The woman finally stumbled to her feet, looking dazed, as if she had forgotten where she was. She took a single, uncertain step to her left, her palm resting on the wall as if it were a comfort—a connection to the outside world, rather than the barrier separating her from it.
"It's done," Galladon said.
"Just like that?" Raoden asked.
Galladon nodded. "She picked well—or, as well as one could. Watch."
Shadows stirred in an alleyway directly across the courtyard: Raoden and Galladon watched from inside a ramshackle stone building, one of many that lined Elantris's entry courtyard. The shadows resolved into a group of men, and they approached the woman with determined, controlled steps, surrounding her. One reached out and took her basket of offerings. The woman didn't have the strength left to resist; she simply collapsed again. Raoden felt Galladon's fingers dig into his shoulder as he involuntarily pulled forward, wanting to dash our to confront the thieves.
"Not a good idea. Kolo?" Galladon whispered. "Save your courage for yourself. If stubbing your toe nearly knocked you out. think how it would feel to have one of those cudgels cracking across your brave little head."
Raoden nodded, relaxing. The woman had been robbed, but it didn't look like she was in further danger. It hurt, however, to watch her. She wasn't a young maiden; she bore the stout figure of a woman accustomed to childbirth and the running of a household. A mother, not a damsel. The strong lines of the woman's face bespoke hard-won wisdom and courage, and somehow that made watching her more difficult. If such a woman could be defeated by Elantris, what hope was there for Raoden?
"I told you she chose well," Galladon continued. "She might be a few pounds of food lighter, but she doesn't have any wounds. Now, if she had turned right—like you did sule—she would have been at the dubious mercy of Shaor's men. If she had gone forward then Aanden would have had the right to her offerings. The left turn is definitely best—Karata's men take your food, but they rarely hurt you. Better to be hungry than spend the next few years with a broken arm."
"Next few years?" Raoden asked, turning away from the courtyard to regard his tall. dark-skinned companion. "I thought you said our wounds would last us an eternity."
"We only assume they will, sule. Show me an Elantrian who has managed to keep his wits until eternity ends, and maybe he'll be able to prove the theory."
"How long do people usually last in here?"
"A year, maybe two," Galladon said.
"What?"
"Thought we were immortal, did you? Just because we don't age, we'll last forever?"
"I don't know." Raoden said. "I though you said we couldn't die."
"We can't," Galladon said. "But the cuts. the bruises. the stubbed toes ... they pile up. One can only take so much."
"They kill themselves?" Raoden asked quietly.
"That's not an option. No, most of them lie around mumbling or screaming. Poor rulos."
"How long have you been here, then?"
"A few months."
The realization was another shock to pile on the already teetering stack. Raoden had assumed that Galladon had been an Elantrian for at least a few years. The Dula spoke of life in Elantris as if it had been his home for decades, and he was impressively adept at navigating the enormous city.
Raoden looked back at the courtyard, but the woman had already gone. She could have been a maid in his father's palace, a wealthy merchant's lady, or a simple housewife. The Shaod respected no classes; it took from all equally. She was gone now, having entered the gaping pit that was Elantris. He should have been able to help her.
"All that for a single loaf of bread and a few flaccid vegetables." Raoden muttered.
"It may not seem like much now, but just wait a few days. The only food that enters this place comes clutched in the arms of its new arrivals. You wait, sule. You will feel the desire as well. It takes a strong man to resist when the hunger calls."
"You do it," Raoden said.
"Not very well-and I've only been here a few months. There's no telling what the hunger will drive me to do a year from now."
Raoden snorted. "Just wait until my thirty days are done before you become a primordial beast, if you please. I'd hate to feel that I hadn't got my beef's worth out of you."
Galladon paused for a moment, then laughed. "Does nothing frighten you, sule?"
"Actually, pretty much everything here does—I'm just good at ignoring the fact that I'm terrified. If I ever realize how scared I am, you'll probably find me trying to hide under those cobblestones over there. Now, tell me more about these gangs."
Galladon shrugged, walking away from the broken door and pulling a chair away from the wall. He turned a critical eye on its legs, then carefully settled down. He moved just quickly enough to stand again as the legs cracked. He tossed the chair away with disgust, and settled on the floor.
"There are three sections of Elantris, sule, and three gangs. The market section is ruled by Shaor; you met a few members of his court yesterday. though they were too busy licking the slime off your offerings to introduce themselves. In the palace section you'll find Karata—she's the one who so very politely relieved that woman of her food today. Last is Aanden. He spends most of his time in the university section."
"A learned man?"
"No, an opportunist. He was the first one who realized that many of the library's older texts were written on vellum. Yesterday's classics have become tomorrow's lunch. Kolo?"
"Idos Domi!" Raoden swore. "That's atrocious! The old scrolls of Elantris are supposed to hold countless original works. They're priceless!"
Galladon turned him a suffering eye. "Sule, do I need to repeat my speech about hunger? What good is literature when your stomach hurts so much your eyes water?"
