The Hope of Elantris

"My lord," Ashe said, hovering in through the window. "Lady
Sarene begs your forgiveness. She's going to be a tad late for
dinner."

"A tad?" Raoden asked, amused as he sat at the table. "Dinner
was supposed to start an hour ago."

Ashe pulsed slightly. "I'm sorry, my lord. But. . .she made me
promise to relay a message if you complained. 'Tell him,' she said,
'that I'm pregnant and it's his fault, so that means he has to do
what I want.'"

Raoden laughed.

Ashe pulsed again, looking as embarrassed as a Seon could,
considering he was simply a ball of light.

Raoden sighed, resting his arms on the table of his palace
inside Elantris. The walls around him glowed with a very faint
light, and no torches or lanterns were necessary. He'd always
wondered about the lack of lantern brackets in Elantris. Galladon
had once explained that there were plates made to glow when
pressed-but they'd both forgotten just how much light had come from
the stones themselves.

He looked down at his empty plate.
We once struggled so hard
for just a little bit of food,
he thought.
Now it's so
commonplace that we can spend an hour dallying before we
eat.

Yet, food was plentiful. Raoden himself could turn garbage into
fine corn. Nobody in Arelon would ever go hungry again. Still,
thinking about such things took his mind back to New Elantris, and
the simple peace he'd forged inside the city.

"Ashe," Raoden said, a thought suddenly occurring to him. "I've
been meaning to ask you something."

"Of course, your majesty."

"Where were you during those last hours before Elantris was
restored?" Raoden asked. "I don't remember anything of you for most
of the night. In fact, the only time I remember seeing you is when
you came to tell me that Sarene had been kidnapped and taken to
Teod."

"That's true, your majesty," Ashe said.

"So, where were you?"

"It is a long story, your majesty," the Seon said, floating down
beside Raoden's chair. "It began when Lady Sarene sent me ahead to
New Elantris, to warn Galladon and Karata that she was sending them
a shipment of weapons. That was just before the monks attacked Kae,
and I went to New Elantris, completely unaware of what was about to
occur. . . ."

#

Matisse took care of the children.

That was her job, in New Elantris. Everyone had to have a job;
that was Spirit's rule. She didn't mind her job-actually, she
rather enjoyed it. She'd been doing it for longer than Spirit had
been around. Ever since Dashe had found her and taken her back to
Karata's palace, Matisse had been watching after the little ones.
Spirit's rules just made it official.

Yes, she enjoyed the duty. Most of the time.

"Do we really have to go to bed, Matisse?" Teor asked, giving
her his best wide-eyed look. "Can't we stay up, just this
once?"

Matisse folded her arms, raising a hairless eyebrow at the
little boy. "You had to go to bed yesterday at this time," she
noted. "And the day before. And, actually, the day before that. I
don't see why you think today should be any different."

"Something's going on," said Tiil, stepping up beside his
friend. "The adults are all drawing Aons."

Matisse glanced out the window. The children-the fifty or so of
them beneath her care-stayed in an open-windowed building dubbed
the "Roost" because of the intricate carvings of birds on most of
its walls. The Roost was located near the center of the
city-within-a-city-close to Spirit's own home, the Korathi Chapel
where he held most of his important meetings. The adults wanted to
keep a close watch on the children.

Unfortunately, that meant that the children could also keep a
close watch on the adults. Outside the window, flashes of light
sparked from hundreds of fingers drawing Aons in the air. It was
late-far later than the children should have been up-but it had
been particularly difficult to get them to bed this night.

Tiil is right,
she thought.
Something
is
going on.
That, however, was no reason to let him stay
up-especially because the longer he stayed awake, the longer it
would be before she'd be able to go out and investigate the
commotion herself.

"It's nothing," Matisse said, looking back at the children.
Though some of them had begun to bed down in their brightly-colored
sheets, many had perked up, and were watching Matisse deal with the
two trouble-makers.

"Doesn't look like 'nothing' to me," Teor said.

"Well," Matisse said, sighing. "They're writing Aons. If you're
that interested, I suppose that we could make an exception and let
you stay up. . .assuming you want to practice writing Aons. I'm
sure we could fit in another school lesson tonight."

