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Aug.30,2010“Stop it. I’m leaving, old man. It’s late.”
“So? And how is the ecclesiastical belly fixed for the ride?”
“My stomach?a?” Dom Paulo paused to explore,perfect world money, found himself more comfortable than at any time in recent
weeks.
“It’s a mess, of course,” he complained. “How else would it be after listening to you?”
“True-El Shaddai is merciful, but He is also just.”
“Godspeed, old man. After Brother Kornhoer reinvents the flying machine, I’ll send up some novices to drop
rocks on you.”
They embraced affectionately. The Old Jew led him to the edge of the mesa. Benjamin stood wrapped in a
prayer shawl, its fine fabric contrasting oddly with the rough burlap of his loincloth,Phantasy Star Universe Meseta, while the abbot climbed
down to the trail and rode back toward the abbey. Dom Paulo could still see him standing there at sundown, his
spindly figure silhouetted against the twilight sky as he bowed and munched a prayer over the desert.
“Memento, Domine Gomnium famulorum tuorum,” the abbot whispered in response, adding: “And may he
finally win the Poet’s eyeball at mumbly-peg. Amen.”
17
“I can tell you definitely: There will be war,” said the messenger from New Rome. “All Laredo’s forces are
committed to the Plains. Mad Bear has broken camp. There’s a running cavalry battle, nomad style, all over the
Plains. But the State of Chihuahua is threatening Laredo from the south. So Hannegan is getting ready to send
Texarkana forces to the Rio Grande?ato help ‘defend’ the frontier. With the Laredans’ full approval, of course.”
“King Goraldi is a doddering fool!” said Dom Paulo.
?88 312168 3
“Wasn’t he warned against Hannegan’s treachery?”
The messenger smiled. “The Vatican diplomatic service always respects state secrets if we happen to learn
them. Lest we be accused of espionage, we are always careful about?a”
“Was he warned?” the abbot demanded again.
“Of course. Goraldi said the papal legate was lying to him; he accused the Church of fomenting dissension
among the allies of the Holy Scourge, in an attempt to promote the Pope’s temporal power. The idiot even told
Hannegan about the legate’s warning.”
Dom Paulo winced and whistled. “So Hannegan did what?”
The messenger hesitated. “I suppose I can tell you: Monsignor Apollo is under arrest. Hannegan ordered his
diplomatic files seized. There’s talk in New Rome of placing the whole realm of Texarkana under interdict. Of
course,rs gold, Hannegan has already incurred ipso facto excommunication, but that doesn’t seem to bother many
Texarkanans. As you surely know, the population is about eighty per cent cultist anyhow,runescape power leveling, and the Catholicism of
the ruling class has always been a thin veneer.”
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mocking tones, “rail at me, bait me, persecute me?abut do you know what I’ll say?”
“You’ll say, “Hmmm-hnnn!’ ”
“No! I’ll say He’s already here. I caught a glimpse of Him once.”
“What? Who are you talking about? Thon Taddeo?”
?86 312168 3
“No! Moreover, I do not care to prophesy, unless you tell me what’s really bothering you, Paulo.”
“Well, it all started with Brother Kornhoer’s lamp.”
“Lamp? Oh, yes,runescape power leveling, the Poet mentioned it. He prophesied it wouldn’t work.”
“The Poet was wrong, as usual. So they tell me. I didn’t watch the trial.”
“It worked then? Splendid. And that started what?”
“Me wondering. How close are we to the brink of something? Or how close to a shore? Electrical essences
in the basement. Do you realize how much things have changed in the past two centuries?”
Soon, the priest spoke at length of his fears, while the hermit, mender of tents,mu bless, listened patiently until the
sun had begun to leak through the chinks in the west wall to paint glowing shafts in the dusty air.
“Since the death of the last civilization, the Memorabilia has been our special province,cheap mabinogi gold, Benjamin. And
we’ve kept it. But now? I sense the predicament of the shoemaker who tries to sell shoes in a village of
shoemakers.”
