Faith of the Fallen (76 page)

Richard had answered their tower of empty lies in one righteously beautiful statement for all to see, and had punctuated it with the simple words on the back of the bronze sundial.

Her life was hers to live by right. She belonged to no one.

Freedom exists first and foremost in the mind of the rational, thinking individual—that was what Richard’s statue had shown her. That he had carved it, proved it. A captive of her and the Order, his ideals had risen above both.

Nicci realized only now that she had always known her father held this same value—she had seen it in his eyes—even though he could never rationalize it. His values were expressed through the integrity of his work; that was why, from a young age, she had wanted to be an armorer like him. It was his vision of life she had always loved and admired, but suppressed, because of Mother and her ilk. It was that same look in Richard’s eyes, that same value for life held dear, that had drawn Nicci to him.

Nicci knew now that she had worn black ever since her mother’s death in an endless, shapeless longing to bury not just her mother’s hold over her, but, more important, her mother’s evil ideals.

She was so sorry Richard wasn’t home. She wanted to tell him that he had given her the answer she had sought. She could never ask his forgiveness, though. What she had done to him was beyond forgiveness. She saw that now. The only thing she could do now was to reverse the wrong she had done.

As soon as she found him, they would leave. They would go back to the New World. They would find Kahlan. Then, Nicci would set things right. She had to be close to Kahlan, at least within sight, in order to undo the spell. Then Kahlan would be free. Then Richard would be free.

As much as Nicci loved Richard, she understood, now, that he should be with Kahlan, the woman he loved. Her desire for him gave her no right to do as she had done. She had no right to another’s life, as they had no right to hers.

Nicci lay down in her bed and wept at the thought of the outrage she had done to them both. She was overcome with shame. She had been so blind for so long.

She could not believe how she had thrown her entire life away fighting for evil just because it claimed to be good. She truly had been a Sister of the Dark.

She at least could work to correct the harm she had caused.

Kahlan could hardly believe the size of the crowd. By the light of the moon brightening the thin layer of hazy clouds, and by torches here and there throughout the valley, it looked like the open area as far as she could see was packed with people. The numbers had to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Thunderstruck, Kamil threw up his arms. “It’s the middle of the night. I’ve never seen so many people out here. What are they all doing here?”

“How would we know?” Cara sniped. She was in a foul mood, unhappy that they hadn’t found Richard, yet.

The city had been crowded with people, too. With the city guards prowling the streets, uneasy about all the late-night activity, it had been necessary to restrain their eagerness in favor of caution. It had taken them hours to get out to the site by way of back streets, dark roads, and Kamil’s guided tour of alleyways.

The lad pointed. “It’s up there.”

They followed him up a road lined with workshops, most closed up and dark. A few had men inside, still working at benches by the light of lamps or candles.

Kahlan reached under her cloak and curled her fingers around the hilt of her sword when she saw a man running in their direction. He saw them and skidded to a halt.

“Have you seen it?”

“Seen what?” Kahlan asked.

He pointed excitedly. “Down at the palace. In the plaza.” He started running again. He called behind as he went. “I have to go get my wife and sons. They have to see it.”

Kahlan and Cara shared a look in the near darkness.

Kamil ran over to a shop and tugged on a door, but it was shut up tight. “Victor isn’t here.” His voice couldn’t conceal his disappointment. “It’s too late.”

“Do you know what’s down in the plaza?” Kahlan asked him.

He thought a moment. “The plaza? I know the place, but…wait, that’s where Richard told me to go. The plaza. He said to go to the plaza tomorrow.”

“Let’s go down there now and have a look,” Kahlan said.

Kamil waved a hand, pointing. “This is the shortest way, down the hill behind the blacksmith shop.”

So jammed was the place with people, that it took them over an hour just to make it down the hill and across the expanse of grounds around the palace. Even though it was the middle of the night, more people kept arriving all the time.

Once they reached the palace, Kahlan discovered that they couldn’t get to the plaza. There was a huge mob of people stretching back forever along the front wall, waiting to go up to the plaza. When Kahlan, Cara, and Kamil tried to go around and get up there to see what was going on, it nearly started a riot. People had been waiting a long time to reach the plaza, and they didn’t like having others try to push ahead. Kahlan saw several men try to get ahead by going around the waiting crowd. They were set upon by the mob.

