Allie's War Season Four (23 page)

“Do they know you are asking me this?” Anale said, her eyes narrow.

“No. Of course not,” Tarsi said. “Would I be coming up here, in secret, asking if you could disobey their orders, if they did?”

Anale’s stare grew more intense. Her gold eyes had widened perceptibly as Tarsi said the last bit, and now Tarsi could feel the fear on her, woven through her light.

Tarsi understood. Chain of command was one of the first things they taught their young recruits in the Adhipan. Anale was Adhipan.

Had been, anyway.

“Don’t be afraid, sister,” Tarsi said, clicking mildly. “I’m not turning on my nephew...nor on brother Balidor. You won’t be violating the chain of command.”

There was a silence after she spoke.

In it, Tarsi heard the other voices again. They grew louder in that silence, especially the one that had entered her light the most recently. The same day her nephew called her, in fact, and told her he planned to come to New York.

The same day he told her what young Jon had done.

Brave boy, that Jon. She would make him another cake, when she saw him next.

The thought made her chuckle a little.

We can’t let Revik know...
the voice insisted in the background of Tarsi’s light. She was speaking to Tarsi, but also with Vash, the voice that had been with Tarsi for a good deal longer.
The plan will never work, if he finds out what we’re doing...

I understand that,
the old man said patiently.
I simply think you are risking a lot. If you run two chains of command, you risk getting people killed...

We’ll keep it small. Just a few of them.

It is still a risk.

I know that, but––

He’s right,
Tarsi chimed in.
He won’t like it either. My nephew. He’ll be pissed as hell, he find out what you did.

I’m trying to keep him alive,
the other voice said coldly.
Frankly, I don’t much give a damn what he likes. As it is, it’s going to be touch and go. He’s practical. He’ll understand.

Practical.
Tarsi snorted internally.
He’s a big baby. Especially when it comes to you.

He is not––

But Tarsi’s mind got pulled back into the immediacy of the physical room. The seer standing in front of her had finally broken the silence. By then, Tarsi had to remind herself what they’d even been talking about.

“I won’t be violating the chain of command?” Anale said. Her eyes grew openly skeptical. “Really, respected sister? And how is that?” Her voice turned openly wary. “I answer to Deklan, sister. Deklan answers to Adhipan Balidor. Adhipan Balidor answers to the Sword...”

“...and I answer to the one the Sword answers to,” Tarsi broke in, sharper.

Could have fooled me...
a voice grumbled in her mind.

Tarsi chuckled. Focusing back on the seer in front of her, she realized that laughing right then probably only made her look more unhinged.

Now you know how I feel,
Vash said cheerfully.

Shut up, old man...
Tarsi grumbled at him.
You’re undermining my credibility here. If that’s even possible anymore...

The other light laughed again, and Tarsi fought not to smile.

When Tarsi refocused on the female seer standing in front of her, she found that Anale hadn’t taken her eyes off her face. Moreover, the younger seer had begun to scan Tarsi’s light surreptitiously, probably looking for any threads or links to Shadow, if not out and out resonances with the Dreng. As she did it, Anale’s stance reverted to more of an infiltrator’s stance, likely subconsciously, her hands held out in a tense, ready position, as if preparing herself to fight, her eyes wary as she attempted to penetrate Tarsi’s light.

When she clicked out, a few seconds later, Anale’s lips turned in a frown.

“That’s not possible, sister,” she said flatly.

“Isn’t it?” Tarsi laughed again; she couldn’t help it. “Well, that’s certainly a relief. I’d prefer senility to having to listen to this crap all day...”

Another laugh trilled the higher levels of her aleimi.

Anale’s mouth puckered into a deeper frown, even as her hands went to her hips.

Puzzlement stood in her light gold eyes now, woven into that denser wariness. Tarsi could almost see the other woman thinking that Tarsi had too high of a sight rank for Anale to accurately assess Tarsi’s loyalties on her own. If the power had been up, Anale probably would have signaled her superior officer already. As it was, she probably intended to stall Tarsi until a team could wrestle her to the floor, then maybe collar her for a few weeks while they took turns looking at her light.

Sighing a little, Tarsi realized there was only one option open to her now.

The power could come back on any minute.

With another, longer sigh––mainly because she knew this approach wasn’t without risk, either, the largest of those being that Anale could be read by Balidor or the Sword, too––Tarsi let the young female seer into her light.

It was the only way.

Tarsi just stood there, her light completely open, watching Anale’s face.

For a long moment, that harder expression on the woman’s features and light didn’t change. Then, slowly, that lovely, oval face began to open. Tarsi watched the wonderment bleed over her features, contracting her pupils and loosening her jaw as she stared up above Tarsi’s head.

Slowly, Anale’s gold eyes widened as she listened.

