Thought narrowed the hopes. The only possibility seemed to be crossing where there were hard surfaces on both sides of the floor. Fortunately the papio reef and corona reef were strongest here. It was possible to climb down safely. Four hundred and nine days after its latest birth, a strong Eight reach their goal, standing on a coral spur and looking at a roughly equal spur on the other side. And as shadow fell across both worlds, with shared excitement, they knelt and reached down, touching the shimmering home of demons with one hand, then both.

The sensation was like touching very hot ice.

With one foot and then both, they stepped down onto the barrier.

In the world above, they would have melted through instantly. But the demons proved very strong, very stubborn. They didn’t break with a single fist or a hundred hard kicks. Night came with the Eight still pounding away at the shimmer. They used coral lumps and boulders and their shattered fists, and they used a great deal of rage, and they even tried a sharpened piece of steel that must have fallen through from the other side—steel turning to rust and flakes at a fantastic pace.

This was not the same demon floor as above.

In the darkness, the dense air was a little cooler, a little less selfish about its moisture. A mist fell at the bottom of this world, and then hard fat raindrops that danced on the floor and settled, becoming a lake that was deeper than the Eight were tall.

The lake was no denser than the air, and it proved just as rich in oxygen.

Finally, admitting the hopelessness, the Eight took that fine new body across the floor, hoping without reason that it would weaken farther from ground and the world’s edges. But if anything, the barrier grew stronger. Night was full. The last shred of hope was that the next day would bring rain to the human world, and maybe a tough young body could ride that storm a little ways, and maybe the swirling winds would prove lucky, flinging them against the papio reef.

They walked inside hot pressurized water.

The invincible shimmer was beneath them, and beyond the floor, they saw the soft ruddy glow of fire. The human forests were burning. Tritian wondered if a war was being fought, or maybe some other ordinary disaster had struck the tree-walkers. And he wondered if he was made of the same stuff as the demon floor. The Eight and the other Three could have been woven from that magical stuff, which could explain quite a lot, at least with the first glance. But no answer could be tested, and believing in magic left the mind heavier than ever, more questions and puzzles and feelings of deep stupidity riding on the next moments.

Night in the corona realm was very different from the human world.

Tritian cast those big eyes upwards, staring through the water, watching the sun’s disk swallowed by the fully grown jungle.

Every night, the coronas hovered against the ink, sprinkling the Creation with pricks of light that spun around the center like a great silent wheel.

Sometimes that wheel seemed familiar.

Reassuring, even.

They surely had a purpose for what they did, what they did without fail. But the Eight didn’t bother even dreaming up possible reasons.

Tritian was thinking how the big coronas could pierce the floor at will. Plainly it was a matter of simple size and strength. He was wondering if the Eight could learn the coronas’ language and their desires, some sort of arrangement could be achieved. Then he laughed and told the others why he was amused. He imagined this body riding a corona up to the reef, to the trees. They were nearly dead once but born again, and they were stronger than ever, and the coronas were their new allies.

In that fashion, in an instant, misery and punishment seemed to have been transformed, nothing before them but promise and endless potential.

“But first, a taste of the cold thin air,” Tritian promised the others.

Except the jungle exploded into fire, and the blast and steam broke through the floor without him. One moment, the water was all around, and then tiny pores opened up in the floor for no reason, it seemed, than to let out the flood and the wild energies that kept the trees alive, and the reef, and the human animals with their ancient grudges and small marvelous talents.

Suddenly it was day again, and the Eight were standing on top of the demon floor, shamefully exposed.

In a wild dash, they hurried back to the cover of the rocks.

And the coronas went about their hot important lives.

That was when the Eight finally, grudgingly began to study those languages of light and sound and scent.

Any code can be broken, particularly if gifted minds have nothing else to do.

Very quickly, the Eight realized that the aliens weren’t empty monstrous mysteries, but instead they were endlessly strange and perhaps even more interesting than anything they had dared to imagine.

They learned about the old ones and the Firsts, and the Eight learned the Count of Days leading to these days.

The age of the Creation was revealed.

After that, a working voice was finally built.

Corona words emerged from the new throat.

A few curious babies came chasing the words, and the bravest stayed to talk, the coronas covering their bodies with swirling pictures, while the Eight drew simple, unlovely images on weeds and mossy corals.

At least one of those babies mentioned to others what she/he had witnessed. At least a few adults listened to her. Then one night, late in the night, one of the Firsts honored the Eights by seeking them out. A creature older than this Creation hung overhead, obscuring that wheel of tiny, holy lights. Tritian intended to ask about the lights and their patterns, wanting to understand the significance of this deep old habit. But there wasn’t time that night. Instead, they managed a rough conversation with the greatest oldest grandest mind that they had ever met, and the Eight did their best to describe their first birth and first death, ending the tale with their rebirth here.

Nearly six hundred days had passed since that last birth.

Tritian promised to tell the rest of their story, as soon as there was time.

Then the First left, saying nothing about his/her mood or intentions or any great old promises made to vanished creatures.

Morning arrived.

The sun found the Eight sitting inside a favorite crevice. In this place, the coral had grown like a tree thrusting sideways from the wall of the Creation. The demon floor lay spread out below like a great basin filled with magical water. The Eight could look straight up at the sunlight, but what mattered were the coronas. Unlike every other morning, the corona gathered in a sphere formation, each of them doing nothing but talking.

One topic was fascinating to all.

Nobody understood why, but long ago one of the Firsts had left this world. She/he went to visit the cold, and her body never returned, and now she lived only as memory and wisdom and the great songs woven inside all of their minds.

Tritian and his siblings were parsing out the heart of the subject.

“She was our mother,” each whispered to the others, to themselves.

And then the sphere of light and song was announcing that another one of the Firsts had left. Giving no warning, it had gone to the other world, and the central opinion in the midst of that confusion was the simple inescapable sense that it must be his/her time to leave flesh and join its celebrated mate.

Nobody inside this realm looked or sounded scared.

Tritian wasn’t scared.

He led the body out into the glare of the morning sun. The coronas’ everyday work had stopped, which was peculiar. Nobody was tending to the jungle. The day was as fiercely bright as it was after the jungle stopped burning. Squinting hard, the Eight spotted the last of the First—four giants hanging apart from the others, whispering with their bright high-purple lights.