Faith of the Fallen (74 page)

She could not deny it.

Tears filled her eyes. She had so wanted to serve Richard butter with his bread. But she had only one silver penny, and this beggar had nothing. She at least had some bread and some sunflower seeds. How could she want butter for Richard’s bread and cakes, when this man had nothing?

She was evil, she knew, for wanting to keep her silver penny, the penny Richard had earned with his own sweat and effort. She was evil for wanting to buy butter for Richard with it. Who was Richard, to have butter? He was strong. He was able. Why should he have more, while others had none?

Nicci could almost see her mother slowly shaking her head in bitter disappointment that the penny was still in Nicci’s fist, and not helping the man in need.

How was it that she could never seem to live up to her mother’s example of morality? How was it she could never overcome her evil nature?

Nicci turned slowly and dropped her silver penny in the beggar’s cup.

People gave the beggar a wide berth. Without seeing him, they avoided coming near him. They were deaf to the rattle of his cup. How could people not yet have learned the Order’s teachings? How could they not help those in need? It was always left to her.

She looked at him, then, and recoiled at the sight of the hideous man swathed in filthy rags. She pulled back more when she saw lice hopping through his thatch of greasy hair. He peered out at her through a slit in the rags draped around his face.

But it was what she saw through that slit that caught her breath in her throat. The scars were gruesome, to be sure, as if he had been melted by the Keeper’s own fires, yet it was the eyes that gripped her as the man slowly rose to his feet.

The man’s grimy fingers, like a claw, curled around her arm. “Nicci,” he hissed in startled triumph, drawing her close.

Caught in the grip of his powerful fingers, and his burning glare, she was unable to move. She was so close she could see his lice hopping at her.

“Kadar Kardeef.”

“So, you recognize me? Even like this?”

She said nothing else, but her eyes must have said that she thought he was dead, for he answered her unspoken question.

“Remember that little girl? The one you seemed to care so much about? She urged the town’s people to save me. She refused to allow me to die there on the fire, where you had put me. She hated you so much she was determined to save me. She selflessly devoted herself to caring for me, to helping her fellow man, as you had ordered the town’s people to do.

“Oh, I wanted to die. I never knew a person could have that much pain and still live. As much as I wanted to die, I lived, because I want you to die even more. You did this to me. I want the Keeper to sink his fangs into your soul.”

Nicci looked deliberately at his grotesque scars. “And so, for this, you have come seeking your revenge.”

“No, not for that. For making me beg, where my men could hear it. For allowing other people to hear me beg for my life. It was for that reason they saved me—and their hatred of you. It is for that that I seek revenge—for not allowing me to die, for condemning me to this life of a freak where passing women toss pennies in my cup.”

Nicci gave him a smooth smile. “Why, Kadar, if you want to die, I can certainly oblige you.”

He released her arm as if it had burned his fingers. His imagination gave her powers she didn’t have.

He spat at her.

“Kill me, then, you filthy witch. Strike me dead.”

Nicci flicked her wrist and brought her dacra to hand. The dacra was a knifelike weapon carried by Sisters. Once the sharpened rod was stuck into a victim, no matter where, releasing her power into the dacra killed them instantly. Kadar Kardeef didn’t know she had no power. But even without her power behind it, the dacra was still a dangerous weapon that could be driven into a heart, or through a skull.

He wisely backed away. He wanted to die, yet he feared it.

“Why didn’t you go to Jagang. He would not have let you become a beggar. Jagang was your friend. He would have taken care of you. You would not have to beg.”

Kadar Kardeef laughed. “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you? To see me living off the scraps of Jagang’s table? You would love to sit at his side, the Slave Queen, and have him see me fallen to this, to watch as you two tossed me your crumbs.”

“Fallen to what? To see you wounded? You’ve both been wounded before.”

He snatched her wrist again. “I died a hero to Jagang. I would not want him to know I begged like any of the weak fools we have crushed beneath our boots.”

Nicci pressed her dacra against his belly, backing him off.

“Kill me, then, Nicci.” He opened his arms. “Finish it, like you should have. You never left a job incomplete before. Strike me dead, like I should have been long ago.”

