Faith of the Fallen (73 page)

After she had finally decided what she must do, Kahlan slipped silently out of the tent to go pack her things.

It was just turning light when Kahlan emerged from her tent carrying her bedroll, saddlebags, D’Haran sword, the Sword of Truth, leather armor, and pack with the rest of her things.
Spirit
was safely rolled up in her bedroll.

A light snow was just beginning to fall, announcing to the muted camp that winter had arrived in the northern Midlands.

Everything seemed as if it was ending. It wasn’t just Warren’s death that convinced her, but rather the futility it symbolized. She could no longer delude herself. The truth was the truth. Richard was right.

The Order would have it all. Sooner or later, they would have her and kill her, along with those who fought with her. It was only a matter of time until they enslaved all of the New World. They already had much of the Midlands. Some lands had fallen willingly. There was no way to resist a force of their overwhelming size, the terror of their threats, or the seduction of their promises.

Warren had attested it as part of his dying words: Richard was right.

She had thought she could make a difference. She had thought she could drive back the advancing horde—by the sheer weight of her will, if need be. It was arrogance on her part. The forces of freedom were lost.

Many of the people in those fallen lands had put their faith in the Order at the cost of their liberty.

What was left to her? Running. Retreat. Terror. Death.

She had nothing to lose anymore, really. Nearly everything was already lost, or soon would be. While she at least still had her life, she was going to use it.

She was going to go to the heart of the Order.

“What are you doing?”

Kahlan spun around to see Cara frowning at her.

“Cara, I… I’m leaving.”

Cara gave a single nod. “Good. I, too, think it is time. I won’t be long getting my things together. You get the horses, and I’ll meet—”

“No. I’m going alone. You will stay here.”

Cara stroked her long blond braid laying over the front of her shoulder. “Why are you going?”

“There’s nothing left here for me to do—nothing I can do. I’m going to go drive my sword into the heart of the Order: Brother Narev and his disciples. It’s the only thing I can do to strike back at them.”

Cara smiled. “And you think I want to stay here?”

“You will stay here, where you should be…with Benjamin.”

“I’m sorry, Mother Confessor,” Cara said tenderly, “but I can’t follow such orders. I am Mord-Sith. My life is sworn to protecting Lord Rahl. I promised Lord Rahl I would protect you, not stay and kiss Benjamin.”

“Cara, I want you to stay here—”

“It’s my life. If this is the end, all there is to be, then I will do with the rest of my life as I wish. It’s my life to live, not yours to live for me. I’m going, and that is final.”

Kahlan saw in Cara’s eyes that it was. Kahlan didn’t think she had ever heard Cara express such a sentiment about her own wishes. It was indeed her life. Besides, Cara knew where Kahlan was going. If Kahlan left without Cara, Cara would simply follow. Getting Mord-Sith to obey orders was often more difficult than herding ants.

“You’re right, Cara; it is your life. But when we get down into the Old World, you’re going to have to wear something to disguise who you are. Red leather in the Old World will be the end of us.”

“I will do what I must to protect you and Lord Rahl.”

Kahlan smiled at last. “I believe you would, Cara.”

Cara wasn’t smiling. Kahlan’s smile faded.

“I’m sorry I tried to leave without you, Cara. I shouldn’t have done it that way. You’re a sister of the Agiel. I should have talked it over with you. That’s the proper way to treat someone you respect.”

Cara smiled at last. “Now you are making sense.”

“We might not ever come back from this.”

Cara shrugged. “And you think we will live the high life if we stay? I think only certain death awaits us if we stay.”

Kahlan nodded. “That’s what I think, too. That’s why I must go.”

“I’m not quarreling.”

Kahlan gazed out at the falling snow. The last time winter had come, she and Cara had just managed to escape in time.

Kahlan steeled herself and asked, “Cara, do you really believe Richard is still alive?”

“Of course Lord Rahl is alive.” Cara held up her Agiel, rolling it in her fingers. “Remember?”

And then she did: the Agiel would only work if the Lord Rahl to whom she was sworn was alive.

Kahlan handed Cara some of her load. “Gadi?”

“He died as Verna wished it. She showed him no pity.”

“Good. Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.”

It was not long after dawn when Kahlan made it to Zedd’s tent. Cara had gone to get horses and supplies. When Kahlan called, Zedd asked her to enter. He rose from the bench beside Adie, the old sorceress.

