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appetites with hints of a feast. The familiar milk mugs stayed in the pantry, their places taken for tonight by the
best wine cups. Roses were scattered along the boards.
The abbot stopped in the corridor to wait for the reader to finish reading. He glanced at the table set for
himself, Father Gault,buy star trek online credits, the honored guest,runescape power leveling, and his party. Bad arithmetic again in the kitchen, he thought. Eight
places had been set. Three officers, the thon and his assistant, and the two priests made seven?aunless,buy world of warcraft gold, in some
unlikely case, Father Gault had asked Brother Kornhoer to sit with them. The reader concluded the
announcements, and Dom Paulo entered the hall.
“Flectamus genua,” intoned the reader.
The robed legions genuflected with military precision as the abbot blessed his flock.
“Levate.”
The legions arose. Dom Paulo took his place at the special table and glanced back toward the entrance.
Gault should be bringing the others. Previously their meals had been served in the guesthouse rather than the
refectory, to avoid subjecting them to the austerity of the monks’ own frugal fare.
When the guests came, he looked around for Brother Kornhoer, but the monk was not with them.
“Why the eighth place setting?” he murmured to Father Gault when they had taken their places.
Gault looked blank and shrugged.
The scholar filled the place on the abbot’s right and the others fell in toward the foot of the table, leaving the
place on his left empty. He turned to beckon Kornhoer to join them, but the reader began intoning the preface
before he could catch the monk’s eye.
“Oremus,” answered the abbot, and the legions bowed.
During the blessing, someone sipped quietly into the seat on the abbot’s left. The abbot frowned but did not
look up to identify the culprit during the prayer.
.. et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.
“Sedete,” called the reader, and the ranks began seating themselves.
The abbot glanced sharply at the figure on his left.
“Poet!”
The bruised lily bowed extravagantly and smiled. “Good evening, Sires, learned Thon, distinguished hosts,”
he orated.
“What are we having tonight? Roast fish and honeycombs in honor of the temporal resurrection that’s upon
us? Or have you, m’Lord Abbot, finally cooked the goose of the mayor of the village?”
“I would like to cook?a”
“Ha!” quoth the Poet, and turned affably toward the scholar. “Such culinary excellence one enjoys in this
place, Thon Taddeo! You should join us more often. I suppose they are feeding you nothing but roast pheasant
and unimaginative beef in the guesthouse. A shame! Here one fares better. I do hope Brother Chef has his usual
gusto tonight, his inward flame,rs money, his enchanted touch. Ah . . .” The Poet rubbed his hands and smirked hungrily.

“But if your subject matter is the physical world, how could you possibly offend? Especially this
community. We’ve been waiting for a long time to see the world start taking an interest in itself again. At the risk
of seeming boastful, I might point out that we have a few rather clever amateurs in natural science right here in
the monastery. There’s Brother Majek, and there’s Brother Kornhoer?a”
“Kornhoer!” The then glanced up warily at the arc lamp and looked away blinking. “I can’t understand it!”
“The lamp? But surely you?a”
“No, no, not the lamp. The lamp’s simple enough, once you got over the shock of seeing it really work. It
should work. It would work on paper, assuming various undeterminables and guessing at some unavailable data.
But the clean impetuous leap from the vague hypothesis to a working model?a” The thon coughed nervously.
“It’s Kornhoer himself I don’t understand. That gadget?a” he waggled a forefinger at the dynamo “?ais a standing
broad-jump across about twenty years of preliminary experimentation, starting with an understanding of the
principles. Kornhoer just dispensed with the preliminaries. You believe in miraculous interventions? I don’t, but
there you have a real case of it. Wagon wheels!” He laughed. “What could he do if he had a machine shop? I
can’t understand what a man like that is doing cooped up in a monastery.”
“Perhaps Brother Kornhoer should explain that to you,” said Dom Paulo, laying to keep an edge of stiffness
out of his tone.
“Yes,runescape power leveling, well?a” Thon Taddeo’s visual calipers began measuring the old priest again. “If you really feel that no
one would take offense at hearing non-traditional ideas, I would be glad to discuss our work. But some of it may
conflict with established preju?auh?aestablished opinion.”
“Good! Then it should be fascinating.”
