Raoden smiled, rising and walking over to the man. “Certainly, you may join us. What have you heard?”
“Well …” The aged Elantrian fidgeted nervously. “Some people on the streets say that those who follow you aren’t as hungry. They say you have a secret that makes the pain go away. I’ve been in Elantris for nearly a year now, my lord, and my injuries are almost too much. I figured I could either give you a chance, or go find myself a gutter and join the Hoed.”
Raoden nodded, clasping the man on the shoulder. He could still feel his toe burning—he was growing used to the pain, but it was still there. It was accompanied by a gnawing from his stomach. “I’m glad you came. What is your name?”
“Kahar, my lord.”
“All right then, Kahar, what did you do before the Shaod took you?”
Kahar’s eyes grew unfocused, as if his mind were traveling back to a time long ago. “I was a cleaner of some sort, my lord. I think I washed streets.”
“Perfect! I’ve been waiting for one of your particular skill. Mareshe, are you back there?”
“Yes, my lord,” the spindly artisan called from one of the rooms in the back. His head poked out a moment later.
“By chance, did those traps you set up catch any of last night’s rainfall?”
“Of course, my lord,” Mareshe said indignantly.
“Good. Show Kahar here where the water is.”
“Certainly.” Mareshe motioned for Kahar to follow.
“What am I to do with water, my lord?” Kahar asked.
“It is time that we stopped living in filth, Kahar,” Raoden said. “This slime that covers Elantris can be cleaned off; I’ve seen a place where it was done. Take your time and don’t strain yourself, but clean this building inside and out. Scrape away every bit of slime and wash off every hint of dirt.”
“Then you will show me the secret?” Kahar asked hopefully.
“Trust me.”
Kahar nodded, following Mareshe from the room. Raoden’s smile faded as the man left. He was finding that the most difficult part of leadership here in Elantris was maintaining the attitude of optimism that Galladon teased him about. These people, even the newcomers, were dangerously close to losing hope. They thought that they were damned, and assumed that nothing could save their souls from rotting away like Elantris itself. Raoden had to overcome years of conditioning teamed with the ever-present forces of pain and hunger.
He had never considered himself an overly cheerful person. Here in Elantris, however, Raoden found himself reacting to the air of despair with defiant optimism. The worse things got, the more determined he was to take it on without complaint. But the forced cheerfulness took its toll. He could feel the others, even Galladon, relying on him. Of all the people in Elantris, only Raoden couldn’t let his pain show. The hunger gnawed at his chest like a horde of insects trying to escape from within, and the pain of several injuries beat at his resolve with merciless determination.
He wasn’t sure how long he would last. After barely a week and a half in Elantris, he was already in so much pain it was sometimes difficult to focus. How long would it be before he couldn’t function at all? Or, how long before he was reduced to the subhuman level of Shaor’s men? One question was more frightening than them all. When he fell, how many people would fall with him?
And yet, he had to bear the weight. If he didn’t accept the responsibility, no one else would—and these people would become slaves either to their own agony or to the bullies on the streets. Elantris needed him. If it used him up, then so be it.
“Lord Spirit!” called a frantic voice.
Raoden looked as a worried Saolin rushed into the room. The hook-nosed mercenary had fashioned a spear from a piece of only half-rotten wood and a sharp stone, and had taken to patrolling the area around the chapel. The man’s scarred Elantrian face was wrinkled with concern.
“What is it, Saolin?” Raoden asked, alarmed. The man was an experienced warrior, and was not easily unsettled.
“A group of armed men coming this way, my lord. I counted twelve of them, and they are carrying steel weapons.”
“Steel?” Raoden said. “In Elantris? I wasn’t aware that there was any to be found.”
“They’re coming quickly, my lord,” Saolin said. “What do we do—they’re almost here.”
“They are here,” Raoden said as a group of men forced their way through the chapel’s open doorway. Saolin was right: several carried steel weapons, though the blades were chipped and rusted. The group was a dark-eyed, unpleasant lot, and at their lead was a familiar figure—or, at least, familiar from a distance.
