Green braced himself against the pipe wall, gasping for breath, looking as if he had just crawled back from death's door. He looked at the others, then at Logan.
"If we'd been even a little slower, we'd have died here."
Logan ignored Green's chatter and turned to Klaus.
"Here's what I'm planning next." He spoke very quickly, and there was a faint tremor in his voice; clearly, his emotions were nowhere near as calm as he looked. "Once we get close to the Tower of Erudition, we have to go around it and avoid that rift to the Sea of Knowledge in the sky. Your plan has already stirred things up until everyone in the Empire knows about it. Right now, that Crown is wrestling with the Sea of Knowledge. We can't touch that sea, so we can only circle around from the side. This is our only chance."
He paused, then added another sentence.
"After we go up, we'll descend directly from the other side of the tower top and use that Gray Mist as cover. When the time comes, we'll drop ropes. You'll climb down along them. After that, you'll be on your own."
Logan took two objects from his waist and handed them to Klaus.
They were two thumb-sized copper signal flares, their shells engraved with the Pathfinder mark of a bird spreading its wings.
"Fire the signal flares when you need to pull out. As long as we can see it and can get through, we'll come pick you up." Logan looked into Klaus's eyes and paused. "But if the Flesh has already gone completely out of control by then, Sky-Seeking Fortress can't be lost here. You'll have to fend for yourselves."
Klaus took the signal flares, tucked them into his clothes, and nodded. "Understood."
Lu