A time was agreed upon, and Dom Paulo felt relief. The esoteric gulf between Christian monk and secular
investigator of Nature would surely be narrowed by a free exchange of ideas,silkroad online gold, he felt. Kornhoer had already
narrowed it slightly, had he not? More communication, not less, was probably the best therapy for easing any
tension. And the cloudy veil of doubt and mistrusting hesitancy would be parted, would it not? as soon as the
thon saw that his hosts were not quite such unreasonable intellectual reactionaries as the scholar seemed to
suspect. Paulo felt some shame for his earlier misgivings. Patience, Lord, with a well-meaning fool, he prayed.
“But you can’t ignore the officers and their sketchbooks,” Gault reminded him.
20
From the lectern in the refectory, the reader was intoning the announcements. Candlelight blanched the
faces of the robed, legions who stood motionless behind their stools and waited for the beginning of the evening
meal. The reader’s voice echoed hollowly in the high vaulted dining room whose ceiling was lost in brooding
shadows above the pools of candle-glow that spotted the wooden tables.
“The Reverend Father Abbot has commanded me to announce,” called the reader, “that the rule of
abstinence for today is dispensed at tonight’s meal. We shall have guests, as you may have heard. All religious
may partake of tonight’s banquet in honor of Thon Taddeo and his group; you may eat meat. Conversation?aif
you’ll keep it quiet?awill be permitted during the meal.”
Suppressed vocal noises,buy rose online zuly, not unlike strangled cheers, came from the ranks of the novices. The tables were
set. Food had not yet made an appearance,buy rose online zuly, but large dining trays replaced the usual mush bowls, kindling

?90 312168 3
“Oh?” Dom Paulo turned to peer again.
The parley was being ended. Men waved; the group split in two. The larger party galloped back toward the
east. The remaining horsemen watched briefly, then reined around and trotted toward the abbey.
“Six or seven of them?asome in uniform,” the abbot murmured as they drew closer.
“The thon and his party,rose zuly, I’m sure.”
“But with nomads? It’s a good thing I didn’t let you send a rider out last night. What were they doing with
nomads?’
“It appeared that they came as guides,” Father Gault said darkly.
“How neighborly of the lion to lie down with the lamb!”
The riders approached the gates. Dom Paulo swallowed dryness. “Well, we’d better go welcome them,
Father,” he sighed.
By the time the priests had descended from the wall, the travelers had reined up just outside the courtyard. A
horseman detached himself from the others, trotted forward, dismounted,runescape power leveling, and presented his papers.
“Dom Paulo of Pecos, Abbas?”
The abbot bowed. “Tibi adsum. Welcome in the name of Saint Leibowitz, Thon Taddeo. Welcome in the
name of his abbey, in the name of forty generations who’ve waited for you to come. Be at home. We serve you.”
The words were heart-felt; the words had been saved for many years while awaiting this moment. Hearing a
muttered monosyllable in reply, Dom Paulo looked up slowly.
For a moment his glance locked with the scholar’s. He felt the warmth quickly fade. Those icy eyes-cold and
searching gray. Skeptical, hungry, and proud. They studied him as one might study a lifeless curio.
That this moment might be as a bridge across a gulf of twelve centuries, Paulo had fervently prayed?a
prayed too that through him the last martyred scientist of that earlier age would clasp hands with tomorrow.
There was indeed a gulf; that much was plain. The abbot felt suddenly that he belonged not to this age at all, that
he had been left stranded somewhere on a sandbar in Time’s river,cheap flyff money, and that there wasn’t really ever a bridge at all.
“Come,” he said gently. “Brother Visclair will attend to your horses.”
When he had seen the guests installed in their lodgings and had retired to the privacy of his study, the smile
on the face of the wooden saint reminded him unaccountably of the smirk of old Benjamin Eleazar, saying, “The
children of this world are consistent too.”
18
“‘Now even as in the time of Job,’” Brother Reader began from the refectory lectern:
“When the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them.
“And the Lord said to him: ‘Whence comest thou,rohan crone, Satan?’

“Ah, now you care to prophesy!”
“Not at all. ‘Soon the sun will set’?ais that prophecy? No,potbs power leveling, it’s merely an assertion of faith in the consistency
of events. The children of the world are consistent too?aso I say they will soak up everything you can offer, take
your job away from you, and then denounce you as a decrepit wreck. Finally, they’ll ignore you entirely. It’s your
own fault. The Book I gave you should have been enough for you. Now you’ll just have to take the consequences
for your meddling.”
He had spoken flippantly, but his prediction seemed uncomfortably close to Dom Paulo’s fears. The priest’s
countenance saddened.
“Pay me no mind,” said the hermit. “I’ll not venture to soothsay before I’ve seen this contraption of yours, or
taken a look at this Thon Taddeo?awho begins to interest me, by the way. Wait until I’ve examined the entrails
of the new era in better detail,rs money, if you expect advice from me.”
