"Fallon?" Aida lowered her stylus as her Seneschal leapt away from her. "But I thought... where's Ghillie?"

  He looked wretched, wan, and distraught, his eyes only half-focused.

  "She ran off for no reason. I was told you would be-" he jerked aside violently, his sentence ending in a rush of air as he crashed into the wall.

  As Aida scrambled backwards, she caught impressions of a stained white dress, tightly-braided brown hair, white skin, a jagged scar across the jaw line, and a crude bronze blade. Her assailant lunged and slashed wildly, clearly no more knowledgeable about how to use a knife than Aida, but not letting that get in the way of attempting murder.

  "Stop, stop this!" Aida screamed, backpedaling with stylus clutched uselessly before her. Her shot glasses tumbled uselessly and shattered on the marble floor. "You don't have to do this!"

  Her scream set the ring at her neck vibrating. The image of what might happen if she duplicated the destruction at the Optomime's here inside the Spire flashed in her mind and she pawed at the choker with her mangled hand.

  The woman fell, cursing, as Fallon tackled her. Aida stepped forward to somehow help, then leapt away as the wildly-swinging knife barely missed her leg. At her throat, the vibration intensified. She dropped the stylus to grab the choker with her good hand, ripping it away.

  As Aida looked up, the woman bucked Fallon off of her and plunged the knife into his side. A split-second later, the woman slumped off clawing at her back as her other arm fell limp. She toppled, one of Ghillie's red-tasseled needle-knives protruding from her shoulder. Ghillie darted in, ripped the needle free and stood over the woman, eyes burning. A pair of Ocyl's porcelain-masked Ferals sprinted down the hall and slammed into the would-be-assassin before she got upright.

  The Ferals dragged her away screaming. "He said I would get away with it! He said everyone would know my name!"

  Ghillie practically mugged Aida, the girl's hands darting all over Aida's body like an amphetamine-fueled molester. "I'm okay. Ghillie, it's all right. I'm okay."

  She grabbed the Feral's slender wrists and pulled them away. Blood. Ghillie pried free and brushed a shallow cut on Aida's wrist she didn't remember taking.

  "It's nothing, Ghillie, I'm slow-motion Wolverine now, like the movies. Remember?" Aida pushed past the Feral towards where Fallon lay clutching the knife handle sticking from his side.

  "Don't pull it out!" Aida shouted, swatting his hands away.

  "You are speaking your abominable language again." Fallon winced and stared at his bloody hand. "I would have died happy if I never had to hear it again."

  "No death talk." Aida ripped a strip from the slashed sleeve of her dress and pressed the crumpled cloth around the knife wound. "Ghillie, go get help! A doctor!"

  "She cannot understand you," Fallon gasped. He turned to Ghillie and spoke what sounded exactly like English to Aida. "Feral, your Dynast orders you to bring a surgon or a soresearer, whatever you can find first. For no good reason she wants me to live."

  Ghillie was already halfway down the hall before he'd said more than a few words. She dodged another trio of Ocyl's Ferals jogging towards them and was off. Aida shredded another piece of her dress and packed it over the already-blood soaked wad.

  "You saved my life, Fallon, I'm not going to let you die." Aida frowned as she pressed on the wound. "Besides, who would translate my awful language if you did? You're the only other English speaker in the nearest hundred universes."

  "I saved you?" Fallon sighed, slumping further against the wall. "After I die your first task is to procure a dozen Ferals so your next Seneschal does not have to do their job."

  "I said no death talk, that's an order." Aida looked up hopefully for Ghillie's return. "If you die I'm going to have them make you a Feral just to spite you."

  A pained chuckle. "Does not work that way, I am afraid. You cannot damn the dead."

  "Then I'll have you turned into those rotters we passed in the street. You can moan at the other Dynasts for me."

  He stared at her, aghast. "You would sell me to the Crowmen? After all I have done for you?"

  She grinned wickedly, relieved at finding a lever to manipulate him with. "So long as there's enough of you to twitch. You'd better not die."