Cara pulled her hand out from under her cloak and casually showed Kahlan her Agiel.

Kahlan shook her head. “Long odds with Jagang’s army are one thing, but the three of us against a few hundred thousand does not sound good to me.”

“Really?” Cara asked. “I thought it roughly even.”

Kahlan only smiled. Even Cara knew better than to go against a mob. Kamil frowned in puzzlement at Cara’s humor. When they found the back of the line, they melted in.

It wasn’t long before the line behind them grew so large that they could no longer see the back end winding out into the grounds. The people all around seemed filled with a strange kind of nervous expectancy.

A round woman in front, bundled up in little more than rags, turned a plump grin on them. She held out what looked like a loaf of bread.

“Would you like some?” she asked.

“Thank you, no,” Kahlan said. “But that’s very kind of you to offer.”

“I’ve never made such an offer, before.” The woman giggled. “Seems the right thing to do, now, doesn’t it?”

Kahlan had no idea what the woman was talking about, but said, “Yes, it does.”

Throughout the night, the line inched along. Kahlan’s back ached painfully. She even saw Cara grimace as she stretched.

“I still think we just ought to draw weapons and get up there,” Cara finally complained.

Kahlan leaned in close. “What difference does it make? Where have we to go before morning? When morning comes, we can go up to the blacksmith’s place or to the carving areas over there and hopefully find Richard, but we can do nothing tonight.”

“Maybe he will be at his room, now.”

“You want to run into Nicci again? You know what she’s capable of. The next time we may not be so lucky to escape. We haven’t come all this way to battle her—I just want to see Richard. Even if Richard goes back there—and we don’t know that he will—we do know he’s got to return here in the morning.”

“I suppose,” Cara grouched.

The sky was taking on a faint reddish glow by the time they made it to the foot of the marble steps. They could hear moaning and wailing up ahead. Kahlan couldn’t see the cause, but people up on the plaza were weeping freely. Oddly enough, some people could be heard to laugh joyfully. A few others cursed, as if they had been robbed of their life savings at the point of a knife.

As they slowly made their way up the steps, Kahlan and Cara tried to stay low behind the people surrounding them so as not to draw attention to themselves. The plaza above was lit by dozens of torches, their flickering light giving an indication of the vastness of the crowds. The smell of the burning pitch mixed sourly with the stale sweat of the packed multitude.

Through a momentary gap between people in front of her, Kahlan snatched a quick glance ahead. She blinked at what she saw, but it was gone almost as fast as she saw it, screened by the throng. The people ahead wept—some, it sounded, with joy.

Kahlan began to make out the polite voices of men asking the crowd to keep moving, imploring them to give others a chance. The ragtag collection of people steadily advanced up onto the white marble of the plaza, like beggars at a coronation. The torchlight was finally being replaced by radiant daylight as the sun cleared the horizon. Golden rays washed the face of the palace.

The scenes carved in the stone up on the walls were disturbing. If they were any different from the others she had seen in the Old World, it was only in that they were more gruesome, more horrifying, more desolately hopeless, and more plentiful.

Kahlan’s mind played over the lines of her statue of
Spirit
. The idea of Richard having to carve such things as she saw up on the walls sickened her.

She felt a sense of gloom overcoming her. This was the Order: pain, suffering, death. This was what was in store for the New World at the hands of these monsters. She couldn’t take her eyes from the scenes on the walls, from the fate that awaited the people of her homeland—the fate so many blindly embraced.

Then, all of a sudden, as the people shuffled around and past, Kahlan beheld the white marble figures rising up before her. The sight took her breath in a gasp. The rays of dawn lit them as if the sun itself had risen just to caress the lustrous forms in all their glory.

Cara gripped Kahlan’s arm, her fingers digging in painfully as she, too, was taken by the sight. The statue of the man and woman seized Kahlan’s imagination with their nobility of spirit.

She felt tears run down her cheeks, and then she was weeping openly, like the people around her, at the majesty, the dignity, the beauty, of what stood before her. It was everything the carvings on the walls all around were not. It offered freely everything they denied.

