"My people," Inro said, his voice cracking with emotion. He wiped back unexpected tears and began again. "My people. We are the One Tribe."

It took several minutes for the cheers and calls to die down before he could continue.

"I have fought with you, marched with you, bled with you. I have witnessed your valor and courage, tasted your kindness, and basked in your humor. I am touched by your willingness to allow me into your tribe."

He gestured towards the bright moon shining from directly overhead. "They say among my people that moons are areas where the shells of the verses and the walls of the worlds are worn thin by the ancient enemies of the Ascendant who lurk ever over us. The horrible Mon peer through them as their children ooze through every crack and crevice into verses to terrorize and kill. I've slain these demons and the monsters they spawn, locked away in rusting prisons of ancient iron those we could not find the means to kill. I've seen the devastation and horror their hatred of us brings when they are not stopped, hunted, slain."

A pause to let their imaginations crawl with images of his conjured abominations.

"The spawn of the Mon are a minor nuisance compared to the Aj."

He scanned the crowd, meeting as many eyes as he could before gesturing from the moon and down to the largest cave mouth yawning wide beyond the amphitheater. "Before we march into the Book, you should know its history. My distant ancestor and yours, Holy Ebon, was born in this very verse. One of our most revered and oft-told tales is her Saga. To tell it all would take half the night, but it ends with a simple poem:

"Ebon-explored,

the Subterrane.

Ebon-conquered,

the Pale.

Ebon-birthed,

the Dynasty.

Ebon-founded,

the Court.

Ebon-opened,

the Gates.

Ebon-found

the Vale.

Ebon taken,

the Ascen."

"The whole of the Book beyond the shell of this verse is her doing. From this verse she marched, leading a One Tribe of her own. She discovered the way to enter the Subterrane, the network of tunnels chewed away by the Mon or something else as terrible an ancient. These tunnels weave between verses where their shells touch, letting those able to navigate their dark labyrinth traverse from verse to verse. She found verses thick with pale-skinned savages and these she conquered and enslaved wearing the very Limn armor our warriors wear. Then, seeing her natural lifespan coming to an end, Ebon entered a realm of pure night, faced a horrific immortal monster, bound it to her will, and drank immortality from its blood."

Pausing to take a drink of fruit wine, he looked at among the One Tribe and smiled at the child-like wonder shining back at him.

"Thus she began the Dynasty, offering the blood to any of her Kin who could prove themselves worthy of it. With a clan of immortals at her side, she founded the Black Court based the inky verse of the same name where she'd conquered the Partaker. For centuries, her mighty family ruled over all the verses she'd claimed, conquered, colonized, and all seemed well. But travel via the Subterrane was slow and dangerous for from and through its labyrinths did demons worm their way from the outer hells beyond the versal shells. Whenever and wherever they found their way into a verse, they fell upon it like plague to destroy the Ascendant's creations. Long did this state remain... until Ebon found Terminus.

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"A bleak, barren verse rich in rocky rubble and little else, it hosted one notable feature: hundreds of great stone arches rising into gray skies. Ever-curious and ever-crafty, Ebon found a small arch and painted the inside with Limn, much as she did somewhere in those caves just beyond us to first enter the Subterrane. Thus was born the first Gate. When she bravely stepped through the shimmering space evoked by the Limn painted upon its curve, she emerged... elsewhere."

He found his gaze drawn to the cave. It truly sank in then exactly where he was and what he was planning to do. Never had he thought he might one day walk so closely in her footsteps. Only when Arca cleared his throat did Inro find his way back to the moment and resume his brief summary of the Saga.

"After building her own Gates in our verses and learning how to link them, travel between verses became a matter of a walking a few paces. It was as though all the Book became one single, connected, ever-expanding verse. Connected, that is, until the Kiss.

"It turns out we were not alone in the All. From the Subterrane, we found a verse containing the Sect, who joined with us instantly and began to breed for us beasts of work and war. We discovered the Crowmen when they first reanimated the body of a dead bird and used it to communicate. They gave death new meaning as with the Ebon's blessing, the fallen were risen to labor on for our benefit.