“Kahlan. What is it?”

“I’ve come to bid you good-bye.”

Zedd’s eyes showed no surprise. “Why don’t you stay and get some rest? Leave tomorrow.”

“There are no tomorrows left. Winter is upon us again. If I am going to do as I must, I don’t have a day to waste.”

Zedd gently gripped her shoulders. “Kahlan, Warren wanted to see you. He felt he had to tell you that Richard was right. It meant a great deal to him that you know that. Richard told us that you must not attack the heart of the Order before the people prove themselves to him, or all will be lost. Such a thing is even less likely to happen today than the day he said it.”

“And maybe Warren meant that Richard was right—that we are going to lose the New World to the Order, so what is there to stay for? Maybe it was Warren’s way of trying to tell me to go to Richard before I’m dead, or he’s dead, and then it’s too late to even try.”

“And Nicci?”

“I’ll find out when I get there.”

“But, you can’t hope to—”

“Zedd, what else is there for me? To watch the Midlands fall? To aspire at most to live out my life running, to live as a recluse, hiding every day from the clutches of the Order?

“Even if Warren hadn’t said it, I’ve come to realize—no matter how much I wish it was otherwise—that Richard is right. The Order will only be pinned down for the winter while we help the people escape Aydindril. In the spring, the enemy will flood into my city. Then they will turn to D’Hara. There will be nowhere to run. Though they escape for the moment, the Order will subjugate those people.

“There is no future for me. Richard was right. The least I can do is spend the last of my life living for myself, and for Richard. There is nothing else left for me, Zedd.”

Tears brimmed in his eyes. “I will miss you so. You’ve brought back good memories of my own daughter and given me so many good times.”

Kahlan threw her arms around him. “Oh, Zedd, I love you.”

She couldn’t hold back her own tears, then. She was all he had left, and he was losing her, too.

No—that wasn’t true. Kahlan pulled back.

“Zedd, the time has come for you to leave, too. You must go to the Keep and protect it.”

He nodded with great reluctance, great sadness. “I know.”

Kahlan knelt before the sorceress and took up her hand. “Adie, will you go with him and keep him company?”

A beautiful smile came to the woman’s weathered face. “Well, I…” She looked up. “Zedd?”

Zedd scowled. “Bags, now you’ve ruined the surprise of the invite.”

Kahlan smacked his leg. “Stop cursing in front of ladies—and stop being so sour. I’d like to know you’re not going to be lonely up there.”

A smile stole across his face. “Of course Adie is going to the Keep with me.”

Adie scowled in turn. “How do you know that, old man? You never asked my approval. Why, I have a mind—”

“Please stop it,” Kahlan said. “Both of you. This is too important to be fussing over.”

“I can fuss if I want to,” Zedd protested.

“That be right.” Adie shook a thin finger. “We are old enough to fuss if we wish.”

Kahlan smiled through her tears. “Of course you can. It’s just that, after Warren…it reminds me of how much I hate to see people waste their lives on things that don’t matter.”

Zedd truly did scowl, now. “You’ve a thing or two to learn, dear one, if you don’t know how important fussing is.”

“That be right,” Adie said. “Fussing keeps you sharp. When you get old, you need to stay sharp.”

“Adie is entirely right,” Zedd said. “Why, I think—”

Kahlan silenced him with a hug that Adie joined.

“Are you sure about this, dear one?” Zedd asked after they parted.

“I am. I’m going to take my sword into the belly of the Order.”

Zedd nodded as he hooked his bony fingers around the back of her neck. He pulled her head close and kissed her brow.

“If you’re to go, then ride hard and strike harder.”

“My thought, exactly,” Cara said as she stepped into the tent.

Kahlan thought Cara’s blue eyes looked a little more liquid than usual. “Are you all right, Cara?”

Cara frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Kahlan said.

“General Meiffert got us the six fastest horses he could find.” Cara smiled her pleasure at the prospect. “We’ll have fresh mounts with us and be able to cover a lot of ground fast. I have all our supplies loaded up.

“If we leave now, we should be able to escape winter’s grip. We have the map, so we can stay away from the routes the Order’s troops use, and the heaviest population centers. There are good roads, and open country down there. Riding hard, I think that we can make it in a few weeks. A month at most.”