The hermit smiled. “It could be done, if he manufactures a special and superior type of shoe.”
“I’m afraid the secular scholars are already beginning to lay claim to such a method.”
“Then go out of the shoemaking business, before you are ruined.”
“A possibility,” the abbot admitted. “It’s unpleasant to think of it however. For twelve centuries, we’ve been
one little island in a very dark ocean. Keeping the Memorabilia has been a thankless task, but a hallowed one, we
think. It’s only our worldly job, but we’ve always been bookleggers and memorizers, and it’s hard to think that the
job’s soon to be finished?asoon to become unnecessary. I can’t believe that somehow.”
“So you try to best the other ’shoemakers’ by building strange contraptions in your basement?”
“I must admit,mu online items, it looks that way?a”
“What will you do next to keep ahead of the seculars? Build a flying machine? Or revive the Machina
analytica? Or perhaps step over their heads and resort to metaphysics?”
“You shame me, Old Jew. You know we are monks of Christ first, and such things are for others to do.”
“I wasn’t shaming you. I see nothing inconsistent in monks of Christ building a flying machine, although it
would be more like them to build a praying machine.”
“Wretch! I do my Order a disservice by sharing a confidence with you!”
Benjamin smirked. “I have no sympathy for you. The books you stored away may be hoary with age, but
they were written by children of the world, and they’ll be taken from you by children of the world, and you had
no business meddling with them in the first place.”
more devout in those days,l2 adena, and more credulous. I think Francis was that one’s name. Poor fellow. I buried him
later. Told them in New Rome where to dig for him. That’s how you got his carcass back.”
The abbot gaped at the old man as they walked through the mesquite toward the water hole, leading the
horse and the goat. Francis?? he wondered. Francis. That could be the Venerable Francis Gerard of Utah,
perhaps??ato whom a pilgrim had once revealed the location of the old shelter in the village, so that story went
?abut that was before the village was there. And about six centuries ago, yes,cheap lineage adena, and?anow this old gaffer was
chiming to have been that pilgrim? He sometimes wondered where Benjamin had picked up enough knowledge
of the abbey’s history to invent such tales. From the Poet, perhaps.
“That was during my earlier career,cheap runescape gold, of course,” the Old Jew went on, “and perhaps such a mistake was
?82 312168 3
understandable.”
“Earlier career?”
“Wanderer.”
“How do you expect me to believe such nonsense?”
“Hmm-hnnn! The Poet believes me.”
“Undoubtedly! The Poet certainly would never believe that the Venerable Francis met a saint. That would
be superstition. The Poet would rather believe he met you?asix centuries ago. A purely natural explanation, eh?”
Benjamin chuckled wryly. Paulo watched him lower a leaky bark cup into the well, empty it into his water
skin, and lower it again for more. The water was cloudy and alive with creeping uncertainties as was the Old
Jew’s stream of memory. Or was his memory uncertain? Playing games with us all? wondered the priest. Except
for his delusion of being older than Methuselah, old Benjamin Eleazar seemed sane enough, in his own wry way.
“Drink?” the hermit offered, extending the cup.
The abbot suppressed a shudder, but accepted the cup so as not to offend; be drained the murky liquid at a
gulp.
“Not very particular,runescape power leveling, are you?” said Benjamin, watching him critically. “Wouldn’t touch it myself.” He
patted the water skin. “For the animals.”
The abbot gagged slightly.
“You’ve changed,” said Benjamin, still watching him.
“You’ve grown pale as cheese and wasted.”
“I’ve been ill.”
“You look ill. Come up in my shack, if the climb won’t tire you out.”
“I’ll be all right. I had a little trouble the other day, and our physician told me to rest. Fah! If an important
guest weren’t coming soon, I’d pay no attention. But he’s coming, so I’m resting. It’s quite tiresome.”
Benjamin glanced back at him with a grin as they climbed the arroyo. He waggled his grizzly head. “Riding
ten miles across the desert is resting?”
