“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.
Chapter 67
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 fin
d 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.
“Fellow citizens of the Order,” Brother Narev said in a voice that Nicci thought might crack the stone walls, “today you will see what happens to evil, when confronted by the virtue of the Order.”
He hooked a skeletal finger, signaling behind the heads of the officials. Guards muscled Richard forward. Nicci cried out, but her voice was lost in the clamor of tens of thousands of other voices.
Brother Neal swaggered forward, then, lugging with him a sledgehammer.
Nicci checked to the sides and saw that there were several thousand armed guards at hand. More screened the plaza off from the people. Brother Narev had taken no chances. Neal, with a polite smile and a deferential bow, handed the sledgehammer to Brother Narev.
Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer above his head as if it were a sword held high in triumph.
“Evil, wherever it is found, must be destroyed.” He aimed the weaving head of the sledgehammer toward the statue. “This is a thing of evil, created by an extremist who hates his fellow man, to victimize the weak. He contributes nothing to the advancement of his fellow man, nothing to the succor of his fellow man, nothing to the education or support of his fellow man. He offers only lewd and profane images to prey on the susceptible and feebleminded among us.”
The crowd was silent in their bewildered disappointment. From what Nicci could tell as she had walked among them throughout the day, they had come to believe that this statue was some new offering by the Order to the people—some grand thing for them to see at the emperor’s palace, some bright shining hope. They were confused and stunned by what they were hearing.
Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer. “Before this criminal’s corpse is hung from a pole for his crimes against the Order, he is to see his vile work destroyed to the cheers of virtuous people!”
As the sun’s last ray fled below the horizon, Brother Narev lifted the heavy sledgehammer high in the flickering light of smoking torches. The sledgehammer wobbled momentarily at the apex of its arc before descending in a heavy swing. The crowd sent up a collective gasp as the steel head rang out when it struck the male statue’s leg. A few small chips fell away. It had done surprisingly little damage.
In the absolute silence, Richard laughed derisively at Brother Narev’s impotent swing.
Even from the distance, Nicci could see Brother Narev’s face turning crimson as Richard stood watching and chuckling. The crowd murmured, hardly able to believe any man would laugh at a brother of the Order—at Brother Narev himself.
Brother Narev could hardly believe it.
The dozens of guards who had their spears leveled at Richard could hardly believe it.
In the tense silence, Richard’s laugh echoed off the semicircle of stone walls and soaring columns behind them. Death’s grin returned. Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer by the head, its weight awkward in his bony hand, and held the handle out to Richard.
“You will destroy your depraved work yourself.”
The words “or you will die on the spot” were not spoken, but everyone heard them implied.
Richard accepted the
handle of the sledgehammer. He could have looked no more noble doing so if he had been taking a jewel-encrusted sword.
Richard’s raptor gaze left Brother Narev and swept out over the crowd as he took several strides toward the steps. Brother Narev lifted a finger, signaling the guards to hold their spears. By the smirk on the faces of Brothers Narev and Neal, they didn’t think the crowd would care to hear anything a sinner had to say.
“You are ruled,” Richard said in a voice that rang out over the multitude, “by mean little men.”
The people gasped as one. To speak against a brother was treason, most likely, and heresy for sure.
“My crime?” Richard asked aloud. “I have given you something beautiful to see, daring to hold the conviction that you have a right to see it if you wish. Worse… I have said that your lives are your own to live.”
A rolling murmur swept out through the multitude. Richard’s voice rose in power, demanding in its clarity to be heard above the whispering.
“Evil is not one large entity, but a collection of countless, small depravities brought up from the muck by petty men. Living under the Order, you have traded the enrichment of vision for a gray fog of mediocrity—the fertile inspiration of striving and growth, for mindless stagnation and slow decay—the brave new ground of the attempt, for the timid quagmire of apathy.”
With gazes riveted and lips still, the crowd listened. Richard gestured out over their heads with his sledgehammer, wielded with the effortless grace of a royal sword.
“You have traded freedom not even for a bowl of soup, but worse, for the spoken empty feelings of others who say that you deserve to have a full bowl of soup provided by someone else.
“Happiness, joy, accomplishment, achievement…are not finite commodities, to be divided up. Is a child’s laughter to be divided up and allotted? No! Simply make more laughter!”
Faith of the Fallen Page 83