Zedd’s face contorted with concern. “But the Order controls much of the southern Midlands. It’s dangerous country, now.”

“I have a better way.” Cara flashed a sly smile. “We’ll go where I know the country—D’Hara. We will go east from here and cross over the mountains, then go south down through D’Hara—through mostly wide-open country were we can make good time—down through the Azrith Plains, to eventually join the Kern River far to the south. After the river valley clears the mountains, we will cut southeast into the heart of the Old World.”

Zedd nodded his approval of the plan. Kahlan curled her fingers lovingly around the old wizard’s thin arm.

“When will you go to the Keep?”

“Adie and I will leave in the morning. I think it best not to dally here any longer. Today we’ll settle matters of the army with the officers and the Sisters. I think that as soon as the people are out of Aydindril, and when the snow quickly deepens to insure the Order won’t be going anywhere until spring, then our men should begin slipping out of this place to make their way over the mountains to the safety of D’Hara. It will be slow going in winter, but without having to fight as they travel, it won’t be as difficult as it otherwise would be.”

“That would be best,” Kahlan agreed. “It will get our men out of harm’s way for now.”

“They won’t have me to be the magic against magic for them, but they will have Verna and her Sisters. They know enough by now to carry on protecting the army from magic.”

At least for a while. The words hung in the air, unspoken.

“I want to go see Verna before I leave,” Kahlan said. “I think it will be good for her to have other people to worry about. Then I want to see General Meiffert; and then we’d best start riding. We have a long way to go, and I want to be south before the snow hobbles us.”

Kahlan embraced Zedd fiercely one last time.

“When you see him,” Zedd whispered in her ear, “tell the boy I love him dearly, and I miss him something awful.”

Kahlan nodded against his shoulder, and told him a bold lie.

“You’ll see us both again, Zedd. I promise you.”

Kahlan stepped out into the early light of winter’s first breath. Everything was dusted with snow, making it look as if the world were carved from white marble.

In one long fluid motion, with his fingertips adeptly guiding the far end of the file, Richard glided the steel tool down the fold of cloth held forever crisp in white marble. Concentrating on applying steady pressure to cut a precise, fine layer, he was lost in the work.

The file held hundreds of ridges, row upon row of tiny blades of hardened steel, which did the work of cutting away and shaping the noble stone. These were blades he wielded with the same commitment with which he wielded any blade. He blindly reached back and set the file down on the wooden bench, careful to put it on the wood and not to let it clang against other steel, lest he dull it prematurely. He exchanged the file for another, with even finer teeth, and took out the roughness left by the correction accomplished with the one before.

With fingers as dusty-white as those of a baker laboring with flour, Richard examined the surface of the man’s arm, testing it for flaws. Until polished, the minor flaws and facets were often easier to see with the fingers than the eye. Where he found them, he used a smaller file in one hand, while his other hand followed behind, riding the swell of muscle, feeling the subtle difference in what the tool had done to the stone. He was removing only paper-thin layers of material, now.

It had taken him several months to arrive at this final layer. It was exhilarating to be so close to the flesh. The days had passed, one upon another, in an endless procession of work, carving death in the day down at the site, and life in the night. Carving for the Order was balanced by carving for himself—slavery and freedom in opposition.

Whenever one of the brothers inquired about the statue, Richard was careful to hide his satisfaction with what he was creating. He did it by recalling the model he had been commanded to carve. He always bowed his head respectfully and reported his progress on his penance, assuring them that his work was on schedule and would be done on time to install in the palace plaza for the dedication.

Stressing the word “penance” helped to direct their thoughts to that issue and away from the statue itself. The brothers were invariably much more satisfied with his weariness from his toil at his work of contrition that they were interested in yet another dreary stone carving. There were carvings everywhere; this was but one more manifestation of the irredeemable inadequacy of mankind. Just as no one man in their cosmos was important, no one work mattered. It was the sheer number of carvings which was to be the Order’s overpowering argument for man’s impotence. The carvings were merely background props for the stage upon which the brothers moralized on sacrifice and salvation.

Richard always humbly reported his nights with little food and little sleep as he worked on his penance after his carving work during the day. Selfless sacrifice being the proper cure for wickedness, the brothers went away pleased.

