Subject: STOCK ROCKETT NEWSLETTER

From: "Caleb Esparza" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 19:34:05 +0300

Ezra Parks

"Draupadi, you go to the rear," Quintus gave the shoulder he held a gentle pressure.Draupadi clapped her hands. The shadows remained. She raised her voice in a chant. The words faltered and came out hoarsely. The shadows flickered. She drew breath and sang the more strongly, clapped her hands once again, and they finally withdrew. She almost sagged with weariness, but caught herself.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.It was one of the Ch'in soldiers who had collapsed during the time when the earth shook and time past and time present blurred, seeking to blot out mind and body alike. The man's face was set in what would have been a mask for the theatre signifying panic. For if ever that god had laid his grip upon a man to steal sanity and breath, it was now.He grinned at Ganesha. "Fare forward, just as he told me last time.""Are you? We have tracked the Black Naacals to their lair. These-" he gestured at the rocks with their pinpoint torches, steady now, "-have not attacked us as the Black Naacals surely would have done. Therefore, it is not they, perhaps, who are our enemies-"Remember thou art mortal. Thou fool and slave!