I came back heavier than I had ever come back.
The wake was the kind of wake that begins as awareness of weight rather than awareness of self.
My body was where it was supposed to be, attached at the joints, attached at the soul, the attachments better than they had been at any previous wake.
But, I was carrying a weight inside of me, of all the information I had earned, and the death I had paid for it.
I could almost hear the pulsing of Caelith Mourne, somewhere beyond the canvas of my tent.
In a short time, the pyramid would be breathing red across the sky.
Somewhere, a few dozen meters from where I lay, the cookfire was burning, and across the camp, Bari was alive, Dara was alive, and Aldis was cooking the bland abomination he calls porridge.
I let that be true for a moment without doing anything with it.
"Up, up, lazy cur. Elric, I say, wake up!"
Mel's voice. This silly phrase was the first sound I heard when I woke up.
