“THIS is it!” Raoden exclaimed. “Galladon, get over here!”
The large Dula raised his eyebrows and set down his book, then stood with his characteristic relaxed style and wandered over to Raoden. “What have you found, sule?”
Raoden pointed to the coverless book in front of him. He sat in the former Korathi church that had become their center of operations. Galladon, still determined to keep his small book-filled study a secret, had insisted that they lug the necessary volumes up to the chapel rather than let anyone else into his sanctuary.
“Sule, I can’t read that,” Galladon protested, looking down at the book. “It’s written completely in Aons.”
“That’s what made me suspicious,” Raoden said.
“Can you read it?” Galladon asked.
“No,” Raoden said with a smile. “But I do have this.” He reached down and pulled out a similar coverless volume, its cover pages stained with Elantris grime. “A dictionary of the Aons.”
Galladon studied the first book with a critical eye. “Sule, I don’t even recognize a tenth of the Aons on this page. Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take you to translate it?”
Raoden shrugged. “It’s better than searching for clues in those other books. Galladon, if I have to read one more word about the landscape of Fjorden, I am going to be sick.”
Galladon grunted his agreement. Whoever had owned the books before the Reod must have been a geography scholar, for at least half of the volumes dealt with the topic.
“You’re sure this is the one we want?” Galladon asked.
“I’ve had a little training in reading pure Aon texts, my friend,” Raoden said, pointing at an Aon on a page near the beginning of the book. “This says AonDor.”
Galladon nodded. “All right, sule. I don’t envy you the task, however. Life would be much simpler if it hadn’t taken your people so long to invent an alphabet. Kolo?”
“The Aons were an alphabet,” Raoden said. “Just an incredibly complex one. This won’t take as long as you think—my schooling should start to come back to me after a little while.”
“Sule, sometimes you’re so optimistic it’s sickening. I suppose then we should cart these other books back to where we got them?” There was a measure of anxiety in Galladon’s voice. The books were precious to him; it had taken Raoden a good hour of arguing to convince the Dula to let him take off their covers, and he could see how much it bothered the larger man to have the books exposed to the slime and dirt of Elantris.
“That should be all right,” Raoden said. None of the other books were about AonDor, and while some of them were journals or other records that could hold clues, Raoden suspected that none would be as useful as the one in front of him. Assuming he could translate it successfully.
Galladon nodded and began gathering up the books; then he looked upward apprehensively as he heard a scraping sound from the roof. Galladon was convinced that sooner or later the entire assemblage would collapse and inevitably fall on his shiny dark head.
“Don’t worry so much, Galladon,” Raoden said. “Maare and Riil know what they’re doing.”
Galladon frowned. “No they don’t, sule. I seem to recall that neither of them had any idea what to do before you pressed them into it.”
“I meant that they’re competent.” Raoden looked up with satisfaction. Six days of working had completed a large portion of the roof. Mareshe had devised a claylike combination of wood scraps, soil, and the ever-prevalent Elantris sludge. This mixture, when added to the fallen support beams and some less-rotted sections of cloth, had provided materials to make a ceiling that was, if not superior, at least adequate.
Raoden smiled. The pain and hunger were always there, but things were going so well that he could almost forget the pain of his half-dozen bumps and cuts. Through the window to his right he could see the newest member of his band, Loren. The man worked in the large area beside the church that had probably once been a garden. According to Raoden’s orders, and equipped with a newly fashioned pair of leather gloves, Loren moved rocks and cleared away refuse, revealing the soft dirt underneath.
“What good is that going to do?” Galladon asked, following Raoden’s gaze out the window.
“You’ll see,” Raoden said with a secretive smile.
Galladon huffed as he picked up an armload of books and left the chapel. The Dula had been right about one thing: They could not count on new Elantrians being thrown into the city as fast as Raoden had first anticipated. Before Loren’s arrival the day before, five solid days had passed without even a quiver from the city gates. Raoden had been very fortunate to find Mareshe and the others in such a short period of time.
“Lord Spirit?” a hesitant voice asked.
Raoden looked up at the chapel’s doorway to find an unfamiliar man waiting to be acknowledged. He was thin, with a stooped-over form and an air of practiced subservience. Raoden couldn’t tell his age for certain; the Shaod tended to make everyone look much older than they really were. However, he had the feeling that this man’s age was no illusion. If his head had held any hair, then it would have been white, and his skin had been long wrinkled before the Shaod took him.
