“And the transformations? Did they abate at all after the Reod?” Hrathen asked.
“They continue, Your Grace. They happen all across Arelon.”
“Why do you hate them so, Arteth?”
The question came suddenly, and Dilaf paused. “Because they are unholy.”
“And?”
“They lied to us, Your Grace. They made promises of eternity, but they couldn’t even maintain their own divinity. We listened to them for centuries, and were rewarded with a group of impotent, vile cripples.”
“You hate them because they disappointed you,” Hrathen said.
“Not me, my people. I was a follower of Derethi years before the Reod.”
Hrathen frowned. “Then you are convinced that there is nothing supernatural about the Elantrians other than the fact that Jaddeth has cursed them?”
“Yes, Your Grace. As I said, the Elantrians created many falsehoods to reinforce their divinity.”
Hrathen shook his head, then stood and began to remove his armor. Dilaf moved to help, but Hrathen waved the arteth away. “How, then, do you explain the sudden transformation of ordinary people into Elantrians, Arteth?”
Dilaf didn’t have a response.
“Hate has weakened your ability to see, Arteth,” Hrathen said, hanging his breastplate on the wall beside his desk and smiling. He had just experienced a flash of brilliance; a portion of his plan suddenly fit into place. “You assume because Jaddeth did not give them powers, they did not have any.”
Dilaf’s face grew pale. “What you say is—”
“Not blasphemy, Arteth. Doctrine. There is another supernatural force besides our God.”
“The Svrakiss,” Dilaf said quietly.
“Yes.” Svrakiss. The souls of the dead men who hated Jaddeth, the opponents to all that was holy. According to Shu-Dereth, there was nothing more bitter than a soul who had had its chance and thrown it away.
“You think the Elantrians are Svrakiss?” Dilaf asked.
“It is accepted doctrine that the Svrakiss can control the bodies of the evil,” Hrathen said, unbuckling his greaves. “Is it so hard to believe that all this time they have been controlling bodies of the Elantrians, making them appear as gods to fool the simpleminded and unspiritual?”
There was a light in Dilaf’s eyes; the concept was not new to the arteth, Hrathen realized. Suddenly his flash of inspiration didn’t seem quite so brilliant.
Dilaf regarded Hrathen for a moment, then spoke. “You don’t really believe it, do you?” he asked, his voice uncomfortably accusatory for one speaking to his hroden.
Hrathen was careful not to let discomfort show. “It doesn’t matter, Arteth. The connection is logical; people will follow it. Right now all they see are the abject remnants of what were once aristocrats—men do not loathe such, they pity them. Demons, however, are something everyone can hate. If we denounce the Elantrians as devils, then we will have success. You already hate the Elantrians; that is fine. To make others join you, however, you’ll have to give them more of a reason than ‘they disappointed us.’”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“We are religious men, Arteth, and we must have religious enemies. The Elantrians are our Svrakiss, no matter if they possess the souls of evil men long dead or evil men now living.”
“Of course, Your Holiness. We will destroy them then?” There was eagerness in Dilaf’s face.
“Eventually. Right now, we will use them. You will find that hate can unify people more quickly and more fervently than devotion ever could.”
CHAPTER 7
Raoden stabbed the air with his finger. The air bled light. His fingertip left a glowing white trail behind it as he moved his arm, as if he were writing with paint on a wall—except without the paint, and without the wall.
He moved cautiously, careful not to let his finger waver. He drew a line about a handspan long from left to right, then pulled his finger down at a slight slant, drawing a curved line downward at the corner. Next he lifted his finger from the unseen canvas and replaced it to draw a dot in the center. Those three marks—two lines and a dot—were the starting point of every Aon.
He continued, drawing the same three-line pattern at different angles, then added several diagonal lines. The finished drawing looked something like an hourglass, or perhaps two boxes placed on top of each other, pulling in just slightly near the middles. This was Aon Ashe, the ancient symbol for light. The character brightened momentarily, seeming to pulse with life; then it flashed weakly like a man heaving his last breath. The Aon disappeared, its light fading from brightness, to dimness, to nothing.
