A trickle of watter melted from the blade. The moment a single bead connected with Hassani's hand she shifts her stance. A mercenary rushes her with a short spear. Tapping the spear away cracks it along its length before it explodes backwards, impaling the man with innumerable hand-length splinters. Darts fly from blow guns. Blade interposes instinctively and they vaporize on impact. Two more rush. Kicking a chair sends it flying into one and topples him. His blade hurtles his from his hand at the slightest parry to embed in the wall. A riposte punches a whole the size of his head in his chest.

  Time's flow slows to a trickle for her, even the most explosive action casual and almost irritatingly slow. She's getting better at using the extra time to avoid shrapnelized weapons and other debris hurtled about by the force of her every movement.

  Leaping atop the table gets her at them faster. Doesn't matter that is makes her a more exposed target. More darts, an arrow, a spear fly her way. All those she doesn't swat away with negligent ease she sidesteps and watches float past. Hurling herself into the midst of her enemies, she swings the flat of her blade about. Impacts don't cut, but hurl, shatter, or splatter targets on impact.

  It comes down upon the Godge's obese body. Divan sunders. He craters through the floor and down to the next lower level of the tower. She backpedals as she watches cracks spiderweb from the hole. More of the floor collapses, taking several of the nearest bodyguards down with it but she's long clear before she's in any danger.

  A giant woman hosting lupine skinlife hews a table leg off with her axe to throw Hassani off balance. Hassani launches forward to slide down the table's enameled surface. Her sword punches through the woman's armor like cloth.

  A Small Master rises up with a jeweled knife. Hassani slaps it from his hand. Grabs his wrist and twists. It cracks. The Small Master screams as she kicks him out a window.

  Three bodyguards make a wall of round shields, spears thrusting out. The Aze blade turns the first shield to shrapnel on the first swing then creates a thudding rain of severed limbs on a second.

  Someone shouts at at her to stop as she runs out of bodyguards and begins methodically slaughtering Small Masters. Men and women like these captured Avani, sold her off who knew where. Who don't even realize they've done so as such casual horror is their livelihood.

  She realizes the woman she's about to kill is a slave, cowering and sobbing at her feet. With effort greater than any she's seemed to expend during the fight, she sheathes the Aze Blade.

  Hassani fell against the wall, suddenly exhausted. The past few minutes blurred to a haze of blood and death. Servants fled, a handful of surviving bodyguards dragged wounded fellows away. All the Small Masters save Fatma and Ijran lay in bloody heaps and sprawls. Those that she hadn't escorted out a window or driven through the floor anyway. A now-ownerless, doomed Feral stared out the window at their fallen Master, then slumped down, pressed her hands onto her mask, and sobbed.

  The fight exhausted Hassani, especially in after being half-starved, plague-ridden, and sleep-deprived for who knew how long. She turned wearily back towards Fatma. Ijran's three bodyguards stared at her with mouths agape. Ijran talked to themselves, one eye still looking down at the tablet in their lap, the other assessing Hassani clinically. They puffed on their pipe.

  Fatma leapt atop the slanted, sword-hewn table, pumping her arms. "Yes! It's ours now, Ijran, all of it!"

  "Indeed," Ijran said as Fatma spat upon Ardina's corpse. "Now that the ugly part is done begins the hard part."

  "That wasn't the hard part?" Hassani said, staring at the grisly redecorating she'd performed. "Easy for you to say, sitting there smoking your pipe the whole time."

  "You made it look pretty effortless, gotta admit," Fatma said, picking up Godge's spilled goblet. "You're worth keeping around. Can think of a dozen more uses for you just off the top of my head. Plenty of people in Berujat need killing, much less the Book."

  "No. You said you knew where Avani was," Hassani said, gritting her teeth as she picked splinters of wood, metal, and bone out of her arm. However much she had tried to be careful, the Aze blade had proved so overpotent again that she bled in a dozen places from splinters shed by exploding weapons, shields, furniture, people. "This is over."

  Fatma looked her over then crossed her arms. "You speak as though you're the one with the advantage here. You're the one wearing my brand on the shoulder and I'm the only one who knows where your Palest-of-Pale daughter is right now."

  "Tell me or when I leave this tower there will be zero Small Masters not two."

  "No," Fatma said, planting her feet wide.

  Hassani drew the sword and sliced into the huge table in a single cut. The force of the blow not only breaks it in half but casts radiating fracture lines throughout the surviving halves and sends shudders the floor. Creaks, groans, and creeping cracks emanate from Godge's hole before another chunk of flooring collapses.

