So we are back in Amber albeit briefly. Tomorrow we are all on on various missions. Isla is to go to Maenois with Flora and Benedict, I am to go to the Courts with Bleys, and Cordelia assuming she is sober enough is to collect a number of sought after cargos and grease a few palms with silver.
We learnt all this not from Random who was supposed to inform us after we returned from Rebma, but from Benedict at dinner this evening, although neither Cordelia nor Random were present, having been seen leaving the Castle shortly after we returned. They are believed to be at a drinking establishment in the city, sometime frequented by her father, Random, Bleys, and Benedict, although apparently not to the taste of Gereard or Julian who prefered to frequent much bawdier establishments.
Random's absence this afternoon has meant that Isla and I have had a chance to discuss in more detail the events of the last few days. It also appears that Llewella, probably to increase Isla's guilt there by convincing her to return, exagerated certain elements of what happened, specifically the details of the injuries I'd sustained when Isla had gone primal in response to Cordelia's invasion of her mind.
The question I now and faced with is does gender or degree have greater significance when reconciling what happened. Cordelia turned me into a puppet she could whilst Isla went primal in response to her uninvited invasion, yet I am more willing to reconcile her actions with Llewella's instruction and intentions, than Isla is to forgive her unintended invasion of privacy due to a lack of training and control. We are and have been subjected to radical adjustments is our social and cultural circumstances, does the upheaval so recently inflicted upon my own shadow make me more accepting of such adjustments than Isla?
There are apparently 2 ways to get here. The first, slowest and longest method is via shadow. One can either Shadow walk, if with a multitude, or one can hellride. Unlike most states of the Golden Cirle it is not possible to sail here, and the closest known port is still over a weeks hellride away. Unike the Golden Circle and due to the historical acromony between Amber and the Courts no route of way stations has ever been created, allowing a rider to switch horses every 3 hours or so, and even were such a trail to be created the number of trained mounts capable of withstanding the conditions of a hellride would number into the hundreds. Not a small feat to accomplish.
The other method, the quick method, left you at the mercy of which ever patrol was sent to meet you, and limited the number of people in the party to the number that the wielder of the trump could hold the gate open for. Typically this meant between 4 and 6 including the wielder, unless the wielder were Fiona. On this trip there were 4 of us.
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