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cause."
"Really, Brother Neal? I never suspected."
"That is why you are nobody, and never will be anybody. You are a
nothing. Just like all those carvers."
"I realize I am nobody important, Brother Neal. It would be wrong to
think I was
of any value other than in what I can contribute. I aspire only to work
hard in service to the Creator so I might earn my reward in the next life."
The smile was gone, replaced by a fiery scowl. "I ordered them put to
deathafter I had confessions tortured out of each one of them."
Richard's fist tightened on the chisel. Through a calm expression, he
contemplated driving his chisel through Neal's skull. He knew he could do it
before the man could react. But what would it gain? Nothing.
"1 am grateful, Brother Neal, that you uncovered the traitors in our
midst."
Neal squinted in suspicion for a moment. He finally dismissed it with a
twist of his mouth before suddenly swirling amid a flourish of his robes.
"Come with me," the brother commanded in a grave tone as he marched
away.
Richard followed him across the field churned to mud by all the workers
going back and forth, by all the supplies being dragged, carried, or rolled
to the construction site. They strode, past what seemed the endless face of
the palace. The stone walls were getting ever higher, with row upon row of
window openings. Their trim was beginning to take form. Many of the beams
for the second floor had been placed in sockets in the walls. A maze of
inner walls was going up, too, defining the interior rooms and hallways.
There would be miles of corridors in the palace. Dozens of stairwells stood
in various stages of construction.
It wouldn't be long before oak floors were laid over some of the rooms
below, enclosing them. The roof had to be completed over those sections,
first, though, lest rain ruin the flooring. Some of the outer rooms were to
have roofs lower than the main section, which was to rise up to a towering
height. Richard expected to see those lower rooms capped with slate and lead
roofs before the winter rains.
He stayed close behind Brother Neal as they marched toward the main
opening into the palace. There, the walls were higher and more complete,
with many of the ornate decorations in place. Neal charged two at a time up
the semicircle of marble steps leading up to the entry plaza. The white
marble pillars stood in an impressive sweep, and over the top of them many
of the stone carvings had been installed. With all the tortured people
frozen in stone, it was an intimidating sight, as it was meant to be.
The floor of the plaza was gray-veined white Cavatura marble. The sun
on the marble made the plaza, half encircled by the soaring columns, glow
with glorious light. The decrepit people in the stone ringing the plaza
seemed to be screaming in pain at that light-which was just the effect
Brother Narev had wanted.
Neal made a sweeping gesture with an arm. "Here will be the great
statue-the statue to crown the entry to the emperor's Retreat." He turned a
complete revolution while holding the arm aloft. "This will be the place
where people enter the great palace. This is where people will come while on
their way to see the officials of the Order. This is where they will come
closer to the Creator."
Richard said nothing. Neal watched him for a moment, then stood in the
center and threw his arms up toward the sunlight.
"Here!-will be the statue to the glory of the Creator, using His Light
in a sundial. The Light will reveal the loathsome creatures of the
statues-mankind. This will be a monument to man's evil nature, doomed to the
misery of his existence in this world, wicked of character, cowering in
humiliation as His Light reveals man's hateful body and soul for what it
is-perverted beyond hope."
Richard thought that if madness had a champion, it was the Order, and
people who thought like them.
Neal's arms swept back down, a conductor concluding a triumphant
performance. "You, Richard Cypher, are to carve this statue."
Richard was acutely aware of the hammer in his straining fist. "Yes,
Brother Neal."
Neal waggled a finger held close to his nose as he grinned with
fiendish delight. "I don't think you understand, Richard." He thrust up a
commanding hand. "Wait. Wait right there."
He strode off, his brown robes swirling behind like muddy waters in a
flood. Neal collected something from behind the marble pillars and returned
holding it in one hand.
It was a small statue. He set it down, where the radiating lines of the
marble floor converged at a point in the middle of the plaza. It was a
plaster statue of what Brother Neal had just revealed to Richard. If
anything, it was even more gruesome than Neal had described it. Richard
ached to smash it with his hammer, right on the spot. It would almost be
worth dying to destroy such a vile thing.
Almost.
"This is it," Neal said. "Brother Narev had a master carver do up the
model of the sundial to his instructions. Brother Narev's vision is truly
remarkable. It's perfect, don't you think?"
"It is just as horrifying as you said it was, Brother Neal."
"And you are to carve it. Just scale this model up into a great statue
in white marble."
Feeling numb, Richard nodded. "Yes, Brother Neal."
The finger waggled again with great delight. "No, no, you don't yet
really understand, Richard." He was grinning like a washwoman standing at a
fence with basket full of dirty gossip. "You see, I did some checking on
you. Brother Narev and I never trusted you, Richard Cypher. No, we never
did. Now, we know all about you. I found out your secret."
Richard's flesh went cold. His muscles tightened as hard as stone. He
prepared to throw himself into battle. There appeared to be no choice but to
fight, now. Neal was about to die.
"You see, I talked to People's Protector Muksin."
Richard was taken aback. "Who?"
Neal displayed a triumphant grin. "The man who sentenced you to work as
a carver. He knew your name. He showed me the disposition of the case. You
confessed to a civil infraction. He showed me the finetwenty-two gold marks.
Quite a sum." Neal waggled the finger again. "That was a miscarriage of
justice, Richard, and you know it. No man can get. a fortune like that
through a mere civil infraction. Such a gain can only be ill-gotten."
Richard relaxed a bit. His fingers ached from how hard he had been
gripping the hammer.
"No," Neal said, "you had to have done something much more serious to
have collected a fortune of twenty-two gold marks. You are obviously guilty
of a very serious crime."
Neal spread his hands like the Creator before one of his children. "I
am going to show you mercy, Richard."
"Does Brother Narev approve of your showing mercy?"
"Oh, yes. You see, the statue is to be your penance to the Order-your
way to atone for your evil deed. You will create this statue when you are
not doing your
other carving for the palace. You will receive no pay for it. You are
commanded not to steal any marble from that which the Order has purchased
for the emperor's Retreat, but to procure the marble with your own money. If
you have to work for a decade to earn such a sum, all the better." '
"You mean, I am to carve, here, in the day, at my job, and I am to
carve this statue for you on my own time, at night?"
"Your own time? What a corrupt concept."
"When am I to sleep?"
"Sleep is not the concern of the Order justice is."
Richard took a calming breath. He pointed with his hammer at the thing
on the ground.
"And this is what I am to carve?"
"That's right. The stone will be purchased by you, and your labor will
be contributed by you to the benefit of your fellow man. It will be your
gift to the people of the Order in penance for your evil deeds. Men like
you, with the ability, must happily contribute their all to help the Order."
Brother Neal swept his arm out. "There is to be a dedication of the
palace, this winter. The people need to see tangible evidence that the Order
can bring such a great project as this magnificent palace to reality. They
desperately need the lessons this palace will teach them.
"Brother Narev is eager to dedicate the palace. He wishes to hold a
great ceremony, this winter, which will be attended by many dignitaries of
the Order. The war is progressing; the people need to see that their palace
is, too. They need to see results for their sacrifices.
"You, Richard Cypher, are to carve the great statue for the entrance to
the emperor's Retreat."
"I am honored, Brother Neal."
Neal smirked. "You should be."
"What if I'm not . . . up to the task?"
Neal's smirk widened into a grin. "Then you will go back into custody,
and Protector Muksin's questioners will have you until you confess. After
you finally confess, you will be hung on a pole. The birds will feast on
your flesh."
Brother Neal pointed down at the grotesque model.
"Pick it up. This is what you shall devote your life to."
--]----
Nicci looked up when she heard Richard's voice. He was talking to Kamil
and Nabbi. She heard him say that he was tired and couldn't look at their
carving, that he would look tomorrow. Nicci knew they would be disappointed.
That was unlike Richard.
She spooned buckwheat mush and peas from a dented pot into a bowl. She
placed the bowl and a wooden spoon on the table. There was no bread.
She wished she could make something better for him, but after their
voluntary contributions were taken out, they had no money. If not for the
garden the women of the building had taken to planting in the back of the
house, they would be in desperate straits. Nicci had learned how to grow
things so she could have food for him.
His shoulders were stooped, his eyes distant. He was carrying something
in one hand.
"I have your dinner. Come and eat."
Richard set the thing on the table, beside the oil lamp. It was a
small, intricately carved statue of figures cowering in terror. They were
partially surrounded by a section of a ring. A tall lightning bolt, a common
symbol of retribution by the Creator, came down in the center, piercing a
number of obviously evil men and women, pinning them to the ground. It was a
staggering representation of the evil nature of mankind, and the Creator's
anger at their wanton ways.
"What's this?" she asked.
Richard slumped down into a chair. His face sank into his hands, his
fingers stabbed back into his hair. After a time, he looked up.
"What you wanted," he said quietly.
"What I wanted?"
"My punishment."
"Punishment?"
Richard nodded. "Brother Narev found out about the fine of twenty-two
gold marks. He said I must have done something criminal to get that much
money, and he sentenced me to make a statue for the grand entrance to the
emperor's palace."
Nicci glanced down at the small thing on the table. "What is it?"
