IT struck while Raoden was studying. He didn’t hear himself gasp in agonized shock, nor did he feel himself tumble from his seat in a spastic seizure. All he felt was the pain—a sharp torment that dropped upon him suddenly and vengefully. It was like a million tiny insects, each one latching on to his body—inside and out—to eat him alive. Soon he felt as if he had no body—the pain was his body. It was the only sense, the only input, and his screams were the only product.
Then he felt it. It stood like an enormous slick surface, without crack or cavity, at the back of his mind. It pressed demandingly, pounding the pain into every nerve in his body, like a workman driving a spike into the ground. It was vast. It made men, mountains, and worlds seem paltry. It was not evil, or even sentient. It didn’t rage or churn. It was immobile, frozen by its own intense pressure. It wanted to move—to go anywhere, to find any release from the strain. But there was no outlet.
Raoden’s vision cleared slowly as the force retreated. He lay on the cold marble floor of the chapel, staring up at the bottom of his table. Two hazy faces hovered above him.
“Sule?” an urgent voice asked, as if from far away. “Doloken! Raoden, can you hear me?”
His view sharpened. Karata’s usually stern features were concerned, while Galladon was livid.
“I’m all right,” Raoden croaked, shamed. They would realize how weak he was, that he couldn’t stand the pain of even a monthlong stay in Elantris.
The two helped him sit. He remained on the floor for a moment before indicating that he wanted to move to the chair. His entire body was sore, as if he had tried to lift a dozen different weights at the same time. He groaned as he slid into the uncomfortable stone seat.
“Sule, what happened?” Galladon asked, retreating to his own chair.
“It was the pain,” Raoden said, holding his head in his hands and resting his elbows on the table. “It was too much for me for a moment. I’m all right now; it retreated.”
Galladon frowned. “What are you talking about, sule?”
“The pain,” Raoden said, exasperated. “The pain of my cuts and bruises, the bane of life here in Elantris.”
“Sule, the pain doesn’t come in waves,” Galladon said. “It just remains the same.”
“It comes in waves for me,” Raoden said tiredly.
Galladon shook his head. “That can’t be. Kolo? When you fall to the pain, you snap and your mind is gone. That’s the way it always is. Besides, there’s no way you could have accumulated enough cuts and bruises to go Hoed yet.”
“You’ve said that before, Galladon, but this is how it works for me. It comes all of a sudden, as if trying to destroy me, then moves away. Maybe I’m just worse at dealing with it than everyone else.”
“My prince,” Karata said hesitantly, “you were glowing.”
Shocked, Raoden looked up at her. “What?”
“It’s true, sule,” Galladon said. “After you collapsed you began glowing. Like an Aon. Almost as if…”
Raoden’s mouth fell open slightly. “… as if the Dor were trying to come through me.” The force had been searching for an opening, a way out. It had tried to use him like an Aon. “Why me?”
“Some people are closer to the Dor than others, sule,” Galladon said. “In Elantris, some people could create Aons much more powerful than others, and some seemed more … intimate with the power.”
“Besides, my prince,” Karata said, “are you not the one who knows the Aons best? We see you practicing them every day.”
Raoden nodded slowly, almost forgetting about his agony. “During the Reod, they say the most powerful Elantrians were the first to fall. They didn’t fight when the mobs burned them.”
“As if they were overwhelmed by something. Kolo?” Galladon said.
Sudden and ironic relief soothed Raoden’s mind. As much as the pain hurt, his insecurity had worried him more. Still, he was not free. “The attacks are getting worse. If they continue, they will take me, eventually. If that happens…”
Galladon nodded solemnly. “You will join the Hoed.”
“The Dor will destroy me,” Raoden said, “ripping my soul apart in a futile attempt to break free. It isn’t alive—it’s just a force, and the fact that I am not a viable passage won’t stop it from trying. When it does take me, remember your vow.”
Galladon and Karata nodded. They would take him to the pool in the mountains. Knowing he would be in their capable hands if he did fall was enough to keep him going—and enough to make him wish, just a little, that the day of his failure was not far away.
“That doesn’t have to happen though, sule,” Galladon said. “I mean, that gyorn was healed. Maybe something’s happening; maybe something has changed.”
Raoden hesitated. “If he really was healed.”
“What do you mean?” Karata asked.
“There was a lot of fuss pulling him from the city,” Raoden said. “If I were Wyrn, I wouldn’t want a Derethi Elantrian hanging around to bring shame on my religion. I’d send an envoy to pull him out, telling everyone he’d been healed, then hide him back in Fjordell.”
“We never did get a good look at the man after he was ‘healed,’” Karata acknowledged.
Galladon looked a little crestfallen at the line of conversation. He, like others in Elantris, had received a measure of hope from Hrathen’s healing. Raoden hadn’t said anything outright to discourage the people’s optimism, but inwardly he was more reserved. Since the gyorn’s departure, nobody else had been healed.
It was a hopeful sign, but somehow Raoden doubted it would mean much of a change for the Elantrians. They needed to work and improve their own lives, not wait for some external miracle.
He turned back to his studies.