A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

limited, because life could only walk onward, ever onward, the passage achieving little more than a stirring of dust in its wake.
    Sorrow grown bitter with despair, Trull sank down onto the thinly padded mattress, lay back and closed his eyes.
    The gesture served only to unleash his imagination, image after image sobbing to life with silent but inconsolable cries that filled his head.
    He reeled before the onslaught, and, like a warrior staggering senseless before relentless battering, he fell backward in his mind, into oblivion.
    Like a bed of gold in a mountain stream, a blurred gleam swimming before his eyes. Udinaas leaned back, only now fully feeling the leaden weight of his exhausted muscles, slung like chains from his bones. The stench of burnt flesh had painted his lungs, coating the inside of his chest and seeping its insipid poison into his veins. His flesh felt mired in dross.
    He stared down at the gold-studded back of Rhulad Sengar. The wax coating the form had cooled, growing more opaque with every passing moment.
    Wealth belongs to the dead, or so it must be for one such as me. Beyond my reach. He considered those notions, the way they drifted through the fog in his mind. Indebtedness and poverty. The defining limits of most lives. Only a small proportion of the Letherii population knew riches, could indulge in excesses. Theirs was a distinct world, an invisible paradise framed by interests and concerns unknown to everyone else.
    Udinaas frowned, curious at his own feelings. There was no envy. Only sorrow, a sense of all that lay beyond his grasp, and would ever remain so. In a strange way, the wealthy Letherii had become as remote and alien to him as the Edur. He was disconnected, the division as sharp and absolute as the one before him now – his own worn self and the gold-sheathed corpse before him. The living and the dead, the dark motion of his body and the perfect immobility of Rhulad Sengar.
    He prepared for his final task before leaving the chamber. The wax had solidified sufficiently to permit the turning over of the body. Upon entering this house, Rhulad's parents would expect to find their dead son lying on his back, made virtually unrecognizable by the coins and the wax. Made, in fact, into a sarcophagus, already remote, with the journey to the shadow world begun.
    Errant take me, have I the strength for this?
    The corpse had been rolled onto wooden paddles with curved handles that were both attached to a single lever. A four-legged ridge pole was set crossways beneath the lever, providing the fulcrum. Udinaas straightened and positioned himself at the lever, taking the Blackwood in both hands and settling on it the weight of his upper body. He hesitated, lowering his head until his brow rested on his forearms.
    The shadow wraith was silent, not a single whisper in his ear for days now. The blood of the Wyval slept. He was alone.
    He had been expecting an interruption through the entire procedure. Hannan Mosag and his K'risnan, thundering into the chamber. To cut off Rhulad's fingers, or the entire hands. Having no instructions to the contrary, Udinaas had sheathed the sword in wax, angled slightly as it reached down along the body's thighs.
    He drew a deep breath, then pushed down on the lever. Lifting the body a fraction. Cracks in the wax, a crazed web of lines, but that was to be expected. Easily repaired. Udinaas pushed harder, watching as the body began turning, edging onto its side. The sword's weight defeated the wax sheathing the blade, and the point clunked down on the stone platform, drawing the arms with it. Udinaas swore under his breath, blinking the sweat from his eyes. Plate-sized sheets of wax had fallen away. The coins, at least – he saw with relief – remained firmly affixed.
    He slipped a restraining strap over the lever to hold it in place, then moved to the corpse. Repositioning the sword, he nudged the massive weight further over in increments, until the balance shifted and the body thumped onto its back.
    Udinaas waited until he regained his breath. Another coating of wax was needed, to repair the damage. Then he could stumble out of this nightmare.
    A slave needn't think. There were tasks to be done. Too many thoughts were crawling through him, interfering with his concentration.
    He stumbled back to the hearth to retrieve the cauldron of wax.
    A strange snapping sound behind him. Udinaas turned. He studied the corpse, seeking the place where the wax had broken