Elantris 63: Raoden

Raoden and Sarene get married. They live happily ever after, though, even as his bride walks up the aisle, Raoden is troubled that Wryn is learning to tap the Dor in another way with his super powered monks. Luckily, Shuden also seems to be able to tap the Dor by doing a fancy dance. Probably there are all kinds of new magics to rediscover. What about those Mysteries?

Elantris 62: Sarene, Hrathen, Raoden and Dilaf

Sarene has a chat with Hrathen, wondering at his change of heart but not learning much. Then Fjon, the priest Hrathen expelled when he arrived in Arelon, turns up out of nowhere and sticks a sword in Hrathen. Turns out he ended up being trained as an assassin. So that's the end of Hrathen. Then Dilaf turns up.

Meanwhile back in Arelon Raoden finishes healing people and then decides he has to teleport to Teod to rescue Sarene. At least he's surprised she got there so fast, I was beginning to think it was only me. Anyway it's really dangerous to teleport without typing in the correct distance, and this is where Adien finally comes in handy: he know exactly how many steps it is! Also since becoming an Elantrian he has regained is full mental faculties.

Raoden turns up just in the nick of time to save Sarene but he only slows Dilaf down. He can't teleport them home because the magic is weak this far from home. Dilaf has hundreds of monks attack them. Just in the nick of time Galladon turns up with hundreds of Elantrians. The Elantrians win but Dilaf escapes to attack Sarene's father. Raoden pursues and fights Dilaf but is injured. Just in the nick of time Sarene turns up to help but she gets injured, too. Just in the nick of time Hrathen, who is apparently not dead and has a bionic arm, turns up and snaps Dilaf's neck with his bionic arm before dropping dead for real this time.

Just in the nick of time Galladon shows up and heals Raoden and Sarene. They live happily ever after.

Elantris 61: Hrathen, Raoden, Lukel, Sarene, Galladon and Dilaf

Dilaf is about to stick his dagger into Sarene's neck, but Hrathen has finally had enough. He's realised he's a baddie, and doesn't want to continue. So he punches Dilaf in the face and fights off another ninja monk and grabs Sarene and runs off. It turns out the superhuman ninja monks are not as formindable when they don't have the element of surprise and you do, and when you know what you are dealing with and its weak spots, and when you are wearing armour that looks like ceremonial armour but is in fact real armour.

Hrathen and Sarene make their escape.

Meanwhile Lukas and family are watching as the Fjordells set fire to the Elantrians and Raoden is climbing back out of the lake, becuase luckilky it doesn't dissolve you unless you want to be dissolved, and Raoden has changed his mind. He goes running off down the hill and Galladon and Karata follow. They realise Raoden must be doing something important so they fight off some guards who would otherwise have stopped him. Karata gets her head chopped off and Galladon gets a sword stuck in him.

Just in the nick of time Raoden draws the right Aon in the right place and reboots the Elantrian Magic Machine, complete with a cinematic light show. Hurray! The Elantrians now turn into proper Elantrians and instantly heal. It's probably too late for poor Karata, though. Raoden goes into the city and tells the Fjordells to leave within the hour.

None of this is going to help Sarene much, because she is in another city still on the run. And Dilaf is in pursuit.

Elantris 60: Galladon, Lukel, Hrathen and Raoden

It turns out Galladon and Karata are nearby lurking in the shadows and they have been watching in horror. But all they can do is carry Raoden to the lake. There's no hope from anyone else in Elantris, either, because Galladon has seen that everyone there is already Hoed.

Meanwhile Kiin and his family are being marched off to Elantris with all the other nobles to be burned.

To be honest, this was always going to happen. Arelon had a warlike neighbour invading every nearby country and didn't even bother to maintain a decent military to defend itself. This is why pacifism doesn't work: sometimes the war comes to you. They had an effective defense in the form of Elantrian technology, but when that stopped working they didn't replace it with anything.

Aiden is counting the steps to Elantris. This has to be significant. I thought it was significant when we first found out that Kiin had an autistic son: he's either going to turn out to have some superpower or else some great insight that will kickstart the magic.

Sarene, Hrathen, Dilaf and some of the superhuman monks teleport to Teoras. Where did that ability come from? It's pretty expensive because, like all good dark magic, it requires a human sacrifice, but still, you'd think someone would have mentioned it. Or be more surprised if it had been kept a secret. Maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Dilaf is doing that other bad guy thing of smugly assuming he has already won; that Arelon and Elantris have already been defeated. But he's not in Arelon any more so anything could be happening there and probably is.