“Yes?” Raoden asked with interest. “What can I do for you?”
“My lord…” the man began.
“Go on,” Raoden prodded.
“Well, Your Lordship, I’ve just heard some things, and I was wondering if I could join with you.”
Raoden smiled, rising and walking over to the man. “Certainly you may join us. What have you heard?”
“Well…” The aged Elantrian fidgeted nervously. “Some people on the streets say that those who follow you aren’t as hungry. They say you have a secret that makes the pain go away. I’ve been in Elantris for nearly a year now, my lord, and my injuries are almost too much. I figured I could either give you a chance, or go find myself a gutter and join the Hoed.”
Raoden nodded, clasping the man on the shoulder. He could still feel his toe burning—he was growing used to the pain, but it was still there. It was accompanied by a gnawing from his stomach. “I’m glad you came. What is your name?”
“Kahar, my lord.”
“All right then, Kahar, what did you do before the Shaod took you?”
Kahar’s eyes grew unfocused, as if his mind were traveling back to a time long ago. “I was a cleaner of some sort, my lord. I think I washed streets.”
“Perfect! I’ve been waiting for one of your particular skill. Mareshe, are you back there?”
“Yes, my lord,” the spindly artisan called from one of the rooms in the back. His head poked out a moment later.
“By chance, did those traps you set up catch any of last night’s rainfall?”
“Of course, my lord,” Mareshe said indignantly.
“Good. Show Kahar here where the water is.”
“Certainly.” Mareshe motioned for Kahar to follow.
“What am I to do with water, my lord?” Kahar asked.
“It is time that we stopped living in filth, Kahar,” Raoden said. “This slime that covers Elantris can be cleaned off; I’ve seen a place where it was done. Take your time and don’t strain yourself, but clean this building inside and out. Scrape away every bit of slime and wash off every hint of dirt.”
“Then you will show me the secret?” Kahar asked hopefully.
“Trust me.”
Kahar nodded, following Mareshe from the room. Raoden’s smile faded as the man left. He was finding that the most difficult part of leadership here in Elantris was maintaining the attitude of optimism that Galladon teased him about. These people, even the newcomers, were dangerously close to losing hope. They thought that they were damned, and assumed that nothing could save their souls from rotting away like Elantris itself. Raoden had to overcome years of conditioning teamed with the ever-present forces of pain and hunger.
He had never considered himself an overly cheerful person. Here in Elantris, however, Raoden found himself reacting to the air of despair with defiant optimism. The worse things got, the more determined he was to face it without complaint. But the forced cheerfulness took its toll. He could feel the others, even Galladon, relying on him. Of all the people in Elantris, only Raoden couldn’t let his pain show. The hunger gnawed at his chest like a horde of insects trying to escape from within, and the pain of several injuries beat at his resolve with merciless determination.
He wasn’t sure how long he would last. After barely a week and a half in Elantris, he was already in so much pain it was sometimes difficult to focus. How long would it be before he couldn’t function at all? Or before he was reduced to the subhuman level of Shaor’s men? One question was more frightening. When he fell, how many people would fall with him?
And yet he had to bear the weight. If he didn’t accept the responsibility, no one else would—and these people would become slaves either to their own agony or to the bullies on the streets. Elantris needed him. If it used him up, then so be it.
“Lord Spirit!” called a frantic voice.
Raoden looked as a worried Saolin rushed into the room. The hook-nosed mercenary had fashioned a spear from a piece of only half-rotten wood and a sharp stone, and had taken to patrolling the area around the chapel. The man’s scarred Elantrian face was wrinkled with concern.
“What is it, Saolin?” Raoden asked, alarmed. The man was an experienced warrior, and was not easily unsettled.
“A group of armed men coming this way, my lord. I counted twelve of them, and they are carrying steel weapons.”
“Steel?” Raoden said. “In Elantris? I wasn’t aware that there was any to be found.”
“They’re coming quickly, my lord,” Saolin said. “What do we do? They’re almost here.”
“They are here,” Raoden said as a group of men forced their way through the chapel’s open doorway. Saolin was right: several carried steel weapons, though the blades were chipped and rusted. The group was a dark-eyed, unpleasant lot, and at their lead was a familiar figure—or at least familiar from a distance.
“Karata,” Raoden said. Loren should have been hers the other day, but Raoden had stolen him. Apparently she had come to make a complaint. It had only been a matter of time.
Raoden glanced toward Saolin, who was inching forward as if anxious to try his makeshift spear. “Stand your ground, Saolin,” Raoden commanded.
