Aj and Da

  regarded the shell

  of the only verse

  humans called by a number.

  1/8.

  This pleased them.

  Da inquired

  as to the meaning

  of the word

  that followed

  the number

  It took Aj

  far too long

  to layer the knowledge

  needed to understand

  'Shithole'

  to one whose domains

  contained no creatures

  larger than few cells.

  The ruins of the Neck looked even worse from down below. Though they'd seemed huge from the top while using them as a bridge, walking among the tumbled vertebrae on the ground skewed her sense of scale about again. "Goddamn that's a big turtle. As nasty as the little bastard versions of this thing are, I can't imagine what this one was like when it was alive. Swallow a small herd whole."

  A terror, Ghillie signed.

  "Terrorizing turtle. Terrtle," Aida said, giggling. Then they reached the bodies, or what was left of them, and humor died.

  Whatever Ryk might assure her that these people had come to kill her, they were still people she'd killed however indirectly and unintentionally. That thought triggered a startled shock. How many people had she killed with her own hand or voice now? How many had her Ferals and followers killed? She stopped her mind from venturing on to the flu as she'd walked a ways down that road before and nothing good could ever come of it.

  "How many bodies so far?" she asked the Wretches who, of course, were the ones picking mangled body parts from the wreckage. The Professor squatted next to the corpses, engaged in the grotesque puzzle of matching bits and pieces together to assemble what they could of whole people. Aida had never been squeamish, but she didn't think she could ever do what he was so casually handling.

  He looked up as she came and smiled warmly. Before he could throw himself at her feet or do something equally embarrassing, she squatted beside him. "How many dead so far? Estimate."

  "Five, six, seven maybe?" he said in his sonorous voice. A nod indicated a bloody bit of burlap sitting beside a half-crushed skull. "Unfortunately including your Valeer, it would seem."

  "Ryk said they snuck her out and shoved a rotter into her clothes. Well, if you can call her sack-gown thing clothing. Would put her in something better if she was potty trained."

  "Ah," the Professor said, taking the implicit Paragon and prophecy in stride. He smiled. "A clever woman to perform such a swap, our Mother of Exiles."

  "Clever enough to keep you busy hauling bodies to the Crowmen," she said, turning away from the gory mess he so amiably sorted through. "Not clever enough to keep my people alive and comfortable and healthy and fed."

  The Professor trotted around in front of her and wiped his hands carefully on a leafy plant somehow un-mangled by the crushing bone. She couldn't handle standing over him so she dropped to a squat again to look in his eyes. "How do you handle it? Leading a people for so long who have nothing? For whom deprivation is the norm instead of the exception?"

  The Professor looked upon the other Wretches scrambling around the pile, his expression radiating love. "I just remember that it's all about people and the things that bring us together. It's about what you do and how, not what you don't have and why. It's about what we may accomplish in the future, not the hardships that have befallen us in the past or that we struggle against in the present. About a better world we might wake up to, not the uncaring, hard place we fall asleep in every evening."

  When he looked back at her, that love remained. As it fell on her, the same feeling rose inside her, though tainted by layers of guilt that she hadn't done enough to deserve it. "Thank you, Professor. I'll see if I can't find some way to try to be more like you from now on."

  "Strange," he said, grinning. "I try to do the same thing, but becoming more like you."

  They laughed for a moment; a spark of joy flashing amid a jumble of chaos and misery.

  One of his people called to him from the main heap of the wreckage. His four-limbed lope across the bit of clear ground turned to a rough scramble as he climbed over tumbled bones. Aida followed, realizing that while they were crawling across the rubble, no one would be able to tell who was the Wretch.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "Even when I try to build things up, I end up destroying everything," Aida said as she scaled the heap behind him, her mood darkening again.

  They found a couple Wretches examining a bizarre scene near the crushed remains of the Valeer's pen. A few of the giant vertebrae nearby lay cut into clean chunks, the exposed inner bone smooth as a marble tabletop where whatever material or force had sliced through it. Aida marveled as she ran her hand along its surface. "What the hell did this?"

  "Arcer," Ryk said from right behind her, making her jump half out of her skin.