Teor and Tiil both paled. Drawing Aons was what one did in
school-something that Spirit had forced them to begin attending
again. Matisse smiled slyly to herself as the two boys backed
away.

"Oh, come now," she said. "Go get your quills and paper. We
could draw Aon Ashe a hundred or so times."

The boys got the hint and slipped back to their respective beds.
On the other side of the room, several of the other workers were
moving among the children, making certain that they were sleeping.
Matisse did likewise.

"Matisse," a voice said. "I can't sleep."

Matisse turned toward where a young girl was sitting up in her
bedroll. "How do you know, Riika?" Matisse said, smiling slightly.
"We just put you to bed-you haven't tried to sleep yet."

"I know I won't be able to," the little girl said pertly. "Mai
always tells me a story before I sleep. If he doesn't, I can't
sleep."

Matisse sighed. Riika rarely slept well-especially on nights
when she asked for her Seon. It had, of course, gone mad when Riika
had been taken by the Shaod.

"Lay down, dear," Matisse said soothingly. "See if sleep
comes."

"It won't," Riika said, but she did lay down.

Matisse made the rest of her rounds, then walked to the front of
the room. She glanced over the huddled forms-many of which were
still shuffling and moving-and acknowledged that she felt their
same apprehensiveness. Something was wrong with this night. Lord
Spirit had disappeared, and while Galladon told them not to worry,
Matisse found it a foreboding sign.

"What
are
they doing out there?" Idotris whispered
quietly from beside her.

Matisse glanced outside, where many the adults were standing
around Galladon, drawing the Aons in the night.

"Aons don't work," Idotris said. The teenage boy was, perhaps,
two years older than Matisse-not that such things really mattered
in Elantris, where everyone's skin was the same blotchy grey, their
hair limp or simply gone. The Shaod tended to make ages difficult
to determine.

"That's no reason not to practice Aons," Matisse said. "There's
a power to them. You can see it."

Indeed, there was a power behind the Aons. Matisse had always
been able to feel it-raging behind them lines of light drawn in the
air.

Idotris snorted. "Useless," he said, folding his arms.

Matisse smiled. She wasn't certain if Idotris was
always
so grumpy, or if he just tended to be that way when
he worked at the Roost. He didn't seem to like the fact that he, as
a young teenager, had been regulated to child-care instead of being
allowed to join Dashe's soldiers.

"Stay here," she said, wandering out of the Roost toward the
open courtyard where the adults were standing.

Idotris just grunted in his usual way, sitting down to make
certain none of the children snuck out of the sleeping room,
nodding to a few other teenage boys who had finished seeing to
their charges.

Matisse wandered through the open streets of New Elantris. The
night was crisp, but the cold didn't bother Matisse. That was one
of the advantages of being an Elantrian.

She seemed to be one of the few that could see things that way.
The others didn't look at being an Elantrian as an 'advantage,' no
matter what Lord Spirit said. To Matisse, however, his words made
sense. But, perhaps that had to do with her situation. On the
outside, she'd been a beggar-she'd spent her life being ignored and
feeling useless. Yet, inside of Elantris she was needed. Important.
The children looked up to her, and she didn't have to worry about
begging or stealing food.

True, things had been fairly bad before Karata had found her in
a sludge-filled alley. And, there were the wounds. Matisse had one
on her cheek-a cut she'd gotten soon after entering Elantris. It
still burned with the same pain it had the moment she'd gotten it.
Yet, that was a small price to pay. At Karata's palace, Matisse had
found her first real taste of usefulness. That sense of belonging
had only grown stronger when Matisse-along with the rest of
Karata's band-had moved to New Elantris.

Of course, there was something else she'd gained by getting
thrown into Elantris: a father.

Dashe turned, smiling in the lanternlight as she saw her
approach. He wasn't her real father, of course. She'd been an
orphan even before the Shaod had taken her. And, like Karata, Dashe
was kind of a 'parent' to all of the children they'd found and
brought to the palace.