Karata was completely bald, a gift from the Shaod, and she had been in the city long enough that her skin was beginning to wrinkle. However, she held herself with a proud face and determined eyes—the eyes of a person who hadn’t given in to the pain, and who wasn’t going to do so anytime soon. She wore a dark outfit composed of torn leather; for Elantris, it was well made.
Karata turned her head around the chapel, studying the new ceiling, then the members of Raoden’s band, who had gathered outside the window to watch with apprehension. Mareshe and Kahar stood immobile at the back of the room. Finally, Karata turned her gaze on Raoden.
There was a tense pause. Eventually Karata turned to one of her men. “Destroy the building, chase them out, and break some bones.” She turned to leave.
“I can get you into Iadon’s palace,” Raoden said quietly.
Karata froze.
“That is what you want, isn’t it?” Raoden asked. “The Elantris City Guards caught you in Kae. They won’t suffer you forever—they burn Elantrians who escape too often. If you really want to get into the palace, I can take you there.”
“We’ll never make it out of the city,” Karata said, turning skeptical eyes back on him. “They’ve doubled the guard recently; something to do with looking good for a royal wedding. I haven’t been able to get out in a month.”
“I can get you out of Elantris too,” Raoden promised.
Karata’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. There was no talk of price. They both knew that Raoden could demand only one thing: to be left alone. “You’re desperate,” she finally concluded.
“True. But I’m also an opportunist.”
Karata nodded slowly. “I will return at nightfall. You will deliver as promised, or my men will break the limbs of every person here and leave them to rot in their agony.”
“Understood.”
* * *
“SULE, I—”
“Don’t think this is a good idea,” Raoden finished with a slight smile. “Yes, Galladon, I know.”
“Elantris is a big city,” Galladon said. “There are plenty of places to hide that not even Karata could find us. She can’t spread herself too thin, otherwise Shaor and Aanden will attack her. Kolo?”
“Yes, but what then?” Raoden asked, trying the strength of a rope Mareshe had fashioned from some rags. It seemed like it would hold his weight. “Karata wouldn’t be able to find us, but neither would anyone else. People are finally beginning to realize we’re here. If we move now, we’ll never grow.”
Galladon looked pained. “Sule, do we have to grow? Do you have to start another gang? Aren’t three warlords enough?”
Raoden stopped, looking up at the large Dula with concern. “Galladon, is that really what you think I am doing?”
“I don’t know, sule.”
“I have no wish for power, Galladon,” Raoden said flatly. “I am worried about life. Not just survival, Galladon, life. These people are dead because they have given up, not because their hearts no longer beat. I am going to change that.”
“Sule, it’s impossible.”
“So is getting Karata into Iadon’s palace,” Raoden said, pulling the rope into a coil around his arm. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
* * *
“WHAT IS THIS?” Karata asked suspiciously.
“Our exit,” Raoden said, peering over the low stone wall of Elantris’s only well. It was deep, but he could hear water moving in the darkness below.
“You expect us to swim out?”
“No,” Raoden said, tying Mareshe’s rope to a rusted iron rod jutting from the well’s side. “We’ll just let the current take us along. More like floating than swimming.”
“That’s insane—that river runs underground. We’ll drown.”
“We can’t drown,” Raoden said. “As my friend Galladon is fond of saying, ‘Already dead. Kolo?’”
Karata didn’t look convinced.
“The Aredel River runs directly underneath Elantris, then continues on to Kae,” Raoden explained. “It runs around the city and past the palace. All we have to do is let it drag us. I’ve already tried holding my breath; I went an entire half hour, and my lungs didn’t even burn. Our blood doesn’t flow anymore, so the only reason we need air is to talk.”
“This could destroy us both,” Karata warned.
Raoden shrugged. “The hunger would just take us in a few months anyway.”
Karata smiled slightly. “All right, Spirit. You go first.”
“Gladly,” Raoden said, not feeling glad about it at all. Still, it was his idea. With a rueful shake of his head, Raoden swung over the wall and began to lower himself. The rope ran out before he touched water and so, taking a deep but ineffectual breath, he let go.
He splashed into the shockingly cold river. The current threatened to pull him away, but he quickly grabbed hold of a rock and held himself steady, waiting for Karata. Her voice soon sounded in the darkness above.
“Spirit?”
“I’m here. You’re about ten feet above the river—you’ll have to drop the rest of the way.”