Galladon tries to give up hope but can't. He's carrying Raoden to the pool. He's just watched all his friends get hacked to pieces. Even I'm stuggling to figure out what hope there might be, though.

Aiden continues to mumble numbers, Sanderson tells us yet again. HINT HINT WINK WINK. Most of the super monks have teleported away so it's mostly just regular soldiers guarding the prisoners. Dilaf really is doing dumb bad guy stuff. Lukel is planning to start fihgting back and Shuden is there too but it's going to take more than two guys.

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Dilaf has a heart to heart with Hrathen. It turns out that his girlfriend was the legendary woman whose healing was botched once. That's why he has such a chip on his shoulder about Elantris. Dilaf is 70 years old but looks 20. Hrathen was confused earlier about why he seemed so wily for one so young. Probably we could have figured out he was a super monk back then.

Galladon and Karata reach the lake. They are going to wait a minute then kill Raoden and themselves in the lake. Something needs to happen soon to stop them.

Lukel watches as soldiers make a pile of Elantrian bodies. It turns out Aiden is an Elantrian and Kiin and family have been keeping this a secret for years. A soldier wounds him and Aiden goes and joins the pile of Elantrians. That would seem to rule out Aiden somehow saving everyone. Unless he can do some Elantrian magic at the last minute.

Hrathen and Dilaf realise they were at the monastery together, and Dilaf was in charge even back then. Hrathen left after Dilaf used a human sacrifice to teleport himself the distance of a short walk. Will Hrathen stand up to Dilaf now? Will it do any good? Wryn's ships have arrived and the Teo ships are all docked so Dilaf thinks he has won again.

Raoden, who has been dreaming, has a vision of his namesake Aon and realises it is the same shape as Elantris and the four surounding cities. He has a Eureka moment but we will have to wait and see what it is.

Lukel watches soldiers pour oil over the Hoed Elantrians.

Dilaf and Hrathen go to see Eventeo with Sarene. Dilaf decides to kill her in front of her father.

Raoden knows the answer. But we don't! And now it is too late because Raoden is in the pool! Argh! Can he do something in the last few seconds before he disappears?

Elantris 59: Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen

Raoden finds himself slung over the back of a horse and taken off to Kiin's house to lure Sarene out. He's not in a good way. He's been hit on the head and he's in a lot of pain and is dizzy. Which means he's going to be in a lot of pain and dizzy forever, magical miracle rescue notwithstanding.

Sarene is determined not to put her family at risk to save Raoden, but thinks the least she can do is go to the roof to see him and say goodbye. Unfortunately Dilaf and his ninjas overcome Kiin's moat and they scale the walls and snatch Sarene and family right off the roof.

Dilaf phones up Sarene's dad and tells him he's holding his daughter hostage. Dilaf tells him he's about to pay him a visit by private jet (or some other fast travel system, presumably, because I don't see how else he can get to Teoras in one hour. Nobody seems surprised by this but perhaps they are distracted by the ultimatum: surrender or the girl gets it. Dilaf then does the typical bad guy thing and explains the whole plan: kill the royal family and sink the ships, then use Teod as a demonstration of power.

Dilaf sticks his sword into Raoden's belly and Raoden is now Hoed. Turns out this isn't quite as bad as it might have been, since he does at least lose conciousness.

Dilaf orders his men to take all the people to Elantris and burn everytone.

It's not looking good, is it? Galladon or someone had better have someting up their sleeve.

Elantris 58: Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen

Raoden is back in Roial's house. Shouldn't he be at the palace now? Anyway, he wakes to the sound of fighting in the city, and what's worse, Dilaf in his house with a bunch of demon soldiers. It looks like these are superhuman ninja priests with armoured bare chests. They fight off Raoden's guards without getting scratched and capture Raoden.

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Sarene is out arranging deliveries of weapons to Elantris because they're concerned about upcoming unrest due to Raoden becoming king. Little does she know she's about to be attacked by marauding superhuman ninja monks. The demons are running around slaughtering everyone in sight. The see Sarene. Her coachman is killed. She makes a run for Kiin's house but is caught.

