Aida stared out across the burbling river in shock, wondering if everything had just been some exceptionally-vivid dream. Then Aliasara joined her, what was left of her family and Stiller looking on with concern.
"The One Tribe has set out following Inro. The people of Ink are trying to get the Keens out of their armor now that none of it seems to work and the Vibrants... aren't. The Mune are already organizing the reconstruction of the collapsed buildings beyond the grove. The Sect creatures are devouring the rows of strange plants while the Anticores set out to 'negotiate with the local Dynast'. "
Aida turned and nodded, smiling as she imagined some Kansas farmer driving his pickup truck out to figure out what was going on with his corn and finding a couple Anticores herding a flock of dinosaur chickens down the road then hailing them as "Lord" or something. It wouldn't be long before the media and then the government arrived for who-know-what-the-hell would happen next, but none of that was up to her anymore.
"Hassani okay?" Aida said, turning and walking slowly to join her friend at the edge of the Thorn grove, deciding enough time had passed that the demons probably hadn't followed their hectic flight through the Vale.
Aliasara nodded and glanced back the way she'd come. "Her husband and their friend are helping set up a camp near the river while she's organizing treatment for the wounded. Some crude mercenary more scars than skin argued with her, rounded up some ruffians, and set off to rob those buildings we saw beyond the fields."
"Whoever she is, she's probably about to learn what shotguns do. How about the rotters? They fall over when they got here?" Aida said, trying to imagine people's responses when they found out that zombies were real. And peaceful.
"No," Aliasara said, her look quizzical. "Why would they?"
"Interesting," Aida said. Someone else came through the woods. Parathas, smiling by way of greeting.
"What's the word?"
Parathas sat down on a fallen log and rubbed his fingers across the bumps on his arm. "The mancers mostly all still seem to function. It is as the Aj told Hassani."
"Oh?" Aida said, plunking down on the log next to him. Exhaustion hit her light a falling weight, leaving her wondering if she still regenerated and didn't need food or sleep. Judging by how tired she felt, she wasn't sure.
"She relayed what it told me before the battle in the One-eighth to be sure someone would know in case she fell in battle. The Aj told her the Ascendant originally came from this verse, but another sort of thing called the Chronosite lived here also, consuming time. They created doorways to another place, creating a machine called the Construct on the far side to build them sanctuaries from it."
Aida's tired mind chugged and struggled along with his words. "So, the Ascen are aliens? And they created wormholes or something to run and hide in The Book?"
Parathas nodded. "The doors were more like drains, drawing through the space and time of this verse into theirs so the Construct could build new verses.
Aida nodded, glancing up as a helicopter flew overhead. She grinned trying to imagine what sort of radio conversation the pilot was having with base.
"The Ascen decided they should save the other beings of the verse - each called a Dynasty - pulling them through and setting the Construct to build verses which would fit their own unique means of existing. The Aj were created, one per Dynasty, to observe them. Each Aj split into innumerable threads, all piercing each of their verses yet twining back to the same being."
"So, there was an Aj in every verse, like a the same TV program playing on a hundred different TVs?"
Parathas shrugged as the analogy bounced off him. He glanced up to watch the helicopter fly overhead curiously. Everyone proved far more calm and accepting of things than she'd been going into the Book. "The one Aj per Dynasty was also the one in each verse of that Dynasty."
"Okay... however that works. So the Dynasties are aliens or something?" The thought blew her mind. She squinted through the grove, thinking of the Sect bug-sauroids and maybe even the rotters in an entirely new light. "Wait, so if humans at the 100th Dynasty, where are all the others? Aside from the rotters and Sect, where's everyone else?"
"Mancers." Parathas said. "Our 100th Dynasty uniquely twines in with other Dynasties it would seem."
It took a few minutes for Aida to figure that one out. "Wait... so the magic powers or whatever the blade-hand and shapeshifter people have... those powers are... they are aliens?"
The skinscribe shrugged. "Their methods of existence seem to run at different angles to ours, but angles that intersect in many ways with us in ways they apparently do not with each other."
"So... humans are like water in the periodic table of aliens." She waited for him to get her clever analogy until she realized he had no idea what she was talking about. "Okay, I think I'm tracking so far. So what went wrong?"
"Two things," Parathas said, tapping one finger then another. "The Mon and the Chronosite. When they fled into The All, they didn't use Thorns for the Thorns were one of the Dynasties they collected last. Their returns to this verse to claim other Dynasties instead punched holes between The All and here which devastated the places from which they collected the Dynasties. The Mon - just a separate faction of the Ascendant - protested not only this, but also worried that draining this original verse would eventually destabilize it and collapse them all."
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"Okay, so they open black holes or something to fetch people." Aida closed her eyes, picturing what would happen if a black hole opened even for a couple days somewhere near Earth. "I can imagine why that would cause problems. They collect aliens to save them, but probably wreck the planets they are on in the process. It would be like saving endangered tigers, but lighting their habitat on fire in the process."
"The Mon and Ascen argued and fought with increasing virulence. The Ascen collected the first members of the 100th Dynasty around the time the feud began and the last when it came to a climax. Then the-"
Aida cut Parathas off as her brain fought to keep up. "Wait, wait, wait. So they came to get us twice?"
"Yes, the descendants of Ebon first, then the Pale second."
"And when was this exactly?"
Parathas rubbed some bumps on the back of his neck. "About eleven or twelve thousand years ago for the second. The first perhaps ten times that long ago."
