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controller left no lasting ill effects. It was a
    remarkably effective instrument. He had worked in the mine for ten years and in all that time, he had
    never had to punish the same slave twice. It was a lesson learned once, but learned well. Picking up the
    shovel Number Four had dropped, Dain thrust it into his hands. "Move it." Jaw clenched in silent protest,
    Falkon took the shovel and turned back to the task at hand. He could feel the woman watching him, her
    eyes burning into his back. Damn her! Damn them all! The earth was hard and unyielding. The
    punishment had left him feeling weak and a little light-headed. He cursed viciously under his breath, his
    pride in shreds. It was humiliating enough to be a slave without her standing there, watching him writhing
    in agony in the dirt, helpless as a worm squirming on a hot rock. Why the hell didn't she go back into the
    house where she belonged? Time and again, he thrust the shovel into the earth, wishing the tool was a
    weapon, wishing that it was Drade at his feet. At last, he exposed the tree's roots. He was panting heavily
    now, plagued by a relentless thirst. Dain picked up his communicator and called the mine office. "Dagan?
    I need a couple of men up here to haul this tree away." He paused a moment, his gaze never leaving the
    prisoner. "Right. We'll be there in a few minutes. Out." With a mocking grin, Dain touched the left side of
    the controller, activating the magnets within the heavy lynaziam shackles on the prisoner's wrists. The
    bands snapped together with a sharp click. "Let's go," Dain said, jerking his head toward the path. "The
    hole awaits." Eyes forward, Falkon started down the path that led to the mine compound. He refused to
    look at the girl, but he could feel her gaze on his back, knew she was watching him with those enormous
    green eyes. He cursed her all the way down the hill. Solitary confinement. Falkon squatted in a corner of
    the hole, his head resting against the damp dirt wall at his back, his eyes closed. He had thought his cell
    the worst kind of prison, but he had been wrong. This was worse. Much worse. It was a hole he had dug
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    himself. A rough square, four feet wide, four feet deep. They had stripped him of his boots and breeches
    and ordered him inside, then covered the hole with a canopy made of thick ebonywood. A narrow slit in
    one corner allowed him just enough air to breathe. The earth beneath his feet was damp and cold. It was
    like being buried alive. They opened the hole once each day, just long enough to pass him a loaf of dark
    brown bread, a bowl of weak broth, and a cup of sour wine, and then he was left with his own company
    again, his own dismal thoughts. By the end of the first week, he could scarcely tolerate his own stink. The
    air in the hole reeked of excrement and sweat. During the day, he spent hours staring at the narrow
    ribbon of light that filtered through the slit in the wood. The sun pounding down on the thick black wood
    turned the hole into an oven. Sweat dripped down his body to puddle at his feet. The collar and manacles
    chafed his skin. At night, he huddled into a corner, his body shivering convulsively in an effort to warm
    itself. The close confines of the hole pressed in on him. He stared into the darkness that surrounded him,
    his hatred for the overseers, for the mine owners, for Drade, growing until he thought he might choke on
    it. In his imagination, he killed them all over and over again, devising new methods of torture, of
    execution. His favorite was to put them in the hole he now occupied and leave them to rot. All of them.
    The overseers. The couple who owned the mine, who now owned him, body and soul. Their servants.
    Their daughter, with her long silver-blond hair and eyes as green as the oceans of Daccar. Ashlynne. He
    muttered an oath, and then he swore aloud, unleashing a long string of the most foul