Nicci smiled again. “Death is no punishment. Every day you live is a thousand deaths. But you know that, don’t you, Kadar?”

“Was I that repulsive to you, Nicci? Was I that cruel to you?”

How could she tell him that he was, and how much she hated him having her as chattel for his amusement? It was for the good of all that the Order used men like Kadar Kardeef. How could she put herself, her own interests, above the good of mankind?

Nicci turned and rushed off down the alleyway.

“Thank you for the penny!” he called mockingly after her. “You should have granted my request! You should have, Nicci!”

Nicci wanted only to go home and scrub the lice out of her hair. She could feel them burrowing into her scalp.

Richard pulled away the fistful of straw. He brushed the fragments of grasses from his leather apron. His arms ached from the labor of rubbing the straw, lightly loaded with fine abrasive clays, against the stone.

Yet, when he saw the luster of the stone, the character of the high polish, the way the marble glowed, taking light deep into the stone and returning it, he felt only exhilaration.

The figures emerged from a sparkling stone base of rough marble. The grooved lines of the toothed chisels used in opposing directions to shear off thin layers of stone were still evident on the lower calves, where the legs emerged—he wanted the statue to bear testimony to the hand of man and the figures’ origin in stone.

They rose up to nearly twice his height. The statue was in part a representation of his love for Kahlan—he could not keep Kahlan out of the work, because Kahlan was his ideal of a woman—yet the woman in the statue was not Kahlan. It was a man of virtue with a woman of virtue joined in purpose. They complemented each other, the two universal parts of what it was to be human.

The curved section of the sundial had been placed by Victor and his men several days before, when Richard had been working down at his job at the site of the emperor’s palace. They had left the tarp over the statue as they worked. After the ring had been set, Richard had placed the pole that served as the gnomon, and finished the hand holding it. The base of the pole was fixed with a gold ball.

Victor had yet to see the statue. He was beside himself with eager anticipation.

As Richard stared at the figures, only the light from the window above entered the darkened room. He had been given the day from work down at the site in order to prepare the statue to be moved to the plaza that evening. In the rooms beyond the shop door, the hammers of the blacksmiths rang ceaselessly as Victor’s men worked on orders for the palace.

Richard stood in the near darkness, listening to the sounds of the blacksmith shop, as he stared up at the power of what he had created. It was exactly as he had intended.

The figures of the man and woman seemed as if they might draw a breath at any moment and step out of the stone base. They had bone and muscle, sinew and flesh.

Flesh in stone.

There was only one thing missing—one thing left to do.

Richard picked up his mallet and a sharp chisel.

When he looked up at the finished statues, there were moments when he could almost believe, as Kahlan insisted, that he used magic to carve, yet he knew better. This was a conscious act of human intellect, and nothing more.

Standing there, chisel and mallet in hand, gazing at the statue that was his vision in stone, was a moment when Richard could savor the supreme achievement of having his creation exist exactly as he had originally conceived it.

For this singular moment in time, it was complete, and it was his alone.

It was, for this moment, pure in its existence, untainted by what others thought. For this moment it was his accomplishment, and he knew its value in his own heart and mind.

Richard went to one knee before the figures. He laid the cold steel of the chisel to his forehead and closed his eyes as he concentrated on what he had left to do.

“Blade, be true this day.”

He pulled the red cloth tied at his throat up over his nose so not to have to breathe the stone dust, then set the chisel to the marks in the flat place he had already prepared just above the heart of the flaw. Richard brought the mallet down, and began to carve the title of the statue in the base for all to see.

Nicci, standing behind the corner of a building around a curve in the road, watched farther down the hill as Richard left the shop where he had carved his statue. He was probably going to see about getting the team to move the stone. He closed the door, but he didn’t put the chain on it. No doubt, he didn’t intend to be gone for long.

Men were working all over the hillside at a variety of shops. Tradesmen from leather workers to goldsmiths contributed to a constant din of saws, grinding, and hammering. The ceaseless uproar of the labor was nerve-racking. While many of the men coming and going gave Nicci a good look-see, her glare warned them off.

Once she saw Richard disappear beyond the blacksmith’s shop, she started down the road. She had told him she would wait until he was done before she came to see it. She had kept her word.