After living in entirely different universe for a while, it took Aida an unsurprisingly long time to remember Earth facts. She struggled to cobble together a timeline from a few dozen nature, history, and anthropology documentaries she'd watched in the home. "So... the last time they were here was about the end of the last Ice Age. The Younger Dryout or something. Then the first would have been somewhere around the start of that Ice Age. Ascen black holes popping up and screwing with the climate for thousands of years!"
Parathas nodded as though what she was saying made sense, brushing his hand across a leaf with visible appreciation. "Apparently, your home is surprisingly resilient. But the Mon grew upset as most other Dynasties died out completely except for those specimens the Ascen brought to the All. The Mon and Ascen reached a point where... how did you put it before? 'Diplomacy fail'. As they grew close to a level of violence that may have broken The All and everything else, the Ascen ordered the Construct to reject the Mon, to lock them out forever from every verse of The All or any way to give the Construct any orders."
"Oh, damn," Aida said, rubbing her chin. "So they locked them out of the house into... what's outside the verses?"
"The Logos. The weft and weave from which the verses were created," Parathas said. "But the Ascen had two problems. One, since the difference between the Mon and Ascen was idealogical, not physiological, the Construct couldn't tell the difference."
"Oops," Aida said, chuckling. "So they locked themselves out too."
Parathas nodded. "Most of the time, they'd ordered the Construct to craft new verses sparingly, but when they were left locked in the Logos, the Construct had been ordered to craft new verses for the various Dynasties. This drew more and more from this place, pulling more and more from it. The Mon bred demons in an attempt to destroy the verses and slow the process with little effect until recently while the Ascen settled into apathy and playing "distant deity" through their Bling Priests. The Aj saw all this happening, but without direct orders from the Ascen or Mon, they didn't know what to do about it. Until you came."
"Me?" Aida said, blinking. "What's so special about me?"
"One, they thought this place here from whence you came from was destroyed by the Ascen's last collection. Two, you were the first being to come to The All through the Thorns from this verse since the Pale were collected an age ago. This triggered a realization in the 100th Aj as to how it could stop the Construct, a realization that led us to this point."
Aida held up her hands. "Wait, you were saying something before about the Chronosite something something?"
"Yes. With so much time being drained into The All, the Chronosite abandoned this verse for the richer concentrations within The All. What the Ascendent fled, they instead brought in with them."
"Okay... so, it's trapped in there now?"
"Yes. And everything is collapsing. With Aj of every Dynasty killing the gods of every verse, the verses unravel and are breaking the Construct. Soon, The All will collapse on itself, taking the Ascen, the Mon, and the Chronosite with it."
"Whoa." Her mind reeled trying to soak in all the information. "Okay, so what about the Immanent?"
Parathas shrugged. "The Aj wasn't sure how they were made, completely. Eth sacrificed herself to share what she could with it, but the last Immanent will meet the Aj to ensure the Imminent are born and their thread stitched back through time to ensure this all happens before the end."
Aida thought of her parting with Ghillie. The Feral had left them back in the Vale as they'd gathered about the Earth Thorn, taking Hassani's Aze Blade and a One-eighth 'nail.
"What are you doing?" Aida had demanded as the Earth Thorn stretched about everyone else.
There is one last thing that must be done for all of this to matter. A circle with a gap isn't complete.
"So let someone else do it."
Ghillie ducked under the Thorn to hug her, then slipped out again.
No one else can. I am the first and the last.
"I'm not going then," Aida said, trying to duck back through.
Ghillie shoved her back, softly but firmly. No. Everyone else needs you to survive your verse.
"Wait, don't you need more sweat water or watter or whatever? You can't go until you get all that."
Ghillie's eyes crinkled. I've been collecting three times as much as I need every time you gave me some. I can last as long as needs be to be there at the end.
"I don't want you to go."
I must. I love you.
"I love you too," she'd said. And the Thorn yanked her away.
Aida sat there staring at the Thorn for a long moment, the realization finally sinking in that she probably would never see Ghillie again. The woman had been there by her side, quietly supporting her, protecting her, having her back, that it felt like an essential piece of her fell off, leaving her frail and naked without it.
"Wait, so Ghillie was an Imminent this whole time?"
Parathas nodded. "A paragon. The first or last or both. Sent to be sure your part was played to its full extent and the path of the future the Imminent worked centuries to lay in was walked to get us here."
They sat for a long time, listening to the wind in the leaves and the river's burble.
"So what now?"
Parathas smiled. "Now the path ends at a shore from which we sail to new horizons."
"As poetic as it is unhelpful," she said. She heard people calling her name, their voices rising to a chant. "Mother. Mother. Mother."
"I don't wanna," she groaned. "I've had enough."
"There is no one else who can lead them here. You are the only one living who has been to both worlds."
"Ocyl did... a hundred years ago."
"Ocyl isn't here."
The thought made her sad, but she imagined him partying in his big orgy dome as the world burned outside and smiled.
"Get over yourself," she muttered. "Time to put on your big-girl panties and help those people."
As more prop planes buzzed, helicopters thumped, and even a pair of jets tore across the sky, Aida stood up and took a deep breath. She glanced back at the Thorn just in time to see it blur and leave behind a lone figure.
"Where did you go?" she demanded, rushing up and giving them a hug.
They slowly handed her a bundle of red-tassled, kunai/accupuncture needles. "I'm sorry."
Aida took them, tears streaming. "So she's gone?"
The figure glanced up at the sky. "Yes. But I'm here now. And our future is now ours, not bound by anyone or anything."
Taking a deep breath, Aida nodded, and wiped her eyes. "Make a future as a big happy family?"
"As a family."
Aliasara joined them and, hand-in-hand, they walked away from the Thorn and into a future.
"Well, one thing's certain at least," Aida said, chuckling. "This is sure going to be interesting."