Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [21]
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?