[Rabbit-proxy-users] Neew Breed Equity Report
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[Rabbit-proxy-users] Neew Breed Equity Report
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From: Lewis B. <bas...@li...> - 2006-10-28 07:43:36
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<HTML><head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head><body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Nanette Ott <img hspace=0 src="cid:6RD88YBZP1QST6T5RGDS" align=baseline><BR><BR><BR><BR> <DIV>"Your man was mad already. Being mad, he could be worked on to believe, and his belief killed him. I have removed the illusion for now, but I warn you: When you are weariest and weakest, they will strike again."The very stillness of the waste and the soldiers' awe in the presence of those gleaming white robes silenced him for the moment."Or they could be souls in torment!" Draupadi flared. "At the Stone Tower, you know what you saw. You saw what the Dark Ones do. Terror and suffering are their servants, but they have human slaves as well." But it was Ganesha who answered. "We go forward. Always forward." A beam of sunlight seemed to shoot beneath the arch and strike the Eagle. How it glowed! He almost believed that it would wake, mantle, and call out.After silver, lead. A weariness seized Quintus's limbs. He had time enough to signal a halt and sink the standard of the Eagle deep into the ever-present grit, securing it so whatever protection it might afford would lie over the camp they would now, in the dark of the moon, permit themselves to build. After such a passage, it was time for them to sleep.Draupadi murmured sorrowfully. She stepped forward, Ganesha following her. Quintus moved as if to accompany them, but she gestured him to remain in place the way he would command one of his Legionaries.Quintus fought not to think of the image of the arch that thrust itself so insistently into his consciousness. Draupadi would tell him that this was illusion, the sort that thrust a man from his wits and off the nearest cliff- or that left him prey to the Black Naacals. The Eagle's staff warmed in his hands, a warmth that ran up from his hand to his shoulder and down into his spine. For a madman, he felt surprisingly well.Then the lights stopped. And waited.THE TREMORS THAT had cracked the ancient sea basin through which they had marched for so long had dealt more gently with the land here-or perhaps some lingering virtue of the White Naacals had spared it from the worst of the devastation. Perhaps he had picked the memory from Draupadi's thoughts. The water here had been shallow, tricky for mariners. He could all but smell the salt, hear the snap of commands and the song of ropes as a ship neared port, coming about sharply before the arch. Water ... desire possessed him."They could be spies-" Ssu-ma Chao suggested.All the Romans feared death, feared the worse-than-death they had seen. And he feared losing what had become precious to him. But Lucilius-he feared making the decision to which he had been pushed and which he could no longer put off.He stood watching as his ship came about between two rocky peaks of some dark stone that glinted in the sunlight and the light reflected from the changeable sea. But those were not just rocks jutting out from the expanse of the sea or markers indicating that the waters round-about might be treacherous for the uninitiated. Art, science, and craft had labored over them for many years, building piers at their bases and climbing steps up their hard surfaces to platforms that held beacons and gongs to guide ships home and warn off the unwelcome. And, at the rocks' highest crags, engineers had wrought long and skillfully: A triumphal arch joined two of the peaks, with scenes of the Motherland's history sculpted in high relief. </DIV> </BODY></HTML> |