  Ijran's bodyguards form up before him protectively. Fatma crashes down into a heap of plates, platters goblets, fruit, cakes from the broken table. Hassani strides through the debris-strewn gap left between the sundered table halves. She stands over Fatma, her face a mask of fury lit by the blade's faint, pure-white radiance.

  "Tell me where Avani is. Now."

  Fatma scrambles to her feet warily. The motion seems sluggish though Hassani can tell the woman moves with full haste to get away from her. Blood runs from Fatma's nose. Coats her nose-chain and soaks her silks.

  "Okay, okay! I'll show her to you." Her words take an age to form.

  "Where is she?" Hassani says, her voice amplifying and echoing through the tower.

  "Sheath that marvelous weapon, come, and we'll show you," Ijran says, somehow speaking in a normal cadence. He steps calmly past his bodyguards. "She's not far."

  Hassani turns, levels the faintly-pulsating weapon at him. "If you lie, you die."

  "Then I shall refrain from lying to you from this point on. Come."

  He turns and walks towards the stairs. His bodyguards cluster about him, walking backwards to keep weapons aimed in Hassani's direction. Hassani sheathes and follows. Fatma trailed behind, holding a cloth napkin to her nose and glaring at Hassani.

  By now, Hassani's past caring what Fatma thinks or wants. Only Avani matters.

  Ijran paused for a moment as they emerged from the barricaded doors at the base of the tower. Outside, the Small Masters' retinues stood apart in armed camps. The corpses of the two Masters Hassani had thrown from the tower lay guarded by rings of their former followers.

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  Ijran raised their hands to silence the cries and questions greeting them as they emerged then proceeded to offer them all service in the reformed, reduced Small Master Council. As they spoke so, mercenaries Ijran and Fatma had hired over the last few days drew weapons as they emerged from passing traffic, amid various retinues, and poured from the barn. Insurance in case anyone felt like acting out any notions of revenge.

  With an offer of work in similar positions to any who might return to the tower within the next few days, Ijran, Hassani, Fatma, and the three bodyguards pushed off into Berujat's teeming sprawl.

  A wave of post-Aze fugue drugged her. Everything felt so slow and dead compared to the brilliant, hyper-aware rush when she connected with the sword. It took everything she had to not draw it again.

  As they walked, Fatma argued with Ijran, suggesting she should have left Hassani rotting in the cage, just used the blade on her own to wipe out the Small Masters. Ijran's cool questions as to her abilities as a warrior and familiarity with Aze's handiwork stilled all the air from Fatma's sails. Fatma's dark looks might have bothered Hassani once upon a time, but the only person in the All whose opinion she cared about now was Avani.

  In her exhaustion, their route became a blured march through brilliant sunlight and cool shadow. Slave chains marched by cringing at their fresh brands. Wretch Plague wagons ran to the Crowmen, pulled by onery striders. The winded narrow streets and stair-chiseled ravines. Sewer channels flowed sluggishly towards the Canyon of Cages. Rowdy brothels hosted catcalling crowds of spectators watching the action transpiring on open balconies and through wide windows. Spacious mancer school grounds thronged with desperate menials competing for entry while the Masters and their trained mancers looked on imperiously.

  At one point as they passed a rugged, cliff-side trainings grounds hosting burly, naked Vengers showing off their writhing skinlife, Ijran turned to regard her with one eye. Ijran repeated themselves several times before Hassani realized they were asking her a question. "Ardina and Godge both claimed a Venger among their bodyguards. How did you manage to attack them without them sensing your hostile intent?"

  "My training conditioned me to reflexively examine anywhere I enter for threats and lay plans at an instinctive level," Hassani said, only realizing how deeply her training ran as she spoke. She hadn't even noticed she was doing it at the time. "I planned how I would fight the room or the attacks of individual bodyguards, but with no more concern than I calculated the best course of action if a fire broke out or if one of you choked on a grape."

  "So the Vengers couldn't sense your hostile intent until you actually attacked."

  "I had no hostile intent even when I drew my sword. I focused merely on the next action or likelihood and dealt with it as it came up."

  "Interesting," Ijran said, turning away to hold a hushed conversation with Fatma.

  Her mind flashed to her last time training with Deia.

  "How do you kill a man who can see the future?"

  "By not having one."

  She suddenly longed to speak to the old woman again, to find the peace and clarity that usually came after their odd training sessions. Once she found Avani, she would go to Deia's tower, hole up there with her little girl until the Dynasts finished fighting each other. When everything was over and all was back to normal, they'd come out and build a new life together.

  Whatever normal might be after all this.