Luckily, it turns out that Kiin is more of a total badass than his friendly merchant-chef persona lets on. Kiin the axe wielding hero actually manages to kill one of the monsters, though it takes a lot of effort. They escape to his house where all their friends are hiding (including Shuden and the previously missing Torena) and collapse the bridge. We finally learn why Sarene's dad doesn't like his brother: it turns out Eventeo stole the throne from his older brother while Kiin was off partying. So Kiin became the pirate Dreok Crushedthroat and learnt very useful fighting skills in the process.

Presumably Sarene is about to start worrying about Raoden but the viewpoint changes to Hrathen, who is learning all about Dilaf. It turns out Hrathen also went to the Dakhor monastery where monks are given potions to transform their bodies and give them superhuman abilities (dark magic I expect rather pre-dates Shu-Dereth, as that book Sarene found would no doubt explain), but Hrathen dropped out.

Dilaf did not drop out. He became a super-human ninja monk and has been hiding out in Arelon for decades preparing for the invasion. He also outranks Hrathen because he is a gradget, in charge of the Dakhor monastery. This rather explains his previous insolence. Hrathen's only purpose was to serve as a distraction. The real aim is to kill everyone in Arelon and wipe out the Elantrians forever.

Uh-oh.

The only hope now is for someone in Elantris to switch the magic back up to full power and use it to fight back. Who can do it? No-one in Elantris is as good at Aon magic as Raoden (although he sent Galladon back to teach people about AonDor and we don't know what has been happening there lately; hopefully someone there turns out to be a natural magician once given the opportunity). Raoden is captured. Can he use his magic to escape?

Elantris 55: Raoden

In which Raoden and Sarene decide to get married. Sarene is a bit annoyed that she didn't figure out Spirit's identity sooner, but she's not as annoyed as I thought she would be, probably because she is mainly relieved. Raoden uses magic to make her hair grow back, since Hrathen's poison made it fall out. It seems the Elantrian magic is powerful enough to be useful.

Through magic binoculars they learn that Eondel and Telrii are dead.

Elantris 53: Sarene and Raoden

It's all happening at the secret meeting! They discuss various methods of deposing Telrii, such as raising an army of peasants or having him assassinated. Raoden drops out of character accidentally and Sarene figures out that he is Spirit. In the kitchen they have a nice chat, but Spirit lets on that he has more secrets.

Roial has hired some assassins and they are ready to go. But Ahan turns out to be a spy and has summoned the king and his guards to arrest everyone. They stick a sword in poor old Roial. Then Raoden reveals himself as Raoden! The soldiers don't want to attack him and they run off, and the Telrii is not far behind them.

Raoden explains himself somewhat. He tries to heal Roial but the magic isn't strong enough. Eondel calls him king. Sarene realises she has a husband.

All they have to do now is unite the people behind Raoden and defend the realm against the superior might of the Fjordells. Easy!

Elantris 52: Raoden

Ok I was wrong. Raoden is playing the part of the Dula and Galladon is the servant. The plan is to wriggle his way into Arelene high society and get invited to Roial's meetings. I'm not sure why the secrecy when surely playing the "I am the highly popular and previously thought to be dead prince with a blood claim to the throne, follow me!" strategy would be simpler. What possible influence could a newcomer Dula wield that would be worth risking so much to exercise?

He's not doing too badly. He's had Roial sell his gold light fittings for enough money to live comfortably on for several years. Those are some pretty awesome light fittings! Presumably they came from the secret library. How much other treasure is lying around in Elantris? The Elantrians are missing a trick.

Somehow, through sheer charm, Raoden as Kaloo gets invited to the secret meeting of traitors. Roial is awfully trusting.

Elantris 49: Raoden

Well, it's all going to happen now. Raoden is in the library trying to figure out why the Aons don't work any more. Elements of Aons looks like features on maps of Araluen, so what changed in Araluen? Of course it was the earthquake that opened a chasm: a chasm not caused by the Reod but that caused the Reod! It's all so obvious now.

Raoden makes an Aon that shoots fire. This releases a lot of energy, and via Scooby Doo logic he knows he will no longer have the attacks of pain he's been getting twice a day. So that will buy him more time to work on this. But after that first successful spell the pressure has been released somewhat and Aons work only weakly. And they can't cast spells on Elantrians because they aren't proper Elantrians; they're stuck half way.

So, our heroes have new powers but they still have work to do. Raoden at least manages to make himself a magical disguise that makes it look as if he has been healed. He's planning to use that to escape Elantris. Maybe he can keep up the disguise, marry Sarene, and take up the throne. He'll just have to be careful not to bang his funnybone.