"A sundial. This is the ring with the times etched on it. The lightning
bolt casts a shadow of the Creator's Light on the ring to tell the time of
day."
"I still don't understand. Why is it a sentence? You are a carver. That
is your job."
Richard shook his head. "I am to buy the stone out of my own money, and
I am to carve this at night, on my own time, as my gift to the Order."
"And why do you see this as what I wanted?"
Richard ran a finger down the lightning bolt, his eyes studying the
statue. "You brought me here, to the Old World, because you wanted me to
learn the errors of my ways. I have. I should have confessed to a crime and
let them end it."
Without thinking, Nicci reached across the table and put her hand over
his. "No, Richard, that's not what I wanted."
He pulled his hand away.
Nicci pushed his bowl closer to him. "Eat, Richard. You need your
strength."
Without complaint, he did as she told him. A prisoner, doing as
ordered. She hated to see him like this.
The spark was gone from his eyes, just as it had left her father's
eyes.
When he looked at the statue sitting in the center of their table, his
eyes were dead. It was as if the life, the energy, the hope, was gone from
him. When he was finished with his meal, he went without a word to his bed
and lay down, facing away from her.
Nicci sat at the table, listening to the sputter of the lamp's flame,
watching Richard's even breathing as he went to sleep.
It seemed his spirit was crushed. She had believed for so long that she
would learn something valuable when he was pushed to such extremes. It
appeared she had been wrong, that he had finally given up. She could learn
nothing from him, now.
There was little left for her to do. Little reason to continue the
whole thing. For a moment, she felt the crushing weight of her
disappointment; then even that was gone.
Empty and unfeeling, Nicci collected the bowl and spoon and carried
them to the wash bucket. She worked quietly, to let him sleep, as she
resigned herself to returning to Jagang.
It wasn't Richard's fault he could teach her nothing; there was nothing
more to life to learn. This was all there was. Her mother had been right.
Nicci took out the butcher knife and set it quietly on the table.
Richard had suffered enough.
It would be for the best.
Nicci sat at the table, the knife under her fingers, forever. She
watched his back. His chest slowly expanded with his breath of life, and
sank again. There was time enough to slip the knife into his back, between
his ribs, to pierce his heart.
There was time enough yet before dawn.
Death was so final. She wanted to watch him for a while. Nicci never
tired of watching Richard.
After she did it, she wouldn't be able to watch him anymore. He would
be gone forever. With the damage the chimes had done to the worlds and their
interconnection, she didn't even know if a person's soul could still go to
the spirit world. She didn't even know if the underworld still existed and
if Richard's spirit would go there, or if he would simply be . . . gone
forever-if he and that which was his soul would simply cease to exist.
In her numb state, she had lost track of time.
When she glanced out the window that Richard had had installed with the
money he had earned, she noticed that the sky had taken on a the color of a
week-old bruise.
Linked as she was to Kahlan, Nicci couldn't accomplish the deed with
her magic. As much as she abhorred the idea of it, and knowing how gruesome
it would be, she had to use the sharp blade.
Nicci curled her fingers around the wooden handle of the stout knife.
She wanted it to be quick. She couldn't bear to think of him suffering. He
had suffered enough in life, she didn't want him to suffer in death, too.
He would struggle briefly, but then it would be over.
Richard abruptly rolled onto his back and then sat up. Nicci froze,
still sitting in her chair. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Could she
kill him when he was awake? Could she look into those eyes of his as she
plunged the knife into his chest?
She would have to.
It was for the best.
Richard yawned and stretched. He sprang to his feet.
"Nicci. What are you doing? Haven't you gone to bed?"
"I . . . I guess I fell asleep in the chair."
"Oh, well, I-there it is. I need that."
He snatched the knife out of her hand. "Mind if I borrow this? I need
to use it. I'm afraid I'll have to sharpen it for you later. I won't have
time before I have to leave. Can you make me something to eat? I'm in a
hurry. I have to go see Victor before I start to work."
Nicci was dumbfounded. He was suddenly revived. In the lamplight, and
the faint dawn coming in the windows, he had that look in his eyes. He
looked . . . resolute, determined.
"Yes, all right," she said.
"Thanks," he called over his shoulder while hurrying out the door.
"Where are you-?"
But he was gone. She decided he must be going out back to get some
vegetables. But why would he need the big knife for that? She was confused,
but she was revived, too. Richard seemed himself again.
Nicci pulled from the pantry some eggs she had been saving, along with
an iron skillet, and hurried out back to the cooking hearth. The coals were
still glowing from the cook fires of the evening before, providing a little
light. She carefully fed in some small twigs and kindling, then stacked a
bed of finger-thick branches on top. She simply set the iron skillet atop
the wood as it caught, rather than set up the rack-eggs were quick.
As she waited for the skillet to get hot, she heard an odd scraping
noise. In the flickering light of the fire, she didn't see Richard in the
garden. She couldn't imagine where he had gone, or what he was up to. She
broke the eggs into the hot skillet and tossed the shells in the compost
bucket at the side of the hearth. With a wooden spoon she scrambled the eggs
around as they cooked.
As Nicci stood, using her skirt to hold the hot handle of the skillet,
she was surprised to see Richard coming out from behind the broad cooking
hearth.
"Richard, what are you doing?"
"There are some loose bricks back here. I was just seeing to it before
I went to work. I cleaned out the joints. I'll bring some mortar home and
fix it later."
He pulled a handful of thick-bladed grass and used it as a potholder to
take the skillet from her. With his other hand, he flipped the knife into
the air, caught it by the point, and held the handle out to her. Nicci took
the heavy knife, now scratched and dulled from scraping the bricks clean. He
ate standing, using the wooden spoon.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Fine," he said around a hot mouthful of eggs. "Why?"
Nicci gestured toward the house. "Well, last night . . . you seemed so
. . . defeated."
He frowned at her. "So, I've no right to feel sorry for myself now and
again?"
"Well, yes, I suppose. But now . . . ?"
"Now I've thought it over."
"And . . . ?"
"It's to be my gift to the people, is it? I shall give the people a
gift they need."
"What are you talking about?"
Richard waved the wooden spoon. "Brothers Narev and Neal said this will
be my gift to the people, and so it shall be." He shoveled more eggs into
his mouth.
"So you are going to carve the statue they want?"
He was already running up the stairs before she had finished the
question.
"I have to get the model of the statue and be off to work."
Nicci raced after him up the stairs. He was still eating the eggs as he
went. He stood in their room, peering down at the small statue on the table
as he finished the eggs. She couldn't make sense of ithe was smiling.
He set the skillet on the table and scooped up the model. "I'll
probably be home late. I have to get started on my penance for the Order, if
I can. I may have to work all night."
In astonishment, she watched him hurry off to work.
She could hardly believe that he had once again somehow evaded death.
Nicci couldn't recall ever being so grateful about anything. She couldn't
understand it.
--]----
Richard reached the blacksmith's shop shortly after Victor had opened
up for the day's work. His men had not yet arrived. Victor wasn't surprised
to see him; Richard sometimes came early and the two of them would sit and
watch the sun come up over the site.
"Richard! I'm glad to see you."
"And I you, Victor. I need to talk to you."
He let out a gruff grunt. "The statue?"
"That's right," Richard said, a little taken aback. "The statue. You
know?"
With Richard following behind, Victor made his way through the dark
shop, weaving among the clutter of benches, work, and tools. "Oh, yes, I
heard." Along the way, he stooped to pick up a hammer here, a bar of iron
there, and set them on a table, or shoved them in a bin, as if one could
tidy a mountain by arranging a few pebbles and picking up a fallen limb.
"What did you hear?"
"Brother Narev paid me a visit last evening. He said there is to be a
dedication of the Retreat, to show our respect to the Creator for all he
provides for us." He glanced back over his shoulder as he strode past his
huge block of Cavatura marble. "He told me you are to carve a statue for the
entrance plaza-a big statue. He said it is to be done for the dedication.
"From what I hear from people, from Ishaq and others, the Order credits
the uprising to the drain of building such a monumental project as the
Retreat in addition to waging the war. They have armies of men working for
the construction-not just here, but from quarries far and wide, to mines for
the gold and silver, to forests where they cut the wood. Even slaves must be
fed. The purge of officials, leaders, and skilled workers after the uprising
was expensive. With a dedication, I think Brother Narev wants to show people
the progress, to inspire them, to involve outlying lands in the celebration,
believing this will head off further troubles."
In the blackness of the room, only the skylight in the high ceiling
above let light cascade down over the stone. The marble took the light deep
into its fine crystalline structure, and gave it back as a loving gift.
Victor opened the double doors that looked out over the Retreat.
"Brother Narev told me that your statue is also to be a sundial, with the
Creator's Light shining down on mankind's torment. He told me I am to
oversee the making of the gnomon and dial plane for its shadow to fall upon.
He said something about a lightning bolt. . ."
Victor turned around, his eyes following as Richard set the model of
the statue on a narrow tool shelf that ran the length of the room.
"Dear spirits . . ." Victor whispered. "That is grotesque."
"They want me to carve this. They want it to be a statue with the power
to dominate the grand entrance."
Victor nodded. "Brother Narev said as much. He told me how big would be
the metal for the dial plane. He wants bronze."