“You’re much better at that than I am, sule,” Galladon said. “I usually make one line a little too big, or slant it a bit too much, and the whole thing fades away before I’m done.”
“It’s not supposed to be like this,” Raoden complained. It had been a day since Galladon had shown him how to draw Aons, and he had spent nearly every moment since then practicing. Every Aon he had finished properly had acted the same way, disappearing without producing any visible effect. His first acquaintance with the legendary magic of the Elantrians had been decidedly anticlimactic.
The most surprising thing was how easy it was. In ignorance he had assumed that AonDor, the magic of the Aons, would require some sort of incantation or ritual. A decade without AonDor had spawned hordes of rumors; some people, mostly Derethi priests, claimed the magic had been a hoax, while others, also mostly Derethi priests, had denounced the art as blasphemous rites involving the power of evil. The truth was that no one, not even the Derethi priests, knew just what AonDor had been. Every one of its practitioners had fallen to the Reod.
Yet Galladon claimed AonDor required nothing more than a steady hand and an intimate knowledge of the Aons. Since only Elantrians could draw the characters in light, only they could practice AonDor, and no one outside Elantris had been allowed to know just how simple it was. No incantations, no sacrifices, no special potions or ingredients; anyone who was taken by the Shaod could perform AonDor, assuming, of course, they knew the characters.
Except, it didn’t work. The Aons were supposed to do something—at least, something more than flash weakly and disappear. Raoden could remember images of Elantris as a child—visions of men flying through the air, incredible feats of power, and merciful healings. He had broken his leg once, and although his father had objected, his mother had taken him to Elantris for healing. A bright-haired figure had reknit Raoden’s bones with barely a wave of her hand. She had drawn an Aon, just as he was doing, but the rune had released a powerful burst of arcane magic.
“They’re supposed to do something,” Raoden said again, this time out loud.
“They did once, sule, but not since the Reod. Whatever took the life from Elantris also stole AonDor’s power. Now all we can do is paint pretty characters in the air.”
Raoden nodded, drawing his own Aon, Aon Rao. Four circles with one large square in the center, all five connected by lines. The Aon reacted as all of the others had, building as if for some release of power, then dying with a whimper.
“Disappointing. Kolo?”
“Very,” Raoden admitted, pulling over a chair and sitting down. They were still in Galladon’s small underground study. “I’ll be honest with you, Galladon. When I saw that first Aon hovering in the air in front of you, I forgot about everything—the filth, the depression, even my toe.”
Galladon smiled. “If AonDor worked, the Elantrians would still rule in Arelon—Reod or no Reod.”
“I know. I just wonder what happened. What changed?”
“The world wonders with you, sule,” Galladon said with a shrug.
“They must be related,” Raoden mused. “The change in Elantris, the way the Shaod started making people demons rather than gods, the ineffectiveness of AonDor….”
“You aren’t the first person to notice that. Not by far. However, no one is likely to find the answer—the powerful in Arelon are much
too comfortable with Elantris the way it is.”
“Trust me, I know,” Raoden said. “If the secret is to be found, it will have to come from us.” Raoden looked over the small laboratory. Remarkably clean and free from the grime that coated the rest of Elantris, the room had an almost homey feeling—like the den or study in a large mansion.
“Maybe the answer is in here, Galladon,” Raoden said. “In those books, somewhere.”
“Perhaps,” Galladon said noncommittally.
“Why were you so reluctant to bring me here?”
“Because it’s special, sule—surely you can see that? Let the secret out, and I won’t be able to leave for fear it will be pillaged while I am gone.”
Raoden stood, nodding as he walked around the room. “Then why bring me?”
Galladon shrugged, as if not completely sure himself. Eventually he answered, “You aren’t the first to think the answer might be in those books. Two men can read more quickly than one.”
“Twice as quickly, I’d guess,” Raoden agreed with a smile. “Why do you keep it so dark in here?”