“For me it’s rest. And, I’ve been wanting to see you, Benjamin.”
officer’s thought could probe that of the grass-eaters to the south. It could not probe that of Hongan Os.
Mad Bear was justifiably proud of himself as a bargainer. He had pledged nothing but to refrain from
making war upon Texarkana and to stop stealing cattle from the eastern borders, but only as long as Hannegan
furnished him with arms and supplies. The agreement to war against Laredo was an unspoken pledge of the fire,buy rs gold,
but it fitted Mad Bear’s natural inclinations and there was no need for a formal pact. Alliance with one of his
enemies would permit him to deal with one foe at a time, and eventually he might regain the grazing lands that
had been encroached upon and settled by the farmer-people during the previous century.
Night had fallen by the time the clans chief rode into camp, and a chill had come over the Plains. His guests
from the cast sat huddled in their blankets around the council fire with three of the old people while the usual
ring of curious children gaped from surrounding shadows and
peeped under tent skirts at the strangers. There were twelve strangers in all, but they separated themselves
into two distinct parties which had traveled together but apparently cared little for each other’s company. The
leader of one party was obviously a madman. While Mad Bear did not object to insanity (indeed, it was prized by
his shamans as the most intense of supernatural visitations), he had not known that the farmers likewise regarded
madness as a virtue in a leader. But this one spent half of his time digging in the earth down by the dry riverbed
and the other half j otting mysteriously in a small book. Obviously a witch, and probably not to be trusted
Mad Bear stopped only long enough to don his ceremonial wolf robes and have a shaman paint the totem
mark on his forehead before he joined the group at the fire.
“Be afraid!” an old warrior ceremonially wailed as the clans chief stepped into the firelight. “Be afraid, for
the Mighty One walks among his children. Grovel, O clans,cheap knight online noah, for his name is Mad Bear?aa name well won, for as
a youth he did overcome without weapons a bear run mad, with his naked hands did he strangle her,gaia gold, verily in the
Northlands…”
?79 312168 3
Hongan Os ignored the eulogies and accepted a cup of blood from the old woman who served the council
fire. It was fresh from a butchered steer and still warm. He drained it before turning to nod at the Easterners who
watched the brief wassail with apparent disquiet..
“Aaaah!” said the clans chief.
“Aaaah!’ replied the three old people, together with one grass-eater who dared to chime in. The people
stared at the grass-eater for a moment in disgust.
The insane one tried to cover his companion’s blunder.
“Tell me,runescape power leveling,” said the madman when the chieftain was seated.
“How is it that your people drink no water? Do your gods object?”
“Who knows what the gods drink?” rumbled Mad Bear. “It is said that water is for cattle and farmers, that
milk is for children and blood for men. Should it he otherwise?”
The insane one was not insulted. He studied the chief for a moment with searching gray eyes, then nodded at
one of his fellows. “That ‘water for the cattle’ explains it,” he said. “The everlasting drought out here. A
“Two reasons. First, Thon Taddeo is Hannegan’s kinsman, and influential too. We have to be courteous to
Caesar and his kin whether we like him or not. Second, he started to say something about the Mad Bear clan,runescape power leveling, and
then broke off. I think he knows what’s going to happen. I’m not going to engage in espionage, but if he
volunteers any information, there’s nothing to prevent our including it in the report you’re about to deliver
personally to New Rome.”
“1!” The clerk looked shocked. “To New Rome?a?” But what?a”
“Not so loud,cabal alz,” said the nuncio, glancing at the door.
“I’m going to have to send my estimate of this situation to His Holiness, and quickly. But it’s the kind of
thing that one doesn’t dare put in writing. If Hannegan’s people intercepted such a dispatch, you and I would
probably be found floating face down in the Red River. If Hannegan’s enemies get hold of it, Hannegan would
probably feel justified in hanging us publicly as spies. Martyrdom is all very well, but we have a job to do first.”
