while the others chanted the antiphons.
“Mandatum novum do vobis: ut diligatis invicem …. ” On Good Friday a Procession of the Cross brought out
a veiled crucifix, stopping at each hermitage to unveil it gradually before the penitent, lifting the cloth inch by
inch for the Adoration, while the monks chanted the Reproaches:
“My people,wow gold, what have I done to thee? or in what have I grieved thee? Answer… I exalted thee with virtuous
power; and thou hangest me from the gibbet of a cross …. ”
And then,rappelz rupees, Holy Saturday.
The monks carried them in one at a time?afamished and raving. Francis was thirty pounds lighter and
several degrees weaker than he had been on Ash Wednesday. When they set him on his feet in his own cell, he
staggered, and before he reached the bunk, he fell. The brothers hoisted him into it,aion kina, bathed him, shaved him, and
anointed his blistered skin, while Francis babbled deliriously about something in a burlap loincloth, addressing it
at times as an angel and again as a saint, frequently invoking the name of Leibowitz and trying to apologize.
His brethren, forbidden by the abbot to speak of the matter, merely exchanged significant glances or nodded
mysteriously among themselves.
Reports filtered to the abbot.
“Bring him here,” he grunted at a recorder as soon as he heard that Francis could walk. His tone sent the
recorder scurrying.
“Do you deny saying these things?” Arkos growled.
“I don’t remember saying them, m’Lord Abbot,” said the novice, eyeing the abbot’s ruler. “I may have been
raving.”
“Assuming that you were raving?awould you say it again now?”
“About the pilgrim being the Beatus? Oh, no, Magister meus!”
“Then assert the contrary.”
“I don’t think the pilgrim was the Beatus”
“Why not just a straightforward He was not?”
“Well, never having seen the Blessed Leibowitz personally, I wouldn’t?a”
“Enough!” the abbot ordered. “Too much! That’s all I want to see of you and hear of you for a long, long
?30 312168 3
time! Out! But just one thing?aDON’T expect to profess your vows with the others this year. You won’t be
permitted.”
For Francis it was like a blow in the stomach with the end of a log.
6
As topic for conversation, the pilgrim remained forbidden subj ect matter in the abbey; but with respect to
the relics and the fallout shelter the prohibition was, of necessity,buy aion kina, gradually relaxed?aexcept for their discoverer

while the others chanted the antiphons.
“Mandatum novum do vobis: ut diligatis invicem …. ” On Good Friday a Procession of the Cross brought out
a veiled crucifix, stopping at each hermitage to unveil it gradually before the penitent, lifting the cloth inch by
inch for the Adoration, while the monks chanted the Reproaches:
“My people, what have I done to thee? or in what have I grieved thee? Answer… I exalted thee with virtuous
power; and thou hangest me from the gibbet of a cross …. ”
And then,aion kina, Holy Saturday.
The monks carried them in one at a time?afamished and raving. Francis was thirty pounds lighter and
several degrees weaker than he had been on Ash Wednesday. When they set him on his feet in his own cell, he
staggered,achat kamas, and before he reached the bunk,buy flyff money, he fell. The brothers hoisted him into it, bathed him, shaved him, and
anointed his blistered skin, while Francis babbled deliriously about something in a burlap loincloth, addressing it
at times as an angel and again as a saint, frequently invoking the name of Leibowitz and trying to apologize.
His brethren, forbidden by the abbot to speak of the matter, merely exchanged significant glances or nodded
mysteriously among themselves.
Reports filtered to the abbot.
“Bring him here,” he grunted at a recorder as soon as he heard that Francis could walk. His tone sent the
recorder scurrying.
“Do you deny saying these things?” Arkos growled.
“I don’t remember saying them, m’Lord Abbot,” said the novice, eyeing the abbot’s ruler. “I may have been
raving.”
“Assuming that you were raving?awould you say it again now?”
“About the pilgrim being the Beatus? Oh, no, Magister meus!”