  In her distraction, she didn't notice where they were heading until they trudged down the crude, worn stairs leading to the section of cliffs where her cage hung. She stopped and put her hand on her sword at the top step. The dozen-odd guards lounging near the entrance rose to alertness, but Ijran waved them down.

  "What is this? I thought you said we were heading to Avani."

  "We are, you Pale, stubborn-" Fatma snarled before Ijran spoke over her.

  "Just a little further and you shall see why we return."

  "I don't trust you."

  "And that is your right, whatever I may have said. We go this way to resolve our current dilemma. Follow or leave," Ijran said, turning and descending into the gloom.

  Fatma cast a cursing gesture in her direction, then followed Ijran. Warily, Hassani followed. All she wanted to do was hold Avani in her arms. That and sleep for a week. Who knew how long it had been since she'd last seen her precious child? Who knew what horrors Avani faced in the time since Adonissian dragged her from their home?

  Against all her instincts and training, she followed.

  When she reached the cave mouth against which her cage had been anchored, Ijran stood pointing past the cage and out across the canyon. "There, upon that ledge yonder."

  Fatma grinned cruelly as Hassani pushed past her. "There's your precious little runt, you Inviolate whore."

  Hassani squinted the direction Ijran pointed. It took her a moment to locate whatever it was they pointed to, but when she did her breath caught in her throat. Her heart skipped a few beats.

  A burly, leather-clad man held a tiny, pale-skinned figure with curly white hair. Ijran whistled sharply and the man thrust the child out over the ledge. The girl screamed and clung to his arm, her voice reaching them in torn fragments thrown about by the wind.

  "No!" Hassani shouted, stepping forward and clutching at her cage's bars involuntarily. She whirled towards Fatma and Ijran, hand flying to her sword hilt. "Let her go or this cave becomes a tomb."

  Fatma grinned. "If this becomes our tomb then the shit-rivered chasm out there becomes Avani's excarnation site. Give me the Aze Blade and get back in your cage or watch her learn to fly."

  Burning rage and crushing despair warred against each other in Hassani's guts as she looked from Fatma and Ijran to where her child screamed in terror in the clutches of some burly sadist.

  "I told him to wait fifty breaths after my whistle then throw the child if he doesn't hear the appropriate signal from me," Ijran said calmly, one eye looking towards man and child, the other at Hassani. "Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure he's entirely numerate so who knows how he'll interpret that?"

  "All right, all right!" Hassani shouted, stripping the sword-belt from her hips and throwing it at Fatma's feet. She scrambled through the too-small cage door and rushed to the far side of the cage, reaching desperately through the bars. "Avani, amma's here! I'll be with you soon!"

  Fatma laughed as she re-latched the cage door. Ijran's bodyguards worked the simple winch at the base of the arm supporting her swinging prison, jarring it in lurches out into the open air. Hassani whirled towards Ijran. "It's done, give the signal!"

  Ijran whistled three times. On the far ledge, the man pulled the girl back onto safe stone and set her on her feet. The girl wailed and clutched at him, her terror of him dwarfed by her fear of falling. Hassani called to Avani and sobbed, her eyes blearing. "It'll be okay Avani. Amma's here. Amma's here."

  "Amma's here and amma will do as she's told from now on if she wants that little girl over there to live," Fatma said. She snatched up the Aze Blade and grinned triumphantly. "I've so many more uses for a woman of your rare talents. Be a good girl and I'll maybe let you visit her sometime. Maybe."

  Hassani slumped down against the wooden bars as Fatma and Ijran departed, wracked with sobs. Avani was led from her sight into the distant tunnel network, her relief that the girl was alive crushed in the grip Fatma held on her and the realization of how powerless she was to make things right.

  In time, the sobs stopped and the same grim determination that had driven Hassani from nothing to Inviolate solidified within her.

  "By the capricious Ascen, I swear Avani and I will be reunited. And when she's safe and back to me, I promise I'll cut Ijran down and deliver unto Fatma with a death worse than she threatened Avani with. Let the Mon strike me down if I break this vow."

  Though waves of worry and depression washed against her, the vow buttressed her against their assault. Her mind shifted from the miseries of the present and focused on the future. On freedom, Avani, and justice. She stared despair in the face and carved tunnels of hope and action through its oppressive mass.

  She'd destroyed most of the Small Masters for her daughter, but she'd tear the rest, Berujat, even the Book itself apart if that what it took to get Avani back.

  Next chapter: Aida + Ryk + Ghillie vs assassins (and a mancer?). Fight!

  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?

  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".

  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