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Reaching the first landing, Shurq stepped close to the door, then paused Motionless A tripas set along the seam of the door, locked in place by the last servant to use the passage Sometimes the simplest alarms succeeded where more elaborate ones failed, if only because the thief was over-anticipating the complication She released the mechanism and turned the latch

Into another servants’ passage, running parallel to the for a typical layout for Gerun’s estate She found the lone door where she expected, on the right at the far end Another tripwire to release, then she stepped through The hallas unlit, which was clever Three doors along the opposite wall, the rooht

She was fairly certain she had found Gerun Eberict’s private quarters Barely detectable in the glooils painted on the nearest door

Shurq edged closer to study those symbols

And froze as a dull voice spoke from down the corridor ‘It was incompetence Or so he says And now I’m supposed to make it up to hiure, sprawled back with legs stretched out, head tilted to one side

‘You’re dead,’ the man said

‘Is that a pro we have in common,’ he answered ‘That doesn’t happen to me much, any more’

‘I know just how you feel So, Gerun has you here guarding his rooms’

‘It’s my penance’

‘For incompetence’

‘Yes Gerun doesn’t fire people, you know He kills thery he is, either buries them or keeps them on for a time I suppose he’ll buryyour soul?’

‘He often forgets about that part’

‘I’ he has’

‘If you were living I would of course kill you in soet up fro the air I’d ry to sink my teeth into your throat’

‘That would certainly prove sufficient to deter a thief A living one, that is’

‘It would, and I’d probably enjoy it, too’

‘But I’, am I?’

‘No But I have one question for you and it’s an iht Ask it’

‘Why, since you’re dead, do you look so good? Who cut your hair? Why aren’t you rotting away likemake-up? Why are the whites of your eyes so white? Your lips so glossy?’

Shurq was silent a moment, then asked, ‘Is that your one question?’