Curioso had a very different sort of dream. He was back in the Zen monastery in western Japan, with its cold floors and the drifting snow outside, and the long days, and in his dream they all sat in their rows, and the roshi with the kwatz stick came down the row, thwaack, thwaack, thwaack, between the shoulder blades, and each figure grunted, and raised arms in thanks, and when he reached the figure seating next to Curioso, he hit him, thwaack, and the figure's head toppled over onto the mat in front. The head rolled over and over, and Curioso could see it was his brother's head, and he raced after it, and it rolled out into the freezing grey snowy day, and began to gather snow as it went, and it gradually rolled along until it became a vast ball of white snow, trailing a path of red blood as it went. And then there was a great Kwaaatz! and the snowball disintegrated into white fragments of a body, lying preserved on some windswept high mountain slope. Everest? That was where it was.

In his dream he realized that he was once again on his brother's mountain, and in his dream he sat by his bedside in Katmandu, spooning food into his mouth, and sponging him, and talking to him, trying to talk him down off the mountain of anger, and nothing. And yet, and yet. And yet something had happened. And Geshe lay dead. And yet.

Curioso woke up, some answer just out of reach. And he realized that his arms were empty. He looked over, and saw Annette seated at the table, asleep, her arms cradling her head.

The valley of bad dreams, he thought. We are being worn down. He looked at Annette. I brought her into this, he thought. Another person I failed, as I failed my brother. I could get him off the real mountains, but not the mountains of the mind. I could not find the way back down, I left him there, broken below the peak, like he believed he left Mallory. Mountains. She Who Laughs at Mountains.

It was cold in the predawn. He got up, and went over to where Annette slept.

He softly shook her and whispered, "Chere, chere."

She woke abruptly, and her face softened. "Quelle heure?"

He replied: "4, 5. Come back to bed."

She came to him, and they lay down again. He said: "I almost had it."

"What?" she said.

"I don't know", he said. "Some way down this mountain."