“And I’m to deliver the report orally at the Vatican?” Brother Claret muttered, apparently not relishing the
prospect of crossing hostile country.
“It has to be that way. Thon Taddeo may, just possibly may, give us an excuse for your leaving abruptly for
Saint Leibowitz abbey, or New Rome, or both. In case there are any suspicions around the Court. I’ll try to steer
it.”
“And the substance of the report I’m to deliver, Mess|r?”
“That Hannegan’s ambition to unite the continent under one dynasty isn’t so wild a dream as we thought.
That the Agreement of the Holy Scourge is probably a fraud by Hannegan, and that be means to use it to get both
the empire of Denver and Laredan Nation into conflict with the Plains nomads. If Laredan forces are tied up in a
running battle with Mad Bear, it wouldn’t take much encouragement for the State of Chihuahua to attack Laredo
from the south. After all, there’s an old enmity there. Hannegan, of course, can then march victoriously to Rio
?61 312168 3
Laredo. With Laredo under his thumb, he can look forward to tackling both Denver and the Mississippi Republic
without worrying about a stab in the back from the south.”
“Do you think Hannegan can do it, Mess|r?”
Marcus Apollo started to answer, then closed his mouth slowly. He walked to the window and stared out at
the sunlit city, a sprawling disorderly city built mostly of rubble from another age. A city without orderly
patterns of streets. It had grown slowly over an ancient ruin, as perhaps someday another city would grow over
the ruin of this one.
“I don’t know,cabal gold,” he answered softly. “In these times, it’s hard to condemn any man for wanting to unite this
butchered continent. Even by such means as?abut no,cheap atlantica online gold, I don’t mean that.” He sighed heavily. “In any case, our
interests are not the interests of politics. We must forewarn New Rome of what may be coming, because the
Church will be affected by it, whatever happens. And forewarned, we may be able to keep out of the squabble.”
“What about the copy?”
“I made it myself. Please, sir, it took me fifteen years. It’s nothing to you. Please?ayou wouldn’t take fifteen
years of a man’s life?afor no reason?”
“Fifteen years?” The robber threw back his head and howled with laughter. “You spent fifteen years making
?50 312168 3
that?”
“Oh, but?a” Francis was suddenly silent. His eyes swung toward the robber’s stubby forefinger. The finger
was tapping the original blueprint.
“That took you fifteen years? And it’s almost ugly beside the other.” He slapped his paunch and between
guffaws kept pointing at the relic. “Ha! Fifteen years! So that’s what you do way out there! Why? What is the
dark ghost-image good for? Fifteen years to make that! Ho ho! What a woman’s work!”
Brother Francis watched him in stunned silence. That the robber should mistake the sacred relic itself for the
copy of the relic left him too shocked to reply.
Still laughing, the robber took both documents in his hands and prepared to rip them both in half.
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph!” the monk screamed and went to his knees in the trail. “For the love of God, sir!”
The robber tossed the papers on the ground. I’ll wrestle you for them!” he offered sportingly. “Those against
my blade.”
“Done,” said Francis impulsively, thinking that a contest would at least afford Heaven a chance to intervene
in an unobtrusive way. O God, Thou who strengthened Jacob so that he overcame the angel on the rock …
They squared off. Brother Francis crossed himself. The robber took his knife from his belt-thong and tossed
it after the papers. They circled.
Three seconds later, the monk lay groaning on the flat of his back under a short mountain of muscle. A
sharp rock seemed to be severing his spine.
“Heh-heh,” said the robber, and arose to reclaim his knife and roll up the documents.
Hands folded as if in prayer, Brother Francis crept after him on his knees, begging at the top of his lungs.
“Please, then,mabinogi money, take only one, not both! Please!”
“You’ve got to buy it back now,” the robber chortled. “I won them fair enough.”
“I have nothing, I am poor!”
