Shen sat comfortably as he was tended to. A lovely young maiden, her tender ways quite familiar and attractive for those of a human, was carefully mixing herbs and oils and applying them to the burns on his feet. She carefully wrapped the first, and with a grimace of disapproval examined the other, shaking her head.

It didn't hurt much anymore. Honestly, it hadn't hurt all that much to begin with. Far more uncomfortable was the idea of it all: a "private shadow", he'd heard someone say, and a trick trump to lead one there.

A lot had happened, and Shen found himself reviewing it in his mind. The search had been a series of steps from the get go - from Random to Benedict to Llewella, with the Eyriens' rescue bringing a more or less fortunate detour - then the journey to Allemain, the unveiling of Salome, and then Queen Llewella sending them in search of Korbin, king of the realm from which Griffin came. At last there had been presented an actual plan for reaching Amber... and then had come the second detour. The trump of the Darkling Realms, Griffin's home, taken by Griffin from the home of Lucas Reynard so long ago, didn't lead there at all. Instead it had taken them into some elaborate trap that had scattered the group throughout some twisted world supposedly "owned" by Reynard. It was a different trump, the one of King Korbin himself, that had fortunately allowed Griffin and Shen to arrive safely here, but most of the others had no such out.

The workings of trumps captivated Shen. The whole concept of them, essentially shortcuts through the Ni to familiar people and places, was beautiful to him. He envisioned them as shining threads of light that connected two points in the winds of shadow, transcending whole worlds, as spirits did. The ability to contact or reunite with friends, no matter how far away, or step into a carefully artisted image of any shadow and then simply be there, seemed invaluable to him in the context of a journey such as his. Some powerful few, it seemed, like Llewella, had the ability to wander the worlds within the Ni truly at will. To those relegated to special paths and rituals, however, the existence of the magical cards was nigh unto critical. The fact that they could be made as traps, or supposedly somehow used to attack a trusting person's mind, annoyed Shen. It felt like a wonderful concept tarnished, and it made the idea of somehow having his own trumps created for him ever more alluring.

He imagined being able to see the Rheari, or even go there, at will, or contact Nari whenever he wished. Such tools certainly would have made reuniting his companions far easier after Reynard's devices had haphazzardly scatted them asunder. Some of them even Reynard, after being rescued by Griffin and Shen via trump from the prisons of Kazor, couldn't find... including Leiko and Salome.

Salome. There had been another revelation. In the depths of Allemain Shen had finally faced his mother, heard her tale, and found out why she had left the Rheari while he was still so young. So many of his fears had been laid to rest, so many of his questions answered, but now he feared for her. In being freed of her captivity and trained in her unique abilities, she had become vaguely indebted to Kazor, and she was struggling as best she could to release herself of that debt without losing her life, or worse.

Then there was the matter of Kazor - Kazor, who had poisoned the waters of Allemain during their visit, stealing Cecily and Harrison away, who'd then somehow luckily escaped him - Kazor, who held Shen's mother with threats, and presumably commanded demons and minions in an ill-theorized plan to take Amber for himself - Kazor, who was presumably the one who'd sent the likes of Hakthla and his kin after all of them, and had pushed many of them to the edge of death.

Shen thought long on this, as his caretaker evaluated the damage he'd sustained in the volcanic portion of Reynard's "private shadow". Perhaps this was what it was like to have an enemy. Kazor was not the silly enemy of childhood, or even the enemy one finds in the enraged beast stumbled upon in the wild. He was not merely protecting himself, or immaturely reacting to some unknown pain; he was malevolent. He was a piece of the Ni, hidden and distant, intent on hurting the group for his own gain, and fearfully well empowered to do it.

Shen considered this, his life's lessons at a stalemate in his mind. What to do with such a being? What would Kalia answer?

He smiled at a passing thought: if only he had a trump.

All the events of late swirled around in his mind. Like it or not, he was privvy to a larger picture now. The Ni, or at least the part of it brought to be by Amber, was to a tiny degree in his hands, and the idea seemed unright. The Ni simply was, that was always a certainty, but now there was this conflicting idea. How could so much of its condition be left to the hands of beings like this? Perhaps it was an illusion, like life, a self-deception of control. Or perhaps the countlessness of worlds wandered by those from Amber was not truly many worlds, but somehow one. Perhaps it was just another layer of reality, and the environs and challenges of those of Amber within the Ni were just like weather and survival were to those of the Rheari. "We all must weave," Kaliakeri had once said.

Answers, as always, were few, and in the tales told of Amber, in the eyes of those who'd once seen it, Shen saw something frighteningly dangerous: the promise of those answers. Part of him, of course, wanted to believe the unspoken: that reaching Amber would make everything clear, answer all the questions, make certain the purpose of everything and everyone. He knew, however, that this was an erroneous and treacherous path. Amber had seen conflict, even war, and though he was naive, Shen knew of the places from where war comes. For every home there is a sanctuary, and for every sanctuary there is a fear, and fear tortures all beasts until faith is found, and the home lost that promises faith stands to yield to the unprepared instead the most primal of panic.

To some, Amber was about power. To others, it was heritage, or knowledge. To some, it was the key to the universe, and to shaping it, or dissolving its shape, as wished. But to all of these, even to the forces of Chaos who seem to wish the Pattern destroyed, it was about fear, and sanctuary, and home.

Shen thought of the Rheari, and he examined the fear. Then he watched it fall to a speck within the shadow of a new one that came with the realization that this is the fear that all must somewhere feel, and in which so many now act.

We have so far to go, thought Shen, so very far.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the pain.