Still, she felt uneasy. She didn’t know why, but she felt almost as if she would be invading a sacred site. Richard hadn’t invited her to see his statue. He had asked her to wait until it was done. Since it was done, she would wait no longer.

Nicci didn’t want to see it up on the plaza of the palace along with everyone else. She wanted to be alone with it. She didn’t care about the Order and their interest in the statue. She didn’t want to be standing with everyone else, with people who would not recognize it as something of significance. This was personal to her, and she wanted to see it in private.

She reached the door without anyone accosting her, or even paying her any mind. She looked around in the bright, hazy midafternoon light, but saw only men attending to their work. She opened the door and slipped inside.

The room was dark, its walls black, but the statue inside was well lit by light coming down from a window in the high roof. Nicci didn’t look directly at the statue, but kept her eyes to the floor as she hurried around the huge stone so she could see it for the first time from the front.

Once in place, her pulse pounding, she turned.

Nicci’s gaze rose up the legs, the robes, the arms, the bodies of the two people, up to their faces. She felt as if a giant fist squeezed her heart to a stop.

This was what was in Richard’s eyes, brought into existence in glowing white marble. To see it fully realized was like being struck by lightning.

In that instant, her entire life, everything that had ever happened to her, everything she had ever seen, heard, or done, seemed to come together in one flash of emotional violence. Nicci cried out in pain at the beauty of it, and more so at the beauty of what it represented.

Her eyes fell on the name carved in the stone base.

LIFE

Nicci collapsed to the floor in tears, in abject shame, in horror, in revulsion, in sudden blinding comprehension.

…In pure joy.

After Richard had returned with the fine white linen he had bought to cover the statue until the ceremony the following day, he helped Ishaq and a number of the men he knew from down at the site begin the slow process of sledging the heavy stone down to the plaza. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained in a while, and the ground was firm.

Ishaq, knowing such business well, had brought along greased wooden runners, which were placed before the hefty wooden rails supporting the wooden platform under the statue so that the teams of horses could more easily pull the heavy load across the ground. After the statue was dragged onto the second set of greased runners, the men brought the ones left behind to the front, leapfrogging the statue as it was moved along.

The hillside was white with the scree of waste stone, so the statue weighed considerably less than it once had. Victor had originally hired special stone-hauling wagons to move the block. They couldn’t use them now because the finished piece couldn’t be turned on its side or handled in such a rough manner.

Ishaq waved his red hat in his fist, yelling orders, warnings, and prayers as they had moved along. Richard knew that his statue could be in no better hands. The men who helped seemed to pick up Ishaq’s nervous tension. They sensed this was something important, and, though the work was difficult, they seemed more pleased to be a part of it than they were about their everyday labor at the site. It took until late afternoon to move the statue the distance from the shop to the foot of the steps leading up to the plaza.

Men shoveled dirt at the bottom of the stairs and packed it tight in order to ease the transition in grade. A team of ten horses was taken around the other side of the columns. Long lengths of rope were passed through the vacant doorways and windows, and then secured around the stone base in order to draw the sledge up the steps. The extra runners were laid on the leading edge of the dirt ramp, later to be moved up onto the steps as the statue progressed upward. Near to two hundred men swooped in at Ishaq’s frantic screaming to help pull on the ropes along with the horses. Inch by inch, the statue ascended the steps.

Richard could hardly stand to watch. If anything went wrong, all his work would tumble back and shatter. The flaw would destroy it all. He smiled to himself, realizing how silly it was to worry that the evidence of his crime against the Order might be ruined.

When the stone had finally arrived safely up on the plaza, sand was packed underneath the platform to support its weight. With the sand holding the wooden platform secure, the heavy runners were removed. With the runners off, the platform was slid off its hill of sand. From there, it was a relatively simple task to coax the statue off the wooden base and onto the plaza itself. At last, marble sat on marble. Gangs of men with ropes around the stone base tugged the freed statue into its final resting place at the center point of the plaza.

Ishaq stood beside Richard when it was over, mopping his brow with his red hat. The entire statue and sundial was shrouded in its white linen cover, with line securing it, so Ishaq couldn’t see what it was. Still, he sensed something of importance stood before him.