"Can you cast the bronze?"
"No." With the backs of his fingers, Victor tapped Richard's arm. "Here
is the
good part: few people can cast such a piece. Brother Narev ordered
Priska released to do the casting."
Richard blinked in astonishment. "Priska is alive?"
Victor nodded. "High people must have not wanted him buried in the sky
in case they needed his skills. They had him locked away in a dungeon. The
Order knows they need people with ability; they released him to get this
done. If he wants to remain alive, and out of the dungeon, he is to cast the
bronze, at his own expense, as a gift to the people. They say it is his
penance. I am to give him the specifications and see to its assembly and
placement on the statue."
"Victor, I want to buy your stone."
The blacksmith's brow slid into an unfriendly frown.
No.
"Narev and Neal found out about my civil fine. They think I got off too
lightly. They ordered that I carve their statue-much like Priska is to
provide the castingas my penance. I must buy the stone myself, and I must
carve it after my work at the site is finished for the day. They want it for
this winter's dedication of the Retreat."
Victor's eyes turned toward the model on the shelf, as if it was some
monster come to visit ruin on him. "Richard, you know what this stone means
to me. I won't-,,
"Victor, listen to me."
"No." He held his palm up toward Richard. "Don't ask this of me. I
don't want this stone to become ugly, like all the Order touches. I won't
allow it."
"Neither will L"
Victor gestured angrily at the model. "That is what you are to carve.
How can you even think of that ugliness visiting my pure marble?"
"I can't."
Richard set the plaster model on the floor. He picked up a large
hammer, its handle leaning against the wall, and with a mighty blow
shattered the abomination into a thousand pieces. He stood as the white dust
slowly billowed over the threshold, out the door, and down the hill toward
the Retreat like some ghost of evil returning to the underworld.
"Victor, sell me your stone. Let me liberate the beauty inside."
Victor squinted his distrust. "The stone has a flaw. It can't be
carved."
"I've thought about it. I have a way. I know I can do it."
Victor put his hand to his stone, almost as if he were comforting a
loved one in distress.
"Victor, you know me. Have I ever done anything to betray you? To harm
you?"
His voice came softly. "No, Richard, you have not."
"Victor, I need this stone. It is the best piece of marble-the way it
can take in light and send it back. It has grain that can hold detail. I
need the best for this statue. I swear, Victor, if you trust me with it, I
will be true to your vision. I won't betray your love of this stone, I
swear."
The blacksmith gently ran his beefy, callused hand up the side of the
white marble that towered to nearly twice his height.
"What if you were to refuse to carve them their statue?"
"Neal said that then they will take me back to the prison until they
get a confession out of me, or until I die from the questioning. I will be
buried in the sky in return for nothing."
"And if you do as you want, instead"-Victor gestured to the fragments
of the model-"and don't carve them what they want?"
"Maybe I would like to see beauty again before I die."
"Bah. What would you carve? What would you see before you die? What
could be worth your life?"
"Man's nobility-the most sublime form of beauty."
The man's hand paused on the stone, his eyes searching Richard's, but
he said nothing.
"Victor, I need you to help me. I'm not asking you to give me anything.
I'm willing to pay your price. Name it."
Victor returned his loving gaze to his stone.
"Ten gold marks," he said with bold confidence, knowing Richard had no
money.
Richard reached into his pocket and then counted out ten gold marks. He
held the fortune out to Victor. The blacksmith frowned.
"Where did you get such money?"
"I worked and I saved it. I earned it helping the Order build their
palace. Remember?"
"But they took all your money. Nicci told them how much you had, and
they took it all."
Richard cocked his head. "You didn't think I'd be foolish enough to put
all my money in one place, did you? I have gold stashed all over. If this
isn't enough, I will pay you whatever you ask."
Richard knew that the stone was valuable, although not worth ten gold
marks, but it was to Victor, so Richard would not argue the price. He would
pay whatever the man asked.
"I can't take your money, Richard." He waved a hand in resignation. "I
don't know how to carve. It was but a dream. As long as I never carved it, I
could dream of the beauty in the stone. This is from my homeland, where once
there was freedom." His fingers blindly found the wall of marble. "This is
noble stone. I would like to see nobility in this Cavatura marble. You may
have the stone, my friend."
"No, Victor. I don't want to take your dream. I want to, in a way,
fulfill it. I cannot accept it as a gift. I want to buy it."
"But, why?"
"Because I will have to give it to the Order. I don't want you giving
this to the Order; I will have to do that. More than that, though, they will
no doubt want it destroyed. It must be mine when they do that. I want it to
be paid for."
Victor held out his hand. "Ten marks, then."
Richard counted out the ten gold marks and then closed the man's big
fingers around them.
"Thank you, Victor," Richard whispered.
Victor grinned. "Where do you wish me to deliver it?"
Richard held out another gold mark. "May I rent this room? I would like
to carve it here. From here, when I'm done, it can be sledged down to the
entrance plaza."
Victor shrugged. "Done."
Richard handed over a twelfth gold mark. "And I want you to make me the
tools with which I will carve this stone-the finest tools you have ever
made. The kind of tools used to carve beauty in your homeland. This marble
demands the best. Make the tools out of the best steel."
"Points, toothed chisels, and chisels for fine work-I can make them for
you. There are hammers aplenty about you may use."
"I also need rasps, in a variety of shapes. And files, too. Straight,
curved-a wide selection-the finest smoothing files. I need you to get me
pumice stones, the fine white close-grained pumice--ground to the same
shapes to match the rasps and files, and a good supply of powdered pumice,
too."
Victor's eyes had gone wide. The blacksmith had come from a place where
they had once done such carving. He knew full well what it was Richard meant
to do.
"You intend to do flesh in stone?"
"I do."
"You know how?"
Richard knew from statues he had seen in D'Hara and in Aydindril, and
from what some of the other carvers told him, and from his own tests in his
work for the Order's palace, that if carved properly, then smoothed and
polished to a high luster, quality marble could take in the light and give
it back in a way that seemed to liberate the stone from its hardness,
softening it, so that it assumed the look of flesh. If done properly, the
marble could seem to almost come alive.
"I've seen it done before, Victor. I've carved before. I've learned how
to do it. I've thought about it for months. Ever since I started carving for
them, this purpose has kept my mind alive. I've used my work for the Order
to practice what I've seen, what I've learned, and what I've thought of on
my own. Even before, when they questioned me . . . I thought about this
stone, about the statue I know is in it, to keep my mind from what they did
to me."
"You mean it helped you to endure their torture?"
Richard nodded. "I can do it, Victor." He lifted a fist in firm
conviction. "Flesh in stone. I only need the proper tools."
Victor rattled the gold in his fist. "Done. I can make the proper tools
for what you want to do. This is what I know. I don't know how to carve, but
this will be my part-what I can do to bring the beauty out."
Richard clasped forearms with Victor to seal their agreement.
"I have one thing I would ask you-as a favor."
Victor laughed his deep belly laugh. "I must feed you lardo so you may
have the strength to carve this noble stone?"
Richard smiled. "I wouldn't ever turn down lardo."
"What is it then?" Victor asked. "What is the favor?"
Richard's fingers tenderly touched the stone. His stone.
"No one is to see it until it is done. That includes you. I would like
to have a canvas tarp, so I can cover it. I would ask that you not look at
it until it is done."
"Why?"
"Because I need it to be mine alone while I carve it. I need solitude
with it as I shape it. When I'm finished, then the world can have it, but
when I work on it, it is to be my vision and mine alone. I wish no one to
see it before it is finished.
"But most of all, I don't want you to see it because if anything goes
wrong, I don't want you involved in this. I don't want you to know what I
do. If you don't see it, you can't be buried in the sky for not telling
them."
Victor shrugged. "If that is your wish, then it shall be so. I will
tell the men that the back room is rented, and it is off-limits. I will put
a lock on the inner door. I will put a chain on the outer double doors,
here, and give you the key."
"Thank you. You don't know what that means to me."
"When do you need the chisels?"
"I need the heavy point to rough it out, first. Can you have it done by
tonight? I need to get started. There isn't much time."
Victor dismissed Richard's concern with a flourish of his hand. "The
heavy point is easy. I can make that in short order. It will be done when
you come from your work down there-your work with the ugliness. Long before
you need the other chisels, they will be ready for you to carve beauty."
"Thank you, Victor."
"What is this `thank you' talk? This is business. You have paid me in
advancevalue for value between honest men. I can't tell you how good it is
to have a customer other than the Order."
Victor scratched his head and turned more serious. "Richard, they will
want to see your work, won't they? They will want to see how you are doing
on their statue."
"I don't think so. They trust my work. They gave me the model they want
scaled up. They have already approved it. They've told me my life depends on
this. Neal delighted in telling me how he ordered those other carvers
tortured and put to death. He wanted to frighten me. I doubt they will give
it a second thought."
"But what if a Brother does come, wanting to see it?"
"Then I will have to bend an iron bar around his neck and let him
pickle in the brine barrel."
Richard touched the length of the point chisel to his forehead, as he
had so often touched the Sword of Truth there in much the same way. This was
no less a battle. This was life and death.