  "As you say, Dynast." He let her help him roll onto his side, the knife hilt thrusting upwards. "Sorry for telling them about your... sorry I... might have caused..."

  "Shh, it's okay. Tell me later."

  After a few moments spent listening to his pained and ragged breathing, hot blood trickling through the silk jammed about the wound, his eyes began to drift closed.

  "Not that quiet. No sleeping. Talk to me. Um... hey, why would someone want to kill me? I've been here less than a day and already the goons in the alley plus this?"

  His eyes blinked open. "Many reasons. Death wish. Glorious infamy for killing a Dynast. Paid by some Chapter... thinks you a threat."

  "Ocyl said something about Chapters. I haven't even been approached to join one so why would they already write me off?" She shook her head as she ripped another strip of hem lose. "Besides, my Partaking thing was practically yesterday. How many even know I exist?"

  At that moment Ghillie trotted into view followed by an obese woman wrapped in a rust-splotched leather apron and slung with a bandoleer of tiny golden flasks. Half-a-dozen more Porcelain Guard came close behind, Ocyl himself trailing in an elegant, pure-white toga analog frilled with pale green lace.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The huge woman fixed her eyes on Fallon, shoved her long, graying hair out of her face, and pushed Aida away bodily.

  "Hey, I'm a Dynast you know!"

  The woman gave her a flat, blank look then squinted down at Fallon's wound. Aida felt at her throat, remembered the choker, and paced the hall until she tracked it down.

  When she got it cinched on, she turned to find Ocyl standing between her and Fallon. Ocyl's hard look stood at odds with his normal blase appearance. He knelt and bowed his head.

  "You have my complete and utter apology, Dynast Aida." When he rose, anger pinched his face. "I will gift you your would-be-assassin's face."

  Aida took an involuntary step back. "That... won't be necessary. I'm content just to have mine intact. What the f-"

  She launched backwards, nearly crashing into the ceiling between the low gravity and her newfound strength. One of the smoky, snake-like creatures that swarmed the god swirled sinuously about Ocyl.

  "What's that doing here?" Her hand brushed her throat but the ring lay still.

  Ocyl regarded the semi-insubstantial creature with an amused look. "That? It's just an el. Sometimes they wander from their gods and find a Dynast to follow for a bit instead. No one knows why. Only Dynasts and some Kin even see them. We tolerate them since there's little choice-" he swung his hand through it, the thing swirling apart like so much smoke before reforming "-but they do occasionally say something interesting."

  "It talks?" The alien voices she'd heard before her explosion whispered in her memory or perhaps this one whispered indecipherable nothings into her mind now.

  "You'll hear voices sometimes when they're nearby, yes. Who knows where the voices really-"

  They turned as Fallon cried out in pain. Heedless of ceremony or dignity, Aida pushed past Ocyl. The huge woman shot Aida a dark look and dropped the extracted knife to the floor, but she didn't shoo Aida away. Dark blood swelled from the wound.

  "She's going to kill him!" Aida lunged but Ghillie deftly pulled her back, shaking her head. The girl pointed to her own eyes, then Aida's, then down to Fallon.

  "This substantial woman is Fetriene," Ocyl said behind her. "My personal soresearer."

  Fetriene drank all the liquid from one of her gold flasks and rubbed her hands together rapidly as she moved them towards the wound.

  "I don't care what she is. Pulling the knife out will..."

  A faint, red-gold shine emanated from between Fetriene's hands, growing from barely-perceptible to faintly-pulsating. Aida felt heat radiating from a meter away. Fetriene examined her radiant palms, wiped sweat from her forehead with her bicep, and carefully aligned her hands above Fallon's side.

  "She's not going to-"

  "Yes," Ocyl said.

  Fetriene's hands clamped tight over the wound. Sizzling and the smell of cooking flesh accompanied Fallon's screams. He writhed away from the woman's touch but Fetriene shifted, leveraging her mass to pin him against the wall and floor.

