The Gate was double-leaved and unusually high and, from a distance, appeared to be of timber overlain with plain polished bronze. However, closer examination showed it to be covered with countless tiny carvings depicting scenes from a great war and a great peace, and while no one knew what the Gate was made of, the intricate texture of the carvings was unaffected by both the onslaughts of winters and summers alike, and by the hands of generations of people who had travelled to see them and marvel.

Carvers from the Guild would climb the steep wind-ing road up from the village: sometimes alone, to learn again humility in the face of this wonder; sometimes with their apprentices, to sharpen the edge of their young aspirations. Fathers too would bring their children and read to them the stories enshrined in the seemingly endless patterning of the Gate, for Hawklan was no severe overlord: he was a healer. And though his castle overlooked the village, it blended so harmoni-ously with the mountains that, like them, it offered not menace, but stability and calm.

Although the Orthlundyn took little interest in myths and legends, on special days the villagers would picnic and dance on the grass mounds that fringed the foot of the Castle wall and, in token of the long ages when Anderras Darion was sealed and unassailable, someone would bring a ladder and climb high up the Gate and, painstakingly running his finger along the carvings for fear of losing his place in such fine workmanship, would tell the stories that could not normally be told. For even within the height of an ordinary man, there were stories enough for a lifetime.

Sometimes a blind man would come to the Gate and run his hands over its finely etched and scored surface, and the villagers would sit spellbound. For always he would tell a story different to the one that they could see, and always they went away laughing and excited.