The Hope of Elantris (3 page)

"Yes," Ashe said. "Yes, that sounds good."

"Don't forget about the lantern," Matisse said as he flew away.
She turned to face the advancing soldiers. Then, with a quivering
finger, she raised a hand and began to draw.

Light burst from the air, following her finger in the air. She
forced herself to remain steady, completing the Aon despite her
fear. The soldiers paused as they watched her, then one of them
said something in a guttural language she assumed was Fjordell.
They continued to advance on her.

Matisse finished the Aon-Aon Ashe, the same one inside of her
Seon friend. But, of course, the Aon didn't do anything. It just
hung there, like they always did. The soldiers approached
uncaringly, stepping right up to it.

This had better work,
Matisse thought, then put her
finger in the place that Galladon had described and drew the final
line.

Immediately, the Aon-Aon Ashe-began to glow with a powerful
light that was right in front of the Soldier's faces. They called
out as the sudden flash of brilliance shone in their eyes, then
cursed, stumbling back. Matisse reached down to grab her lantern
and run.

The soldiers yelled after her, then began to follow. And, like
the children before, they went toward the light-her light. Idotris
and the others weren't that far away-she could see their shadows
still moving in the night-but the soldiers had been blinded too
much to notice the faint movements, and Idotris had put out his
light. The only thing for the soldiers to focus on was her
lantern.

Matisse led them away, into the dark night, carrying her lantern
in terrified fingers. She could hear them pursuing behind her as
she entered Elantris proper. Sludge and darkness replaced the
cleanly cobbles of New Elantris, and Matisse had to stop moving as
quickly, lest she slide and stumble.

She hurried anyway, rounding corners, trying to stay ahead of
her pursuers. She felt
so
weak. Running was hard as an
Elantrian. She didn't have the strength to go very quickly.
Already, she was beginning to feel a powerful fatigue inside of
her. She couldn't hear any more pursuit. Perhaps. . . .

She turned a corner and ran afoul of a pair of soldiers standing
in the night. She paused in shock, looking up at the men,
recognizing them from before.

They're trained soldiers,
she thought.
Of course
they know how to surround an enemy and cut them off!
She spun
to run, but one of the men grabbed her arm, laughing and saying
something in Fjordell.

Matisse cried out, dropping the lantern. The soldier stumbled,
but held her firm.

Think!
Matisse told herself.
You only have a
moment.
Her feet slipped in the sludge. She paused, then let
herself fall, kicking at her captor's leg.

She was counting on one thing: She'd lived in Elantris. She knew
how to move in the slime and sludge. These soldiers, however,
didn't. Her kick proved true, and the soldier immediately slipped,
stumbling into his companion and crashing back to the slimy cobbles
as he released Matisse.

She scrambled to her feet, her beautiful bright clothing now
stained with Elantris sludge. Her leg flared with a new pain-she'd
twisted her ankle. She'd been so careful in the past to keep free
of major pains, but this one was stronger than anything she'd
gotten before, far stronger than her cheek cut. Her leg burned with
a pain she could barely believe, and it didn't abate-it remained
strong. An Elantrian's wounds would never heal.

Still, she forced herself to limp away. She moved without
thinking, only wishing to get away from the soldiers. She heard
them cursing, stumbling to their feet. Still, she kept going,
hopping slightly. She didn't realize that she herself had made a
circle until she saw the glow of New Elantris burning in front of
her. She was back where she had begun.

She paused. There he was, Dashe, laying on the cobbles. She
rushed to him, not caring any more about pursuit. Her father lay
with the sword still impaling him, and she could hear him
whispering.

"Run, Matisse. Run to safety. . . ." The mantra of a Hoed.

Matisse stumbled to her knees. She'd gotten the children to
safety. That was enough. There was a noise behind her, and she
turned to see a soldier approaching. His companion must have gone a
different direction. Yet, this man was stained with slime, and she
recognized him. He was the one she had kicked.

My leg hurts so much!
She thought. She turned over,
holding to Dashe's immobile body, too tired-and too pained-to move
any further.

The soldier grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her away from
her father's corpse. He spun her around, the action bringing other
pains to her arms.

"You tell me," he said in a thickly accented voice. "You tell me
where other children went."

Matisse struggled in vain. "I don't know!" she said. But, she
did. Ashe had told her.
Why did I ask him where the library
was?
She thought, berating herself.
If I didn't know, I
couldn't give them away!

"You tell," the man said, holding her with one hand, reaching
for his belt knife with the other. "You tell, or I hurt you.
Bad."

Matisse struggled uselessly. If her Elantrian eyes could have
formed tears, she would have been crying. As if to prove his point,
the soldier held up his knife before her. Matisse had never felt
such terror in her life.

And that was when the ground began to shake.

The horizon had begun to glow with the coming of dawn, but that
light was overshadowed by a sudden burst of light from around the
perimeter of the city. The soldier paused, looking up at the
sky.

Suddenly, Matisse felt warm.

She didn't realize how much she'd missed feeling warm, how much
she'd grown used to the stale coolness of an Elantrian body. But,
the warmth seemed to flow through her, like someone had injected
some hot liquid into her veins. She gasped at the beautiful,
amazing feeling.

Something was
right.
Something was wonderfully
right.

The soldier turned toward her suddenly. The very ground seemed
to be shaking. He cocked his head, then reached out and rubbed a
rough finger across her cheek, where she had been wounded long
ago.

"Healed?" he said, confused.

She felt wonderful. She felt. . .her heart!

The man, looking confused, raised his knife again. "You healed,"
he said, "but I can hurt you again."

