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.Then the sun came up, and the temperature began torise.Fortunately, it wasn't as far to the mountains as Ihad imagined, and after I thought about it, I rememberedthat from the shore, you could only see about eighteenkilometers out to sea on Earth.Darconia was a muchlarger planet, which meant that its curvature was lessand you could see farther, but still, the base of thosemountains couldn't have been much more than thirty ki-lometers away.Even so, it was thirty kilometers across avery hot desert strewn with rocks and boulders.From a distance, that is.Up close, there was a wholelot more to it, and I saw plenty of tough-looking plantsand the occasional scuttling bit of wildlife.I'd alsoforgotten that there were mines in the mountains, and, consequently, there was a road of sorts leading in thatdirection with stone shelters built along the way.Ofcourse, anyone looking for us would have checked thoseplaces first, but as the morning wore on, I began to won-der if anyone was looking for us at all.It was possiblethat our enemies would assume that we would disappearinto the desert and die off, one by one, but I found thathard to believe, because the pursuit in the palace hadbeen pretty determined.If Wazak had heard anything over his comlink, hedidn't mention it, but kept us moving, though we didhave to stop twice to let the drayls have a rest.Ridinghad its obvious advantages, but the swaying gait of thedrayl was rather hypnotic and, having been up all night,I kept nodding off and was afraid I'd drop Uragus, so Iwound up handing him off to Racknay and Zealon again.Tychar, however, stayed awake and held me steadywhen I would have fallen.The journey would have beenmuch more difficult without him, and his arms aroundme helped keep me strong.We spoke very little, and Iwas left to wonder how he felt about being free after somany years of slavery.It could have been that he hadn'tcome to grips with the idea enough to talk about it yet.Or perhaps he didn't consider being on the run muchdifferent from being a slave.I kept those thoughts to myself, however, becausetalking would have made us that much more thirsty,and even while riding drayls and wearing our Bedouingarb, it was still hot as hell.I was sparing with mywater, and I hated to think how quickly I would havewilted had this flight to the mountains taken place afew months previously. The more we rode on without any pursuit or opposi-tion, the more convinced I became that we had to beriding into a trap.Dobraton had to know we'd head forthe mountains, but since the mountains were the chiefsource of the wealth of that region, she would undoubt-edly have done her best to seize control of them alongwith the city.Leaving the mines to us made little sense,though it was possible that she was just plain stupid andhadn't figured that out yet.Well, no, I decided.Closed-minded she might be, but she wasn't stupid at leastnot altogether.We were about halfway across the desert when thisnotion seemed to occur to Wazak, as well either that,or he was finally getting tired, because he began slow-ing down.I pushed my drayl to catch up to him."Getting tired?" I asked casually."We could all usea break, you know.""Perhaps," he replied."I have been.thinking.""Yeah, so have I, and I smell a rat.""A rat?""Mm-hm, either that, or something's rotten inDenmark.""Denmark?" he echoed."Why is Denmark signifi-cant?""Oh, stop being so dense!" I said, becoming exasper-ated."You know very well what I mean! Something'sjust not right about all of this! Someone should be comingafter us, and they're not!""I concur.""We got chased out of the palace, and now, nothing!It doesn't make any sense." "This is true," he agreed."It has been far too easy.""So, do you think we're heading into a trap?" I inquired."Or does Dobraton just not care what we do now?""I do not believe she considers us to be a threat to herany longer," he said."Possibly," I said hesitantly."But is that true? Arewe a threat? I mean, could we plan a counterattack andbe successful?"Wazak appeared puzzled by this notion, almost to thepoint that I thought he was only planning to get us tothe mountains and stay there, hiding out for the rest ofour lives."You are thinking about fighting back, aren't you?"I demanded."Surely you're not just going to take thislying down!" When he didn't reply, I went on to ask,"Tell me something, Wazak, has there ever been anoverthrow like this before?""Not for many centuries," he replied."Hmm, well, maybe Dobraton just doesn't know howto organize a decent coup [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Then the sun came up, and the temperature began torise.Fortunately, it wasn't as far to the mountains as Ihad imagined, and after I thought about it, I rememberedthat from the shore, you could only see about eighteenkilometers out to sea on Earth.Darconia was a muchlarger planet, which meant that its curvature was lessand you could see farther, but still, the base of thosemountains couldn't have been much more than thirty ki-lometers away.Even so, it was thirty kilometers across avery hot desert strewn with rocks and boulders.From a distance, that is.Up close, there was a wholelot more to it, and I saw plenty of tough-looking plantsand the occasional scuttling bit of wildlife.I'd alsoforgotten that there were mines in the mountains, and, consequently, there was a road of sorts leading in thatdirection with stone shelters built along the way.Ofcourse, anyone looking for us would have checked thoseplaces first, but as the morning wore on, I began to won-der if anyone was looking for us at all.It was possiblethat our enemies would assume that we would disappearinto the desert and die off, one by one, but I found thathard to believe, because the pursuit in the palace hadbeen pretty determined.If Wazak had heard anything over his comlink, hedidn't mention it, but kept us moving, though we didhave to stop twice to let the drayls have a rest.Ridinghad its obvious advantages, but the swaying gait of thedrayl was rather hypnotic and, having been up all night,I kept nodding off and was afraid I'd drop Uragus, so Iwound up handing him off to Racknay and Zealon again.Tychar, however, stayed awake and held me steadywhen I would have fallen.The journey would have beenmuch more difficult without him, and his arms aroundme helped keep me strong.We spoke very little, and Iwas left to wonder how he felt about being free after somany years of slavery.It could have been that he hadn'tcome to grips with the idea enough to talk about it yet.Or perhaps he didn't consider being on the run muchdifferent from being a slave.I kept those thoughts to myself, however, becausetalking would have made us that much more thirsty,and even while riding drayls and wearing our Bedouingarb, it was still hot as hell.I was sparing with mywater, and I hated to think how quickly I would havewilted had this flight to the mountains taken place afew months previously. The more we rode on without any pursuit or opposi-tion, the more convinced I became that we had to beriding into a trap.Dobraton had to know we'd head forthe mountains, but since the mountains were the chiefsource of the wealth of that region, she would undoubt-edly have done her best to seize control of them alongwith the city.Leaving the mines to us made little sense,though it was possible that she was just plain stupid andhadn't figured that out yet.Well, no, I decided.Closed-minded she might be, but she wasn't stupid at leastnot altogether.We were about halfway across the desert when thisnotion seemed to occur to Wazak, as well either that,or he was finally getting tired, because he began slow-ing down.I pushed my drayl to catch up to him."Getting tired?" I asked casually."We could all usea break, you know.""Perhaps," he replied."I have been.thinking.""Yeah, so have I, and I smell a rat.""A rat?""Mm-hm, either that, or something's rotten inDenmark.""Denmark?" he echoed."Why is Denmark signifi-cant?""Oh, stop being so dense!" I said, becoming exasper-ated."You know very well what I mean! Something'sjust not right about all of this! Someone should be comingafter us, and they're not!""I concur.""We got chased out of the palace, and now, nothing!It doesn't make any sense." "This is true," he agreed."It has been far too easy.""So, do you think we're heading into a trap?" I inquired."Or does Dobraton just not care what we do now?""I do not believe she considers us to be a threat to herany longer," he said."Possibly," I said hesitantly."But is that true? Arewe a threat? I mean, could we plan a counterattack andbe successful?"Wazak appeared puzzled by this notion, almost to thepoint that I thought he was only planning to get us tothe mountains and stay there, hiding out for the rest ofour lives."You are thinking about fighting back, aren't you?"I demanded."Surely you're not just going to take thislying down!" When he didn't reply, I went on to ask,"Tell me something, Wazak, has there ever been anoverthrow like this before?""Not for many centuries," he replied."Hmm, well, maybe Dobraton just doesn't know howto organize a decent coup [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]