LIFE
, it said at the base.

Kahlan had to gasp through her tears to draw breath. She clutched at Cara’s arm, and Cara clutched at hers, the two of them holding on to each other for support as the crowd swept them along in a current of shared emotion. The man in the statue was not Richard, but there was much of Richard in it. The woman was not Kahlan, but there was enough of her form in it that Kahlan felt her face flushing at others seeing it.

“Please look and move along so that others may view it too,” the men at the sides kept calling. They weren’t wearing uniforms; they were as tattered-looking as everyone else. They appeared to be ordinary citizens who had just stepped in to help.

The woman who had offered the bread fell to her knees in wailing. Arms respectfully lifted her and helped her to move on. The woman, living in the Old World, had probably never seen a thing of such beauty.

As Kahlan shuffled around the statue, unable to take her eyes from it, she reached out to touch it, as did everyone else. As she was carried past, her fingers met the smooth flesh in stone, knowing it was also where Richard’s fingers had been. She wept all the harder.

As she moved past, Kahlan saw then that the curve of the sundial had words on the back:

“Your life is yours alone. Rise up and live it.”

The words were visible on the lips of many who saw them.

The crowd kept coming up the steps, forcing the people around the statue to move on. Men at the rear guided people between the columns, out through the rear of the partially built palace, and out of the way so that others could come up to view the statue.

“I wish Benjamin could see this,” Cara said, her blue eyes brimming with tears.

Kahlan was overcome with a burble of laughter. “I was going to say, ‘I wish Richard could see it.’”

Cara laughed with her as they were swept away by the river of people.

Kamil grabbed Kahlan’s hand. She saw him take Cara’s, too.

“Yeah,” he said with authority, “Richard carved it.”

“Where to?” Kahlan asked him. “Where do you think we can find him?”

“I guess we should make our way back up to the blacksmith’s place. Hopefully, Richard will show up there. If not, maybe Victor will know where he is.”

Kamil’s words, “Richard carved it,” rang joyfully through her mind.

Richard climbed through the high window and dropped to the ground, his boots hitting with a thud. He could hardly believe he had slept the whole night under a tarp in the back of a wagon. He could hardly believe that Jori didn’t wake him so he could go home when they were close. The man probably didn’t think it was his job, and so he wouldn’t do it. Richard sighed. Maybe Jori hadn’t known he was in the back.

Richard brushed himself off. He stood outside the transport company building where he used to work when he had first come to Altur’Rang, and where he had been locked in all night. Of course, he had been asleep, so he didn’t know Jori had locked him inside.

Richard didn’t know where to go—home, or to the Retreat. The sky glowed orange and violet in the bright sunrise. He supposed there was no point in going home; that would only make him late to work. He decided he had better get to work.

Work. What work? This was the day of the celebration, the dedication. When Brother Narev saw the statue, Richard was not going to have to worry about work anymore.

He knew that if he ran, tried to escape, it would only trigger Nicci’s anger, and then Kahlan’s life would be forfeit. Richard had spent over a year with Nicci—as long a time as he had spent with Kahlan—and Nicci repeatedly had made clear his choices. Kahlan’s life was always the price in the balance.

Richard had no real choice. At least he would get to see Victor’s face when he saw the statue. Richard smiled at that thought. It was the only pleasant prospect the day held.

The day was most likely to end in the wet dark hole where he had been before. He missed a step at that thought. He didn’t want to go back into that place. It was so small. Richard didn’t like being trapped—especially in small places. He didn’t like either of those concepts; together, they were terrifying.

As fearful as the prospect of such a fate was, he had carved the statue with conscious intent and with forethought, knowing the probability of the eventual price. What he had accomplished was worth that price. Slavery was not life. Nicci had once promised him that if he died, or chose death, that would in itself be her answer, and she would not harm Kahlan. Now, Richard could only put his faith in that promise.

The statue existed. That was what mattered.
Life
existed. People needed to see that. So many people in the Old World needed to see that life existed, and was to be lived.