“That’s all right if you want them that bad, you’ll get gold. Two heklos of gold, that’s the ransom. Bring it
here any time. I’ll tuck your things in my shanty. You want them back, just bring the gold.”
“Listen, they’re important to other people,tales of pirates gold, not to me. I was taking them to the Pope. Maybe they’ll pay you
for the important one. But let me have the other one just to show them. It’s of no importance at all.”
The robber laughed over his shoulder. “I believe you’d kiss a boot to get it back.”
Brother Francis caught up with him and fervently kissed his boot.
This proved ton much for even such a fellow as the robber. He shoved the monk away with his foot,runescape gold,
separated the two papers,runescape power leveling, and flung one of them in Francis’ face with a curse. He climbed aboard the monk’s
“Now let’s see inside that other package.”
“It contains only documents, sir,” the monk protested. “Of value to no one except the owner.”
“Open it.”
Silently Brother Francis untied the package and unwrapped the original blueprint and the illuminated
commemoration thereof. The gold-leaf inlay and the colorful design flashed brilliantly in the sunlight that
filtered through the foliage. The robber’s craggy jaw dropped an inch. He whistled softly.
“What a pretty! Now wouldn’t the woman like that to hang on the cabin wall!”
Francis went sick inside.
“Gold!” the robber shouted to his robed accomplices on the hill.
“Eat? Eat?” came the gurgling and chortling reply.
“We’ll eat, never fear!” called the robber,tales of pirates gold, then explained conversationally to Francis: “They get hungry after
a couple of days just sitting there. Business is bad. Traffic’s light these days.”
Francis nodded. The robber resumed his admiration of the illuminated replica.
Lord,buy world of warcraft gold, if Thou hast sent him to test me, then help me to die like a man, that he may take it only over the dead
body of Thy servant. Holy Leibowitz, see this deed and pray for me?a
“What is it?” the robber asked. “A charm?” He studied the two documents together for a time. “Oh! One is a
ghost of the other. What magic is this?” He stared at Brother Francis with suspicious gray eyes. “What is it
called?”
“Uh?aTransistorized Control System for Unit Six-B,cheap wow gold,” the monk stammered.
The robber, who had been looking at the documents upside down, could nevertheless see that one diagram
involved a figure-background reversal of the other-an effect which seemed to intrigue him as much as the gold
leaf. He traced out the similarities in design with a short and dirty forefinger, leaving a faint smudge on the
illuminated lambskin. Francis held back tears.
“Please!” the monk gasped. “The gold is so thin, it’s worth nothing to speak of. Weigh it in your hand. The
whole thing weighs no more than the paper itself. It’s of no use to you. Please, sir, take my clothing instead. Take
the donkey, take my bindlestiff. Take whatever you will, but leave me these. They mean nothing to you.”
The robber’s gray gaze was meditative. He watched the monk’s agitation and rubbed his jaw. “I’ll let you
keep your clothes and your donkey and everything except this,” he offered. “I’ll just take the charms, then.”
“For the love of God,runescape power leveling, sir, then kill me tool” Brother Francis wailed.
The robber snickered. “We’ll see. Tell me what they’re for.”
“Nothing. One is a memento of a man long dead. An ancient. The other is only a copy.”
“What good are they to you?”
Francis closed his eyes for a moment and tried to think of a way to explain. “You know the forest tribes?
How they venerate their ancestors?”
The gray eyes of the robber flashed angrily for a moment.
“We despise our ancestors,” he barked. “Cursed be they who gave us birth!”
“Cursed, cursed!” echoed one of the shrouded archers on the hillside.
“You know who we are? Where we are from?”
Francis nodded. “I meant no offense. The ancient whose relic this is?ahe is not our ancestor. He was our
teacher of old. We venerate his memory. This is only like a keepsake, no more.”
extent on the distance which Francis could cover before the inevitable band of robbers relieved him of his ass.