  Aida lurched back, sickened. If Ghillie hadn't been there to stop her she'd have hauled the woman off to stop whatever this was they substituted for doctoring here.

  After a mercifully short time, Fallon passed out. Shortly after, sizzling ceased and the woman examined her handiwork. Aida leaned in, horrified and curious both.

  Through the crusts of dried blood, Fetriene's touch transformed knife wound into a seared, scabbing mound of scar tissue.

  "Holy damn, was that magic?"

  Ocyl snorted. "Magic is a myth lapped up by the superstitious. Magic is my menials shoving their cut hair and fingernails into cracks between the bricks of their dwellings for protection from evil spirits. Nonsense. No, Fetriene is a respected mancer of perhaps the most widely practiced and respected Lineage of all, after gonists, maybe. Magic, pah."

  His words would've carried more weight without a smoke eel spiraling around his legs.

  Aida backed off as the soresearer stepped boldly up to Ocyl, thrust the empty flask into his hands, and strode away without another word.

  "Lineage?"

  Ocyl quirked an eyebrow and waggled the bottle. "With how little he's told you, I might have done you more of a favor to let your Seneschal die."

  "I've had similar thoughts. To cut him some slack, we've been rushing about like headless chickens since he first showed up and he's a bit miffed that they scooped a bunch of memories and things out to shove English in. He did save my life from that lady."

  "It seems your Feral did most of the saving, he merely kept the woman's knife occupied." Ocyl bent to examine Fallon's wound for a moment, wrinkled his nose, rose, and looked Ghillie up and down the way a man might examine a horse he hoped to purchase. "Quite the luck you ended up with a Sliver for a Feral. The one that assassinated all those Dynasts a while back, I would think. Apparently even Slivers get caught sometimes."

  "She what?" Aida turned to look into Ghillie's mysterious eyes. If the towering Dynast examining her like an animal bothered her, Ghillie gave no indication. "But she's so tiny."

  "Who do you think would make the less obvious assassin, her or me?" Ocyl waved his hand up and down over his body then hers. "I'll trade you ten Porcelain Guard for her."

  "Ghillie's not for sale." Aida's hackles went up, the urge to plant a fist in Ocyl face nearly overwhelming her reason. "Not for a hundred Ferals. Wait, aren't they bonded for life?"

  "Are they? Absolutely charming, though; you've grown so attached you named it! How wonderful." Ocyl clapped his hands in delight, then sighed dramatically. "At least until it dies. That's what they're for you know. I've been through so many I couldn't hope to count if I cared to. Which I don't. Speaking of retinue, here's Janali."

  Ocyl's gorgeous Seneschal wove quickly-yet-gracefully through the press of Ferals clogging the hallway, taking in Fallon's unconscious form with a glance.

  "Dynast Ocyl. The Chief Inoculist demands an urgent meeting."

  "Demands?" Ocyl quirked an eyebrow then glanced at Aida. "A Dynast's work can be so tiring and trying sometimes, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Constantly." Aida knelt as Fallon groaned. His eyes fluttered.

  "Before I go, know I procured you a fresh pair of Ferals and will deliver a Valeer as soon as one comes available. Least I can do is replace the damages you've suffered in my verse." He glanced down at Fallon. "If this Seneschal fails to survive Fetriene's ministrations, I'll track down another of those as well."

  "Thank you," Aida said, wondering if she should refuse. Fallon's earlier insistence about the difficulty of replacing Ferals and Valeers made her wary of Ocyl's motives. "That all sounds like fair recompense."

  "If that sets us at balance, consider the use of one of my villas as my gift along with another royal strider to get you there. So long as you don't break any more of them or my menials, that is." He smiled disarmingly.

  Fallon's warning echoed in her head. Against it, thoughts of a quiet place to get centered, clean, garbed in clothing she actually chose, to relax and sleep for a day or three made for an offer she couldn't refuse.

