“We should have brought Saolin,” Galladon said quietly.
Raoden shook his head. “Saolin is a wonderful soldier and a good man, but he’s completely lacking in stealth. Even I can hear him approaching. Besides, he would have insisted on bringing a group of his guards. He refuses to believe I can protect myself.”
Galladon glanced at the fallen madman, then back at Raoden with sardonic eyes. “Whatever you say, sule.”
Raoden smiled slightly. “All right,” he admitted, “he might have been useful. However, his men would have insisted on pampering me. Honestly, I thought I’d left that sort of thing behind in my father’s palace.”
“Men protect things they find important,” Galladon said with a shrug. “If you object, you shouldn’t have made yourself so irreplaceable. Kolo?”
“Point taken,” Raoden said with a sigh. “Come on.”
They fell quiet as they continued their infiltration. Galladon had protested for hours when Raoden had explained his plan to sneak in and confront Shaor. The Dula had called it foolhardy, pointless, dangerous, and just plain stupid. He hadn’t, however, been willing to let Raoden go alone.
Raoden knew the plan probably was foolhardy, pointless, and all the other things Galladon said. Shaor’s men would rip them apart without a second thought—probably without even a first thought, considering their mental state. However, during the last week, Shaor’s men had tried to capture the garden three more times. Saolin’s guards were collecting more and more wounds while Shaor’s men seemed to be getting even more feral and wild.
Raoden shook his head. While his troop was growing, most of his followers were physically weak. Shaor’s men, however, were frighteningly strong—and every one of them was a warrior. Their rage gave them strength, and Raoden’s followers couldn’t stand against them for much longer.
Raoden had to find Shaor. If only he could speak with the man, he was sure they could find a compromise. It was said that Shaor himself never went on the raids. Everyone referred to the band as “Shaor’s men,” but no one could ever remember seeing Shaor himself. It was entirely possible that he was just another maniac, indistinguishable from the rest. It was also possible that the man Shaor had joined the Hoed long ago, and the group continued without leadership.
Still, something told him that Shaor was alive. Or, perhaps Raoden simply wanted to believe so. He needed an adversary he could face; the madmen were too scattered to be efficiently defeated, and they outnumbered Raoden’s soldiers by a significant number. Unless Shaor existed, unless Shaor could be swayed, and unless Shaor could control his men, Raoden’s band was in serious trouble.
“We’re close now,” Galladon whispered as they approached one final street. There was movement to one side, and they waited apprehensively until it appeared to have passed on.
“The bank,” Galladon said, nodding to a large structure across the street. It was large and boxy, its walls dark beyond even what the slime normally produced. “The Elantrians maintained the place for the local merchants to keep their wealth. A bank inside Elantris was seen as far more secure than one in Kae.”
Raoden nodded. Some merchants, like his father, hadn’t trusted the Elantrians. Their insistence on storing their fortunes outside of the city had eventually proven wise. “You think Shaor’s in there?” he asked.
Galladon shrugged. “If I were going to choose a base, this would be it. Large, defensible, imposing. Perfect for a warlord.”
Raoden nodded. “Let’s go, then.”
The bank was definitely occupied. The slime around the front door was scuffed by the frequent passing of feet, and they could hear voices coming from the back of the structure. Galladon looked at Raoden inquiringly, and Raoden nodded. They went in.
The inside was as drab as the outside—dull and stale, even for fallen Elantris. The vault door—a large circle etched with a thick Aon Edo—was open, and the voices came from inside. Raoden took a deep breath, ready to confront the last of the gang leaders.
“Bring me food!” wailed a high-pitched voice.
Raoden froze. He craned his neck to the side, peeking into the vault, then recoiled with surprise. At the back of the chamber, sitting on a pile of what appeared to be gold bars, was a young girl in a pristine, unsoiled pink dress. She had long Aonic blond hair, but her skin was black and gray like that of any other Elantrian. Eight men in ragged clothing knelt before her, their arms spread out in adoration.
“Bring me food!” the girl repeated in a demanding voice.
“Well, behead me and see me in Doloken,” Galladon swore behind him. “What is that?”
“Shaor,” Raoden said with amazement. Then his eyes refocused, and he realized that the girl was staring at him.
“Kill them!” Shaor screamed.