“Well, you won’t see the lamp because you never come to the abbey.”
“It’s your abominable cooking I object to.”
?87 312168 3
“And you won’t see Thon Taddeo because he comes from the other direction. If you wait to examine the
entrails of an era until after it’s born, it’s too late to prophesy its birth.”
“Nonsense. Probing the womb of the future is bad for the child. I shall wait?aand then I shall prophesy that
it was born and that it wasn’t what I’m waiting for.”
“What a cheerful outlook! So what are you looking for?”
“Someone who shouted at me once.”
“Shouted?”
“‘Come forth!’ ”
“What rot!”
“Hmmm-hnnn! To tell you the truth, I don’t much expect Him to come, but I was told to wait, and?a” he
shrugged “?aI wait.” After a moment his twinkling eyes narrowed to slits, and he leaned forward with sudden
eagerness. “Paulo, bring this Thon Taddeo past the foot of the mesa.”
The abbot recoiled in mock horror. “Accoster of pilgrims! Molester of novices! I shall send you the Poet-
sirrah!?aand may he descend upon you and rest forever. Bring the thon past your lair! What an outrage.”
Benjamin shrugged again. “Very well. Forget that I asked it. But let’s hope this thon will be on our side, and
not with the others this time.”
“Others, Benjamin?”
“Manasses, Cyrus,runescape power leveling, Nebuchadnezzar,perfect world gold, Pharaoh, Caesar, Hannegan the Second?aneed I go on? Samuel warned
us against them, then gave us one. When they have a few wise men shackled nearby to counsel them, they
become more dangerous than ever. That’s all the advice I’ll give you.”
“Well, Benjamin, I’ve had enough of you now to last me another five years, so?a”
“Insult me, rail at me, bait me-”

discarded apple pits. “I have been called a ’secular scholar’ at various times by certain people, and sometimes I’ve
been staked, stoned, and burned for it.”
“Why, you never?a” The priest stopped,maple mesos, frowning sharply. That madness again. Benjamin was peering at
him suspiciously, and his smile had gone cold. Now, thought the abbot, he’s looking at me as if I were one of
Them?awhatever formless “Them” it was that drove him here to solitude. Staked, stoned, and burned? Or did his
“I” mean “We” as in “I, my people”?
“Benjamin?aI am Paulo. Torquemada is dead. I was born seventy-odd years ago, and pretty soon I’ll die. I
have loved you, old man, and when you look at me, I wish you would see Paulo of Pecos and no other.”
Benjamin wavered for a moment. His eyes became moist.
“I sometimes?aforget?a”
“And sometimes you forget that Benjamin is only Benjamin and not all of Israel.”
“Never!” snapped the hermit, eyes blazing again. “For thirty-two centuries, I?a” He stopped and closed his
mouth tightly.
“Why?” the abbot whispered almost in awe. “Why do you take the burden of a people and its past upon
yourself alone?”
The hermit’s eyes flared a brief warning, but he swallowed a throaty sound and lowered his face into his
hands. “You fish in dark waters.”
“Forgive me.”
“The burden?ait was pressed upon me by others.” He looked up slowly. “Should I refuse to take it?”
The priest sucked in his breath. For a time there was no sound in the shanty but the sound of the wind. There
was a touch of divinity in this madness! Dom Paulo thought The Jewish community was thinly scattered in these
times. Benjamin had perhaps outlived his children, or somehow become an outcast. Such an old Israelite might
wander for years without encountering others of his people. Perhaps in his loneliness he had acquired the silent
conviction that he was the last, the one, the only. And, being the last, he ceased to be Benjamin, becoming Israel.
And upon his heart had settled the history of five thousand years, no longer remote, but become as the history of
his own lifetime. His “I” was the converse of the imperial “We.”
But I, too,runescape power leveling, am a member of a oneness, thought Dom Paulo, a part of a congregation and a continuity. Mine,
too, have been despised by the world. Yet for me the distinction between self and nation is clear. For you, old
friend, it has somehow become obscure. A burden pressed upon you by others? And you accepted it? What must
it weigh? What would it weigh for me? He set his shoulders under it and tried to heave,maplestory mesos, testing the bulk of it: I
am a Christian monk and priest, and I am, therefore, accountable before God for the actions and deeds of every
monk and priest who has breathed and walked the earth since Christ, as well as for the acts of my own.
He shuddered and began shaking his head.
