“investigator.” The Dominican seemed a rather mild-humored man, and was not carrying any visible engines of
torture.
“We expect the case for canonization of your founder to be reopened soon,” the messenger explained. “Your
Abbot Arkos is a very wise and prudent man.” He chuckled. “By turning the relics over to another Order for
examination, and by having the shelter sealed before it was fully explored?aWell, you do understand, don’t
you?”
“No, Father. I had supposed he thought the whole thing too trivial to spend any time on.”
The Black Friar laughed. “Trivial? I think not. But if your Order turns up evidence, relics, miracles, and
whatever, the court has to consider the source. Every religious community is eager to see its founder canonized.
So your abbot very wisely told you: “Hands off the shelter.’ I’m sure it’s been frustrating for all of you, but?a
better for the cause of your founder to let the shelter be explored with other witnesses present.”
“You’re going to open it again?” Francis asked eagerly.
“No,buy runescape money, not I. But when the court is ready, it will send observers. Then anything that is found in the shelter that
might affect the case will be safe, in case the opposition questions its authenticity. Of course, the only reason for
suspecting that the contents of the shelter might affect the cause is?aWell, the things you found.”
“May I ask how that is, Father?”
“Well, one of the embarrassments at the time of the beatification was the early life of Blessed Leibowitz?a
before he became a monk and a priest. The advocate for the other side kept trying to cast doubt on the early
period, pre-Deluge. He was trying to establish that Leibowitz never made a careful search?athat his wife might
even have been alive at the time of his ordination. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, of course; sometimes
dispensations have been granted?abut that’s beside the point. The advocatus diaboli was just trying to cast doubt
on your founder’s character. Trying to suggest that he had accepted Holy Orders and taken vows before being
certain his family responsibility was ended. The opposition failed, but it may try again. And if those human
remains you found really are?a” He shrugged and smiled.
Francis nodded. “It would pinpoint the date of her death.”
“At the very beginning of the war that nearly ended everything. And in my own opinion?awell,silkroad gold, that
handwriting in the box, it’s either that of the Beatus or a very clever counterfeit.”
Frauds reddened.
“I’m not suggesting that you were involved in any counterfeit scheme,cheap silkroad online gold,” the Dominican added hastily, upon
noticing the blush.
The novice, however,shaiya money, had only been remembering his own opinion of the scrawl.
?35 312168 3
“Tell me, how did it happen??ahow you located the site, I mean. I’ll need the whole story of it.”
“Well, it started because of the wolves.”
The Dominican began taking notes.
A few days after the messenger’s departure from the abbey, Abbot Arkos called for Brother Francis. “Do

Trying to keep any hint of a question mark out of his tone, Arkos droned: “Just an old man. Nothing more.
We’re sure of that now.”
“I think it was just an old man,silkroad gold, too.”
Father Arkos reached wearily for the hickory ruler.
WHACK!”
“Deo . . .”
As Francis returned to his cell, the abbot called after him down the corridor: “By the way, I intended to
mention…”
“Yes, Reverend Father?”
“No vows this year,” he said absently, and vanished into his study.
7
Brother Francis spent seven years in the novitiate, seven Lenten vigils in the desert, and became highly
proficient in the imitation of wolf calls. For the amusement of his brethren, he summoned the pack to the vicinity
of the abbey by howling from the walls after dark. By day, he served in the kitchen, scrubbed the stone floors,
and continued his classroom study of antiquity.
Then one day a messenger from a seminary in New Rome came riding to the abbey on an ass. After a long
conference with the abbot, the messenger sought out Brother Francis. He seemed surprised to find that youth,
now fully a man, still wearing the habit of a novice and scrubbing the kitchen floor.
?34 312168 3
“We have been studying the documents you discovered, for some years now,” he told the novice. “Quite a
few of us are convinced they’re authentic.”
Francis lowered his head. “I’m not permitted to mention the matter, Father,” he said.
“Oh, that.” The messenger smiled and handed him a scrap of paper bearing the abbot’s seal, and written in
the ruler’s hand: Ecce Inquisitor Curiae. Ausculta et obsequere. Arkos, AOL, Abbas.
“It’s all right,” he added hastily, noticing the novice’s sudden tension. “I’m not speaking to you officially.
Someone else from the court will take your statements later. You know,wow power leveling, don’t you,sro gold, that your papers have been in
New Rome for some time now? I just brought some of them back.”
Brother Francis shook his head. He knew less, perhaps, than anyone, concerning high-level reactions to his
discovery of the relies. He noticed that the messenger wore the white habit of the Dominicans,cheap daoc platinum, and he wondered
with a certain uneasiness about the nature of the “court” whereof the Black Friar had spoken. There was an
inquisition against Catharism in the Pacific Coast region, but he could not imagine how that court could be
concerned with relics of the Beatus. Ecce Inquisitor Curiae, the note said. Probably the abbot meant

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!”