Elantris (53 page)

She relaxed, resting the tip of her syre on the floor. Daora’s hair was pulled into a neat bun, and her uniform was unstained by sweat. As usual, the woman did all things with grace—even exercise.

“Do you want to talk about it, dear?” Daora asked with a coaxing tone. They
stood to the side of room, the thumping of feet and slapping of blades masking the conversation from prying ears.

“About what?” Sarene asked with confusion.

“I’ve seen that look before, child,” Daora said comfortingly. “He’s not for you. But, of course, you’ve realized that, haven’t you?”

Sarene paled. How could she know? Could the woman read thoughts? Then, however, Sarene followed her aunt’s gaze. Daora was looking at Shuden and Torena, who were laughing together as the young girl showed Shuden a few basic thrusts.

“I know it must be hard, Sarene,” Daora said, “being locked into a marriage with no chance for affection … never knowing your husband, or feeling the comfort of his love. Perhaps in a few years, after your place here in Arelon is more secure, you could allow yourself a relationship that is … covert. It is much too soon for that now, however.”

Daora’s eyes softened as she watched Shuden clumsily drop the sword. The normally reserved Jindo was laughing uncontrollably at his mistake. “Besides, child,” Daora continued, “this one is meant for another.”

“You think …?” Sarene began.

Daora placed a hand on Sarene’s arm, squeezing it lightly and smiling. “I’ve seen the look in your eyes these last few days, and I’ve also seen the frustration. The two emotions go together more often than youthful hearts expect.”

Sarene shook her head and laughed slightly. “I assure you, Aunt,” she said affectionately, yet firmly, “I have no interest in Lord Shuden.”

“Of course, dear,” Daora said, patting her arm, then retreating.

Sarene shook her head, walking over to get a drink. What were these “signs” Daora had claimed to see in her? The woman was usually so observant; what had made her misjudge so grievously in this instance? Sarene liked Shuden, of course, but not romantically. He was too quiet and, like Eondel, a bit too rigid for her taste. Sarene was well aware that she would need a man who would know when to give her space, but who also wouldn’t let her bend him in any way she chose.

With a shrug, Sarene put Daora’s misguided assumptions from her mind, then sat down to contemplate just how she was going to throw awry Spirit’s latest, and most detailed, list of demands.

CHAPTER 27

Hrathen stared at the paper for a long, long period of time. It was an accounting of King Iadon’s finances, as calculated by Derethi spies.

Somehow, Iadon had recovered from his lost ships and cargo. Telrii would not be king.

Hrathen sat at his desk, still in the armor he’d been wearing when he entered to find the note. The paper sat immobile in his stunned fingers. Perhaps if he hadn’t been faced by other worries, the news wouldn’t have shocked him so much—he had dealt with plenty of upset plans in his life. Beneath the paper, however, sat his list of local arteths. He had offered every single one of them the position of head arteth, and they had all refused. Only one man remained who could take the position.

Iadon’s recovery was only one more fallen brick in the collapsing wall of Hrathen’s sense of control. Dilaf all but ruled in the chapel; he didn’t even inform Hrathen of half the meetings and sermons he organized. There was a vengefulness to the way Dilaf was wresting control away from Hrathen. Perhaps the arteth was still angered over the incident with the Elantrian prisoner, or perhaps Dilaf was just transferring his anger and frustration over Sarene’s humanization of the Elantrians against Hrathen instead.

Regardless, Dilaf was slowly seizing power. It was subtle, but it seemed inevitable. The crafty arteth claimed that menial organizational items were “beneath the time of my lord hroden”—a claim that was, to an extent, well founded. Gyorns rarely had much to do with day-to-day chapel practices, and Hrathen couldn’t do everything himself. Dilaf stepped in to fill the gaps. Even if Hrathen didn’t break down and make the obvious move—appointing Dilaf head arteth—the eventual result would be the same.

Hrathen was losing his grip on Arelon. Nobles went to Dilaf now instead of him, and while Derethi membership was still growing, it wasn’t increasing quickly enough. Sarene had somehow foiled the plot to put Telrii on the throne—and after visiting the city, the people of Kae would no longer regard Elantrians as demons. Hrathen was setting a poor precedent for his activities in Arelon.

On top of it all stood Hrathen’s wavering faith. This was not the time to call his beliefs into question. Hrathen understood this. However, understanding—as
opposed to feeling—was the root of his problem. Now that the seed of uncertainty had been given purchase in his heart, he couldn’t easily uproot it.

It was too much. Suddenly, it seemed as if his room were falling in on him. The walls and ceiling shrunk closer and closer, as if to crush him beneath their weight. Hrathen stumbled, trying to escape, and fell to the marble floor. Nothing worked, nothing could help him.

He groaned, feeling the pain as his armor bit into his skin at odd angles. He rolled to his knees, and began to pray.