Richard switched to a smaller file, one bent in a decreasing radius curve, and worked the muscle where it narrowed into sinew, showing the tension in the arm which revealed the underlying structure. During the day he observed other men as they worked, in order to study the complex shapes of muscle as it moved with life. At night, he referred to his own arms held up to the lamplight so that he might accurately depict veins and tendons standing proud on the surface. He referred to a small mirror at times. The surface of the skin he carved was a rich landscape stretched over bone and muscle, creased in corners, drawn smooth as it swept over curves.

For the woman’s body, his memory of Kahlan was vivid enough to require little other reference.

He wanted this work to show the capacity for movement, for intent, for accomplishment. The posture of the figures displayed awareness. The expression of the faces, especially the eyes, would show that most sublime human characteristic: thought.

If the statues he had seen in the Old World were a celebration of misery and death, this was a celebration of life.

He wanted this to show the raw power of volition.

The man and woman he carved were his refuge against his despair over his captivity. They embodied freedom of spirit. They embodied reason rising up to triumph.

To his great annoyance, Richard noticed that light was coming in the window above the statue, taking over from the lamps that had burned all night. All night; he had done it again.

It was not the quality of the light, which he actually very much favored, which vexed him, but that it signified the end of his time with his statue; he now had to go carve ugliness down at the site. Fortunately, that work required no thought or careful effort.

As he draw-filed the curve of the man’s shoulder muscle, there was a knock at the door. “Richard?”

It was Victor. Richard sighed; he had to stop.

Richard pulled the red cloth tied around his neck down away from his nose and mouth, where it kept him from breathing all the marble dust. It was a little trick Victor had told him about, used by the marble carvers from his homeland of Cavatura.

“Be right there.”

Richard stepped down off the ledge made by the base, where he had carved out the legs at midcalf. He stretched his back, realizing how much it hurt from hunching over, and from lack of sleep. He retrieved the canvas tarp and shook the dust from it.

Just before he flung the cover over the statue, he got the full view of the figures. The floor, shelves, and tools were covered in a fine layer of marble dust. But against the black walls, the marble stood out in the glory of light from above.

Richard threw the tarp over the incomplete figures and then opened the door.

“You look a ghost,” Victor announced with a lopsided grin.

Richard brushed himself off. “I forgot the time.”

“Did you see in the shop last night?”

“The shop? No, what?”

Victor’s grin returned, wider this time. “Priska had the bronze dial delivered yesterday. Ishaq brought it. Come see.”

Around the other side of the blacksmith’s shop, in the stock room, the bronze sat in a number of pieces. It was too big for Priska to cast as one piece, so he had made several that Victor would join and mount. The pedestal for the partial ring that would be the dial plane was massive. Knowing it was for a statue Richard was carving, Priska had done a job to be proud of.

“It’s beautiful,” Richard said.

“Isn’t it, though? I’ve seen him do fine work before, but this time Priska has outdone himself.”

Victor squatted and ran his fingers over the strange symbols filled in with black. “Priska said that at one time, long ago, his home city of Altur’Rang had freedom, but, like so many others, lost it. As a tribute to that time, he cast it with symbols in his native tongue. Brother Neal saw it, and was pleased because he thought it a tribute to the emperor, who is also from Altur’Rang.”

Richard sighed. “Priska has a tongue as smooth as his castings.”

“Would you have some lardo with me?” Victor asked as he stood.

The sun was already well up. Richard stretched his neck and peered down at the site.

“I’d best not. I need to get to work.” Richard squatted down and lifted one end of the pedestal. “First, though, let me show you where this goes.”

Victor grabbed the other end and together they lugged the bronze casting around the shop. When Richard opened the double doors, Victor saw the statue for the first time, even if it was covered in a tarp that revealed only the round bulges that were the two heads. Even so, Victor’s eyes feasted. It was apparent in those eyes how his vivid imagination was filling in some of it with his fondest hopes.

“Your statue is going well?” Victor nudged Richard with an elbow. “Beauty?”

Richard was overcome with a blissful smile. “Ah, Victor, you will see for yourself soon enough. The dedication is only a couple weeks off. I will be ready. It will be something to bring a song to our hearts…before they kill me, anyway.”

Victor dismissed such talk with a flourish of his hand. “I am hoping that when they see such beauty again, and at their palace, they will approve.”

Richard held out no such illusion. He remembered then, and reached into a pocket to pull out a piece of paper. He handed it to the blacksmith.