  "I'll do my best to only break anyone who tries to break me and mine first. Scout's honor." She held up three fingers, thumb and pinky touching. He quirked an eyebrow, but made no comment.

  "Then I'll leave you to it. Don't hesitate to send any menial to find me at any time, especially if Reck, Wake, or other Chapter representatives drop in to finagle you to their side. Even should you like what they're selling, best to hold out and make them fight over you. Rare is the new Dynast these days so don't sell yourself short."

  "There's enough buying and selling of people around here, thank you very much. Not about to let anyone purchase me." Realizing she came across a bit snippy, she added, "But really, thank you for the hospitality, consideration, and advice."

  He bowed deeply and walked away, the nucleus at the heart of densely packed orbits of Ferals. Aida watched him go, feeling deeply ambivalent.

  "All right, let's get you to someplace where you can recuperate." She bent to help Fallon to his feet. His weight sagged into her even with Ghillie lending a shoulder. When they got him fully upright, he looked her in the eye, took a deep breath as though preparing to say something important, and vomited all over her.

  Next Chapter: Ado shifts targets.

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a travelling musician

  Aida: MC.

  Aj: a long-slumbering, powerful being which annihilated Inro's Sunset Legions. Also "almost destroyed the Dynasty single-handedly six-and-some centuries ago"

  Arca: chief of the tribe that "adopted" Inro

  Audits/"Diggers": Libriam internal affairs

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  "Braid"; a thug who accosted Aida in Jadeye

  Deai: Hassani's swordmaster, renowned for killing a Paragon

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  Eth: a young Imminent

  Ghillie: a 3rd Feral who wears a primitive Ghillie suit. Carries cross between kunai and acupuncture needles

  Goboro: a fat, amiable scribe friend of Hassani's in Libriam

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal

  Fetriene: Ocyl's soresearer

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court, sent by Fractious Fraction?

  Inro: Dynast formerly ruling Sunset

  Izbali: a silent tribal shaman

  Janali: Ocyl's elegant Seneschal

  Jaxe: Dynast of Stacks. "Young", wealthy. Also has "the Pale" (an Albino)

  Kass/Kassenia: mercenary attached to Adonissian

  Ocyl: Dynast of Heaven's Tread, powerful and unpredictable

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  Reck: Dynast of Chalk, "not witty enough to be clever and takes himself too seriously to be ironic"

  Rega: Inro's sister, Dynast

  Rustrovan/"Rusty": Eth's old, gap-toothed skinscribe

  Ryk:?

  Sava: Dynast of Libriam

  Venner: Grandmaster of Optimimes in Jadeye, "best in the entire Book"

  Wake: Dynast of Graves, marries even though they all die

  The Fallen

  Feral: a bone-masked woman of violence (Feral) in Aida's service. Knife wielder. Killed by Ghillie in Jadeye.

  "Toothy": leader of a group of thugs who accosted Aida in Heaven's Tread. Killed by Feral in Jadeye

  Valeer: a mentally challenged, unkempt individual able to manipulate Thorns. Died in Jadeye to "Braid".

  White Spiral: an older Feral in Aida's service. Archer. Died protecting Aida in Jadeye

  Terms (alphabetical)

  All, The: ?

  Ancients: a major Dynastic Chapter, an "elite number"

  Anchorites: individuals capable of creating anchor points affixed to nothing.

  Annalis compound: sprawling complex in Libriam, heart of The Book's bureaucracy. Arrivals 'Dirt' home to new dispatches, Archives 'Dust' storage for old material. Paths and Ways storage for 'nails.

  Arborian: gardeners from Groves?

  Ascen, The/The Ascendant: divinities "watching over every verse"?

  Assessor: census-taker

  Aze: swordmaker?

  Black Court: a realm of pure darkness. Also, those who rule there. Where Partaking happens.