“Then assert the contrary.”
“I don’t think the pilgrim was the Beatus”
“Why not just a straightforward He was not?”
“Well,cheap flyff money, never having seen the Blessed Leibowitz personally, I wouldn’t?a”
“Enough!” the abbot ordered. “Too much! That’s all I want to see of you and hear of you for a long, long
?30 312168 3
time! Out! But just one thing?aDON’T expect to profess your vows with the others this year. You won’t be
permitted.”
For Francis it was like a blow in the stomach with the end of a log.
6
As topic for conversation, the pilgrim remained forbidden subj ect matter in the abbey; but with respect to
the relics and the fallout shelter the prohibition was, of necessity, gradually relaxed?aexcept for their discoverer

tortured, murdered, and devoured those priests of God which We Ourselves sent to them with the Word, that they
might enter as lambs into the fold of the Lamb, of whose flock on Earth We are the Shepherd; for, while We
have never despaired nor ceased to pray that these nomadic children of the darkness may be led into the Light
and enter Our realms in peace (for it is not to be thought that peaceful strangers should be repelled from a land so
vast and empty; nay, they should be welcomed who come peacefully, even should they be strangers to the visible
Church and its Divine Founder, so long as they hearken to that Natural Law which is written in the hearts of all
men, binding them to Christ in spirit, though they be ignorant of His Name), it is nevertheless meet and fitting
and prudent that Christendom, while praying for peace and the conversion of the heathen, should gird itself for
defense in the Northwest, where the hordes gather and the incidents of heathen savagery have lately increased,
and upon each of you, beloved sons, who can bear arms and shall travel to the Northwest to join forces with
those who prepare rightfully to defend their lands, homes, and churches, We extend, and hereby bestow,buy aion gold, as a sign
of Our special affection, the Apostolic Benediction.”
Francis had thought briefly of going to the northwest, if he failed to find a vocation to the Order. But,
although he was strong and skillful enough with blade and bow, he was rather short and not very heavy, while?a
according to rumor?athe heathen was nine feet tall. He could not testify as to the truth of the rumor, but saw no
reason to think it false.
Besides dying in battle, there was very little that he could think of to do with his lifetime?alittle that seemed
worth the doing?aif he could not devote it to the Order.
?29 312168 3
His certainty of his vocation had not been broken,flyff money, but only slightly bent, by the scorching administered to
him by the abbot, and by the thought of the cat who became an ornithologist when called only by Nature to
become an ornithophage. The thought made him unhappy enough to permit him to be overcome by temptation,
so that, on Palm Sunday, with only six days of starvation remaining until the end of Lent, Prior Cheroki heard
from Francis (or from the shriveled and sun-scorched residuum of Francis, wherein the soul remained somehow
encysted) a few brief croaks which constituted what was probably the most succinct confession that Francis ever
made or Cheroki ever heard:
“Bless me, Father; I ate a lizard.”
Prior Cheroki having for many years been confessor to fasting penitents,dofus kamas, found that custom had, with him,
as with a fabled gravedigger, given it all “a property of easiness,” so that he replied with perfect equanimity and
not even a blink: “Was it an abstinence day, and was it artificially prepared?”