"Blade, be true this day," he whispered.
The chisel had eight sides, so as to provide grip in a sweaty hand.
Victor had given it a proper heavy blunt point. He had also put his
initials-V C-in small letters on one of the facets, proclaiming the pride of
its maker.
Such a heavy chisel would shatter stone and remove a great excess
material in short order. It was a weapon that would do a lot of damage,
fracturing the structure of the marble down the width of three fingers. A
point used carelessly on unnoticed flaws could shatter the entire piece.
Finer points would cause shallower fractures, but remove less material.
Even with the finest point punches, Richard knew that he could only approach
to within the last half finger of the final layer. The network of spidery
cracks left by a point were fractures in the crystalline structure of the
marble itself. So damaged, the stone lost its translucence and its ability
to take a high polish.
To do flesh in stone, the final layers had to be approached with care,
and be left undamaged by any tool.
After the heavy point removed much of the waste, then finer-point
chisels would allow Richard to get closer, refining the shape. Once he was
within as close as a half finger of the final layer, he would turn to the
clawed chisels, simply chisels with notches in their edge, to shear away the
stone without fracturing the underlying structure of the marble. The coarse
claws took off the most stone, leaving rough gouges. He would use chisels
with a series of finer and finer teeth to refine the work. Finally, he would
use smooth-bladed chisels, some only half as wide as his little finger.
Down at the site, where he carved scenes for the frieze, that was as
far as the carvers went. It left an ugly surface, ungainly and coarse,
rendering flesh as wooden, leaving no definition or refinement to muscle and
bone. It robbed the people in the carvings of their humanity.
On this statue, Richard would really only begin where the carvings for
the Order ended. He would use rasps to define bone, muscle, even veins in
the arms. Fine files would remove the marks left by the rasps and refine the
most subtle contours. The pumice stones would remove the filing marks,
leaving the surface ready to polish with pumice paste held in leather,
cloth, and finally straw.
If he did it right, he would have his vision in stone. Flesh in stone.
Nobility.
Holding the heavy point chisel to his palm with his thumb, Richard put
his hand
to the stone, feeling its cool surface. He knew what was inside-inside
not only the stone, but inside himself.
There were no doubts, only the heart-pounding passion of expectation.
As he so often did, Richard thought of Kahlan. It had been nearly a
year since he had looked into her green eyes, touched her cheek, held her in
his arms. She would have long ago left the safety of their home for dangers
he could vividly imagine. For a moment, he was overwhelmed with the weight
of despair, choked by the sadness of how much he missed her, humbled at how
much he loved her. Now he knew he must dismiss her from his mind so that he
could devote himself entirely to the task he had to do.
As he so often did, Richard said his silent good-night to Kahlan.
Then he set the point at ninety degrees to the face of the stone, and
took a powerful swing with the steel club. Stone chips exploded away.
His breaths came deeper and faster. It was begun.
With great violence, Richard attacked the stone.
By the light of lamps Victor left for him after the work day was done,
Richard lost himself in the work, raining down blow upon blow. Sharp stone
chips rattled off the wooden walls, and stung when they hit his arms or
chest. With a clear vision of what he wanted to do, he broke away the waste
stone.
His ears rang with the sound of steel on steel and steel on stone. It
was music. Jagged chips and chunks fell away. They were the fallen enemy.
The air boiled with the white dust of battle.
Richard knew precisely what we wanted to accomplish. He knew what
needed to be done, and how to do it. He was filled with a clarity of
purpose, a course to follow. Now that it had begun, he was lost in the work.
Dust billowed up around him until his dark clothes were white, as if
the stone were absorbing him, as he was transforming with it, until they
were one. Sharp shards nicked him as they shot away. His bare arms, white as
the marble itself, were soon streaked here and there with blood from the
battle.
From time to time, he opened the doors to shovel out the ankle-deep
scree. The white scrap avalanched down the hill, tinkling with a sound like
a thousand tiny bells. The white dust covering him was cut through with dark
rivulets of sweat, and red scratches. The cool air felt refreshing against
his sweat-soaked skin. But then he once again shut out the night, shut out
the world to be alone.
For the first time in nearly a year, Richard felt free. In this, he was
in complete control. No one watched him. No one told him what he must do.
This work was his singular purpose, in which he strove for perfection.
There were no chains, no limitations, no desires of others to which he must
bow. In this struggle to accomplish his best, he was utterly free.
What he intended would stand in unyielding opposition to everything the
Order represented. He intended to show them life.
Richard knew that when the Brothers saw the statue, they would sentence
him to death.
Stone chips burst forth with each blow, taking him closer to his goal.
He had to stand on a work stool to reach the top of the marble, moving it
around the monolith to work all sides, narrowing it down to what would be.
Richard swung the steel club with the fury of battle. His chisel hand
stung with the ringing blows. As violent as the attack was, though, it was
controlled. A trimming hammer, called a pitcher, could be used for such
rough work. It removed waste
with greater speed than a heavy point to shape the block, but it was
used with a full swing, and Richard feared, because of the flaw, to unleash
that much power against the stone. In the beginning, the block had strength
in its sheer mass, but even so, he considered such a trimming hammer too
dangerous for this particular stone.
Richard would have Victor make him a set of drill bits for a bow drill.
With a bow's cord run around the shaft of the drill, it could be twisted and
driven through the marble. Richard had thought long and hard about the
problem of the flaw. He had resolved to cut out most of it. First, to stop
any further cracks from running through more of the stone, he would drill
holes through the crack to relieve the stress. With another series of
closely spaced holes, he would weaken the stone in a waste area around the
flaw and simply remove most of it.
There would be two figures: a man, and a woman. When finished, the
space between them would be where Richard had removed the worst of the flaw.
With the weakest stone removed, the sound stone that remained would be
strong enough to take the stress of the work. Since the defect started at
the base, he couldn't eliminate it all, but he could reduce the problem it
presented to a manageable level. That was the secret to this piece of stone:
eliminating its weakness, then working in its strength.
Richard considered it a fortunate flaw, first of all because it had
reduced the value of the stone, enabling Victor to purchase it in the first
place. To Richard's mind, though, the flaw had been valuable because it had
caused him to think about the stone, and how to carve it. That thought had
brought him to his design. Without the flaw, he might not have come to the
same design.
As he worked, he was filled with the energy of the fight, driven onward
by the heat of the attack. Stone stood between him and what he wanted to
carve, and he craved to eliminate that excess so he could get to the essence
of the figures. A huge corner of waste broke loose, slipping away, slowly at
first, then crashing down. Chips and shards rained down as he worked,
burying the fallen foe.
Several more times he had to open the doors and shovel out the scrap.
It was invigorating to see what was once an irregular shaped block, becoming
a rough shape. The figures were still completely encased, their arms far
from being free, their legs not separate, yet, but they were beginning to
emerge. He would have to be careful, drilling holes in the open areas to
prevent breaking off the arms.
Richard was surprised to see light streaming through the window
overhead. He had worked the entire night without realizing it.
He stood back and appraised the statue that was now more or less
roughly a cone shape. Now, there were only lumps where the arms would extend
out from the bodies. He wanted the arms to be free, the bodies to convey
grace and movement. Life. What he carved for the Order was never free,
always tightly bound to the stone, forever stiff, unable to move, like
cadavers.
Half of what had been there the night before was now gone. Richard
ached to stay and work on, but he knew he couldn't. From the corner, he
excavated the canvas tarp Victor had left for him, and flung it over the
statue.
When he threw open the door, the white dust billowed out. Victor was
sitting among the rubble of his stone monolith.
The blacksmith blinked. "Richard, you have been here the whole night!"
"I guess I have."
He gestured as a grin split his face. "You look like a good spirit. How
goes the battle with the stone?"
Richard could think of nothing to say. He could only beam with the joy
of it.
Victor laughed his belly laugh. "Your face says it all. You must be
tired and hungry. Come, sit and rest-have some lardo."
--]----
Nicci heard Kamil and Nabbi shout a greeting as Richard came down the
street, and then their footsteps as they ran down the front stairs. She
glanced out the front window and, in the failing light of dusk, saw them
meet up with Richard as he came down the street. She, too, was happy to see
him coming home this early.
Nicci had seen precious little of Richard in the weeks since he took on
the duty of carving the statue for Brother Narev. She couldn't imagine how
Richard could endure carving a statue she knew had to be agony for him-not
so much because of its size, but because of its nature.
If anything, though, Richard seemed invigorated. Often, after working
all day carving the moral lessons for the facade of the palace, he would
then work late into the night on the grand statue for the entrance plaza. As
tired as he had to be when he came home, he would sometimes pace. There were
nights when he would only sleep for a couple of hours, rise, and go to work
on the statue for hours before his workday at the site began. Several times
he had worked the entire night.
Richard seemed driven. Nicci didn't know how he could do it. He
sometimes came home to eat and to take a nap for an hour, and then he would
go back. She would urge him to stay and sleep, but he would say that the
penance had to be paid or they would put him back in prison. Nicci feared
that possibility, so she didn't insist that he stay home to sleep. Losing
sleep was preferable to him losing his life.