  Blood, The: imbibed at Partaking, transforms one into a Dynast if they survive

  Book of Verses, The: the 1,000 verses ruled by the Dynasty. "Kiloverse"

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

  Century Thread: additional threads appearing elsewhere on the body every century a Dynast lives

  Cerebrist: creator of slavants

  Chalk/"Vistas": verse entirely made of chalky cliff, belongs to Reck

  Chant, The/Sacrosanct Chant: some sort of law in the Dynasty?

  Chant of Innoculation: chant supposed to protect against disease

  Chapters: power groupings among the Dynasts of the Book: predominantly The Ancients, the Fractious Fraction, and Isolates.

  Circular Sea: an ocean abutting the Jadeye segment of Heaven's Tread

  Clock Priest: priests from Gears?

  ConMach: convoy?

  Crowmen: buy corpses to return them to life and service as rotters

  Cupola Thorn: the main Thorn in the city Jadeye in Heaven's Tread, a stone dome built over it

  Currence: something valuable inside old coins?

  Current: some form of energy that powers "artifices"?

  Dusa: people with manipulable hair of silver wire, from Gears

  Dynast: individual given rule of a verse if they survive Partaking. Ageless and hard to kill. Regenerative. Sustained by "the Blood"; no food or water necessary.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  Ebonese: the language of the Book

  Echoseer shells: devices to allow one to "see" in the Black Court

  El: semi-insubstantial snake/remora-like creatures that follow gods (and sometimes Dynasts) around

  Feral: bone-masked bodyguards who require the essence of their master to survive. "Damned to Ferals" as a form of capital punishment. "the damned", "damned to a Feral"

  Fetalist: Imminent faction who believe the future is unchangeable

  First Thread/Primus: a fresh Dynast/the first luminescent silver thread etched into their foreheads.

  Fractious Fraction/"DissatisFaction": a major Dynastic Chapter who "hate everyone including each other"

  Gates, The: ?

  God, A: unique, "undying" creatures of immense size, The First Ones

  God's Rote: child's first memorization, what gods are

  God-dwellers: "monks" who live on a god

  Gonist: organ dealers and traders

  Gons: self-sustaining organs capable of living outside a host

  Graves: a verse "Made of the dead by the dead for the dead".

  Heaven's Tread: a verse "inside a hollow rolling pin", host to Jadeye, the largest city in the Book

  High Parser: officials from Ink

  Imminent: seers?

  Inevitables; faction of Imminent who believe it is their sacred duty to ensure the future comes to pass as seen

  Ink: home verse of the Skeinry and Keens

  Innoculist: doctors?

  Inviolate: agents of the black court who "serve the Black Court, protect the Dynasty, uphold the Chant, root out corruption."

  Inviolate Vial: carried by Inviolates as badge of office

  Iode: substance that ignites when crushed

  Iris: the giant portals leading between one cylinder of Heaven's Tread to the next

  Isolates: a major Dynastic Chapter with a "unified stand for independence"

  Jade Eye, The: the "giant emerald" at the middle of Ocyl's Spire in Jadeye

  Jadeye: the largest city in the Book and major trade hub, in Heaven's Trade

  Jaxeday: holiday in Stacks with boat carvings, feasts, games of Fishhead, dances, and storytelling

  Jaxestack: a whitewashed stack on Stacks home to Jaxekin

  Jutland Reach: a verse with guns?

  Keen: Ink warriors wearing impossibly-heavy iron armor whose power source drains color from the area about it.

  Kin: descendants of a Dynast

  Kiss, The: ?

  Letch: sect bred leech-like creature designed to stop bleeding on wounds

  Libriam: a swampy verse home to the Annalis, heart of The Book's bureaucracy

  Libwe: tribe possessing the "holy" Limn clay bed.

  Limn: "infused clay" bearing some sort of internal power, used by Ebon to found the Dynasty

  Lineage: ?

  Linemen: workers on the Stacks trolleys who pull the cars along the lines

  Logos: ?

  Machine Curse: ?

  Mancers: ?

  Menial: common folk

  Molt: person able to shed skins (see skins)

  Mon, The: ?