“And then?”
“Then the river continues underground—I can feel it sucking me down right now. We’ll just have to hope it’s wide enough the entire distance, otherwise we’ll end up as eternal subterranean plugs.”
“You could have mentioned that before I got down here,” Karata said nervously. However, a splash soon sounded, followed by a quiet groan that ended in a gurgle as something large was sucked past Raoden in the current.
Muttering a prayer to Merciful Domi, Raoden released the rock and let the river drag him beneath its unseen surface.
* * *
RAODEN DID INDEED have to swim. The trick was to keep himself in the middle of the river, lest he be slammed against the rock tunnel’s walls. He did his best as he moved in the blackness, using outspread arms to position himself. Fortunately, time had smoothed the rocks to the point that they bruised rather than sliced.
An eternity passed in that silent underworld. It was as if he floated through darkness itself, unable to speak, completely alone. Perhaps this was what death would bring, his soul set adrift in an endless, lightless void.
The current changed, pulling him upward. He moved his arms to brace himself against the stone roof, but they met no resistance. A short moment later his head broke into open air, his wet face cold in the passing wind. He blinked uncertainly as the world focused, starlight and the occasional street lantern granting only dim illumination. It was enough to restore his orientation—and, perhaps, his sanity.
He floated lethargically; the river grew wide after rising to the surface, and the current slowed considerably. He felt a form approach in the water, and he tried to speak, but his lungs were full. He only succeeded in vocalizing a loud, uncontrollable fit of coughing.
A hand clamped around his mouth, cutting off his cough with a gurgle.
“Quiet, fool!” Karata hissed.
Raoden nodded, struggling to control his fit. Perhaps he should have concentrated less on the theological metaphors of the trip and more on keeping his mouth closed.
Karata released his mouth, but continued to hold on to his shoulder, keeping them together as they drifted past the city of Kae. Its shops were closed for the night, but an occasional guard patrolled the streets. The two continued to float in silence until they reached the northwestern edge of the city, where Iadon’s palace rose in the night. Then, still not speaking, they swam to the shore beside the palace.
The palace was a dark, sullen edifice—a manifestation of Iadon’s single insecurity. Raoden’s father was not often afraid; in fact, he was often belligerent when he should have been intelligently apprehensive. The trait had earned him wealth as a businessman trading with the Fjordells, but it had brought him failure as a king. In one thing only was Iadon paranoid: sleeping. The king was terrified that assassins would somehow sneak in and murder him as he slumbered. Raoden remembered well his father’s irrational muttering on the subject each night before retiring. The worries of kingship had only made Iadon worse, causing him to outfit his already fortresslike house with a battalion of guards. The soldiers lived near Iadon’s own quarters to facilitate a quick response.
“All right,” Karata whispered, watching uncertainly as guards crossed on the battlements, “you got us out. Now get us in.”
Raoden nodded, trying to drain his sodden lungs as silently as possible—an act not accomplished without a fair bit of muffled retching.
“Try not to cough so much,” Karata advised. “You’ll irritate your throat and make your chest sore, and then you’ll spend eternity feeling like you have a cold.”
Raoden groaned, pushing himself to his feet. “We need to get to the west side,” he said, his voice a croak.
Karata nodded. She walked silently and quickly—much more so than Raoden could manage—like a person well acquainted with danger. Several times she held back her hand in warning, halting their progress just before a squad of guards appeared out of the darkness. Her aptitude gained them the western side of Iadon’s palace without mishap, despite Raoden’s lack of skill.
“Now what?” she asked quietly.
Raoden paused. A question confronted him. Why did Karata want access to the palace? From what Raoden had heard of her, she didn’t seem like the type to exact revenge. She was brutal, not vindictive. But what if he were wrong? What if she did want Iadon’s blood?
“Well?” Karata asked.
I won’t let her kill my father, he decided. No matter how poor a king he is, I won’t let her do that. “You have to answer something for me first.”
“Now?” she asked, clearly annoyed.
Raoden nodded. “I need to know why you want into the palace.”
She frowned in the darkness. “You aren’t in any position to make demands.”
“Nor are you in any position to refuse them,” Raoden said. “All I have to do is raise an alarm, and we’ll both be taken by the guards.”
Karata waited quietly in the darkness, obviously debating whether or not he would do it.
“Look,” Raoden said. “Just tell me one thing. Do you intend to harm the king?”
Karata met his eyes, then shook her head. “My quibble is not with him.”
