When Seo realizes what the Word Lords have done, she's horrified. "You killed all my friends," Seo says, "as a temporary stop-gap solution to the destruction of your own universe?!"
"With this solution, we'll have time to find a permanent solution," the Word Lords reply. "If we hadn't acted as we did… our universe would certainly have ended."
Seo knows there's only one thing left to do.
"I have a permanent solution," Seo says.
She knows that they have something similar to the Key to Time in this universe — they call it the Key to Narratology, and it was mentioned at the beginning of this story. It must have been mentioned for an important reason, right? Or the author would have cut it out.
"I'm the Seventh Segment to the Key to Time in my universe," Seo explains. "Plug me into the Key to Narratology, and the Key would give you lot power over both words and matter, along with unheard of abilities. Including the ability to save the whole universe."
(Seo gets this idea from the Time Lords and their trap with Dawn.)
The Word Lords accept this, and try it out.
Seo screams as she gets transformed into a stone segment. However, Seo still manages to maintain some sense of self inside the stone segment, and when her segment is connected to the Key to Narratology, Seo uses the Key's powers to restore Riven to the way it was, before.
Atrus, Catherine, Dave, and Ghen all come back.
Along with Oliver, and all the Riven natives.
Riven is reborn!
…nagebsdrowehterehwgninnigebyrevehtotthgiryrotsehtpudnapudnapudepsevaD…
…and back and back…
Atrus, Catherine, Dave, and Ghen look around themselves. Surprised to be alive, since they all remember Riven imploding and that they'd all died.
Then Riven starts shaking. Turns out, whatever Seo did to restore Riven only exacerbated its instabilities, and the Star Fissure open doesn't help. Seo might have saved Riven, but only for a little while! It'll be destroyed within minutes!
Atrus, Catherine, and Dave decide that they have to work with Ghen — however reluctantly — so that they can get all the natives off Riven, and then to find a way out of Riven, themselves. Dave, in particular, wants to get off Riven as fast as he can — because he has a horrible feeling that Seo saved them by doing something that risked her own life, and that she now needs their help.
Everyone is a little shocked the Ghen rather happily offers his services. And cheerfully helps them save everyone on Riven and evacuate its people to another Age.
"Now, we must rescue Seo," Ghen tells them, as they return to Oliver.
…nagebsdrowehterehwgninnigebyrevehtotthgiryrotsehtpudnapudnapudepsevaD…
…and back and back…
Back in the Word Lords' domain, the Word Lords are surprised at Seo's control over the Key. But they soon note that she won't be able to pull a stunt like that, again.
The Key is already pulling her into itself. Soon, she will become one with it.
She can't help it.
The instruction's been hard-wired into her.
…nagebsdrowehterehwgninnigebyrevehtotthgiryrotsehtpudnapudnapudepsevaD…
…and back and back…
Back on Riven, Atrus finds the key to Seo's space ship, which is right where he hid it. They race back, and open up Oliver, then rush inside.
However, to their horror, they find no return linking book in the console room.
Worse still, without Seo, the ship can't really go anywhere, and Oliver is acting very strange, besides. Like it's freaked. Ghen is the one, in the end, who figures that — as this is a space ship — the best way to make it go is to hurl it into space.
See, on Riven, there's something called a Star Fissure. It's a fissure in reality, which leads to outer space. Currently, there's a cap over it… but if they remove the cap, the fissure will suck everything on Riven into it, and make the whole world disappear around them, and turn into stars.
"Yes, of course!" Atrus agrees. "The Star Fissure."
They all open the star fissure, and — as Riven's getting sucked through the fissure — everyone runs back inside Seo's ship.
(In the panic to get off Riven, Ghen and his small retinue of guards is allowed inside, too. Mostly out of haste and pandemonium.)
Everyone is happy to be alive, as Riven disintegrates and they find themselves instead surrounded by stars. They can go! They can find Seo!
The happiness soon disappears, though, as Ghen positions his men to take control of the ship.
"Secure the perimeter," Ghen commands.
Turns out, Ghen was so helpful basically because he knew the Word Lords had unheard of powers, and he wanted these for himself. Now that he had this ship, he could go back to the Word Lords and gain his reward.
He and his retinue aim guns at Catherine and Atrus.
"Real question is… why do I need any of you alive?" Ghen asks.
Dave grabs up a Judoon translator gun from the floor, rolls with it, then jumps to his feet and points it at the base of Ghen's spine.
"You'll keep us alive," Dave explains, "because you've got no other choice. Your guns are useless — but mine's not."
"What?" says Ghen.
(Actually, Dave's bluffing about the State of Grace circuits, which aren't in Seo's ship right now. But it works.)
He claims that Seo's ship has circuits installed in it which mean that no weapons are able to go off inside the ship (it doesn't, actually). Ghen and his men are armed with guns constructed, specifically, to be guns — so they won't work (this might not be true either, since the guns are made of words and aren't made of matter).
But Dave's armed himself with a Judoon Translator Unit.
"The way I'm thinking," says Dave, "you're just a bunch of language all fitted together to form a unit. But if I translate that language badly into something else…"
He starts pressing down.
And everyone can see the results.
Ghen agrees to surrender, and drops his weapons. So do all his men, around him.
Dave kicks Ghen's gun over to Catherine and Atrus, instructing them to disarm Ghen and his troops' guns so they can't be fired (which is right around the time we realize he was bluffing about the guns not going off). Dave decides that they need a way back to Seo, and he soon gets one.
Turns out, Riven's destruction the way they did it has only exacerbated the end of the universe. The Word Lords pluck Oliver out of the void, so that they can destroy it and redistribute its inhabitants.
Ghen uses this to get the upper hand, harming Dave and then bolting out the door himself.
Ghen is soon served a piece of humble pie from the Word Lords, when he tries but fails to impress them, and then tries but fails to destroy them so he can take their power — which leads to his ultimate destruction.
Dave is next on the chopping block, since he is a matter being in a non-matter universe, which could prove catastrophic. But Catherine intervenes, using the Judoon translator unit to cause a distraction.
Dave and Atrus run back into Seo's ship, which takes off.
Back to the beginning of the story …ffo sekat pihs ehT
Noticed all that crazy backwards writing throughout the story? The words that made no sense, and then the words "…and back and back…"?
Now, the story explains those words.
See, when Dave and Atrus run back into Oliver, they take off and use the Key's energy to send themselves crashing through the story — our story, the one you've been reading! They're hurtling backwards through the narrative.
Things like this:
…nagebsdrowehterehwgninnigebyrevehtotthgiryrotsehtpudnapudnapudepsevaD…
Are actually strings of backwards text, smushed together by the momentum of crashing backwards into the story. It actually says:
…Dave sped up and up and up the story, right to the very beginning where the words began…
When Dave arrived at the beginning of the story, where the Word Lords had been summarized, we got another string:
…kcabogdluocyehtosrallocehtybmihdebbargdnadetnawehdroLdroWehtwasehsadewolsevaD…
Which is backwards for:
Dave slowed as he saw the Word Lord he wanted and grabbed him by the collar so they could go back.
You got it! Dave and Atrus picked up one of the legendary Word Lords — Had Been — and brought him forwards through the story, to the present point. As they hurtle forwards, again, they are coming "back and back…" to the future.