We did that cheerful thing and slept untroubled by heaven.

Our way kept winding right, until we were at a hundred forty-fourthousand feet and were mounting the southern slopes. Then it joggedback, and by a hundred fifty we were mounting to the west once more.

Then, during a devilish, dark and tricky piece of scaling, up asmooth, concave bulge ending in an overhang, the bird came down onceagain.

If we hadn't been roped together, Stan would have died. As itwas, we almost all died.

Stan was lead man, as its wings splashed sudden flames against theviolet sky. It came down from the overhang as though someone hadkicked a bonfire over its edge, headed straight toward him and fadedout at a distance of about twelve feet. He fell then, almost takingthe rest of us with him.

We tensed our muscles and took the shock.

He was battered a bit, but unbroken. We made it up to theoverhang, but went no further that day.

Rocks did fall, but we found another overhang and made campbeneath it.

The bird did not return that day, but the snakes came.

Big, shimmering scarlet serpents coiled about the crags, wound inand out of jagged fields of ice and gray stone. Sparks shot alongtheir sinuous lengths. They coiled and unwound, stretched and turned,spat fires at us. It seemed they were trying to drive us from beneaththe sheltering place to where the rocks could come down upon us.

Doc advanced upon the nearest one, and it vanished as it camewithin the field of his projector. He studied the place where it hadlain, then hurried back.

"The frost is still on the punkin," he said.

"Huh?" said I.

"Not a bit of ice was melted beneath it."

"Indicating?"

"Illusion," said Vince, and he threw a stone at another and itpassed through the thing.

"But you saw what happened to my pick," I said to Doc, "when Itook a cut at that bird. The thing had to have been carrying somesort of charge."

"Maybe whatever has been sending them has cut that part out, as awaste of energy," he replied, "since the things can't get through tous anyhow."

We sat around and watched the snakes and falling rocks, until Stanproduced a deck of cards and suggested a better game.

The snakes stayed on through the night and followed us the next day.Rocks still fell periodically, but the boss seemed to be running lowon them. The bird appeared, circled us and swooped on four differentoccasions. But this time we ignored it, and finally it went home toroost.

We made three thousand feet, could have gone more, but didn't wantto press it past a cozy little ledge with a cave big enough for thewhole party. Everything let up on us then. Everything visible, thatis.

A before-the-storm feeling, a still, electrical tension, seemed tooccur around us then, and we waited for whatever was going to happento happen.

The worst possible thing happened: nothing.

This keyed-up feeling, this expectancy, stayed with us, wasunsatisfied. I think it would actually have been a relief if someinvisible orchestra had begun playing Wagner, or if the heavens hadrolled aside like curtains and revealed a movie screen, and from thebackward lettering we knew we were on the other side, or if we saw ahigh-flying dragon eating low-flying weather satellites....

As it was, we just kept feeling that something was imminent, andit gave me insomnia.

During the night, she came again. The pinnacle girl.

She stood at the mouth of the cave, and when I advanced theretreated.

I stopped just inside and stood there myself, where she had beenstanding.

She said, "Hello, Whitey."

"No, I'm not going to follow you again," I said.

"I didn't ask you to."

"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Watching," she said.

"I told you I won't fall."

"Your friend almost did."

"'Almost' isn't good enough."

"You are the leader, aren't you?"

"That's right."

"If you were to die, the others would go back?"

"No," I said, "they'd go on without me."

I hit my camera then.

"What did you just do?" she asked.

"I took your picture--if you're really there."

"Why?"

"To look at after you go away. I like to look at pretty things."

"..." She seemed to say something.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Why not?"

"...die."

"Please speak up."

"She dies..." she said.

"Why? How?"

"....on mountain."

"I don't understand."

"...too."

"What's wrong?"

I took a step forward, and she retreated a step.

"Follow me?" she asked.

"No."

"Go back," she said.

"What's on the other side of that record?"

"You will continue to climb?"

"Yes."

Then, "Good!" she said suddenly. "I--," and her voice stoppedagain.

"Go back," she finally said, without emotion.

"Sorry."

And she was gone.

Our trail took us slowly to the left once more. We crawled andsprawled and cut holes in the stone. Snakes sizzled in the distance.They were with us constantly now. The bird came again at crucialmoments, to try to make us fall. A raging bull stood on a crag andbellowed down at us. Phantom archers loosed shafts of fire, whichalways faded right before they struck. Blazing blizzards swept at us,around us, were gone. We were back on the northern slopes and stillheading west by the time we broke a hundred sixty thousand. The skywas deep and blue, and there were always stars. Why did the mountainhate us? I wondered. What was there about us to provoke this thing?I looked at the picture of the girl for the dozenth time and Iwondered what she really was. Had she been picked from our minds andcomposed into girlform to lure us, to lead us, sirenlike, harpylike,to the place of the final fall? It was such a long way down....

I thought back over my life. How does a man come to climbmountains? Is he drawn by the heights because he is afraid of thelevel land? Is he such a misfit in the society of men that he mustflee and try to place himself above it? The way up is long anddifficult, but if he succeeds they must grant him a garland of sorts.And if he falls, this too is a kind of glory. To end, hurled from theheights to the depths in hideous ruin and combustion down, is afitting climax for the loser--for it, too, shakes mountains and minds,stirs things like thoughts below both, is a kind of blasted garland ofvictory in defeat, and cold, so cold that final action, that themovement is somewhere frozen forever into a statuelike rigidity ofultimate intent and purpose thwarted only by the universal malevolencewe all fear exists. An aspirant saint or hero who lacks somenecessary virtue may still qualify as a martyr, for the only thingthat people will really remember in the end is the end. I had knownthat I'd had to climb Kasla, as I had climbed all the others, and Ihad known what the price would me. It had cost me my only home. ButKasla was there, and my boots cried out for my feet. I knew as I didso that somewhere I set them upon her summit, and below me a world wasending. What's a world if the moment of victory is at hand? And iftruth, beauty and goodness be one, why is there always this conflictamong them?

The phantom archers fired upon me and the bright bird swooped. Iset my teeth, and my boots scarred rocks beneath me.

We saw the top.

At a hundred seventy-six thousand feet, making our way along anarrow ledge, clicking against rock, testing our way with our picks,we heard Vince say, "Look!"

We did.

Up and up, and again further, bluefrosted and sharp, deadly, andcold as Loki's dagger, slashing at the sky, it vibrated above us likeelectricity, hung like a piece of frozen thunder, and cut, cut, cutinto the center of spirit that was desire, twisted, and became afishhook to pull us on, to burn us with its barbs.