BALIDOR SAT ON one edge of an antique and very expensive-looking, Victorian-style couch, complete with hand-carved, cherry wood frame and a round sun-like circle cushion on the backing. That sun symbol was a peculiarity from the time period, Balidor knew, not a reference to the Sword, like some of the younger seers thought. It lay in embedded in more of that cherry red wood, hand-carved in the shape of roses and vines.

Given that Balidor remembered the style from when it had been around the first time, he decided the piece was likely a refurbished original, or else a hand-made copy done by someone with real artisan talent, since the flower and sun carvings didn’t look machine-made. He could see and feel the tiny imperfections on the wood where he stroked it with his fingers.

Unfortunately, the couch was also as uncomfortable as he remembered the originals being, too. Those damned Victorian humans seemed to do everything to spite the body, including putting next to no padding in their needle-point-decorated cushions.

He had to admit, though, the burnished sunset colors of the embroidery must have been beautiful when they were originally made.

Balidor knew focusing on the couch was only a distraction, though. He fought to focus his mind on the conversation, instead, but went back to the couch, perhaps because it had more of a visceral reality.

Truthfully, he preferred to focus on anything but the physical body or light of the woman sitting on the opposite chair, wrapped around the reclining figure of the Sword.

Balidor did listen to the Sword’s words, however.

“...So give me your opinion of this approach, ‘Dori,” the Elaerian said, his voice holding not a trace of a question. “I need your honest appraisal. Now, before we go any further.”

Balidor fought his eyes off where Allie’s fingers massaged the Sword’s chest, her hand and part of her arm inserted inside the half-open collar of his shirt. Balidor couldn’t avoid entirely the flush of pain that left the Sword’s light, however, or the other flickers and sparks arising from the contact between the two of them.

Gods. He wasn’t actually sleeping with her, was he?

Balidor knew he wasn’t the only one to wonder. Then again, a lot of people had wondered about the Sword’s sex life of late. There were those weird rumors about Jon, and whatever had taken place between them that one night. Now, with Allie conscious...

Well, more or
less
conscious.

Balidor couldn’t follow the logical conclusions of those things in his mind, not to the extent they might bring visuals. He hadn’t felt any actual sex in the construct between Alyson and the Sword, just a lot of pain from both of them, but he knew the Sword could be significantly better at shielding than he often let on.

In fact, Allie had been the one to warn him about that, years ago.

Whatever the truth of the two of them these days, watching them together grew more and more difficult, even knowing what he knew. Balidor kept the whole topic tucked deep in the recesses of his mind, and well away from his voice, however. In addition to his shielding abilities, the Sword often picked up more than he let on, too.

Like a lot of people around here.

“About which part of the proposed approach would you like my opinion, Illustrious Sword?” Balidor said politely.

Tensing, he once more slid his eyes off Allie’s hand as she caressed the Sword’s belly through his shirt, just above his belt.

As if he’d caught Balidor’s wandering gaze, Revik sharpened his voice.

“Specifically, the issue of the construct,” he said, giving Balidor a slightly harder look. “That’s the sticking point. If we can’t crack that, especially without her, I’m wasting my time. I need some sense of percentages. I need to know what kind of opening you think you can give me, if we were to do it like I said.”

“Opening, Illustrious Sword?”

“Time, Balidor,” Revik growled. “How much time?”

Combing his fingers through his chestnut-colored hair, Balidor receded into the uncomfortable couch, winced, and sat up straight again.

“I’m afraid the news isn’t good,” he said.

“Meaning?”

Balidor exhaled, clicking a little. “Meaning...we still haven’t been able to discern the anchors. We’ve looked at the construct over Manhattan, like you asked. We’ve been forced to focus most of our efforts on the one in Patagonia, however, since more of us can see that one.” Seeing the Elaerian’s eyes narrow, Balidor let his voice grow sharper.

“Most of us can’t even
feel
the one in Manhattan, sir.”

“My wife felt it,” Revik said, blunt.

“I’m aware of that,” Balidor said, frustration leaking into his voice. “I am asking you. No, I am
telling
you, Illustrious Sword...we need your help in mapping that structure. None of us can see it. Even Tarsi claims she can only see the bare outlines, and then only well enough to know it is there. She tells me she knows this thing more by what it is not, rather than by what it is.”

Revik’s jaw visibly hardened, but he only nodded, once. “Fine. And the one in Patagonia?”

Balidor exhaled. “We are having somewhat better luck on that one,” he said, making a vague gesture with one hand. “Even so, most of what we’ve learned is descriptive...not structural in the way that you asked. We’ve managed to trace a few of the pillars you mentioned, but really, only the ones we already knew about. Or suspected. Shadow himself...Salinse, Xarethe. We know there are others, but we cannot distinguish who they are, or even begin to map their light without knowing more about them. They blend too seamlessly into the structure of the network for us to separate them out.”

He held up a hand, almost a helpless gesture.

“The design of this structure is different from the Pyramid in more than simply the location of its anchors, Illustrious Sword,” he said. “The upper levels actually comprise that structure. They are not simply attached, as before...they are inextricably linked.”