No, no. It crushed the spine, this burden. It was too much for any man to bear, save Christ alone. To be
cursed for a faith was burden enough. To bear the curses was possible,cheap mabinogi gold, but then?ato accept the illogic behind the
curses, the illogic which called one to task not only for himself but also for every member of his race or faith, for
their actions as well as one’s own? To accept that too??aas Benjamin was trying to do?
No, no.
And yet, Dom Paulo’s own Faith told him that the burden was there, had been there since Adam’s time?aand
?85 312168 3

suffered a recurrence of the old gastric trouble, had brooded overmuch on the past as if looking for something
that might have been done differently in order to avert the future. What future? he demanded of himself. There
seemed no logical reason to expect trouble. The controversy between monks and villagers had all but died. No
signs of turmoil came from the herdsman tribes to the north and east. Imperial Denver was not pressing its
attempt to levy taxes upon monastic congregations. There were no troops in the vicinity. The oasis was still
furnishing water. There seemed no current threat of plague among animals or men. The corn was doing well this
year in the irrigated fields. There were signs of progress in the world, and the village of Sanly Bowitts had
achieved the fantastic literacy rate of eight per cent?afor which the villagers might,cheap world of warcraft gold, but did not, thank the monks
of the Leibowitzian Order.
And yet he felt forebodings. Some nameless threat lurked just around the corner of the world for the sun to
rise again. The feeling had been gnawing at him, as annoying as a swarm of hungry insects that buzzed about
one’s face in the desert sun. There was the sense of the imminent, the remorseless, the mindless; it coiled like a
heat-maddened rattler, ready to strike at rolling tumbleweed.
It was a devil with which he was trying to come to grips, the abbot decided, but the devil was quite evasive.
The abbot’s devil was rather small, as devils go: only knee-high, but he weighed ten tons and had the strength of
five hundred oxen. He was not driven by maliciousness as Dom Paulo imagined him, not nearly as much as lie
was driven by frenzied compulsion, somewhat after the fashion of a rabid dog. He bit through meat and bone and
nail simply because he had damned himself, and damnation created a damnably insatiable appetite. And he was
evil merely because he had made a denial of Good, and the denial had become a part of his essence, or a hole
therein. Somewhere, Dom Paulo thought,wow power leveling, he’s wading through a sea of men and leaving a wake of the maimed.
What nonsense, old man! he chided himself. When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not?
for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary. Oh there’s the devil,buy world of warcraft gold, all right, but let’s not
credit him with more than his damnable due. Are you that life-weary, old fossil?
But the foreboding lingered.
“Do you suppose the buzzards have eaten old Eleazar yet?” asked a quiet voice at his elbow.
Dom Paulo glanced around with a start in the twilight. The voice belonged to Father Gault, his prior and
probable successor. He stood fingering a rose and looking embarrassed for having disturbed the old man’s
solitude.
“Eleazar? You mean Benjamin? Why,runescape power leveling, have you heard something about him lately?”
“Well, no, Father Abbot” He laughed uneasily. “But you seemed to be looking toward the mesa, and I
thought you were wondering about the Old Jew.” He glanced toward the anvil-shaped mountain, silhouetted
against the gray patch of sky in the west. “There’s a wisp of smoke up there, so I guess he’s still alive.”
“We shouldn’t have to guess,” Dom Paulo said abruptly.
“I’m going to ride over there and pay him a visit.”
“You sound like you’re leaving tonight.” Gault chuckled.
“In a day or two.”
“Better be careful. They say he throws rocks at climbers.”
“I haven’t seen him for five years,” the abbot confessed. “And I’m ashamed that I haven’t. He’s lonely. I’ll
go.
“If he’s lonely, why does he insist on living like a hermit?”

thing in the heat shimmer.
While he had been waiting there for the robber, a debate had been in progress, higher on the side of the hill.
The debate had been conducted in whispered monosyllables, and had lasted for nearly an hour. Now the debate
was ended. Two-Hoods had conceded to One-Hood. Together,buy 9dragons gold, the Pope’s children stole quietly from behind their
brush table and crept down the side of the hill.
They advanced to within ten yards of Francis before a pebble rattled. The monk was murmuring the third
Ave of the Fourth Glorious Mystery of the rosary when he happened to look around.
The arrow hit him squarely between the eyes.
“Eat! Eat! Eat!” the Pope’s child cried.