  She stood and punched at his shoulder, but he annoyingly sidestepped without even looking at her.

  He walked around one of the chunks and nodded down. Aida stepped around beside him.

  Jutting from a crush of bones, a leather-armored arm skewed towards the sky. Between the middle and ring fingers, the hand split down almost to the wrist . A gnarled melding of bone and scarred flesh crusted around the divide between halves of hand. Aida knelt beside it, touching the silver bracelet at the wrist chained to a blue jade bead pressed into the tough flesh at the point where the hand divided.

  Ryk touched the dead fingertips. "Arcers rank among the more potent of mancer varieties, in combat at least."

  "He did this somehow?" Aida said, rising and tapping on the nearest sheared bone.

  "She did," Ryk said, tapping his finger an the gap between hand halves and drawing a line straight upwards. "Project infinitely-sharp blades of currence as potent as an Aze blade. Seem to be able to cut nearly anything apart, no matter how tough or solid."

  "Didn't help much against a few tons of dead turtle though. Terrtle even." Aida glanced at Ghillie, quirking a smile. Ghillie's eyes crinkled in her own Feral sort of smile.

  A flash of memory back to her time in Ocyl's estate with Eth and Rusty hit her. She turned to Ryk. "You only know the future that you will see."

  He quirked an eyebrow. "When did I ever say that?"

  "You didn't. I figured it out on my own back when..." She suddenly realized if she told him how she knew, he could tell Eth and then Eth would know that she would figure it out. Past Eth would know the trick and could find some way around it so Aida would never know. Pressing her fingers against her eyes or rubbing them through her hair did little to help the way her head suddenly hurt as she tried to figure it all out.

  "Back when...?"

  "Never mind. I just keep forgetting and thinking you're psychic, but you just know what will happen around you, not to everyone everywhere. With hundreds or thousands of you scattered about The Book bossing Dynasts around, it must have seemed like you were omniscient since you could always get together and... ahah! That's why all those Imminent are meeting with Eth! They're telling her what happen... ed...es. Happensed. Whatever."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Ryk said, biting his fingernails. She'd never seen him do that.

  "They all meet with Eth, tell her everything they know before they die. Then sometime ten years ago or whenever, she sends messengers to all of them letting them know what all the others said so they all know. An oral history of the future or something." Her mind reeled as she struggled with the implications so she shoved it back for another time and focused on here and now.

  "You told me there would be seven bodies because you came here after and counted them. But how can you be sure there are seven?" She stepped over scattered bone fragments to pull his hand down. To make him look her in the eye. "What if there were ten and some escaped? Maybe out there watching us now, waiting. Or the bodies the Wretches are doing CSI Shithole on are actually bits from a dozen different people all dressed the same."

  Ryk raised his hand and placed it on her lips to silence her. Anyone else and she would have broken it. Off. Instead, she took a deep breath and made herself listen. "Whatever I said before and however we know what we know doesn't really matter. You think you're figuring it out, but you still have no idea. This is the way it always had to be done."

  "So out of all the infinite choices I could have made, I had to break the terrtle and crush these seven or ten or however many people to death?" Aida said, pulling his hand away and struggling against a surge of anger swelling in her chest and heating her face. She wasn't even sure why. Something to do with their arrogance that they were right and everyone else was in the dark. Just pawns to be pushed around to make things go the way they wanted. But if they knew the future, weren't they right in some respects? Just made her brain hurt worse.

  "Out of the infinite choice you could have made, we know where this one leads. We follow the path we do because we know what lies at the end. It doesn't matter how torturous the path, if we stray even a little we may never find our way again. And who knows if anyone or anything survives at the end of the other roads? Better futures may lie closed behind the doors of a thousand other choice we could make, but we can't risk a reality where something survives on the hope that we find one where more does."

  "So you are a Fatalist."

  Ryk ran his finger across her cheekbone and brushed hair back behind her ear. "Just because the night is dark doesn't mean there's no light to be found. Whatever happens wherever we're going, there's still time to take joy in things today. Now."

  "Like love?" she said, resting her head against his shoulder.

  "Like love."