Holy Week would have been less lonely than the earlier weeks of Lent, had the hermits not been, by then,
past caring; for some of the Passiontide liturgy was carried outside the abbey walls to touch the penitents at their
vigil sites; twice the Eucharist came forth, and on Maundy Thursday the abbot himself made the rounds, with
Cheroki and thirteen monks, to perform the Mandatum at each hermitage. Abbot Arkos’ vestments were
concealed under a cowl, and the lion almost managed to seem humble kitten as he knelt, and washed and kissed
the feet of his fasting subjects with maximum economy of movement and a minimum of flourish and display,rappelz rupees,

tortured, murdered, and devoured those priests of God which We Ourselves sent to them with the Word, that they
might enter as lambs into the fold of the Lamb,dofus kamas, of whose flock on Earth We are the Shepherd; for, while We
have never despaired nor ceased to pray that these nomadic children of the darkness may be led into the Light
and enter Our realms in peace (for it is not to be thought that peaceful strangers should be repelled from a land so
vast and empty; nay, they should be welcomed who come peacefully,rappelz rupees, even should they be strangers to the visible
Church and its Divine Founder, so long as they hearken to that Natural Law which is written in the hearts of all
men, binding them to Christ in spirit, though they be ignorant of His Name), it is nevertheless meet and fitting
and prudent that Christendom, while praying for peace and the conversion of the heathen, should gird itself for
defense in the Northwest, where the hordes gather and the incidents of heathen savagery have lately increased,
and upon each of you, beloved sons, who can bear arms and shall travel to the Northwest to join forces with
those who prepare rightfully to defend their lands, homes, and churches, We extend, and hereby bestow, as a sign
of Our special affection, the Apostolic Benediction.”
Francis had thought briefly of going to the northwest, if he failed to find a vocation to the Order. But,
although he was strong and skillful enough with blade and bow, he was rather short and not very heavy, while?a
according to rumor?athe heathen was nine feet tall. He could not testify as to the truth of the rumor, but saw no
reason to think it false.
Besides dying in battle, there was very little that he could think of to do with his lifetime?alittle that seemed
worth the doing?aif he could not devote it to the Order.
?29 312168 3
His certainty of his vocation had not been broken, but only slightly bent, by the scorching administered to
him by the abbot,buy wow gold, and by the thought of the cat who became an ornithologist when called only by Nature to
become an ornithophage. The thought made him unhappy enough to permit him to be overcome by temptation,
so that, on Palm Sunday, with only six days of starvation remaining until the end of Lent, Prior Cheroki heard
from Francis (or from the shriveled and sun-scorched residuum of Francis, wherein the soul remained somehow
encysted) a few brief croaks which constituted what was probably the most succinct confession that Francis ever
made or Cheroki ever heard:
“Bless me, Father; I ate a lizard.”
Prior Cheroki having for many years been confessor to fasting penitents, found that custom had, with him,
as with a fabled gravedigger, given it all “a property of easiness,” so that he replied with perfect equanimity and
not even a blink: “Was it an abstinence day, and was it artificially prepared?”
Holy Week would have been less lonely than the earlier weeks of Lent, had the hermits not been, by then,cheap rs gold,
past caring; for some of the Passiontide liturgy was carried outside the abbey walls to touch the penitents at their
vigil sites; twice the Eucharist came forth, and on Maundy Thursday the abbot himself made the rounds, with
Cheroki and thirteen monks, to perform the Mandatum at each hermitage. Abbot Arkos’ vestments were
concealed under a cowl, and the lion almost managed to seem humble kitten as he knelt, and washed and kissed
the feet of his fasting subjects with maximum economy of movement and a minimum of flourish and display,

sold to a shaman, who would have trained him as his servant and acolyte. Having run away, he could not return,
except to meet grisly tribal “justice.” He had stolen a shaman’s property (Francis’ own person), and while
thievery was an honorable profession among the Utah, getting caught was a capital crime when the thief’s victim
was the tribal warlock. Nor would he have cared to lapse back into the relatively primitive life of an illiterate
shepherd people, after his schooling at the abbey.
But what else? The continent was lightly settled. He thought of the wall-map in the abbey’s library, and of
the sparse distribution of the crosshatched areas, which were regions?aif not of civilization?athen of civil order,
where some form of lawful sovereignty,runescape money, transcending the tribal, held sway. The rest of the continent was
populated, very thinly, by the people of the forest and the plain,buy aion gold, who were, for the most part, not savages, but
?28 312168 3
simple clanfolk loosely organized into small communities here and there, who lived by hunting, gathering, and
primitive agriculture, whose birth rate was barely high enough (discounting monster-births and sports) to sustain
the population. The principal industries of the continent,buy rs gold, excepting a few seacoast regions, were hunting,
farming, fighting, and witchcraft?athe last being the most promising “industry” for any youth with a choice of
careers and having in mind as primary ends, maximum wealth and prestige.
