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cells where the Order would purge the world of the worst sinners and where
criminals would confess their crimes.
It was a terrible business, but you couldn't have a garden unless you
got your hands dirty first.
The blacksmith's shop, up on the side of a hill overlooking the
colossal undertaking, was the largest she had ever seen. With a project of
this scale, it was understandable. She stood outside while Ishaq hurried in
to fetch the blacksmith for her.
The sounds of hammers ringing on steel, the smells of the forge, the
smoke, the oils, the acid, the brine, all brought back a flood of memories
of her father's shop. For a brief moment, Nicci's heart beat faster-she was
a girl again. She almost expected to see her father come out and smile at
her with that wondrous energy of his showing in his blue eyes.
Instead, a brawny man stepped out of the shadows into the daylight. He
wore no smile, but a menacing glare. At first, she thought he was bald. Then
she saw that his full head of hair was simply cropped close to his scalp.
Some of her father's men who worked with hot iron did the same. His scowl
would have set any other woman back three paces.
He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked through the milky sunlight
toward her, appraising her eyes more carefully than most men-other than
Richard. His thick leather apron was speckled with hundreds of tiny burn
marks.
"Mrs. Cypher?"
Ishaq backed away, contenting himself to be a shadow.
"That's right. I'm Richard's wife."
"Funny, Richard never really spoke of you. I guess I just assumed he
had a wife, but he never said--"
"Richard has been taken into custody."
The scowl changed in an instant to wide-eyed concern. "Richard's been
arrested? For what?"
"Apparently, for the most base of crimes: cheating people."
"Cheating people? Richard? They're out of their minds."
"I'm afraid not. He is guilty. I have the evidence."
"What evidence?"
Ishaq swooped in close, unable to contain himself any longer.
"Richard's money. The money he made."
"Made!" Nicci's shout drove Ishaq back a step. "You mean the money he
stole."
The blacksmith's scowl had returned. "Stole? Who do you think he stole
this money from? Who are his accusers? Where are his victims?"
"Well, you are one."
"Me?..
"Yes, I'm afraid you were one of his victims. I'm here to return your
money. I can't use stolen money to rescue a criminal from his just
punishment. Richard will have to pay the price for his crime. The Order will
see that he does."
The blacksmith tossed his towel aside and planted his fists on his
hips. "Richard
never stole one 'silver penny from anyone-least of all, me! He earned
his money."
"He cheated you."
"He sold me iron and steel. I need iron and steel to make things for
the Retreat. Brother Narev comes in here and growls at me to get things
made, but he doesn't deliver me the iron from which I must make them.
Richard does. Until Richard came along, I nearly got buried in the sky
myself, because Ishaq, here, couldn't get me enough iron and steel."
"I couldn't! The committee only gives me permission to bring what I
bring. I
would be buried in the sky myself if I bring more than I have
permission to bring. Everybody at the transport company watches me. They
report me to the workers' group if I spit wrong."
"So," Nicci said, folding her arms, "Richard has you over your own
brine barrel. He brings you iron at night and you have no choice but to pay
him his price, and he knows it. He makes all this gold by gouging you.
That's how he got rich-by overcharging you. That's the worst kind of
thievery."
The blacksmith frowned at her as if she were daft.
"Richard sells me iron and steel for a lot less than I can buy it
through the regular transport companies-like from Ishaq."
"I charge what the committee on fair pricing tells me! I have no say!"
"That's just crazy," Nicci said to the blacksmith, ignoring Ishaq.
"No, it's smart. You see, the foundries produce more than they can
sell, because they can't get it moved. Their furnaces have to be heated
whether they make one ton or ten. They need to make enough iron to make the
heat worth it, to pay their workers, and to keep their furnaces going. If
they don't buy enough ore, the mines close and then the foundry can't get
any ore at all. They can't exist if they can't get raw materials. But the
Order won't let Ishaq, and those like him, move as much as the foundries
need moved. The Order takes weeks to decide on the simplest request. They
consider every imaginable person who they fancy might conceivably be hurt if
Ishaq were to move the load. The foundries were desperate. They offered to
sell their extra to Richard at less money-"
"So they are cheated in Richard's scheme, too!"
"No, because Richard takes it, they sell more, so it costs them less to
make. They make more money than they would have otherwise. Richard sells it
to me for less than I have to pay from the regular transport companies,
because he buys it for less."
Nicci threw her hands up in disgust. "And to top it off, he is putting
working men out of jobs. He's the worst sort of criminal-making his profit
off the backs of the poor, the needy, and the workers!"
"What?" Ishaq protested. "I can't get enough people to work, and I
can't get enough permits to haul the goods people need. Richard puts no one
out of work-he helps create more business for everybody. The foundries he
hauls for have each hired more men since they are able to sell through
Richard."
"That's right," the blacksmith said.
"But, you just don't see it," Nicci insisted as she raked back her
hair. "He's pulled the wool over your eyes. He's cheating you-milking you
dry. You're getting poor because Richard-"
"Don't you get it, Mrs. Cypher? Richard has made half a dozen foundries
money. They are working now only because of Richard. He moves their goods
when they need them moved, not when they can finally get some asinine permit
with seals all over it. Richard has, by himself, enabled a whole string of
charcoal makers to earn a living supplying those foundries, along with a
number of miners and any number of other people. And me? Richard has made me
more money than I ever thought I'd make.
"Richard has made us all rich by doing something that is desperately
needed, and doing it better than others can do it. He has kept us all
working. Not the Order and their committees, boards, and groupsRichard.
"I've been able to keep men on because of Richard. He never says it
can't be
done; he figures a way to do it. In the process, he has earned the
trust of every man he deals with. His word is as good as that gold.
"Why, even Brother Narev told Richard to do what needed doing to get me
the iron I needed. Richard told him he would. The palace wouldn't be this
far along if not for Richard keeping everyone going with what he gets for
us, when we need it.
"The Order owes Richard a debt of gratitude, not torture and
punishment. He has helped the Order by doing what they need done. Those
piers standing out there would not be built yet, if Richard hadn't found me
the iron to make the bracing ties. Those carvings on the palace walls down
there would not be done if he hadn't gotten me the steel I needed to make
the tools to carve them. The goods down there are only moved in by wheels
turning on iron bands I make to repair them because Richard got me the
steel. Richard has done more to raise that palace up out of the ground than
any other single man. Besides that, he's made friends doing it."
Nicci couldn't make it work in her head. It had to be true; she
remembered that Richard had met Brother Narev. How could someone make so
much money, help the Order, and have the people he deals with still trust
him?
"But he has made all this profit. . ."
The blacksmith shook his head as if she were a snake among them. "
`Profit' is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen
as evil, so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn."
The frown returned as the blacksmith leaned toward her. His voice
became as hot as the iron he worked.
"What I want to know, Mrs. Cypher, is why Richard is in some stinking
prison being tortured to give a confession, while his wife is standing here
acting a fool over him earning money and making us all happy and rich in the
process?"
Nicci felt a lump rising in her throat. "I can't pay the fine until
tomorrow night."
"Until I met you, I never thought Richard ever made a mistake." The man
pulled his leather apron off over his head and heaved it at the wall of his
shop. "With that kind of money, we can bargain him out sooner. I hope it's
soon enough. Ishaq, are you with me?"
