were yellow, and they glared malevolently at him. Before he could react, the bird wriggled out of his hand and flew off at great speed.
Gavor rose up as if to follow, but the bird had only flown a little way when it uttered a strange cry and crashed straight down onto an exposed slab of rock standing above the thin snow. At the same time, Gavor cried out and fell to the ground, rolling on to his side in the snow.
So fast did these events happen, that Hawklan was still standing with his palm extended. He looked at the stricken bird and then at Gavor.
‘Gavor, what’s the matter?’ he cried out, kneeling down by his friend.
‘I’m all right,’ said Gavor, struggling to his feet, wings flapping awkwardly and throwing up flecks and sprays of snow.
‘Look, look,’ he said excitedly, thrusting his head out urgently, pointing into the mist. Hawklan turned round and followed his gaze. The morning sun was beginning to colour the mist and for a brief moment he thought he saw two tiny figures fading into the yellow haze. As he blinked to focus in the disorienting mistlight, they were gone. Gavor opened his wings and skimmed off in the same direction.
Hawklan stood up and brushed the snow off his cloak. He walked over to the brown bird lying mo-tionless again on the rock. Picking it up warily, and holding it well away from his face, he gently lifted its eyelid. The eye was pale yellow and quite devoid of life. With gentle fingers he examined the bird carefully. There were no signs of injury, nor equally, any signs of life. And yet somehow it did not feel to be dead. He frowned uneasily.
Gavor appeared out of the mist above and settled on his shoulder.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not a soul, dear boy. And I’m sure I saw two of them. Little people. Like children.’
‘So did I, Gavor,’ said Hawklan. ‘It was probably the mist swirling. It plays funny tricks on the eyes. There’s no one up here. We’ve met no one since we started, and anyway they’d have come to see what the noise was about by now.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Gavor in a resigned tone. ‘But I’m sure I saw something.’
‘Are you all right now?’ asked Hawklan. ‘What hap-pened? Why did you fall when that bird fell down?’
Gavor put his head on one side. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It was like a noise. A strange noise, a strange singing.’
His voice changed and became very distant.
‘It was a killing song. I’ve read of them on the Great Gate. And I was on the edge of it. It was a killing song for that brown bird, and they had to sing it twice.’
‘Gavor, what in the world are you talking about? And who are "they"?’
Gavor’s eyes lit up in a mixture of alarm and ex-citement.
‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘Really true.’ He was talking as much to himself as to Hawklan. ‘A killing song. I could tell. But it wasn’t for me. It was for that. It’s the Alphraan. They’re real, and we saw them.’
Hawklan had never heard him gabble on so before.
‘Well I heard nothing,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never heard of an Alphraan, let alone seen one, so perhaps you’d care to tell what you’re talking about.’
Gavor collected himself. ‘The Alphraan, dear boy. The Alphraan. It’s all on the Gate. You must have read it. High up, over on the right hand side. Tiny people who live in caves in the mountains.’ He spread his wings. ‘Miles and miles of caves. They make carvings that sing and they use songs to hide themselves and even to fight with when necessary. We’d better leave. They’re very discerning, they’re not keen on… humans.’
Hawklan looked at his friend sceptically. ‘Gavor, I’ve never seen anything about them on the Gate. And singing carvings are just a village tale. All that’s happened here is that a little bird, which you happen not to like for some reason, has died suddenly. Probably of… ’ He looked skyward for an idea. ‘… exhaustion maybe.’ Then, defensively, as he caught Gavor’s expression, ‘And we saw the mist swirling in the sun and casting shadows, not magical creatures from some old carver’s tale.’
Gavor looked at him with undisguised scorn.
‘Look at it dear boy,’ he said, nodding his shining black head at the body in Hawklan’s hand, and shaking a shower of droplets loose. ‘It’s as fat as a ripe apple. I don’t know how its wings lifted it. That never died of exhaustion. They had to sing their song twice to kill it, that’s how exhausted it was. I heard them. It’s not my fault you’ve got cloth ears. And that was no swirling mist we saw. That was the Alphraan.’
Hawklan grunted dismissively. ‘Very well. If you say so. But I think you’re going fey. It’s probably the altitude. Come on.’
He looked hesitantly at the dead bird. ‘We should find somewhere to leave this. It must return to the earth.’
Gavor jumped down onto Hawklan’s arm and exam-ined the body. He shuddered.
‘Put it in your pack, dear boy. Nothing’s going to eat that. It doesn’t belong to the earth. It’s repellent. I’m surprised you can’t feel it. We must keep it with us until a suitable time for its disposal presents itself. It’ll only do harm if we leave it lying here.’
Hawklan looked intently at his friend, puzzled by this enigmatic speech. He wanted to ask him what he was talking about, but his ears were ringing oddly in the mist-damped silence and he felt impelled to move on quickly.
‘Come on then. Let’s be on our way,’ he said, swing-ing his pack onto his back and dropping the small brown body casually into his pocket. ‘Maybe you’ll recover your wits when we get out of this mist.’ His voice echoed peculiarly and menacingly in his own ears, and for an instant he felt as though he were constrained to a certain path as intangibly and yet as definitely as if he were in the labyrinth guarding the Armoury at Anderras Darion. Beyond the path lay a roaring death, without a doubt.
He shook his head to dismiss the notion, then strode purposefully forward towards the sunlight glowing through the mist.