It is always impossible—he was conscious again with that strange clarity of mind—for a man to face his own death honestly. A man always continues to … - Andre Norton

From a gabled roof the rolling melon has two choices of descent, though both lead to disaster.

Treasure! That word, which had always been so exciting, meant something different now. Fafnir had taken the treasure and turned from man into monster because of his greed for it. Mimir, who had been Sigurd’s master and good friend—when the treasure had lain before him, he, too, became a monster, in another way. Then Sigurd had made his choice, to leave the evil, and so he had gone away a hero.

You can’t play the role of thug all over the galaxy and not store up in the subconscious a fine line of private fears and remembered enemies.