Karl flew up after the other wyrms, slowing his perception of time just to be careful. Dr. Rathpalla was the closest to him, so he veered toward the psychiatrist. Karl made sure to use his third pair of eyes to pay close attention to nets of blue and gold that Dr. Rathpalla was lobbing up at the nearest missile.

What?

In the slowed time, Karl shook his head.

Dr. Rathpalla's magic was inside-out!

As Yuth had taught Karl, to fly, you had to direct the magic's energies inward, toward yourself, in order to keep yourself afloat. At the same time, you had to have a second layer of power around the first to then use to push yourself in the directions you wanted to move. But here, Dr. Rathpalla was doing the reverse of that! The energy was pointed outward, as if to tug or repel. Dr. Rathpalla coated the plummeting missile in several layers of that magic, each one was stronger than the one beneath it. Last but not least, he wrapped it in a levitation. Importantly, Karl noticed that the psychiatrist had stitched each and every one of the weaves into closed eggs and spheres, so that power inside them could run around in circles, like Fink on a racetrack. That way, even if Dr. Rathpalla stopped actively feeding the magic more energy, its effect would continue.

Finally, Dr. Rathpalla brought his magic to life. To Karl's third eyes, it was beautiful to behold: spheres within spheres, scintillating and ever-revolving.

Speeding up time—though not all the way—Karl soared upward, toward the nearest missile.

It was huge—and, well, so was he. The stylus-shaped missile was nearly as long as he was. Several black bands looped around the weapon's dull, green-gray metal surface. Its conical tip was capped in white and yellow nearly as bright as the jet of flame streaming out like dragon's breath from in between the flanges on the missile's back end.

The missile slowed to a crawl as Karl sped up his thoughts. In a moment, the two of them were frozen in the sky.

"Ani is going to totally freak out when I tell her about this," Jonan said.

Karl conjured the threads in layers, one after the other, just like Dr. Rathpalla had done. He made sure that the pulling, pushing effect was on the right side of the limit Dr. Marteneiss had given everyone, and then let time speed up again—but only a little—as he let the power flow.

He wanted to see if he'd done everything correctly.

The missile didn't move, not even an inch!

Karl shouted in triumph, though the sound was stretched out, like molasses pouring from a jar.

"Don't get too excited, kid," Jonan said. "It's still a nuke!"

The missile's fiery jet propulsion struggled against his magic like an angry dog, but he held it firm.

A moment later, the jet sputtered out, leaving a trail of billowing smoke.

"One down," Bever said, "and dozens more to go."

All the nukes were hurtling toward the ground.

"What are you supposed to do with it?" Geoffrey asked.

That… was a really good question.

"Help!" Karl screamed. "What am I supposed to do with the nuke?!" He prayed that Dr. Nowston's spirit would hear him.

"Set it down somewhere safe!" Dr. Marteneiss said. "Try to save at least a few of them!" she said.

"What!?" Merritt trumpeted. "Are you insane? We should dump them into the sea?"

"We might fuckin' need 'em, Mrs. Elbock!" Dr. Marteneiss replied.

Another nuke detonated. The blast dazed Karl's senses. He could only discern light and the wyrms' screams of pain, and had to go over his memories in slow motion to understand what had just happened.

The missile had exploded near the top of one of the tallest skyscrapers.

Opening his eyes, Karl could only marvel in awe and horror at the torrents fire spreading out from the blast. Dozens of nearby skyscrapers had shattered and melted at nearly the same time, crumpling like burnt matches. For an instant, the uncountable shards of glass spraying through the air glistened in the sunlight. Then they melted and the explosion scattered them to the winds.

Wyrms bellowed in terror.

The explosion seemed to consume Larry; the corrupted wyrm hadn't emerged from the mushrooming cloud. Any relief Karl felt was tinged with sorrow, not that he could feel much relief, anyhow, not with nukes falling from the sky.

How could people live in a world where such terrifying weapons existed?

Carrying the first missile, Karl flew to disable a second one. Once finished, he joined the magic around the two bombs into a single weave, carrying the things like musket balls in a satchel, and he was on his way to his third missile when he slowed time to a crawl.

"No!" Jonan cried. "No!"

Half a dozen missiles were nearly within range of the city's skyline, and none of them were close by. Karl didn't know how to be everywhere at once—at least not anywhere other than inside his own mind!

There are too many! he thought-yelled. I… I can't get them all!