Do I believe her, or not? Raoden thought. Do I have a choice?
He reached over, pulling back a patch of bushes that abutted the wall; then he threw his weight against one of the stones. The stone sank into the wall with a quiet grinding noise, and a section of ground fell away before them.
Karata raised her eyebrows. “A secret passage? How quaint.”
“Iadon is a paranoid sleeper,” Raoden said, crawling through the small space between ground and wall. “He had this passage installed to give him one last means of escape should someone attack his palace.”
Karata snorted as she followed him through the hole. “I thought things like this only existed in children’s tales.”
“Iadon likes those tales quite a bit,” Raoden said.
The passage widened after a dozen feet, and Raoden felt along the wall until he found a lantern, complete with flint and steel. He kept the shield mostly closed, releasing only a sliver of light, but it was enough to reveal the narrow, dust-filled passage.
“You seem to have quite an extensive knowledge of the palace,” Karata observed.
Raoden didn’t answer, unable to think of a response that wasn’t too revealing. His father had shown the passage to Raoden when he had been barely into his teenage years, and Raoden and his friends had found it an instant and irresistible attraction. Ignoring cautions that the passage was only for emergencies, Raoden and Lukel had spent hours playing inside of it.
It seemed smaller now, of course. There was barely enough room for Raoden and Karata to maneuver. “Come,” he said, holding the lantern aloft and inching sideways. The trip to Iadon’s rooms took less time than he remembered; it really wasn’t much of a passageway, despite what his imagination had claimed. It slanted upward to the second floor at a steep angle, heading straight to Iadon’s room.
“This is it,” Raoden said as they reached the end. “The royal sleeping chamber. Iadon should be in bed by now, and—despite his paranoia—he is a deep sleeper. Perhaps the one causes the other.” He slid open the door, which was hidden from the other side by a tapestry. Iadon’s massive bed was dark and quiet, though the open window provided enough starlight to see that the king was, in fact, present.
Raoden grew tense, eyeing Karata. The woman, however, held to her word: She barely gave the slumbering king a passing glance as she moved through the room and into the outer hallway. Raoden sighed in quiet relief, following her with less practiced stealth.
The darkened outer hallway connected Iadon’s rooms with those of his guards. The right path led toward the guard barracks; the left led to a guard post, then the rest of the palace. Karata turned away from this option, continuing down the right hallway to the barrack annex, her bare feet making no sound on the stone floor.
Raoden followed her into the barracks, his nervousness returning. She had decided not to kill his father, but now she was sneaking into the most dangerous part of the palace. A single misplaced sound would wake dozens of soldiers.
Fortunately, sneaking down a stone hallway didn’t require much skill. Karata quietly opened any doors in their path, and Raoden slipped through after her.
The dark hallway joined another, this one lined with doors—the quarters of the lesser officers, as well as those guards allowed room to raise a family. Karata picked a door. Inside was the single room allotted to a married guard’s family; starlight illuminated a bed by one wall and a dresser beside the other.
Raoden fidgeted anxiously, wondering if all this had been so Karata could procure herself a sleeping guard’s weapons. If so, she was insane. Of course, sneaking into a paranoid king’s palace wasn’t exactly a sign of mental stability.
As Karata moved into the room, Raoden realized that she couldn’t have come to steal the guard’s accoutrements—he wasn’t there. The bed was empty, its sheets wrinkled with a slept-in look. Karata stooped beside something that Raoden hadn’t noticed at first: a mattress on the floor, occupied by a small lump that could only have been a sleeping child, its features and gender hidden to Raoden in the darkness. Karata knelt beside the child for a quiet moment.
Then she was done, motioning Raoden out of the room and closing the door behind her. Raoden raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Karata nodded. They were ready to go.
The escape was accomplished in the reverse order of the incursion. Raoden went first, sliding through the still-open doors, and Karata followed, pulling them closed behind her. In all, Raoden was relieved at how easily the night was going—or at least he was relieved right up to the moment when he slipped through the door to that final hallway outside Iadon’s chamber.
A man stood on the other side of the door, his hand frozen in the act of reaching for the knob. He regarded them with a startled expression.
Karata pushed past Raoden. She wrapped her arm around the man’s neck, clamping his mouth closed in a smooth motion, then grabbed his wrist as he reached for the sword at his side. The man, however, was larger and stronger than Karata’s weakened Elantrian form, and he broke her grip, blocking her leg with his own as she tried to trip him.