"Of course. They know me. I'm trusted. I go, too."
"Give me the money," the blacksmith commanded.
Nicci dropped it into his upturned palm without even thinking about it.
Richard wasn't really a thief. It was a wonder. She didn't know how, but
these people were all happy with him. He made them all rich. It didn't make
any sense to her.
"Please, if you can help, I'd be indebted to you."
"I'm not doing it for you, Mrs. Cypher; I'm helping a friend I value
who is worth helping."
"Nicci. My a is Nicci."
"I'm Mr. Cascella he growled as he started away.
--]----
Mr. Cascella tossed four gold coins on the table in front of People's
Protector Muksin. He had told Nicci and Ishaq that he wanted to hold
something in reserve so they could "pump the bellows" if they "needed more
heat."
The blacksmith towered over the man behind the table. Several officers
put their noses to their work. The guards around the room all watched.
"Richard Cypher. You have him. We're here to pay the fine."
Protector Muksin blinked at the coins like a fat carp that was too full
to eat a worm.
"We don't assess fines until tomorrow night. Come back then, and if
this man, Cypher, has not confessed to involvement in anything more serious,
you can pay then."
"I work out at the new palace," Mr. Cascella said. "Brother Narev keeps
me busy. I'm here now, so couldn't we just take care of this matter while
we're all here? It would make Brother Narev happy if his head blacksmith
didn't have to come all the way over here again tomorrow, when I'm here
now."
Protector Muksin's dark eyes turned from side to side, traversing the
crowded room of wailing people. His chair chattered as he scooted it closer
to the table. He folded his stubby fingers atop a pile of tattered papers.
"I would not wish to inconvenience Brother Narev."
The blacksmith smiled. "I thought not."
"However, Brother Narev would not want me to overlook my duty to the
people."
"Of course not!" Ishaq put it. He swiped his red hat off his head when
the dark eyes turned his way. "Such was not implied, of course. We are
trusting in you to do your duty."
"Who are you?" the Protector asked Nicci.
"I am the wife of Richard Cypher, Protector Muksin. I was here before.
I paid a fee to see him. You explained the fine to me."
He nodded. "I see so many."
"Look," Mr. Cascella said, "we have a lot of money for the fine. If we
could pay it now and get Richard Cypher out today, that is. Some of it is
money other people might not be willing to contribute tomorrow."
The blacksmith slid four more gold marks across the table. The
Protector's dark eyes looked unimpressed.
"The money all belongs to the people. There is great need."
Nicci suspected that the great need was in his pocket, and that he was
holding out for more. As if to answer the charge, Protector Muksin slid the
eight gold coins-a fortune by any standard of measure-back across the table.
"The money would not be paid here. We have no use for it. We are humble
servants of the Order. The amount of the fine would be noted in the ledger,
but you would have to deliver it to a citizen committee for distribution to
those in need."
Nicci was surprised that she had been wrong about the man. He was
indeed an honest official. This changed the nature of the whole business.
Her hopes brightened. Perhaps it wouldn't be so difficult to get Richard
released, after all.
Behind her, on the other side of the short wall, women were wailing,
children were crying, and people were praying. Nicci could hardly breathe in
the stinking sweltering room. She hoped that the official would be moved to
hurry the case so he could get to attending the matter of the small crowd of
guards who waited off in the side halls for papers and orders.
"But you make a mistake," the Protector added, "if you think money can
buy this man's release. The Order is not concerned with the life of one man,
for no man's life is of any real importance. I'm inclined to tell you to
keep your money-until we can look into why anyone would have such a large
sum. I think this man must be disruptive to civil order if he stirs up this
much support. No one man is any better than another. That he can bring so
much money to bribe him out of his just punishment proves my suspicion that
he has something to confess."
His chair creaked as he leaned back to peer up at them. "It appears you
three would think otherwisethink that he is better than any other man."
"No," the blacksmith said in an offhanded manner, "it's just that he is
our friend."
"The Order is your friend. Those in need are your concern. You have no
business caring for one man over another. Such unseemly behaviour is
blasphemy."
The three of them before the desk stood mute. Behind them, the weeping,
the wailing, the panicked praying for those in the darkness far below, went
on without pause. Everything they said only seemed to turn the man more
against them.
"If he had a skill, then it might be different. There is great need for
contributions to the Order by those with ability. There are many who hold
back when they should be doing their best to contribute. It is the duty of
those with ability to-"
It all came clear to Nicci in one blinding instant.
"But he does have a skill," she blurted out.
"What skill?" the Protector asked, not pleased at being interrupted.
Nicci stepped closer. "He is the greatest-"
"Greatness is a delusion of the wicked. All men are the same. All men
are evil by nature. All men must struggle to overcome their baser nature by
devoting their lives selflessly to the cause of helping their fellow man.
Only selfless acts will enable a man to gain his reward in the afterlife."
Mr. Cascella's fists tightened. He started to lean in. If he argued,
now, it would render the matter irredeemable. Nicci gave him a stealthy kick
with the side of her foot, hoping to convince him to be quiet and let her do
the talking before it was too late. Nicci bowed her head as she retreated a
step, forcing the blacksmith aside without making it look obvious.
"You are wise, Protector Muksin. We could all learn valuable lessons
from you. Please forgive the inept words of a poor wife. I am a simple
woman, humbled and discomposed in the presence of such a wise representative
of the Fellowship of Order."
Startled, the Protector said nothing. Nicci had traded in such words
for over a hundred years, and knew their value. She had given the man, but a
petty official, a standing in the core of the Order-in the fellowship
itself-that he could never attain. This sort of man would aspire to wear the
mantle of social merit. To a man like this, to be thought to hold such
intellectual status was as good as earning it; perception was reality to
such men. The perception was what counted, not the actual accomplishment.
"What is this man's skill?"
Nicci bowed her head again. "Richard Cypher is an undistinguished stone
carver, Protector Muksin."
The men to either side of her stared in disbelief.
"A stone carver?" the Protector asked, lingering in thought over the
words.
"A faceless artisan, his only hope in life that he could one day work
in stone to show man's wickedness, so that he might help others see the need
to sacrifice to their fellow man and the Order and in this way hope to earn
his reward in the afterlife."
The blacksmith quickly recovered and added to her words. "As you may
know, many of the carvers at the Retreat were traitors-thank the Creator
they were discovered-and so there is much carving to be done for the glory
of the Order. Brother Narev can confirm this for you, Protector Muksin."
The Protector's dark eyes shifted among the three. "How much money do
you have?"
"Twenty-two gold marks," Nicci said.
He scowled his condemnation as he pulled a ledger book close and dipped
his pen in a chipped ink bottle. The Protector bent forward and wrote the
fine in his book. He next wrote an order on a piece of paper and handed it
up to the blacksmith.
"Take this to the workers' hall at the docks"-he gestured with his pen
off behind them-"down that street. I will release the prisoner after you
bring me a workers' group seal to prove that the fine was paid to the men
who deserve it most-those in need. Richard Cypher must be stripped of his
ill-gotten gains."
