“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
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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