“We are in Elantris, sule. We can’t just go to the lamplighter’s store every time we run out of oil.”
“I know, but surely there’s enough. Elantris must have had stores of oil before the Reod.”
“Ah, sule,” Galladon said with a shake of his head. “You still don’t understand, do you? This is Elantris, city of the gods. What need have gods of such mundane things as lamps and oil? Look at the wall beside you.”
Raoden turned. There was a metal plate hanging on the wall beside him. Though it was tarnished with time, Raoden could still make out the shape etched into its surface—Aon Ashe, the character he had drawn just a few moments ago.
“Those plates used to glow more brightly and steadily than any lamp, sule,” Galladon explained. “The Elantrians could shut them off with a bare brush of their fingers. Elantris didn’t need oil—it had a far more reliable source of light. For the same reason, you won’t find coal—or even furnaces—in Elantris, nor are there many wells, for water flowed from pipes like rivers trapped within the walls. Without AonDor, this city is barely fit to be inhabited.”
Raoden rubbed his finger against the plate, feeling the lines of Aon Ashe. Something catastrophic must have happened—an event lost in just ten brief years’ time. Something so terrible it caused the land to shatter and gods to stumble. However, without an understanding of how AonDor had worked, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what had caused it to fail. He turned from the plate and considered the two squat bookcases. It was unlikely that any of the books contained direct explanations of AonDor. However, if they had been written by Elantrians, then maybe they would have references to the magic. References that could lead the careful reader to an understanding of how AonDor worked. Maybe.
His thoughts were interrupted by a pain from his stomach. It wasn’t like hunger he had experienced on the outside. His stomach didn’t rumble. Yet, the pain was there—somehow even more demanding. He had gone three days now without food, and the hunger was beginning to grow insistent. He was only just beginning to see why it, and the other pains, were enough to reduce men to the beasts that had attacked him on his first day.
“Come,” he said to Galladon. “There is something we need to do.”
The square was much as it had been the day before: grime, moaning unfortunates, tall unforgiving gates. The sun was almost three-quarters finished with its trek through the sky. It was time for new inductees to be cast into Elantris.
Raoden studied the square, watching from atop a building beside Galladon. As he looked, he realized that something was different. There was a small crowd gathered on top of the wall.
“Who’s that?” Raoden asked with interest, pointing to a tall figure standing high on the wall above Elantris’s gates. The man’s arms were outstretched, and his bloodred cloak was flapping in the wind. His words were hardly audible from such a distance, but it was obvious that he was yelling.
Galladon grunted in surprise. “A Derethi gyorn. I didn’t know there was one here in Arelon.”
“A gyorn? As in high priest?” Raoden squinted, trying to make out the details of the figure far above them.
“I’m surprised one would come this far east,” Galladon said. “They hated Arelon even before the Reod.”
“Because of the Elantrians?”
Galladon nodded. “Though not so much because of Elantrian worship, no matter what they claim. The Derethi have a particular loathing for your country because their armies never figured a way to get through those mountains to attack you.”
“What do you suppose he’s doing up there?” Raoden asked.
“Preaching. What else would a priest do? He’s probably decided to denounce Elantris as some sort of judgment from his god. I’m surprised it took them so long.”
“People have been whispering it for years,” Raoden said, “but no one had the courage to actually teach such things. They’re secretly afraid that the Elantrians are just testing them—that they will return to their former glory someday and punish all the unbelievers.”
“Still?” Galladon asked. “I would have thought such beliefs would be gone after ten years.”
Raoden shook his head. “Even yet there are many who pray for, or fear, the Elantrians’ return. The city was strong, Galladon. You can’t know how beautiful it once was.”
“I know, sule,” Galladon said. “I didn’t spend all of my life in Duladel.”
The priest’s voice rose to a crescendo, and he delivered one final wave of screams before spinning around and disappearing from view. Even from a distance, Raoden could hear the hate and anger in the gyorn’s voice. Galladon was right: This man’s words had been no blessing.