  They stood there for an endless moment just feeling each other's breaths and heartbeats. Aida wished they could stay there forever. Instead, she pulled away, looked up at him, and opened her damn mouth. "Back in the villa, you said you die for love. Does that mean you die for me?"

  Emotions flickered across his face and were quickly contained. "I knew you would ask that, but the knowing sometimes makes things harder, not easier."

  "You're avoiding the question."

  "Yes, I die for you."

  "Snuggled in bed a hundred years from now, I hope." She literally clung to him and that clinging made her realize how hard she clung to their relationship. After decades as a single old maid in the nursing home, she'd never dared to dream she'd find love again. Now that she had, no matter what strange form it came packaged in, she was terrified of losing it again.

  He wrapped his arms about her. "I'm no Dynast. Knowing what comes doesn't help avoid the natural end of my time."

  "So you die naturally."

  An sharp intake of breath, gradually released. "No."

  "Don't then." She said, shaking her head. "We'll open different doors. Just little ones. Whatever you die fighting or whatever heroics I'm sure you consider a glorious, worthy death, we'll slip by them somehow. We'll just-"

  With great effort he pulled himself away enough that he could face her and plant his lips on hers. She resisted at first, then pressed herself hungrily against him. For a while, the past and future melted away in the heat of the moment.

  Aliasara must have reached them for she cleared her throat somewhere nearby. Repeatedly. When that didn't work, she spoke. "Aida. The Thorn."

  "Whoever it is, give them gist and get them settled in like everyone else," Aida said, looking into Ryk's perfectly-blue eyes. Anything in her power to give, she'd have granted to stay in that perfect moment to hold onto it a bit longer and keep the rest of the world at bay.

  "I would, but they're..." Aliasara trailed off. "I'll tell them, yes."

  Aida wrenched her gaze from Ryk's and called out to her friend. "They're what?"

  Aliasara turned back, her mouth opening and closings several times. "You could use time with Ryk, away from all this. It can wait. They can wait."

  "I got time with Ryk already," Aida said, reluctantly pulling away from him and threading her way through the clearest patches of ground towards her friend. "Not enough since there's never enough, but if you think it's important than tell me."

  "Dynasts, Aida. Here."

  Aida misstepped, rolled her foot on a bone, and crashed into a heap of mangled plants. Aliasara was at her side in an instant, helping pull her to her feet.

  Ignoring the new rips and stains on her clothes, Aida put her hands on Aliasara's shoulders to stop the woman from fussing over her. "Dyansts. Dynasts plural? Here?"

  Aliasara nodded.

  "Fuck me," Aida said.

  "Later," Ryk said, grinning, resting his spear over his shoulder, and winding his way back in the direction of his training grounds.

  "I'll hold you to that," Aida shot back.

  "You'd better."

  Aida turned and glanced towards the skull, but it was backlit by several suns and impossible to look at. "And they didn't bring a Legion?"

  Aliasara paused again. "I don't think so."

  Realizing that she could and would have to go find out for herself anyway, Aida gave up on interrogating her friend and set to scaling the bony heaps towards the skull. Aliasara climbed close behind her.

  "Is your family okay?" Aida said as they cleared the worst of it and reached clear ground. She winced at the question. She'd lost count of the funeral processions Aliasara attended or led and that's what she asked?

  A long pause, then a surprising hint of smile. "I think all the Dynast's Plague might claim it has. The worst must be behind us."

  A forced smile and a long hug was the best Aida could come up with. As they held one another, her smiled fell apart, Ryk's words repeating in her head. "It doesn't matter how torturous the path..."

  Whatever Aliasara's optimism and how bad things may be in the One-Eighth, Aida had the feeling that the worst still lay ahead, not behind.

  Note: Still knee-deep in taxes but will get posts up M+F next week. Between 3 businesses and offering to do two other family members' taxes, inundated. Writing a ton... of numbers in boxes. Hopefully can finish by this weekend as it's been filling every waking minute that isn't work. :/

  Next chapter: Ghulen follows Hassani's trail. First stop: an audience with Ocyl.

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a traveling musician. Died of the Wretch Plague in Heaven's Tread.

