Aida felt unimaginably better after her long soak, a simple manicure, a delicious meal of bread, thin-sliced meat, and fresh fruit, then a nap. Awakening in her luxurious bedroom, she could almost pretend everything was a dream and her room deep in a Caribbean resort.

  Except for Ghillie napping with her back against the door. Or the hundreds of voices now chanting outside the villa: "Mother. Mother. Mother."

  "Great," she muttered, wandering over to what passed for a bathroom and staring in the beaten-silver mirror. A clay pitcher of water poured in a basin gave her enough to splash on her face and rub at her sleep lines.

  A knock at the door. Aida leaned out to see Ghillie crack the door then open it wide to admit Aliasara. The woman carried a cloth bundle, beaming as usual. "Aida, all is well?"

  Aida smiled back and took the woman's hand. "Best it's been in I don't know how long."

  "Good, because the people gather at the gates to see you."

  "To see me? " A rock plunged into her stomach. "Why? How many?"

  "To see you. They say you are a Dynast with an empty verse. Many and more are hungry and desperate."

  Aida stared. "They know it's named One-Eighth Shithole for a reason, right?"

  Aliasara wetted her hands and tidied up Aida's hair in a business-like fashion. "To a man whose family has touched no bread for days, anything sounds an improvement."

  "How is Fallon? I need him for this."

  The smile faltered. Faded. "He lies feverish. We've changed all his bed things twice."

  "His wound reopened?" Aida stopped, mid-reach for a water pitcher.

  "No. He can't keep food in." Aliasara shook her head. "Never seen its like. It comes out of both ends."

  Aida frowned. An infection causing vomiting and...

  When it hit her, she stumbled back to sit heavily on the tiled bench with a hole cut into it that served as a toilet. A heaviness fell and she pressed eyes tightly together, wishing she could make her sudden realization go away. "Oh my god, it'll be like smallpox."

  "Small what?"

  "The flu. I had it when they came to get me. It's a sickness, one no one here'll have any resistance to."

  "Oh, is that all?" Aliasara squatted in front of Aida, looking perplexed. "If it's a sickness, the Inoculist can give him a chant and it will go away."

  "That's why he's been chanting?" Aida leaning her head against the wall as the pieces clicked into place. "He thinks chanting will help against the flu?"

  Outside, the calls of "Mother" settled into a steady rhythm. She wondered if she should get out there. Appeasing a crowd of opportunity-seekers shrank in scale of importance to nearly nothing compared to a thousand universes all virgin to the flu. She'd read somewhere that influenza wiped out entire Amazon tribes who caught it from narcotraffickers. Even with over a century of acclimation or whatever they called it plus vaccines, the flu still killed hundreds-of-thousands elsewhere on Earth every year. She couldn't imagine what it'd do here.

  Aliasara laughed, but this time it inspired the opposite of warmth in Aida. "Sicknesses come from ill thoughts. They leak into people's heads from the Logos, but the Inoculists simply delve into the thought-realm to find chants that block the flow."

  Being a serving woman from a different universe where simple steel seemed to be a precious rarity, the woman obviously wouldn't get it. Aida struggled with how to explain a virus to her.

  Aliasara frowned. "We sent for an Inoculist before your bath. They should've been here hours ago."

  Aida leapt to her feet. "The High Inoculist! As I left the Spire Janali said the High Inoculist needed to see Ocyl urgently. Oh my God! The 1918 alone killed my grandfather and my older sister before I was even born. It'll be like the Black Death here."

  "The Black Death?" Aliasara stood, confused. "Is that what they call The Kiss where you come from? Many say it's a myth."

  "The Kiss? I've heard it mentioned but..." Aida forced herself to listen to Aliasara's reply as her mind spun with the ramifications of what she'd unwittingly done, unwittingly carried with her.

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  "Mentioned? No one told you about The Kiss when you were a child? When Aj descended from the Hells beyond The Book to punish our sins?"

  At Aida's blank look, Aliasara looked incredulous. "You've never heard of Aj the Annihilator? The White Kiss? Any of it?"

  "As I said, I've heard it mentioned in passing." Aida grew annoyed. "Pretend I'm an idiot child like my Seneschal does and tell me about it."

  "I apologize, Dynast." Aliasara bowed deeply. "I meant no offense."

  Aida sighed and grabbed the woman's shoulders to bring her upright. "Just Aida. And don't mind me, I'm just a bit prickly at the moment. Go on. You were telling me about the Wizard of Aj."

  "I don't know what wizards are. Like the multi-minded Wiz of Berujat?"

  "Um, sure."

  "Well, it happened centuries ago. They say even Ocyl was but a child when it happened and Heaven's Tread not even discovered by the Vale Walkers."

  The vast stretch of Ocyl's life suddenly loomed before Aida and it really hit her how old all the Dynasts she'd met had to be. None of them could be any younger than her, apparently, and for all she knew some might be ten times her age. "So how'd they stop this Aj? What sins was he destroying everything for in the first place?"

  Aliasara collected a towel from a nearby alcove and blotted at Aida's face. "It came because the people rebelled against The Black Court on every page of the Book, refusing to contribute to the Donative. That and our sins before the Ascendant, the people's vanity, pride, and hubris. The Blind Priests tell us Aj came to set things right and only ceased its vengeance when we finally released our pride and returned to the fold and knelt again so the Dynasty could stand and protect us."

  "So it's like the Old Testament God?"

