Elantris (83 page)

His family pulled close to him, Daora and the children having no place to turn now that Kiin was unconscious. Only Adien stood apart, staring at the pile of lumber. He kept mumbling some number to himself.

Lukel searched through the crowd of nobles, trying to smile and give encouragement, though he himself felt little confidence. Elantris would be their grave. As he looked, Lukel noticed a figure standing near the back of the group, hidden by bodies. He was moving slowly, his hands waving in front of himself.

Shuden?
Lukel thought. The Jindo’s eyes were closed, his hands moving fluidly in some sort of pattern. Lukel watched his friend with confusion, wondering if the Jindo’s mind had snapped; then he remembered the strange dance that Shuden had done that first day in Sarene’s fencing class. ChayShan.

Shuden moved his hands slowly, giving only a bare hint of the fury that was to come. Lukel watched with growing determination, somehow understanding. Shuden was no warrior. He practiced his dance for exercise, not for combat. However, he was not going to let the ones he loved be murdered without some sort of fight. He would rather die struggling than sit and wait, hoping that fate would send them a miracle.

Lukel took a breath, feeling ashamed. He searched around him, his eyes finding a table leg that one of the soldiers had dropped nearby. When the time came, Shuden would not fight alone.

Raoden floated, senseless and unaware. Time meant nothing to him—he
was
time. It was his essence. Occasionally he would bob toward the surface of what he had once called consciousness, but as he approached he would feel pain, and back away. The agony was like a lake’s surface: if he broke through it, the pain would return and envelop him.

Those times he got close to the surface of pain, however, he thought he saw images. Visions that might have been real, but were probably just reflections of his memory. He saw Galladon’s face, concerned and angry at the same time. He saw Karata, her eyes heavy with despair. He saw a mountain landscape, covered with scrub and rocks.

It was all immaterial to him.

“I often wish that they’d just let her die.”

Hrathen looked up. Dilaf’s voice was introspective, as if he were talking to himself. However, the priest’s eyes were focused on Hrathen.

“What?” Hrathen asked hesitantly.

“If only they had let her die …” Dilaf trailed off. He sat at the edge of the rooftop, watching the ships gather below, his face reminiscent. His emotions had always been unstable. No man could keep Dilaf’s level of ardor burning for long without doing emotional damage to his mind. A few more years, and Dilaf would probably be completely insane.

“I was already fifty years old back then, Hrathen,” Dilaf said. “Did you know that? I have lived nearly seventy years, though my body doesn’t look older than twenty. She thought I was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, even though my body had been twisted and destroyed to fit the mold of an Arelene.”

Hrathen remained quiet. He had heard of such things, that the incantations of Dakhor could actually change the way a person looked. The process had undoubtedly been very painful.

“When she fell sick, I took her to Elantris,” Dilaf mumbled, his legs pulled tightly against his chest. “I knew it was pagan, I knew it was blasphemous, but even forty years as a Dakhor wasn’t enough to keep me away … not when I thought Elantris could save her. Elantris can heal, they said, while Dakhor cannot. And I took her.”

The monk was no longer looking at Hrathen. His eyes were unfocused. “They changed her,” he whispered. “They said the spell went wrong, but I know the truth. They knew me, and they hated me. Why, then, did they have to put their curse on Seala? Her skin turned black, her hair fell out, and she began to die. She screamed at night, yelling that the pain was eating her from the inside. Eventually she threw herself off the city wall.”

Dilaf’s voice turned reverently mournful. “I found her at the bottom, still alive. Still alive, despite the fall. And I burned her. She never stopped screaming. She screams still. I can hear her. She will scream until Elantris is gone.”

They reached the ledge, behind which lay the pool, and Galladon laid Raoden down. The prince slumped idly against the stone, his head hanging slightly over the side of the cliff, his unfocused eyes staring out over the city of Kae. Galladon leaned back against the rock face, next to the door of the tunnel that led down to Elantris. Karata slumped next to him in exhaustion. They would wait a brief moment, then find oblivion.

