Trail Of The Torean (Book 2) by Ron Collins Page A

about it made him want to explode. Added to this was the fact that Darien had clearly been smitten with the idea of joining Sunathri’s gang of mages. It was the subject of the first hour of his running monologue during the morning’s travel.
    Darien, apparently growing uncomfortable in Garrick’s silence, pressed on.
    “Do you think the orders will take Adruin?”
    “Who can say?”
    “What do you think their rule would be like?”
    Garrick looked at Darien.
    “You think I should have gone with Suni?”
    “I’m only asking what you think it would be like to live in a world run by the orders.”
    “It can’t happen.”
    “Why not?”
    “The orders can’t work together, Darien. You would understand if you were a mage.”
    “Don’t patronize me.”
    “Then stop worrying so much. The orders have power enough today, Darien, and people with power
don’t
make decisions that leave them at risk of losing what they have.”
    “I don’t believe that at all,” Darien replied.
    “You should believe it. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve grown up around men who do nothing but tend their own personal pools of power.”
    “And I haven’t?”
    “They suck on it like babies on teats,” Garrick said. “They will do whatever they need to do to retain it.”
    “Some, yes. But not all power corrupts. I’ve seen leaders stand for what is right. Those people make a difference. They change the world.”
    Garrick actually laughed. “You
do
think I should have gone with Suni.”
    “I’m just saying I’ve seen good leaders fight for just causes.”
    “And many of them are dead for it.”
    “Not all of them, though.”
    They rode in silence for a moment.
    “You speak the game of the downtrodden well, Garrick. But I see who you are. You could have faded into the streets like thousands of others, but instead you made a decision that brought you here. That has to mean something.”
    Garrick did not respond.
    A blanket of clouds covering the eastern horizon flickered with lightning and released a wave of thunder that rattled in Garrick’s chest.

    They made their last camp on this side of the mountain in a small cave.
    Darien removed his boots and bent to the task of roasting a rabbit. Once he was content with the meat’s progress, he put his feet to the fire and relaxed. A dark beard was beginning to fill in over his face. It gave him a sense of worldliness, and he seemed somehow stronger than he had when they first met.
    Garrick stripped his shirt off, and laid it on a rock to dry.
    Rain continued to fall outside the cave, but the fire warmed them and made Garrick feel better. Tomorrow they would enter the mountain pass that led to the Desert of Dust, home to Arderveer.
    “What’s
your
story?” Garrick said rather abruptly.
    “What’s that?” Darien replied.
    “If you’re so passionate about leaders and leading men, why are you here rather than following your father back in Dorfort?”
    Darien looked at him askew.
    Garrick waited.
    “We’ve been traveling over a week and only just now you’re asking that kind of question?”
    “Too soon?” Garrick said, grinning.
    Darien laughed.
    “My story’s probably the same as yours, Garrick. I want to be my own man.”
    Garrick stared at his partner, using a trick Alistair had used on business partners with great success—say nothing, but focus all attention on the person you want to speak.
    “My brother—Thale—died in the Rock Thorn Peaks,” Darien said.
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “No reason to be sorry. He died protecting people from Aarot-Meexor, the Rock Thorn king. He wanted to make a difference, and he did. Aarot-Meexor would have been a tyrant.”
    “Your example proves my point.”
    “How so?”
    “Lord Ellesadil controls Dorfort. He spent your brother’s life in pursuit of his goals, yet the lord is still sitting quite comfortably behind the walls of his beloved government central.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    “Sadly, I am