Richard deserved it most, Nicci thought bitterly. He had earned it, not
those other men. Nicci thought about all the nights he'd worked without
sleep, without food. She remembered him wincing as he lay down to sleep, his
bask aching from his labor. Richard had earned that money-she knew that,
now. Those men who would get it had done nothing for it but to desire it,
thus proclaiming their right to it.
"Yes, Protector Muksin," Nicci said as she bowed. "Thank you for your
wise justice."
Mr. Cascella let out a quiet sigh. Nicci leaned confidentially toward
the Protector.
"We will carry out your equitable instructions immediately." She smiled
deferentially. "Since you have treated us so fairly in this matter, might I
ask one further consideration?" It was a lot of gold that would be credited
to his effort on behalf of the Order; she knew he would likely be in a
generous mood at that moment. "It's more a matter of curiosity, really."
He wheezed an annoyed sigh. "What is it you want?"
Nicci leaned closer, close enough to smell the man's stale sweat. "The
name of the person who reported my husband. The one who rightly brought
Richard Cypher to justice."
Nicci knew that he was thinking that men were more likely to be
welcomed into the fellowship when they helped collect great sums for those
in need. The matter of the name would only be a gnat bothering his pleasant
thoughts. He pulled some papers close and scanned through them, flipping
them aside as he searched.
"Here it is," Protector Muksin said at last. "Richard Cypher's name was
reported by a young soldier volunteering in the Imperial Order army. His
name is Gadi. The report is months old. It took some time to see justice
done, but the Order always sees justice done in the end. That is why they
call our great emperor 'Jagang the Just.' "
Nicci straightened. "Thank you, Protector Muksin."
Her calm face concealed her inner fury that the little thug was out of
her reach. Gadi deserved to suffer.
The Protector wrote out his sentence for a civil crime as he spoke.
"Take the order of fine I gave you to the workers' group at the docks and
return here when you have seals to prove that his fine of twenty-two gold
marks was paid in full.
"Richard Cypher is further ordered to report to the carver's committee
for work assignment." He handed her the paper with the orders. "Richard
Cypher is now a stone carver for the Order."
--]----
The sun was setting by the time they returned with all the papers and
seals. The blacksmith was impressed with the way she had handled the
official when the offer
of gold failed to work. Ishaq thanked her a hundred times. It only
mattered to her that Richard would be freed.
She was relieved to know that she had been wrong, that Richard wasn't a
cheat and a thief after all. It had been such an ugly feeling, thinking ill
of Richard. It had for a time tainted her whole world. She had never been so
happy to be wrong.
Better yet, they had done it; she was to have him back.
At the side door to the stronghold, Mr. Cascella, Ishaq, and Nicci
waited. The shadows grew darker. Finally, the door opened. Two guards held
Richard between them as they came out onto the landing. When they saw
Richard, his condition, Mr. Cascella cursed under his breath. Ishaq
whispered a prayer.
The guards released Richard with a shove. He stumbled forward. The
blacksmith and Ishaq raced to the steps to help him.
Richard caught himself and straightened, a dark form upright in the
last of the light, defiant of the long shadows around him. He held a hand
out, commanding the two men to stay where they were. Both stopped with a
foot on the bottom step, ready to run up to him should he need them. Nicci
couldn't imagine what pain it had to cost Richard to walk so steadily,
proudly, smoothly down the stairs without help, as if he were a free man.
He did not yet know what she had done to him.
Nicci knew there could be no worse plight for Richard. The torture down
in the depths of the stronghold was not as bad as what she had just
condemned him to.
Nicci was sure that this was the one thing, at last, that would force
out the answer she sought, if there really was an answer to be found.
Brother Narev paused behind Richard's shoulder, a shadow come to visit.
He often lurked nearby, making sure the carvings were progressing as
directed. This was the first time the great man himself had stopped to watch
Richard work.
"Don't I know you?" The voice was like stone grating on stone.
Richard let his arm holding the hammer drop to his side as he looked
up. He wiped the dusty sweat from his brow with the back of his left hand,
still holding the clawed stone chisel.
"Yes, Brother Narev. I was a laborer hauling iron, at the time. I was
bringing a load to the blacksmith one day when I was honored to meet you."
Brother Narev frowned suspiciously. Richard allowed no crack in his
facade of innocent calm.
"A laborer, and now a carver?"
"I have ability which I am joyful to contribute to my fellow man. I am
grateful for the opportunity the Order has given me to earn my reward in the
next life by sacrificing in this."
"Joyful." Neal, the shadow of the shadow, stepped forward. "You are
joyful to carve, are you?"
"Yes, Brother Neal."
Richard was joyful that Kahlan was alive. He didn't think about the
rest of it. He was a prisoner, and what he had to do to keep Kahlan alive,
he would do; that was all there was to it. What was, was.
Brother Neal smirked his superiority at Richard's obeisance. The man
had come often to lecture the carvers, and Richard had come to know him all
too well. The carvers' work, being the influential face the palace would
show to the people, was critically important to the Fellowship of Order.
Richard was frequently the object of Neal's harangues. Neal, a wizard, not a
sorcerer like Brother Narev, always seemed to feel,the need to prove his
moral authority around Richard. Richard gave him no rough edge to grip, yet
Neal still persisted in clawing for one.
Brother Narev believed his own words with grim conviction: mankind was
evil; only through selfless sacrifice to your fellow man had you any hope to
redeem yourself in the afterlife. There was no joy in his faith, simply a
ruthless duty to it.
Neal, on the other hand, bubbled over with his feelings. He believed in
the Order's doctrine with an impassioned, incandescent, arrogant pride,
gleefully convinced the world needed iron-fisted direction which only
enlightened intellectuals, such as himself, could provide-with grudging
deference to Brother Narev, of course.
Richard had more than once overheard Neal proclaim with conviction that
if he had to order the tongues cut out of a million innocent men, it would
be better than
to allow one man to blaspheme against the self-evident, righteous
nature of the Order's ways.
Brother Neal, a fresh-faced young man-no doubt deceptively young,
considering that Nicci said he had once lived at the Palace of the
Prophets-frequently accompanied Brother Narev, basking in his mentor's
approval. Neal was Brother Narev's chief lieutenant. His face might have
been fresh, but his ideas were not; tyranny was ancient, even if Neal
deluded himself in believing it the bright new salvation of mankind when
applied by him and his fellows. His ideas were a paramour he embraced with a
lover's boundless, blind passion-a truth discovered with a lover's lust.
Nothing stirred him to anger quicker than the whiff of argument or
contradiction, no matter how reasoned. In the heat of his passion, Neal was
perfectly willing to destroy any dissension, torture any opposition, kill
any number, who failed to bow before the pedestal upon which stood his
irrefutably noble ideals.
No misery, no failure, no amount of wailing and anguish and death,
could dim his glowing conviction that the ways of the Order were the only
correct course for mankind.
The other disciples, all, like Neal, wearing hooded brown robes, were
an incongruous collection of the cruel, the pompously idealistic, the
bitterly greedy, the resentful, the spiteful, the timid, and, most of all,
the dangerously deluded. All shared an underlying, caustic, inner loathing
for mankind which manifested itself in a conviction that anything
pleasurable for the people could only be evil and accordingly only sacrifice
could be good.
