The spirits of the canyon realized that human memory and the bonds of love were not enough to break this mortal chain. The old man held it too tightly with his spoken word and the chime of his konyrau. And so, the fog changed its tongue. At first, Erasyl thought the freezing cold and mounting tension were causing a phantom ringing in his ears. But they were not—somewhere to the left, barely ten paces from their column, an identical sound pierced the air. Ding... Dong... The clear, dry chime of bronze konyrau. The mist mimicked the rhythm of Ospan’s asatayak with devilish precision, but it struck just slightly out of time—a mere fraction of a second too early. "Ata..." Erasyl whispered, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. "I hear it," the blind man spat through clenched teeth, his stone-carved face tightening for the very first time. "Do not listen to your left ear! Only your right! Only to the chime that strikes right before your nose!" But the column of Moyyrs had stretched too far across the ice. Those at the tail end—hidden behind the bulky tuyeks and khoy sheep—could no longer see their blind guide. To them, the true and false chimes merged into a single, utterly baffling din. The nomads, who until now had marched perfectly in lockstep, began to falter. The rope jerked erratically, sending waves of burgeoning panic down the length of the line. "Which way?!" a man's booming voice shouted from the middle of the column. "The chime seems to come from the left! Ospan-Ata is on the left!" "No, the chime is to the right!" a woman’s voice argued back. In that precise moment, Nurlan, who was guarding the rear, finally broke. He was so thoroughly blinded by terror for his fiancée, Fariza—who was supposed to reach the winter camp along the alternative route chosen by the Elder—that he succumbed to the deceptive chime from the mist. "Ata, I am coming! Now!" Nurlan cried, stepping aside and simultaneously releasing his grip on the ice-encrusted rope. Instantly, the ice beneath his boots did not just crack—it literally exploded, sounding like a blade striking a crystal cup. A sharp splash followed. The churning, black water of the Bozbolyk, hidden beneath its shroud, swallowed the man in a heartbeat. "Nurlan!" Erasyl roared, turning toward the scream too late. But there was no one left to answer him. Only a heavy, dull thud echoed from below—barely a forearm's distance from Erasyl’s own feet. The undercurrent had seized the body beneath the frozen vault and was dragging it down the canyon. Inside that transparent barrier, the wretched youth was hammering his head and fists against the solid ceiling, desperately trying to break through the thick expanse that barred his return to life-giving air and his people. A moment later, a voice drifted up from the dark abyss that had taken the young man’s life. It was his own voice. Yet it bore no trace of pain. Instead, it possessed a monstrous, unnatural tenderness: "Erasyl-akha... Why do you journey through the bitter cold?.. Give me your hand... It is not cold down here... The water is warm, like fresh koumiss... Give me your hand, akha..." Losing all reason, Erasyl lurched toward the fractured ice. His mittened fingers reached out on their own toward the black water, beneath whose surface something seemed to glide. "Get back, you fool!" Ospan swooped in like a hawk from behind. His gaunt hand, as rigid as an oak branch, locked onto the leader's collar with unbelievable strength. "Three heartbeats! Do not breathe! Do not look!" Erasyl squeezed his eyes shut as a deafening roar engulfed him. One. (His heart hammered against his temples like a blacksmith's anvil). Two. (Nurlan’s voice turned thin and weeping, warping into a birdlike screech). Three. (The dull thudding beneath the ice faded away, swallowed far downstream). When Erasyl opened his eyes, the canyon was roaring with a relentless, deafening fury, shattering the illusion of safety. From every corner of the mist, a chorus of voices struck—hundreds, thousands of cries. Abandoned children wept, dead fathers called out, and kinsmen lost to past winters screamed. The rope was torn. Terrified, the people huddled into a chaotic mass. The khoy sheep bleated in terror, and the tuyeks bellowed in guttural, ear-splitting wails. In this maddening dance of sound, several more Moyyrs, deafened by the familiar voices, stepped away from the line. A few dry cracks and muffled splashes followed. The fog swallowed the people along with a tangled tuyek camel, instantly and irrevocably. The asatayak and its konyrau could no longer shield the Moyyr party. Their chime was utterly drowned in the cacophony that had seized the ice of the Bozbolyk.