A cold wind blows across the Rheari, chilling the air of early spring. The dry season comes sharply after the rainy winter, and only the slow melt of the distant mountains keeps alive the river that carries water to the village wherein Shenrakari, blood of Amber and of beasts, was born.

Shen pauses a moment in the courtyard, feeling a cool current of fluid push past him. The feel of it is foreign, as is the brine he somehow breathes in this place beneath the sea. He gazes into the space above him, beyond the city, trying to see what lies beyond the water, but the night skies here are not like those of worlds above, and there is no beyond. He sits for a moment.

Eris cannot sleep. The worn man rises and leaves the hut. He walks softly amidst the carefully kept trails of the village, effortlessly sure not to stir the soft grasses from their windswept dance. His thick hide hardens in the brisk air that rages around him.

The Pattern: the point of order in the universe, the place from where all stability somehow comes, allowing existence itself to exist. Amber: the kingdom wherein the Pattern lies, home of the princes and princesses that seem to connect the fates of so many of Shen's companions. Chaos: the universe in absence of order, a twisting place wherein nothing remains but change, and mountains move like the tiny petals of blossoms in a storm. The Cosmos: the Ni, the everything, spanning from Amber to Chaos and beyond, the light that lets shadow be cast, the darkness into which it falls, and the places into which even world wanderers cannot go.

He comes upon the edge of the village, seeing the house as it is with his eyes, and as it is to be with his mind. The tall staves of bundled bamboo rise high from their stations, driven from the solid earth to the whimsical sky. Piles of grasses woven into twine lay nearby. He carefully eyes the summit of a corner post, pacing backward from it, measuring distance and height without even the need to think.

Shen moves his hand along the garden wall upon which he sits, feeling the coral stone blocks against his fingers. He pushes hard against it, convincing himself of its unyielding presence. It is real. It is a shadow.

Eris holds fast with his arms as the high end of the spire breaks his momentum at the apex of his leap. It sways aside under his massive weight, squeaking out crackles and moans, but does not yield. It slows him, then moves to right itself, to pull him back toward its natural bearing, but in his ankles he has caught another, and now they each fight to draw him to their own truth. They suspend him far above the ground as he stretches himself across their conflict.

Shen looks about him at the darkness. It has mass, and he can feel it dragging at his every stir, pressing on him as if to wring him out of its boundless consistency. He looks down at his hands, and sees his flesh, made half of shadow.

Twine creaks between the weaver's teeth as he strains to bring two parallels to meet. His mighty body slowly bends, tail flailing in the starlight, to bring his hands and feet together. He gently exhales as his body shivvers violently in the contraction, and tears and sweat are squeezed out of him to bead and glisten on his skin. For what seems an eternity he empties himself, expending all he is, risking everything, giving all that his body can offer at once.

The child begins to breathe heavily, his gut suddenly straining to push the thick atmosphere of this place in and out of him. He feels its inertia within him, fighting his need to reverse every breath, forcing more of itself into him when he needs to purge himself of it, rushing out and away from him when he gasps for it. It is ahead of him, and he cannot catch it. He begins to convulse.

The weaver slowly collapses, curling himself around the only two links to his world that he can still feel, and they scream arrid cries at him, as if tortured by being ripped away from their skyward calling. He senses the scrape of one against the other as he nears the end of his air, and quietly fills his mind with the last steps of his ritual, as he tastes the rough line held carefully in his mouth with his tongue.

Shen falls to his knees and claws at the sandy stone in silent agony. His throat heaves haltingly at the salty fluid invading him, but there is only more. The muscles in his abdomen and sides begin to cramp and burn. He falls to his side, his figure suddenly shaking and tightening like a blade of grass swept into a fire. His vision starts to blacken.

With the last of his strength Eris sweeps his legs around the crossing of the beams with the speed of wind. He strains to hold together the intersection, this unnatural meeting of seperate structures, just long enough to make them one. He sucks a new breath through clenched teeth as he works an ancient pattern with a thin strand of woven grass. Like a song the wrappings pass from his lore though his mind to his hands. Three rounds over, and turn, and two aside, one back, and turn...

Shen dreams of numbers and right angles, of winding string, loosely woven strands of light, turning circles and loops, its dancing path casting a woven inverse shadow on the floor.

Twine wraps stalk, then twine wraps twine, then bundles are wrapped and bundled again. One aside, then turn, then four each way, then turn, then four, then back again...

Grass weaves so tightly as to become forest wood, then sand, then red coral stone. The stone itself twists into a cord and twists again, glowing with tension, and melting into blood, then water, then wind.

Then nothing. Not air, not stone. Not world, not chaos.

Erisrakari lies on the ground, his body floating in numbness. Before him, in black silhouette against the midnight stars, two pillars of bamboo stretch upwards and meet, curving to each other with the grace of lovers, a cathedral arch above the plain.

Shen gradually awakens, exhausted and sore. High above him, just meeting his eyes as they focus, he sees the faintest flickers of crisp white light streak across the void in wavering paths. In an instant his view floods with the irridescent green of Allemain, and they are gone.