All, with the exception of Neal, were blind followers and completely
under the spell of Brother Narev. They believed Brother Narev far closer to
the Creator than to man. They hung on his every word, believing each to be
divinely inspired. Were he to tell them they must kill themselves for the
cause, Richard was sure they would break their necks rushing for the nearest
knife.
Neal was alone in that he believed in the divinity of his own words, in
addition to Brother Narev's. Every leader had to have a successor. Richard
was pretty sure Neal had already decided who would best serve as the next
incarnation of the Order.
"A peculiar choice of words, joyful." Brother Narev circled a knobby
finger toward the cowering, deformed, frightened figures Richard was working
on. "This makes you . . . joyful?"
Richard gestured to the Light he had carved so as to shine down on the
wretched men. "This, Brother Narev, is what makes me joyful-being able to
show men cowering before the perfection of the Creator's Light. It makes me
joyful to show mankind's wickedness for all to see, for in this way they
will know their duty to the Order above all else."
Brother Narev made a suspicious sound deep in his throat. The sunlight
hooded his dark eyes more than usual and seemed to deepen the creases around
his mouth as he regarded Richard with a look sharing mistrust and loathing,
laced with apprehension. Only the apprehension was any different than the
look he gave everyone. Richard fed him a vacant stare. The brother's mouth
finally twisted with the dismissal of his private thoughts.
"I approve . . . I forgot your name. But then, names are not important.
Men are not important. Individually, each man is but a meaningless cog in
the great wheel of mankind. How that wheel turns is all that matters, not
the cogs."
"Richard Cypher."
One brow, flocked in tangled white and black hair, lifted.
"Yes . . . Richard Cypher. Well, I approve of your carving, Richard
Cypher. You seem to understand better than most how man is properly
depicted."
Richard bowed. "It is not my hand, but the Creator guiding it to help
the Order show the way."
The suspicious look was back, but Richard's expression made Brother
Narev finally believe the words. Brother Narev, his hands clasped behind his
back, glided away to see to other matters. Neal, like a child sticking close
to his mother's skirts, scurried to stay close to Brother Narev's robes. He
cast a scowl back over his shoulder. Richard almost expected to see Neal
stick out his tongue.
As best as Richard could figure, there were about fifty of the
brown-robed disciples. He saw them often enough to come to know their
nature. Victor had mentioned to Richard that one of the foundries had cast
in pure gold, from the master that the blacksmith had made; somewhere near
the same numbers of the spell-forms. Victor thought them only decorations.
Richard had seen several of the gold spell-forms being installed onto the
tops of huge, ornate stone pillars set out around the grounds of the
Retreat. The pillars, in polished marble, were designed and placed to look
like grand decorations for a grand place. Richard suspected they were more.
Richard went back to chiseling a thick, unbending limb. At least, now,
his own limbs worked again. It had been a while, but he was healed. This,
though, seemed no less a torture.
People gathered every day to view the low relief carvings already up on
the walls. Some people knelt on the cobblestone walks before the scenes,
praying, till their knees bled. Some brought rags to put beneath their knees
as they prayed. Many simply stared with forsaken looks at the nature of
mankind depicted in stone.
Richard could see in the faces of many who came that they had come with
some kind of vague, undefinable hope, hungering for some essential answer to
a question they could not formulate. The emptiness in their eyes as they
left was heartbreaking. They were people being drained of life no less than
those bled to death in the dungeons of the Order.
Some of those people gathered to watch the carvers work. In the two
months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, the crowds grew larger
to watch him than any of the other men. The people sometimes wept at what
they saw emerge from beneath Richard's chisels.
In the two months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, he had
come to understand the nuance of carving in stone. What he carved was
dispiriting, but the act of carving itself helped to make up for it. Richard
reveled in the technical aspects of applying steel to stone, guided by
intent.
As much as he hated the things he had to carve, he came to love working
stone with a chisel. The marble seemed almost alive under his touch. He
would often carve some tiny part with reverence for the subject-a finger
gracefully lifted, a eye with knowing vision, a chest holding a heart of
reason.
After he accomplished such grace, he would deface it to suit the Order.
More often than not, that was when people wept.
Richard invented impossibly stiff, stilted, contorted people bent under
the weight of guilt and shame. If this was the way to preserve Kahlan's
life, then he would make everyone who saw the carvings weep their hearts
out. In a way, they were doing the weeping for him, suffering over the
carvings for him, being destroyed by what they saw, for him.
In this way, he was able to endure the torture.
When the shadows lengthened to dusk and the day was finished, the
carvers started putting away their tools into simple wooden boxes before
going home for the night. They all would return not long after first light.
The master builder provided them with orders for areas and shapes to be
covered with carving so they could shape the stones to the correct size.
Brother Narev's disciples came by to provide the details of the stories to
be told in stone.
The stone Richard carved was for the grand entrance to the Retreat.
Marble steps swept around in a half circle, leading up to the huge, round
plaza. A colonnade of pillars in a half circle, mirroring the steps,
surrounded the back half of the plaza. Richard's job was carving the sweep
of scenes that were placed above those columns.
It was to be an entrance which set the tone for the entire palace. In
the center of the plaza Brother Neal had told Richard that Brother Narev's
vision was that there would be the statue dominating the entrance to the
palace, and it was to be a work which would strike down any observer with an
overpowering sense of their own guilt and shame at mankind's evil nature.
The statue, in its horror, was a call to selfless sacrifice, and was to be
built into the form of a sundial, showing people cowering under the Light of
their Creator.
Neal had described it with such delight that the image it created in
Richard's mind sickened him.
Richard was the last to leave the site. As he often did, he headed up
the hill, along the winding road, to the workshops. Victor was in his shop,
banking his coals for the night. With autumn upon them, the days weren't
insufferably hot, so the forge wasn't the miserable place it had been in
high summer. Winter this far south in the Old World was never harsh, but the
forge in winter would be a good place to banish the chill that would come on
cold rainy days.
"Richard! So good to see you." The blacksmith knew why Richard was
there. "Go on back. Maybe I will come sit with you when I'm finished, here?"
Richard gave his friend a smile and said, "I'd like that."
Richard opened the double doors at the rear, letting the last of the
light fill the room where stood the marble. He came often to see the
monolith. Sometimes, after a day of carving ugliness, he had to come and
look at the stone and imagine the beauty inside. That balance sometimes
seemed as if it was all that sustained him.
Richard's fingers, dusty from his work carving stone, reached out to
feel the white Cavatura marble. It was slightly different from the stone he
carved down at the site. He had the experience, now, to discern the subtle
difference. The grain was finer in Victor's stone, harder; it would better
take and hold detail.
Under Richard's fingers, the stone was as cool as moonlight, and just
as chaste.
When he looked up, Victor was standing nearby, smiling wistfully,
watching Richard and the stone.
"After carving such ugliness, it is good to look upon the beauty of my
statue?"
Richard chuckled in answer.
Victor strode across the room, gesturing. "Come, sit with me and have
some lardo."
In the failing light, they sat on the threshold, eating thin slices of
the heavy delicacy, savoring the cool air coming up the hill.
"You know, you don't need to come here to look at my beautiful statue,"
Victor said. "You have a beautiful wife to look at."
Richard didn't say anything.
"I never recalled you mentioning your wife. I never knew about her,
until she came to me that day. For some reason, I always believed you had a
good woman . . . ."
