Fortunately, sneaking down a stone hallway didn’t require much skill. Karata quietly opened any doors in their path, leaving them open enough that Raoden didn’t even have to move them to slip through.
The dark hallway joined with another, this one lined with doors—the quarters of the lesser officers, as well as those guards allowed room to raise a family. Karata picked a door. Inside was the single room allotted to a married guard’s family; starlight illuminated a bed by one wall and a dresser beside the other.
Raoden fidgeted anxiously, wondering if all this had been so Karata could procure herself a sleeping guard’s weapons. If so, she was insane. Of course, sneaking into a paranoid king’s palace wasn’t exactly a sign of mental stability.
As Karata moved into the room, Raoden realized that she couldn’t have come to steal the guard’s accouterments—he wasn’t there. The bed was empty, its sheets wrinkled with a slept-in look. Karata stooped beside something that Raoden hadn’t noticed at first: a mattress on the floor, occupied by a small lump that could only have been a sleeping child, its features and sex lost to Raoden in the darkness. Karata knelt beside the child for a quiet moment.
Then she was done, motioning Raoden out of the room and closing the door behind her. Raoden raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Karata nodded. They were ready to go.
The escape was accomplished in the reverse order of the incursion. Raoden went first, sliding through the still open doors, and Karata followed, pulling them closed behind her. In all, Raoden was relieved at how easily the night was going—or, at least, he was relieved right up to the moment when he slipped through the door to that final hallway outside Iadon’s chamber.
A man stood on the other side of the door, his hand frozen in the act of reaching for the doorknob. He regarded them with a startled expression.
Karata pushed past Raoden. She wrapped her arm around the man’s neck, clamping his mouth closed in a smooth motion, then grabbed his wrist as he reached for the sword at his side. The man, however, was larger and stronger than Karata’s weakened Elantrian form, and he broke her grip, blocking her leg with his own as she tried to trip him.
“Stop!” Raoden snapped quietly, his hand held before him menacingly.
Both of their eyes flickered at him in annoyance, but then they stopped struggling as they saw what he was doing.
Raoden’s finger moved through the air, an illuminated line appearing behind it. Raoden continued to write, curving and tracing until he had finished a single character. Aon Sheo, the symbol for death.
“If you move,” Raoden said quietly, “you will die.”
The guard’s eyes widened in horror. The Aon sat glowing above his chest, casting harsh light on the otherwise caliginous room, throwing shadows across the walls. The character flashed as they always did, then disappeared. However, the light had been enough to illuminate Raoden’s black-spotted Elantrian face.
“You know what we are.”
“Merciful Domi …” the man whispered.
“That Aon will remain for the next hour,” Raoden lied. “It will hang where I drew it, unseen, waiting for you to so much as quiver. If you do, it will destroy you. Do you understand?”
The man didn’t move, sweat beading on his terrified face.
Raoden reached down and undid the man’s sword belt, then tied the weapon around his own waist.
“Come,” Raoden said to Karata.
The woman still squatted next to the wall where the guard had pushed her, regarding Raoden with an indecipherable look.
“Come,” Raoden repeated, a bit more urgently.
Karata nodded, regaining her composure. She pulled open the king’s door, and the two of them vanished the way they had come.
“He didn’t recognize me,” Karata said to herself, her voice amused yet sorrowful.
“Who?” Raoden asked. The two of them squatted in the doorway of a shop near the middle of Kae, resting for a moment before continuing their trek back to Elantris.
“That guard. He was my husband, during another life.”
“Your husband?”
Karata nodded. “We lived together for twelve years, and now he’s forgotten me.”
Raoden did some quick connecting of events. “That means the room we entered …”
“That was my daughter,” Karata said. “I doubt anyone ever told her what happened to me. I just … wanted her to know.”
“You left her a note?”
“A note and a keepsake,” Karata explained with a sad voice, though no tears could fall from her Elantrian eyes. “My necklace. I managed to sneak it past the priests a year ago. I wanted her to have it—I always intended to give it to her. They took me so quickly…. I never said goodbye.”
“I know,” Raoden said putting his arm around the woman comfortingly. “I know.”
“It takes them all from us. It takes everything, and leaves us with nothing.” Her voice was laced with vehemence.
“As Domi wills.”
“How can you say that?” she demanded harshly. “How can you invoke His name after all that He has done to us?”
“I don’t know,” Raoden confessed, feeling inadequate. “I just know we need to keep going, as everyone does. At least you got to see her again.”
“Yes,” Karata said. “Thank you. You have done me a great service this night, my prince.”
Raoden froze.
“Yes, I know you. I lived in the palace for years, with my husband, protecting your father and your family. I watched you from your childhood, Prince Raoden.”
“You knew all this time?”
“Not the entire time,” Karata said. “But for enough of it. Once I figured it out, I couldn’t decide whether to hate you for being related to Iadon, or to be satisfied that justice took you as well.”
“And your decision?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Karata said, wiping her dry eyes by reflex. “You fulfilled your bargain admirably. My people will leave you alone.”
