Aida felt unimaginably better after her long soak, a simple manicure, a delicious meal of bread, thin-sliced meat, and fresh fruit, then a nap. Awakening in her luxurious bedroom, she could almost pretend everything was a dream and her room deep in a Caribbean resort.

Except for Ghillie napping with her back against the door. Or the hundreds of voices now chanting outside the villa: "Mother. Mother. Mother."

"Great," she muttered, wandering over to what passed for a bathroom and staring in the beaten-silver mirror. A clay pitcher of water poured in a basin gave her enough to splash on her face and rub at her sleep lines.

A knock at the door. Aida leaned out to see Ghillie crack the door then open it wide to admit Aliasara. The woman carried a cloth bundle, beaming as usual. "Aida, all is well?"

Aida smiled back and took the woman's hand. "Best it's been in I don't know how long."

"Good, because the people gather at the gates to see you."

"To see me? " A rock plunged into her stomach. "Why? How many?"

"To see you. They say you are a Dynast with an empty verse. Many and more are hungry and desperate."

Aida stared. "They know it's named One-Eighth Shithole for a reason, right?"

Aliasara wetted her hands and tidied up Aida's hair in a business-like fashion. "To a man whose family has touched no bread for days, anything sounds an improvement."

"How is Fallon? I need him for this."

The smile faltered. Faded. "He lies feverish. We've changed all his bed things twice."

"His wound reopened?" Aida stopped, mid-reach for a water pitcher.

"No. He can't keep food in." Aliasara shook her head. "Never seen its like. It comes out of both ends."

Aida frowned. An infection causing vomiting and...

When it hit her, she stumbled back to sit heavily on the tiled bench with a hole cut into it that served as a toilet. A heaviness fell and she pressed eyes tightly together, wishing she could make her sudden realization go away. "Oh my god, it'll be like smallpox."

"Small what?"

"The flu. I had it when they came to get me. It's a sickness, one no one here'll have any resistance to."

"Oh, is that all?" Aliasara squatted in front of Aida, looking perplexed. "If it's a sickness, the Inoculist can give him a chant and it will go away."

"That's why he's been chanting?" Aida leaning her head against the wall as the pieces clicked into place. "He thinks chanting will help against the flu?"

Outside, the calls of "Mother" settled into a steady rhythm. She wondered if she should get out there. Appeasing a crowd of opportunity-seekers shrank in scale of importance to nearly nothing compared to a thousand universes all virgin to the flu. She'd read somewhere that influenza wiped out entire Amazon tribes who caught it from narcotraffickers. Even with over a century of acclimation or whatever they called it plus vaccines, the flu still killed hundreds-of-thousands elsewhere on Earth every year. She couldn't imagine what it'd do here.

Aliasara laughed, but this time it inspired the opposite of warmth in Aida. "Sicknesses come from ill thoughts. They leak into people's heads from the Logos, but the Inoculists simply delve into the thought-realm to find chants that block the flow."

Being a serving woman from a different universe where simple steel seemed to be a precious rarity, the woman obviously wouldn't get it. Aida struggled with how to explain a virus to her.

Aliasara frowned. "We sent for an Inoculist before your bath. They should've been here hours ago."

Aida leapt to her feet. "The High Inoculist! As I left the Spire Janali said the High Inoculist needed to see Ocyl urgently. Oh my God! The 1918 alone killed my grandfather and my older sister before I was even born. It'll be like the Black Death here."

"The Black Death?" Aliasara stood, confused. "Is that what they call The Kiss where you come from? Many say it's a myth."

"The Kiss? I've heard it mentioned but..." Aida forced herself to listen to Aliasara's reply as her mind spun with the ramifications of what she'd unwittingly done, unwittingly carried with her.

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"Mentioned? No one told you about The Kiss when you were a child? When Aj descended from the Hells beyond The Book to punish our sins?"

At Aida's blank look, Aliasara looked incredulous. "You've never heard of Aj the Annihilator? The White Kiss? Any of it?"

"As I said, I've heard it mentioned in passing." Aida grew annoyed. "Pretend I'm an idiot child like my Seneschal does and tell me about it."

"I apologize, Dynast." Aliasara bowed deeply. "I meant no offense."

Aida sighed and grabbed the woman's shoulders to bring her upright. "Just Aida. And don't mind me, I'm just a bit prickly at the moment. Go on. You were telling me about the Wizard of Aj."

"I don't know what wizards are. Like the multi-minded Wiz of Berujat?"

"Um, sure."

"Well, it happened centuries ago. They say even Ocyl was but a child when it happened and Heaven's Tread not even discovered by the Vale Walkers."

The vast stretch of Ocyl's life suddenly loomed before Aida and it really hit her how old all the Dynasts she'd met had to be. None of them could be any younger than her, apparently, and for all she knew some might be ten times her age. "So how'd they stop this Aj? What sins was he destroying everything for in the first place?"

