?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, 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,guild wars power leveling, 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, 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,guild wars power leveling, 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,age of conan gold, 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, the Utah. As a small child,l2 adena, 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,cheap l2 adena, 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, had formulated the nature of Brother Francis’ answer, which was: to
entertain the question itself,cheap rs gold, 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, 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,l2 power leveling, he was rather
extraordinary.”
“What ways?” Abbot Arkos asked sharply.
“Like-how straight he could spit. And he could read, 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,guild wars power leveling, and had thereby lost the right to make the
answer mandatory.
“Get out,” he said at last, 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,age of conan power leveling, 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, I wouldn’t know it if I had, 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,cheap gw gold, 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, 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,l2 adena, 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,aoc power leveling, 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, causing a brief shed of water.
“Oh, you’ve convinced me,maple power leveling, 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, although, Heaven knows,maple mesos, 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, I thought so. You told your fellow
novices about that part too? Yes,sto credits, 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,cheap sto credits, 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, under it?athere THIS was. Eh?”
“Yes, Dom Arkos.”
“What is your opinion of your own execrable vanity?”
“My execrable vanity is unpardonable,sro gold, 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,maple mesos,” he admitted. “You might have
made them yourself.”
“No, m’Lord.”
“Will you admit that you imagined the old creature?”
“Very well, 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,cheap maplestory mesos, tested it on his palm,maple mesos, then gave Francis a smart whack with it across the
buttocks.
“Deo gratias!” the novice dutifully responded, gasping slightly.
“Care to change your mind, my boy?”
“Reverend Father, I can’t deny?a”
WHACK!
“Deo gratias!”
“Benedicamus Domine.”
“Deo? gratias?” asked Francis.
“Come in, my boy, come in!” called an affable voice, which,cheap sto credits, after some seconds of puzzling, he recognized
with amazement to have been that of his sovereign abbot.
?23 312168 3
“You twist the little knob, my son,” said the same friendly voice after Brother Francis had stood frozen on
the spot for some seconds, with his knuckles still in position for knocking.
“Y-y-yes-” Francis scarcely touched the knob,maple mesos, but it seemed that the accursed door opened anyway; he had
hoped that it would he tightly stuck.
“The Lord Abbot s-s-sent for?ame?” squawked the novice.
Abbot Arkos pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “Mmmm?ayes, the Lord Abbot sent for?ayou. Do come in
and shut the door.”
Brother Francis got the door closed and stood shivering In the center of the room. The abbot was toying
with some of the wire-whiskered things from the old toolbox.
“Or perhaps it would be more fitting,” said Abbot Arkos, “If the Reverend Father Abbot were sent for by
you. Now that you have been so favored by Providence and have become so famous, eh?” He smiled soothingly.
“Heh heh?” Brother Francis laughed inquiringly. “Oh n-n-no, m’Lord.”
“You do not dispute that you have won overnight fame? That Providence elected you to discover THIS?a”
he gestured sweepingly at the relics on the desk “?athis ]UNK box, as its previous owner no doubt rightly called
it?”
The novice stammered helplessly, and somehow managed to wind up wearing a grin.
“You are seventeen and plainly an idiot, are you not?”
“That is undoubtedly true, m’Lord Abbot.”
“What excuse do you propose for believing yourself called to Religion?”
“No excuse, Magister meus.”
“Ah? So? Then you feel that you have no vocation to the Order?”
“Oh, I do!” the novice gasped.
“But you propose no excuse?”
“None.”
“You little cretin, I am asking your reason. Since you state none,silkroad online gold, I take it you are prepared to deny that you
met anyone in the desert the other day, that you stumbled on this-this JUNK box with no help, and that what I
have been hearing from others is only-feverish raving?”
“Oh, no, Dom Arkos!”
“Oh, no,star trek power leveling, what?”
“I cannot deny what I saw with my own eyes, Reverend Father.”
“So, you did meet an angel?aor was it a saint??aor perhaps not yet a saint??aand he showed you where to
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, 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,warhammer power leveling, 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,cheap warhammer gold, except your confessor or with me, although, 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,ffxi power leveling, 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, 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,buy swg credits, 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,final fantasy power leveling, 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, under it?athere THIS was. Eh?”
“Yes,buy lotro gold, 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,ffxi power leveling,” roared the sovereign
of the abbey.
“M’Lord,final fantasy power leveling, 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, 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, my boy?”
“Reverend Father, I can’t deny?a”
WHACK!
“Deo gratias!”
“Benedicamus Domine.”
“Deo? gratias?” asked Francis.
“Come in, my boy, come in!” called an affable voice, which, after some seconds of puzzling,ffxi power leveling, he recognized
with amazement to have been that of his sovereign abbot.
?23 312168 3
“You twist the little knob,warhammer online gold, my son,” said the same friendly voice after Brother Francis had stood frozen on
the spot for some seconds, with his knuckles still in position for knocking.
“Y-y-yes-” Francis scarcely touched the knob, but it seemed that the accursed door opened anyway; he had
hoped that it would he tightly stuck.
“The Lord Abbot s-s-sent for?ame?” squawked the novice.