“Idos Domi!” Raoden yelped, spinning around and dashing toward the door.
_______
“If you weren’t dead already, sule, I’d kill you,” Galladon said.
Raoden nodded, leaning tiredly against a wall. He was getting weaker. Galladon had warned him it would happen—an Elantrian’s muscles atrophied the most near the end of his first month. Exercise couldn’t stop it. Even though the mind still worked and the flesh did not decay, the body was convinced that it was dead.
The old tricks worked the best—they had eventually lost Shaor’s men by climbing up the side of a broken wall and hiding on a rooftop. The madmen might act like hounds, but they certainly hadn’t acquired a dog’s sense of smell. They had passed by Raoden and Galladon’s hiding place a half-dozen times, and never thought to look up. The men were passionate, but they weren’t very intelligent.
“Shaor is a little girl,” Raoden said, still shocked.
Galladon shrugged. “I don’t understand either, sule.”
“Oh, I understand it—I just can’t believe it. Didn’t you see them kneeling before her? That girl, Shaor, is their god—a living idol. They’ve regressed to a more primitive way of life, and have adopted a primitive religion as well.”
“Be careful, sule,” Galladon warned, “many people called Jesker a ‘primitive’ religion.”
“All right,” Raoden said, gesturing that they should begin moving again. “Perhaps I should have said ‘simplistic.’ They found something extraordinary—a child with long golden hair—and decided that it should be worshipped. They placed it on an altar, and it makes demands of them. The girl wants food, so they get it for her. Then, ostensibly, she blesses them.”
“What about that hair?”
“It’s a wig,” Raoden said. “I recognized her. She was the daughter of one of the most wealthy dukes in Arelon. She never grew hair, so her father had a wig made for her. I guess the priests didn’t think to take it off before throwing her in here.”
“When was she taken by the Shaod?”
“Over two years ago,” Raoden said. “Her father, Duke Telrii, tried to keep the matter quiet. He always claimed she had died of dionia,
but there were a lot of rumors.”
“Apparently all true.”
“Apparently,” Raoden said with a shake of his head. “I only met her a few times. I can’t even recall her name—it was based on Aon Soi, Soine or something like that—I only remember that she was the most spoiled, insufferable child I’d ever met.”
“Probably makes a perfect goddess then,” Galladon said with a sarcastic grimace.
“Well, you were right about one thing,” Raoden said. “Speaking with Shaor isn’t going to work. She was unreasonable on the outside; she’s probably ten times worse now. All she knows is that she’s very hungry, and those men bring her food.”
“Good evening, my lord,” a sentry said as they rounded a corner and approached their section of Elantris—or New Elantris, as the people were starting to call it. The sentry, a stout younger man named Dion, stood up tall as Raoden approached, a makeshift spear held firmly at his side. “Captain Saolin was quite disturbed by your disappearance.”
Raoden nodded. “I’ll be sure to apologize, Dion.”
Raoden and Galladon pulled off their shoes and placed them along the wall next to several other dirty pairs, then put on the clean ones they had left behind. Also present was a bucket of water, which they used to wash off as much of the slime as they could manage. Their clothing was still dirty, but there was nothing else they could do; cloth was rare, despite the numerous scavenging parties Raoden had organized.
It was amazing how much they found. True, most of it was rusted or rotting, but Elantris was enormous. With a little organization—and some motivation—they had discovered a great number of useful items, from metal spearheads to furniture that could still hold weight.
With Saolin’s help, Raoden had sectioned off a marginally defensible section of town to be New Elantris. Only eleven streets led into the area, and there was even a small wall—the original purpose of which baffled them—running along about half of the perimeter. Raoden had placed sentries at the tip of every road to watch for approaching marauders.
The system kept them from being overwhelmed. Fortunately, Shaor’s men tended to attack in small bands. As long as Raoden’s guards could get enough warning, they could gather and defeat any one group. If Shaor ever organized a larger, multidirectional assault, however, the result would be disastrous. Raoden’s band of women, children, and weakened men just couldn’t stand against the feral creatures. Saolin had begun teaching simple combat techniques to those capable, but he could use only the safest and most elementary training methods, lest the combatants’ sparring wounds prove more dangerous than Shaor’s attacks.