For so early in the morning, there was an unusual amount of activity on the streets of Altur’Rang. Now and again, squads of heavily armed city guards rushed down the streets. There were a lot of people come to the city for the dedication celebration. He supposed that was why there were so many people out on the streets.

The guards paid him no attention. He knew they soon would.

When he arrived at the Retreat, Richard was shocked by what he saw. The open miles of grounds were covered with people. They crowded in around the palace walls like ants around spilled honey. He couldn’t even begin to estimate how many people blanketed the surrounding hills. It was disorienting to see the panoply of color where before he had seen only brown dirt and green winter rye. He had no idea that this many people had wanted to come to the dedication. But then, he had been working day and night for months—how would he hear what people planned?

Richard skirted the worst of the throngs and made his way up the road toward the blacksmith’s shop. He wanted to get Victor and go down with him to the site to see the statue before the Order came out to begin the dedication. Victor would no doubt be eagerly waiting.

The road was crowded with people. They seemed excited, happy, and expectant, ft was a far cry from the way most people in the Old World usually appeared or behaved. Maybe a celebration, even one such as this, was better than the rest of their dreary days.

A half mile from Victor’s place, a wild-looking Brother Neal leaped into the road and thrust an arm in Richard’s direction.

“There he is! Grab him!”

Guards combing throughout the surrounding crowds drew weapons at Neal’s command. As they swept in around him, Richard’s first instinct was to fight. In an instant, he had assessed the enemy and calculated his attack. He had only to grab one sword from a clumsy guard and he would have them all. In his own mind, the grisly deed was already done. He had only to bring it to reality.

The guards came at him in a dead run. People scattered out of the way, some screaming in fright.

There was the matter of Neal, though. Neal was a wizard. But Richard could deal with that threat, too—need powered his ability. Need, and anger. He certainly had enough anger for the task. That part of him that the Sword of Truth used, that rage of dark violence, already thundered through him.

Except that Nicci had told him that if he used his magic, Kahlan would die. Would she know?

Sooner or later, she would.

Richard stood submissively still as the guards roughly seized him by his arms to subdue him. Others snatched his shirt from behind.

What did it really matter? If he resisted, it would only hurt Kahlan. If they executed him, Nicci would let Kahlan live her life.

But he didn’t want to go back into that dark hole.

Neal raced up, shaking a finger in Richard’s face. “What is the meaning of this, Cypher! What did you think you were going to accomplish!”

“May I ask what are you talking about, Brother Neal?”

Neal’s face was crimson. “The statue!”

“What, you don’t like it?”

With all his might, Neal slammed his fist into Richard’s middle. The guards holding him laughed. Richard had seen it coming and had tightened his muscles, but it still drove the wind from him. He finally managed to draw his breath.

Neal found that he enjoyed administering punishment, and did it again.

“Oh, you’re going to pay for your blasphemy, Cypher. You’re going to pay the price, this time. You’ll confess to it all, before we’re done. But first, you’ll watch your wicked perversion destroyed.” Neal, his face twisted with superior, self-righteous indignation, gestured to the burly guards. “Let’s get him down there. And don’t be shy about making way through the crowd.”

By midmorning, Kahlan’s hopes of the blacksmith showing up had all but vanished.

“I’m sorry,” Kamil said, looking glum as he watched her pace. “I don’t know why Victor isn’t here. I thought he would be, I really did.”

Kahlan finally halted and gave the worried lad a pat on the shoulder. “I know you did, Kamil. With the celebration today, and with what’s going on down there with the statue, this is hardly a normal day around here, I’m sure.”

“Look,” Cara said. Kahlan saw she was peering down toward the palace. “Guards with spears are moving the crowd off the plaza.”

Kahlan squinted off down at the hill. “Your eyes are better than mine. I can’t tell.” She cast a frustrated glare at the closed blacksmith’s shop. “But it’s doing us no good waiting up here. Let’s see if we can make it down there and get a better look.” Kahlan put a restraining hand on Cara’s arm. “But let’s not start a war with this crowd?”

Cara’s mouth twisted in exasperation. Kahlan turned to the young man kicking a toe at the dirt, looking shamed by his failed plan to help them find Richard.

“Kamil, will you do something for me?”

