Elantris (65 page)

Hrathen had begun to think that the poison would take effect too late, that the surprise marriage between Sarene and Roial would go forward unchallenged. Of course, Sarene’s fall would probably have been just as disastrous after the marriage—unless Roial had intended to take the throne this very evening. It was an uncomfortable possibility. One, fortunately, Hrathen would never have the opportunity to see fulfilled.

Roial wouldn’t crown himself now. Not only did he lack the legal right, but his fortune was still less than that of Telrii. Hrathen had checked the wedding contract—this time a death was
not
the same as a marriage.

Hrathen pushed his way through the stunned crowd toward the exit. He had to work quickly: Sarene’s potion would wear off in five days. Duke Telrii met Hrathen’s eyes as he passed, nodding with a respectful smile. The man had received Hrathen’s message, and had not acted against the wedding. Now his faith would be rewarded.

The conquest of Arelon was almost complete.

CHAPTER 40

“There should be a way to get up there,” Raoden said, shading his eyes as he looked at the Elantris city wall. During the last few hours the sun had emerged, burning away the morning mists. It hadn’t, however, brought much warmth with it.

Galladon frowned. “I don’t see how, sule. Those walls are rather high.”

“You forget, my friend,” Raoden said, “the walls weren’t made to keep people in, or even really to keep enemies out. The old Elantrians built stairs and viewing platforms on the outside of the wall—there should be others in here.”

Galladon grunted. Ever since the Guards had mysteriously disappeared from the walls, Raoden had wanted to find a way up. The walls belonged to Elantris, not the outside world. From them, perhaps they could find out what was happening in Kae.

The Guard’s inattentiveness bothered him. The disappearance was fortunate, in a way; it lessened the possibility that someone would notice New Elantris. However, Raoden could only think of a couple of reasons why the soldiers would leave
their post on the walls, and the most likely one was also the most worrisome. Could the East finally have invaded?

Raoden knew that an invasion was all too possible. Wyrn was too opportunistic to let a gem like post-Reod Arelon go unmolested forever. Fjorden would attack eventually. And, if Arelon fell before Wyrn’s holy war, then Elantris would be destroyed. The Derethi priests would see to that.

Raoden didn’t voice his fears to the other Elantrians, but he did act on them. If he could place men on the walls, then he would have prior warning of an army’s approach. Perhaps with advance notice, Raoden would have time to hide his people. One of the three empty, ruined towns outside of Elantris was probably their best hope. He would lead them there, if he had the chance.

Assuming he was in any condition to help. The Dor had come against him twice in the last four days. Fortunately, while the pain was growing stronger, so was his resolve. Now, at least, he understood.

“There,” Galladon said, pointing to an outcropping.

Raoden nodded. There was a chance the stone column held a stairwell. “Let’s go.”

They were far from New Elantris, which was positioned in the center of the city to hide it from prying wall-top eyes. Here, in old Elantris, the slime still covered all. Raoden smiled: The dirt and grime was becoming repulsive to him again. For a while he had almost forgotten how disgusting it was.

They didn’t get very far. Soon after Galladon pointed out the stairwell, a messenger from New Elantris appeared from a side street behind them. The man approached on quick feet, waving toward Raoden.

“My lord Spirit,” the man said.

“Yes, Tenrao?” Raoden asked, turning.

“A newcomer has been thrown into the city, my lord.”

Raoden nodded. He preferred to greet each newcomer personally. “Shall we go?” he asked Galladon.

“The walls will wait,” the Dula agreed.

The newcomer turned out to be a she. The woman sat with her back to the gate, her knees pulled up against her chest, her head buried in her sacrificial robes.

“She’s a feisty one, my lord,” said Dashe, who had been serving as watcher when the newcomer arrived. “She screamed at the gate for a full ten minutes after they tossed her in. Then she threw her offering basket against the wall and sank down like she is now.”

Raoden nodded. Most newcomers were too stunned to do much besides wander. This one had strength.

Raoden gestured for the others to remain behind; he didn’t want to make her nervous by bringing a crowd. He strolled forward until he was directly in front of her, then squatted down to regard her at eye level.

“Hello, there,” he said affably. “I’m willing to guess you’ve had an awful day.”

The woman looked up. When he saw her face, Raoden nearly lost his balance in surprise. Her skin was splotched and her hair was missing, but she had the same thin face and round, mischievous eyes. Princess Sarene. His wife.

“You don’t know the half of it, Spirit,” she said, a small, ironic smile coming to her lips.

“I’ll bet I understand more than you think I do,” Raoden said. “I’m here to make things a little less dreary.”

“What?” Sarene asked, her voice suddenly turning bitter. “Are you going to steal the offering the priests gave me?”

“Well, I will if you really want me to,” Raoden said. “Though I don’t think we need it. Someone was kind enough to deliver us several large batches of food a few weeks back.”

Sarene regarded him with hostile eyes. She hadn’t forgotten his betrayal.

“Come with me,” he urged, holding out his hand.

“I don’t trust you anymore, Spirit.”

“Did you ever?”

Sarene paused, then shook her head. “I wanted to, but I knew that I shouldn’t.”

“Then you never really gave me a chance, did you?” He stretched his hand out a little closer. “Come with me.”

She regarded him for a moment, studying his eyes. Eventually she reached out her fine, thin-fingered hand and placed it in his own for the first time, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

CHAPTER 41

The sudden change was nothing less than stupefying. It was as if Sarene had stepped from darkness into sunlight, burst from brackish water into warm air. The dirt and grime of Elantris stopped in a crisp line, beyond which the cobblestones were pure and white. Anywhere else the street’s simple cleanliness would have been noticeable, but not remarkable. Here, with the rot of Elantris behind her, it seemed as if Sarene had stumbled into Domi’s Paradise.