“That’s not enough, Karata,” Raoden said, standing up.
“You would demand more beyond our bargain?”
“I demand nothing, Karata,” Raoden said, offering his hand to help her to her feet. “But you know who I am, and you can guess what I am trying to do.”
“You’re like Aanden,” Karata said. “You think to lord over Elantris as your father rules the rest of this cursed land.”
“People certainly are quick to judge me today,” Raoden said with a wry smile. “No, Karata, I don’t want to ‘lord over’ Elantris. But I do want to help it. I see a city full of people feeling sorry for themselves, a people resigned to seeing themselves as the rest of the world sees them. Elantris doesn’t have to be the pit that it is.”
“How can you change that?” Karata demanded. “As long as food is scarce, the people will fight and destroy to sate their hunger.”
“Then we’ll just have to fill them,” Raoden said.
Karata snorted.
Raoden reached inside a pocket he had formed in his ragged clothing. “Do you recognize this, Karata?” he asked, showing her a small cloth pouch. It was empty, but he kept it as a reminder of his purpose.
Karata’s eyes blazed with desire. “It held food.”
“What kind?”
“It’s one of the pouches of corn that is part of the sacrifice that comes with a new Elantrian,” Karata said.
“Not just corn, Karata,” Raoden said holding up a finger. “Seed corn. Part of the ceremony requires that a grain offering be plantable.”
“Seed corn?” Karata whispered.
“I’ve been collecting it from the newcomers,” Raoden explained. “The rest of the offerings don’t interest me—only the corn. We can plant it, Karata. There aren’t that many people in Elantris; it wouldn’t be hard to feed them all. Goodness knows we have enough free time to work a garden or two.”
Karata’s eyes were wide with shock. “No one’s ever tried that before,” she said, dumbfounded.
Karata looked up from the small pouch to Raoden’s face. “Amazing,” she mumbled.
“Come on,” Raoden said, tucking the pouch away, then hiding the stolen sword beneath his rags. “We’re almost to the gate.”
“How do you intend to get us back in?”
“Just watch.”
As they walked, Karata paused beside a dark home.
“What?” Raoden asked.
Karata pointed. On the window, inside the glass, sat a loaf of bread.
Suddenly, Raoden felt his own hunger stab sharply at his insides. He couldn’t blame her—even in the palace, he’d been watching for something to swipe.
“We can’t take that chance, Karata,” Raoden said.
Karata sighed. “I know. It’s just that … we’re so close.”
“All the shops are closed, all the houses locked,” Raoden said. “We’ll never find any.”
Karata nodded, lethargically moving again. They turned a corner and approached the broad gate to Elantris. A squat building sat beside it, light pouring from the windows. Several guards lounged inside, their brown-and-yellow Elantris City Guard uniforms bright in the lamplight. Raoden approached the building and tapped on a window with the back of his fist.
“Excuse me,” he said politely, “but would you mind opening the gates please?”
The guards, who had been playing a game of cards, threw back their chairs in alarm, shouting and cursing as they recognized his Elantrian features.
“Be quick about it,” Raoden said airily. “I’m getting tired.”
“What are you doing out?” one of the guards—an officer by appearances—demanded as his men piled out of the building. Several of them pointed their wicked spears at Raoden’s chest.
“Trying to get back in,” Raoden said impatiently.
One of the guards raised his spear.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Raoden said. “Not unless you want to explain how you managed to kill an Elantrian outside of the gates. You are supposed to keep us in—it would be quite an embarrassment if the people found out that we were escaping beneath your noses.”
“How did you escape?” the officer asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Raoden said. “Right now, you should probably put us back in the city before we wake the entire neighborhood and start a panic. Oh, and I wouldn’t get too close to me. The Shaod is, after all, highly contagious.”
The guards backed away at his words. Watching Elantris was one thing; being confronted by a talking corpse was another. The officer, uncertain what else to do, ordered the gates opened.
“Thank you, my good man,” Raoden said with a smile. “You’re doing a wonderful job. We’ll have to see if we can get you a raise.” With that, Raoden held out his arm to Karata and strolled through the gates to Elantris as if the soldiers were his personal butlers, rather than prison guards.
Karata couldn’t help snickering as the gate closed behind them. “You made it sound as if we wanted to be in here. Like it was a privilege.”
“And that is exactly the way we should feel. After all, if we’re going to be confined to Elantris, we might as well act as if it were the grandest place in the entire world.”
Karata smiled. “You have a measure of defiance in you, my prince. I like that.”
“Nobility is in one’s bearing as much as it is in one’s breeding. If we act like living here is a blessing, then maybe we’ll start to forget how pathetic we think we are. Now, Karata, I want you to do some things for me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t tell anyone who I am. I want loyalty in Elantris based on respect, not based on my title.”
“All right.”
“Second, don’t tell anyone about the passage into town through the river.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too dangerous,” Raoden said. “I know my father. If the guards start finding too many Elantrians in the city, he’ll come and destroy us. The only way Elantris is going to progress is if it becomes self-sufficient. We can’t risk sneaking into the city to support ourselves.”