Victor frowned off at the shell of the Retreat. "Why didn't you ever
mention her?"
Richard shrugged.
"I hope you don't think me a terrible person, Richard, but she just
doesn't fit my idea of the woman I thought would be with you."
"I don't think you're a terrible person, Victor. Everybody should have
the right to think for themselves."
"Do you mind if I ask you about her?"
Richard sighed. "Victor, I'm tired. I'd really rather not talk about my
wife. Besides, there's nothing-to say. She's my wife. What is, is."
Victor grunted as he chewed a big bite of red onion. After he
swallowed, he waved the half of onion he had left. "It's not good for a man
to carve such things in the day, and then at night have to go home to-What
am I saying! What has gotten into me? Forgive me, Richard. Nicci is a
beautiful woman."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"And she cares for you."
Richard didn't say anything.
"Ishaq and I tried to get you out of that place by bargaining for you
with your gold. It wasn't enough. The man was a pompous official. Nicci knew
how to wiggleworm him. She used her words to turn the key on your prison
door. Without Nicci, you would be buried in the sky."
"So, she told them that I could carve-to save my life."
"That's right. It is she who got you the job of carver."
Victor waited for more, and finally sighed in resignation when it
wasn't forthcoming.
"How are those chisels I sent down?"
"Good. They work well. I could use a clawed chisel with finer teeth,
though."
Victor handed Richard another small slice of lardo. "You will have it."
"What about the steel?"
Victor waved his onion. "Not to worry. Ishaq is doing well in your
place. Not as good as you, but he is doing well. He gets me what I need.
Everyone likes Ishaq, and is happy he decided to fill in the need. The Order
is so desperate for progress to continue that they turn a blind eye to his
work. Faval the charcoal maker asked about you. He likes Ishaq, but misses
you."
Richard smiled at the memory of the nervous fellow. "I'm glad Ishaq is
buying his charcoal."
There were a lot of good people in the Old World. Richard had always
envisioned them as the enemy, and now he was friends with a number of them.
It had happened to him so often and in the same way; people were basically
the same everywhere, once you got to know them.
There were those who loved liberty, who cried out to live their own
lives, to strive, to rise above, to achieve, and those bent on the mindless
equality of stagnation brought about through the enforcement of an
artificial, arbitrary, gray uniformitythose who wanted to transcend through
their own effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were
willing to pay the ultimate price for it.
Kamil and Nabbi both stood and grinned when Richard climbed the steps.
"Nabbi and I worked on our carving, Richard. Will you come and see?"
Richard smiled and put an arm around Kamil's shoulders. "Sure. Let's
see what you've done today."
Richard followed them down the clean hallway and out to the back, where
Kamil and Nabbi had carved faces in an old log. The carvings were terrible.
"Well, Kamil, it looks pretty good. Yours, too, Nabbi."
The carvings of the faces wore smiles, and to Richard that alone was
priceless. Despite how poorly done, they had more life to them than what
Richard saw executed day in and day out in precious marble by master
carvers.
"Really, Richard?" Nabbi asked. "You think Kamil and I could be
carvers?"
"Someday, maybe. You need more practice-you still have much to
learn-but all carvers have to practice to become adept. Here, look at this,
right here, for example. What do you think of this? What's wrong with it?"
Kamil folded his arms as he frowned in concentration at the face he'd
carved. "I don't know."
"Nabbi?"
Ill at ease, Nabbi shrugged. "It doesn't look like a real face. But I
can't tell why."
"Look at my face, at my eyes. What's different?"
"Well, I think your eyes are a different shape," Kamil said.
"And they are closer together-not out at the side of the head," Nabbi
added.
"Very good." Richard smoothed some of the dirt where the carrots had
been pulled up, and then molded the moist dirt into a mound. He used his
finger and thumb to shape a simple face. "See here? By putting the eyes
closer, like this, it looks more like a real person."
Both young men nodded as they studied what he had done.
"I see," Kamil said. "I'll start a new one, and do it better."
Richard clapped him on the back. "Good man."
"Maybe one day we can be carvers, too," Nabbi said.
"Maybe" was all Richard said.
Nicci had dinner on the table, waiting for him. A bowl of soup sat next
to the glowing lamp. The rest of the room was left to the evening gloom.
Nicci, too, sat at the table waiting.
"How was the carving today?" she asked as Richard went to the basin to
wash the dirt from his hands.
He splashed the soapy water on his face, rinsing off the stone dust.
"Carving is carving."
Nicci rubbed her thumb on the base of the lamp.
"Are you able to stand it?"
Richard wiped his hands. "What choice have I? I can either stand it, or
I can end it all. What choice is that? Are you asking me if I am ready to
commit suicide, yet?"
She looked up. "That isn't what I meant."
He tossed the towel down beside the basin. "Besides, how can I not be
grateful for a job you got for me?"
Nicci's blue eyes turned back to the table. "Victor told you?"
"It wasn't all that hard to figure out. Victor said only that you were
beautiful, and you saved my life."
"I had no choice, Richard. They would only release you if you had a
skill. I had to tell them."
More than most days, he felt the essence of the engagement with her,
the dance. She felt secure behind her shield of "had to tell them." Yet it
allowed her to watch him, to see how he would react.
All the effort of the day, moving heavy stone blocks, lifting the
hammer countless times, had sapped his strength. His hands tingled with the
effect of all those ringing blows. Now, he had begun yet again the battle
with Nicci. He sat down, on his pallet as exhaustion took him.
Fatigue was part of any battle. As much as he ever felt it when he held
the blade, he felt it now, that life-or-death dance. This was no less a
battle than any Richard had ever fought. Nicci stood in opposition to
freedom, to life.
This was a dance with death.
The dance with death was really the definition of life itself, since
all people eventually must die.
"I want to know something, Nicci."
She gazed expectantly at him. "What is it?"
"Can you tell if Kahlan is alive?"
"Of course. I can feel the link to her at all times."
"And is she still alive, then?"
Nicci smiled in that assuring manner of hers. "Richard, Kahlan is fine.
Don't let that weigh on your mind."
Richard stared at Nicci for a time. Finally, he withdrew his gaze and
lay down in his prison bed. He rolled away from Nicci's gaze, from the
dance.
"Richard . . . I made you soup. Come eat."
"I'm not hungry."
He shut her from his mind and tried to remember Kahlan's green eyes as
weariness engulfed him.
Richard could feel Neal's breath on the back of his neck. The young
disciple watched over Richard's shoulder as he tap-tap-tapped the back of
the chisel, carving the gaping mouth of a sinner crying out in agony as his
body was being torn apart by the Keeper of the Underworld.
"Quite good," Neal murmured, overcome with delight in what he was
seeing.
Richard rested the wrist of his chisel hand against the stone to help
push himself upright. "Thank you, Brother Neal."
Neal's brown eyes, the same color as his drab robes, stared with
arrogant challenge. Richard did nothing to meet that challenge.
"You know, Richard, I don't like you."
"No man is worth liking, Brother Neal."
"You always have an answer, don't you, Richard?" The young wizard
smiled then as he reached under his hood and scratched his closely cropped
brown hair. "Do you know why you have this job?"
