"Maybe he's safe at Arilinn, behind their force‑field.** Regis wished he could think so. His head was clear and he knew the sickness would not return, but the reappearance of the image of Sharra troubled him deeply. He had heard stories of out‑of‑control matrices, most of them from the Ages of Chaos, but some more recent. A cloud covered the sun and he shivered with cold.
Danflo said, "I think we should ride on, if youVe 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 dea."
"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 Danflo'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.1*
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?"
"I think not. We are well within the Domains by now; here you are safe, Lord Regis."
Regis lifted his eyebrows at the formal tone, suddenly realizing its import. In the isolation of the last days, in stress and extremity, all man‑made barriers had fallen; they were two boys the same age, friends, bredin. Now, in the Domains and before outsiders once again, he was the heir to Hastur, Danilo his paxman. He smiled a little ruefully, accepting the necessity of this, and let Danilo ride a few paces ahead. Looking at his friend's back, he thought with a strange shiver that it was literally true, not just a word: Dani would die for him.
It was a terrifying thought, though it should not have been so strange. He knew perfectly well that any one of the Guardsmen who had escorted him here and there when he was only a sickly little boy, or ridden with him to and from Nevarsin, were sworn by many oaths to protect him with their lives. But it had never been entirely real to him until Danilo, of his free will and from love, had given him that
pledge. He rode steadily, with the trained control he had been taught, but his back was alive with prickles and he felt the very hairs rise on his forearms. Was this what it meant, to be Hastur?
He could see the riders now. The first few wore the green‑and‑black uniform he had worn himself in the past summer. Comyn Guardsmen! And a whole group of others, not in uniform. But there were no banners, DO displays. This was a party of war. Or, at least, one prepared to fight!
Ordinary travelers would have drawn off the road, letting the Guardsmen pass. Instead Regis and Danilo rode straight toward them at a steady pace. The head Guardsman‑Regis recognized him now, the young officer Hjalmar‑lowered his pike and gave formal challenge.
"Who rides in the Domains‑" He broke off, forgetting the proper words. "Lord Regis!"
Gabriel Lanart‑Hastur rode quickly past him, bringing his horse up beside Regis. He reached both hands to him. "Praise to the Lord of Light, you are safe! Javanne has been mad with fear for you!"
Regis realized that Gabriel would have been blamed for letting him ride off alone. He owed him an apology. There was no time for it now. The riders surrounded them and he noted many members of the Comyn Council among Guardsmen and others he did not recognize. At the head of them, on a great gray horse, rode Dyan Ardais. His stern, proud face relaxed a little as he saw Regis, and he said in his harsh but musical voice, "You have given us all a fright, kinsman. We feared you dead or prisoner somewhere in the hills." His eyes fell on Danilo and his face stiffened, but he said steadily, "Dom Syrtis, word came from Thendara, sent by the Terrans and brought to us; a message was sent to your father, sir, that you were alive and well."
Danilo inclined his head, saying with frigid formality, "I am grateful, Lord Ardais." Regis could tell how hard the civil words came. He looked at Dyan with faint curiosity, surprised at the prompt delivery of the reassuring message, wondering why, at least, Dyan had not left it to a subordinate to give. Then he knew the answer. Dyan was hi charge of this mission, and would consider it his duty.
Whatever his personal faults and struggles, Regis knew, Dyan's allegiance to Comyn came first. Whatever he did, everything was subordinate to that. It had probably never occurred to Dyan that his private life could affect the honor of the Comyn. It was an unwelcome thought and Regis tried to reject it, but it was there nevertheless. And, even more disquieting, the thought that if Danilo had been a private citizen and not a cadet, it genuinely would not have mattered how Dyan treated or mistreated him.