As a priest of Shu-Dereth, Hrathen spent hours in prayer each week. However, those prayers were different—more a form of meditation than a communication, a means of organizing his thoughts. This time he begged.

For the first time in years he found himself pleading for aid. Hrathen reached out to that God that he had served so long he had almost forgotten Him. The God he had shuffled away in a flurry of logic and understanding, a God he had rendered impotent in his life, though he sought to further His influence.

For once, Hrathen felt unfit to perform on his own. For once he admitted a need for help.

He didn’t know how long he knelt, praying fervently for aid, compassion, and mercy. Eventually, he was startled from his trancelike pleading by a knock at his door.

“Come,” he said distractedly.

“I apologize for disturbing my lord,” said a minor underpriest, cracking open the door. “But this just arrived for you.” The priest pushed a small crate into the room, then closed the door.

Hrathen rose on unstable feet. It was dark outside, though he had begun his prayers before noon. Had he really spent that long in supplication? A little dazed, Hrathen picked up the box and placed it on his desk, prying loose the lid with a dagger. Inside, packed with hay, was a rack containing four vials.

My Lord Hrathen, the note read. Here is the poison you requested. All of the effects are exactly as you specified. The liquid must be ingested, and the victim won’t display any symptoms until about eight hours afterwards
.

In all things, praise to Lord Jaddeth
.

Forton, apothecary and loyal subject of Wyrn
.

Hrathen picked up a vial, regarding its dark contents with wonder. He had almost forgotten his late-night call to Forton. He vaguely remembered assuming he would administer the poison to Dilaf. That plan wouldn’t work anymore. He needed something more spectacular.

Hrathen swished the poison around in its vial for a moment, then pulled off the stopper and drank it down in a single gulp.

CHAPTER 28

The most difficult part was deciding where to begin reading. The bookshelves extended out of sight, their information stretching as if to eternity. Raoden was certain that the clues he needed were contained somewhere within the vast sea of pages, but finding them seemed a daunting task indeed.

Karata was the one who made the discovery. She located a low bookshelf near the side of the room opposite the entrance. A set of about thirty volumes squatted on the shelf, waiting in their dust. They dictated a cataloguing system, with numbers relating to the various columns and rows of the library. From it, Raoden easily located the books on AonDor. He selected the least complicated volume he could find, and set to work.

Raoden restricted knowledge of the library to himself, Galladon, and Karata. Not only did he fear a repeat of Aanden’s book boiling, but he sensed a sacredness to the structure. It was not a place to be invaded by visitors, misunderstanding fingers that would disorganize books and shatter the calm.

They kept the pool a secret as well, giving Mareshe and Saolin a simplified explanation. Raoden’s own longings warned him how dangerous the pool was. There was a part of him that wanted to seek out its deadly embrace, the refreshment of destruction. If the people knew that there was an easy, painless way to escape the suffering, many would take it without deliberation. The city would be depopulated in a matter of months.

Letting them do so was an option, of course. What right had he to keep the others from their peace? Still, Raoden felt that it was too soon to give up on Elantris. In the weeks before Sarene began giving out food, he had seen that Elantris could forget its pains and its hungers. The Elantrians could move beyond their urges—there was an escape for them besides destruction.

But not for him. The pain swelled with each passing day. It drew strength from the Dor, bringing him a little closer to submission with its every assault. Fortunately, he had the books to distract him. He studied them with hypnotic fascination, finally discovering the simple explanations he had sought for so long.

He read how the complex Aon equations worked together. Drawing a line slightly longer in proportion to the rest of an Aon could have drastic effects. Two
Aon equations could start the same, but—like two rocks rolled down a mountain on slightly different paths—they could end up doing completely different things. All by changing the length of a few lines.

He began to grasp the theory of AonDor. The Dor was as Galladon had described it: a powerful reservoir just beyond the normal senses. Its only desire was to escape. The books explained that the Dor existed in a place that was full of pressure, and so the energy pushed its way through any viable exit, moving from an area of high concentration to one of low.

However, because of the Dor’s nature, it could enter the physical world only through gates of the proper size and shape. Elantrians could create rifts with their drawings, providing a means for the Dor to escape, and those drawings would determine what form the energy took when it appeared. However, if even one line was of the wrong proportion, the Dor would be unable to enter—like a square trying to force its way through a round hole. Some theorists described the process using unfamiliar words like “frequency” and “pulse length.” Raoden was only beginning to understand how much scientific genius was held in the library’s musty pages.

Still, for all of his studies, he was disappointingly unable to find out what had made AonDor stop working. He could only guess that the Dor had changed somehow. Perhaps now, instead of a square, the Dor was a triangle—and, no matter how many square-shaped Aons Raoden drew, the energy couldn’t get through. What could have led to the Dor’s sudden shift was beyond him.

“How did that get in here?” Galladon asked, interrupting Raoden’s thoughts. The Dula pointed toward the Seon Ien, who floated along the top of a bookshelf, his light casting shadows on the books.