By this point, the group was far enough from the epicenter of the Strangers' laser blast that the tunnels were no longer hot enough to set the spores aflame.

"So," Charles said, "you're telling me that the disease that we thought wasn't the disease but which, in fact, was and is the disease is now, itself, suffering from a disease?"

"Yes," Brand said. He glanced down the tunnel. "Damn… I wish I had my lab equipment."

"If you want to go back for it, Dr. Nowston," Ibrahim said, "please, be my guest."

"Can't you just imagine the equipment into being?" Karl asked.

"Yes," Brand said, "but they wouldn't be able to give me any meaningful data. No matter how powerful your imagination might be, you don't know what you don't know."

"Guys," Charles said, craning his neck down from the ceiling, "have any of you ever stopped and thought of how nice it would be nice to live in an egg? A big egg, with me in it, or maybe a normal egg and I'm small—it doesn't matter—what matters is, I'm in an egg—not alone, I'm with the gloop, too—it's just me in the gloop, no opening, no windows, no way to ever know if it's morning or night, so you know what time it is all the time? Egg time, for me in the gloop."

"Angel, please don't tell me he's going nuts again," Bethany griped.

"It would be so peaceful in an egg," Charles continued. "No worries, no insane mascot-based personas taking over my mind, no diseased diseases diseasing things they shouldn't be. Just the peace and solicitude of the egg state. All is good. All is calm. I am egg. Nothing's wrong. I want that. I really, really do. Oh…" He shuddered. "Oh god, everything's fucked! We're going to die! We're all going to die!"

"Chuck," Kurt said, "talk to Genneth next time you see him. You need it."

"Stop it!" Dr. Rathpalla spat. "This is stressful for all of us!"

"Ibrahim," Yuth said, "if you're right and this disease is spread by wyrm-link, it's possible you were exposed when you linked with Larry and Letty. I… guess it also means that Letty was probably exposed."

"Good riddance!" Charles quipped. He hawked up a gob of spores that sizzled where it landed on the ground.

"How are you feeling?" Brand said, turning to face Dr. Rathpalla. He looked over the psychiatrist's body, checking for any signs of liquefaction.

He didn't find any.

"I…" Ibrahim glanced at the ground. "I don't know. Well… I'm scared," he added. "I don't know if that counts as a symptom."

"If it does, I'm even more screwed than I already am!" Charles whined.

"What symptoms has Larry been showing?" Yuth asked.

"Other than the melting?" Ibrahim said. "Mood swings. Panic attacks. Possible psychotic epi— "

"—Uh, guys…" Brand muttered.

Brand had looked back to check on Larry, only to discover that Larry had stopped moving. He trembled, holding his claws together.

Everyone turned to Larry.

"I… I can't do this," he said. His eyes blinked erratically.

He was terrified.

"Whatever's going on, Larry, we can get through it," Ibrahim said, floating in front of Brand and over a sprig of glow-bulb-topped fungus and toward the janitorial wyrm.

"I'd believe that if I was an egg," Charles said.

"We did it before, when we were in Letty's mind," Ibrahim said. "We can do it again. You can do it again," he added, gesturing at Larry. "I know you can."

Larry shook his head. "N-No. You don't get it. It doesn't matter what I do." Spore-gunk dribbled out of his snout-holes. "If I've infected you, Dr. Rathpalla, I…. Oh gosh… just… leave me here. Please. Please!"

"Leave him," Charles said. "Please, please, for the love of cheese, leave him! I'm not fucking around here!"

"We're not leaving him here!" Yuth turned to Larry. "Larry, you're part of the team. You're…"

Her spines stuck up as she looked him in the eyes.

Brand floated forward "Not only that, but if we leave you here, we won't be able to learn anything more about what's happening to you."

"But what if you guys get infected?" Larry replied. "The world just ended because of a plague. What kind of idiot would I be if I let that happen to us all over again?"

"I'll be honest with you, Larry," Brand said. "If whatever you have can be spread by proximity or excretions or whatever, we've probably all got it."

"Doomed!" Charles said. "We're doomed!"

"Don't say that!" Larry snapped.

"The truth matters," Brand replied, "even when it hurts! Especially when it hurts! That's when it matters most! And if we are all infected, given how you're acting, and the symptoms Dr. Rathpalla described, I don't think any of us would want to be alone if and when we started to show signs of it, too."

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"I know I wouldn't want to be alone," Lopé said, softly.

Brand's words made everyone miserable.

"Well," he added, "considering how quickly Larry's case has developed, if none of us start showing symptoms within the next couple of hours, I think we can safely assume that this thing spreads through the link, and only through the link."

"How many hours?" Kurt asked.

"I couldn't say," Brand said.

"What about our spirits?" Karl asked. "Will Geoffrey, Bever, and the others be in danger if I come down with whatever Mr. Larry has?"

Dr. Rathpalla let out a long, low hiss, like someone had pressed a cluster of keys on a pipe organ. "Fuck me. I didn't even think of that."

Brand nodded. He thought aloud, as he usually did. "You said Larry's mental self was showing symptoms while inside Letty's mind. If that's the case, the spirits under our care might also be at risk."

Dr. Rathpalla flapped his tail. "Alright, that does it! No more messing around!"

"What is it, Dr. Rathpalla?" Nathan asked.

He looked Brand in the eyes. "I don't know if I'm infected or not, but, out of an abundance of caution, I want to start transferring souls over to you." Ibrahim nodded his head in Yuth's direction, and Karl's. "You too, Nurse Costran. And young master Karl, if you're willing."

Karl spooled forward, eyes blinking in confusion. "But… I thought it spreads by linking."

Ibrahim shook his head. "We'll do it through song, like Genneth did when he transferred souls over to me."