“Stop!” Raoden snapped quietly, his hand held before him menacingly.
Both of their eyes flickered at him in annoyance, but then they stopped struggling as they saw what he was doing.
Raoden’s finger moved through the air, an illuminated line appearing behind it. Raoden continued to write, curving and tracing until he had finished a single character. Aon Sheo, the symbol for death.
“If you move,” Raoden said, his voice soft, “you will die.”
The guard’s eyes widened in horror. The Aon sat glowing above his chest, casting harsh light on the otherwise caliginous room, throwing shadows across the walls. The character flashed as they always did, then disappeared. However, the light had been enough to illuminate Raoden’s black-spotted Elantrian face.
“You know what we are.”
“Merciful Domi…” the man whispered.
“That Aon will remain for the next hour,” Raoden lied. “It will hang where I drew it, unseen, waiting for you to so much as quiver. If you do, it will destroy you. Do you understand?”
The man didn’t move, sweat beading on his terrified face.
Raoden reached down and undid the man’s sword belt, then tied the weapon around his own waist.
“Come,” Raoden said to Karata.
The woman still squatted next to the wall where the guard had pushed her, regarding Raoden with an indecipherable look.
“Come,” Raoden repeated, a bit more urgently.
Karata nodded, regaining her composure. She pulled open the king’s door, and the two of them vanished the way they had entered.
* * *
“HE DIDN’T RECOGNIZE me,” Karata said to herself, sounding amused yet sorrowful.
“Who?” Raoden asked. The two of them squatted in the doorway of a shop near the middle of Kae, resting for a moment before continuing their trek back to Elantris.
“That guard. He was my husband, during another life.”
“Your husband?”
Karata nodded. “We lived together for twelve years, and now he’s forgotten me.”
Everything fell into place. “So the child in that room…”
“That was my daughter,” Karata said. “I doubt anyone ever told her what happened to me. I just … wanted her to know.”
“You left her a note?”
“A note and a keepsake.” Karata’s voice was sad, though no tears could fall from her Elantrian eyes. “My necklace. I managed to sneak it past the priests a year ago. I wanted her to have it—I always intended to give it to her. They took me so quickly.… I never said goodbye.”
“I know,” Raoden said, putting a comforting arm around the woman. “I know.”
“It takes them all from us. It takes everything, and leaves us with nothing.” Now her voice was laced with vehemence.
“As Domi wills.”
“How can you say that?” she demanded harshly. “How can you invoke His name after all that He has done to us?”
“I don’t know,” Raoden confessed, feeling inadequate. “I just know we need to keep going, as everyone does. At least you got to see her again.”
“Yes,” Karata said. “Thank you. You have done me a great service this night, my prince.”
Raoden froze.
“Yes, I know you. I lived in the palace for years, with my husband, protecting your father and your family. I watched you from your childhood, Prince Raoden.”
“You knew all this time?”
“Not the entire time,” Karata said. “But for enough of it. Once I figured it out, I couldn’t decide whether to hate you for being related to Iadon, or to be satisfied that justice took you as well.”
“And your decision?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Karata said, wiping her dry eyes by reflex. “You fulfilled your bargain admirably. My people will leave you alone.”
“That’s not enough, Karata,” Raoden said, standing up.
“You would demand more beyond our bargain?”
“I demand nothing, Karata,” Raoden said, offering his hand to help her to her feet. “But you know who I am, and you can guess what I am trying to do.”
“You’re like Aanden,” Karata said. “You think to lord over Elantris as your father rules the rest of this cursed land.”
“People certainly are quick to judge me today,” Raoden said with a wry smile. “No, Karata, I don’t want to ‘lord over’ Elantris. But I do want to help it. I see a city full of people feeling sorry for themselves, a people resigned to viewing themselves as the rest of the world views them. Elantris doesn’t have to be the pit that it is.”
“How can you change that?” Karata demanded. “As long as food is scarce, the people will fight and destroy to sate their hunger.”
“Then we’ll just have to fill them,” Raoden said.
Karata snorted.
Raoden reached inside a pocket he had formed in his ragged clothing. “Do you recognize this, Karata?” he asked, showing her a small cloth pouch. It was empty, but he kept it as a reminder of his purpose.
Karata’s eyes blazed with desire. “It held food.”
“What kind?”
“It’s one of the corn pouches that are part of the sacrifice sent with each new Elantrian,” Karata said.
