Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [175]
Letting them do so was an option, of course. What right had he to keep the others from their peace? Still, Raoden felt that it was too soon to give up on Elantris. In the weeks before Sarene began giving out food, he had seen that Elantris could forget its pains and its hungers. The Elantrians could move beyond their urges—there was an escape for them besides destruction.
But not for him. The pain swelled with each passing day. It drew strength from the Dor, bringing him a little closer to submission with its every assault. Fortunately, he had the books to distract him. He studied them with hypnotic fascination, finally discovering the simple explanations he had sought for so long.
He read how the complex Aon equations worked together. Drawing a line slightly longer in proportion to the rest of an Aon could have drastic effects. Two Aon equations could start the same, but—like two rocks rolled down a mountain on slightly different paths—they could end up doing completely different things. All by changing the length of a few lines.
He began to grasp the theory of AonDor. The Dor was as Galladon had described it: a powerful reservoir just beyond the normal senses. Its only desire was to escape. The books explained that the Dor existed in a place that was full of pressure, and so the energy pushed its way through any viable exit, moving from an area of high concentration to one of low.
However, because of the Dor’s nature, it could enter the physical world only through gates of the proper size and shape. Elantrians could create rifts with their drawings, providing a means for the Dor to escape, and those drawings would determine what form the energy took when it appeared. However, if even one line was of the wrong proportion, the Dor would be unable to enter—like a square trying to force its way through a round hole. Some theorists described the process using unfamiliar words like “frequency” and “pulse length.” Raoden was only beginning to understand how much scientific genius was held in the library’s musty pages.
Still, for all of his studies, he was disappointingly unable to find out what had made AonDor stop working. He could only guess that the Dor had changed somehow. Perhaps now, instead of a square, the Dor was a triangle—and, no matter how many square-shaped Aons Raoden drew, the energy couldn’t get through. What could have led to the Dor’s sudden shift was beyond him.
“How did that get in here?” Galladon asked, interrupting Raoden’s thoughts. The Dula pointed toward the Seon Ien, who floated along the top of a bookshelf, his light casting shadows on the books.
“I don’t know,” Raoden said, watching Ien loop a few times.
“I have to admit, sule. Your Seon is creepy.”
Raoden shrugged. “All of the mad Seons are that way.”
“Yes, but the others generally stay away from people.” Galladon eyed Ien, shivering slightly. The Seon, as usual, didn’t pay any apparent attention to Galladon—though Ien did seem to like staying near Raoden.
“Well, anyway,” Galladon said, “Saolin’s asking for you.”
Raoden nodded, closing his book and rising from the small desk—one of many at the back of the library. He joined Galladon at the doorway. The Dula shot one last, uncomfortable look at Ien before closing the door, locking the Seon in darkness.
“I don’t know, Saolin,” Raoden said hesitantly.
“My lord, we have little choice,” the soldier said. “My men have too many injuries. It would be pointless to stand against Shaor today—the wildmen would barely pause to laugh as they pushed us out of the way.”
Raoden nodded with a sigh. The soldier was right: They couldn’t keep holding Shaor’s men away from Sarene. Though Saolin had grown quite proficient at fighting with his left hand, there just weren’t enough warriors left to protect the courtyard. In addition, it seemed that Shaor’s men were growing more and more dangerous in their ferocity. They could obviously sense that there