“Karata,” Raoden said. Loren should have been hers the other day, but Raoden had stolen him. Apparently, she had come to make a complaint. It had only been a matter of time.
Raoden glanced toward Saolin, who was inching forward as if anxious to try his makeshift spear. “Stand your ground, Saolin,” Raoden commanded.
Karata was completely bald, a gift from the Shaod, and she had been in the city long enough that her skin was beginning to wrinkle. However, she held herself with a proud face and determined eyes—the eyes of a person who hadn’t given in to the pain, and who wasn’t going to do so any time soon. She wore a dark outfit composed of torn leather—for Elantris, it was well made.
Karata turned her head around the chapel, studying the new ceiling, then the members of Raoden’s band, who had gathered outside the window to watch with apprehension. Mareshe and Kahar stood immobile at the back of the room. Finally, Karata turned her gaze on Raoden.
There was a tense pause. Eventually, Karata turned to one of her men. “Destroy the building, chase them out, and break some bones.” She turned to leave.
“I can get you into Iadon’s palace,” Raoden said quietly.
Karata froze.
“That is what you want, isn’t it?” Raoden asked. “The Elantris City Guards caught you in Kae. They won’t suffer you forever—they burn Elantrians who escape too often. If you really want to get into the palace, I can take you there.”
“We’ll never get out of the city,” Karata said, turning skeptical eyes back on him. “They’ve doubled the guard recently; something to do with looking good for a royal wedding. I haven’t even been able to get out in a month.”
“I can get you out of the city too,” Raoden promised.
Karata’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. There was no talk of price. They both knew that Raoden could demand only one thing: to be left alone. “You’re desperate,” she finally concluded.
“True. But I’m also an opportunist.”
Karata nodded slowly. “I will return at nightfall. You will deliver as promised, or my men will break the limbs of every person here and leave them to rot in their agony.”
“Understood.”
“Sule, I—”
“Don’t think this is a good idea,” Raoden finished with a slight smile. “Yes, Galladon, I know.”
“Elantris is a big city,” Galladon said. “There are plenty of places to hide that not even Karata could find us. She can’t spread herself too thin, otherwise Shaor and Aanden will attack her. Kolo?”
“Yes, but what then?” Raoden asked, trying the strength of a rope Mareshe had fashioned from some rags. It seemed like it would hold his weight. “Karata wouldn’t be able to find us, but neither would anyone else. People are finally beginning to realize we’re here. If we move now, we’ll never grow.”
Galladon looked pained. “Sule, do we have to grow? Do you have to start another gang? Aren’t three warlords enough?”
Raoden stopped, looking up at the large Dula with concern. “Galladon, is that really what you think I am doing?”
“I don’t know, sule.”
“I have no wish for power Galladon,” Raoden said flatly. “I am worried about life. Not just survival, Galladon, life. These people are dead because they have given up, not because their hearts no longer beat. I am going to change that.”
“Sule
, it’s impossible.”
“So is getting Karata into Iadon’s palace,” Raoden said, pulling the rope into a coil around his arm. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
“What is this?” Karata asked suspiciously.
“It’s the city well,” Raoden explained, peering over the side of the stone lip. The well went deep, but he could hear water moving in the darkness below.
“You expect us to swim out?”
“No,” Raoden said, tying Mareshe’s rope to a rusted iron rod jutting from the well’s side. “We’ll just let the current take us along. More like floating than swimming.”
“That’s insane—that river runs underground. We’ll drown.”
“We can’t drown,” Raoden said. “As my friend Galladon is fond of saying, ‘Already dead. Kolo?’”
Karata didn’t look convinced.
“The Aredel River runs directly underneath Elantris, then continues on to Kae,” Raoden explained. “It runs around the city and past the palace. All we have to do is let it drag us. I’ve already tried holding my breath; I went an entire half hour, and my lungs didn’t even burn. Our blood doesn’t flow anymore, so the only reason we need air is to talk.”
