Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [237]
“Did Ashe say when the next supply dump would come?”
“Tonight.”
“Good,” Raoden said. “Did he say if she would come herself?”
“Same stipulations as before, sule,” Galladon said with a shake of his head.
Raoden nodded, keeping the melancholy out of his face. He didn’t know what means Sarene was using to deliver the supplies, but for some reason Raoden and the others weren’t allowed to retrieve the boxes until after their deliverers had gone.
“Stop moping, sule,” Galladon said with a grunt. “It doesn’t suit you—it takes a fine sense of pessimism to brood with any sort of respectability.”
Raoden couldn’t help smiling. “I’m sorry. It just seems that no matter how hard I push against our problems, they just push back equally.”
“Still no progress with AonDor?”
“No,” Raoden said. “I checked older maps with new ones, looking for changes in the coast or the mountain range, but nothing seems to have changed. I’ve tried drawing the basic lines with slightly different slants, but that’s fruitless. The lines won’t appear unless I put them at exactly the right slant—the same slant as always. Even the lake is in the same place, unchanged. I can’t see what is different.”
“Maybe none of the basic lines have changed, sule,” Galladon said. “Perhaps something needs to be added.”
“I considered that—but what? I know of no new rivers or lakes, and there certainly aren’t any new mountains in Arelon.” Raoden finished his Aon—Aon Ehe—with a dissatisfied stroke of his thumb. He looked at the Aon’s center, the core that represented Arelon and its features. Nothing had changed.
Except. When the Reod occurred, the land cracked. “The Chasm!” Raoden exclaimed.
“The Chasm?” Galladon said skeptically. “That was caused by the Reod, Sule, not the other way around.”
“But what if it wasn’t?” Raoden said with excitement. “What if the earthquake came just before the Reod? It caused the crack to the south, and suddenly all of the Aons were invalid—they all needed an extra line to function. All of AonDor, and therefore Elantris, would have fallen immediately.”
Raoden focused on the Aon hanging just before him. With a hesitant hand, he swiped his finger across the glowing character in an approximation of where the Chasm stood. Nothing happened—no line appeared. The Aon flashed and disappeared.
“I guess that is that, sule,” Galladon said.
“No,” Raoden said, starting the Aon again. His fingers whipped and spun. He moved with a speed even he hadn’t realized he’d achieved, re-creating the Aon in a matter of seconds. He paused at the end, hand hovering at the bottom, below the three basic lines. He could almost feel …
He stabbed the Aon and slashed his finger through the air. And a small line streaked across the Aon behind it.
Then it hit him. The Dor attacked with a roaring surge of power, and this time it hit no wall. It exploded through Raoden like a river. He gasped, basking in its power for just a moment. It burst free like a beast that had been kept trapped in a small space for far too long. It almost seemed … joyful.
Then it was gone, and he stumbled, dropping to his knees.
“Sule?” Galladon asked with concern.
Raoden shook his head, unable to explain. His toe still burned, he was still an Elantrian, but the Dor had been freed. He had … fixed something. The Dor would come against him no more.
Then he heard a sound—like that of a burning fire. His Aon, the one he had drawn before him, was glowing brightly. Raoden yelped, gesturing for Galladon to duck as the Aon bent around itself, its lines distorting and twirling in the air until they formed a disk. A thin prick of red light appeared in the disk’s center, then expanded, the burning sounds rising to a clamor. The Aon became a twisting vortex of fire; Raoden could feel the heat as he stumbled