Aliasara collected a towel from a nearby alcove and blotted at Aida's face. "It came because the people rebelled against The Black Court on every page of the Book, refusing to contribute to the Donative. That and our sins before the Ascendant, the people's vanity, pride, and hubris. The Blind Priests tell us Aj came to set things right and only ceased its vengeance when we finally released our pride and returned to the fold and knelt again so the Dynasty could stand and protect us."

"So it's like the Old Testament God?"

Shaking her head, Aliasara tugged at the strings of Aida's gown. "Not a god of anywhere, but a horror formed of utter darkness. No army could stop it, no Mancer could contain it, no Dynast could withstand it. It ripped hundreds of verses from the Book and when it stopped in Sunset, it gave the White Kiss as a parting gift to wipe out hundreds of verses more."

"One hell of a kiss."

"A horrible affliction Aj imparted by kissing one of the Dynasts just before Aj suddenly stopped, dropped to the lotus position, and there remains to this day. They say the unfortunate Dynast lived a few days in agony, then died coughing up clouds of white dust. Anyone who breathed it died the same way. They abandoned whole verses to it for anything that breathed caught and spread it."

"My God," Aida whispered. "What happened to Aj while this went on? Did they kill it?"

"Oh no. They say it became invulnerable, harder than currence so no weapon could harm it nor Mancer's art affect it or that it turned soft as smoke so nothing could cut it. The entire verse of Sunset where it halted became its prison and Inro the Incorruptible its warden." Aliasara walked from the room, returning a moment later with a dress of ruffled blue-green silk and lace. "They say Versers and Dynasts still travel to Sunset to see Aj seated in the ruins of the Ascen temple where it finally ceased its rampage and fell into eternal slumber."

Aida stripped her dress off and took the new one, but paused with it over her head. "Can I do this myself or will you lose your job?"

Aliasara laughed and motioned for her to continue, deftly finding and lacing little ties about the back to fit Aida's form more snugly.

"So, why didn't they just bury Aj or something? That's what we do if we can't figure out any other way to get rid of it. Radioactives and toxic chemicals go in a pit. Fill it with concrete or drop it down a mine shaft and put up a big sign that says 'Go Away or Die' or something."

"Nothing can move it. They once buried Aj under a pile of rocks tall as twenty men. When they were done, they immediately dug it out, worried it might awaken and vanish without them being able to notice." Aliasara scoffed. "Typical Dynast thinking: make it so by the labor of a thousand of us then think about it. No offense meant, of course."

Aida laughed at the concern in Aliasara's voice. "I truly have Dynastic blood in me; I lived most of my life that way. The think-after-doing thing, not the break-a-thousand-laborers bit. I made it to a hundred years I guess, so wasn't one-hundred percent disaster. I think you'll find me a different breed of Dynast entirely."

If Aida packed a camera, she would take a picture of Aliasara's radiant smile to look at whenever she felt down.

"So when does this Aj wake up? There must be a prophecy or something. There's always a prophecy."

"Oh, dozens, starting as soon as Aj stopped. Every generation or so some madman on the street forms a cult preparing for The Last Awakening, but fortunately they've never once been right. I pray it never wakes up. After this long maybe it won't: why sleep or meditate for six-hundred years? Some think the Dynasts even made it all up just to keep us in line." Aliasara walked around Aida to admire her handiwork. "I like green on you, it matches your eyes."

A rapid knock at the door repeated several times. Aida caught distant shouting and screams.

"That can't be good."

"Coming, coming!" Aliasara wound around the furniture as Ghillie cracked the suite door open. The Feral immediately stepped aside.

"Yes, Stiller?" Aliasara said in the hall outside.

Aida couldn't hear the reply, but Aliasara turned with her hand to her mouth.

"What is it?" Aida's throat tightened. "What's gone wrong now?"

"The people grew tired of waiting and climbed the outer wall. Your Ferals killed several and it grows ugly."

"Of course they did." Aida felt sick. As she walked towards the door, she noticed the crumpled, now-blood-stained note she'd found in Eth's room lying by the bathroom. She waved it at Aliasara. "Can you understand this?"

Aliasara shook her head. "I know the Majordomo can. He gets scraps like that all the time."

Aida tucked it into her belt pouch and made a mental note to have Riccaro translate it. Didn't Eth say Ocyl would read it? He had to be kilometers away dealing with the nascent plague, not lounging somewhere nearby waiting to read a couple scribbles. Maybe the pimply prophet was fallible after all.

She stopped at the door, smoothed her gown, and pushed the looming flu pandemic she'd probably started to the back of her mind. Couldn't do anything about it if a mob tore down the villa and stoned her to death with pieces of it.

One crisis at a time.