PART FIVE: KINDS OF LIFE

Part Five begins with a mythological creation narrative about Ke and the great bird Ash-Abbé, who gathers people, animals, plants, and knowledge from across a sickened world and carries them to a new land called Anjiin. Ke's father refuses the journey, choosing to remain behind out of grief for a terrible vision he has seen.

The chapter presents a creation myth from the Anjiin peoples' oral tradition, as recorded by Uuya Tomos. The narrative describes how Ke sang the great bird Ash-Abbé to various regions of a dying world—the rainforest, desert, and coastal areas—where the bird gathered not only people but also seeds, animals, insects, plants, and the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of those lands. Ash-Abbé visited every corner of the world that still possessed life and goodness. When the bird came to Ke's father's home, the father refused to board, having received a vision of future events that filled him with such grief he would not leave his dwelling despite being called three times. With all willing passengers aboard, Ke sang Ash-Abbé skyward and beyond the sky itself, transporting the gathered peoples and life to the new world of Anjiin, establishing how humanity came to inhabit that land.