"Then give us your powers!" Bever said. "We can help! The more hands, the better!"

Geoffrey nodded. "I like that idea! I keep telling you you have a mind for tactics, Bever."

"I'll believe it if and when we survive," the axe-man replied.

Even if I give you my powers, Karl said, you won't know what to do with them!

"That's not a problem," Geoffrey said, "you can simply give us the knowledge."

Huh.

Karl hadn't thought of that.

Leave it to Geoffrey to come up with the best plans!

"Count me in, too!" Jonan said.

And Karl did. He gave the spirits command of his powers. They went flying off in every direction.

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Karl returned the flow of time to normal, and then, slithering up into the sky, trumpeted Geoffrey and Bever's idea to the other wyrms.

"Everyone," Karl sang, "use your spirits! They can help us stop the missiles!"

Karl's heart leapt at the sight of dead heroes appearing around his fellow wyrms. Swiftly, the spirits and their guardians flew to the nearest missiles and got to work disabling them. Karl joined the effort, managing to store a third nuke into his magical energy bag.

"Karl!" Dr. Rathpalla yelled. "There's one you missed!"

Karl's wyrm-blood ran cold. He looked and looked, and found it—but too late.

The missile was about to slam into the roof of a skyscraper. Karl slowed time to a crawl, though it was just a stop-gap measure. There was no way he could make it in time. He could even fling his powers there in time. It would take too many handfuls of too many seconds to muster his powers and chuck them at the missile and pull it up and disable it. But just then, Karl felt a twinge in his head. To his amazement, a figure appeared right beneath the missile.

A familiar voice yelled at him through the slowed time.

"Dammit, Karl, give me your powers, too!"

Morgan!?

Karl double-checked the crystals in his mind.

Yes, there he was! Morgan's soul crystal was in Karl's storage. The miserly rifleman must have been uploaded into him along with Bever!

Karl granted Morgan power without delay. As time resumed, Morgan launched the missile up and away from the building, giving Karl just enough time to fly over to it and encase it in the pressure-reducing magic.

Jonan, Geoffrey, and Bever flew back to Karl after passing off the bombs they'd neutralized to other wyrms. "Guys," Jonan said, "I think we did it…" Jonan said.

But then a hideous roar split the air, and then everything went wrong.

Currents of explosions and dust shot up from a ruined stretch of the city in a swirling column. A familiar, corrupted wyrm emerged from the column, high above the city.

"No…" Geoffrey said.

Larry shook off debris, which spiraled off him.

"Didn't one of the nukes get him?" Jonan asked.

"Apparently not!" Bever said.

Waves of energy pulsed out from the corrupted wyrm in an expanding sphere. The last few nukes yet to be neutralized exploded midair the instant the energy wave touched them. Karl and the others managed to get their forcefields up just in time, but even then, the blast flung them away like twigs in the wind.

Karl had to fight to keep his collection of nukes from flying away from him. He poured energy into the magic around them, pulling them close, right up against his underbelly. Then he folded the excess around him, mashing it into the miracle of his flight and powered himself forward, up and away.

The disparate explosions merged with one another, and with the corrupted wyrm's shockwave. Their annihilating radiance swelled, tearing through everything in their path, even the earth.

The wyrms flew as far as they could as quickly as they could. Even so, not everyone made it.

Valentine got swept up in the blast. He managed to shoot one of the bombs away before the wave hit him, but it wasn't enough. The wave triggered the nuclear missiles by his side, which blossomed in an awesome fury that detonated the discarded bomb, too. The all-consuming light swallowed up Valentine's brief scream, and then the wyrm was no more.

The great clouds of light bulged, filling the sky with their ruination, making a candle out of the Sun.

Larry raced toward the bomb-toting wyrms while Karl and the rest of them fled. Karl's wyrmsight showed power building throughout the corrupted wyrm's body.

The next "pulse" was imminent.

Dr. Nowston launched one of his missiles at Larry. Karl watched the energies swirling around the bomb reverse direction for a split second—squeezing down on the missile instead of alleviating pressure—before vanishing, but Larry fired a small pulse from his body before the process was complete, causing the nuclear bomb to detonate while it was barely halfway toward its intended target. The corrupted wyrm rocketed upward with ludicrous speed, easily dodging the blast radius.

"Murderers!" he roared. "Murderers!" His roars were the voice of madness.

"Just run!" Kurt yelled. "Run!!"

