"We could just let them though to the courtyard, my lord," Saolin suggested hesitantly, grunting slightly as Karata finished her stitching. The woman was proficient; she had met her husband while serving as a nurse for a small mercenary group.
"No," Raoden said. "Even if they didn't kill some of the nobles, the Elantris City Guards would slaughter them."
"Isn't that what we want, sule?" Galladon asked with an evil twinkle in his eyes.
"Definitely not," Raoden said. "I think Princess Sarene has a secondary purpose
behind this Trial of hers. She brings different nobles with her every day, as if she wanted to acclimatize them to Elantris."
"What good would that do?" Karata asked, speaking for the first time as she put away her sewing utensils.
"I don't know," Raoden said. "But it is important to her. If Shaor's men attacked the nobility, it would destroy whatever the princess is trying to accomplish. I've tried to warn her that not all Elantrians are as docile as the ones she's seen, but I don't think she believes me. We'll just have to keep Shaor's men away until Sarene is done."
"Which will be?" Galladon asked.
"Domi only knows," Raoden replied with a shake of his head. 'She won't tell me-she gets suspicious every time I try to probe her for information."
"Well. sule," Galladon said, regarding Saolin's wounded arm. "you'd better find a way to make her stop soon-either that, or prepare her to deal with several dozen ravenous maniacs. Kolo?"
Raoden nodded.
A dot in the center, a line running a few inches above it, and another line running along its right side-Aon Aon, the starting point of every other Aon. Raoden continued to draw, his fingers moving delicately and quickly, leaving luminescent trails behind them. He completed the box around the center dot, then drew two larger circles around it. Aon Tia, the symbol for travel.
Raoden didn't stop here either. He drew two long lines extending from the corners of the box-a proscription that the Aon was to affect only him-then four smaller Aons down the side to delineate the exact distance it was to send him. A series of lines crossing the top instructed the Aon to wait to take effect until he tapped its center, indicating that he was ready.
He made each line or dot precisely: length and size was very important to the calculations. It was still a relatively simple Aon. nothing like the incredibly complex healing Aons that the book described. Still, Raoden was proud of his increasing ability. It had taken him days to perfect the four-Aon series that instructed Tia to transport him precisely ten body lengths away.
He watched the glowing pattern with a smile of satisfaction until it flashed and disappeared, completely ineffective.
"You're getting better, stile," Galladon said, leaning on the windowsill, peering into the chapel.
Raoden shook his head. "I have a long way to go, Galladon."
The Dula shrugged. Galladon had stopped trying to convince Raoden that practicing AonDor was pointless. No matter what else happened, Raoden always spent a few hours each day drawing his Aons. It comforted him-he felt the pain
less when he was drawing Aons, and he felt more at peace during those few short hours than he had in a long time.
"How are the crops?" Raoden asked.
Galladon turned around, looking back at the garden. The cornstalks were still short, barely more than sprouts. Raoden could see their stems beginning to wilt. The last week had seen the disappearance of most of Galladon's workers, and now only the Dula remained to labor on the diminutive farm. Every day he made several treks to the well to bring water to his plants, but he couldn't carry much, and the bucket Sarene had given them leaked.
"They'll live," Galladon said. "Remember to have Karata send for some fertilizer in the next order."
Raoden shook his head. "We can't do that, my friend. The king mustn't find out that we're raising our own food."
Galladon scowled. "Well, I suppose you could order some dung instead." "Too obvious."
"Well, ask for some fish then," he said. "Claim you've gotten a sudden craving for trike."
Raoden sighed, nodding. He should have thought a little more before he put the garden behind his own home: the scent of rotting fish was not something he looked forward to.
"You learned that Aon from the book?" Galladon asked, leaning through the window with a leisurely posture. "What was it supposed to do?"
"Aon Tia?" Raoden asked. "It's a transportation Aon. Before the Reod, that Aon could move a person from Elantris to the other side of the world. The book mentions it because it was one of the most dangerous Aons."
"Dangerous?"
"You have to be very precise about the distance it is to send you. If you tell it to transport you exactly ten feet. it will do so-no matter what happens to be ten feet away. You could easily materialize in the middle of a stone wall."
"You're learning much from the book. then?"
Raoden shrugged. "Some things. Hints, mostly." He flipped back in the book to a page he had marked. "Like this case. About ten years before the Reod, a man brought his wife to Elantris to receive treatment for her palsy. However, the Elantrian healer drew Aon Ien slightly wrong-and instead of just vanishing, the character flashed and bathed the poor woman in a reddish light. She was left with black splotches on her skin and limp hair that soon fell out. Sound familiar?"
Galladon raised an eyebrow in interest.
"She died a short time later," Raoden said. "She threw herself off a building, screaming that the pain was too much."
Galladon frowned. "What did the healer do wrong?"
"It wasn't an error so much as an omission," Raoden said. "He left out one of
the three basic lines. A foolish error, but it shouldn't have had such a drastic effect." Raoden paused, studying the page thoughtfully. "It's almost like…" "Like what, sule?"
"Well, the Aon wasn't completed, right?"
"Kolo."
"So, maybe the healing began, but couldn't finish because its instructions weren't complete," Raoden said. "What if the mistake still created a viable Aonone that could access the Dor, but couldn't provide enough energy to finish what it started?"
"What are you implying, sule?"
Raoden's eyes opened wide. "Thar we aren't dead, my friend."
"No heartbeat. No breathing. No blood. I couldn't agree with you more."
"No, really," Raoden said, growing excited. "Don't you see-our bodies are trapped in some kind of half transformation. The process began, but something blocked it-just like in that woman's healing. The Dor is still within us, waiting for the direction and the energy to finish what it started."
"I don't know that I follow you, sule." Galladon said hesitantly.
Raoden wasn't listening. "That's why our bodies never heal-it's like they're trapped in the same moment in time. Frozen, like a fish in a block of ice. The pain doesn't go away because our bodies think time isn't passing. They're stuck, waiting for the end of their transformation. Our hair falls away and nothing new grows to replace it. Our skin turns black in the spots where the Shaod began. then halted as it ran out of strength."
"It seems like a leap to me, sule," Galladon said.
"It is," Raoden agreed. "But I'm sure it's true. Something is blocking the Dor-I can sense it through my Aons. The energy is trying to get through, bur there's something in the way-as if the Aon patterns are mismatched."
Raoden looked up at his friend. "We're not dead, Galladon, and we're not damned. We're just unfinished."
"Great, sule." Galladon said. "Now you just have to find out why."
Raoden nodded. They understood a little more, but the true mystery-the reason behind Elantris's fall-remained.
"But," the Dula continued, turning to tend to his plants again. "I'm glad the book was of help."
Raoden cocked his head to the side as Galladon walked away. "Wait a minute, Galladon."