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border into Gharn, where they chanced upon Nathis’ shop. Laughing, they pushed him around and ransacked his wares, sliced tack, defecated on new saddles and burned his tools in the fire pit. When Klast’s father drew a knife to defend himself, they handily took it from him and killed him with it.
    Klast came upon the murder just as he returned from the village with bread and meat. Hearing the laughter and clamour, he ran the last of the way home as quickly as he could. His father’s last words to him were a hoarse, “Run, boy, run!” through the red foam between his lips.
    Too late. Before he could turn away, one of the hooligans grabbed him by the tunic and held him aloft in a vice-like grip. He shook Klast, laughing, “Look what I found. A scrawny cockerel who thinks he is a rooster! What shall we do with this one? He can’t be left to tell. Do we gut him? Or can he still prove profitable?”
    They trussed him, threw him in front of the leader’s saddle and returned across the border into Lieth. There they sold him to a man named Rand, known to have uses for young, pretty boys.
    Klast hated his new owner. Rand was a tall man, slack from inactivity and doughy from self-indulgence. His skin always bore a sheen of sweat and grease, his cheeks and jowls shook when he spoke and his lips pursed wetly even when at rest. He proved to be a sadist who considered it a point of pride that he could make any man, boy, woman or girl weep. Fear aroused him.
    It was for this reason that he soon lost interest in Klast. The boy quickly recognized what increased his captor’s enjoyment and schooled himself not to react.
    He observed the same arousal with others in Rand’s menagerie, boys, girls and young men alike. He felt certain, too, that not all who disappeared from the place left alive. So he schooled himself to stony indifference. The less he reacted, the less Rand took interest in him.
    When Rand realized that Klast could not be broken like the others, he hobbled him with ankle chains and made him his house boy. Klast became part of the furniture. All the while, he watched, learned and waited for the chance to escape. That opportunity did not come for more than two years.
    During the nights, when Klast found himself alone in the dark, he worked at his chain, until he wore one link so thin he was sure a good blow would sever it and he would be able to run.
    Rand employed a cook named Klee, almost as twisted as he was, who entrusted him with the keys to the cells at feeding time.
    Klast promised himself that, if and when the opportunity came to escape, he would somehow manage to leave the cells unlocked. He could not save anyone else, but perhaps some might still have enough courage to run.
    On a midwinter evening Rand had a visitor. This Drell eyed Klast several times and eventually made an offer for him.
    One last time, Klee called Klast to feed the others and handed him the keys. Here was the opportunity he had waited for. He left all the cells unlocked, and calmly returned the keys.
    Rand called him into the study and passed Klast a ragged, grey blanket and a pair of low boots two sizes too large and shoved him over to Drell with a cruel laugh. “He be a silent one.”
    Drell ordered Klast to lie down in the back of the open carriage and cover up with the blanket so he would not be seen. Klast scrambled in awkwardly, doing his best to appear spiritless. Drell fell for the ruse and did not bother to tie him, but hauled himself up onto the driver’s seat and took the reins.
    When Klast deemed he had waited long enough, he managed to roll out the back of the carriage, the blanket still wrapped around him. He stifled a grunt of pain as he hit the road, and he made himself roll over in the snow until he bumped against the trunk of a tree. Only then did he lower the blanket from his head. The carriage had not stopped. Good. He took stock. The trees thickened to his right. He crawled deeper into the thicket and stopped under