  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"

  Alerestro: a handsome, multi-talented man from Azure. Partner of Viviana

  Aliasara: servant at Ocyl's villa who befriends Aida

  Anticores: a pair of Sect representatives, off-putting and strange

  Arca: chief of the tribe that "adopted" Inro

  Asta: Tertius Dynast of Silk.

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  Baka: Dynast of Ziggurat. Huge, massively strong. Tertius.

  "Braid"; a thug who accosted Aida in Jadeye. His face gifted to Aida by Ocyl.

  Broadaxe: large, axe-and-shield-wielding Feral protecting Aida. Killed by Jaxe in Jadeye

  Cairin: Arca's sister, slinger

  Das: Rega's Immanent

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

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  Eonora: a Legion officer in Ziggurat

  Eth: a young Imminent

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

  Ghulen: Rega's "pet monster", an Inviolate

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

  Godge and Ardina: Primary Small Masters in Berujat

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal. Died killing the Inviolate Rasofi in Jadeye

  Fatma: weakest Small Master of Berujat

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

  Fetriene: Ocyl's soresearer

  Goldilocks: twitchy, spear-and-javelin carrying Feral guarding Aida. Died burning a Wicker Way in Jadeye.

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

  Hue: Vibrant accompanying Simon

  Huspara: minor bureaucrat in Libriam

  Ijran: Multi-minded wiz, Small Master of Berujat

  Inro: Dynast formerly ruling Sunset

  Izbali: a silent tribal shaman

  Janali: Ocyl's elegant Seneschal

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

  Johine: crude slave

  Kass/Kassenia: mercenary attached to Adonissian. Died of Wretch Plague?

  Maxem: High Parser from Ink, ambassador to Jadeye

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

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  "Professor, The": leader of Aida's Wretches

  Rasofi: Inviolate killed by Fallon in Jadeye

  Reck: Dynast of Chalk, "not witty enough to be clever and takes himself too seriously to be ironic". Paranoid, Fractious Fraction. Tertius. Died to a mob of menials in Jadeye.

  Rega: Inro's sister, Dynast of Monopolis. Septemius

  Riccaro: majordomo of Ocyl's estate. Hung by a looting mob in Heaven's Tread.

  Ruja: Dynast of Berujat

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

  Ryk: "the most beautiful man Aida had ever seen", a Paragon

  Sadar: odd boy traveling with Semon

  Sava: Dynast of Libriam

  Savalius: Grand Quartermaster of the Legions

  Semon "Goldtongue": white-haired, one-eyed master of cults. First Disciple of the Mother.

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate. Rendered mute by psychological or head-trauma

  Strygen: a dusa traveling with Semon

  Taesal: one of Rega's other Inviolates, axe scar to face

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

  Tyrs: many-pierced Secundus Dynast of Forge

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

  Vanyen: A crippled young woman who created the Cult of the Mother. Martyred Prophet of the Mother. Murdered by Semon Dynastic Assassins.

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

  Viviana: gorgeous, multi-talented ex-slave from Berujat. Partner of Alerestro.

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

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

  36th Dynasty: A Dynasty the Anticores have met?.

  100th Dynasty: The Dynasty ruling the Book.

  Adventures of Bubo, The: popular kids story

  All, The: All the verses, even those beyond The Book.

  Ancients: a major Dynastic Chapter, an "elite number", "own Ziggurat" and "run the great bank that is Monopolis"

  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.

  Anticore: Sect creature which "wears convincing human skins" with "swarming insects... beneath the skin"

  Arborian: gardeners from Groves?

  Arcers: a type of mancer able to summon blades of energy

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

  Assessor: census-taker

  Audits/"Diggers": Libriam internal affairs

  Autumn: verse rich in gold?

  Aze: swordmaker?

  Azure: A verse?

  Berujat: "fleshmarkets"; primary seat of slave trade and home of most Lineage Masters, owned by Fraction.

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

  Black Court Tribunal: localized Black Court authority?

  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. "The Kiloverse"

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

  Calms: periods when ever-blowing winds die down in Berujat

  Canyon of Cages: cliff where slaves are held in Berujat

  Cave Dwellers: tribes that live in the underground in Origin, keep others out until "the Return"

  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

  Commu: chewed drug/herb?

