Elantris

'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, GaIIadon didn't answer.

Raoden continued. 'You taIk 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.

And it had happened only ten years ago. Ten years was not enough. Stone should not crumble after just a decade of neglect. The filth should not have piled up so quickly-not with so few inhabitants, most of whom were incapacitated. It was as if Elantris were intent on dying, a city committing suicide.

'THE market section of Elantris,' Galladon said. 'This place used to be one of the most magnificent marketplaces in the world-merchants came from across Opelon to sell their exotic goods to the Elantrians. A man could also come here to buy the more luxurious Elantrian magics. They didn't give everything away for free. Kolo?'

They stood atop a flat-roofed building; apparently, some Elantrians had preferred flat roofs as opposed to peaks or domes, for the flat sections allowed for rooftop gardens. Before them lay a section of city that looked pretty much the same as the rest of Elantris-dark and falling apart. Raoden could imagine that its streets had once been decorated with the colorful canvas awnings of street vendors, but the only remains of such was the occasional filth-covered rag.

'Can we get any closer?' Raoden asked. leaning over the ledge to look down on the market section.

'You can if you want, stile,' Galladon said speculatively. 'But I'm staying here. Shaor's men are fond of