Wisdom is the ability to believe only what you have to.-the Eye

Shadowspawn ranged through Sanctuary like a hungry tiger on the prowl.

His real name was Hanse and Hanse was mad. Better put, he was angry, but he was mad, too, in a manner of speaking: mad with anger. Shadowspawn was hardly the first or the last person to be driven into a sort of madness by anger. He had done heroic deeds: he had broken into the manse of that sorcerer and stolen the earring that saved Nadeesh's life and enabled Strick to buy the Vulgar Unicorn from the old physician. And then by all gods, by the will of Injustice Himself-that evil gnomish dwarf who was left hand of ever-fickle Lady Chance-the heroic Hanse had been hit by a stagger spell, punched by three big toughs, drugged, bound, gagged, and popped into a big cloth bag. He had been hauled down to the dock, hauled onto a ship, and dumped into its hold. Destination: slavery, in the Bandaran Isles.

Yet that did not happen. The next time Shadowspawn emerged from the shadowless sack and saw light he was in the murky keep of that most sinister of men, Jubal. Jubal had bought him. True, after some smirking and sneering and taunting Jubal had freed him, but not as an act of decency or in exchange for the pitiful price the crime lord had paid. Oh, no. He had named a ridiculous sum, close to sixteen pounds of gold, and Hanse's only choice had been to agree. A ridiculous, monumental sumfive hundred pieces of gold! Ridiculous!

Ole Jubal, Hanse thought, must have been thinking with his nose, not his brain. And he wants to take over peacekeeping in Sanctuary. Right. And put me in charge of guarding all the jewelers and shops.

At least Hanse knew now that one of his kidnappers had been Tarkle, whose main occupation was being a bully- And Hanse was just as sure that Tarkle with his brain borrowed from a minnow hadn't acted solely on his own. No, the mage Marype with his pretty silver tresses must have thought up the vengeful plan for the disposal of HanseIShadowspawn, a plan that truly did involve a fate worse than death and so was truly wicked, and clever. Marype probably paid Tarkle, too.