Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [150]
Everyone had objected at first. It was unthinkable that she let herself be lured into the bowels of Elantris to meet with despots. Sarene, however, was determined to prove that the city was harmless. She couldn’t very well balk at a short trip inside if she wanted to persuade the other nobles to enter the gates.
“We’re nearly there,” the guide said. He was a taller man, about the same height as Sarene in heels. The gray parts of his skin were a little lighter than those on the other Elantrians she had seen, though she didn’t know if that meant he had been pale-skinned before, or if he had simply been in Elantris a shorter time than the rest. He had an oval face that might have been handsome before the Shaod destroyed it. He wasn’t a servant; he walked with too proud a gait. Sarene guessed that even though he was acting as a simple messenger, he was one of the trusted minions of an Elantris gang leader.
“What is your name?” she asked, careful to keep her tone neutral. He belonged to one of three groups who, according to Ashe’s sources, ruled the city like warlords and enslaved those who were newly cast inside.
The man didn’t respond immediately. “They call me Spirit,” he eventually said.
A fitting name, Sarene thought, for this man who is so much a ghost of what he once must have been.
They approached a large building that the man, Spirit, informed her used to be Elantris’s university. Sarene regarded the building with a critical eye. It was covered with the same odd, brownish green sludge that coated the rest of the city, and while the structure might have once been great, now it was just another ruin. Sarene hesitated as their guide walked into the building. In Sarene’s estimation, the upper floor was seriously considering a collapse.
She shot Eondel a look. The older man was apprehensive, rubbing his chin in thought. Then he shrugged, giving Sarene a nod. We’ve come this far … he seemed to be saying.
So, trying not to think about the sagging ceiling, Sarene led her band of friends and soldiers into the structure. Fortunately, they didn’t have to go far. A group of Elantrians stood near the back of the first room, their dark-skinned faces barely visible in the dim light. Two stood on what appeared to be the rubble of a fallen table, raising their heads a few feet above the others.
“Aanden?” Sarene asked.
“And Karata,” replied the second form—apparently a woman, though her bald head and wrinkled face were virtually indistinguishable from those of a man. “What do you want of us?”
“I was led to believe you two were enemies,” Sarene said suspiciously.
“We recently realized the benefits of an alliance,” Aanden said. He was a short man with cautious eyes, his small face shriveled like that of a rodent. His pompous self-important attitude was about what Sarene had expected.
“And the man known as Shaor?” Sarene asked.
Karata smiled. “One of the aforementioned benefits.”
“Dead?”
Aanden nodded. “We rule Elantris now, Princess. What do you want?”
Sarene didn’t answer immediately. She had been planning to play the three different gang leaders against each other. She would have to present herself differently to a unified enemy. “I want to bribe you,” she said straightforwardly.
The woman raised an eyebrow with interest, but the small man huffed. “What need have we of your bribes, woman?”
Sarene had played this game far too often; Aanden used the uninterested front of a man unaccustomed to serious politics. She had met men like him dozens of times while serving in her father’s diplomatic corps—and she was very tired of them.
“Look,” Sarene said, “let’s be frank—you’re obviously not very good at this, and so extended negotiations would be a waste of time. I want to bring food to the people of Elantris, and you’re going to resist me because you think it will weaken your hold on