But surely our work still holds you, O Master. You have not become reconciled to the empty ferocity of death!
Sobe (speaks gently)
Ah, Maldor, our poisons lend their little flourishes merely to life. I would like to poison death.
Maldor (speaks aggrievedly)
But master, those cringing writhings, those indelicate squirmings and jocund acrobatics which our most fastidious poisons produce—what more tender satisfaction!
Sobe (listlessly)
They are but interludes leaving me languidly envious of death, my master.
Maldor (speaks with indignation)
You have no master! Your last poison of moth-blood produced an effect so exquisitely monstrous that even death was appalled. Ah, the bones of an old woman, dissolving within her, left her body, a loose grimace.
Sobe