Raoden shook his head, looking from the wall to the gates. “Galladon,” he asked, “what are the chances of someone being thrown in here today?”
Galladon shrugged. “Hard to say, sule. Sometimes weeks go without a new Elantrian, but I have seen as many as five cast in at once. You came two days ago, that woman yesterday—who knows, maybe Elantris will have new flesh for the third day in a row. Kolo?”
Raoden nodded, watching the gate expectantly.
“Sule, what do you intend to do?” Galladon asked uncomfortably.
“I intend to wait.”
The newcomer was an older man, perhaps in his late forties, with a gaunt face and nervous eyes. As the gate slammed shut, Raoden climbed down from the rooftop, pausing just inside the courtyard. Galladon followed, a worried look on his face. He obviously thought Raoden might do something foolish.
He was right.
The unfortunate newcomer just stared morosely at the gate. Raoden waited for him to take a step, to make the unwitting decision that would determine who got the privilege of robbing him. The man stood where he was, watching the courtyard with nervous eyes, his thin frame pulled up inside his robes like he was trying to hide within them. After a few minutes of waiting, he finally took his first hesitant step—to the right, the same way Raoden had chosen.
“Come on,” Raoden declared, striding out of the alleyway. Galladon groaned, mumbling something in Duladen.
“Teoren?” Raoden called, choosing a common Aonic name.
The spindly newcomer looked up with surprise, then glanced over his shoulder with confusion.
“Teoren, it is you!” Raoden said, wrapping his hand around the man’s shoulder. Then, in a lower voice, he continued. “Right now you have two choices, friend. Either you do what I tell you, or you let those men in the shadows over there chase you down and beat you senseless.”
The man turned around to search the shadows with apprehensive eyes. Fortunately, at that moment, Shaor’s men decided to move, their shadowed forms emerging into the light, their carnal eyes staring at the new man with hunger. It was all the encouragement the newcomer needed.
“What do I do?” the man asked with a quavering voice.
“Run!” Raoden ordered, th
en took off toward one of the alleys at a dash.
The man didn’t need to be told twice; he bolted so quickly that Raoden was afraid he would go careering down a side alley and get lost. There was a muffled yell of surprise from behind as Galladon realized what Raoden was doing. The large Duladen man obviously wouldn’t have any problems keeping up; even considering his time in Elantris, Galladon was in much better shape than Raoden.
“What in the name of Doloken do you think you are doing, you idiot?” Galladon swore.
“I’ll tell you in a moment,” Raoden said, conserving strength as he ran. Again, he noticed that he didn’t get out of breath, though his body did begin to grow tired. A dull feeling of fatigue began to grow within him, and of the three of them, Raoden was soon proven the slowest runner. However, he was the only one who knew where they were going.
“Right!” he yelled to Galladon and the new man, then took off down a side alley. The two men followed, as did the group of thugs, who were gaining quickly. Fortunately, Raoden’s destination wasn’t far away.
“Rulo,” Galladon cursed, realizing where they were going. It was one of the houses he had shown Raoden the day before, the one with the unstable staircase. Raoden sprinted through the door and up the stairs, nearly falling twice as steps gave out beneath him. Once on the roof, he used the last of his strength to push over a stack of bricks—the remnants of what had once been a planter—toppling the entire pile of crumbling clay into the stairwell just as Galladon and the newcomer reached the top. The weakened steps didn’t even begin to hold the weight, collapsing to the ground with a furious crash.
Galladon walked over and looked through the hole with a critical eye. Shaor’s men gathered around the fallen steps below, their feral intensity dulled a bit by realization.
Galladon raised an eyebrow. “Now what, genius?”
Raoden walked over to the newcomer, who had collapsed after stumbling up the stairs. Raoden carefully removed each of the man’s food offerings and, after tucking a certain one into his belt, he dumped the rest to the houndlike men waiting below. The sounds of battle came from below as they fought over the food.