He had always been muscular and strong, but his muscles had become even
"Really, Brother Neal? I never suspected."
"That is why you are nobody, and never will be anybody. You are a
nothing. Just like all those carvers."
"I realize I am nobody important, Brother Neal. It would be wrong to
think I was
of any value other than in what I can contribute. I aspire only to work
hard in service to the Creator so I might earn my reward in the next life."
The smile was gone, replaced by a fiery scowl. "I ordered them put to
deathafter I had confessions tortured out of each one of them."
Richard's fist tightened on the chisel. Through a calm expression, he
contemplated driving his chisel through Neal's skull. He knew he could do it
before the man could react. But what would it gain? Nothing.
"1 am grateful, Brother Neal, that you uncovered the traitors in our
midst."
Neal squinted in suspicion for a moment. He finally dismissed it with a
twist of his mouth before suddenly swirling amid a flourish of his robes.
"Come with me," the brother commanded in a grave tone as he marched
away.
Richard followed him across the field churned to mud by all the workers
going back and forth, by all the supplies being dragged, carried, or rolled
to the construction site. They strode, past what seemed the endless face of
the palace. The stone walls were getting ever higher, with row upon row of
window openings. Their trim was beginning to take form. Many of the beams
for the second floor had been placed in sockets in the walls. A maze of
inner walls was going up, too, defining the interior rooms and hallways.
There would be miles of corridors in the palace. Dozens of stairwells stood
in various stages of construction.
It wouldn't be long before oak floors were laid over some of the rooms
below, enclosing them. The roof had to be completed over those sections,
first, though, lest rain ruin the flooring. Some of the outer rooms were to
have roofs lower than the main section, which was to rise up to a towering
height. Richard expected to see those lower rooms capped with slate and lead
roofs before the winter rains.
He stayed close behind Brother Neal as they marched toward the main
opening into the palace. There, the walls were higher and more complete,
with many of the ornate decorations in place. Neal charged two at a time up
the semicircle of marble steps leading up to the entry plaza. The white
marble pillars stood in an impressive sweep, and over the top of them many
of the stone carvings had been installed. With all the tortured people
frozen in stone, it was an intimidating sight, as it was meant to be.
The floor of the plaza was gray-veined white Cavatura marble. The sun
on the marble made the plaza, half encircled by the soaring columns, glow
with glorious light. The decrepit people in the stone ringing the plaza
seemed to be screaming in pain at that light-which was just the effect
Brother Narev had wanted.
Neal made a sweeping gesture with an arm. "Here will be the great
statue-the statue to crown the entry to the emperor's Retreat." He turned a
complete revolution while holding the arm aloft. "This will be the place
where people enter the great palace. This is where people will come while on
their way to see the officials of the Order. This is where they will come
closer to the Creator."
Richard said nothing. Neal watched him for a moment, then stood in the
center and threw his arms up toward the sunlight.
"Here!-will be the statue to the glory of the Creator, using His Light
in a sundial. The Light will reveal the loathsome creatures of the
statues-mankind. This will be a monument to man's evil nature, doomed to the
misery of his existence in this world, wicked of character, cowering in
humiliation as His Light reveals man's hateful body and soul for what it
is-perverted beyond hope."
Richard thought that if madness had a champion, it was the Order, and
people who thought like them.
Neal's arms swept back down, a conductor concluding a triumphant
performance. "You, Richard Cypher, are to carve this statue."
Richard was acutely aware of the hammer in his straining fist. "Yes,
Brother Neal."
Neal waggled a finger held close to his nose as he grinned with
fiendish delight. "I don't think you understand, Richard." He thrust up a
commanding hand. "Wait. Wait right there."
He strode off, his brown robes swirling behind like muddy waters in a
flood. Neal collected something from behind the marble pillars and returned
holding it in one hand.
It was a small statue. He set it down, where the radiating lines of the
marble floor converged at a point in the middle of the plaza. It was a
plaster statue of what Brother Neal had just revealed to Richard. If
anything, it was even more gruesome than Neal had described it. Richard
ached to smash it with his hammer, right on the spot. It would almost be
worth dying to destroy such a vile thing.
Almost.
"This is it," Neal said. "Brother Narev had a master carver do up the
model of the sundial to his instructions. Brother Narev's vision is truly
remarkable. It's perfect, don't you think?"
"It is just as horrifying as you said it was, Brother Neal."
"And you are to carve it. Just scale this model up into a great statue
in white marble."
Feeling numb, Richard nodded. "Yes, Brother Neal."
The finger waggled again with great delight. "No, no, you don't yet
really understand, Richard." He was grinning like a washwoman standing at a
fence with basket full of dirty gossip. "You see, I did some checking on
you. Brother Narev and I never trusted you, Richard Cypher. No, we never
did. Now, we know all about you. I found out your secret."
Richard's flesh went cold. His muscles tightened as hard as stone. He
prepared to throw himself into battle. There appeared to be no choice but to
fight, now. Neal was about to die.
"You see, I talked to People's Protector Muksin."
Richard was taken aback. "Who?"
Neal displayed a triumphant grin. "The man who sentenced you to work as
a carver. He knew your name. He showed me the disposition of the case. You
confessed to a civil infraction. He showed me the finetwenty-two gold marks.
Quite a sum." Neal waggled the finger again. "That was a miscarriage of
justice, Richard, and you know it. No man can get. a fortune like that
through a mere civil infraction. Such a gain can only be ill-gotten."
Richard relaxed a bit. His fingers ached from how hard he had been
gripping the hammer.
"No," Neal said, "you had to have done something much more serious to
have collected a fortune of twenty-two gold marks. You are obviously guilty
of a very serious crime."
Neal spread his hands like the Creator before one of his children. "I
am going to show you mercy, Richard."
"Does Brother Narev approve of your showing mercy?"
"Oh, yes. You see, the statue is to be your penance to the Order-your
way to atone for your evil deed. You will create this statue when you are
not doing your
other carving for the palace. You will receive no pay for it. You are
commanded not to steal any marble from that which the Order has purchased
for the emperor's Retreat, but to procure the marble with your own money. If
you have to work for a decade to earn such a sum, all the better." '
"You mean, I am to carve, here, in the day, at my job, and I am to
carve this statue for you on my own time, at night?"
"Your own time? What a corrupt concept."
"When am I to sleep?"
"Sleep is not the concern of the Order justice is."
Richard took a calming breath. He pointed with his hammer at the thing
on the ground.
"And this is what I am to carve?"
"That's right. The stone will be purchased by you, and your labor will
be contributed by you to the benefit of your fellow man. It will be your
gift to the people of the Order in penance for your evil deeds. Men like
you, with the ability, must happily contribute their all to help the Order."
Brother Neal swept his arm out. "There is to be a dedication of the
palace, this winter. The people need to see tangible evidence that the Order
can bring such a great project as this magnificent palace to reality. They
desperately need the lessons this palace will teach them.
"Brother Narev is eager to dedicate the palace. He wishes to hold a
great ceremony, this winter, which will be attended by many dignitaries of
the Order. The war is progressing; the people need to see that their palace
is, too. They need to see results for their sacrifices.
"You, Richard Cypher, are to carve the great statue for the entrance to
the emperor's Retreat."
"I am honored, Brother Neal."
Neal smirked. "You should be."
"What if I'm not . . . up to the task?"
Neal's smirk widened into a grin. "Then you will go back into custody,
and Protector Muksin's questioners will have you until you confess. After
you finally confess, you will be hung on a pole. The birds will feast on
your flesh."
Brother Neal pointed down at the grotesque model.
"Pick it up. This is what you shall devote your life to."
--]----
Nicci looked up when she heard Richard's voice. He was talking to Kamil
and Nabbi. She heard him say that he was tired and couldn't look at their
carving, that he would look tomorrow. Nicci knew they would be disappointed.
That was unlike Richard.
She spooned buckwheat mush and peas from a dented pot into a bowl. She
placed the bowl and a wooden spoon on the table. There was no bread.
She wished she could make something better for him, but after their
voluntary contributions were taken out, they had no money. If not for the
garden the women of the building had taken to planting in the back of the
house, they would be in desperate straits. Nicci had learned how to grow
things so she could have food for him.
His shoulders were stooped, his eyes distant. He was carrying something
in one hand.
"I have your dinner. Come and eat."
Richard set the thing on the table, beside the oil lamp. It was a
small, intricately carved statue of figures cowering in terror. They were
partially surrounded by a section of a ring. A tall lightning bolt, a common
symbol of retribution by the Creator, came down in the center, piercing a
number of obviously evil men and women, pinning them to the ground. It was a
staggering representation of the evil nature of mankind, and the Creator's
anger at their wanton ways.
"What's this?" she asked.
Richard slumped down into a chair. His face sank into his hands, his
fingers stabbed back into his hair. After a time, he looked up.
"What you wanted," he said quietly.
"What I wanted?"
"My punishment."
"Punishment?"
Richard nodded. "Brother Narev found out about the fine of twenty-two
gold marks. He said I must have done something criminal to get that much
money, and he sentenced me to make a statue for the grand entrance to the
emperor's palace."
Nicci glanced down at the small thing on the table. "What is it?"