  ConMach: convoy? courier? "ConMach drains the very life from the Directory's verses". Supply "ConMach machines"

  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"? "Solid current forms currence." Currence melts to watter.

  Currency: money, gold coins once held currence inside to give value, now debased

  Current: some form of energy that powers "artifices"? "Solid current forms currence."

  Directory: "the Directory to Ink is like the Dynasty to the Book", dominating rulers of Ink

  Donative, The: Black Court taxes, taken by Legion if not offered. Don't pay, no Partaking every century.

  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.

  Dynast's Tower: a massive tower at the peak of Ziggurat.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  Ebon Saga: the tale of Ebon's foundation of The Book and Dynasty

  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.

  Forge: verse ruled by Tyrs with much metalworking

  Fractious Fraction/"DissatisFaction"/"The Renewal": a major Dynastic Chapter who "hate everyone including each other", "entice every freemancer and Lineage Master" ... "to Berujat". For those with "verses deficient in maor ways."

  Gates, The: Inter-verse travel method created by Ebon. Opened with Limn

  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".

  Green People: A tribe of jungle dwellers from Origin

  Groves: a forest verse

  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 advising Dynasts and shaping course of The Book

  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, Keens, Directory, and "the Faded People"

  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" with "unlimited, undisclosed, and untraceable budgets"

  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", "cheat the Donative, stockpil[e] currence and watter" "hire Keen mercenaries" "raise own private Legions in secret"

  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

  Jar: Name of a "gold" coin now made of brass. Once held currence within.

  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?

  Green People: tribes that live in the jungles of Origin

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

  Kin: descendants of a Dynast, most desperately trying to reach 100 so they can Partake

  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

  Lambent ram: animal whose wool glows?

  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: a line of mancers taught by a Master

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

  Lizard Hunters: Arca's people, walkers of the wastes of Origin

  Logos: "the thought realm"

  Machine Curse: something that stops machines from working between verses?

  Mancers: "no mancers arc (could) affect it", people with abilities beyond human normal, usually trained/implanted by a Master.

  Master's Markets: primary slave market in the Book in Berujat

  Menial: common folk

  Molt: person able to shed skins (see skins)

  Mon, The: "the Outsiders". "exist only to destroy the Book" with their "demonic and monstrous children" from "the Hells beyond"

  Monopolis: the "City of Currency", bank verse ruled by Rega

  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 Tribe, The: Arca's new tribe incorporating the Libwe and whomever else is conquered or enticed to join.

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

  Optomime: gadgeteer

  Origin: the First Verse, from which Ebon originated, containing the "Cities Below". The "first page of The Book"

  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

  Rags: derogatory name for alliance of Isolates and Fractious Fraction. Call themselves "Resistance Against the Grevious Ancient Coup."

  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

  Shore Striders: tribes that live along the oceans of Caves

  Shackle Pens: slave pens near Master's Market in Berujat?

  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

  Silk: verse owned by Asta where all of verse's silk originates

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

  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

  Stone Walkers: tribes that live in the cold of Origin

  Subterrane, The: inter-verse travel route accessed by Ebon via Limn

  Sunset: the verse where Aj was 'contained', formerly protected by Dynast Inro. The "Prison of Prisons" holds mad Dynasts, monsters and demons... vaults of dangerous relics.

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

  Surgon: person able to remove organs

  Swirl: A verse. "The pleasure barges of Swirl"

  Syphon: machine ConMach uses to "drain the very life" and color from a verse to "fuel... machinery"

  Tangle, The: the jungles of the One-Eighth

  Terminus: "Gates End", 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

  Tribunal: group of three Dynasts coming together to make ruling or pass judgment

  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. "Currence melts to watter. Watter's current dissipates over time, leaving water."

  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, capable of performing multiple tasks simultaneously

  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"

  Wretch Plague/Dynast's Plague: the flu. A horrific disease spread by Wretches.

  Wyres: lines run through the Vale between verses that allow communication between. A giant Ziggurat