“No.” They turned to the Tarkin. “We must remove it from the Throne.”

Tek-aKet Tarkin raised his hands, palms toward her, and Dhulyn fell silent. “With respect, Dhulyn Wolfshead, hear me out. Perhaps we can destroy it, but perhaps we cannot. Our first act must be to remove it from the throne, to regain control of Imrion. At the moment, its power does not extend past Gotterang, and if we act quickly, it will not. Once we have the city, now that we know what we must fight, we will have a position of power from which to do it.” He placed his hands palm down on the table. “We must act and act now.”

Alkoryn was nodding, his fingers tracing lines on an imaginary map. “A frontal assault will not work. We have not the numbers needed, and unlike Lok-iKol, we’ve no trick to empty the Dome of its Carnelian Guards.” He looked up from his tracing to indicate the rock walls around them. “Fortunately, we know a way into the Carnelian Dome that has nothing to do with front gates, or the number of guards. Dhulyn, my Brother, if you would.”

Dhulyn bowed and turned to the door. “Rehnata,” she called, and waited for the girl to appear in the entrance before turning back to Alkoryn.

“Fetch my maps of Gotterang,” Alkoryn said now that the girl was within reach of his voice. “The blue series, not the green, and the plans of the Dome. When you have done that, bring back our guests.”

Two tables were pushed together, and Cullen of Langeron looked on with interest as the maps and drawings were spread over them. He’d seen such things of course-though the Clouds did not use them, relying on their own memories and training to find their routes and ways through the Antedichas-but never so detailed, and so beautifully drawn. Disha walked about on the table, looking over them carefully, with first one golden eye and then the other. For an instant Cullen saw the image of the drawing’s lines superimposed on his own image of his Racha and the room.

“If you would stand here, Lady Disha,” Alkoryn the Senior Brother said in his scarred voice. Thus courteously addressed, Disha was happy to move. There weren’t many who knew the Racha would understand them-as, of course, she could, so long as Cullen himself was in the room. If it were possible, his already healthy respect for the Mercenary Brotherhood increased.

“There are three layers of guards,” Tek-aKet Tarkin was saying. “Those here, in the outer perimeter, allow access to the public rooms and galleries where any petitioner may enter; here the second, letting pass only those who have business with the Throne. And finally, here, the innermost circle,” he looked up. “These posts are usually taken by my own Personal Guard, and they watch the family and private rooms.”

“So far as I can tell,” the Tenebro Lord Dal-eDal said, frowning down on the drawings, “the guard postings have not changed-though the guards themselves are different.” His brows drew down even further. “No, there is one change. There are now guards here, in the Onyx Walk.”

Cullen’s eyes narrowed as Disha cocked her head to look closely at the Tenebro man. He’d no trust of this one either, cousin to the usurper, a man who stood to gain no matter who died. Cullen shifted his gaze across the room to where Dhulyn Wolfshead stood, relaxed, her eyes on Dal-eDal, her wolf’s smile on her lips. Except for that, and their intent stares, the Partnered Brothers could have been asleep on their feet, there was so little tension in their bodies. Disha transferred her golden eye to the Wolfshead in response to Cullen’s thought.

+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.