In a panic, Karl retreated to his mind, and took the three spirits riding on his back with him. The four of them stood, fully human, in the sky-roofed room at the top of Karl's mind.

"You have to stop him before he kills us all," Bever yelled, "or before he gets those bombs to do so, first!" He waved his arms in fear; thankfully, his axe was no longer in his hands.

"How are we supposed to fight him!?" Karl asked. "Larry keeps… regenerating? Is that the right word?"

It reminded Karl of that time when the rats had come to the barn where the soldiers had kept the feeding stock for their horses and other beasts of burden. The rats kept fouling all the oats, hay, and grains, and no matter how many of the pests they killed, the rats kept coming back. It was only when Bever had persuaded the quartermaster to follow Karl's advice and get the cooper to make barrels to hold the feeding stock that the army finally managed to contain the damage.

That was the way of the world: if you couldn't eliminate all of the pests (and you almost never could), you had to fortify yourself against them.

Karl had no idea if there was any way to fortify the wyrms against the corrupted wyrm's terrifying magics, but, considering the equally terrifying firepower of those "nukes", Karl had a good idea of how he could eliminate Larry all at once.

"I… I think we have to destroy his body all at once," Karl said. "And we can use the bombs to do it!"

Geoffrey laughed. "Brilliant, Karl! Brilliant!"

"But how will you detonate the nukes on top of him if he can just blast them away beforehand?" Jonan asked.

Outside, through the slowed time, while all the other wyrms were flying away, Nurse Costran was heading the other direction.

Straight for Larry.

Karl's spirits saw it, too.

The poor woman. Had her broken heart broken her mind? Did she want to die? From what Karl had seen and heard, he was pretty sure she had feelings for the kindly janitor.

"Yuth! Yuth!" Dr. Rathpalla screamed. "What are you doing!?"

She glanced back at them. "Be safe, Ibrahim. I'm not coming with you."

"What are you saying?"

"I won't leave him."

Geoffrey sighed. "I have an idea, but I fear the others won't like it."

Jonan grinned. "Those are my favorite kinds of ideas."

Geoffrey opened his mind for Karl to read them. The details of the Count's strategy instantly flooded into Karl's thought—and he hated every bit of it.

"Geoffrey…?"

Geoffrey nodded austerely. "It's our only hope," Geoffrey said. "And we don't have time to try any others."

Karl turned around and chased after Nurse Costran.

"Karl? Karl!?" Dr. Rathpalla screamed in shock.

Yuth had cast her missiles aside, leaving them in a cluster that floated high over the flattened, smoldering pit one of the nukes had dug into the middle of the city.

"Larry, no!" she yelled. "Stop this!"

Larry slammed into her. The impact entangled their body and sent them spiraling through the air. Yuth grabbed Larry's arms and held them tight. The corrupted wyrm snarled and thrashed. The power building around his body erupted from his head in a beam that tore through several more buildings as he flailed.

Karl flew toward the two wyrms faster than he had ever flown before.

"It's okay Lare," Yuth said, with surprising softness. "I'm keeping my promise, just like I said I would. We'll be together… forever."

And for just a moment, the prismatic flames in Larry's eyes fluttered and faded.

"There, Karl," Geoffrey said, "there's your opening!"

Nodding, Karl dismissed the spirits in his mind and returned himself to a single consciousness. He put all of his effort into the flight-weave wrapped around his body, pouring power into, rocketing himself toward the entangled wyrms, the air seeming to burn against his scales. He shot high overhead and then suddenly reversed his motion—his whole body snapping from the shift—and plummeted down, hurtling toward the wyrms, grabbing Nurse Costran in a moment of slowed time, digging his claws into her violet-black scales as he released his hold on the bombs.

He reversed the orientation of the magic around the nukes, just like Dr. Nowston had done.

Karl moved so quickly and Nurse Costran gripped so strongly that her arms got ripped in two, even as Karl lugged her downward, sped faster by their combined weight.

Larry batted the four nukes away, but then Morgan's spirit appeared again, swathed in Karl's magic, and fired at the missiles point blank, ricocheting them back at the corrupted wyrm in the time it took to blink.

The explosion blossomed at his chest. The fires in Larry's eyes dimmed for one last time. A fragment of wyrmsong tumbled down along chasing after Karl and Yuth's plummeting bodies; a single sentence, tinged with the heartfelt regrets of a humble custodian trapped in an evil fate.

"I love you."

Then, like the Holy Angel in the legends of old, the wyrm became the Sun.

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