"A sundial. This is the ring with the times etched on it. The lightning
bolt casts a shadow of the Creator's Light on the ring to tell the time of
day."
"I still don't understand. Why is it a sentence? You are a carver. That
is your job."
Richard shook his head. "I am to buy the stone out of my own money, and
I am to carve this at night, on my own time, as my gift to the Order."
"And why do you see this as what I wanted?"
Richard ran a finger down the lightning bolt, his eyes studying the
statue. "You brought me here, to the Old World, because you wanted me to
learn the errors of my ways. I have. I should have confessed to a crime and
let them end it."
Without thinking, Nicci reached across the table and put her hand over
his. "No, Richard, that's not what I wanted."
He pulled his hand away.
Nicci pushed his bowl closer to him. "Eat, Richard. You need your
strength."
Without complaint, he did as she told him. A prisoner, doing as
ordered. She hated to see him like this.
The spark was gone from his eyes, just as it had left her father's
eyes.
When he looked at the statue sitting in the center of their table, his
eyes were dead. It was as if the life, the energy, the hope, was gone from
him. When he was finished with his meal, he went without a word to his bed
and lay down, facing away from her.
Nicci sat at the table, listening to the sputter of the lamp's flame,
watching Richard's even breathing as he went to sleep.
It seemed his spirit was crushed. She had believed for so long that she
would learn something valuable when he was pushed to such extremes. It
appeared she had been wrong, that he had finally given up. She could learn
nothing from him, now.
There was little left for her to do. Little reason to continue the
whole thing. For a moment, she felt the crushing weight of her
disappointment; then even that was gone.
Empty and unfeeling, Nicci collected the bowl and spoon and carried
them to the wash bucket. She worked quietly, to let him sleep, as she
resigned herself to returning to Jagang.
It wasn't Richard's fault he could teach her nothing; there was nothing
more to life to learn. This was all there was. Her mother had been right.
Nicci took out the butcher knife and set it quietly on the table.
Richard had suffered enough.
It would be for the best.
Nicci sat at the table, the knife under her fingers, forever. She
watched his back. His chest slowly expanded with his breath of life, and
sank again. There was time enough to slip the knife into his back, between
his ribs, to pierce his heart.
There was time enough yet before dawn.
Death was so final. She wanted to watch him for a while. Nicci never
tired of watching Richard.
After she did it, she wouldn't be able to watch him anymore. He would
be gone forever. With the damage the chimes had done to the worlds and their
interconnection, she didn't even know if a person's soul could still go to
the spirit world. She didn't even know if the underworld still existed and
if Richard's spirit would go there, or if he would simply be . . . gone
forever-if he and that which was his soul would simply cease to exist.
In her numb state, she had lost track of time.
When she glanced out the window that Richard had had installed with the
money he had earned, she noticed that the sky had taken on a the color of a
week-old bruise.
Linked as she was to Kahlan, Nicci couldn't accomplish the deed with
her magic. As much as she abhorred the idea of it, and knowing how gruesome
it would be, she had to use the sharp blade.
Nicci curled her fingers around the wooden handle of the stout knife.
She wanted it to be quick. She couldn't bear to think of him suffering. He
had suffered enough in life, she didn't want him to suffer in death, too.
He would struggle briefly, but then it would be over.
Richard abruptly rolled onto his back and then sat up. Nicci froze,
still sitting in her chair. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Could she
kill him when he was awake? Could she look into those eyes of his as she
plunged the knife into his chest?
She would have to.
It was for the best.
Richard yawned and stretched. He sprang to his feet.
"Nicci. What are you doing? Haven't you gone to bed?"
"I . . . I guess I fell asleep in the chair."
"Oh, well, I-there it is. I need that."
He snatched the knife out of her hand. "Mind if I borrow this? I need
to use it. I'm afraid I'll have to sharpen it for you later. I won't have
time before I have to leave. Can you make me something to eat? I'm in a
hurry. I have to go see Victor before I start to work."
Nicci was dumbfounded. He was suddenly revived. In the lamplight, and
the faint dawn coming in the windows, he had that look in his eyes. He
looked . . . resolute, determined.
"Yes, all right," she said.
"Thanks," he called over his shoulder while hurrying out the door.
"Where are you-?"
But he was gone. She decided he must be going out back to get some
vegetables. But why would he need the big knife for that? She was confused,
but she was revived, too. Richard seemed himself again.
Nicci pulled from the pantry some eggs she had been saving, along with
an iron skillet, and hurried out back to the cooking hearth. The coals were
still glowing from the cook fires of the evening before, providing a little
light. She carefully fed in some small twigs and kindling, then stacked a
bed of finger-thick branches on top. She simply set the iron skillet atop
the wood as it caught, rather than set up the rack-eggs were quick.
As she waited for the skillet to get hot, she heard an odd scraping
noise. In the flickering light of the fire, she didn't see Richard in the
garden. She couldn't imagine where he had gone, or what he was up to. She
broke the eggs into the hot skillet and tossed the shells in the compost
bucket at the side of the hearth. With a wooden spoon she scrambled the eggs
around as they cooked.
As Nicci stood, using her skirt to hold the hot handle of the skillet,
she was surprised to see Richard coming out from behind the broad cooking
hearth.
"Richard, what are you doing?"
"There are some loose bricks back here. I was just seeing to it before
I went to work. I cleaned out the joints. I'll bring some mortar home and
fix it later."
He pulled a handful of thick-bladed grass and used it as a potholder to
take the skillet from her. With his other hand, he flipped the knife into
the air, caught it by the point, and held the handle out to her. Nicci took
the heavy knife, now scratched and dulled from scraping the bricks clean. He
ate standing, using the wooden spoon.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Fine," he said around a hot mouthful of eggs. "Why?"
Nicci gestured toward the house. "Well, last night . . . you seemed so
. . . defeated."
He frowned at her. "So, I've no right to feel sorry for myself now and
again?"
"Well, yes, I suppose. But now . . . ?"
"Now I've thought it over."
"And . . . ?"
"It's to be my gift to the people, is it? I shall give the people a
gift they need."
"What are you talking about?"
Richard waved the wooden spoon. "Brothers Narev and Neal said this will
be my gift to the people, and so it shall be." He shoveled more eggs into
his mouth.
"So you are going to carve the statue they want?"
He was already running up the stairs before she had finished the
question.
"I have to get the model of the statue and be off to work."
Nicci raced after him up the stairs. He was still eating the eggs as he
went. He stood in their room, peering down at the small statue on the table
as he finished the eggs. She couldn't make sense of ithe was smiling.
He set the skillet on the table and scooped up the model. "I'll
probably be home late. I have to get started on my penance for the Order, if
I can. I may have to work all night."
In astonishment, she watched him hurry off to work.
She could hardly believe that he had once again somehow evaded death.
Nicci couldn't recall ever being so grateful about anything. She couldn't
understand it.
--]----
Richard reached the blacksmith's shop shortly after Victor had opened
up for the day's work. His men had not yet arrived. Victor wasn't surprised
to see him; Richard sometimes came early and the two of them would sit and
watch the sun come up over the site.
"Richard! I'm glad to see you."
"And I you, Victor. I need to talk to you."
He let out a gruff grunt. "The statue?"
"That's right," Richard said, a little taken aback. "The statue. You
know?"
With Richard following behind, Victor made his way through the dark
shop, weaving among the clutter of benches, work, and tools. "Oh, yes, I
heard." Along the way, he stooped to pick up a hammer here, a bar of iron
there, and set them on a table, or shoved them in a bin, as if one could
tidy a mountain by arranging a few pebbles and picking up a fallen limb.
"What did you hear?"
"Brother Narev paid me a visit last evening. He said there is to be a
dedication of the Retreat, to show our respect to the Creator for all he
provides for us." He glanced back over his shoulder as he strode past his
huge block of Cavatura marble. "He told me you are to carve a statue for the
entrance plaza-a big statue. He said it is to be done for the dedication.
"From what I hear from people, from Ishaq and others, the Order credits
the uprising to the drain of building such a monumental project as the
Retreat in addition to waging the war. They have armies of men working for
the construction-not just here, but from quarries far and wide, to mines for
the gold and silver, to forests where they cut the wood. Even slaves must be
fed. The purge of officials, leaders, and skilled workers after the uprising
was expensive. With a dedication, I think Brother Narev wants to show people
the progress, to inspire them, to involve outlying lands in the celebration,
believing this will head off further troubles."
In the blackness of the room, only the skylight in the high ceiling
above let light cascade down over the stone. The marble took the light deep
into its fine crystalline structure, and gave it back as a loving gift.
Victor opened the double doors that looked out over the Retreat.
"Brother Narev told me that your statue is also to be a sundial, with the
Creator's Light shining down on mankind's torment. He told me I am to
oversee the making of the gnomon and dial plane for its shadow to fall upon.
He said something about a lightning bolt. . ."
Victor turned around, his eyes following as Richard set the model of
the statue on a narrow tool shelf that ran the length of the room.
"Dear spirits . . ." Victor whispered. "That is grotesque."
"They want me to carve this. They want it to be a statue with the power
to dominate the grand entrance."
Victor nodded. "Brother Narev said as much. He told me how big would be
the metal for the dial plane. He wants bronze."
