Free Starfishers Volume 1: Shadowline by Glen Cook Page B

managed that cold clerical principality called Festung Todesangst on Helga’s World. He and his daughter had just been assigned a potentially embarrassing piece of property.
    Mouse stared at his father’s back. Not even he could so cold-bloodedly order a death!
    “Blow Michael’s ship, too,” Storm ordered. “Make it look like Abhoussi got close enough for their fields to brush. Have Benjamin and Lucifer take care of it. It’s time they paid their dues.”
    The brothers Darksword seized the executive’s arms. They remained impassive as they marched the Blackworlder to his doom. They might have been two old gentlemen off for an afternoon stroll with a friend.
    Mouse’s guts twisted into a painful little knot.
    Storm turned his back on Dee. He whispered, “Cassius, just confine him on one of the manned outstations. Officially, he never arrived. Pass the word.”
    “This won’t buy more than a month,” Cassius replied. “Richard is damned mad. And the Blake outfit is touchy about its people.”
    Mouse sighed. His father was not a monster after all.
    “They’ll be realistic. They want us bad. Let’s stall and up their ante. I want a seat on their board and a percentage of their take on the Shadowline thing.”
    “You trying to price us out of the market?”
    “I don’t think I can. Keep an eye on the twins. We don’t need any more of their crap.”
    “Uhn.” Cassius followed the Darkswords and their victim.
    Storm departed a moment later. He left his son Thurston, the warhounds, and the ravenshrikes to watch Michael Dee.
    His eye narrowed in anger as he brushed by Mouse. He took a hitch-step, as if considering leaving his son with a few choice words about obedience. He changed his mind, resumed his angry stalk. Mouse’s failure to return to Academy was the least of his problems.
    Mouse sighed. There would be time for the idea to grow on his father. Time for Cassius to argue his case.
    He watched his father leave, frowning. What now? Pollyanna had fled along that corridor a moment ago. Why would his father be following her?
     
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Seventeen: 2844 AD
    The old man’s name was Jackson, but Deeth had to call him master. He was an outcast even among the descendants of escaped and discarded slaves. He lived in a fetid cave three miles from the animal village. He had parlayed a few sleight-of-hand tricks and a sketchy medical knowledge into a witch-doctor’s career. His insane temper and magic were held in awe by his client-victims, who were an utterly mean, degenerate people themselves.
    In less than a week Deeth knew that Jackson was a thorough fraud, that he was nothing but a lonely old man enraged by a world he believed had used him ill. His career was an attempt to get back. He was a sad, weak, pathetic creature, incontestably mad, and in his madness was utterly ruthless. Hardly a day passed when he did not torture Deeth for some fancied insult.
    He brewed a foul grain beer in the rear of his cave. There were hundreds of gallons in storage or process. Deeth had to keep a full mug ready at all times. Inevitably, Jackson was partially drunk. That did nothing to dampen his free-wheeling temper. But what Deeth found most repulsive were Jackson’s hygienic standards.
    He came near wretching often that first week. The old man refused to do more than stand and aim aside when he voided his bladder. He never bathed. The cave was more fetid than any animal’s den.
    He kept Deeth on a ten-foot leash knotted to choke at a tug. The boy soon learned that chokings had nothing to do with his efforts to please or displease. The old man yanked when he felt a need for amusement.
    For him the sight of a small boy strangling was the height of entertainment.
    Having identified a breakdown between cause and effect, Deeth abandoned efforts to satisfy Jackson. He did what he had to, and spent the rest of his time in sullen thought or quick theft.
    Jackson made no effort to feed him. Indeed, he flew into a rage whenever he