IN THOSE ANCIENT TIMES, the Dane and I had ridden into the mountains, up past a lake, to the high summer pastures where the nomads lived. My horse was called Slowpoke, and hers Farter. It was an August to remember.

It was another year now, another life, and not even August any longer. Seven weeks on the road, overdue in other lands, we packed light and went on foot into the same mountains, the long, spearing range of the Tian Shan that runs from Kazakhstan into western China and which might qualify as the inner ring guarding Shambhala. For 18 years, I had needed to go back, to go beyond, to see one more valley. Rinpungpa urged me on:

Although you feel exhausted and sick from the rigors of the journey, hold on to your aim and continue.

Seamus led, and we walked fast, past the same lake I remembered from 1988, up toward the glaciers, and onward still, crossing into the narrow valleys where the nomads had been.

But the nomads were gone. Rings in the grass showed where their round tents had pressed down all summer. Ashes in their fire pits were undisturbed. We'd missed them by a day at most, perhaps only a few hours. In these high September peaks, snow was already in the air.

On a distant pass, we saw two men in dark clothes. They looked back at us, briefly, and then went over.

I tell you, I was there.