He would be traveling alone and unarmed, carrying only his bindlestiff and begging bowl in addition to the relic
and its illuminated replica. He prayed that ignorant robbers would have no use for the latter; for, indeed, among
the bandits of the wayside were sometimes kindly thieves who took only what was of value to them, and
permitted their victim to retain his life, carcass,cheap ragnarok zeny, and personal effects. Others were less considerate.
As a precaution, Brother Francis wore a black patch over his right eye. The peasants were a superstitious lot
and could often be routed by even a hint of the evil eye. Thus armed and equipped, he set out to obey the
summons of the Sacerdos Magnus, that Most Holy Lord and Ruler, Leo Pappas XXI.
Nearly two months after leaving the abbey,runescape power leveling, the monk met his robber on a heavily wooded mountain trail, far
from any human settlement except the Valley of the Misborn, which lay a few miles beyond a peak to the west,
where, leperlike, a colony of the genetically monstrous lived in seclusion from the world. There were some such
colonies which were supervised by hospitalers of Holy Church,buy runescape money, but the Valley of the Misborn was not among
them. Sports who had escaped death at the hands of the forest tribes had congregated there several centuries ago.
Their ranks were continually replenished by warped and crawling things that sought refuge from the world, but
some among them were fertile and gave birth. Often such children inherited the monstrosity of the parent stock.
Often they were born dead or never reached maturity. But occasionally the monstrous trait was recessive, and an
apparently normal child resulted from the union of sports. Sometimes, however, the superficially “normal”
offspring were blighted by some invisible deformity of heart or mind that bereft them, seemingly, of the essence
of humanity while leaving them its appearances. Even within the Church, some had dared espouse the view that
such creatures truly had been deprived of the Dei imago from conception, that their souls were but animal souls,mabinogi gold,
that they might with impunity under the Natural Law be destroyed as animal and not Man, that God had visited
animal issue upon the species as a punishment for the sins that had nearly destroyed humankind. Few theologians
whose belief in Hell had never failed them would deprive their God of recourse to any form of temporal
punishment, but for men to take it upon themselves to judge any creature born of woman to be lacking in the
divine image was to usurp the privilege of Heaven. Even the idiot which seems less gifted than a dog, or a pig, or
a goat, shall, if born of woman, be called an immortal soul. thundered the magisterium, and thundered it again
and again. After several such pronouncements, aimed at curbing infanticide, had issued from New Borne, the
luckless misborn had come to be called the “Pope’s nephews,” or the “Pope’s children,” by some.
?48 312168 3
“Let that which is born alive of human parents be suffered to live,” the previous Leo had said, “in
accordance with both the Natural Law and the Divine Law of Love; let it be cherished as Child and nurtured,
whatever its form and demeanor, for it is a fact available to natural reason alone, unaided by Divine Revelation,
that among the Natural Rights of Man the right to parental assistance in an attempt to survive is precedent to all
other rights, and may not be modified legitimately by Society or State except insofar as Princes are empowered
to implement that right. Not even the beasts of the Earth act otherwise.”
The robber that accosted Brother Francis was not in any obvious way one of the malformed, but that he
“ABE YOU BEING FLIPPANT WITH ME?”
“No, mess|r.”
“Now, tell the truth! How did you happen to discover that shelter, and what is this fantastic twaddle about an
apparition?”
Brother Francis attempted to explain. The advocatus diaboli interrupted with periodic snorts and sarcastic
queries, and when he was finished, the advocate raked at his story with semantic tooth and nail until Francis
himself wondered if he had really seen the old man or had imagined the incident.
The cross-examining technique was ruthless, but Francis found the experience less frightening than an
?46 312168 3
interview with the abbot. The devil’s advocate could do no worse than tear him limb from limb this one time, and
the knowledge that the operation would soon be over helped the amputee to bear the pain. When facing the
abbot, however, Francis was always aware that a blunder could be punished again and again, Arkos being his
ruler for a lifetime and the perpetual Inquisitor of his soul.
