The voyage continues, without further incident.  Or, at least, without further unfortunate incident...

At dawn, the day after the fight, Captain Rovane resumes her position at the helm.  True, she doesn't take the helm, assigning that duty to a series of trusted crew, but she claims that the pain is gone, at least for the most part, even if she does admit that she doesn't think she's healed completely.

Which might explain the somewhat reduced volume of her shouted orders, though that has no perceptible effect on the simple fact that the "lazy, good-for-nothing" crew of Seahorse have already carried out most of those orders, almost before they were given.

The ship, herself, remains emminently seaworthy, despite the battering she received during the battle with the shapeshifter, and there is little for the passengers to do...  The wind remains fair, though it does drop a little, slowing the ship slightly, and eliciting a round of cursing from the good captain, as she recalculates their speed.

By the next morning, Rovane is keeping one hand on the wheel, though she does not take it yet.  As the passengers come up on deck, she laughs and points to a faint, hazy smudge, standing on the horizon, directly ahead, "Kolvir!  We make port in Amber before dusk."

Benedict, all pretense of being a simple sailor now discarded, nods curtly, "Good."  He approaches the gathered group of passengers, and asks quietly, "Your plan?"

Far from the docks of Amber, destination of the swiftly moving Seahorse, beyond even the landward walls of the city, the lone traveller sits atop a gentle rise, with his back against a tree.  As he watches the road about twenty yards away, and a little lower than his current position, he bites into an apple, and chews thoughtfully.

The road is busy, perhaps more busy than usual.  A casual observer might believe that the traffic indicates a high level of prosperity and wealth in the city.  A more careful obvserver would, however, note that all the traffic is flowing towards Amber, and seems to be moving almost silently, and with a sort of nervous haste.

The man sitting beneath the tree is nothing, if not a careful observer.

Things have clearly changed in Amber since he was last here.  To his mind, the traffic flow indicates some sort of problem in the farmlands beyond the city.  Something which is frightening the populace, and driving them towards the safety provided by the walls, gates and troops.  Something like a rumoured invasion, perhaps.

Of course, the traveller realises, the safety they are seeking may be illusory.  Walls and gates and troops can do little to protect against the most likely enemy.  For defence against that enemy, other things are required.

With a sigh, the traveller throws aside the remnants of the apple, and stands, gathering up his pack and other belongings, to start the walk towards the same gates that the crowd is heading for.  His reasons, though, are different.  He has family in the city.  Possibly friends too, unless they have long since moved on.  There is a promise to be fulfilled, and perhaps Amber holds the key to that fulfillment.

As he joins the flow of people towards the walls, only a couple of miles distant, the nearer ones edge away from him, as they realise that he is engaged in a conversation with nobody...

"Trust in me, and I will give you victory."

My hope rests in those words, Aaron thought to himself. On his lips were whispered, mumbled prayers to some mysterious, nameless God, and true to Aaron as a person, he didn't even notice that he was praying.

He shifted his belongings, his blade rattling in its scabbard as the backpack ground against it. As he passed the gates of Amber, he paused beside a small fountain, to fill a pair of canteens from his side. As he did so, he gazed upon himself within the pool.

His hair was short, now. A month ago, in the reflection from the tepid puddle in the center of his black cell, it had looked like a nest for rats. Now it was simply a controlled, chopped mess of brown-blonde curls going every which way. The hands of Aaron's captors hadn't spared his looks, or his physique. The phyiscal pain was long gone, now... but some pains never disappeared.

Aaron had lost his long coat, with its seemingly innumerable pockets, somewhere along the way. He'd replaced it with a much more durable riding jacket of rough brown leather. His trousers were bound at the ankles above his hard leather boots, a sturdy black belt cinched about his waist by a flat bronze buckle. Beneath the jacket was the armor Herzkreig, while beneath that was a simple black shirt. Beneath that... were scars atop scars.

Other things had changed. His eyes, once succumbing to the autumn-fall of colors that marked an encounter with the old magic of San Anyn, had finally settled on their aged, dull brown. Yet occaisonally, there was an inconsistent flicker of orange, red or gold that would only last a moment. They seemed a bit sunken and baggy if one only glanced at him, but a closer inspection revealed a strange energy behind the eyes themselves, as if he was charged with lightning.

Aaron spotted this energy himself, and laughed aloud in the midst of the teeming, silent procession that flowed around him. Such a reaction of amusement seemed to shake up the locals even more, and Aaron, surprisingly, turned to the nearest few and apologized. Even stranger, he would reach out and intervene to the occaisonal lost-looking traveler, or anxious farmer. He would whisper words of hope and comfort, and the strength behind his eyes was transferred from him to them. A woman began to weep. Her husband set his jaw, nodding sternly in the Worldwalker's direction before pushing on.

As it was, Aaron felt fatigue. The fatigue of decades and decades of travel, once wearing at the soul, had been replaced by the fatigue of these poor people, who now struck Aaron as deeply afraid. For if Amber itself was in jeopardy, and now at the hands of some awesome, determined enemy that wasn't born of Amber's own sire, how could a single farmer, or a housewife, or a barkeep, wish and hope for the survival of his own houshold, nevermind the entirety of such a grand kingdom as this?

Aaron began to sing, a quiet tune that he'd heard in another world. Another voice, young, high, matched him for tune. A young boy, leading a broken old mule behind him, had been infected by Aaron's desire for hope.

For Aaron too had family here, and it was to the side of his grandson's daughter that his journey would eventually lead him. He shifted his pack once again, taking strength from his determination.

James sleeps heavily.  It is always strenuous to walk the Pattern, even when it is just a form of autohypnosis, and guiding someone else through a broken Pattern is doubly hard if not worse.

He is quite pleased, however, that the exercise worked.  Certainly come the morning the Captain looked to have healed somewhat.  How much of that was down to him, or to Banglen-Yp, or even to the Captain's natural resilience would probably never be determined.

"We have precious little in the way of a plan.  There is a traitor in Amber.  We have some leads, but I don't know how far they can be trusted.  After all, that creature from yesterday was the second I have encountered in Cadiniagart and the Golden Circle.  How many more dopplegangers might be about?"

"I will ask the family to meet, as many as can come given that the Trumps are suspect.  I will ask Bleys to present me as a nephew.  I will report as much of our efforts against the enemy as I think it safe to reveal.  And I will announce that there is a traitor in Amber and that I mean to reveal him, or her as the case may be.  In other words I intend to shake the tree and see what falls out."

And yes, I know how dangerous that will be.