Karata listened, then nodded in the affirmative. “All right.” Then she paused in thought for a moment. “Prince Raoden, there’s something I want to show you.”
The children were happy. Though most slept, a few were awake, and they giggled and played with one another. They were all bald, of course, and they bore the marks of the Shaod. They didn’t seem to mind.
“So this is where they all go,” Raoden said with interest.
Karata led him farther into the room, which was buried deep within the palace of Elantris. Once, this building had housed the leaders elected by the Elantrian elders. Now it hid a playroom for babes.
Several men stood watchful guard over the children, eyeing Raoden with suspicion. Karata turned toward him. “When I first came to Elantris, I saw the children huddled in the shadows, frightened of everything that passed, and I thought of my own little Opais. Something within my heart healed when I began to help them—I gathered them, showed them a little bit of love, and they clung to me. Every one of the men and women you see here left a little child back on the outside.”
Karata paused, affectionately rubbing a small Elantrian child on the head. “The children unite us, keep us from giving in to the pain. The food we gather is for them. Somehow, we can endure the hunger a little better if we know it has come, in part, because we gave what we had to the children.”
“I wouldn’t have thought …” Raoden began quietly, watching a pair of young girls playing a clapping game together.
“That they would be happy?” Karata finished. She motioned for Raoden to follow her and they moved back, out of the children’s hearing range. “We don’t understand it either, my prince. They seem better at dealing with the hunger than the rest of us.”
“A child’s mind is a surprisingly resilient thing,” Raoden said.
“They seem to be able to endure a certain amount of pain as well,” Karata continued, “bumps and bruises and the like. However, they eventually snap, just like everyone else. One moment a child is happy and playful. Then he falls down or cuts himself one to many times, and his mind gives up. I have another room, kept far away from these little ones, filled with dozens of children who do nothing but whimper all day.”
Raoden nodded. Then, after a moment, he asked, “Why are you showing me this?”
Karata paused. “Because I want to join with you. I once served your father, despite what I thought of him. Now I will serve his son because of what I think of him. Will you accept my loyalty?”
“With honor, Karata.”
She nodded, turning back to the children with a sigh. “I don’t have much left in me, Lord Raoden,” she whispered. “I’ve worried what would happen to my children when I am lost. This dream you have, this crazy idea of an Elantris where we grow food and we ignore our pain … I want to see you try to create it. I don’t think you can, but I think you will make something better of us in the process.”
“Thank you,” Raoden said, realizing that he had just accepted a monumental responsibility. Karata had lived for over a year under the burden he was just beginning to feel. She was tired; he could see it in her eyes. Now, if the time came, she could rest. She had passed her weight on to him.
“Thank you,” Karata said, looking at the children.
“Tell me, Karata,” Raoden said after a moment of thought. “Would you really have broken my people’s limbs?”
Karata didn’t respond at first. “You tell me, my prince. What would you have done if I’d tried to kill your father tonight?”
“Questions both better left unanswered.”
Karata nodded, her tired eyes bearing a calm wisdom.
_______
Raoden smiled as he recognized the large figure standin
g outside of the chapel, waiting for him to return. Galladon’s concerned face was illuminated by the tiny flame of his lantern.
“A light to guide me home, my friend?” Raoden asked from the darkness as he approached.
“Sule!” Galladon cried. “By Doloken, you’re not dead?”
“Of course I am,” Raoden said with a laugh, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “We all are—at least, that’s what you seem to be fond of telling me.”
Galladon grinned. “Where’s the woman?”
“I walked her home, as any gentleman would,” Raoden said, entering the chapel. Inside, Mareshe and the others were rousing.
“Lord Spirit has returned!” Saolin said with enthusiasm.
“Here, Saolin, a gift,” Raoden said, pulling the sword out from under his rags and tossing it to the soldier.
“What is this, my lord?” Saolin asked.
“That spear is amazing considering what you had to work with,” Raoden said, “but I think you ought to have something a little more sturdy if you intend to do any real fighting.”
Saolin pulled the blade free of its scabbard. The sword, nothing special on the outside, was a wondrous work of beauty within the confines of Elantris. “Not a spot of rust on her,” Saolin said with amazement. “And it is engraved with the symbol of Iadon’s own personal guard!”
“Then the king is dead?” Mareshe asked eagerly.
“Nothing of the sort,” Raoden said dismissively. “Our mission was of a personal nature, Mareshe, and it did not involve killing—though the guard who owned that sword is probably fairly angry.”
“I’ll bet,” Galladon said with a snort. “Then we don’t have to worry about Karata anymore?”
“No,” Raoden said with a smile. “As a matter of fact, her gang will be joining with us.”
There were a few mutters of surprise at the announcement, and Raoden paused before continuing. “Tomorrow we’re going to visit the palace sector. Karata has something there I want you all to see—something everyone in Elantris should see.”
“What is that, sule?” Galladon asked.
“Proof that the hunger can be defeated.”
Elantris Page 20