It all took time.

  Traveling verse to verse.

  Finding gods.

  Killing them.

  Every populous verse fought back.

  Futilely.

  Taking time.

  Too much time.

  Too slow.

  Aj needed allies

  and knew where to find them.

  It finally understood

  their endless war

  against Aj's creators:

  the Mon.

  "Lo! The end times come upon us!" Vanyen wailed, clinging precariously to the marble body of some woman whose head had long ago broken away. Desperation granted Vanyen strength, drove her on as she regaled the dissolving crowd arrayed in front of the Mother's villa. "The Prophecy says the Dynasty and its evils shall fall, brought down from within and without when the last barbarian Dynast Partakes at Sunset's set! The Ender of Verses comes!"

  Her stomach bit at her painfully, her head throbbed, throat ached. In contrast to the endless, shearing pain of her mangled leg from her fall while the serpentine god had passed, she barely felt them. Using the pain as fuel, she redoubled her efforts. Desperation flooded her as she spotted the jackal Semon approaching with his disciples to sniff out the crowd. Vanyen had to get them before he stole them all away.

  Vanyen cast her words into the fading crowds like fishhooks, hoping to snag a few of the curious or bored. She brushed her stained, emerald-hued dress self-consciously, wincing as she ran her fingers through her long, tangled, black hair.

  "Where you get this Prophecy then?" an old woman said around her pipe.

  "It is the Imminent Prophecy, the one guiding that secretive order in their millennia-long manipulation of the Dynasty," Vanyen shouted, voice cracking.

  She looked hopefully among the handful gathered about her. "Anyone have a bite to eat?"

  A man laughed and spat. He snorted as he walked away. "Prophets, pah. Hardly piss without hitting one."

  The old woman squinted at Vanyen. "How'd you get an Imminent Prophecy? They keep their lips closed tighter than a virgin's twat."

  A ragged-looking mother trailing a clinging cluster of small children shot the old woman a dark look, covering her childrens' ears as she hustled away. Vanyen watched them leave with panic, hurrying on before she lost those few still listening.

  "I stole into their compound in the night and overheard two talking, caught every word of it in spite of the notorious lengths they go to keep us from learning it." She left out the bits about not knowing whose compound she'd climbed into and that she sought their larders not their predictions. "One said 'the barbarian must be stopped before she destroys it all' while the other said 'fate is fate.'"

  "Sounds 'bout right," the old woman said. "What else they say?"

  Nothing, because they heard Vanyen and she ran for her life. "The prophecy said the Savior of Dynasties would come and with her a great reckoning."

  "What'll she save the Dyansty from? Last I checked they were in charge. Seem pretty saved to me."

  Vanyen turned away from the old woman to raise her voice and arms theatrically, turning heads and slowing the flow of passersby. "A great reaping shall come to take the unholy and unclean!"

  "What's that, a great raping?" a teenager called out as his cluster of rowdy fellows passed. "Hoped we might have one of those when that Dynast bared herself for us. That what you're offering?"

  Vanyen tried to ignore their laughter and the singsong chant of Semon's disciples across the way as they echoed his words in chorus, a trick that always drew in an audience. Straining, Vanyen raised her voice to the edge of breaking. "The reaping shall come upon all equally, those rich in Ebon's Blood or the Pale alike, from Verser to slavant. Only those who believe shall be spared!"

  "Believe in what?" The old woman pointed towards the Shrineway with her pipe. "Run my hands along the brailled prayers along the walls and rub my feet across those in the cobblestones, donate what I can to the Blind Priests when times's good. Ain't seen much come of it."

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Several in the crowd murmured in agreement and more stopped. One thing Vanyen learned from Semon: nothing got people to stop and listen like people stopping to listen. The number of faces now staring up at Vanyen flustered her and she wracked her mind for something new to try out before she lost them like she always did.

  "Though a barbarian, the Mother of Exiles spoke true: after the Reaping, all shall be made equals. A time of great turbulence shall wrack the Book and every verse tremble at its touch. Those alone who believe in the Mother shall find redemption!"

  Nods and murmurs.

  A thrill rushed through Vanyen until she saw Semon and his disciples pushing their way through towards Vanyen's crowd. Suppressing a groan, she hiked up her threadbare skirt hem, gesturing at the ugly mass of discolored swelling around her knee.