  Shaking her head, Aliasara tugged at the strings of Aida's gown. "Not a god of anywhere, but a horror formed of utter darkness. No army could stop it, no Mancer could contain it, no Dynast could withstand it. It ripped hundreds of verses from the Book and when it stopped in Sunset, it gave the White Kiss as a parting gift to wipe out hundreds of verses more."

  "One hell of a kiss."

  "A horrible affliction Aj imparted by kissing one of the Dynasts just before Aj suddenly stopped, dropped to the lotus position, and there remains to this day. They say the unfortunate Dynast lived a few days in agony, then died coughing up clouds of white dust. Anyone who breathed it died the same way. They abandoned whole verses to it for anything that breathed caught and spread it."

  "My God," Aida whispered. "What happened to Aj while this went on? Did they kill it?"

  "Oh no. They say it became invulnerable, harder than currence so no weapon could harm it nor Mancer's art affect it or that it turned soft as smoke so nothing could cut it. The entire verse of Sunset where it halted became its prison and Inro the Incorruptible its warden." Aliasara walked from the room, returning a moment later with a dress of ruffled blue-green silk and lace. "They say Versers and Dynasts still travel to Sunset to see Aj seated in the ruins of the Ascen temple where it finally ceased its rampage and fell into eternal slumber."

  Aida stripped her dress off and took the new one, but paused with it over her head. "Can I do this myself or will you lose your job?"

  Aliasara laughed and motioned for her to continue, deftly finding and lacing little ties about the back to fit Aida's form more snugly.

  "So, why didn't they just bury Aj or something? That's what we do if we can't figure out any other way to get rid of it. Radioactives and toxic chemicals go in a pit. Fill it with concrete or drop it down a mine shaft and put up a big sign that says 'Go Away or Die' or something."

  "Nothing can move it. They once buried Aj under a pile of rocks tall as twenty men. When they were done, they immediately dug it out, worried it might awaken and vanish without them being able to notice." Aliasara scoffed. "Typical Dynast thinking: make it so by the labor of a thousand of us then think about it. No offense meant, of course."

  Aida laughed at the concern in Aliasara's voice. "I truly have Dynastic blood in me; I lived most of my life that way. The think-after-doing thing, not the break-a-thousand-laborers bit. I made it to a hundred years I guess, so wasn't one-hundred percent disaster. I think you'll find me a different breed of Dynast entirely."

  If Aida packed a camera, she would take a picture of Aliasara's radiant smile to look at whenever she felt down.

  "So when does this Aj wake up? There must be a prophecy or something. There's always a prophecy."

  "Oh, dozens, starting as soon as Aj stopped. Every generation or so some madman on the street forms a cult preparing for The Last Awakening, but fortunately they've never once been right. I pray it never wakes up. After this long maybe it won't: why sleep or meditate for six-hundred years? Some think the Dynasts even made it all up just to keep us in line." Aliasara walked around Aida to admire her handiwork. "I like green on you, it matches your eyes."

  A rapid knock at the door repeated several times. Aida caught distant shouting and screams.

  "That can't be good."

  "Coming, coming!" Aliasara wound around the furniture as Ghillie cracked the suite door open. The Feral immediately stepped aside.

  "Yes, Stiller?" Aliasara said in the hall outside.

  Aida couldn't hear the reply, but Aliasara turned with her hand to her mouth.

  "What is it?" Aida's throat tightened. "What's gone wrong now?"

  "The people grew tired of waiting and climbed the outer wall. Your Ferals killed several and it grows ugly."

  "Of course they did." Aida felt sick. As she walked towards the door, she noticed the crumpled, now-blood-stained note she'd found in Eth's room lying by the bathroom. She waved it at Aliasara. "Can you understand this?"

  Aliasara shook her head. "I know the Majordomo can. He gets scraps like that all the time."

  Aida tucked it into her belt pouch and made a mental note to have Riccaro translate it. Didn't Eth say Ocyl would read it? He had to be kilometers away dealing with the nascent plague, not lounging somewhere nearby waiting to read a couple scribbles. Maybe the pimply prophet was fallible after all.

  She stopped at the door, smoothed her gown, and pushed the looming flu pandemic she'd probably started to the back of her mind. Couldn't do anything about it if a mob tore down the villa and stoned her to death with pieces of it.

  One crisis at a time.

  Next Chapter: Hassani unravels another bit of the mystery, but is stymied by (more?) bad news.

  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"

  Aliasara: servant at Ocyl's villa who befriends Aida

  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

  Broadaxe: large, axe-and-shield-wielding Feral protecting Aida

  Cairin: Arca's sister

  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

  Goldilocks: twitchy, spear-and-javelin carrying Feral guarding Aida

  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

  Riccaro: majordomo of Ocyl's estate

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

  Ryk:?

  Sava: Dynast of Libriam

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate

  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? "harder than currence"?

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

  Donative, The: Black Court taxes?

  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 who teach chants "brought from Logos" to cure disease

  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: disease that wiped out "hundreds of verses", also name for the time period when Aj became active last and destroyed 100s of verses before halting in Sunset

  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: "the thought realm"

  Machine Curse: ?

  Mancers: "no mancers arc (could) affect it"

  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. Alternately, albinism

  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/Blind Priests: priests praising the Ascen and back the Black Court

  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

  Shale: a verse famous for its expensive stone

  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.

  Vale Walkers: discoverers of verses

  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

  Wiz of Berujat: multi-minded?

  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