"Can you cast the bronze?"
"No." With the backs of his fingers, Victor tapped Richard's arm. "Here
is the
good part: few people can cast such a piece. Brother Narev ordered
Priska released to do the casting."
Richard blinked in astonishment. "Priska is alive?"
Victor nodded. "High people must have not wanted him buried in the sky
in case they needed his skills. They had him locked away in a dungeon. The
Order knows they need people with ability; they released him to get this
done. If he wants to remain alive, and out of the dungeon, he is to cast the
bronze, at his own expense, as a gift to the people. They say it is his
penance. I am to give him the specifications and see to its assembly and
placement on the statue."
"Victor, I want to buy your stone."
The blacksmith's brow slid into an unfriendly frown.
No.
"Narev and Neal found out about my civil fine. They think I got off too
lightly. They ordered that I carve their statue-much like Priska is to
provide the castingas my penance. I must buy the stone myself, and I must
carve it after my work at the site is finished for the day. They want it for
this winter's dedication of the Retreat."
Victor's eyes turned toward the model on the shelf, as if it was some
monster come to visit ruin on him. "Richard, you know what this stone means
to me. I won't-,,
"Victor, listen to me."
"No." He held his palm up toward Richard. "Don't ask this of me. I
don't want this stone to become ugly, like all the Order touches. I won't
allow it."
"Neither will L"
Victor gestured angrily at the model. "That is what you are to carve.
How can you even think of that ugliness visiting my pure marble?"
"I can't."
Richard set the plaster model on the floor. He picked up a large
hammer, its handle leaning against the wall, and with a mighty blow
shattered the abomination into a thousand pieces. He stood as the white dust
slowly billowed over the threshold, out the door, and down the hill toward
the Retreat like some ghost of evil returning to the underworld.
"Victor, sell me your stone. Let me liberate the beauty inside."
Victor squinted his distrust. "The stone has a flaw. It can't be
carved."
"I've thought about it. I have a way. I know I can do it."
Victor put his hand to his stone, almost as if he were comforting a
loved one in distress.
"Victor, you know me. Have I ever done anything to betray you? To harm
you?"
His voice came softly. "No, Richard, you have not."
"Victor, I need this stone. It is the best piece of marble-the way it
can take in light and send it back. It has grain that can hold detail. I
need the best for this statue. I swear, Victor, if you trust me with it, I
will be true to your vision. I won't betray your love of this stone, I
swear."
The blacksmith gently ran his beefy, callused hand up the side of the
white marble that towered to nearly twice his height.
"What if you were to refuse to carve them their statue?"
"Neal said that then they will take me back to the prison until they
get a confession out of me, or until I die from the questioning. I will be
buried in the sky in return for nothing."
"And if you do as you want, instead"-Victor gestured to the fragments
of the model-"and don't carve them what they want?"
"Maybe I would like to see beauty again before I die."
"Bah. What would you carve? What would you see before you die? What
could be worth your life?"
"Man's nobility-the most sublime form of beauty."
The man's hand paused on the stone, his eyes searching Richard's, but
he said nothing.
"Victor, I need you to help me. I'm not asking you to give me anything.
I'm willing to pay your price. Name it."
Victor returned his loving gaze to his stone.
"Ten gold marks," he said with bold confidence, knowing Richard had no
money.
Richard reached into his pocket and then counted out ten gold marks. He
held the fortune out to Victor. The blacksmith frowned.
"Where did you get such money?"
"I worked and I saved it. I earned it helping the Order build their
palace. Remember?"
"But they took all your money. Nicci told them how much you had, and
they took it all."
Richard cocked his head. "You didn't think I'd be foolish enough to put
all my money in one place, did you? I have gold stashed all over. If this
isn't enough, I will pay you whatever you ask."
Richard knew that the stone was valuable, although not worth ten gold
marks, but it was to Victor, so Richard would not argue the price. He would
pay whatever the man asked.
"I can't take your money, Richard." He waved a hand in resignation. "I
don't know how to carve. It was but a dream. As long as I never carved it, I
could dream of the beauty in the stone. This is from my homeland, where once
there was freedom." His fingers blindly found the wall of marble. "This is
noble stone. I would like to see nobility in this Cavatura marble. You may
have the stone, my friend."
"No, Victor. I don't want to take your dream. I want to, in a way,
fulfill it. I cannot accept it as a gift. I want to buy it."
"But, why?"
"Because I will have to give it to the Order. I don't want you giving
this to the Order; I will have to do that. More than that, though, they will
no doubt want it destroyed. It must be mine when they do that. I want it to
be paid for."
Victor held out his hand. "Ten marks, then."
Richard counted out the ten gold marks and then closed the man's big
fingers around them.
"Thank you, Victor," Richard whispered.
Victor grinned. "Where do you wish me to deliver it?"
Richard held out another gold mark. "May I rent this room? I would like
to carve it here. From here, when I'm done, it can be sledged down to the
entrance plaza."
Victor shrugged. "Done."
Richard handed over a twelfth gold mark. "And I want you to make me the
tools with which I will carve this stone-the finest tools you have ever
made. The kind of tools used to carve beauty in your homeland. This marble
demands the best. Make the tools out of the best steel."
"Points, toothed chisels, and chisels for fine work-I can make them for
you. There are hammers aplenty about you may use."
"I also need rasps, in a variety of shapes. And files, too. Straight,
curved-a wide selection-the finest smoothing files. I need you to get me
pumice stones, the fine white close-grained pumice--ground to the same
shapes to match the rasps and files, and a good supply of powdered pumice,
too."
Victor's eyes had gone wide. The blacksmith had come from a place where
they had once done such carving. He knew full well what it was Richard meant
to do.
"You intend to do flesh in stone?"
"I do."
"You know how?"
Richard knew from statues he had seen in D'Hara and in Aydindril, and
from what some of the other carvers told him, and from his own tests in his
work for the Order's palace, that if carved properly, then smoothed and
polished to a high luster, quality marble could take in the light and give
it back in a way that seemed to liberate the stone from its hardness,
softening it, so that it assumed the look of flesh. If done properly, the
marble could seem to almost come alive.
"I've seen it done before, Victor. I've carved before. I've learned how
to do it. I've thought about it for months. Ever since I started carving for
them, this purpose has kept my mind alive. I've used my work for the Order
to practice what I've seen, what I've learned, and what I've thought of on
my own. Even before, when they questioned me . . . I thought about this
stone, about the statue I know is in it, to keep my mind from what they did
to me."
"You mean it helped you to endure their torture?"
Richard nodded. "I can do it, Victor." He lifted a fist in firm
conviction. "Flesh in stone. I only need the proper tools."
Victor rattled the gold in his fist. "Done. I can make the proper tools
for what you want to do. This is what I know. I don't know how to carve, but
this will be my part-what I can do to bring the beauty out."
Richard clasped forearms with Victor to seal their agreement.
"I have one thing I would ask you-as a favor."
Victor laughed his deep belly laugh. "I must feed you lardo so you may
have the strength to carve this noble stone?"
Richard smiled. "I wouldn't ever turn down lardo."
"What is it then?" Victor asked. "What is the favor?"
Richard's fingers tenderly touched the stone. His stone.
"No one is to see it until it is done. That includes you. I would like
to have a canvas tarp, so I can cover it. I would ask that you not look at
it until it is done."
"Why?"
"Because I need it to be mine alone while I carve it. I need solitude
with it as I shape it. When I'm finished, then the world can have it, but
when I work on it, it is to be my vision and mine alone. I wish no one to
see it before it is finished.
"But most of all, I don't want you to see it because if anything goes
wrong, I don't want you involved in this. I don't want you to know what I
do. If you don't see it, you can't be buried in the sky for not telling
them."
Victor shrugged. "If that is your wish, then it shall be so. I will
tell the men that the back room is rented, and it is off-limits. I will put
a lock on the inner door. I will put a chain on the outer double doors,
here, and give you the key."
"Thank you. You don't know what that means to me."
"When do you need the chisels?"
"I need the heavy point to rough it out, first. Can you have it done by
tonight? I need to get started. There isn't much time."
Victor dismissed Richard's concern with a flourish of his hand. "The
heavy point is easy. I can make that in short order. It will be done when
you come from your work down there-your work with the ugliness. Long before
you need the other chisels, they will be ready for you to carve beauty."
"Thank you, Victor."
"What is this `thank you' talk? This is business. You have paid me in
advancevalue for value between honest men. I can't tell you how good it is
to have a customer other than the Order."
Victor scratched his head and turned more serious. "Richard, they will
want to see your work, won't they? They will want to see how you are doing
on their statue."
"I don't think so. They trust my work. They gave me the model they want
scaled up. They have already approved it. They've told me my life depends on
this. Neal delighted in telling me how he ordered those other carvers
tortured and put to death. He wanted to frighten me. I doubt they will give
it a second thought."
"But what if a Brother does come, wanting to see it?"
"Then I will have to bend an iron bar around his neck and let him
pickle in the brine barrel."
Richard touched the length of the point chisel to his forehead, as he
had so often touched the Sword of Truth there in much the same way. This was
no less a battle. This was life and death.