"Because the Order gave me a chance to help-"
"No, no," Neal interrupted as he suddenly grew impatient. "I mean do
you know why the position was open? Do you know why we needed carvers,
enabling you to gain this great opportunity at employment?"
Richard knew very well why they had needed carvers.
"No, Brother Neal. I was a laborer, at the time."
"Many of them were put to death."
"Then they must have been traitors to our cause. I'm happy the Order
caught them."
Neal's sly smile returned as he shrugged. "Maybe. I could tell that
they had a bad attitude. They thought too much of themselves, of what they
selfishly considered their . . . talent. A very old-fashioned notion, don't
you think; Richard?"
"I wouldn't know, Brother Neal. I only know I am able to carve, and I
am grateful for the opportunity to do my duty to help my fellow man by
contributing my efforts."
Neal backed away, giving Richard an appraising look, as if to measure
whether or not the words had been mocking. Richard hadn't given Neal the
opening he wanted, so Neal simply spilled out his point.
"I thought some among them might be deriding the Order with their work.
I thought they might be using their carving to mock and ridicule our noble
criminals would confess their crimes.
It was a terrible business, but you couldn't have a garden unless you
got your hands dirty first.
The blacksmith's shop, up on the side of a hill overlooking the
colossal undertaking, was the largest she had ever seen. With a project of
this scale, it was understandable. She stood outside while Ishaq hurried in
to fetch the blacksmith for her.
The sounds of hammers ringing on steel, the smells of the forge, the
smoke, the oils, the acid, the brine, all brought back a flood of memories
of her father's shop. For a brief moment, Nicci's heart beat faster-she was
a girl again. She almost expected to see her father come out and smile at
her with that wondrous energy of his showing in his blue eyes.
Instead, a brawny man stepped out of the shadows into the daylight. He
wore no smile, but a menacing glare. At first, she thought he was bald. Then
she saw that his full head of hair was simply cropped close to his scalp.
Some of her father's men who worked with hot iron did the same. His scowl
would have set any other woman back three paces.
He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked through the milky sunlight
toward her, appraising her eyes more carefully than most men-other than
Richard. His thick leather apron was speckled with hundreds of tiny burn
marks.
"Mrs. Cypher?"
Ishaq backed away, contenting himself to be a shadow.
"That's right. I'm Richard's wife."
"Funny, Richard never really spoke of you. I guess I just assumed he
had a wife, but he never said--"
"Richard has been taken into custody."
The scowl changed in an instant to wide-eyed concern. "Richard's been
arrested? For what?"
"Apparently, for the most base of crimes: cheating people."
"Cheating people? Richard? They're out of their minds."
"I'm afraid not. He is guilty. I have the evidence."
"What evidence?"
Ishaq swooped in close, unable to contain himself any longer.
"Richard's money. The money he made."
"Made!" Nicci's shout drove Ishaq back a step. "You mean the money he
stole."
The blacksmith's scowl had returned. "Stole? Who do you think he stole
this money from? Who are his accusers? Where are his victims?"
"Well, you are one."
"Me?..
"Yes, I'm afraid you were one of his victims. I'm here to return your
money. I can't use stolen money to rescue a criminal from his just
punishment. Richard will have to pay the price for his crime. The Order will
see that he does."
The blacksmith tossed his towel aside and planted his fists on his
hips. "Richard
never stole one 'silver penny from anyone-least of all, me! He earned
his money."
"He cheated you."
"He sold me iron and steel. I need iron and steel to make things for
the Retreat. Brother Narev comes in here and growls at me to get things
made, but he doesn't deliver me the iron from which I must make them.
Richard does. Until Richard came along, I nearly got buried in the sky
myself, because Ishaq, here, couldn't get me enough iron and steel."
"I couldn't! The committee only gives me permission to bring what I
bring. I
would be buried in the sky myself if I bring more than I have
permission to bring. Everybody at the transport company watches me. They
report me to the workers' group if I spit wrong."
"So," Nicci said, folding her arms, "Richard has you over your own
brine barrel. He brings you iron at night and you have no choice but to pay
him his price, and he knows it. He makes all this gold by gouging you.
That's how he got rich-by overcharging you. That's the worst kind of
thievery."
The blacksmith frowned at her as if she were daft.
"Richard sells me iron and steel for a lot less than I can buy it
through the regular transport companies-like from Ishaq."
"I charge what the committee on fair pricing tells me! I have no say!"
"That's just crazy," Nicci said to the blacksmith, ignoring Ishaq.
"No, it's smart. You see, the foundries produce more than they can
sell, because they can't get it moved. Their furnaces have to be heated
whether they make one ton or ten. They need to make enough iron to make the
heat worth it, to pay their workers, and to keep their furnaces going. If
they don't buy enough ore, the mines close and then the foundry can't get
any ore at all. They can't exist if they can't get raw materials. But the
Order won't let Ishaq, and those like him, move as much as the foundries
need moved. The Order takes weeks to decide on the simplest request. They
consider every imaginable person who they fancy might conceivably be hurt if
Ishaq were to move the load. The foundries were desperate. They offered to
sell their extra to Richard at less money-"
"So they are cheated in Richard's scheme, too!"
"No, because Richard takes it, they sell more, so it costs them less to
make. They make more money than they would have otherwise. Richard sells it
to me for less than I have to pay from the regular transport companies,
because he buys it for less."
Nicci threw her hands up in disgust. "And to top it off, he is putting
working men out of jobs. He's the worst sort of criminal-making his profit
off the backs of the poor, the needy, and the workers!"
"What?" Ishaq protested. "I can't get enough people to work, and I
can't get enough permits to haul the goods people need. Richard puts no one
out of work-he helps create more business for everybody. The foundries he
hauls for have each hired more men since they are able to sell through
Richard."
"That's right," the blacksmith said.
"But, you just don't see it," Nicci insisted as she raked back her
hair. "He's pulled the wool over your eyes. He's cheating you-milking you
dry. You're getting poor because Richard-"
"Don't you get it, Mrs. Cypher? Richard has made half a dozen foundries
money. They are working now only because of Richard. He moves their goods
when they need them moved, not when they can finally get some asinine permit
with seals all over it. Richard has, by himself, enabled a whole string of
charcoal makers to earn a living supplying those foundries, along with a
number of miners and any number of other people. And me? Richard has made me
more money than I ever thought I'd make.
"Richard has made us all rich by doing something that is desperately
needed, and doing it better than others can do it. He has kept us all
working. Not the Order and their committees, boards, and groupsRichard.
"I've been able to keep men on because of Richard. He never says it
can't be
done; he figures a way to do it. In the process, he has earned the
trust of every man he deals with. His word is as good as that gold.
"Why, even Brother Narev told Richard to do what needed doing to get me
the iron I needed. Richard told him he would. The palace wouldn't be this
far along if not for Richard keeping everyone going with what he gets for
us, when we need it.
"The Order owes Richard a debt of gratitude, not torture and
punishment. He has helped the Order by doing what they need done. Those
piers standing out there would not be built yet, if Richard hadn't found me
the iron to make the bracing ties. Those carvings on the palace walls down
there would not be done if he hadn't gotten me the steel I needed to make
the tools to carve them. The goods down there are only moved in by wheels
turning on iron bands I make to repair them because Richard got me the
steel. Richard has done more to raise that palace up out of the ground than
any other single man. Besides that, he's made friends doing it."
