Half a day's journey from Gora Pani, the investigators enter the Kali Gandaki gorge. The next four days are spent following the river up into the mountains - increasingly hard going, especially for Aubrey. The dreams continue, and the prayer-flags outside the villages look unsettlingly like tattered robes flapping in the wind. The village temples have a new Buddha in their paintings, too: a robed and hooded figure known only as "The One in White". The priests say that he is a god of the sky, and teaches the emptiness of desire.

By the fourth day, the gorge is reduced to rocky cliffs enclosing a narrow river. On top of the cliffs is the town of Kag, built within square walls in the Tibetan style. A crowd turns out to see the investigators, and they take the opportunity to ask for news of the Anzalone expedition. It seems that four white men passed through last season but never returned. A few weeks ago the boy who fetches supplies said that there was a white man at the monastery at Te, but that was the last they heard. Now no-one comes from the monastery and some say that there are ghosts in the mountains.

One of the villagers has a few items that a goatherd found on the mountainside: a rucksack, half a box of rifle shells, a Hindi-Italian dictionary, and a journal with handwritten entries in Italian. That night as they rest in the village headman's house, Aubrey works to translate the journal. It is Carlo Schippone's diary of the expedition, and it ends in madness and murder.

The next day, the investigators leave the gorge and head east to Tayen, a summer camp for goatherds from Kag. The locals are afraid of ghosts and no longer go up the mountain. The next morning, their guide asks for his final payment and takes the porters back down the mountain. They are afraid of ghosts and will go no further. Siva is anxious, too. He is an educated man, but after what he saw in the bazaar at Nautanwa he cannot say that there are no such things as ghosts. He will wait at Tayen and guard their belongings. Aubrey leaves a message for him to carry back if they do not return.

That night, each investigator dreams the same dream. They are walking alone across a barren landscape at night. Aldebaran shines brightly ahead of them, nearly touching the horizon. They know that each step takes them closer to something that they fear, or welcome.

Seeing that the investigators mean to go on, the villagers offer them a guide. There is a man who will go with them as far as the monastery; his young son is possessed by spirits and he hopes to get a prayer to cure him. It is a day’s hard climb to the monastery: from there they have only to head east to the next valley. Loading packs with only their most important supplies, they set off.

In the event, it takes two days to reach the monastery. A climbing mishap leaves Vincent with a badly-sprained ankle. Ludwig applies a splint, but their progress is slowed and they spend a cold night in a tent on the mountainside. Their guide is unhappy but stays with them. He stays fifty yards ahead of them all the next morning, clearly impatient to press on.

By mid-morning the investigators are approaching the monastery at Te - a blocky red stone building at the base of a cliff, surrounded by the ruins of a larger complex. A figure appears in a doorway; details are hard to make out but he seems taller than the locals and his dress is Western. Emerging onto the slope, he kneels and raises a rifle. There is a shot. The guide falls.

The investigators find cover in the rubble. Attempts to talk are met with further shots, and the situation becomes a slow-paced rifle duel between Alex and the stranger. Eventually, he is wounded in the shoulder and subdued. The investigators quickly recognize him as Carlo Schippone, Anazlone's graduate student. He is haggard and wild-eyed and talks in a low continuous monotone. Something in the valley is calling to him - he can hear its heartbeat. It wants blood, but he is afraid.  He had to kill the monks at the monastery. They knew what he had done; he could see it in their eyes. He cannot come down the mountain: how could he, after what he has done?

Inside the monastery many rooms are inaccessible - Schippone has been burning wooden ladders to keep warm. The investigators spend an uncomfortable night indoors, with Schippone's mutterings and a faint smell from the rotting bodies of the monks. In the morning they loosen Schippone's bonds, confiscate his rifle, and head east.

A few hours later, they find the valley. Aubrey is the first to see it, cresting a ridge to find a vast expanse of cliff-face painted red-ochre and dotted with arch-shaped cave mouths. The air is thin and he is tired; his companions are behind him. It is the vision that he experienced on the train to Scotland.

Descending to the valley-floor, the investigators begin to explore the caves. They find narrow passages smoothed by centuries of use, leading to rooms with disturbing remains. One has a mound of small bones, some from birds and others from human feet. Another has skeins of human hair laid in grooves in the walls that form disturbing patterns. A third has channels in the floor, crusted with dried blood. That night, Ludwig and Alex dream of blood and murder, and huge thing that hunts them in the caves.

They are woken at dawn by faint sobbing cries coming from one of the upper caves. Lightening their packs once again, they climb a series of steps and handholds to find a tunnel like the others. Following the sound of cries they come to a large chamber in the rock, with a ceiling thirty feet high. There is a white light ahead, and something huge and misshapen silhouetted against it. Small figures, about forty in all, emerge from passages to either side and from behind them. They are a little less than five feet tall, but very muscular. Their skin is jet-black and hairless and their faces are curiously expressionless, like masks. They wear loincloths and carry weapons: spears, knives, and boomerangs. Perhaps they are the tsotswa mentioned in the history of Drakmar?

A human figure emerges from the white light and approaches the investigators. His face has been mutilated, but it is just barely possible to recognise him as Anzalone. His eyes and teeth have been put out, and half his face has slumped like melted wax. When he tries to speak it is possible to see that half his tongue is gone. He inspects the investigators with his sightless eyes while the tsotswa remain still and silent. When he is done, they lead him back towards the light. With gentle pushes, they urge the investigators to follow.