Cherry’s secret was no longer secret. Fintan didn’t bother to restore the flower garden. They left the retaining wall stones tossed into the street along with a dirt pile. The city was on fire, and since the explosion the only light came from the dull amber glow and the burning roofs.

  She unerringly led them to the oldest part of the city, where a statue of Robert the Brute screamed defiance at the would-be hoards that came for his land. His giant muscled body, ripped lab coat, and torn pants testified he was unprepared for the transformation. The rage behind his eyes and the tortured pain on his face spoke of a different kind of serum. The ogres of Bannerburg were always deadly calm and calculating.

  A hidden door behind the statue was broken off its hinges. Mist flooded the streets, pouring out of the door along with doctors and nurses.

  “It’s an emergency exit,” Cherry said grimly.

  “They are leaving their patients,” Fintan said. Many of the doctors had taken Ogre form. Some carried nurses, but he didn’t see any patients.

  “What do you expect them to do?” RuTing asked.

  Her observation was disquieting. He couldn’t blame the doctors. Cherry was responsible and he and RuTing were aiding in her escape. His only consolation is in the afterlife no one died. He shuddered under the thought of being buried alive. How long would it take the Ogres to free them?

  “This is our opportunity,” Fintan said. He would take the risk. With his Skill, he could Step RuTing and Cherry out of the Annex.

  RuTing nodded. She concentrated, and underneath his grandfather’s labcoat, he was clothed like the doctors, as was she and Cherry. This time Cherry did gasp. RuTing’s illusions had sharpened her manifestations in detail. She also altered something close to someone else's body, which was an effort in itself. His trust in RuTing probably facilitated the transformation, but Cherry’s self-image was forced into a new look.

  “Don’t underestimate the power of manifestations,” RuTing told Cherry. “The doctors have trapped your mind.”

  “That’s not all they’ve trapped,” Cherry said. “Let me lead the way. I’ve studied the maps.”

  Cherry’s red hair glistened in the yellow-red light of the flames, like a small part of the blaze separated from the larger conflagration and led them. She ducked around the screaming people while Fintan shouldered his way, and RuTing followed behind carrying the heavy bag of gold. Her small stature made Cherry the wedge; the ogres didn’t trample her, but the method didn’t work for Fintan. Their massive bodies slammed him into the side of the stairs as they descended into an Annex built like a catacomb.

  The white bedrock was chipped away into indentations. Bodies were piled into the niches, and tubes screwed into the walls hung from the recesses before they were plumbed into the still-living patients.

  “This is worse than I remember,” Cherry said. Smoke was gathering at the top of the Annex. As far as Fintan could tell, all the doctors and nurses had left. Cracks in the walls and ceiling and fragments of bedrock on the floors were evidence of the explosion. The smoke had nowhere to go, and the air was thick with mist.

  The bodies were stacked in the catacombs, and they twitched, gasping out mist. Screwed into the wall, charts with symbols for metals and equations reduced each patient to a number and function.

  “What are they doing?” RuTing asked.

  Fintan wasn’t a scientist, but he was a nutritionist. Her education in the Guannei, missed Union basics. Each patient had a drip tube taped to their cheek. They were sucking on the tubes, but no water was coming out.

  “They are using them to filter river water,” he said. “They excrete metals and gas to power the city.”

  Underneath a mound of bodies, a dull murmur he could barely understand whispered a word.

  “More water.”

  The bodies above the voice shifted as if someone was struggling.

  “The pumps stopped,” Cherry said. “The fans aren’t working.”

  “Why didn’t they go to the river?” RuTing asked.

  “No one is allowed to die in Bannerburg unless they paid off their debts.”

  “So they use them as fuel,” Fintan said. No wonder the city was thick with mist at night. His grandfather told him cities had less mist, but not Bannerburg. He thought they conceived the mist by drying out the buildings, but that couldn’t account for the number of people. The Annex belched mist and discharged gold and other precious metals.

  “The doctors weren’t afraid of the fire,” RuTing said. “If we don’t get ahead of the patients, they will carry us into the river.”

  The patients stirred. Even in the dim chemical light, Fintan could see crusted eyes opening. The pain on their faces made Robert the Brute look civil. What would they do to get to the river. Fintan knew exactly where the river was even a mile away, and their route took them to the River Gate.

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  Cherry bolted. The Convalescence Annex was hewn out of the bedrock and didn’t follow straight lines. It had expanded over the centuries. Fintan had a sense for the streets above them. He alwasy knew where people were, although he didn’t know their names he felt the crowds above as he ran.

  The patients waking from their forced slumber ripped out tubes. Physically they were weak and emaciated, but as they sucked in mist, they grew stronger, and they only had one purpose.

  They gathered at intersections, yelling and screaming. They didn’t know the labyrinth. Sooner or later, they would sort out the maze of corridors. In the meantime, they turned into a force. The ones that were awake freed the others. They extracted tubes snaked through nostrils cut at straps that chained them to walls.

  Not all the patients were violent from the curses and screaming, Fintan could tell many had. They were still dressed as doctors.

  A fist flew out of the mist and hit him in the face. The ravaged face of a too-thin woman appeared, and her arm crackled like old paper when her knuckles split, leaving a trail of blood on his cheek. He barely felt the blow, but her forearm splintered and skin tore, exposing a jagged white bone.