The schooling which Francis had been given at the abbey prepared him for nothing which was of practical
value in a dark, ignorant, and workaday world, where literacy was nonexistent and a literate youth, therefore,
seemed of no worth to a community unless he could also farm, fight, hunt or show some special talent for inter-
tribal theft, or for the divining of water and workable metal. Even in the scattered domains where a form of civil
order existed, the fact of Francis’ literacy would help him not at all, if he must lead a life apart from the Church.
It was true that petty barons sometimes employed a scribe or two, but such cases were rare enough to be
negligible, and were as often filled by monks as by monastery-schooled laymen.
The only demand for scribes and secretaries was created by the Church herself, whose tenuous hierarchic
web was stretched across the continent (and occasionally to far-distant shores, although the diocesans abroad
were virtually autonomous rulers, subject to the Holy See in theory but seldom in practice, being cut off from
New Rome less by schism than by oceans not often crossed) and could be held together only by a
communication network. The Church had become, quite coincidentally and without meaning to be, the only
means whereby news was transmitted from place to place across the continent. If plague came to the northeast,
the southwest would soon hear of it, as a coincidental effect of tales told and retold by messengers of the Church,
coming and going from New Rome.
If the nomadic infiltration in the far northwest threatened a Christian diocese, an encyclical letter might soon
be read from pulpits far to the south and east, warning of the threat and extending the apostolic benediction to
“men of any station,achat kamas, so long as they be skilled at arms, who, having the means to make the journey, may be
piously disposed to do so, in order to swear fealty to Our beloved son, N., lawful ruler of that place, for such a
period of time as may seem necessary for the maintenance of standing armies there for defense of Christians
against the gathering heathen horde, whose ruthless savagery is known to many and who, to Our deepest grief,

?27 312168 3
old man, simply because of the part he had played, either by accident or by design of Providence, in the monk’s
stumbling upon the crypt and its relics. The pilgrim was only a minor ingredient,buy runescape gold, as far as Francis was
concerned, in a mandala design at whose center rested a relic of a saint. But his fellow novices had seemed more
interested in the pilgrim than in the relic, and even the abbot had summoned him, not to ask about the box,rs gold, but to
ask about the old man. They had asked him a hundred questions about the pilgrim to which he could reply only:
“I didn’t notice,” or “I wasn’t looking right then,” or “If he said, I don’t remember,” and some of the questions
were a little weird. And so he questioned himself: Should I have noticed? Was I stupid not to watch what he did?
Wasn’t I paying enough attention to what he said? Did I miss something important because I was dazed?
He brooded on it in the darkness while the wolves prowled about his new encampment and filled the nights
with their howling. He caught himself brooding on it during times of the day that were assigned as proper for the
prayers and spiritual exercises of the vocational vigil, and he confessed as much to Prior Cheroki the next time
the priest rode his Sunday circuit. “You shouldn’t let the romantic imaginations of the others bother you; you
have enough trouble with your own,” the priest told him, after chiding him for neglecting the exercises and
prayers. “They don’t think up questions like that on the basis of what might be true; they concoct the questions
on the basis of what might be sensational if it just happened to be true. It’s ridiculous! I can tell you that the
Reverend Father Abbot has ordered the entire novitiate to drop the subject.” After a moment, he unfortunately
added: “There really wasn’t anything about the old man to suggest the supernatural?awas there?” with only the
faintest trace of hopeful wonder in his tone.