Once the wood was gathered, the soldiers began a new pile—this one of bodies. The soldiers went searching through the city, seeking the corpses of Elantrians who had been slain. Lukel realized something as he watched the pile grow. They weren’t all dead. In fact, most of them weren’t.

Most of them had wounds so grievous that it sickened Lukel to look at them, yet their arms and legs twitched, their lips moving.
Elantrians
, Lukel thought with amazement,
the dead whose minds continue to live
.

The pile of bodies grew higher. There were hundreds of them, all of the Elantrians that had been collecting in the city for ten years. None of them resisted; they simply allowed themselves to be heaped, their eyes uncaring, until the pile of bodies was larger than the pile of wood.

“Twenty-seven steps to the bodies,” Adien whispered suddenly, walking away from the crowd of nobles. Lukel reached for his brother, but it was too late.

A soldier yelled for Adien to get back with the others. Adien didn’t respond.
Angry, the soldier slashed at Adien with a sword, leaving a large gash in his chest. Adien stumbled, but kept walking. No blood came from the wound. The soldier’s eyes opened wide, and he jumped back, making a ward against evil. Adien approached the pile of Elantrians and joined its ranks, flopping down among them and then lying still.

Adien’s secret of five years had finally been revealed. He had joined his people.

“I remember you, Hrathen.” Dilaf was smiling now, his grin wicked and demonic. “I remember you as a boy, when you came to us. It was just before I left for Arelon. You were frightened then, as you are frightened now. You ran from us, and I watched you go with satisfaction. You were never meant to be Dakhor—you are far too weak.”

Hrathen felt chilled. “You were there?”

“I was gragdet by then, Hrathen,” Dilaf said. “Do you remember me?”

Then, looking into the man’s eyes, Hrathen had a flash of remembrance. He remembered evil eyes in the body of a tall, unmerciful man. He remembered chants. He remembered fires. He remembered screams—his screams—and a face hanging above him. They were the same eyes.

“You!” Hrathen said with a gasp.

“You remember.”

“I remember,” Hrathen said with a dull chill. “You were the one that convinced me to leave. In my third month, you demanded that one of your monks use his magic and send you to Wyrn’s palace. The monk complied, giving up his life to transport you a distance that you could have walked in fifteen minutes.”

“Absolute obedience is required, Hrathen,” Dilaf whispered. “Occasional tests and examples bring loyalty from the rest.” Then, pausing, he looked out over the bay. The armada was docked, waiting as per Dilaf’s order. Hrathen scanned the horizon, and he could see several dark specks—the tips of masts. Wyrn’s army was coming.

“Come,” Dilaf ordered, rising to his feet. “We have been successful; the Teoish armada has docked. They will not be able to stop our fleet from landing. I have only one duty remaining—the death of King Eventeo.”

A vision sprung into Raoden’s impassive mind. He tried to ignore it. Yet, for some reason, it refused to leave. He saw it through the shimmering surface of his pain—a simple picture.

It was Aon Rao. A large square with four circles around it, lines connecting them to the center. It was a widely used Aon—especially among the Korathi—for its meaning. Spirit. Soul.

Floating in the white eternity, Raoden’s mind tried to discard the image of Aon Rao. It was something from a previous existence, unimportant and forgotten. He didn’t need it any longer. Yet, even as he strove to remove the image, another sprung up in its place.

Elantris. Four walls forming a square. The four outer cities surrounding it, their borders circles. A straight road leading from each city to Elantris.

Merciful Domi!

The soldiers opened several barrels of oil, and Lukel watched with revulsion as they began pouring them over the heap of bodies. Three shirtless warriors stood at the side, singing some sort of chant in a foreign language that sounded too harsh and unfamiliar to be Fjordell.
We will be next
, Lukel realized.

“Don’t look,” Lukel ordered his family, turning away as the soldiers prepared Elantris for immolation.