Her body felt stronger. Yet, she was still just a young girl,
and he a trained soldier. She struggled, her mind barely beginning
to comprehend that her skin was no longer blotched, but had turned
a silvery color. It was happening! As Ashe had predicted! Elantris
was returning!

And she was still going to die. It wasn't fair! She screamed in
frustration, trying to wiggle free. The irony seemed perfect. The
city was being healed, but that couldn't prevent this terrible man
from-

"I think you missed something, friend," a voice suddenly
said.

The soldier paused.

"If the light healed her," the voice said, "then it healed
me
too."

The soldier cried out in pain, then dropped Matisse, stumbling
to the ground. She stepped back, and as the terrible man collapsed,
she could finally see who was standing behind: her father, glowing
with an inner light, the taint removed from his body. He seemed
like a god, silvery and spectacular.

His clothing was ripped where he'd been wounded him, but the
skin was healed. In his hand, he held the very sword that had been
impaling him moments before.

She ran to him, crying-she could finally cry again!-and she
grabbed him in an embrace.

"Where are the other children, Matisse," he said urgently.

"I took care of them, Father," she whispered. "Everyone has a
job, and that's mine. I take care of the children."

#

"Interesting," Raoden said. "And, what did happen to the
children?" Raoden asked.

"I led them to the library," Ashe said. "Galladon and Karata
were gone by then-we must have missed them as they ran back to New
Elantris. But, I hid the children inside, and stayed with them to
keep them calm. I was so worried about what was happening inside
the city, but those poor things. . . ."

"I understand," Raoden said. "And Matisse. . .Dashe's little
daughter. I had no idea what she'd gone through." Raoden smiled.
He'd gifted Dashe with two Seons-ones whose masters had died, and
who had found themselves without anyone to serve once they
recovered their wits when Elantris was restored-in thanks for his
services for New Elantris. Dashe had given one to his daughter.

"Which Seon did she end up with?" Raoden asked. "Ati?"

"Actually, no," Ashe said. "I believe it was Aeo."

"Equally appropriate," Raoden said, smiling and standing as the
door opened. His wife, Queen Sarene, entered, pregnant belly
first.

"I agree," Ashe said, hovering over to Sarene.

Aeo. It meant bravery.

THE END

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knows not every short story will work for every reader.

All right, now the annotation. This story actually has a very
interesting backstory.

If we flash back to January 2006, we find me having been dating
Pemberly (her real name is Emily, but she goes by Pemberly on-line)
for about two months time. Our relationship was still quite new,
and we weren't exclusive yet. (Though I wanted to be. I was pretty
sure I wanted to marry her by that point.)

Well, at one of our dates, Pemberly told me this amazing story.
It seems that one of her eighth grade students-a girl named
Matisse-had done a book report on ELANTRIS. Now, Matisse didn't
know that her teacher was dating me. She didn't even know that
Pemberly KNEW me. It was just one of those bizarre coincidences
that happens just to prove to us all that the world is a funny
place.

Now, when I say book report, that doesn't get across the scope
of what Matisse did. Being a clever, creative girl, she went the
extra mile. Instead of a simple write-up on the book, she did a
"Dragonology" style book on ELANTRIS. This thing is amazing; it has
sketches and bios of the characters, strips of Elantrian cloth
stapled in as examples, little pouches filled with materials from
the books, all of that. A total multi-sensory experience dedicated
to the novel, all hand-made. Pemberly showed it to me, and it was
honestly just about the coolest, must humbling thing I'd ever seen.
Matisse had obviously loved the book very much.

That set me thinking of something I could do as a thank-you
surprise to Matisse, who still didn't know that her teacher was
dating one of her favorite authors. I'd had this idea itching in
the back of my head.

In any novel, there are decisions you make regarding what to put
in and what to leave out. A lot of authors talk about the 'iceberg'
theory-that for any good book, there's a lot of story and
worldbuilding beneath the surface that the author knows, but the
reader never discovers. These things give weight and a foundation
for the story you DO see, allowing it to feel more real and more
engaging because the author has thought through so much of what
isn't stated.

In ELANTRIS, there are a couple of these holes. Places where I
knew what was happening off-screen, but decided that I couldn't
talk about it in the book. (In this novel, there were generally two
reasons for these holes. One was if I couldn't get a viewpoint
character into the right location at the right time; the chapter
triad format earned me a lot of things, but also constrained me
sometimes. At the end of the book, however, the triad system fell
apart on purpose, and so I COULD so random other viewpoints. In the
case of what was happening with the children in Elantris, however,
I decided that there was already too much happening during the
climax, and these sections were the ones that had to be cut.)

So I knew what was going on inside Elantris when the attack by
the Dakhor came. In the back of my mind, I also knew that the
children were saved and protected by Dashe and Ashe the Seon, kept
from being slaughtered by the attack. I didn't want them to fall
like the others; Karata had worked so hard to protect them, and
letting the children not have to suffer through the slaughter at
New Elantris was my gift to her. A kind of compensation for her own
sacrifice at the end of the novel.

I'd been itching to write another ELANTRIS story. Because of the
nature of publishing, I knew that I couldn't do a sequel to the
book at the time, as the MISTBORN novels made so much more sense to
publish. However, Matisse's project gave me the inspiration that I
needed to turn my attention back to ELANTRIS. I stopped writing on
MISTBORN: THE WELL OF ASCENSION for two days, and wrote out this
section of the ELANTRIS story.

Because Matisse had inspired me, I decided that I would name a
character after her. I also felt that, if I was taking the time to
write a short story in the world, I wanted to introduce a new
character rather than putting the story from Dashe's viewpoint. (As
would have been likely had this section ended up in the final
novel.) Therefore, it was reasonable to write it from the viewpoint
of the character I'd just named after Matisse.