“When?” was all Ishaq asked.

Richard knew what he meant. “I guess I’m not sure. Brother Narev is to dedicate the palace to the Creator tomorrow, before all the officials who have traveled to see how the money they’ve looted from the people is being spent. I guess that tomorrow the officials, along with everyone who comes to the ceremony, are to see the statue along with the rest of the palace. It’s just another display of the Order’s view of man’s place—I don’t think they intend any unveiling or anything like that.”

From what Richard had learned, the ceremony was a matter of great concern to the brothers. The drain of the expense of the palace on top of the expense of the war required justification to the people who were paying that price not only with their sweat, but with their blood. The Fellowship of Order ruled, through the Imperial Order, with the necessary collaboration of brutes to whom they gave moral sanction. While the brutes had easily crushed the bodies of those who had revolted, the brothers wanted to crush the ideas such revolt represented, before they could spread, because it was such ideas that were the greatest threat to them.

To that end, it was also important to inspire the officials: the minions of the Order’s tyranny. Richard imagined that with scenes of man’s depravity carved into thousands of feet of stone wall, the flock of far-flung officials of the Order were going to be given guided tours, by the brothers, of all mankind’s failings, and thus coerced into their duty of turning over money they had already confiscated at the point of a blade—a blade they wielded under the moral sanction of the brothers through the Fellowship of Order. Such petty officials were allowed a slice for their service to the Order, but the brothers no doubt wanted to forcefully dissuade them from any grander notions.

Under the direction of the brothers, the collective of the Order, like any autocratic ruler, ultimately ruled only by the acquiesce of the people, who were controlled either by moral intimidation, or by physical threat, or by both. Tyranny required constant tending, lest the illusion of righteous authority evaporate in the light of its grim toll, and the brutes be overpowered by the people who greatly outnumbered them.

That was why Richard had known he couldn’t lead: he could not bludgeon people into understanding that bludgeoning was wrong because their lives were of great value, whereas the Order could have them bludgeoned into obedience by first making people believe that their lives were of no value. Free people were not ruled. Freedom had first to be valued before its existence could be demanded.

“From what I’m told, it is to be a big event,” Ishaq said. “People from all over are coming to the dedication of the emperor’s palace. The city is full of people from far and near.”

Richard looked around at the site as the workers trudged back to their regular jobs.

“I’m surprised none of the officials have come to have a look at the palace in advance.”

Ishaq waved his hat dismissively. “They are all at the gathering of the Fellowship of Order. In the center of Altur’Rang. Big doings. Food, drink, speeches by the brothers. You know how the Order likes meetings. Very boring, I imagine. From what I know of such events, the officials will be kept busy hearing of the needs of the Order and their duty to get people to sacrifice to that need. The brothers will keep them all under tight rein.”

That meant the brothers would all be busy—too busy to come out to the site for the trivial task of checking a statue one of their slaves had carved. In the scheme of things, Richard’s statue was insignificant. It was only the starting point of the stately tour of the miles of walls displaying extensive scenes depicting the grand cause of the Order, as dictated by the brothers, under Narev’s leadership.

If the officials and the brothers were too busy to come today, the people of the city were not. Most would probably attend the events of the next day, but they wanted to get a sense of the place for themselves, first, without the boring speeches that would drag out the ceremony. Richard watched many of those people go from one scene on the walls to another, their faces stricken with the desolate emotion of what they were seeing.

Guards kept people at a respectful distance, and out of the labyrinth of rooms and hallways inside, now enclosed by upper floors, and in some places, roofs. Now that the statue was set in place, those guards moved in to clear the plaza entrance.

Richard had only gotten a few hours of sleep in the last week. Now that the statue was in place, exhaustion overwhelmed him. With all the work on top of so little sleep, and little to eat, he was almost ready to drop where he stood.

Victor appeared out of the long shadows. Some workers were leaving, but others would still be at it for several more hours. Richard hadn’t even realized that it had taken the better part of the day to move the statue. With the heat of the work over, his sweat-soaked shirt felt like ice against his flesh.

“Here,” Victor said, handing Richard a slice of lardo. “Eat. In celebration that you are done.”

