RuTing turned her head to the side, studying Fintan’s illusion without commenting. He was learning to read her expressions. They were subtle. This one was doubt.

  “You are missing the trees in the distance,” she said. “The swallowtails are disappearing. The landscape is frozen. Don’t you feel the breeze?”

  She didn’t have to look behind her to project the illusion of nothingness, but the illusion was the manifestation of an idea in front, which meant that from behind, they could be spotted.

  The trick worked great when ghosting beside a wall or cover or when your target was in front of you. You could manifest anything you felt, but it had to have some connection with your senses, even if it was a manifestation of a sense.

  He could manifest an apple in his hand without looking at it. He created the illusion much the same, but he was so focused on his objective it was hard to remember his surroundings.

  They hid a short distance away from the disputed territory while he practiced. Without looking back at his surroundings again, he recalled what he’d seen before and tried to interleave it into his sense of mindfulness. He didn’t need to know exactly where the butterflies were to create the illusion. The rules of the afterlife bridged the ideas the same way they bridged language.

  “Is that good enough?” he asked. He already knew the answer.

  “As long as we keep moving,” she said. “You need practice. I’ll take the lead.”

  Fintan stumbled back into the clearing behind RuTing. He wasn’t as good at walking backward either, but he kept to her side as long as possible. Since they’d left the road, two wagons of soldiers arrived past the checkpoint, and they formed into a phalanx. Their commanding officer yelled maneuvers at them. It was midday and he expected they would join the front.

  They planned to skirt around the edges of the confrontation and follow the other soldiers back to their camp. Their map was incomplete. If the Zeusopolans had flying horses, Fintan thought there must be a faster way to Olympus. He wasn’t even certain the Adversary lived in Olympus or if there was a way back to see his family. I have to know they are safe. He shuddered to think they might have met his same fate. If they did, he would find them. He hadn’t seen many children in the afterlife.

  “Stay focused,” RuTing said.

  She couldn’t see his illusion, but somehow she knew.

  They were hundreds of feet from the phalanx, and they crossed the field, rotating as a messenger on a chariot appeared over the hill. His chariot bounced on the uneven surface, and he flogged the horse brutally to gain more speed. A broken leg wouldn’t mean much in the afterlife. Fintan was surprised the animal didn’t turn on the soldier. As soon as he passed, RuTing pulled him in a run, and he tested out the new levels.

  They ducked over the hill, ran across the valley below, and followed a narrow gulley into the battle.

  Before Fintan saw the fight, he heard the thunderous clap of lighting strikes one after another like a plasma bolt burning through a copse of trees. There were cries of pain and fountains of blood-like spray over the nearest rise.

  When the lighting stopped, wild shrieks and enormous explosions blew clouds of dirt into the sky. The pebbles rained on them, and RuTing dropped low. He was forced onto his stomach, and they climbed on their knees and elbows to the crest.

  The golden phalanx charged down the hill, where giant ogres flung glass bombs. When the bombs broke open, they exploded, sometimes blowing holes in the phalanx, other times melting the soldiers with acid and filling the air with stink.

  Not to be undone, the phalanx launched bolts of energy with their spears.

  The ogres shrugged off most of the bolts, but when the entire phalanx focused on a single brute, his giant body shook as muscle spasms brought him to the ground.

  The electrical energy sizzled the flesh off the ogre and powered an engine on his back that spooled a mighty spring. When the ogre fell prostrate, the spring catapulted a dwarf carrying bombs like New Year's baubles sewn onto his clothes.

  The dwarf flew into the phalanx with a mad scream and exploded.

  Fintan didn’t see where the bodies went, but he knew they weren’t dying. They were fighting for territory and inflicting pain. Fallen comrades frozen in unconsciousness were dragged off the field as another phalanx arrived. The ogres were likewise retreating as a new wave prepared for battle.

  “It’s horrifying to watch, isn't it,” the voice behind Fintan caused him to jerk upward, but he was caught on his back. He should have kept an illusion behind them, but he wanted to see the battle firsthand.

  The tenor was a thin man with oversized clothing and suspenders to keep his pants around his waist. He wasn’t a dwarf or an ogre, but he wore a uniform in the same colors, a pattern of greens with a tree on the front.

  “Why do you keep fighting when no one can win?” RuTing asked.

  “You see a balance between forces, but the line has moved. If we don’t fight, we will be overrun, and the Zeusopolans will turn us into slaves like they’ve done to so many others.”

  They weren’t in a position to fight, but with one Step, Fintan could appear behind the stranger. His poniard was in his hand. The appearance of weakness wouldn’t help, so he questioned instead with as much braggadocio as he could muster. Pulped by an ogre didn’t seem like a good way to end the day. If they were left on the battlefield, the Zeusopolans would make slaves of them for certain.

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  “You don’t have slaves?” he asked. From what little he saw, the afterlife was all coercion.

  “Of course not. We are a free society. The great city of Bannerburg is the only bastion of freedom in this false prison.”

  That was a relief.

  “How do we get there?” RuTing asked, and the young man smiled.

  “You will be taken for questioning,” he said. “We are free, but we are a city of laws. It’s illegal to be on the battlefield. You could be an enemy combatant.”

  Before the young man finished his sentence, RuTing sprang to her feet.

  After Zeusopolis, they didn’t want to be taken. It took only fractions of a second for Fintan to Step when he was prepared, but RuTing was faster than he was.

  The soldier from Bannerburg knew what he was doing; he was a good ten feet away, and before RuTing crossed the intervening distance, he drank from a flask he had in hand.