“This could destroy us both,” Karata warned.
Raoden shrugged. “The hunger would just take us in a few months anyway.”
Karata smiled slightly. “All right, Spirit. You go first.”
“Gladly,” Raoden said, not feeling glad about that particular fact at all. Still, it was his idea. With a rueful shake of his head, Raoden swung over the side of the lip and began to lower himself. The rope ran out before he touched water and so, taking a deep but ineffectual breath, he let go.
He splashed into a shockingly cold river. The current threatened to pull him away, but he quickly grabbed hold of a rock and held himself steady, waiting for Karata. Her voice soon sounded in the darkness above.
“Spirit?”
“I’m here. You’re about ten feet above the river—you’ll have to drop the rest of the way.”
“And then?”
“Then the river continues underground—I can feel it sucking me down right now. We’ll just have to hope it’s wide enough the entire distance, otherwise we’ll end up as eternal subterranean plugs.”
“You could have mentioned that before I got down here,” Karata said nervously. However, a splash soon sounded, followed by a quiet groan that ended in a gurgle as something large was sucked past Raoden in the current.
Muttering a prayer to Merciful Domi, Raoden released the rock and let the river drag him beneath its unseen surface.
Raoden did indeed have to swim. The trick was to keep himself in the middle of the river, lest he be slammed against the rock tunnel’s walls. He did his best as he moved in the blackness, using outspread arms to position himself. Fortunately, time had smoothed the rocks to the point that they bruised rather than sliced.
An eternity passed in that silent underworld. It was as if he floated through darkness itself, unable to speak, completely alone. Perhaps this was what death would bring, his soul set adrift in an endless, lightless void.
The current changed, pulling him upward. He moved his arms to brace himself against the stone roof, but they met no resistance. A short moment later his head broke into open air, his wet face cold in the passing wind. He blinked uncertainly as the world focused, starlight and the occasional street lantern granting only dim illumination. It was enough to restore his orientation—and, perhaps, his sanity.
He floated lethargically; the river grew wide after rising to the surface, and the current slowed considerably. He felt a form approach in the water, and he tried to speak, but his lungs were full. He only succeeded in vocalizing a loud, uncontrollable fit of coughing.
A hand clamped around his mouth, cutting off his cough with a gurgle.
“Quiet, fool!” Karata hissed.
Raoden nodded, struggling to control his fit. Perhaps he should have concentrated less on the theological metaphors of the trip, and more on keeping his mouth closed.
Karata released his mouth, but continued to hold on to his shoulder, keeping them together as they drifted past the city of Kae. Its shops were closed for the night, but an occasional guard patrolled the streets. The two continued to float in silence until they reached the northern edge of the city, where Iadon’s castle-like palace rose in the night. Then, still not speaking, they swam to the shore beside the palace.
The palace was a dark, sullen edifice—a manifestation of Iadon’s one insecurity. Raoden’s father was not often afraid; in fact, he was often belligerent when he should have been intelligently apprehensive. The trait had earned him wealth as a businessman trading with the Fjordell, but it had brought him failure as a king. In one thing only was Iadon paranoid: sleeping. The king was terrified that assassins would somehow sneak in and murder him as he slumbered. Raoden remembered well his father’s irrational muttering on the subject each night before retiring. The worries of kingship had only made Iadon worse, causing him to outfit his already fortresslike house with a battalion of guards. The soldiers lived near Iadon’s own quarters to facilitate quick response.
“All right,” Karata whispered, watching uncertainly as guards crossed on the battlements, “you got us out. Now get us in.”
Raoden nodded, trying to drain his sodden lungs as silently as possible—an act not accomplished without a fair bit of muffled retching.
“Try not to cough so much,” Karata advised. “You’ll irritate your throat and make your chest sore, and then you’ll spend eternity feeling like you have a cold.”
