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momentary system error.
    He pulled himself up short.
    He believed in a door.  He must find that door.  The door was the way to... to...
    The Door was The Way.
    Good.
    Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn’t have a good answer to.
    Brusquely he tugged the horse’s head round and urged it onward and downward.  Within a few minutes more of tricky manoeuvring they had reached the valley floor, and he was momentarily disconcerted to discover that the fine top layer of dust that had settled on the brown parched earth was indeed a very pale brownish pink, particularly on the banks of the sluggish trickle of mud which was all that remained, in the hot season, of the river that flowed through the valley when the rains came.  He dismounted and bent down to feel the pink dust and run it through his fingers.  It was very fine and soft and felt pleasant as he rubbed it on his skin.  It was about the same colour, perhaps a little paler.
    The horse was looking at him.  He realised, a little belatedly perhaps, that the horse must be extremely thirsty.  He was extremely thirsty himself, but had tried to keep his mind off it.  He unbuckled the water flask from the saddle.  It was pathetically light.  He unscrewed the top and took one single swig.  Then he poured a little into his cupped hand and offered it to the horse, who slurped at it greedily and briefly.
    The horse looked at him again.
    The Monk shook his head sadly, resealed the bottle and replaced it.  He knew, in that small part of his mind where he kept factual and logical information, that it would not last much longer, and that, without it, neither would they.  It was only his Belief that kept him going, currently his Belief in The Door.
    He brushed the pink dust from his rough habit, and then stood looking at the rocky outcrop, a mere hundred yards distant.  He looked at it not without a slight, tiny trepidation.  Although the major part of his mind was firm in its eternal and unshakeable Belief that there would be a Door behind the outcrop, and that the Door would be The Way, yet the tiny part of his brain that understood about the water bottle could not help but recall past disappointments and sounded a very tiny but jarring note of caution.
    If he elected not to go and see The Door for himself, then he could continue to believe in it forever.  It would be the lodestone of his life (what little was left of it, said the part of his brain that knew about the water bottle).
    If on the other hand he went to pay his respects to the Door and it wasn’t there... what then?
    The horse whinnied impatiently.
    The answer, of course, was very simple.  He had a whole board of circuits for dealing with exactly this problem, in fact this was the very heart of his function.  He would continue to believe in it whatever the facts turned out to be, what else was the meaning of Belief?
    The Door would still be there, even if the door was not.
    He pulled himself together.  The Door would be there, and he must now go to it, because The Door was The Way.
    Instead of remounting his horse, he led it.  The Way was but a short way, and he should enter the presence of the Door in humility.
    He walked, brave and erect, with solemn slowness.  He approached the rocky outcrop.  He reached it.  He turned the corner.  He looked.
    The Door was there.
    The horse, it must be said, was quite surprised.
    The Monk fell to his knees in awe and bewilderment.  So braced was he for dealing with the disappointment that was habitually his lot that, though he would never know to admit it, he was completely unprepared for this.  He stared at The Door in sheer, blank system error.
    It was a door such as he had never seen before.  All the doors he knew were great steel-reinforced things, because of all the video recorders and dishwashers that were kept behind them, plus of course all the expensive Electric Monks that were needed to believe in it all.  This one