She stopped before the stone gate, staring at the city-within-a-city, her eyes wide and disbelieving. People talked and worked within, each bearing the cursed skin of an Elantrian, but each wearing a pleasant smile as well. None wore the rags she had assumed were the only available clothing in Elantris; their outfits were simple skirts or trousers and a shirt. The cloth was strikingly colorful. With amazement Sarene realized that these were the colors
she
had chosen. What she had seen as offensive, however, the people wore with joy—the bright yellows, greens, and reds highlighting their cheerfulness.

These were not the people she had seen just a few weeks before, pathetic and begging for food. They looked as if they belonged to some pastoral village of lore—people who expressed a good-natured joviality Sarene had thought unrealistic in the real world. Yet, they lived in the one place everyone knew was even more horrible than the real world.

“What …?”

Spirit smiled broadly, still holding her hand as he pulled her through the gateway into the village. “Welcome to New Elantris, Sarene. Everything you assumed is no longer valid.”

“I can see that.”

A squat Elantrian woman approached, her dress a mixture of vibrant greens and yellows. She eyed Sarene critically. “I doubt we’ve got anything in her size, Lord Spirit.”

Spirit laughed, taking in Sarene’s height. “Do your best, Maare,” he said, walking toward a low-ceilinged building at the side of the gate. The door was open, and Sarene could see rows of clothing hanging on pegs inside. Embarrassed,
she was suddenly aware of her own clothing. She had already stained the white garment with slime and muck.

“Come, dearie,” Maare said, leading her to a second building. “Let’s see what we can do.”

The motherly woman eventually found a dress that fit Sarene reasonably well—or, at least, a blue skirt that showed her legs only up to midcalf, along with a bright red blouse. There were even undergarments, though they too were constructed of bright materials. Sarene didn’t complain—anything was better than her filth-soiled robe.

After pulling on the clothing, Sarene regarded herself in the room’s full-length mirror. Half of her skin was still flesh-toned, but that only made the dark splotches more striking. She assumed that her flesh tones would dim with time, becoming gray like those of the other Elantrians.

“Wait,” she asked hesitantly, “where did the mirror come from?”

“It isn’t a mirror, dearie,” Maare informed as she sifted through socks and shoes. “It’s a flat piece of stone—part of a table, I think—with thin sheets of steel wrapped around it.”

Looking closely, Sarene could see the folds where sheets of steel overlapped one another. All things considered, it made a remarkable mirror. The stone must have been extremely smooth.

“But where—” Sarene stopped. She knew exactly where they had gotten sheets of steel that thin. Sarene herself had sent them, again thinking to get the better of Spirit, who had demanded several sheets of metal as part of his bribe.

Maare disappeared for a moment, then returned with socks and shoes for Sarene. Both were different colors from either her shirt or her skirt. “Here we are,” the woman said. “I had to go over and pilfer these from the men.”

Sarene felt herself blush as she accepted the items.

“Don’t mind, dearie,” Maare said with a laugh. “It makes sense you’d have big feet—Domi knows you need more on the bottom to support all that height! Oh, and here’s the last thing.”

The woman held up a long scarflike piece of orange cloth. “For your head,” Maare said, pointing at the similar cloth wrapped around her own head. “It helps us forget about the hair.”

Sarene nodded thankfully, accepting the scarf and tying it around her scalp. Spirit waited for her outside, wearing a pair of red trousers and a yellow shirt. He smiled as she approached.

“I feel like an insane rainbow,” Sarene confessed, looking down at the menagerie of colors.

Spirit laughed, holding out his hand and leading her deeper into the city. Unconsciously, she found herself judging his height.
He’s tall enough for me
, she
thought almost offhandedly,
if only barely.
Then, realizing what she was doing, she rolled her eyes. The entire world was toppling around her, and all she could do was size up the man walking next to her.

“… get used to the idea that we all look like secabirds in the spring,” he was saying. “The colors don’t bother you all that much once you wear them for a while. Actually, after the dull monotones of old Elantris, I find them quite refreshing.”

As they walked, Spirit explained New Elantris to her. It wasn’t very large, perhaps fifty buildings in all, but its compact nature made it feel more unified. Though there couldn’t have been many people in the town—five or six hundred at most—there always seemed to be motion around her. Men worked on walls or roofs, women sewed or cleaned—even children ran in the streets. It had never occurred to her that the Shaod would take children as well as adults.

Everyone greeted Spirit as he passed, calling out with welcoming smiles. There was true acceptance in their voices, displaying a level of loving respect Sarene had rarely seen given to a leader; even her father, who was generally well liked, had his dissenters. Of course, it was easier with such a small population, but she was still impressed.

At one point they walked by a man of indecipherable age—it was hard to put years with faces in Elantris—sitting on a stone block. He was short with a large belly, and he didn’t greet them. His inattention, however, was not a sign of incivility—he was just focused on the small object in his hand. Several children stood around the man, watching his bent-over work with eager eyes. As Sarene and Spirit passed, the man held the object out to one of the children; it was a beautifully carved stone horse. The girl clapped ecstatically, accepting the piece with exuberant fingers. The children ran off as the sculptor reached down to select another rock from the ground. He began to scrape at the stone with a short tool; as Sarene peered closely at his fingers, she realized what it was.