Pasang turned to Chhiring and spoke without emotion. “You can go, too,” he said. Chhiring considered it. Taking responsibility for Pasang—stranded without an axe, on the deadliest pitch of K2, on a moonless night, without a rope, beneath crumbling seracs—wasn’t rational. But Chhiring never doubted that it was the right thing to do. Sonam, the Buddhist concept of virtue, is nonnegotiable, particularly on K2, so near a goddess who could influence his next reincarnation. She was watching and expected him to show compassion. He expected it of himself. The seracs creaked. “It’s better if the
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