On the trail to the southwest the old wanderer sat down on a log and closed his eyes to rest them against the
sun. He fanned himself with a tattered basket hat and munched his spice-leaf quid. He had been wandering for a
long time. The search seemed endless, but there was always the promise of finding what he sought across the
next rise or beyond the bend in the trail. When he had finished fanning himself, he clapped the hat back on his
head and scratched at his brushy beard while blinking around at the landscape. There was a patch of unburned
forest on the hillside just ahead. It offered welcome shade, but still the wanderer sat there in the sunlight and
watched the curious buzzards. They had congregated,age of conan power leveling, and they were swooping rather low over the wooded patch.
One bird made bold to descend among the trees,runescape power leveling, but it quickly flapped into view again, flew under power until it
found a rising column of air, then went into gliding ascent. The dark host of scavengers seemed to be expending
more than a usual amount of energy at flapping their wings. Usually they soared, conserving strength. Now they
thrashed the air above the hillside as if impatient to land.
As long as the buzzards remained interested but reluctant, the wanderer remained the same. There were
cougars in these hills. Beyond the peak were things even worse than cougars, and sometimes they prowled afar.
The wanderer waited. Finally the buzzards descended among the trees. The wanderer waited five minutes
more. At last he arose and limped ahead toward the forested patch, dividing his weight between his game leg and
his staff.
After a while he entered the forested area. The buzzards were busy at the remains of a man. The wanderer
chased the birds away with his cudgel and inspected the human remnants. Significant portions were missing.
There was an arrow through the skull, protruding at the back of the neck. The old man looked nervously around
at the brush. There was no one in sight, but there were plenty of footprints in the vicinity of the trail. It was not
safe to stay.
Safe or not, the job had to be done. The old wanderer found a place where the earth was soft enough for
digging with hands and stick. While he dug, the angry buzzards circled low over the treetops. Sometimes darting
earthward but then flapping their way skyward again. For an hour,9dragons gold, then two, they fluttered anxiously over the
wooded hillside.
One bird finally landed. It strutted indignantly about a mound of fresh earth with a rock marker at one end.
Disappointed, it took wing again. The flock of dark scavengers abandoned the site and soared high on the rising
?58 312168 3

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.”

“Wha-a-at?” Fingo swung a hairy shin over the jackass and dropped a few inches to the ground. He towered
over Brother Francis,runescape power leveling, clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder, and peered down into his face. “What is it; the
jaundice?”
“No. He thinks I’m?a” Francis tapped his temple and shrugged.
Fingo laughed. “Well, that’s true,buy wow gold, but we all knew that. Why is he sending you back?”
Francis glanced down at the box near his feet. “I found some things that belonged to the Blessed Leibowitz.
I started to tell him, but he didn’t believe me. He wouldn’t let me explain. He?a”
“You found what?” Fingo smiled his disbelief, then dropped to his knees and opened the box while the
novice watched nervously. The monk stirred the whiskered cylinders in the trays with one finger and whistled
softly. “Hill-pagan charms, aren’t they? This is old, Francisco, this is really old.” He glanced at the note in the lid.
“What’s this gibberish?” he asked, squinting up at the unhappy novice.
“Pre-Deluge English.”
“I never studied it, except what we sing in choir.”
“It was written by the Beatus himself.”
“This?” Brother Fingo stared from the note to Brother Francis and back to the note. He shook his bead
suddenly, clamped the lid back on the box, and stood up. His grin had become artificial. “Maybe Father’s right.
You better hike back and have Brother Pharmacist brew you up one of his toad-stool specials. That’s the fever,fiesta gold,
Brother.”
?20 312168 3
Francis shrugged, “Perhaps.”
“Where did you find this stuff?”
The novice pointed. “Over that way a few mounds. I moved some rocks. There was a cave-in, and I found a
basement. Go see for yourself.”
Fingo shook his head. “I’ve got a long ride ahead.”
Francis picked up the box and started toward the abbey while Fingo returned to his donkey,star wars credits, but after a few
paces the novice stopped and called back.
“Brother Spots?acould you take two minutes?”
“Maybe,” answered Fingo; “What for?”
“Just walk over there and look in the hole.”
“Why?”
“So you can tell Father Cheroki if it’s really there.”
Fingo paused with one leg half across his donkey’s back.
“Ha!” He withdrew the leg. “All right. If it’s not there, I’ll tell you.”
Francis watched for a moment while the gangling Fingo strode out of sight among the mounds; then he
turned to shuffle down the long dusty trail toward the abbey, intermittently munching corn and sipping from the
waterskin. Occasionally he glanced back. Fingo was gone much longer than two minutes. Brother Francis had