Richard thanked his friend before devouring the lardo. His head was pounding. He had done all he could do to show people what they needed to see. With the work done, though, Richard felt suddenly lost. He realized only then how much he hated having finished, to be without the noble work. It had been his reason to go on.

“Ishaq, I’m dead on my feet. Do you think you could give me a ride in your wagon partway to my house?”

Ishaq clapped Richard on the back. “Come, you can ride in the back. I’m sure Jori would not mind. At least he can save you part of your walk. I must stay here and see to the teams and wagons.”

Richard thanked the smiling Victor. “In the morning, my friends, in the full light, we will remove the cover and see beauty one last time. After that…well, who knows.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Victor said with his sly laugh. “I don’t think I will sleep tonight,” he called after Richard.

The months of effort seemed to all come down upon him at once. He climbed into the back of Ishaq’s wagon and bid the man a good night. As Ishaq left, Richard curled up under a tarp to shut out the light and was asleep before Jori returned. He was dead to the world as the wagon rolled away.

Nicci watched as Richard departed with Ishaq. She wanted to do this on her own. She wanted it to be her part. She wanted to contribute something of value.

Only then could she face him.

She knew precisely how the Order would react to the statue. They would view it as a threat. They would not allow other people to see it. The Order would destroy it. It would be gone. No one would ever know about it.

Twining her fingers together, she wondered how to proceed—what should be first. Then it came to her. She had gone to him before. He had helped Richard. He was Richard’s friend. Nicci rushed across the sprawling site of the palace and up the hill.

She was winded by the time she reached the blacksmith’s shop. The grim blacksmith was putting away tools. He had already banked the fire in his forge. The smells, the sights, even the layer of iron dust and soot gave Nicci a joyful flash of her father’s shop. She understood, now, the look that had been in her father’s eyes. She doubted he had fully understood it himself, but she did, now. The blacksmith looked up without smiling as she rushed into his shop.

“Mr. Cascella! I need you.”

His frown grew. “What’s that matter? Why are you crying? Is it Richard? Have they—”

“No. Nothing like that.” She grabbed his meaty hand and tugged at him. It was like tugging on a boulder. “Please. Come with me. It’s important.”

He gestured with his other hand around at his shop. “But I have to clean up for the night.”

She yanked again on his hand. She felt tears stinging her eyes. “Please! This is important!”

He wiped his free hand down his face. “Lead the way, then.”

Nicci felt a little foolish pulling the burly blacksmith along by the hand as she raced down the hill. He asked where they were going, but she didn’t answer. She wanted to get down there before the light was gone.

When they reached the plaza, guards were patrolling up at the top of the steps, keeping everyone off the plaza. Nicci saw Ishaq nearby, loading long planks in a wagon. She called to him, and, seeing the blacksmith with her, he ran over.

“Nicci! What is it? You look a frightful—”

“I have to show you both the statue. Now.”

Victor’s scowl grew. “It will be unveiled tomorrow when Richard—”

“No! You must see it now.”

They both fell silent. Ishaq leaned close as he gestured covertly.

“We can’t go up there. It’s guarded.”

“I can.” Nicci angrily wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her voice regained the quality of grave authority she had wielded so often, that dark intonation that had passed judgment on countless lives, and sent people to their death. “Wait here.”

Both men pulled back at the menace in her eyes.

Nicci straightened her back. She lifted her chin. She was a Sister of the Dark.

She ascended the steps in a measured pace, as if the palace were hers. It was. She was the Slave Queen. These men were hers to command.

She was Death’s Mistress.

The guards approached her warily, sensing that the woman in black was a threat. Before they could speak, she spoke first.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“What are we doing here?” one asked. “We’re guarding the emperor’s palace, that’s what we’re doing—”

“How dare you talk back to me. Do you know who I am?”

“Well… I don’t think I—”

“Death’s Mistress. Perhaps you have heard of me?”

All dozen men straightened. She saw their eyes take in the black dress again, then her long blond hair, her blue eyes. By their reaction to what they saw, it was obvious to Nicci that her reputation preceded her. Before they could say another word, she spoke again.

“And what do you suppose Emperor Jagang’s consort is doing here? Do you suppose I came without my master? Of course not, you idiots!”