“Sure. What?”

“Will you wait up here, in case Richard comes here, or even the blacksmith? If the blacksmith comes to his shop, he might know something.”

Kamil stretched his neck and gazed down at the palace. “Well, all right. If Richard does come here, I wouldn’t want him to miss you. What shall I tell him, if I see him?”

Kahlan smiled.
That I love him
, she thought, but said instead, “Tell him I’m here, with Cara, and we’ve gone down there looking for him. If he does show up, I don’t want to miss him. Have him wait here—we’ll come back.”

Kahlan thought they could make it down to the plaza to have a look, but everyone else seemed to have the same idea. It took forever just to make it down the hill to the grounds. The closer they got, the tighter the people were jammed together. Kahlan’s progress ground to a halt. It was a struggle just to keep contact with Cara. Everyone in the crowd seemed intent on squeezing forward toward the plaza. More people crushed in all the time.

Kahlan soon realized that she and Cara were trapped in the press of people.

The conversation on everyone’s lips was about only one thing: the statue.

It was late in the day by the time Nicci had worked herself partway toward the plaza. Every inch gained had been a struggle. She was close enough to see the people up around the statue, but she could get no closer. Try as she might, she could not make any more headway. Just like her, everyone else wanted to get closer, too. They were pressed up against her, pinning her arms. It was at times a frightening, helpless feeling. She managed to pull one arm free so she could help herself maintain her balance. It came to her that to fall in such circumstances could be fatal.

If only she had her power.

Her own arrogance had driven her to trading it away. What she had gotten in return, though, was life. But it had cost Richard and Kahlan their freedom. Nicci couldn’t simply withdraw her power from the link, in order to have use of her gift again, or Kahlan would die. Nicci didn’t want her life at the cost of another’s—that was what she had come to understand was true evil.

Nicci had searched for Richard. She hadn’t found him. She hadn’t been able to find the blacksmith, Mr. Cascella, or Ishaq, either. As soon as she could find Richard, she could tell him that she had been wrong, and then they could leave Altur’Rang. She wanted so much to see his face when she told him she was taking him back to Kahlan and that she was going to reverse the spell. Of all people, they were the last who should have to suffer for what Nicci had learned.

The only place left that she could think to look for him was at the statue. He might be there. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t get any closer. Now, she realized that she probably couldn’t even extract herself from the crush of hundreds of thousands of people around her. There had to be well over a half million people in the huge throng around the palace.

And then, Nicci saw Brother Narev and his disciples appear up on the plaza, all in their dark brown robes, Brother Narev in his creased cap, the rest with their faces hidden in deeply cowled hoods. Crowding the rear of the plaza were a few hundred officials of the Order who had traveled in to attend the palace dedication—important men, all.

If only she had her power, she could have killed them where they stood.

It was then that she caught a fleeting glimpse of Richard behind the officials, with guards surrounding him. The whole central area around the plaza was thick with the surly guards.

Brother Narev stepped out to the edge of the plaza, all angles under dark robes. Beneath his creased cap, beneath his hooded brow, his dark gaze swept the assembly. The people were in a noisy, emotional state. Brother Narev did not look pleased, but then, Brother Narev never looked pleased. Pleasure, he would say, was wicked. He raised his arms, commanding silence.

When the crowd quieted, he began in that terrible grating voice of his, a voice that had haunted her from that day in her house when she was little, that voice that she had allowed to rule her mind, that voice that, along with her mother’s, had done her thinking for her.

“Fellow citizens of the Order. We have a special event planned for you today. Today, we bring you the spectacle of temptation…and more.”

His arm glided back toward the statue. His long thin fingers opened. His voice rumbled with revulsion. “Evil, itself.”

The crowd murmured uneasily. Brother Narev smiled, the thin slash of his mouth pleating back his hollow cheeks as he grinned like death’s own skull. His eyes were as dark as his robes. The setting sun was fleeing the scene, taking clarity, leaving behind the tremors of flickering light from the dozens of torches to cast their flickering orange light across the massive columns towering behind the plaza, and the weak light of the moon to wash the faces of the grim officials. The air, so cloying with the heavy scents of the crowd, had turned chill.