  "I saw a great vision when the god touched me and threw me onto the Wicker Way! I did not believe at first but when it saw me in its eye it judged me, found me full of sin and lacking in all else." All she'd really seen in that terrible, slitted eye had been hunger. "Yet I would gladly pay this price with every limb! I was judged but the god's judgment washed my sins clean and made me its mouth piece, left a vision of the Truth I now share. I feel no pain for the Mother's strength sustains me!"

  For emphasis she slapped her swollen knee. Almost passed out at the pain. Jadeye spun. Struggling to stay upright took all her effort. For a moment, she feared she would succumb and lose all the momentum she'd finally gained.

  When the spots in her vision cleared, Semon stood next to her statue, edging in to steal her message. With his spotless golden robes, flowing white hair, and ring of kneeling disciples, he looked every bit the holy man. One milky white eye that "peered into the future" completed the look. "Good people, though a lowly porter before her accident, Sister Vanyen does find some hint of the Truth: a great change indeed comes. Lo! Always we might see its source if we but turn our eye to see."

  He gestured towards the misty end of Heaven's Tread and the Weeping Falls. "The day comes soon when the Ascendant unleash a flood to wash away the Dynasts grinding us beneath their heel and elevate the true believers to immortality in their stead! Forgive good Vanyen here for she struck head along with leg in her fall."

  Vanyen flushed at the laughter this elicited. She thrust a finger at Semon

  "I saw you in the god's vision, false prophet Semon!" She brushed her knee more carefully this time and gestured to the sky. "Blasphemers shall be among the first to be struck down. The childhood blindness that took your eye mirrors your blindness to Truth."

  Semon remained composed, but his jaw clenched, his good eye shooting her daggers even if he held his body in a masterfully relaxed state. Blessedly, before Semon could counter, the old woman spoke up.

  "I've heard you touting that Flood nonsense for years, Semon Goldtongue. Jus' a few months ago didn't you and your lot hide up on the Wicker Ways for days waiting fer the end t' come?"

  Vanyen leaned back against the headless statue to watch Semon try to worm his way out of this one. With perfect equanimity, he nodded to the old woman. "We prayed to the Ascendant on high for three days, asking them to spare us a while yet. Thanks to the devotion of my followers, The Great Ones granted us a reprieve that more might hear the Word before the end comes."

  A few in the now-sizable crowd nodded, but the old woman spat. "Yer mouth runs like the Falls, grows a crop of imbeciles ready t' lap it up."

  She turned to Vanyen. "When jus' a girl I met a man god-touched like yerself. He told me I'd live five-years-and-fifty after bearin' three children. Here I stands seven-and-fifty, with three o' my eight birthed still breathing. Living proof the gods know the future, that is!"

  Many called out their agreement.

  The gray-hair pointed at Vanyen's leg. "When'd y' see all this Reaping business comin' t' pass?"

  "The vision was cloudy and..."

  The crowd grumbled.

  "Cloudy at first! Then it cleared as our doom fell full upon my sight. I wept, gnashed my teeth, and prayed for deliverance, but the god had spoken."

  Even if she went hungry again, lost this gathering as she'd lost all the others, the look on Semon's face at that moment would be worth it. But when she turned to those gathered, she saw only rapt attention, many holding their breath. Thoughts raced.

  "When?" someone cried. "Tell us!"

  "The Reaping already stalks among us!" she shouted. "I can show you the way to redemption in the Mother, but there is no time left to lose."

  Anxious shifting in the crowd accompanied murmurs, everyone looking about them as though expecting demons poised to maim and murder. Instead, the First Chant of Inoculation rippled through, the Mudra of Cleansing rippling through as all in sight reflexively spoke the words.

  The crowd parted, revealing a woman wearing Inoculist's red robes.

  "The Chants all fail! Save yourselves, we cannot stop it," the woman shouted as she stumbled, eyes wide and hair wild. "The White Kiss comes again!"

  A moment later, a pair of battle striders thundered down the street, people diving from their path as the lancers on top drove their weapons to pierce the woman's body. One lance broke off leaving her corpse impaled in the street as they galloped away.

  A hundred voices shouted at once:

  "Why'd they kill an Inoculist?" "The White Kiss? It's made up." "Dynasts kill whoever please, even Inoculists now!" "Anythin' t' make our lives more miserable." "What can we do?" "A sign! The Reaping's upon us!"

  A desperate mass thronged Vanyen, hands reaching imploringly as they begged for her wisdom. Even Semon stood back and waited, his expression troubled.

  She raised shaky hands for silence, wincing and growing woozy as their jostling bumped her leg.

