The Lama looked for a long moment at Peter. He was startled and suddenly afraid, not for himself but for the others, for the Order. Peter's fear heightened at the Lama's next words.

"We have also some idea where they may be found. Unlike the members of the International Climbing Association who came with all those television and newspaper reporters and ascended the mountains by the usual routes, we have a more special knowledge of our ancient mountain refuges."

There was a sudden stir among the parents. All of them looked to the Lama for further explanation.

The Lama inclined his head. "It might perhaps be easier to show you where we think they are than to try and describe it," he said. "If you will please come with me."

He led the parents from the monastery. Peter followed, with a silent prayer that the Lama had been mistaken, that in his hope and in his evident vanity, he had made a hurried and improvident decision.

They went out into the evening. To Peter, the sunset that flamed in the sky brought the familiar combination of sensations he invariably experienced as the great giants prepared for the icy Himalayan night. The peaks gleamed radiantly, bathed in fiery gold, while in the Lower Mountains the shadows had already begun to blacken into a darkness that was both beckoning and forbidding. Peter's conflicting emotions, the inner battle he suffered over the Mountain of Truth, were always intensified in this hour of sunset. He was awed by what he saw. At the same time, it held an unrevealed and mystical terror for him. He had never acknowledged the terror because he was unable to find its cause. He simply suffered it mutely and thought of it as part of his unworthiness.

The Lama, with the silent Ganpo and the other villagers, led the parents to a place behind the monastery where the pass began that climbed up into the Lower Mountains and the higher valley where Camp Lhotse was situated. The Lower Mountains were already nearly jet black, but above them soared the gleaming snow-capped peak and rocky crags of Mount Lhotse. While they gazed upward at the looming mountain, a tiny puff clouded the edge of the snow cap. It indicated an avalanche, and this alone gave life to what otherwise would have seemed merely an unreal vision.

Peter prayed for the light to vanish from the mountain’s craggy face before the Lama had time to explain what he was pointing at. Because Peter realized that the Lama's finger was pointing to the place his own eyes had searched out the minute they left the plane. The Lama's arm with its pointing finger was extended toward the jutting crag a little more than halfway to the summit. Only a few more seconds of light shimmer, on the perfect cone of the crag, but it was enough. The parents saw it, all of them.

"It's the Mountain of Truth," said the Lama, the folds of his red monk's robes fluttering violently in the rising wind.

 Peter was not surprised that the Lama had pointed to the Mountain of Truth. He had once, with a delegation, visited the camp and warned the children not to climb it. Peter could only hope that the Lama's knowledge ended there.

The Lama went on. "Those who are called there go and never return." The Lama paused, Peter felt, to make sure his words had an impact on Peter himself. "There is a legend in Chungar that behind the Mountain of Truth, hidden between its far side and the face of Mount Lhotse, an ancient lamasery was built centuries ago by a lamaist sect that wish to withdraw entirely from the world."

"What do you mean, there is a legend!" said Mr. Jordan. There was barely veiled contempt in his voice. "Has no a bothered to chart the region?"

"It is not near the route charted by the Swiss expedition which conquered the peak of Mount Lhotse in 1956. The way to the Mountain of Truth is a particularly dangerous one. The trail is precarious at best, there are rock and snow avalanches, the drops are unusually sheer. If not impossible to access, the Mountain of Truth is nearly so. No one from Chungar has wished to risk his life simply to prove or disprove a legend." The Lama paused and returned Mr. Jordan's contempt with an amused contempt of his own. "Besides, you see, until now, only foreigners have received the call."

Mr. Jordan understood instantly. "You mean it hardly seemed worth risking your lives to save foreign lives."

"Horrible," said Mrs. Peck. She began to cry again.

"Not horrible," the Lama replied, unperturbed. "Simply a difference of belief. In your Western tradition, no matter how loudly your churches protest to the contrary, most of you really doubt the existence of the soul as separate from the life of the body. Yon hope for a heaven or hereafter, but the hope is quite vague, and you don't truly trust it. In Tibet, our beliefs are different. We believe that souls do not die, but are reborn again and again until they are released from the cycle of rebirth and suffering by right belief and right behavior. We believe, as Buddha taught us, that the end of the cycle of rebirth, when the soul is at peace with itself, is Sanggye Sa. One is no longer reborn. One no longer need suffer life on earth. One's soul is at peace." The Lama stopped speaking, and his glance searched the group of parents for understanding. "Does this help to explain why we have never searched for those missing? They were called. Either they died as they had lived, in suffering, and were reborn. Or they died and attained Sanggye Sa. It would not have helped to try to find them."

"Then why have you changed your mind?" Peter asked, as quietly as he could, The Lama's long, narrow eyes sharpened as he turned on Peter. Here was someone, Peter realized, who understood that he concealed things. Peter had been able to convince the parents that he knew no more than they. But the Lama knew otherwise. It had somehow become obvious to him that Peter knew most, if not all, of the answers to their questions.

"I have changed my mind because those recently lost were children. Foreign children, at first, from the camp. Then the two from our village. When children are called, it becomes quite a different matter. Children are not old enough to decide such things for themselves, There is an evil in calling children away from their homes. The villagers are angry. They are frightened for the rest of their children."

Peter stared at the Lama, understanding him at last. The Lama cared not at all for the fate of the children. It was the anger of the villagers and his position among them that had decided him to take action. And this accounted for the fact that he had not helped or guided the previous rescue expeditions.

"Why do you keep speaking of a call?" asked Mrs. Turnbull. "Why can't it simply be true that, enchanted by the sight of the peak, they decided to climb it and were…killed in the attempt?"

 "Your own choice of words, Mrs. Turnbull, should answer your question," the Lama replied. His face grew gentle. "You said they were enchanted. I have said they were called. Is there really a difference? It only remains for us to discover in what the enchantment lay, or in my phrase, from whom or what came the call."