"Blade, be true this day," he whispered.
The chisel had eight sides, so as to provide grip in a sweaty hand.
Victor had given it a proper heavy blunt point. He had also put his
initials-V C-in small letters on one of the facets, proclaiming the pride of
its maker.
Such a heavy chisel would shatter stone and remove a great excess
material in short order. It was a weapon that would do a lot of damage,
fracturing the structure of the marble down the width of three fingers. A
point used carelessly on unnoticed flaws could shatter the entire piece.
Finer points would cause shallower fractures, but remove less material.
Even with the finest point punches, Richard knew that he could only approach
to within the last half finger of the final layer. The network of spidery
cracks left by a point were fractures in the crystalline structure of the
marble itself. So damaged, the stone lost its translucence and its ability
to take a high polish.
To do flesh in stone, the final layers had to be approached with care,
and be left undamaged by any tool.
After the heavy point removed much of the waste, then finer-point
chisels would allow Richard to get closer, refining the shape. Once he was
within as close as a half finger of the final layer, he would turn to the
clawed chisels, simply chisels with notches in their edge, to shear away the
stone without fracturing the underlying structure of the marble. The coarse
claws took off the most stone, leaving rough gouges. He would use chisels
with a series of finer and finer teeth to refine the work. Finally, he would
use smooth-bladed chisels, some only half as wide as his little finger.
Down at the site, where he carved scenes for the frieze, that was as
far as the carvers went. It left an ugly surface, ungainly and coarse,
rendering flesh as wooden, leaving no definition or refinement to muscle and
bone. It robbed the people in the carvings of their humanity.
On this statue, Richard would really only begin where the carvings for
the Order ended. He would use rasps to define bone, muscle, even veins in
the arms. Fine files would remove the marks left by the rasps and refine the
most subtle contours. The pumice stones would remove the filing marks,
leaving the surface ready to polish with pumice paste held in leather,
cloth, and finally straw.
If he did it right, he would have his vision in stone. Flesh in stone.
Nobility.
Holding the heavy point chisel to his palm with his thumb, Richard put
his hand
to the stone, feeling its cool surface. He knew what was inside-inside
not only the stone, but inside himself.
There were no doubts, only the heart-pounding passion of expectation.
As he so often did, Richard thought of Kahlan. It had been nearly a
year since he had looked into her green eyes, touched her cheek, held her in
his arms. She would have long ago left the safety of their home for dangers
he could vividly imagine. For a moment, he was overwhelmed with the weight
of despair, choked by the sadness of how much he missed her, humbled at how
much he loved her. Now he knew he must dismiss her from his mind so that he
could devote himself entirely to the task he had to do.
As he so often did, Richard said his silent good-night to Kahlan.
Then he set the point at ninety degrees to the face of the stone, and
took a powerful swing with the steel club. Stone chips exploded away.
His breaths came deeper and faster. It was begun.
With great violence, Richard attacked the stone.
By the light of lamps Victor left for him after the work day was done,
Richard lost himself in the work, raining down blow upon blow. Sharp stone
chips rattled off the wooden walls, and stung when they hit his arms or
chest. With a clear vision of what he wanted to do, he broke away the waste
stone.
His ears rang with the sound of steel on steel and steel on stone. It
was music. Jagged chips and chunks fell away. They were the fallen enemy.
The air boiled with the white dust of battle.
Richard knew precisely what we wanted to accomplish. He knew what
needed to be done, and how to do it. He was filled with a clarity of
purpose, a course to follow. Now that it had begun, he was lost in the work.
Dust billowed up around him until his dark clothes were white, as if
the stone were absorbing him, as he was transforming with it, until they
were one. Sharp shards nicked him as they shot away. His bare arms, white as
the marble itself, were soon streaked here and there with blood from the
battle.
From time to time, he opened the doors to shovel out the ankle-deep
scree. The white scrap avalanched down the hill, tinkling with a sound like
a thousand tiny bells. The white dust covering him was cut through with dark
rivulets of sweat, and red scratches. The cool air felt refreshing against
his sweat-soaked skin. But then he once again shut out the night, shut out
the world to be alone.
For the first time in nearly a year, Richard felt free. In this, he was
in complete control. No one watched him. No one told him what he must do.
This work was his singular purpose, in which he strove for perfection.
There were no chains, no limitations, no desires of others to which he must
bow. In this struggle to accomplish his best, he was utterly free.
What he intended would stand in unyielding opposition to everything the
Order represented. He intended to show them life.
Richard knew that when the Brothers saw the statue, they would sentence
him to death.
Stone chips burst forth with each blow, taking him closer to his goal.
He had to stand on a work stool to reach the top of the marble, moving it
around the monolith to work all sides, narrowing it down to what would be.
Richard swung the steel club with the fury of battle. His chisel hand
stung with the ringing blows. As violent as the attack was, though, it was
controlled. A trimming hammer, called a pitcher, could be used for such
rough work. It removed waste
with greater speed than a heavy point to shape the block, but it was
used with a full swing, and Richard feared, because of the flaw, to unleash
that much power against the stone. In the beginning, the block had strength
in its sheer mass, but even so, he considered such a trimming hammer too
dangerous for this particular stone.
Richard would have Victor make him a set of drill bits for a bow drill.
With a bow's cord run around the shaft of the drill, it could be twisted and
driven through the marble. Richard had thought long and hard about the
problem of the flaw. He had resolved to cut out most of it. First, to stop
any further cracks from running through more of the stone, he would drill
holes through the crack to relieve the stress. With another series of
closely spaced holes, he would weaken the stone in a waste area around the
flaw and simply remove most of it.
There would be two figures: a man, and a woman. When finished, the
space between them would be where Richard had removed the worst of the flaw.
With the weakest stone removed, the sound stone that remained would be
strong enough to take the stress of the work. Since the defect started at
the base, he couldn't eliminate it all, but he could reduce the problem it
presented to a manageable level. That was the secret to this piece of stone:
eliminating its weakness, then working in its strength.
Richard considered it a fortunate flaw, first of all because it had
reduced the value of the stone, enabling Victor to purchase it in the first
place. To Richard's mind, though, the flaw had been valuable because it had
caused him to think about the stone, and how to carve it. That thought had
brought him to his design. Without the flaw, he might not have come to the
same design.
As he worked, he was filled with the energy of the fight, driven onward
by the heat of the attack. Stone stood between him and what he wanted to
carve, and he craved to eliminate that excess so he could get to the essence
of the figures. A huge corner of waste broke loose, slipping away, slowly at
first, then crashing down. Chips and shards rained down as he worked,
burying the fallen foe.
Several more times he had to open the doors and shovel out the scrap.
It was invigorating to see what was once an irregular shaped block, becoming
a rough shape. The figures were still completely encased, their arms far
from being free, their legs not separate, yet, but they were beginning to
emerge. He would have to be careful, drilling holes in the open areas to
prevent breaking off the arms.
Richard was surprised to see light streaming through the window
overhead. He had worked the entire night without realizing it.
He stood back and appraised the statue that was now more or less
roughly a cone shape. Now, there were only lumps where the arms would extend
out from the bodies. He wanted the arms to be free, the bodies to convey
grace and movement. Life. What he carved for the Order was never free,
always tightly bound to the stone, forever stiff, unable to move, like
cadavers.
Half of what had been there the night before was now gone. Richard
ached to stay and work on, but he knew he couldn't. From the corner, he
excavated the canvas tarp Victor had left for him, and flung it over the
statue.
When he threw open the door, the white dust billowed out. Victor was
sitting among the rubble of his stone monolith.
The blacksmith blinked. "Richard, you have been here the whole night!"
"I guess I have."
He gestured as a grin split his face. "You look like a good spirit. How
goes the battle with the stone?"
Richard could think of nothing to say. He could only beam with the joy
of it.
Victor laughed his belly laugh. "Your face says it all. You must be
tired and hungry. Come, sit and rest-have some lardo."
--]----
Nicci heard Kamil and Nabbi shout a greeting as Richard came down the
street, and then their footsteps as they ran down the front stairs. She
glanced out the front window and, in the failing light of dusk, saw them
meet up with Richard as he came down the street. She, too, was happy to see
him coming home this early.
Nicci had seen precious little of Richard in the weeks since he took on
the duty of carving the statue for Brother Narev. She couldn't imagine how
Richard could endure carving a statue she knew had to be agony for him-not
so much because of its size, but because of its nature.
If anything, though, Richard seemed invigorated. Often, after working
all day carving the moral lessons for the facade of the palace, he would
then work late into the night on the grand statue for the entrance plaza. As
tired as he had to be when he came home, he would sometimes pace. There were
nights when he would only sleep for a couple of hours, rise, and go to work
on the statue for hours before his workday at the site began. Several times
he had worked the entire night.
Richard seemed driven. Nicci didn't know how he could do it. He
sometimes came home to eat and to take a nap for an hour, and then he would
go back. She would urge him to stay and sleep, but he would say that the
penance had to be paid or they would put him back in prison. Nicci feared
that possibility, so she didn't insist that he stay home to sleep. Losing
sleep was preferable to him losing his life.
He had always been muscular and strong, but his muscles had become even