Book 1 - Shadowline by Glen Cook

in sullen thought or quick theft.
    Jackson made no effort to feed him. Indeed, he flew into a rage
whenever he caught the boy pilfering from their meager larder.
Nearly every meal cost Deeth a choking or beating.
    He learned to endure in Jackson’s cruel school. He began
to learn the meaning of his father’s and Rhafu’s
admonitions about taking the long view, about thinking before
acting.
    His initial lesson was the most painful, degrading, and
effective. It came as the result of his first ill-considered
attempt at flight, undertaken in sheer animal need to escape an
intolerable situation.
    His third night in the cave, after he had recovered from the
immediate trauma of the station’s destruction, but before he
had become accustomed to maltreatment by the old man, he remained
awake long after Jackson sent him whining to the moldy leaf pile
designated as his bed. Jackson, seated in a rude homemade chair,
drank and drank and eventually appeared to slip away into drunken
sleep.
    And Deeth waited, forcing himself to lie still despite a
heart-pounding eagerness to be away. Hours trooped by in regiments.
The last tiny flames of the cookfire died, leaving a small mound of
nervously glowing embers.
    He rose quickly, quietly, tried to untie the knot at his neck.
His shaking fingers would not cooperate. He could not work a single
loop of the tangle free. He crept softly to the old man’s
chair. The nether end of his leash was knotted around its leg.
    The smaller knot, though only a simple clove hitch, defied him
for several minutes. Jackson’s proximity petrified him. His
fingers became rigid, shaking prods.
    He kept reminding himself that Rhafu had gone raiding at his
age, that he was the first-born son of a Head, that he was
heir-apparent to one of the oldest and greatest Families. He should
have more courage than a common, possessionless Sangaree hireman.
He made a litany of it, running it over and over in his mind.
    On Homeworld he had been taught to give fear a concrete
character, to make it an object to be fought. His choice of object
was obvious. The old man was such a malign presence, so filled with
evil promise . . . 
    The knot came free. He sprinted for the cave mouth. The rope
trailed . . . 
    The loop around his throat jerked tight, cut off his wind, and
snapped him to a halt. He went down, clawing wildly at his
neck.
    Jackson, good foot firm on the line, cackled madly. He seized a
cane and began beating Deeth, pausing to jerk the neck loop tight
whenever Deeth worked it loose enough to gasp.
    Jackson’s amusement and strength finally faded. He tied
Deeth’s wrists together and passed the rope through a natural
grommet in the cave roof. Up the boy went.
    He hung like a punching bag for two long days. Jackson subjected
him to every torment his dim mind could imagine, including a foul
wanting-to-be-loved, ineffectual homosexual pederasty. And through
all those endless hours he whined, “Thought you’d leave
poor old Jackson here alone, eh? You Sangaree whelp, don’t
you know you can’t outwit a real man?”
    Deeth was petrified. How could the old man know?
    Eventually he would learn that Jackson was a reject slave who
had understood his frightened outburst the night of his
capture.
    Through the pain and despair came the knowledge that he would
have to degrade himself further to survive. He had to ingratiate
himself lest the old man reveal his origins in the village.
    When Jackson performed a kindness it was for profit or by
oversight. Whichever applied, he never mentioned Deeth’s
background.
    Hanging, aching, despairing, Deeth had time to reflect on the
teachings of his elders. He began to understand the meaning of
patience.
    The old man did not break him. Maybe Deeth did not crack because
the idea was too alien. He could not do what he did not know how to
do.
    On Homeworld they had a saying, “He’s
Sangaree.” It meant, “He’s a real man,”
only more so. It had overtones of unyielding