King Eventeo stood in the distance, a small honor guard surrounding him. He bowed his head as Dilaf approached. The monk smiled, preparing his knife. Eventeo though he was presenting his country for surrender—he didn’t realize that he was offering it up for a sacrifice.

Hrathen walked beside Dilaf, thinking about necessity and duty. Men would die, true, but their loss would not be meaningless. The entire Fjordell Empire would grow stronger for the victory over Teod. The hearts of men would increase in faith. It was the same thing Hrathen himself had done in Arelon. He had tried to convert the people for political reasons, using politics and popularity. He had bribed Telrii to convert, giving no heed to saving the man’s soul. It was the same thing. What was a nation of unbelievers when compared with all of Shu-Dereth?

Yet, even as he rationalized, his stomach grew sick.

I was sent to save these people, not to slaughter them!

Dilaf held Princess Sarene by the neck, her mouth gagged. Eventeo looked up and smiled reassuringly as they approached. He could not see the knife in Dilaf’s hand.

“I have waited for this,” Dilaf whispered softly. At first, Hrathen thought the priest referred to the destruction of Teod. But Dilaf wasn’t looking at the king. He was looking at Sarene, the blade of his knife pressed into her back.

“You, Princess, are a disease,” Dilaf whispered in Sarene’s ear, his voice barely audible to Hrathen. “Before you came to Kae, even the Arelenes hated Elantris. You are the reason they forgot that loathing. You associated with the unholy ones, and you even descended to their level. You are worse than they are—you are one who is not cursed, but seeks to be cursed. I considered killing your father first and
making you watch, but now I realize it will be much worse the other way around. Think of old Eventeo watching you die, Princess. Ponder that image as I send you to Jaddeth’s eternal pits of torment.”

She was crying, the tears staining her gag.

Raoden struggled toward consciousness. The pain hit him like an enormous block of stone, halting his progress, his mind recoiling in agony. He threw himself against it, and the torment washed over him. He slowly forced his way through the resistant surface, coming to a laborious awareness of the world outside himself.

He wanted to scream, to scream over and over again. The pain was incredible. However, with the pain, he felt something else. His body. He was moving, being dragged along the ground. Images washed into his mind as sight returned. He was being pulled toward something round and blue.

The pool.

NO! he thought desperately. Not yet! I know the answer!

Raoden screamed suddenly, twitching. Galladon was so surprised that he dropped the body.

Raoden stumbled forward, trying to get his footing, and fell directly into the pool.

CHAPTER 61

Dilaf reached around the princess to press his dagger against her neck. Eventeo’s eyes opened wide with horror.

Hrathen watched the dagger begin to slice Sarene’s skin. He thought of Fjorden. He thought of the work he had done, the people he had saved. He thought of a young boy, eager to prove his faith by entering the priesthood. Unity.

“No!
” Spinning, Hrathen drove his fist into Dilaf’s face.

Dilaf stumbled for a moment, lowering his weapon in surprise. Then the monk looked up with rage and plunged the dagger at Hrathen’s breast.

The knife slid off Hrathen’s armor, scraping ineffectually along the painted steel. Dilaf regarded the breastplate with stunned eyes. “But, that armor is just for show….”

“You should know by now, Dilaf,” Hrathen said, bringing his armored forearm up and smashing it into the monk’s face. Though the unnatural bone had resisted Hrathen’s fist, it crunched with a satisfying sound beneath steel.
“Nothing
I do is just for show.”

Dilaf fell, and Hrathen pulled the monk’s sword free from its scabbard. “Launch your ships, Eventeo!” he yelled. “Fjorden’s armies come not to dominate, but to massacre. Move now if you want to save your people!”

“Rag Domi!” Eventeo cursed, yelling for his generals. Then he paused. “My daughter—”

“I will help the girl!” Hrathen snapped. “Save your kingdom, you fool!”

Though Dakhor bodies were unnaturally quick, their minds recovered from shock no more quickly than those of regular men. Their surprise bought Hrathen a few vital seconds. He brought his sword up, shoving Sarene toward an alleyway and backing up to block the entrance.