Nicci couldn't make it work in her head. It had to be true; she
remembered that Richard had met Brother Narev. How could someone make so
much money, help the Order, and have the people he deals with still trust
him?
"But he has made all this profit. . ."
The blacksmith shook his head as if she were a snake among them. "
`Profit' is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen
as evil, so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn."
The frown returned as the blacksmith leaned toward her. His voice
became as hot as the iron he worked.
"What I want to know, Mrs. Cypher, is why Richard is in some stinking
prison being tortured to give a confession, while his wife is standing here
acting a fool over him earning money and making us all happy and rich in the
process?"
Nicci felt a lump rising in her throat. "I can't pay the fine until
tomorrow night."
"Until I met you, I never thought Richard ever made a mistake." The man
pulled his leather apron off over his head and heaved it at the wall of his
shop. "With that kind of money, we can bargain him out sooner. I hope it's
soon enough. Ishaq, are you with me?"
"Of course. They know me. I'm trusted. I go, too."
"Give me the money," the blacksmith commanded.
Nicci dropped it into his upturned palm without even thinking about it.
Richard wasn't really a thief. It was a wonder. She didn't know how, but
these people were all happy with him. He made them all rich. It didn't make
any sense to her.
"Please, if you can help, I'd be indebted to you."
"I'm not doing it for you, Mrs. Cypher; I'm helping a friend I value
who is worth helping."
"Nicci. My a is Nicci."
"I'm Mr. Cascella he growled as he started away.
--]----
Mr. Cascella tossed four gold coins on the table in front of People's
Protector Muksin. He had told Nicci and Ishaq that he wanted to hold
something in reserve so they could "pump the bellows" if they "needed more
heat."
The blacksmith towered over the man behind the table. Several officers
put their noses to their work. The guards around the room all watched.
"Richard Cypher. You have him. We're here to pay the fine."
Protector Muksin blinked at the coins like a fat carp that was too full
to eat a worm.
"We don't assess fines until tomorrow night. Come back then, and if
this man, Cypher, has not confessed to involvement in anything more serious,
you can pay then."
"I work out at the new palace," Mr. Cascella said. "Brother Narev keeps
me busy. I'm here now, so couldn't we just take care of this matter while
we're all here? It would make Brother Narev happy if his head blacksmith
didn't have to come all the way over here again tomorrow, when I'm here
now."
Protector Muksin's dark eyes turned from side to side, traversing the
crowded room of wailing people. His chair chattered as he scooted it closer
to the table. He folded his stubby fingers atop a pile of tattered papers.
"I would not wish to inconvenience Brother Narev."
The blacksmith smiled. "I thought not."
"However, Brother Narev would not want me to overlook my duty to the
people."
"Of course not!" Ishaq put it. He swiped his red hat off his head when
the dark eyes turned his way. "Such was not implied, of course. We are
trusting in you to do your duty."
"Who are you?" the Protector asked Nicci.
"I am the wife of Richard Cypher, Protector Muksin. I was here before.
I paid a fee to see him. You explained the fine to me."
He nodded. "I see so many."
"Look," Mr. Cascella said, "we have a lot of money for the fine. If we
could pay it now and get Richard Cypher out today, that is. Some of it is
money other people might not be willing to contribute tomorrow."
The blacksmith slid four more gold marks across the table. The
Protector's dark eyes looked unimpressed.
"The money all belongs to the people. There is great need."
Nicci suspected that the great need was in his pocket, and that he was
holding out for more. As if to answer the charge, Protector Muksin slid the
eight gold coins-a fortune by any standard of measure-back across the table.
"The money would not be paid here. We have no use for it. We are humble
servants of the Order. The amount of the fine would be noted in the ledger,
but you would have to deliver it to a citizen committee for distribution to
those in need."
Nicci was surprised that she had been wrong about the man. He was
indeed an honest official. This changed the nature of the whole business.
Her hopes brightened. Perhaps it wouldn't be so difficult to get Richard
released, after all.
Behind her, on the other side of the short wall, women were wailing,
children were crying, and people were praying. Nicci could hardly breathe in
the stinking sweltering room. She hoped that the official would be moved to
hurry the case so he could get to attending the matter of the small crowd of
guards who waited off in the side halls for papers and orders.
"But you make a mistake," the Protector added, "if you think money can
buy this man's release. The Order is not concerned with the life of one man,
for no man's life is of any real importance. I'm inclined to tell you to
keep your money-until we can look into why anyone would have such a large
sum. I think this man must be disruptive to civil order if he stirs up this
much support. No one man is any better than another. That he can bring so
much money to bribe him out of his just punishment proves my suspicion that
he has something to confess."
His chair creaked as he leaned back to peer up at them. "It appears you
three would think otherwisethink that he is better than any other man."
"No," the blacksmith said in an offhanded manner, "it's just that he is
our friend."
"The Order is your friend. Those in need are your concern. You have no
business caring for one man over another. Such unseemly behaviour is
blasphemy."
The three of them before the desk stood mute. Behind them, the weeping,
the wailing, the panicked praying for those in the darkness far below, went
on without pause. Everything they said only seemed to turn the man more
against them.
"If he had a skill, then it might be different. There is great need for
contributions to the Order by those with ability. There are many who hold
back when they should be doing their best to contribute. It is the duty of
those with ability to-"
It all came clear to Nicci in one blinding instant.
"But he does have a skill," she blurted out.
"What skill?" the Protector asked, not pleased at being interrupted.
Nicci stepped closer. "He is the greatest-"
"Greatness is a delusion of the wicked. All men are the same. All men
are evil by nature. All men must struggle to overcome their baser nature by
devoting their lives selflessly to the cause of helping their fellow man.
Only selfless acts will enable a man to gain his reward in the afterlife."
Mr. Cascella's fists tightened. He started to lean in. If he argued,
now, it would render the matter irredeemable. Nicci gave him a stealthy kick
with the side of her foot, hoping to convince him to be quiet and let her do
the talking before it was too late. Nicci bowed her head as she retreated a
step, forcing the blacksmith aside without making it look obvious.
"You are wise, Protector Muksin. We could all learn valuable lessons
from you. Please forgive the inept words of a poor wife. I am a simple
woman, humbled and discomposed in the presence of such a wise representative
of the Fellowship of Order."
Startled, the Protector said nothing. Nicci had traded in such words
for over a hundred years, and knew their value. She had given the man, but a
petty official, a standing in the core of the Order-in the fellowship
itself-that he could never attain. This sort of man would aspire to wear the
mantle of social merit. To a man like this, to be thought to hold such
intellectual status was as good as earning it; perception was reality to
such men. The perception was what counted, not the actual accomplishment.
"What is this man's skill?"
Nicci bowed her head again. "Richard Cypher is an undistinguished stone
carver, Protector Muksin."
The men to either side of her stared in disbelief.
"A stone carver?" the Protector asked, lingering in thought over the
words.
"A faceless artisan, his only hope in life that he could one day work
in stone to show man's wickedness, so that he might help others see the need
to sacrifice to their fellow man and the Order and in this way hope to earn
his reward in the afterlife."