Raoden groaned, pushing himself to his feet. “We need to get to the west side,” he said, his voice a croak.
Karata nodded. She walked silently and quickly—much more so than Raoden could manage—like a person well acquainted with danger. Several times she put back her hand in warning, halting their progress just before a squad of guards appeared out of the darkness. Her aptitude gained them the western side of Iadon’s palace without mishap, despite Raoden’s lack of skill.
“Now what?” she asked quietly.
Raoden paused. A question now confronted him. Why did Karata want access to the palace? From what Raoden had heard of her, she didn’t seem like the type to exact revenge. She was brutal, but not vindictive. But, what if he were wrong? What if she did want Iadon’s blood?
“Well?” Karata asked.
I won’t let her kill my father, he decided. No matter how poor a king he is, I won’t let her do that. “You have to answer something for me first.”
“Now?” she asked with annoyance.
Raoden nodded. “I need to know why you want into the palace.”
She frowned in the darkness. “You aren’t in any position to make demands.”
“Nor are you in any position to refuse them,” Raoden said. “All I have to do is raise an alarm, and we’ll both be taken by the guards.”
Karata waited quietly in the darkness, obviously debating whether or not he would do it.
“Look,” Raoden said. “Just tell me one thing. Do you intend to harm the king?”
Karata met his eyes, then shook her head. “My quibble is not with him.”
Do I believe her, or not? Raoden thought. Do I have a choice?
He reached over, pulling back a patch of bushes that abutted the wall; then he threw his weight against one of the stones. The stone sank into the wall with a quiet grinding noise, and a section of ground fell away before them.
Karata raised her eyebrows. “A secret passage? How quaint.”
“Iadon is a paranoid sleeper,” Raoden explained, crawling through the small space between ground and wall. “He had this passage installed to give him one last means of escape should someone attack his palace.”
Karata snorted as she followed him through the hole. “I thought things like this only existed in children’s tales.”
“Iadon likes those tales quite a bit,” Raoden said.
The pass
age widened after a dozen feet, and Raoden felt along the wall until he found a lantern, complete with flint and steel. He kept the shield mostly closed, releasing only a sliver of light, but it was enough to reveal the narrow, dust-filled passage.
“You seem to have quite an extensive knowledge of the palace,” Karata observed.
Raoden didn’t answer, unable to think of a response that wasn’t too revealing. His father had shown the passage to Raoden when he had barely been into his teenage years, and Raoden and his friends had found it an instant and irresistible attraction. Ignoring cautions that the passage was only for emergencies, Raoden and Lukel had spent hours playing inside of it.
The passage seemed smaller now, of course. There was barely enough room for Raoden and Karata to maneuver. “Come,” he said, holding the lantern aloft and inching sideways through the passageway. The trip to Iadon’s rooms took less time than he remembered; it really wasn’t much of a passage, despite what his imagination had claimed. It slanted upward to the second floor at a steep angle, heading straight to Iadon’s room.
“This is it,” Raoden said as they reached the end. “Iadon should be in bed by now, and—despite his paranoia—he is a deep sleeper. Perhaps the one causes the other.” He slid open the door, which was hidden behind a tapestry in the royal sleeping chamber. Iadon’s massive bed was dark and quiet, though the open window provided enough starlight to see that the king was, in fact, present.
Raoden grew tense, eyeing Karata. The woman, however, held to her word: she barely gave the slumbering king a passing glance as she moved through the room and into the outer hallway. Raoden sighed in quiet relief, following her with a less practiced gait of stealth.
The darkened outer hallway connected Iadon’s rooms with those of his guards. The right path led toward the guard barracks; the left led to a guard post, then the rest of the palace. Karata turned away from this option, continuing down the right hallway to the barrack annex, her bare feet making no sound on the stone floor.
Raoden followed her into the barracks, his nervousness returning. She had decided not to kill his father, but now she was sneaking into the most dangerous part of the palace. A single misplaced sound would wake dozens of soldiers.