Brother Francis wondered too. If there had been a suggestion of the supernatural,runescape power leveling, he had not noticed it. But
then too, judging by the number of questions he had been unable to answer, he had not noticed very much. The
profusion of the questions had made him feel that his failure to observe had been, somehow, culpable. He had
become grateful to the pilgrim upon discovering the shelter. But he had not interpreted events entirely in terms of
his own interests, in accordance with his own longing for some shred of evidence that the dedication of his
lifetime to the labors of the monastery was born not so much of his own will as it was of grace, empowering the
will, but not compelling it, rightly to choose. Perhaps the events had a vaster significance that he had missed,
during the totality of his self-absorption.
What is your opinion of your own execrable vanity?
My execrable vanity is like that of the fabled cat who studied ornithology, m’Lord.
His desire to profess his final and perpetual vows?awas it not akin to the motive of the cat who became an
ornithologist??aso that he might glorify his own ornithophagy, esoterically devouring Penthestes atricapillus but
never eating chickadees. For, as the cat was called by Nature to be an ornithophage, so was Francis called by his
own nature hungrily to devour such knowledge as could be taught in those days, and, because there were no
schools but the monastic schools, he had donned the habit first of a postulant, later of a novice. But to suspect
that God as well as Nature had beckoned him to become a professed monk of the Order?
What else could he do? There was no returning to his homeland,lineage 2 power leveling, the Utah. As a small child, he had been

throwing the novice’s pilgrim into the twilight region, into the same perspective as the old man’s first appearance
as a legless black strip that wriggled in the midst of a lake of heat illusion on the trail, into the same perspective
as he had occupied momentarily when the novice’s world had contracted until it contained nothing but a hand
offering him a particle of food. If some creature more-than-human chose to disguise itself as human, how was he
to penetrate its disguise, or suspect there was one? If such a creature did not wish to be suspected, would it not
remember to cast a shadow, leave footprints, eat bread and cheese? Might it not chew spice-leaf, spit at a lizard,
and remember to imitate the reaction of a mortal who forgot to put on his sandals before stepping on hot ground?
Francis was not prepared to estimate the intelligence or ingenuity of hellish or heavenly beings, or to guess the
extent of their histrionic abilities, although he assumed such creatures to be either hellishly or divinely clever.
The abbot, by raising the question at all,eve isk, had formulated the nature of Brother Francis’ answer, which was: to
entertain the question itself, although he had not previously done so.
“Well, boy?”
“M’Lord Abbot, you don’t suppose he might have been?a”
“I’m asking you not to suppose. I’m asking you to be flatly certain. Was he,l2 power leveling, or was he not, an ordinary flesh-
and-blood person?”
The question was frightening. That the question was dignified by coming from the lips of so exalted a
person as his sovereign abbot made it even more frightening, though he could plainly see that his ruler stated it
merely because he wanted a particular answer. He wanted it rather badly. If he wanted it that badly, the question
must be important. If the question was important enough for an abbot, then it was far too important for Brother
Francis who dared not be wrong.
“I-I think he was flesh and blood, Reverend Father, but not exactly “ordinary.” In some ways, he was rather
extraordinary.”
“What ways?” Abbot Arkos asked sharply.
“Like-how straight he could spit. And he could read,buy eve isk, I think.”
The abbot dosed his eyes and rubbed his temples in apparent exasperation. How easy it would have been
flatly to have told the boy that his pilgrim was only an old tramp of some kind, and then to have commanded him
not to think otherwise. But by allowing the boy to see that a question was possible, he had rendered such a
command ineffective before he uttered it. Insofar as thought could be governed at all, it could only be
commanded to follow what reason affirmed anyhow; command it otherwise, and it would not obey. Like any
wise ruler, Abbot Arkos did not issue orders vainly, when to disobey was possible and to enforce was not
possible. It was better to look the other way than to command ineffectually. He had asked a question that he
himself could not answer by reason, having never seen the old man, and had thereby lost the right to make the
answer mandatory.
“Get out,” he said at last,age of conan power leveling, without opening his eyes.