"That's a terrible argument. Two-century-old lambskin scrolls can't possibly taste very good."
Galladon shrugged. "Better than slime. Anyway, Aanden supposedly ran out of scrolls a few months back. They tried boiling books, but that didn't work very well."
"I'm surprised they haven't tried boiling one another."
"Oh, it's been tried," Galladon said. "Fortunately. something happens to us during the Shaod—apparently the flesh of a dead man doesn't taste too good. Kolo? In fact, it's so violently bitter that no one can keep it down."
"It's nice to see that cannibalism has been so logically ruled out as an option," Raoden said dryly.
"I told you, sule. The hunger makes men do strange things."
"And that makes it all right?"
Wisely, Galladon didn't answer.
Raoden continued. "You talk about hunger and pain as if they are forces which can't be resisted. Anything is acceptable, as long as the hunger made you do it—remove our comforts, and we become animals."
Galladon shook his head. "I'm sorry, sule, but that's just the way things work."
"It doesn't have to be."
¤ ¤ ¤
TEN years wasn't long enough. Even in Arelon's thick humidity, it should have taken longer for the city to deteriorate so much. Elantris looked as if it had been abandoned for centuries. Its wood was decaying. its plaster and bricks were disintegrating—even stone buildings were beginning to crumble. And coating everything was the omnipresent film of brown sludge.
Raoden was finally getting used to walking on the slippery, uneven cobblestones. He tried to keep himself clean of the slime, but the task proved impossible. Every wall he brushed and every ledge he grasped left its mark on him.
The two men walked slowly down a broad street; the thoroughfare was far larger than any of its kind back in Kae. Elantris had been built on a massive scale, and while the size had seemed daunting from without, Raoden was only now beginning to grasp just how enormous the city was. He and Galladon had been walking for hours. and Galladon said they were still a moderate distance from their destination.
The two did not rush, however. That was one of the first things Galladon had taught: In Elantris, one took one's time. Everything the Dula did was performed with an air of utter precision, his movements relaxed and careful. The slightest scratch. no matter how negligible, added to an Elantrian's pain. The more careful one was, the longer one would stay sane. So, Raoden followed, trying to mimic Galladon's attentive gait. Every time Raoden began to feel that the caution was excessive, all he had to do was look at one of the numerous forms that lay huddled in gutters and on street corners, and his determination would return.
The Hoed. Galladon called them: those Elantrians who had succumbed to the pain. Their minds lost, their lives were filled with continual, unrelenting torture. They rarely moved, though some had enough feral instinct to remain crouched in the shadows. Most of them were quiet, though few were completely silent. As he passed, Raoden could hear their mumbles, sobs, and whines. Most seemed to be repeating words and phrases to themselves, a mantra to accompany their suffering.
"Domi, Domi, Domi . ."
"So beautiful, once so very beautiful .. .
"Stop, stop, stop. Make it stop. . ."
Raoden forced himself to close his ears to the words. His chest was beginning to constrict, as if he were suffering with the poor, faceless wretches. If he paid too much attention he would go mad long before the pain took him.
However, if he let his mind wander, it invariably turned to his outside life. Would his friends continue their clandestine meetings? Would Kiin and Roial be able to hold the group together? And what of his best friend. Lukel? Raoden had barely gotten to know Lukel's new wife; now he would never get to see their first child.
Even worse were the thoughts of his own marriage. He had never met the woman he was to have married, though he had spoken to her via Seon on many occasions. Was she really as witty and interesting as she had seemed? He would never know. Iadon had probably covered up Raoden's transformation pretending that his son was dead. Sarene would never come to Arelon now: once she heard the news, she would stay in Teod and seek another husband.
If only I had been able to meet her, if just once. But such thoughts were useless. He was an Elantrian now.
Instead. he focused on the city itself. It was difficult to believe that Elantris had once been the most beautiful city in Opelon, probably in the world. The slime was what he saw—the rot and the erosion. However, beneath the filth were the remnants of Elantris's former greatness. A spire, the remains of a delicately carved wall relief, grand chapels and vast mansions, pillars and arches. Ten years ago this city had shone with its own mystical brightness. a city of pure white and gold.
No one knew what had caused the Reod. There were those who theorized—most of them Derethi priests—that the fall of Elantris had been caused by God. The pre-Reod Elantrians had lived as gods, allowing other religions in Arelon, but suffering them the same way a master lets his dog lick fallen food off the floor. The beauty of Elantris, the powers its inhabitants wielded, had kept the general population from converting to Shu-Keseg. Why seek an unseen deity when you had gods living before you?
It had come with a tempest—that much even Raoden remembered. The earth itself had shattered, an enormous chasm appearing in the south, all of Arelon quaking. With the destruction, Elantris had lost its glory. The Elantrians had changed from brilliant white-haired beings to creatures with splotchy skin and bald scalps—like sufferers of some horrible disease in the advanced stages of decay. Elantris had stopped glowing, instead growing dark.