“Not just corn, Karata,” Raoden said, holding up a finger. “Seed corn. The ceremony requires the grain offering to be plantable.”
“Seed corn?” Karata whispered.
“I’ve been collecting it from the newcomers,” Raoden said. “The rest of the offerings don’t interest me—only the corn. We can plant it, Karata. There aren’t that many people in Elantris; it wouldn’t be hard to feed them all. Goodness knows we have enough free time to work a garden or two.”
Karata’s eyes were wide. “No one’s ever tried that before,” she said, dumbfounded.
“I figured as much. It requires foresight, and the people of Elantris are too focused on their immediate hunger to worry about tomorrow. I intend to change that.”
Karata looked up from the small pouch to Raoden’s face. “Amazing,” she mumbled.
“Come on,” Raoden said, tucking the pouch away, then hiding the stolen sword beneath his rags. “We’re almost to the gate.”
“How do you intend to get us back in?”
“Just watch.”
As they walked, Karata paused beside a dark home.
“What?” Raoden asked.
Karata pointed. By the window, inside the glass, sat a loaf of bread.
Suddenly Raoden felt his own hunger stab sharply at his insides. He couldn’t blame her—even in the palace, he’d been watching for something to swipe.
“We can’t take that chance, Karata,” Raoden said.
Karata sighed. “I know. It’s just that … we’re so close.”
“All the shops are closed, all the houses locked,” Raoden said. “We’d never find enough to make a difference.”
Karata nodded, lethargically moving again. They turned a corner and approached the broad gate to Elantris. A squat building sat beside it, light pouring from the windows. Several guards lounged inside, their brown-and-yellow Elantris City Guard uniforms bright in the lamplight. Raoden approached the building and tapped on a window with the back of his fist.
“Excuse me,” he said politely, “but would you mind opening the gates please?”
The guards, who had been playing a game of cards, threw back their chairs in alarm, shouting and cursing as they recognized his Elantrian features.
“Be quick about it,” Raoden said airily. “I’m getting tired.”
“What are you doing out?” one of the guards—an officer by appearances—demanded as his men piled out of the building. Several of them pointed their wicked spears at Raoden’s chest.
“Trying to get back in,” Raoden said impatiently.
One of the guards raised his spear.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Raoden said. “Not unless you want to explain how you managed to kill an Elantrian outside of the gates. You are supposed to keep us in—it would be quite an embarrassment if the people found out that we were escaping beneath your noses.”
“How did you escape?” the officer asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Raoden said. “Right now, you should probably put us back in the city before we wake the entire neighborhood and start a panic. Oh, and I wouldn’t get too close to me. The Shaod is, after all, highly contagious.”
The guards backed away at his words. Watching Elantris was one thing; being confronted by a talking corpse was another. The officer, uncertain what else to do, ordered the gates opened.
“Thank you, my good man.” Raoden smiled. “You’re doing a wonderful job. We’ll have to see if we can get you a raise.” With that, Raoden held out his arm to Karata and strolled through the gates to Elantris as if the soldiers were his personal butlers rather than prison guards.
Karata couldn’t help snickering as the gate closed behind them. “You made it sound as if we wanted to be in here. Like it was a privilege.”
“And that is exactly the way we should feel. After all, if we’re going to be confined to Elantris, we might as well act as if it were the grandest place in the entire world.”
Karata smiled. “You have a measure of defiance in you, my prince. I like that.”
“Nobility is in one’s bearing as much as it is in one’s breeding. If we act like living here is a blessing, then maybe we’ll start to forget how pathetic we think we are. Now, Karata, I want you to do some things for me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t tell anyone who I am. I want loyalty in Elantris based on respect, not based on my title.”
“All right.”
“Second, don’t tell anyone about the passage into town through the river.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too dangerous,” Raoden said. “I know my father. If the guards start finding too many Elantrians in the city, he’ll come and destroy us. The only way Elantris is going to progress is if it becomes self-sufficient. We can’t risk sneaking into the city to support ourselves.”
Karata listened, then nodded in the affirmative. “All right.” Then she paused in thought for a moment. “Prince Raoden, there’s something I want to show you.”
* * *
THE CHILDREN WERE happy. Though most slept, a few were awake, and they giggled and played with one another. They were all bald, of course, and they bore the marks of the Shaod. They didn’t seem to mind.
“So this is where they all go,” Raoden said, interested.
Karata led him farther into the room, which was buried deep within the palace of Elantris. Once, this building had housed the leaders elected by the Elantrian elders. Now it hid a playroom for babes.