5
Somewhat mystified by the commotion at the abbey, Brother Francis returned to the desert that same day to
complete his Lenten vigil in rather wretched solitude. He had expected some excitement about the relics to arise,
but the excessive interest which everyone had taken in the old wanderer surprised him. Francis had spoken of the

“It isn’t a shrine yet, and you’re not to call it that. And anyway he wasn’t, or at least, he didn’t. And he didn’t
pass our gates, unless the watch was asleep. And the novice on watch denies being asleep, although he admitted
feeling drowsy that day. So what do you suggest?”
“If the Reverend Father Abbot will forgive me, I’ve been on watch a few times myself.”
“And?”
“Well, on a bright day when there’s nothing moving but the buzzards, after a few hours you just start looking
up at the buzzards.”
“Oh you do, do you? When you’re supposed to be watching the trail!”
“And if you stare at the sky too long, you just kind of blank-out-not really asleep, but, sort of, preoccupied.”
“So that’s what you do when you’re on watch, do you?” the abbot growled.
“Not necessarily. I mean, no, Reverend Father,guild wars power leveling, I wouldn’t know it if I had,conan gold, I don’t think. Brother Je?aI mean
?aa brother I relieved once was like that. He didn’t even know it was time for the watch to change. He was just
sitting there in the tower and staring up at the sky with his mouth open. In a daze.”
“Yes, and the first time you go stupefied that way, along’ll come a heathen war-party out of the Utah
country, kill a few gardeners,eve online isk, tear up the irrigating system, spoil our crops, and dump stones in the well before
we can start defending ourselves. Why are you looking so?aoh, I forgot?ayou were Utah-born before you ran
away, weren’t you? But never mind, you could, just possibly, be right about the watch?ahow he could have
missed seeing the old man, that is. You’re sure he was just an ordinary old man?anot anything more? Not an
angel? Not a beatus?”
The novice’s gaze drifted ceilingward in thought,lineage 2 adena, then fell quickly to his rulers face. “Do angels or saints
cast shadows?”
“Yes?aI mean no, I mean?ahow should I know! He did cast a shadow, didn’t he?”
“Well?ait was such a small shadow you could hardly see it.”
“What!”
“Because it was almost noon.”
“Imbecile! I’m not asking you to tell me what he was. I know very well what he was, if you saw him at all.”
Abbot Arkos thumped repeatedly on the table for emphasis. “I want to know if you?aYou!?aare sure beyond a
doubt that he was just an ordinary old man!”
This line of questioning was puzzling to Brother Francis. In his own mind, there was no neat straight line
separating the Natural from the Supernatural order, but rather, an intermediate twilight zone. There were things
that were clearly natural, and there were Things that were clearly supernatural, but between these extremes was a
?26 312168 3
region of confusion (his own)?athe preternatural?awhere things made of mere earth, air, fire, or water tended to
behave disturbingly like Things. For Brother Francis, this region included whatever he could see but not
understand. And Brother Francis was never “sure beyond a doubt,” as the abbot was asking him to be, that he
properly understood much of anything. Thus, by raising the question at all, Abbot Arkos was unwittingly

Ten times was this simple but painful litany repeated, with Brother Francis yelping his thanks to Heaven for
each scorching lesson in the virtue of humility, as he was expected to do. The abbot paused after the tenth whack.
Brother Francis was on tip-toe and bouncing slightly. Tears squeezed from the corners of clenched eyelids.
“My dear Brother Francis,” said the Abbot Arkos “are you quite sure you saw the old man?”
“certain,” he squeaked, steeling himself for more.
Abbot Arkos glanced clinically at the youth, then walked round his desk and sat down with a grunt. He
glowered for a time at the slip of parchment bearing the letters
“Who do you suppose he could have been?” Abbot Arkos muttered absently.
Brother Francis opened his eyes,buy runescape money, causing a brief shed of water.
“Oh, you’ve convinced me, boy, worse luck for you.