  Mourne, The: something dangerous that lurks in the Vale, "the why we do not tarry"

  Mune: someone from the Collective on Dost?

  Nameday: when children are named

  Ocyl's Preserve: a garden "beyond the Circular Sea" in Heaven's Tread?

  Ocyl's Spire: the tower home to the court of Ocyl, Dyanst of Heaven's Tread

  One-Eighth Shithole: Aida's verse. Unfortunately. A desolate place home to volcanoes and a giant dead turtle

  Optomime: gadgeteer

  Pale, The: light-skinned people, conquered by Ebon during the founding of the Dynasty

  Paragon: warrior who can see the future

  Partaking: the ritual that creates Dynasts (or kills those who try). Performed by some unknown, large creature in the Black Court.

  Phero: Lineage whose scent creates overwhelming attraction

  'pillar: fuzzy Sect-bred giant caterpillar pet

  Porcelain Guard: Ocyl's white-masked Ferals

  Pure Priest of the Ascen: priests?

  Reachers: massive, Sect-bred creatures that direct traffic and rescue unfortunates in the Sighted Path in Jadeye

  Reconquest: time four-hundred years ago when Inro "drove [tribals] back into civilization's fold at spear point"

  Rotters: sack-clothed, crudely-masked 'zombies' uses as pack-beasts and simple laborers. Created/sold by Crowmen.

  Royal Strider: giant striders which carry carriages of the wealthy slung underneath them

  Sect, The: breeders of useful insectoid- and/or sauroid-like creatures

  Seericide: seers capable of Knowing everything as they die

  Seneschal: chief servant of a Dynast, bear permanent strings allowing them to speak and understand any language

  Sighted Path: the zero-g road down the center of Heaven's Tread

  Sixth Tier Rebellion: last major uprising, in Ziggurat a century ago

  Skeinry: iron-plated communication centers where Skeiners translate vibrations sent by wyre from other verses

  Skin/Hollow: animate skin of a molt able to move, talk, and share snatches of its experience with its molt

  Skinlife: living tattoos

  Skinscribe: individuals brailled with lore, walking libraries

  Slavant: an individual who "loses much" to be implanted with an ability

  Soresearer: individuals capable of "healing" by cauterizing wounds with their hands

  Stacks: An ocean verse comprised of tall pillars jutting up from the seas. Trolleys run on long ropes between them "affixed by Anchorites to airy nothing"

  Striders: "stilt-legged gray-skinned insect-lizard"s used as fast mounts, large enough to carry several riders

  Strings: worn or implanted wire devices that translate speech

  Subterrane, The: travel route accessed by Ebon via Limn?

  Sunset: the verse where Aj was 'contained', formerly protected by Dynast Inro. The "Prison of Prisons"

  Sunset Legions/Vault Legions: Inro's Legions, wiped out by Aj in Sunset

  Surgon: person able to remove organs

  Terminus:a verse?

  Thorn: huge, curling thorns which Valeers can use as gateways to the Vale, doorways between verses. Grow into verses over centuries

  Thrum: guide in the Black Court

  Twine: "one soul threaded through two bodies"

  Unkillable Swordsman: a Paragon killed by Deia long ago

  Vale: "The Place Between". A realm of high-contrast black and white full of thorns and Thorns.

  Valeer: people capable of activating Thorns, barely functional of anything else

  Valeer's 'nail: crystals containing wafers that allow travel within the Vale to specific verses without a Valeer

  Venger: muscle man?

  Verse: a pocket universe or world

  Verser Lord/Lady: agents of an individual Dynast who rule part of a verse at the whim of their Dynast

  Vibrant: color-changing individuals from Ink?

  Watter: an energetic liquid

  Wicker Way: towers of stone, wood, and rope that connect opposite far sides of Jadeye

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

  Wretch: untouchables forced to walk on all fours, "the human refuse that cleans up the literal waste piles"

  Wyres: lines run through the Vale between verses that allow communication between

  Ziggurat: the verse basing the Legions