Elantris 46: Raoden

Raoden and Sarene make idle chit-chat while Raoden practices his Aons and she reads. Hrathen is apparently screaming at his god to heal Elantris, which Sarene finds to be a strange change of heart. Presumably this is part of the theatre to convice people that he was the one who healed Sarene.

Raoden and Sarene discuss the main important mystery: why the Elantrian magic stopped working. If they could solve that and fix things all the other problems will go away, since Elantrian magic beats Fjordell might every time. Sarene hits on the notion that Aons look a bit like a map of Arelon. This comes as a complete revelation to Raoden and Galladon. Maybe they're just drawing the Aons wrong now that the land has changed shape or something like that.

Probably the Elantrian computer systems just downloaded an auto update and the shell has changed from Bash to Dash and it's broken a bunch of scripts. That happened to me once.

Anyway, Sarene is suddenly healed and they figure out the whole Hrathen poison trick. Raoden immediately takes Sarene to the gates and tells her to return and go and fix Arelon. I'm not sure what the rush is, but ok.

Elantris 43: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon get to the top of the wall. The look out and see that the guards are at Telrii's house. They decide to ask Sarene what is going on, since despite spending every waking hour with Raoden she hasn't told him anything.

In an expository interlude we learn about the risk of invasion once Fjordell sees a chance. The Arelenes are a bit pacifist and helpless after centuries of relying on ancient alien technology to protect them.

Sarene is doing rather unusually well and her injuries don't even hurt. Come on Raoden, figure it out! She's not hungry because hes feeding her. This is what Hrathen won't be expecting. She'll be better in no time and back to take over. She can't draw Aons because she's not an Elantrian. Instead she reads books about politics. Apparently the Fjordell priests made up their history to make themselves look cooler.

Raoden is shocked to learn his dad killed himself. Maybe now he'll reveal his identity.

Elantris 40: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon find a stairway to the top of the wall. They're keen to look out because the city guards have disappeared.

Sarene arrives. Annoyingly Raoden is still keeping his identity a secret. He convinces her to go with him.

Elantris 37: Raoden

Raoden is getting attacks of sudden intense pain. At first he thinks he is hoed, but it turns out he glows when it happens. The theory is that the AonDor, the magical power of Elantris, is trying to escape through him.

Although it has given some of their followers hope, Galladon and Raoden are suspicious of Hrathen's recovery.

Elantris 34: Raoden

Shaor is missing and presumed dead, since only her wig remains. Her followers are now following Raoden, treating him as their new god, since he has power over food. They're not terribly bright, but somewhat obedient and useful.

Meanwhile Raoden has solved the mystery of the slime. It's just dead fungus. Apparently Elantris has always been covered with it but it wasn't unpleasant or bothersome when it was alive. That at least means that new slime is not being made and once cleaned off it should stay gone. Raoden is hoping that figuring all this stuff out will lead him to the ultimate mystery (the only mystery left?) of why Elantris fell. But he's running out of time since his pain is increasing.

Presumably he is going to solve enough of the mystery to stop himself becoming Hoed just in the nick of time. Or someone else, probably Galladon, will save him just before he gets dissolved in the acid lake.

 

In the meantime he's trying to organise a successor to his work. Galladon is a bit scathing about this, pointing out that Raoden has still got plenty of time. Even apart from Raoden's mystery accelerating pain which Galladon does not know about, it seems a bit optimistic, given a trip on the stairs could be enough to finish someone off in Elantris.

There's some discussion about what happens to Seons if their owner dies without leaving a will. Maybe they float around aimlessly acting mad, just as all the Elantrian seons are. My guess is they've lost their connection to the cloud: Alexa is similiarly useless when this happens.

Raoden gets news that Hrathen is healed. It's a miracle!

Elantris 31: Raoden

Raoden takes Shaolin to the acid lake. Over the next few days, absent Sarene's food handouts, his followers start to return, and he gets new followers too. They want purpose in their lives.

Raoden and Galladon are intrigued by Hrathen's appearance in Elantris. Fjordell's don't become Elantrians. Hrathen gets attacked by some of Shaor's men and beats them easily.

Elantris 28: Raoden, Sarene

Raoden is reading the books in the secret underground bunker. He's keeping the acid lake a secret for now because he doesn't want the whole city to commit suicide. He learns about the Dor, the magical energy that can only fit through Aon shaped Aons and whose effects are controlled by the shape. Makes sense. I still think they're in the Matrix and the computer program that controls the magic just needs restarting.

