versions became nearly illegible after a time, due to the impermanence of the inks employed. He had not the
slightest notion why the ancients had used white lines and lettering on a dark background, in preference to the
reverse. When he roughly resketched a design in charcoal, thereby reversing the background, the rough sketch
appeared mere realistic than the white-on-dark, and the ancients were immeasurably wiser than Francis; if they
had taken the trouble to put ink where blank paper would ordinarily be, and leave slivers of white paper where an
inked line would appear in a straightforward drawing, then they must have had their reasons. Francis recopied
the documents to appear as nearly like the originals as possible?aeven though the task of spreading blue ink
around tiny white letters was particularly tedious, and quite wasteful of ink, a fact which caused Brother Horner
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to grumble.
He copied an old architectural print, then a drawing for a machine part whose geometry was apparent but
whose purpose was vague. He redrew a mandala abstraction, titled “STATOR WNDG MOD 73-A 3-PH 6-P
1800-BPM 5-HP CL-A SQUIRREL CAGE,” which proved completely incomprehensible, and not at all capable
of imprisoning a squirrel, The ancients were often subtle; perhaps one needed a special set of mirrors in order to
see the squirrel. He painstakingly redrew it anyhow.
Only after the abbot, who occasionally passed through the copyroom, had seen him working at another
blueprint at least three times (twice Arkos had paused for a quick look at Francis’ work), did he summon the
courage to venture to the Memorabilia files for the Leibowitz blueprint,aoc power leveling, nearly a year after beginning his free-
time project.
The original document had already been subjected to a certain amount of restorative work. Except for the
fact that it bore the name of the Beatus, it was disappointingly like most of the others he had redrawn.
The Leibowitz print, another abstraction, appealed to nothing, least of all to reason. He studied it until he
could see the whole amazing complexity with his eyes closed but knew no more than he had known before. It
appeared to be no more than a network of lines connecting a patchwork of doohickii, squiggles, quids, laminulae,
and thingumbob. The lines were mostly horizontal or vertical, and crossed each other with either a little jump-
mark or a dot; they made right-angle turns to get around doohickii, and they never stopped in mid-space but
always terminated at a squiggle, quiggle, quid, or thingumbob. It made so little sense that a long period of staring
at it produced a stupefying effect. Nevertheless he began work at duplicating every detail,daoc platinum, even to the copying of
a central brownish stain which he thought might be the blood of the Blessed Martyr, but which Brother Jeris
suggested was only the stain left by a decayed apple core.
Brother Jeris,daoc gold, who had joined the apprentice copyroom at the same time as Brother Francis, seemed to enjoy
teasing him about the project. “What, pray,” he asked, squinting over Francis” shoulder, “is the meaning of
“Transistorized Control System for Unit Six-B,” learned Brother?”
“Clearly, it is the title of the document,buy world of warcraft gold,” said Francis, feeling slightly cross.
“Clearly. But what does it mean?”
“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
