+SEER+ was the thought that Cullen caught. +YES+ he answered. The balance of power in the room had changed utterly for him when he understood the direction of what had been said. Menders, Finders, even Healers were to be found among the Clouds-and if Lok-iKol was hunting the Marked, that was reason enough for him to help kill the man. But a Seer. His mother had spoken of one that had been known in her mother’s day. Cullen had no more hoped to be in the same room as a Seer than he would have hoped to fly without Disha.
We are here for you, Seer, he thought, knowing that Disha heard him and agreed. My soul and I. Yours is the lead we follow. He and his soul turned their attention back to the man speaking.
“That need not preclude our using that entrance, though we would lose the element of surprise,” Alkoryn Pantherclaw was saying, tapping his gnarled index finger on the plans in front of him. “And there are other secret ways by which we can enter into the Dome, but,” and here the old one paused, looked at the Tarkin and at the Tenebro lord. “But I will not take Dal-eDal through these ways.”
The Tenebro lord hissed air in through his teeth, plainly displeased, and Cullen smiled, Disha shifting from foot to foot.
“Surely-” The Tarkin broke off in the face of Alkoryn Pantherclaw’s slowly shaking head.
“You objected, Tek-aKet, that the Mercenary Brotherhood knew of ways into your Dome, and now you ask that we tell others? I should not even have taken you that way, but what’s done is done. As Senior Brother, I must consider the future and not merely the needs of the moment. In any case, we could not take many through the tunnels and passages. I advise sending only those who have already been. What say you, Brothers?”
Dhulyn Wolfshead grimaced, considering. “It seems to me these passages were never intended to be used by soldiers-to the contrary. In many places they are so narrow, that we could pass only one at a time, considering that we will be carrying weapons. That would likely also be true of whichever secret door we used.” She turned to Parno Lionsmane and added, “Remember the engagement at Lashar? Where we used the caves beneath the escarpment? One company of men was caught and slaughtered because of just such a bottleneck in the passages. Besides Tek-aKet, I would recommend no more than six Brothers.”
“We can’t walk in the front door,” Tek-aKet said, rubbing his chin with the fingers of his right hand. “But Dal-eDal can, and he can bring others with him.”
“That I can’t do. I was sent for Dhulyn Wolfshead, and I can’t return without her.”
“Then Dhulyn Wolfshead you shall have,” she said.
Cullen clenched his teeth and remained silent. The Wolfshead waited patiently until the storm of protest died away before continuing as if she had not been interrupted. “We’ll be able to operate from two fronts, allowing us to flank if need be.” She looked up, not at her Senior, but at Lionsmane, her Partner. “I’ll be perfectly safe,” she said in her honey-rough voice, “until I get to the Green Shadow, and by then you’ll be there.”
“We are for you, Dhulyn Wolfshead,” Cullen said. “Disha and I. We also should not be shown the secret ways,” he added.
“I can’t bring back more than the eight I brought away with me,” the Tenebro lord said. “In fact, it would be more convincing if I returned with fewer.”
“You would have needed a tracker to find a Mercenary Brother,” Cullen said. “I am that man, come with you in the hope of greater rewards.”
The Tenebro lord spread his hand. “A good enough notion, but surely there is another way to get our own people into the Dome. Could some of the Mercenary Brotherhood not take work there, to act as spies, if nothing else?”
Disha moved closer to the Tenebro man. +BITE+ was her thought. +NO+ he responded, though he stifled a smile.
“What have I said?” the Tenebro lord said when the silence grew lengthy.
“The Mercenary Brotherhood does not take someone’s pay in order to spy upon them,” Alkoryn Panterclaw said. “Not even when it appears to suit our purposes to do so. We are true to our employ, always. This is one of the reasons the Brotherhood is as old as it is.”
“And one of the reasons there are so few of us,” Dhulyn Wolfshead added.
“Your pardon, Alkoryn Charter.” There was a hint of sarcasm in the Tenebro lord’s tone, as if he had himself taken offense. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t argue with a policy that has stood so well the test of time. But as I’ve said, this is no ordinary foe. Now, if ever, is the time to suspend such rules, before you find yourself and your Brotherhood destroyed.”
Maybe he should have let Disha bite him. +YES+ she thought.
“What difference?” Dhulyn the Seer broke in. “If we suspend our rules, there is no Brotherhood, we would have destroyed ourselves.”
Tek-aKet held up his hands. “Dal, please. I know you are anxious-”
Cullen remembered that these two were also, in some way, cousins.
“With respect, Tek, you didn’t see-”
“No, I didn’t see. But these others have, and yet they are not ready to plunge headlong in. Things are as they are. We work with what we have.” He turned to Alkoryn Pantherclaw. “What of loyal guard within the Dome?”
Dhulyn the Seer and Parno Lionsmane both shook their heads. Dhulyn shrugged and signaled to Parno to speak. “In view of what the Scholar Gundaron has told us, I don’t think we can count on any who are still within the Dome,” he said. “They may prove to be free of the taint of the Green-eyed Shadow,” here Parno paused and looked pointedly at Dal-eDal, “but we can’t be sure enough to trust them with our plans and our secrets.”
“Of course, we can’t trust any of them,” Parno punched the plaster wall of their bedroom, several flights above the underground meeting room, with the side of his fist. “But I tell you in particular I don’t trust him.”
“Either the Scholar or the Lord Dal might have been touched by the Green Shadow without knowing it.” Dhulyn pulled a chair away from the wall, turned it around, and sat down astride it, twisting her spine from side to side; the last thing she needed at this moment was cramping muscles. “The Scholar, I believe, has been.”
Parno sat down on the edge of the room’s only bed. “What do you mean?”
By this time in their Partnership, Dhulyn had had a fair amount of practice describing her Visions to Parno, and this one went quickly. “It looked to me,” she said finally, “as if there were three Scholars, one the body being used, one a spirit trying to escape, and one a spirit watching.”
“If he watched, then he knows.” A muscle in the side of Parno’s jaw popped out. “And he made no mention of this.”
“Some part of him does know, I’m certain, but can you be surprised that he would keep this to himself?”
Parno looked at her with narrowed eyes. “He is a danger.”
“We must warn Alkoryn to keep the boy watched, I agree, and to limit most strictly where he goes, and what he sees.”
“If the Green Shadow is looking for you…”
Dhulyn folded her arms on the chairback and rested her chin on her hands. “I understand the Tarkin’s wish to regain his throne, but it is the Green Shadow that is the real danger to us all, I think.”
“With luck,” Parno said, “we will destroy it when we kill the body it wears.”
“And Lok-iKol does die by my hand, I have Seen it.”
“Then we proceed, and we’re back to my concerns.” Parno leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
Dhulyn shook her head, her eyes shut. “Dal-eDal would be a problem if we did trust him. We’ve already agreed we don’t, so he’s no more dangerous now than he was before.”