Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 21:10:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Tenandys Qural <beattier@river.it.gvsu.edu>
Subject: The Qural Halloween Special Part Three.
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[Continues...]

	There had to be a way out.  Some way to get to the tunnels that 
ran beneath the park.  From his position of relative safety, he 
scrutinized the shrine, doing his best to visualize the structure against 
the schematic that he half-remembered.
	It seemed to him that his best chance would be the center stone.  
It raised from the floor of the shrine, a decimeter high platform of 
polished black marble that looked for all the world like a crypt seal.  
There was something engraved into it, but it was a little beyond Qural's 
current grasp of linguistics.  It seemed very familiar...
	The stone probably _was_ a crypt seal, he decided.  And the 
tunnels beneath it were likely ancient catacombs.  Not precisely his 
favorite venue, but he doubted that the mob would follow him into a place 
of the dead.
	Probably there was some elaborate mechanism that would open the 
crypt.  And given a little bit of time, Tenandys would have looked for 
it.  But with an angry mob gathering bloodlust and courage just a short 
distance away, he wasn't going to waste time looking.  Not when there was 
a far more expedient method.
	"VX, release."
	The muted sound of working servomotors and subtle clicks issued 
from his arm, and a hidden panel popped open.  In the recess beneath was 
his prized Kyanin lightsaber.  During his flight from the moff, he had 
been forced to strip the internal mechanisms from the arm and hide the 
saber there as added insurance in his final confrontation with the Moff.  
When he had gotten the opportunity, he had retooled the entire arm, eking 
out just enough space for the saber housing and the closing mechanism.  
It had proven very useful in sticky situations like what was developing 
currently.
	He lifted the saber free, feeling his body falling into the 
combat trance that he had been conditioned into long before.  Distantly, 
he noticed the cybernetic mechanisms closing back up, his perceptions 
taking on the edgy feel that a battle required.  He had no intention of 
actually going into combat, but there was also no reason not be prepared 
for such an outcome.
	Tenandys ignited the lightsaber, its garnet blade humming into 
life before him.  Beyond, he heard a few scattered gasps rise from the 
crowd.  He rolled his eyes in mild disgust, wonderin why a weapon as old 
as civilization itself could cause this sort of stir.  Enculturation, he 
imagined.  It surprised him on some level, but he couldn't spare the 
attention currently.
	He brought the saber back and around in a snapping arc, striking 
the center of the stone.  As the blade connected, time seemed to lock, 
freezing at the instant of the strike.
	Light flooded the engraving, bursting forth with explosive 
intensity.  Qural felt himself being lifted and thrown backward by the 
power behind the light, and as he did, a strange perception clicked into 
place.
	He knew what the alien language said.  He understood the words 
and knew that any foreboding he might have experienced before was well 
grounded.
	His only question was why something like this would be here, of 
all places, in the center of a sizable city on a well populated world.  
By rights, it should have been on a desolate moon somewhere, forgotten 
and lost to civilization.  So that something like this would not have 
happened.
	Tenandys hit one of the marble pillars and collapsed into a heap 
on the ground, wondering what in the seven hells he would do now.  The 
significance of the words was not lost on him.
	"That is not dead which can eternal lie,/ And with strange aeons, 
even death may die..."
	Not even Geist could have foreseen this...

[To be continued...]

	Tenandys