"Other wonders were discovered: strange object-beings existing in twilight states somewhere between living and dead. These object-beings she gave to the first Masters to study and find use for. From these discoveries came the Lineages of mancers, those people willing to or slavanted into union with those strange entities which bestowed on them many gifts and abilities far beyond our previous imaginings. And then, not long after I was born over six centuries ago, came the White Kiss."

It struck Inro suddenly how much of this he took for granted, things that any child in the Book would know that struck these people like mythology suddenly made history.

"Though the Crowmen warned us something about the dangers of the hostile 'different Dynasty' they had long warred against, we treated it at first like any other disease. A few Innoculist chants canted over the ill and we thought it would dissolve away. But the Kiss ignored any chant, charm, or cure, growing inside anyone who inhaled its spores until they died coughing out clouds of them. Even as it wiped out entire verses, Ebon refused to close the Gates for all the great effort it took to open them. Men, women, and children uncounted died because of her indecision. And then came the Aj."

Inro drained the last of his wine and pulled a grilled hung of snake meat off a skewer.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself somewhat. Around the same time, the Imminent spoke of a 'Dynastic rebirth' and a new breed of slavant created by the Cerebrists: the Valeer. Though barely more functional than a rotter in the mundane tasks of daily life, they provided a third method of travel between verses beyond the Subterrane and the Gates: the Vale of Thorns. The very same way I arrived here in Origin.

"Ebon didn't trust it for it was new and unknown. Though the Blood keeps Dynastic bodies ever-youthful and increasingly powerful with age, it does nothing to prevent our thoughts from calcifying and growing ever more rigid as we age. I had heard this before arriving here in Origin, but discounted it. Only recently as I feel my mind restored to something like youth and vigor did I realize the truth of these words.

"As the Kiss ravaged verse after verse, a fresh Primus Dynast who had not yet been granted a verse volunteered to explore. With the pet rats he kept as companions, he traveled the Vale, fled the Mourne, and visited many verse familiar and strange. And one Thorn led him to a place that few later believed to be real. It was a verse the locals called 'Christendom'.

"This place was ruled by shaggy-haired Pale men lurking in stone-heaped fortresses protected by men wrapped in iron. They all worshiped either some god or some bastardized version of the Ascendant - the story isn't clear which - and, strangely enough, they not only believed there was only one divine being, but no one had ever seen and met it. Even more bizarre, the distant god/Ascen thing was said to have had a son by impregnating an arbitrarily-chosen menial and the son produced possessed some strange Lineage. The exact way the Lineage worked is unknown, for he was tortured to death by the local Verser Lords before he could pass said Lineage on. In spite of this seemingly-apparent failure, they still worshiped him a millennium after his death and expected him to somehow resurrect himself any day."

Looking among his audience, Inro saw surprising acceptance of his short recap of Bubo's Tale. He supposed everything he spoke of that transpired beyond their immediate environment seemed equally fanciful whether it happened across the rock lands, in Heaven's Tread, or in this ridiculous, child's-tale 'Christendom' of Bubo's Tale. Regardless, they waited eagerly for him to continue. The most wrinkled elder squatted there listening, as thirsty for more of his words as the youngest child bouncing up-and-down on their mother's lap waiting for his meandering, trimmed-down version of the Saga.

Cairin brought him a fresh cup of wine and he surprised her with a long kiss. The audience trilled, whistled, and clapped at this. She positively glowed as she swished away and cast him a smoldering glance full of sultry promises. He grinned back, bowed, and continued on.

"According to the tale, Bubo realized he'd brought some horrific plague wherever he visited and, full of guilt and hounded by holy warriors of Christendom who hunted him as some sort of heretic, blasphemer, or student of dark magics, he fled. He barely escaped to the Thorn and came back to tell his tale. Sadly, his only friends, his rats, were left behind in his haste to flee."

That part of the story had always reduced other kids to tears when he'd heard it told. Even as a child himself, he thought it seemed strange that they felt bad about a few lost rats but not about untold thousands of children like them dying of some gruesome variant of the White Kiss back in the mythical 'Christendom' that Bubo had left behind.