Francis said nothing, but prayed silently that the need to convince his sovereign of his veracity would not
often arise. In response to an irritable gesture from the abbot, he lowered his tunic.
“You may sit down,” said the abbot, becoming casual if not genial
Francis moved toward the indicated chair, lowered himself halfway into it, but then winced and stood up
again. “If it’s all the same to the Reverend Father Abbot?a”
“All right, then stand. I won’t keep you long anyhow. You’re to go out and finish your vigil.” He paused,
noticing the novice’s face brighten a little. “Oh no you don’t!” he snapped. “You’re not going back to the same
place. You’ll trade hermitages with Brother Alfred, and not go near those ruins again. Furthermore, I command
you not to discuss the matter with anyone, except your confessor or with me,runescape power leveling, although,buy rs money, Heaven knows, the
damage is already done. Do you know what you’ve started?”
Brother Francis shook his bead. “Yesterday being Sunday, Reverend Father, we weren’t required to keep
silent, and at recreation I just answered the fellows’ questions. I thought?a”
?25 312168 3
“Well, your fellows have cooked up a very cute explanation, dear son. Did you know that it was the Blessed
Leibowitz himself you met out there?”
Francis looked blank for a moment then shook his head again. “Oh, no, m’Lord Abbot. I’m sure it couldn’t
have been. The Blessed Martyr wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Wouldn’t do such-a-what thing?”
“Wouldn’t chase after somebody and try to hit him with a stick that had a nail in one and.”
The abbot wiped his mouth to hide an involuntary smile. He managed to appear thoughtful after a moment.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, now. It was you he was chasing, wasn’t it? Yes,silkroad power leveling, I thought so. You told your fellow
novices about that part too? Yes, eh? Well, you see, they didn’t think that would exclude the possibility of his
being the Beatus. Now I doubt if there are very many people that the Beatus would chase with a stick, but?a” He
broke off, unable to suppress laughter at the expression on the novice’s face. “All right, son-but who do you
suppose he could have been?”
“I thought perhaps be was a pilgrim on his way to visit our shrine, Reverend Father.”

look?”
“I never said he was?a”
“And this is your excuse for believing yourself to have a true vocation, is it not? That this, this?ashall we
call him a ‘creature’??aspoke to you of finding a voice, and marked a rock with his initials, and told you it was
what you were looking for, and when you looked,silkroad gold, under it?athere THIS was. Eh?”
“Yes, Dom Arkos.”
“What is your opinion of your own execrable vanity?”
“My execrable vanity is unpardonable, m’Lord’n'Teacher.”
“To imagine yourself important enough to be unpardonable is an even vaster vanity,” roared the sovereign
of the abbey.
“M’Lord, I am indeed a worm.”
“Very well, you need only deny the part about the pilgrim. No one else saw such a person, you know. I
understand he was supposed to have been headed in this direction? That he even said he might stop here? That he
?24 312168 3
inquired about the abbey? Yes? And where would he have disappeared to, if he ever existed? No such person
came past here. The brother on duty at that time in the watchtower didn’t see him. Eh? Are you now ready to
admit that you imagined him?”
“If there are not really two marks on that rock where he?athen maybe I might?a”
The abbot dosed his eyes and sighed wearily. “The marks are there?afaintly,” he admitted. “You might have
made them yourself.”
“No, m’Lord.”
“Will you admit that you imagined the old creature?”
“Very well,buy runescape gold, do you know what is going to happen to you now?”
“Yes, Reverend Father”
“Then prepare to take it.”
Trembling, the novice gathered up his habit about his waist and bent over the desk. The abbot withdrew a
stout hickory ruler from the drawer, tested it on his palm, then gave Francis a smart whack with it across the
buttocks.
“Deo gratias!” the novice dutifully responded, gasping slightly.
“Care to change your mind,sro gold, my boy?”
“Reverend Father,cheap star trek online credits, I can’t deny?a”
WHACK!
“Deo gratias!”