“I didn’t want Priska to cast words on the back of the dial because I didn’t want the wrong people to see them. I would ask you to engrave these words on the back surface—about the same height as the symbols on the front.”

Victor took the paper and unfolded it. His grin melted away. He looked up at Richard with an open look of surprise.

“This is treason.”

Richard shrugged. “They can only kill me once.”

“They can torture you a long time before they kill you. They have very unpleasant ways to kill people, too, Richard. Have you ever seen a man buried in the sky while he was still alive, bleeding from a thousand cuts, his arms bound, so that the vultures could feast on his living flesh?”

“The Order binds my arms, now, Victor. As I work down there, as I see the death around me, I am bleeding from a thousand cuts. The vultures of the Order are already feasting on my flesh.” With grim resolve, Richard held Victor’s gaze. “Will you do it?”

Victor glanced down at the paper again. He took a deep breath and then let it slowly out as he studied the paper in his hand. “Treason though these words be, I like them. I will do it.”

Richard clapped him on the side of the shoulder and gave him a confident smile. “Good man. Now, look here, where the pedestal is to be attached.”

Richard lifted the tarp enough to uncover the base. “I’ve carved you a flat face tilted at the proper angle. I didn’t know where the holes in the casting would be, so I left it for you to drill the holes and fill them with lead for the pins. Once you attach the pedestal, then I can calculate the angle of the hole I’ll need to drill for the gnomon.”

Victor nodded. “The gnomon pole will be ready soon. I will make you a drill bit the proper size for it.”

“Good. And a round rasp to do final fitting in the hole?”

“You will have it,” Victor said as they both stood. He waved his hand toward the covered statue. “You trust me not to peek while you are off carving your ugly work?”

Richard chuckled. “Victor, I know you want more than anything to see the nobility of this statue when it is finally finished. You would not spoil that experience for yourself for anything.”

Victor let out his rolling belly laugh. “I guess you are right. Come after your work, and we will have lardo and talk of beauty in stone and the way the world once was.”

Richard hardly heard Victor. He was staring at what he knew so well. Even though it was covered from his eyes, it was not hidden from his soul.

He was ready to begin the process of polishing. To make flesh in stone.

Her head bent, her scarf protecting her from the chill winter wind, Nicci hurried down the narrow alleyway. A man coming the other way bumped against her shoulder, not because he was rushing, but because he simply didn’t seem to care where he was going. Nicci threw a fiery scowl at his empty eyes. Her fierce look fell away down a bottomless well of indifference.

She clutched her sack of sunflower seeds closer to her stomach as she moved on through the muddy alleyway. She stayed close to the rough wooden walls of the buildings so she wouldn’t be jostled by the people going the other way. People bundled against the current cold snap moved through the alleyway toward the street beyond, looking for rooms, for food, for clothes, for jobs. She could see men beyond the alley sitting on the ground, leaning against buildings on the far side of the street, watching without seeing as wagons rumbled down the roads, taking supplies out to the site of the emperor’s palace.

Nicci wanted to get to the bread shop. She had been told they might have butter today. She wanted to get butter for Richard’s bread. He would be home for dinner—he had promised. She wanted to make him a good meal. He needed to eat. He had lost some weight, though it only added distracting definition to his muscular build. He was like a statue in the flesh—like the statues she used to see, long ago.

She remembered how when she was little her mother’s servants made cakes out of sunflower meal. She had been able to buy enough to make him some sunflower cakes, and maybe she would have butter to put on them.

Nicci was growing increasingly anxious. The dedication was to take place in a few days. Richard said his statue would be ready. He seemed too calm about it, as if he had come to some inner peace.

He seemed almost like a man who had accepted his imminent execution.

Whenever Richard spoke to her, despite the conversation, his mind seemed elsewhere, and his eyes held that quality which she so valued. In the wasteland that was life, the misery that was existence, this was the only hope left to her. All around her, people looked forward only to death. Only in her father’s eyes when she was younger, and more so now in Richard’s, did she see any evidence that there was something to make it all worthwhile, some reason for existence.

Nicci was slowed to a halt by the clink-clink-clink of pebbles rattling in a cup. The sound was the unmistakable rattle of her chains. She had been a servant to need her whole life, and as much as she tried, there it was, the cup of some poor beggar, still rattling for her help.