we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Comments

[dark_light]

"Okay," says Amariah. "And now the question is how we get there."

She tries a boosted teleportation power, like the one Aurora has to let her get between subworlds of Rainbow - and she tries to carry everyone to the border of the afterlife, where the daemons and their attendants can sit and wait and everyone else can walk in.

This place turns out to exist.

It looks like a dock, shrouded in mist, leading out into murky water.

And here is a gentleman in a canoe.

[alicornucopia]

He blinks once.

"That's new," he says.

[dark_light]

"I'd be stunned if it wasn't," Amariah says. "My understanding is that the daemons have to stay here. The rest of us can go over the water with you? Is that where the dead people are? Who are you?"

[alicornucopia]

"I can take you there, if your daemons stay behind," shrugs the boatman indifferently. "It's what I do."

[lifes_sake]

"There's something dangerous there. Do you know what it is?" Cam asks.

[alicornucopia]

The boatman shrugs. "I only go as far as shore."

[dark_light]

"Are you the only one? Or are there other ways in? It should be more crowded, here, if you're the only way there."

[alicornucopia]

"If I've missed anyone," says the boatman, "I don't know it. Time doesn't matter, not here."

[lifes_sake]

"Even in the minute we've been here, with Jane syncing us up there should have been dozens, hundreds, of dead people accumulating... Jane."

There's no response.

Cam grits his teeth, and wishes himself away, and reappears a moment later. "She can't see out of our gems down here," he says. "But from her perspective we've been gone less than a second, and that and the failure of the dead to accumulate means we can continue, just have to wish out instead of getting Jane to grab us."

[dark_light]

"...Okay. I guess that's one of the things that doesn't work down here." She looks at Shell Bell, who's still floating. "But apparently we can fly. We might not need to take the boat."

[lifes_sake]

[Brainphone... works,] Cam reports.

[mind_game]

[I can hear you when you do that,] Jane reports, in text, all as a block. [But time-dilated like you're traveling much slower than I am. I can compensate with more sample data like I can when I'm talking to an accelerating spaceship, though, say something else.]

[dark_light]

[Testing, one two three.]

[mind_game]

[You're proceeding through time at a rate about six thousand times slower than I am,] Jane says, still in text. [It appears constant, at least over the sampled time.]

[alicornucopia]

The boatman doesn't seem to have any comment on whether they should take the boat or not.

[dark_light]

Amariah hands Path over to Petaal for safekeeping and starts flying, but stops when she's only about ten yards out from the edge of the dock. "How far is it?" she asks the boatman.

[alicornucopia]

"A ways," says the boatman. "Time doesn't matter."

[lifes_sake]

"Does it matter which direction we go? Would we get lost?"

[alicornucopia]

"If anyone's tried it, I don't know about it," says the boatman. "I can row you there."

[she_sells_seashells]

"And back?" puts in Shell Bell, who has been largely quiet with the distraction of her Sherlock holding her smew.

[alicornucopia]

"If anyone's gone back I don't know about it."

[dark_light]

"No, of course not," mutters Amariah. "Probably safest to let him take us. We can bounce out directly when we're done, wishes still work here, has everybody got boosted teleporting?"

[lifes_sake]

"Done."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yes."

[endragoned]

Aianon nods. (Ansharil is back at Amariah's house.)