  RuTing’s blade flashed, but a giant hand caught it. Within seconds, the soldier’s body expanded to epic proportions. The face distorted as the skull bones resettled around the expanding muscles with a sharp crack.

  RuTing released the blade and dropped, ready to fight. Without the blade, he wasn’t sure how her Skill would work. Perhaps she could cut something in twain with a wooden sword? It wasn’t the sword that divided. It was her Skill. Like his ability to Step, the metal likely affected her Skill, but wouldn’t define it.

  “We surrender,” Fintan said.

  The mouth on the face was a line longer than Fintan’s forearm, and it slowly turned upward into a smile.

  “I thought you would,” the ogre said. “My name is Fergus, welcome to Bannerburg.”

  “For a free society, you forge heavy chains,” Fintan said. His wrist chafed under the iron, and when the wagon bounced over a rock, he was pulled down to the floor, where the links fastened around an iron hook. He couldn’t help but see betrayal in RuTing’s face when he looked at her, although her expression didn’t change.

  She was in the same bent-over position. The chain was valuable. Fintan could tell every link was forged. They didn’t make it any longer than necessary. It wasn’t as if they were going to get a backache. They were already dead.

  “You passed questioning, so you will see it soon,” Fergus said. “Don’t expect us to share all of our secrets on the first day. Trust has to be earned. You will be watched.”

  That was fair. After about an hour of questioning, Fergus’s commanding ogre determined they were from the Union. They were close enough to the portals that occasionally, Union citizens would make the journey into Bannerberg.

  According to Fergus, most of the time, they were scooped up by the Adversary or the followers of the other gods.

  “Each consciousness must walk the lonely road before they are ready,” Fergus said. “Bannerburg is not a gift. It’s a restitution and an obligation to create a better society.”

  The ogres were disappointed that neither Fintan nor RuTing was a scientist, but they were interested in their studies. Not all science in life was “accredited.” The word seemed to be both a blessing and a curse to Fergus.

  Since Fergus found them, he was assigned the responsibility of acclimating them to the city. They rode a powered wagon with large rubber-coated wheels and a combustion engine that burned an alcohol solution. It stalled frequently but restarted quickly.

  The ogres talked about improving society, but they didn’t have good roads.

  Fintan was impressed with the engine, no matter how unreliable, and when the city emerged from behind the landscape, he had nothing to compare it to against the Union.

  Most Union cities were under a protective bubble. That meant the interior was taller than the exterior, and expansion kept the shape moving outward. Zeusopolis had walls cut stone and extensive use of polished marble.

  Banner City was none of those things. The walls were texturized in sand finish but layered with a rubberized coating utilizing many colors to make a faux landscape pattern. It didn’t blend in like the Free People exosuits. It stood out as different but highlighted this is where “city” begins.

  As always, the corruption had to be prevented, and workers with spray guns were on the walls, covering white film with paint.

  “Impressive artistry,” Fintan said. The Union didn’t have many artists.

  “We are what makes us,” Fergus said. “We built the city out of this afterlife, and it reflects those materials, but also, it's more than the materials that make it.”

  Behind the wall, the buildings meshed into the pattern. Fintan didn’t think they had to worry about earthquakes or hurricanes in the afterlife. With the solid foundation, the Bannerites had created buildings that extended the choreographed plants painted on the wall. Entire floors were suspended in a feat of engineering to represent leaves on enormous trees.

  “You must have designed the city before you built the wall,” Fintan said. “How did you know it would be big enough?”

  “We planned ahead, but there’s a cost for planning,” Fergus said. “We have to pay our taxes.”

  “High taxes?” RuTing asked.

  “We pay for our freedom,” Fergus said. The wagon stopped outside the gate while he talked. “You have to make a choice. In Bannerberg, you always get a choice. To get into the city, you have to go through a medical examination. We have to make sure you aren’t carrying any diseases. We will also perform a DNA analysis.”

  “How do you have a disease in the afterlife?” Fintan asked. “I didn’t think we had DNA.”

  “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it's not there. The formulas we create alter our DNA to fight for our city. You’ve seen how they work.”

  “You can turn into ogres.”

  “Exactly. You’ve seen the proof for yourself.”

  “And if we don’t do the medical test.”

  “We aren’t barbarians,” Fergus said. “Since you don’t have a privilege, you can stay in separate barracks outside the city until we are ready to take you back to the portals. We go to the portals every month or so. Until then, you will have to work for your food and lodging.”

  Fintan wasn’t sure what Fergus meant about ‘a privilege,’ and he wasn’t about to ask. It sounded like having a privilege would be detrimental to their stay in Bannerburg.

  “Okay, so we will do the medical test,” Fintan agreed. RuTing raised an eyebrow, and he had to backstep. “I mean, I will. I think we should.”

  With their hands locked to the wagon floor, he couldn't think of a way to communicate with RuTing. This was an eventuality they’d never talked about.

  “What happens if we do the test?” RuTing asked.

  “Medical examination isn’t free,” Fergus said. “You will owe the city until your debt is paid.”

  “Can we pay in gilders?” Fintan asked. “We’ve seen other people pay in gilders.”

  “Owning gilders is illegal,” Fergus said. “That’s the currency of the Adversary. Bannerburg will keep a transactional record of your societal credits and debits. You can turn over your gilders to the medical examiner.”

  “I’ll do the exam,” RuTing said.

  Fintan nodded. They were synchronized again. After almost getting caught in Zeusopolis, they both agreed that when all the choices looked bad, they had no choice at all.

  Bannerberg sounded like a haven, but they would be indebted to obscure rules before they entered the gates. Fintan forced a smile. He needed to remain pleasant. He didn’t need the situation to get worse before they tried to escape.