Abbot Arkos pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “Mmmm?ayes, the Lord Abbot sent for?ayou. Do come in
and shut the door.”
Brother Francis got the door closed and stood shivering In the center of the room. The abbot was toying
with some of the wire-whiskered things from the old toolbox.
“Or perhaps it would be more fitting,” said Abbot Arkos, “If the Reverend Father Abbot were sent for by
you. Now that you have been so favored by Providence and have become so famous,buy lotr gold, eh?” He smiled soothingly.
“Heh heh?” Brother Francis laughed inquiringly. “Oh n-n-no, m’Lord.”
“You do not dispute that you have won overnight fame? That Providence elected you to discover THIS?a”
he gestured sweepingly at the relics on the desk “?athis ]UNK box, as its previous owner no doubt rightly called
it?”
The novice stammered helplessly, and somehow managed to wind up wearing a grin.
“You are seventeen and plainly an idiot, are you not?”
“That is undoubtedly true, m’Lord Abbot.”
“What excuse do you propose for believing yourself called to Religion?”
“No excuse, Magister meus.”
“Ah? So? Then you feel that you have no vocation to the Order?”
“Oh, I do!” the novice gasped.
“But you propose no excuse?”
“None.”
“You little cretin, I am asking your reason. Since you state none, I take it you are prepared to deny that you
met anyone in the desert the other day, that you stumbled on this-this JUNK box with no help, and that what I
have been hearing from others is only-feverish raving?”
“Oh, no,lotr gold, Dom Arkos!”
“Oh, no, what?”
“I cannot deny what I saw with my own eyes, Reverend Father.”
“So, you did meet an angel?aor was it a saint??aor perhaps not yet a saint??aand he showed you where to
the very burlap cloth they hooded Blessed Leibowitz with before they hanged him. And with what for a belt? A
rope. What rope? Ahh, the very same?a” He paused, looking at Cheroki. “I can tell by your blank look that you
haven’t heard this yet? No? All right, so you can’t say. No, no,cheap world of warcraft gold, Francis didn’t say that. All he said was?a” Abbot
Arkos tried to inject a slightly falsetto quality into his normally gruff voice. “All Brother Francis said was?a’I
met a little old man, and I thought he was a pilgrim heading for the abbey because he was going that way, and he
was wearing an old burlap sack tied around with a piece of rope. And he made a mark on the rock, and the mark
looked like this.’ ”
Arkos produced a scrap of parchment from the pocket of his fur robe and held it up toward Cheroki’s face in
the candle-glow. Still trying, with only slight success,buy runescape money, to imitate Brother Francis: ” ‘And I couldn’t figure out
what it meant. Do you know?’ ”
Cheroki stared at the symbols and shook his head.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Arkos gruffed in his normal voice. “That’s what Francis said. I didn’t know either.”
“You do now?”
“I do now. Somebody looked it up. That is a lamedh, and that is a sadhe. Hebrew letters.”
“Sadhe lamedh?”
“No. Right to left. Lamedh sadhe. An ell, and a tee-ess sound. If it had vowel marks, it might be ‘loots,”
‘lots,cheap eve isk,” ‘lets,” ‘lets,” ‘latz,” `litz’-anything like that. If it had some letters between those two, it might sound like
Lllll?aguess-who.”
“Leibo-Ho, no!”
“Ho, yes! Brother Francis didn’t think of it. Somebody else thought of it. Brother Francis didn’t think of the
burlap hood and the hangman’s rope; one of his chums did. So what happens? By tonight, the whole novitiate is
buzzing with the sweet little story that Francis met the Beatus himself out there, and the Beatus escorted our boy
over to where that stuff was and told him he’d find his vocation.”
A perplexed frown crossed Cheroki’s face. “Did Brother Francis say that?”
“NOO!” Arkos roared. “Haven’t you been listening? Francis said no such things. I wish he had, by gum; then
I’d HAVE the rascal! But he tells it sweet-and-simple, rather stupidly, in fact, and lets the others read in the
meanings. I haven’t talked to him myself. I sent the Rector of the Memorabilia to get his story.”
“I think I’d better talk to Brother Francis,” Cheroki murmured.
“Do! When you first came in, I was still wondering whether to roast you alive or not. For sending him in, I
mean. If you had let him stay out there on the desert, we wouldn’t have this fantastic twaddle going around. But,
on the other hand, if he’d stayed out there, there’s no telling what else he might have dug out of that cellar. I think
you did the right thing, to send him in.”
Cheroki, who had made the decision on no such basis, found silence to be the appropriate policy.
“See him,” growled the abbot. “Then send him to me.”
It was about nine on a bright Monday morning when Brother Francis rapped timidly at the door of the
abbot’s study. A good night’s sleep on the hard straw pallet in his old familiar cell, plus a small bite of unfamiliar
breakfast, had not perhaps done any wonders for starved tissue or entirely cleared the sun-daze from his brain,
but these relative luxuries had at least restored him to sufficient clarity of mind to perceive that he had cause to
be afraid. He was,l2 power leveling, in fact, terrified, so that his first tap at the abbot’s door went unheard. Not even Francis could
hear it. After several minutes, he mustered the courage to knock again.
