Shenrakari sat alone before the Pattern, wrestling with himself. The others had tracked him to the Rheari before he could get away, blazing an unerasable trail of potential enemy attention to his homeland. The group had then returned to find Amber had been raided, sacked with cannon and guns, and many of those there kidnapped, Matthias and Syrana among them.

Maybe he could walk it again, he thought, gazing at the path's beginning in front of him, but there was nowhere left to go. Maybe he could do it anyway, and just have it take him far far away, to some shadow he recalled from a dream, or even to the one where his father's spirit now flew on the winds. If only he had met Zamorna, or even Hakthla. He could walk the Pattern, go to them, and give them what they wanted, and they might leave the Rheari alone.

Maybe he could walk it by some other route, like Random did, or just throw himself on its cold flame, and let it finish the job he felt like it had started. Maybe he could slice open his chest and drag himself over its extent, erasing every last trace, and put a stop to all of this madness.

What was Amber, anyway? What was this torn kingdom that dared to claim it held the key to all of the Ni? Somewhere there was a place where Random now resided, safe and whole. Somewhere was a Rheari that hadn't been spoiled, perhaps where his father still lived. Somewhere, even, there must be another Amber, one just like this one with its own acursed Pattern and its own castle, but one that hadn't been raided, one that hadn't had its prince captured, one that was safe in the hands of a unified family. Somewhere in the Ni, in its infiniteness, all of these must exist.

But he couldn't get there from here. The twisted burning mess on the floor before him couldn't take him to those places. No amount of shadow walking could get him there. They were not a shadow of Amber... not of this Amber.

And even if he could go to such a place, what good would it do? The Rheari where Nariaken now worked to prepare her people to move would always be. The Rheari where Eris and so many others were dead would always be. Somewhere there must even be a Rheari where all had perished, or worse, all still suffered. There was no way to make these less real than a Rheari in which all would forever be well.

Shen sat and shivered over this, slowly rocking on the cold stone floor, filled with despair. If everything was real, then what meaning did reality have? Was there another Eris somewhere, or another Nari? Could all the lives he had ever known be lost and effortlessly replaced just by walking to the next world over, where nothing had ever gone wrong? Was Nari just some piece of possibility, some fragment of shadow, as arbitrary and insubstantial as the term implied? He felt himself grow colder.

He studied the Pattern. He thought about the strange copy of it that now resided in his mind. It was this that made all things possible, except for Chaos, which was somehow eternal and seemed desirous of seeing all of everything but itself wiped away to nothingness.

No place was safe... except all the places that were. And for every soul that lived in peace there was another in pain. And for every world that held itself against the fires of demons there must be another in flames. And no matter what he did, it would always be that way. Always.

Shen rose and stepped toward the Pattern. He looked across it to the center, the core of the kugelspiel from which he could go anywhere he could imagine, as far away from anyone or anywhere he wanted. He thought about putting his foot on its start, knowing that he would then have no choice but to finish it... or die. One tiny moment of apathy is all it would take, and then the burden of decision would disappear, and fate would work its will.

He stared at the surreal field of color before him, possibility incarnate. He wondered if he hated it for its perspective; it made all universes equal, all circumstances definite, and the wills of mortals and immortals alike pointless. He wondered if he would have preferred it to be a dream, some vision brought on by seers' stories and bad tea, and he could wake up in his hut across from his sleeping father and only have to manage one world. He wondered if those who were pressed for all their lives into one differential slice of shadow should be forever grateful that they do not know just how arbitrary it all is, that they can believe in something and work to see it to be, and not be haunted by the knowing that for every right they do there must fork off the branch of destiny's tree in which it was not done, and as many lives to live there as in their own, trapped with the consequences.

Shen trembled, stepping a few paces back, searching for the wall to brace himself. It can't work this way, he thought, it can't be this empty. He thought on the irony: emptiness brought on by limitlessness.

With clenched fists he let himself slide down the rock wall, and sat on the floor like a broken thing. Somewhere he must have this wrong. Somewhere there must be an exception to the rule, a cause and effect that remained to give it all some substance. Somewhere there was a foundation to this universe of universes, a reality to the palace of dreams.

He must find it, or lose himself.