Several men stood watchful guard over the children, eyeing Raoden with suspicion. Karata turned toward him. “When I first came to Elantris, I saw the children huddled in the shadows, frightened of everything that passed, and I thought of my own little Opais. Something within my heart healed when I began to help them—I gathered them, showed them a little bit of love, and they clung to me. Every one of the men and women you see here left a little child back on the outside.”
Karata paused, affectionately rubbing a small Elantrian child on the head. “The children unite us, keep us from giving in to the pain. The food we gather is for them. Somehow, we can endure the hunger a little better if we know it has come, in part, because we gave what we had to the children.”
“I wouldn’t have thought…” Raoden began quietly, watching a pair of young girls playing a clapping game together.
“That they would be happy?” Karata finished. She motioned for Raoden to follow her and they moved back, out of the children’s hearing range. “We don’t understand it either, my prince. They’re better at dealing with the hunger than the rest of us.”
“A child’s mind is a surprisingly resilient thing,” Raoden said.
“They seem to be able to endure a certain amount of pain as well,” Karata continued, “bumps and bruises and the like. However, they eventually snap, just like everyone else. One moment a child is happy and playful. Then he falls down or cuts himself one too many times, and his mind gives up. I have another room, kept far away from these little ones, filled with dozens of children who do nothing but whimper all day.”
Raoden nodded. Then after a moment he asked, “Why are you showing me this?”
Karata hesitated. “Because I want to join with you. I once served your father, despite what I thought of him. Now I will serve his son because of what I think of him. Will you accept my loyalty?”
“It would be an honor, Karata.”
She nodded, turning back to the children with a sigh. “I don’t have much left in me, Lord Raoden,” she whispered. “I’ve worried what would happen to my children when I am lost. This dream you have, this crazy idea of an Elantris where we grow food and we ignore our pain … I want to see you try to create it. I don’t think you can, but I think you will make something better of us in the process.”
“Thank you,” Raoden said, realizing that he had just accepted a monumental responsibility. Karata had lived for a year under the burden he was just beginning to feel. She was tired; he could see it in her eyes. Now, if the time came, she could rest. She had passed her weight on to him.
“Thank you,” Karata said, looking at the children.
“Tell me, Karata,” Raoden said after a moment of thought. “Would you really have broken my people’s limbs?”
Karata didn’t respond at first. “You tell me, my prince. What would you have done if I’d tried to kill your father tonight?”
“Questions both better left unanswered.”
Karata nodded, her tired eyes bearing a calm wisdom.
* * *
RAODEN SMILED AS he recognized the large figure standing outside of the chapel, waiting for him to return. Galladon’s concerned face was illuminated by the tiny flame of his lantern.
“A light to guide me home, my friend?” Raoden asked from the darkness as he approached.
“Sule!” Galladon cried. “By Doloken, you’re not dead?”
“Of course I am.” Raoden laughed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “We all are—at least that’s what you seem to be fond of telling me.”
Galladon grinned. “Where’s the woman?”
“I walked her home, as any gentleman would,” Raoden said, entering the chapel. Inside, Mareshe and the others were rousing.
“Lord Spirit has returned!” Saolin said with enthusiasm.
“Here, Saolin, a gift,” Raoden said, pulling the sword out from under his rags and tossing it to the soldier.
“What is this, my lord?” Saolin asked.
“That spear is amazing considering what you had to work with,” Raoden said, “but I think you ought to have something a little more sturdy if you intend to do any real fighting.”
Saolin pulled the blade free of its scabbard. The sword, nothing special in the outside world, was a wondrous work of beauty within the confines of Elantris. “Not a spot of rust on her,” Saolin said with wonder. “And it’s engraved with the symbol of Iadon’s personal guard!”
“Then the king is dead?” Mareshe asked eagerly.
“Nothing of the sort,” Raoden said dismissively. “Our mission was of a personal nature, Mareshe, and it did not involve killing—though the guard who owned that sword is probably fairly angry.”
“I’ll bet.” Galladon snorted. “Then we don’t have to worry about Karata anymore?”
Raoden smiled. “No. As a matter of fact, her gang will be joining with us.”
There were a few mutters of surprise at the announcement, and Raoden paused before continuing. “Tomorrow we’re going to visit the palace sector. Karata has something there I want you all to see—something everyone in Elantris should see.”
“What is that, sule?” Galladon asked.
“Proof that the hunger can be defeated.”