Death is painful only when it happens in one's bed, in sickness. In a fight for your life, you feel no pain. If you feel anything, it's exultation.

One of the most dramatic differences between civilized men and sorcerers is the way in which death comes to them. Only with sorcerer-warriors is death kind and sweet. They could be mortally wounded and yet would feel no pain. And what is even more extraordinary is that death holds itself in abeyance for as long as the sorcerers need it to do so. The greatest difference between an average man and a sorcerer is that a sorcerer commands his death with his speed.

In the world of everyday life our word or our decisions can be reversed very easily. The only irrevocable thing in our world is death. In the sorcerers' world, on the other hand, normal death can be countermanded, but not the sorcerers' word. In the sorcerers' world decisions cannot be changed or revised. Once they have been made, they stand forever.