Sanjay Patal—Demetrius Jaxon

Sanjay Patal and Demetrius Jaxon were divided over the Long Rides, a dispute that became both a family wound and a struggle over the leadership of the Household. Sanjay opposed the rides after his brother Raj was killed on one; Demetrius persisted, lost his position as Head, and eventually rode alone. The disagreement also influenced Demetrius’s plans for his sons and the contested succession that followed him.

The Long Rides and the Weapons Cache

The relationship comes into focus through Theo Jaxon’s account of his father’s journeys. Demetrius and Willem had discovered an underground weapons bunker at Twentynine Palms, an old Marine Corps base about two days’ ride away. The site held rifles, pistols, mortars, machine guns, grenades, vehicles, and even a couple of tanks. The vehicles would not run, and the heavier weapons could not be moved, so Demetrius and Willem transported rifles back to the station a cartload at a time. They made three trips before Willem was killed.

Demetrius did not keep the discovery wholly secret: Theo says he told their mother and a few others, and suggests that the Colonel and Old Chou probably knew. Zander knew because he was storing the weapons. But Sanjay was deliberately left out. Theo describes him as capable at his work yet firmly opposed to the rides, a judgment that connects Sanjay’s objection not to a lack of competence but to his political and personal opposition to Demetrius’s expeditions.

Raj’s Death and the Household Conflict

The rides had been a point of disagreement even before Raj’s death. Sanjay was already against them, and Raj’s decision to ride with Demetrius made the brothers’ existing bad blood worse. After Raj was killed, Sanjay’s opposition hardened. Theo says Sanjay turned the Household against Demetrius, voted him out as Head, and brought the rides to an end. Demetrius then stepped down and began riding alone.

This account gives the conflict a direct institutional consequence: opposition to Demetrius’s expeditions was translated into a change of leadership and a restriction on the journeys themselves. The family loss intensified an existing dispute, while the Household’s decision transformed it into a political defeat for Demetrius. The account does not establish every detail of the brothers’ earlier tensions, but it clearly identifies Raj’s death as the point after which the divide deepened.

Succession and the Rides’ Intended Revival

Later, Sanjay explains to Peter Jaxon that he opposed Demetrius’s decision to pass his Household seat to Theo. In Sanjay’s view, the position properly belonged to Dana Jaxon, the oldest Jaxon, who had declined it after her father was killed. He says some members believed Dana might have accepted had Demetrius not pressured her to stand aside. Sanjay presents this as a matter of legitimacy, but he also links the succession dispute to the family’s unresolved disagreement over the rides.

Sanjay says Demetrius never gave up the idea of the Long Rides, even after losing many men. He believes Demetrius wanted Theo on the Household so that Theo could revive them. The revelation reframes the earlier transfer of authority: Theo’s place may have been intended not merely as a family succession, but as a means of restoring the policy Sanjay had helped end. Sanjay and the Household have since agreed that Dana’s seat is rightfully hers, reopening the political question that Demetrius’s choice had appeared to settle.

Memory, Interpretation, and Peter’s Response

The account reaches Peter through two conversations rather than through Demetrius himself. Theo recounts the hidden weapons and the old conflict after a night on the Wall; later, Sanjay gives Peter his own interpretation of Demetrius’s decisions. The difference matters. Theo supplies family history, including Sanjay’s hostility after Raj’s death, while Sanjay describes the succession and the proposed revival of the rides from the standpoint of the Household’s current deliberations.

Peter is unsettled first by learning that his father had kept the weapons cache from him, and then by realizing Theo had also withheld the story. When Sanjay raises Dana’s claim, Peter becomes protective of Theo’s position, despite having been ready moments earlier to give the seat away. The disputed legacy therefore persists beyond Demetrius’s death: the rides remain a measure of competing ideas about risk, authority, and family duty, while Peter must decide how much of his father’s purpose to accept and how far to trust Sanjay’s account.