Danilo said, “I think we should ride on, if you’ve finished.” “Finished? I didn’t even start,” he said ruefully, tucking the matrix into his pocket again. “We’ll go on, but let me eat something first.” He accepted the chunk of dried meat Danilo handed him and sat chewing it. They were sitting side by side on a fallen tree, their horses cropping grass nearby through the melting snow. “How long have we been on the road, Dani? I lost count while I was sick.”
“Six days, I think. We aren’t more than a few days from Thendara. Perhaps tonight we’ll be within the outskirts of the Armida lands and I can send word somehow to my father. Lew told Beltran’s men to send word, but I don’t trust him to have done it.”
“Grandfather always regarded Lord Kermiac as an honorable man. Beltran is a strange cub to come from such a den.”
“He may have been decent enough until he fell into the hands of Sharra,” Danilo said. “Or perhaps Kermiac ruled too long. I’ve heard that the land which lives too long under the rule of old men grows desperate for change at any cost.”
Regis wondered what would happen in the Domains when his grandfather’s regency ended, when Prince Derik Elhalyn took his crown. Would his people have grown desperate for change at any cost? He was remembering the Comyn Council where he and Danilo had stood watching the struggle for power. They would not be watching, then, they would be part of it. Was power always evil, always corrupt?
Dani said, as though he knew Regis’ thoughts, “But Beltran didn’t just want power to change things, he wanted a whole world to play with.”
Regis was startled at the clarity of that and pleased again to think that, if the fate of their world ever depended on the Hasturs, he would have someone like Dani to help him with decisions! He reached out, gave Danilo’s hand a brief, strong squeeze. All he said was, “Let’s get the horses saddled, then. Maybe we can help make sure he doesn’t get it to play with.”
They were about to mount when they heard a faint droning, which grew to a sky-filling roar. Danilo glanced up; without a word, he and Regis drew and the horses under the cover of the trees. But the helicopter, moving steadily overhead, paid no attention to them.
“Nothing to do with us,” said Danilo when it was out of sight, “probably some business of the Terrans.” He let out his breath and laughed, almost in apology. “I shall never hear one again without fear!”
“Just the same, a day will come when we’ll have to use them too,” Regis said slowly. “Maybe the Aldaran lands and the Domains would understand each other better if it were not ten days’ ride from Thendara to Caer Donn.”
“Maybe.” But Regis felt Danilo withdraw, and he said no more. As they rode on, he thought that, like it or not, the Terrans were here and nothing could ever be as it was before they came. What Beltran wanted was not wrong, Regis felt. Only the way he chose to get it. He himself would find a safer way.
He realized, with astonishment and self-disgust, the direction his thoughts were taking. What had he to do with all that?
He had ridden this road from Nevarsin less than a year ago, believing then that he was without laran and free to shrug his heritage aside and go out into space, follow the Terran starships to the far ends of the Empire. He looked up at the face of Liriel, pale-violet in the noonday sky, and thought how no Darkovan had ever set foot even on any of their own moons. His grandfather had pledged to help him go, if Regis still wanted to. He would not break his word.
Two years more, given to the cadets and the Comyn. Then he would be free. Yet an invisible weight seemed to press him down, even as he made plans for freedom.
Danilo drew his horse suddenly to a stop.
“Riders, Lord Regis. On the road ahead.”
Regis drew even with him, letting his reins lie loose on his pony’s neck. “Should we get off the road?”