And Monsignor Flaught seemed to find the monk’s story too distressingly simple-minded to warrant full-
scale attack, after observing Brother Francis’ reaction to the initial onslaught.
“Well, Brother, if that’s your story and you stick to it,runescape power leveling, I don’t think we’ll be bothered with you at all. Even if
it’s true?awhich I don’t admit?ait’s so trivial it’s silly. Do you realize that?”
“That’s what l always thought, Mess|r,” sighed Brother Francis, who had for many years tried to detach the
importance which others had attached to the pilgrim.
“Well, it’s high time you said so!” Flaught snapped.
“I always said that I thought he was probably just an old man.”
Monsignor Flaught covered his eyes with his hand and sighed heavily. His experience with uncertain
witnesses led him to say no more.
Before leaving the abbey,mabinogi gold, the advocatus diaboli, like the Saint’s advocate before him, stopped at the
scriptorium and asked to see the illuminated commemoration of the Leibowitz blueprint (”that dreadful
incomprehensibility” as Flaught called it). This time the monk’s hands trembled not with eagerness but with fear,
for once again he might be forced to abandon the project. Monsignor Flaught gazed at the lambskin in silence.
He swallowed thrice. At last he forced himself to nod.
“Your imagery is vivid,” he admitted, “but we all knew that, didn’t we?” He paused. “You’ve been working
on it how long now?”
“Six years,buy world of warcraft gold, Mess|r?aintermittently.”
“Yes, well, it would seem that you have at least as many years to go.”
Monsignor Flaught’s horns immediately shortened by an inch,runescape money, and his fangs disappeared entirely. He
departed the same evening for New Rome.
The years flowed smoothly by, seaming the faces of the young and adding gray to their temples. The
The prothonotary was a suave and diplomatic elder who seemed keenly interested in the small monk’s life.
After several minutes of preliminary amenities, he approached the slippery subject: “Now, about your
encounter with the person who may have been the Blessed Founder of?a”
“Oh, but I never said he was our Blessed Leibo . . .”
“Of course you didn’t,wow gold, my son. Of course you didn’t. Now I have here an account of the incident?agathered
purely from hearsay sources, of course?aand I’d like for you to read it, and then either confirm it or correct it.”
He paused to draw a scroll from his case; he handed it to Brother Francis.
“This version is based on traveler’s stories,” he added. “Only you can describe what happened?afirst hand?a
so I want you to edit it most scrupulously.”
“Certainly, Mess|r. But what happened was really very simple?a”
“Read, read! Then we’ll talk about it, eh?”
The fatness of the scroll made it apparent that the hearsay account was not “really very simple.” Brother
Francis read with mounting apprehension. The apprehension soon grow to the proportions of horror.
“You look white, son,” said the postulator. “Is something troubling you?”
“Mess|r, this-it wasn’t like this at all!”
“No? But indirectly at least,lotro power leveling, you must have been the author of it. How could it have been otherwise? Weren’t
you the only witness?”
Brother Francis closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He had told the simple truth to fellow novices.
Fellow novices had whispered among themselves. Novices had told the story to travelers. Travelers had repeated
it to travelers. Until finally?athis! Small wonder that Abbot Arkos had enjoined discussion. If only he had never
mentioned the pilgrim at all!
“He only spoke a few words to me. I saw him just that once. He chased me with a stick, asked me the way to
the abbey, and made marks on the rock where I found the crypt. Then I never saw him again.”
“No halo?”
“No,cheap runescape gold, Mess|r.”
“No heavenly choir?”
“No!”
“What about the carpet of roses that grew up where he walked?”
“No, no! Nothing like that,runescape power leveling, Mess|r,” the monk gasped.
?44 312168 3
“He didn’t write his name on the rock?”
“As God is my judge, Mess|r, he only made those two marks. I didn’t know what they meant.”
“Ah, well,” sighed the postulator. “Travelers’ stories are always exaggerated. But I wonder how it all got
started. Now suppose you tell me how it really happened.”