Ien the Seon is floating about being weird.

It's becoming clear that they can't hold Shaor's men back much longer. Sure enough, on Sarene's next visit, they attack. Luckily nobody gets hurt.

In the middle of all this Raoden admits he's been holding back food from Shaor's men. This is one of those annoying plot devices where the plot is driven by people just not explaining themselves properly. If he just said, look, they're madmen and they can't be helped and I was actually just protecting you and your feed-the-hungry scheme. Oh, and I'm only taking extra food to help the suffering. Then she would be like, ok , cool. Instead she thinks he's a thieving tyrant. Oh well, I'm sure they'll sort it all out in the end.

Elantris 25: Raoden

Raoden is keeping his identity a secret because he thinks if people knew what happened to him it would cause instability in Arelon, owing to his popularity exceeding the king's.

His pain is increasing faster than he expected. I do think it odd that people are able to overcome pain so effectively with mental attitude. Perhaps more is going on, involving magic.

Raoden is taking extra food from Sarene's handouts and giving it to the Hoed. I don't know why this has to be such a secret.

Meanwhile, as he predicted, his followers are leaving him for the free food. Although it wasn't just food they got from him, it was a sense of purpose that helped them overcome their pain. So I don't know what they are doing all day after they've eaten.

Raoden's remaining soldiers are struggling to keep Shaor's men away from the food carts. Again, why keep this a secret? Just tell Sarene's guards about the threat so they can help defend and hand out food in an orderly way. Raoden explains it's to stop the guards from killing the Elantrians. Also he suspects Sarene has another motive for feeding the Elantrians (he doesn't know about Hrathen).

Raoden continues to study Aons. He finds out that AonDor is the energy that drives the magic and speculates that something is blocking it. Galladon admits that his father was an Elantrian. Then he realises that one of the Hoed men was an Elantrian before the Shaod. This man directs them to a secret underground chamber filled with books. There are lanterns to provide light, which presumably are not lit, so I don't know how they can see where they are going. There is a passage leading to a lake outside the city. The Hoed man is placed into the lake and he dissolves in the...water? Acid? Anyway it seems like a way out. Presumably it is better than being burned.

Undoubtedly the secret chamber of books contains the secret to getting Elantris back to normal.

Elantris 23: Sarene, Raoden

Raoden introduces himself to his wife as Spirit. She doesn't recognise him. He takes her somewhere and does a deal whereby he will "allow" her to distribute food in return for supplies. She gets the notion that rule of Elantris depends on controlling bare necessities rather than wealth or power. I think Sarene, and possibly Sanderson, are confused, though: wealth is not money, it is control of stuff: and bare necessities are just the first "stuff" that you need when you haven't got anything else. The question for Sarene is what Raoden is going to do with the stuff: is he using it for good or evil?

Raoden is trying to keep his attempt at civilisation a secret because he thinks it will scare people into attacking Elantris. This seems like a mistake: it will not help Sarene think he is good, and who wouldn't want civilised neighbours?

Sarene seems to have forgotten everything she knew and is thinking that the gang leaders are keeping the people in a state of near starvation. Why does she suddenly think there is a supply of food to keep from people?| They are starving because there is no food, not because there is food that people are keeping from them. She also notices that people are afraid and assumes they are afraid of the gang leaders. They are afraid of suffering an eternity in agony due to their condition. How hard could it be for Sarene to find this out? How hard would it be for Raoden to just show her?

By the end of the chapter she at least realises that Raoden is the leader and is also hungry. There is some hope that she will figure it out. She also seems to like him, proving their inevitable compatibility.

Elantris 22: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon go on some crazy mission to confront the leader of the rival gang, Shaor. I'm constantly amazed how much danger Elantrians put themselves into. It turns out that Shaor is none other than Telrii's daughter. I'm surprised Telrii is going along with the whole Elantrians-are-devils thing given his daughter is one.

There is the mystery of why everything is so crumbly. Not to mention the sludge. I hope we get to the bottom of where the sludge is coming from.

Raoden spots Sarene coming into Elantris, handing out food. He is worried that free food will demotivate the people he's got helping him plant food. I've heard that international food aid can sometimes cause local farmers to go out of business. On the other hand, free food is free food. It will be interesting to see how Sanderson models the economics of this situation.