Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [269]
His family pulled close to him, Daora and the children having no place to turn now that Kiin was unconscious. Only Adien stood apart, staring at the pile of lumber. He kept mumbling some number to himself.
Lukel searched through the crowd of nobles, trying to smile and give encouragement, though he himself felt little confidence. Elantris would be their grave. As he looked, Lukel noticed a figure standing near the back of the group, hidden by bodies. He was moving slowly, his hands waving in front of himself.
Shuden? Lukel thought. The Jindo’s eyes were closed, his hands moving fluidly in some sort of pattern. Lukel watched his friend with confusion, wondering if the Jindo’s mind had snapped; then he remembered the strange dance that Shuden had done that first day in Sarene’s fencing class. ChayShan.
Shuden moved his hands slowly, giving only a bare hint of the fury that was to come. Lukel watched with growing determination, somehow understanding. Shuden was no warrior. He practiced his dance for exercise, not for combat. However, he was not going to let the ones he loved be murdered without some sort of fight. He would rather die struggling than sit and wait, hoping that fate would send them a miracle.
Lukel took a breath, feeling ashamed. He searched around him, his eyes finding a table leg that one of the soldiers had dropped nearby. When the time came, Shuden would not fight alone.
Raoden floated, senseless and unaware. Time meant nothing to him—he was time. It was his essence. Occasionally he would bob toward the surface of what he had once called consciousness, but as he approached he would feel pain, and back away. The agony was like a lake’s surface: if he broke through it, the pain would return and envelop him.
Those times he got close to the surface of pain, however, he thought he saw images. Visions that might have been real, but were probably just reflections of his memory. He saw Galladon’s face, concerned and angry at the same time. He saw Karata, her eyes heavy with despair. He saw a mountain landscape, covered with scrub and rocks.
It was all immaterial to him.
“I often wish that they’d just let her die.”
Hrathen looked up. Dilaf’s voice was introspective, as if he were talking to himself. However, the priest’s eyes were focused on Hrathen.
“What?” Hrathen asked hesitantly.
“If only they had let her die …” Dilaf trailed off. He sat at the edge of the rooftop, watching the ships gather below, his face reminiscent. His emotions had always been unstable. No man could keep Dilaf’s level of ardor burning for long without doing emotional damage to his mind. A few more years, and Dilaf would probably be completely insane.
“I was already fifty years old back then, Hrathen,” Dilaf said. “Did you know that? I have lived nearly seventy years, though my body doesn’t look older than twenty. She thought I was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, even though my body had been twisted and destroyed to fit the mold of an Arelene.”
Hrathen remained quiet. He had heard of such things, that the incantations of Dakhor could actually change the way a person looked. The process had undoubtedly been very painful.
“When she fell sick, I took her to Elantris,” Dilaf mumbled, his legs pulled tightly against his chest. “I knew it was pagan, I knew it was blasphemous, but even forty years as a Dakhor wasn’t enough to keep me away … not when I thought Elantris could save her. Elantris can heal, they said, while Dakhor cannot. And I took her.”
The monk was no longer looking at Hrathen. His eyes were unfocused. “They changed her,” he whispered. “They said the spell went wrong, but I know the truth. They knew me, and they hated me. Why, then, did they have to put their curse on Seala? Her skin turned black, her hair fell out, and she began to die. She screamed at night, yelling that the pain was eating her from the inside. Eventually she threw