"But what if the infection spreads through song, too?" Maryon asked.

Karl slithered forward. "I'll do it. Send the spirits to me. If worst comes to worst—"

Ibrahim puffed out spores in awe. "—Damn, kid. Remind me to mention you the next time someone asks me if therapy actually works." He nodded. "Fine, I'll do it."

Karl looked around in momentary confusion.

"What do I need to do?"

"You just float there until he figures out how to do it," Brand said.

It took several minutes of real time before Ibrahim announced he was confident he'd figured out how to make it work.

Everyone—Larry most of all—watched expectantly as Ibrahim coiled himself, raised his snout and began to sing.

It was a marvel to behold. Brand had been anticipating a greater level of complexity—the carrier wave you'd need to transfer a soul was, obviously, going to be orders of magnitude more complex than what you'd need for mere language—but to hear it with his own eyes was something else altogether. Ibrahim's music rippled through the air like rain through a pond. Brand closed his first and third pairs of eyes, just to focus on the signal's gossamer beauty. It was otherworldly in the truest sense: emanations, straight from the soul. Brand watched the colors interplay of the aural cone rippling out from Dr. Rathpalla's snout-holes, marveling at the thought that its hills and valleys carried life itself in all its richness.

Even though the signal washed over all the wyrms in the tunnel, Karl was the only to be affected by them. His six eyes opened wide, as did his many snout-holes, spines and mane bristling in attention as he drank in the sounds of the souls. Brand had no trouble sensing Dr. Derric's soul among them. The brash young physician's spirit was piquant and spicy.

Yuth broke out in applause as soon as Ibrahim had finished, and everyone else quickly joined in, except for Larry, who was looking more miserable by the second.

"I can't do that," he said. "I can't help them. I can't. I don't know how. I—"

"—Calm down. I'll show you how," Ibrahim said.

"You can do it," Karl said. "Don't forget the spirits inside you. They're depending on you."

"As are the rest of us," Charles said.

"And I'll fail them," Larry replied. He shook his head. "I'm broken and useless. I'm dying. I'm dying."

"C'mon Larry," Ibrahim said, "we just need to get through this, then we can figure out how to help you. Just listen to my song. It'll show you the way."

"I—"

—But before Larry could protest, the psychiatrist sang another message, this one far less ornate than the previous. The sound waves looked almost like speech, but with twists and embellishments that couldn't be explained away as mere words.

"There you go," Ibrahim said. "Now, you try it."

Larry gave a shaky nod and then sang, and then everyone groaned in pain.

"Beast's teeth!" Nathan cursed, shaking his head.

"Make it stop!" Charles yelled. "By the Godhead, make it stop!"

Larry's song came out distorted. Its soundwaves were rotten and malaised. It grated all of Brand's senses, like a sharpened nail drawn across his soul.

Larry stopped, and everyone looked at him with concern.

He trembled, burbling incoherently. "No! No!"

Then, with a blast of his power, Larry knocked Ibrahim out of the way and flung himself forward, disappearing down the tunnel.

— — —

Larry's behavior didn't make any sense. From what Karl had heard about the man, the janitor had a forbearing personality, stoic when stressed, and chummy when not. Yet here he was, running away like a coward.

Brand and the others chased after Larry as quickly as they could, following the softly glowing trails of liquified flesh the wyrm left in his wake. Karl followed, but only half of his mind was in it.

The rest of him was hard at work dealing with all the new arrivals.

"Alright, everyone," Geoffrey said, "if you'll please follow me, I'll help you get situated."

Karl had customized his Main Menu into something more comforting than its default appearance. Something familiar: the Sticky Goose. The Goose had been one of Fink's favorite taverns, not that the horse was allowed inside the tavern. The owner, a Mr. Krimpet, had always been kind to Karl, and let him and Fink eat spare food in the afternoon. Many of the animal friends Karl made during his wanderings through the fields and forests found refuge in the tavern's expansive stables, and while Karl's father had little tolerance for Karl hosting wild animals at the Prestingham estate's stables, Mr. Krimpet was happy enough to help care for them.

The Sticky Goose was an old, slate-roofed half-timbered tavern at the outskirts of town. Its gravel-paved grounds were always filled with the wagons and workhorses of merchant caravans and other travelers—or, at least, they had been while Karl had still been alive, and in his own time period. Now, however, the grounds were filled with a very different clientele, even if the reason hadn't changed: giving people a place to stay.

Nervous that he'd have difficulty dealing with so many people from the future, Karl had sought Geoffrey's help on the matter, and Count Athelmarch had happily agreed, though, somewhat to Karl's dismay, Geoffrey had insisted on wearing his cloak and full county armor.

That certainly got Geoffrey more than a few stares.

"Just don't tell them your family name," Karl said.

"Obviously," Geoffrey replied.

Karl had empowered Geoffrey to help get the other spirits situated. The Count led them off in a group, taking them into the Sticky Goose for a meal of braised duck with cranberry sauce, potato cakes, and spiced wine.

One spirit, however, refused to join them: Dr. Jonan Derric. The good doctor stood beside Karl outside the Goose. It was late in the afternoon, with the sun just beginning its descent toward the tree-line on the horizon. Jonan wore the same medical dress as Dr. Rathpalla: a pristine white coat, along with "loafers" and darkly colored "slacks". Karl thought the clothes looked a little odd, but, then again, Jonan thought the same about Karl's tunic and breeches.

"Our thoughts are bleeding into one another," Jonan said, crossing his arms.

"S-Sorry," Karl said. He took a step back. "I'll try to keep my thoughts to myself."

"While you're at it," Jonan said, "could you please take us to the real world? Things are happening. Important things."

Karl nodded and complied.

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