Yet, Dashe seemed to have a special affection for Matisse. The
stern warrior smiled more when Matisse was around, and she was the
one he called on when he needed something important done. One day,
she'd simply started calling him Father. He'd never objected.

He laid a hand on her shoulder as she joined him at the very
edge of the courtyard. In front of them, a hundred or so people
moved their arms in near unison. Their fingers left glowing lines
in the air behind them-the trails of light that had once produced
the magics of AonDor. Galladon stood at the front of the group,
shouting out instructions in his loose Dula drawl.

"Never thought I'd see the day when that Dula taught people
Aons," Dashe said quietly, his other hand resting on the pommel of
his sword.

He's tense too
, Matisse thought. She looked up. "Be
nice, Father. Galladon is a good man."

"He's a good man, perhaps," Dashe said. "But he's no scholar. He
messes up the lines more than not."

Matisse didn't point out that Dashe himself was pretty terrible
when it came to drawing Aons. She eyed Dashe, noting the frown on
his lips. "You're mad that Spirit hasn't come back yet," she
said.

Dashe nodded. "He should be here, with his people, not chasing
that woman."

"There might be important things for him to learn outside,"
Matisse said quietly. "Things to do with other nations and
armies."

"The outside doesn't concern us," Dashe said. He could be a
stubborn one, at times.

Well, most times, actually.

At the front of the crowd, Galladon spoke. "Good," he said.
"That's Aon Daa-the Aon for power. Kolo? Now, we have to practice
adding the Chasm Line. We won't add it to Aon Daa. Don't want to
blow holes in our pretty sidewalks now, do we? We'll practice it on
Aon Rao instead-that one doesn't seem to do anything
important."

Matisse frowned. "What's he talking about, Father?"

Dashe shrugged. "Seems that Spirit believes the Aons might work
now, for some reason. We've been drawing them wrong all along, or
something like that. I can't see how the scholars who designed them
could have missed an entire line for every Aon, though."

Matisse doubted that scholars had ever 'designed' the Aons.
There was just something to. . .primal about them. They were things
of nature. They hadn't been designed-any more than the wind had
been designed.

Still, she said nothing. Dashe was a kind and determined man,
but he didn't have much of a mind for scholarship. That was fine
with Matisse-it had been Dashe's sword, in part, that had saved New
Elantris from destruction at the hands of the wildmen. There was no
finer warrior in all of New Elantris than her father.

Yet, she did watch with curiosity as Galladon talked about the
new line. It was a strange one, drawn across the bottom of the
Aon.

And. . .this makes the Aons work?
She thought. It
seemed like such a simple fix. Could it be possible?

The sound of a cleared throat came from behind them, and they
turned, Dashe nearly pulling his sword.

A Seon hung in the air behind them. Not one of the mad ones that
floated madly about Elantris, but a sane one, glowing with a full
light.

"Ashe!" Matisse said happily.

"Lady Matisse," Ashe said, bobbing in the air.

"I'm no lady!" she said. "You know that."

"The title has always seemed appropriate to me, Lady Matisse,"
he said. "Lord Dashe. Is Lady Karata nearby?"

"She's in the library," Dashe said, taking his hand off the
sword.

Library?
Matisse thought.
What library?

"Ah," Ashe said in his deep voice. "Perhaps I can deliver my
message to you, then, as Lord Galladon appears to be busy."

"If you wish," Dashe said.

"There is a new shipment coming, my lord," Ashe said quietly.
"Lady Sarene wished that you be made aware of it quickly, as it is
of an. . .important nature."

"Food?" Matisse asked.

"No, my lady," Ashe said. "Weapons."

Dashe perked up. "Really?"

"Yes, Lord Dashe," the Seon said.

"Why would she send those?" Matisse asked, frowning.

"My mistress is worried," Ashe said quietly. "It seems that
tensions are growing on the outside. She said. . .well, she wants
New Elantris to be prepared, just in case."

"I'll gather some men immediately," Dashe said, "and go collect
the weapons."

Ashe bobbed, indicating that he thought this to be a good idea.
As her father walked off, Matisse eyed the Seon, a thought
occurring to her. Maybe. . . .