  “Doctors!” she screamed.

  Angry faces turned in their direction, but Cherry slid around a corner and Fintan barreled after her. Behind him, he knew RuTing would cast an illusion to help their escape, but the crowding didn’t help. In seconds however, they found an empty hall with the door broken from its hinges and tossed into the corridor.

  Behind the door was a familiar set of cells, he passed Cherry and searched the jail for Paris. The escaping patients left the few prisoners, even in their mad search for the river they had no love for the Zeusopolans.

  When he found Paris, it was already too late. The mist generator in the room had stopped, and the dry air sucked out the water from the imperfect seals. He was comatose from the pain. His arms were pulled out of their sockets and horribly stretched while his body had shriveled into an elongated Midge. He gasped in pain, but didn’t respond when Fintan called his name.

  RuTing destroyed the door lock with a swift kick while he worked on the straps, chaining the soldier to the alter.

  Cherry watched while they worked.

  “Are you going to carry him with us?” she asked.

  “I promised to free him,” Fintan said. He gave up on the straps. The mist from the Convalescence Annex hadn’t spread to the jail. He couldn’t manifest a knife without draining himself. He could still use his Skills, but even those took a cost. “Can you break these?” he asked RuTing.

  She drew her sword and swung. Her swing parted two straps. Using her Skill she cut two at a time. The force that extended from her blade etched the white altar, but not deeply, and created a line all the way to the wall. The bedrock was nearly impervious to her Skills as well.

  Paris was still shackled, but free from the alter. His arms dragged inward until he was whole. His gasps stopped, but he didn’t wake. He wasn’t frozen in sleep either.

  “They’ve done something to him,” RuTing said. She handed the foil chart to Fintan.

  If the chart was esoteric to RuTing it was nearly so for him, but he knew the ogres had a purpose for their formula. Fintan had a sense for the people around him. When he first felt the Bomb Midges he could barely sense their eimai. Paris was much the same, but worse. Fintan put a hand on Paris’s head and that helped the connection.

  In the Union they had implants, and with touch, you could send a private message without the net. They could share thoughts and feelings. RuTing didn’t understand because she never had an implant, but he was adept with his.

  When he touched Paris’s face, he had insight into the soldier’s body. The air was thin, but he struggled to manifest what was missing, like adding nutrition to the environment. Fintan closed his eyes to focus on the feeling.

  “Whatever you are doing is working,” RuTing said.

  When Fintan opened his eyes, Paris had resumed normal size. The soldier’s also opened.

  “What did you do to me?” Paris asked.

  Fintan wasn’t sure. He felt surprisingly weak. The mist was thin and he felt like something transfered from deep inside of him.

  “I’ve restored you,” Fintan said.

  “You made me stronger.”

  Paris swung his legs around the altar and ripped off his shackles. A moment ago Fintan had struggled and made no headway. He didn’t have the levels in strength RuTing had or the Skill to Divide.

  While they freed Paris a few more patients had discovered the door. They hadn’t interfered, but they were still dressed as doctors.

  “It’s time for us to leave.”

  No sooner did Fintan say the words than an ogre-sized throwing axe flashed in the light before embedding itself in the far wall. The patients slowed into a swarm.

  “It’s the army,” Cherry said. “They’ve blocked the entrance.”

  The swarm was no longer interested in doctors as a rush of ogres with axes blocked the door to the barracks. With every swing, body parts flew through the air followed by a wave of blood.

  The ogres would not stop. The patients numbered in the thousands. The bloody battle might go on for days, but Fintan was sure the ogres would tire. The city above burned, and the city below rampaged, but the call to the river was relentless.

  “We need to get past the ogres,” RuTing said, and Fintan nodded. This was why they saved his strength. The wall of ogres was only twenty feet away, and their numbers were few. It was a short Step. He took RuTing’s hand and Paris while she grabbed Cherry’s arm.

  “What’s happening?” Cherry asked.

  “You will see,” RuTing said confidently.

  Fintan found his place behind their eimai and Stepped. He put the idea of himself, along with the idea of RuTing, Paris, and Cherry in that Step and the jail and bodies vanished to blackness as his heartbeat pounded in his ears. The beat slowed to a stop, and the darkness remained. He couldn’t feel the others, but the idea of them was with him.

  So was the idea of the gold; it didn’t want to come with him. It was tied to his thoughts of RuTing. She held the bag, and it weighed them like dragging an anchor. The darkness surrounded him, and he felt faint. His heart no longer beat, and he tried to remember where he was before. He put all his effort into recalling that idea before he slipped into darkness.

  “How long will it take?” Cherry’s face contorted in worry. The ogres ravaged the patients. They tossed quartered patients into cells like a dumpster of body parts.

  Fintan collapsed. He could barely move his limbs, and RuTing crouched at his side. Her tightly controlled emotions were visible on her face. He didn’t want her to worry about him.

  “The gold was too much,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will take me to recover.”

  “The air is too dry in here,” RuTing said, and he nodded.

  But he wondered if something else wasn’t wrong.

  “I can carry him,” Paris said.

  “If we can get to the surface, I can make a way out.”

  RuTing’s planned to Divide the wall, but if it was full of bedrock aggregate her gambit might not work.