excerpts of a conversation

*Malaikat : I heard that one couple managed to slip past the Pages just before the fullmoon. Paid a most impressive amount of gold to the King too. Are you getting weak, Samiri, or are your Pages not doing what you told them to?

*Samiri : Who told you that?

*Malaikat : You know the weather-trader from the old city? He works for the King of King Cobras. He said he saw the gold change hands 2 nights ago. I wonder if that's what has been haunting you, Samiri... the old city was built to replicate the tomb of the Djins...

Maybe that's what you've been dreaming about, that old snake bite still carries its venom.

*Samiri : Will you just shut up?

*Malaikat : What's the matter? Finish it already so we can move on to other things. Yet if you insist on it, for heaven's sake... get it over and done with. Your wallowing around the snake pit is getting to be quite the waste of time.