“You’ll go up there the way so many others have before you, and you’ll climb and climb and climb, and suffer and suffer and suffer. And more likely than not you’ll die somewhere up there, the way most of them do, or come back a babbling madman. Well, what’s the good of it, then? What’s the point? What value is there going to be in all your hard work, Poilar? If all you do is go up there and die. Or come back crazy.”

Even for Traiben, this was going a little far. It sounded like blasphemy to me.

“How can you ask such a thing? The Pilgrimage is a holy task.”

“So it is.”

“Then what are you saying, Traiben?”

“That it’s nothing at all just to be a Pilgrim. All it is is a lot of walking, that’s all. On and on and on, up and up and up. You move one foot and then the other and before long you’re higher up the mountain than you were before. Any stupid animal can do that. It’s only a matter of endurance. Do you understand me, Poilar?”

“Yes. No. No. I don’t understand you at all, Traiben.”

A little smile appeared on his face. “I’m saying that being picked for the Pilgrimage is no big thing in and of itself. It’s a nice honor, yes. But in the long run honors don’t mean a great deal.”

“If you say so.”

“And neither does simply gritting your teeth and making the climb, if you’re doing it without any real sense of why you’re putting yourself through such an ordeal.”

“What does matter, then? Surviving until you get to the Summit, I suppose.”

“That’s part of it.”

“Part of it?” I said. I blinked at him. “It’s the whole idea, Traiben. That’s why we go. Climbing all the way up to the Summit is the entire point of making the Pilgrimage.”

“Yes. Exactly. But once you reach the Summit, what then? What then, Poilar? That’s the essential question. Do you understand?”

How difficult Traiben could be, how bothersome!