  Vanyen mentally scrambled for what to say, casting about for inspiration. Something tangible they could focus on, something to give them peace of mind. Semon trembled as her gaze rested on him. She swelled with the heady thought that she could have him torn to pieces with a word.

  No, too short lived. A crowd this size would need more.

  A pack train of rotters slumped in their harness beside a warehouse, one collapsing completely even as she watched. Its blank wooden mask clattered. Singling them out might be satisfying, but the crowd needed someones, not somethings to blame.

  There! A pair of Wretches padding unobtrusively towards the body of the dead Innoculist, coming to secret the body away while it was fresh enough to sell to a gonist or at least the Crowmen.

  "Them!" she shouted, pointing. "The Wretches take our broken children, handle our dead, clean the channels down which our refuse and effluent flows. They are unclean. The Wretches carry our doom about them like lice!"

  As the crowd roared and rushed forward, Vanyen felt a pang of guilt, remembering only then the Wretch who'd found her after her fall, helped her down the Wicker Way, brought her water and scraps of food. Remembered a Wretch leaving bread to her family after her father's death nearly starved them when she was a child.

  The rotters brought a better idea to her and she shouted, "No, even worse are the Crowmen! They profit from corpses, they bring the new Kiss. They want us all for rotters!"

  No one heard.

  The mob sprinted after the unfortunate Wretches. One managed to slip away and scramble off, but the crowd tore the other to pieces in heartbeats, the Wretch's screams tearing at Vanyen's heart.

  She threw up. Wiping her mouth, she shouted futilely to calm the horde and bring them back, but the mob gathered momentum, charging off in all directions screaming for Wretch blood.

  "They'll be back," Semon said, calmly. Only a few of his most devoted disciples stood by him, the rest swept up in the mob's frenzy. "I've seen this before, even been at its head a time or two if never at this scale."

  "What do I do?"

  "Let me be your First Disciple." Semon knelt at her feet as she stared dumbfounded. "Let me follow you and help you navigate this. Do as I say and we shall neither want for anything again. We have little time before the mob slows down and comes looking for you, for us."

  "Do as you say? You tried to take them from me!" She shook with anger, fear, guilt, worry.

  Semon remained calm. "Yes. I did. It was wrong. I see that now. Forgive me and accept my offer or be ready to have your own answers to placate your thousands of insatiable, fanatical new devotees when they return. Choose as you will."

  Pain wracked her leg, her stomach devoured itself, and her performance left her completely exhausted. Though she'd never tell him, seeing Semon preaching with his utter confidence and strident passion when she was a child was what steered her down this path in the first place.

  "Very well, what do I do?"

  As he helped her down from the statue, he talked, calmly and smoothly laying out a plan. Vanyen felt hope for the first time since her fall, yet as she limped the nearly-deserted streets she couldn't help but look at the impaled Inoculist lying dead in the street and the revolting, scattered mess of the dead Wretch.

  She faltered, nearly overcome by an overwhelming sense of foreboding, dread, regret. Fear and doubt overcame her, but Semon took her elbow and led her past it.

  Next Chapter: Aida tries to teach Ocyl basic epidemiology, meets a lovely Paragon, and receives some disturbing gifts.

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a traveling musician

  Aida: MC. Mother of Exiles. "Ender of Verses?" "Savior of Dynasties?"

  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

  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?

  Huspara: minor bureaucrat in Libriam

  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

  Semon "Goldtongue": white-haired, one-eyed master of cults

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate

  Vanyen: crippled young woman striving to create a cult

  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)

  Adventures of Bubo, The: popular kids story

  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

  Audits/"Diggers": Libriam internal affairs

  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 Inoculation: chant supposed to protect against disease, "Mudra of Cleansing"

  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 who track and tell time religiously

  ConMach: convoy? courier?

  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

  "Emperor of Everything": popular kids story about Inro turning down becoming emperor, then crushing those who elevated a different Dynast

  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

  God-touched: those who have physically touched a god (and lived)

  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?

  Imminent Prophecy: something about a barbarian Dynast, Ender of Verses and/or Savior of Dynasties?

  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

  Shrineway: religious section of Jadeye "brailled prayers along the walls ... [and] cobblestones"

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

  Sixth Tier Rebellion: last major uprising, in Ziggurat a century ago when "half the legions rose up"

  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

  Weeping Falls: Jadeye Iris flowing with waterfalls

  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