The blacksmith quickly recovered and added to her words. "As you may
know, many of the carvers at the Retreat were traitors-thank the Creator
they were discovered-and so there is much carving to be done for the glory
of the Order. Brother Narev can confirm this for you, Protector Muksin."
The Protector's dark eyes shifted among the three. "How much money do
you have?"
"Twenty-two gold marks," Nicci said.
He scowled his condemnation as he pulled a ledger book close and dipped
his pen in a chipped ink bottle. The Protector bent forward and wrote the
fine in his book. He next wrote an order on a piece of paper and handed it
up to the blacksmith.
"Take this to the workers' hall at the docks"-he gestured with his pen
off behind them-"down that street. I will release the prisoner after you
bring me a workers' group seal to prove that the fine was paid to the men
who deserve it most-those in need. Richard Cypher must be stripped of his
ill-gotten gains."
Richard deserved it most, Nicci thought bitterly. He had earned it, not
those other men. Nicci thought about all the nights he'd worked without
sleep, without food. She remembered him wincing as he lay down to sleep, his
bask aching from his labor. Richard had earned that money-she knew that,
now. Those men who would get it had done nothing for it but to desire it,
thus proclaiming their right to it.
"Yes, Protector Muksin," Nicci said as she bowed. "Thank you for your
wise justice."
Mr. Cascella let out a quiet sigh. Nicci leaned confidentially toward
the Protector.
"We will carry out your equitable instructions immediately." She smiled
deferentially. "Since you have treated us so fairly in this matter, might I
ask one further consideration?" It was a lot of gold that would be credited
to his effort on behalf of the Order; she knew he would likely be in a
generous mood at that moment. "It's more a matter of curiosity, really."
He wheezed an annoyed sigh. "What is it you want?"
Nicci leaned closer, close enough to smell the man's stale sweat. "The
name of the person who reported my husband. The one who rightly brought
Richard Cypher to justice."
Nicci knew that he was thinking that men were more likely to be
welcomed into the fellowship when they helped collect great sums for those
in need. The matter of the name would only be a gnat bothering his pleasant
thoughts. He pulled some papers close and scanned through them, flipping
them aside as he searched.
"Here it is," Protector Muksin said at last. "Richard Cypher's name was
reported by a young soldier volunteering in the Imperial Order army. His
name is Gadi. The report is months old. It took some time to see justice
done, but the Order always sees justice done in the end. That is why they
call our great emperor 'Jagang the Just.' "
Nicci straightened. "Thank you, Protector Muksin."
Her calm face concealed her inner fury that the little thug was out of
her reach. Gadi deserved to suffer.
The Protector wrote out his sentence for a civil crime as he spoke.
"Take the order of fine I gave you to the workers' group at the docks and
return here when you have seals to prove that his fine of twenty-two gold
marks was paid in full.
"Richard Cypher is further ordered to report to the carver's committee
for work assignment." He handed her the paper with the orders. "Richard
Cypher is now a stone carver for the Order."
--]----
The sun was setting by the time they returned with all the papers and
seals. The blacksmith was impressed with the way she had handled the
official when the offer
of gold failed to work. Ishaq thanked her a hundred times. It only
mattered to her that Richard would be freed.
She was relieved to know that she had been wrong, that Richard wasn't a
cheat and a thief after all. It had been such an ugly feeling, thinking ill
of Richard. It had for a time tainted her whole world. She had never been so
happy to be wrong.
Better yet, they had done it; she was to have him back.
At the side door to the stronghold, Mr. Cascella, Ishaq, and Nicci
waited. The shadows grew darker. Finally, the door opened. Two guards held
Richard between them as they came out onto the landing. When they saw
Richard, his condition, Mr. Cascella cursed under his breath. Ishaq
whispered a prayer.
The guards released Richard with a shove. He stumbled forward. The
blacksmith and Ishaq raced to the steps to help him.
Richard caught himself and straightened, a dark form upright in the
last of the light, defiant of the long shadows around him. He held a hand
out, commanding the two men to stay where they were. Both stopped with a
foot on the bottom step, ready to run up to him should he need them. Nicci
couldn't imagine what pain it had to cost Richard to walk so steadily,
proudly, smoothly down the stairs without help, as if he were a free man.
He did not yet know what she had done to him.
Nicci knew there could be no worse plight for Richard. The torture down
in the depths of the stronghold was not as bad as what she had just
condemned him to.
Nicci was sure that this was the one thing, at last, that would force
out the answer she sought, if there really was an answer to be found.
Brother Narev paused behind Richard's shoulder, a shadow come to visit.
He often lurked nearby, making sure the carvings were progressing as
directed. This was the first time the great man himself had stopped to watch
Richard work.
"Don't I know you?" The voice was like stone grating on stone.
Richard let his arm holding the hammer drop to his side as he looked
up. He wiped the dusty sweat from his brow with the back of his left hand,
still holding the clawed stone chisel.
"Yes, Brother Narev. I was a laborer hauling iron, at the time. I was
bringing a load to the blacksmith one day when I was honored to meet you."
Brother Narev frowned suspiciously. Richard allowed no crack in his
facade of innocent calm.
"A laborer, and now a carver?"
"I have ability which I am joyful to contribute to my fellow man. I am
grateful for the opportunity the Order has given me to earn my reward in the
next life by sacrificing in this."
"Joyful." Neal, the shadow of the shadow, stepped forward. "You are
joyful to carve, are you?"
"Yes, Brother Neal."
Richard was joyful that Kahlan was alive. He didn't think about the
rest of it. He was a prisoner, and what he had to do to keep Kahlan alive,
he would do; that was all there was to it. What was, was.
Brother Neal smirked his superiority at Richard's obeisance. The man
had come often to lecture the carvers, and Richard had come to know him all
too well. The carvers' work, being the influential face the palace would
show to the people, was critically important to the Fellowship of Order.
Richard was frequently the object of Neal's harangues. Neal, a wizard, not a
sorcerer like Brother Narev, always seemed to feel,the need to prove his
moral authority around Richard. Richard gave him no rough edge to grip, yet
Neal still persisted in clawing for one.
Brother Narev believed his own words with grim conviction: mankind was
evil; only through selfless sacrifice to your fellow man had you any hope to
redeem yourself in the afterlife. There was no joy in his faith, simply a
ruthless duty to it.
Neal, on the other hand, bubbled over with his feelings. He believed in
the Order's doctrine with an impassioned, incandescent, arrogant pride,
gleefully convinced the world needed iron-fisted direction which only
enlightened intellectuals, such as himself, could provide-with grudging
deference to Brother Narev, of course.
Richard had more than once overheard Neal proclaim with conviction that
if he had to order the tongues cut out of a million innocent men, it would
be better than
to allow one man to blaspheme against the self-evident, righteous
nature of the Order's ways.
Brother Neal, a fresh-faced young man-no doubt deceptively young,
considering that Nicci said he had once lived at the Palace of the
Prophets-frequently accompanied Brother Narev, basking in his mentor's
approval. Neal was Brother Narev's chief lieutenant. His face might have
been fresh, but his ideas were not; tyranny was ancient, even if Neal
deluded himself in believing it the bright new salvation of mankind when
applied by him and his fellows. His ideas were a paramour he embraced with a
lover's boundless, blind passion-a truth discovered with a lover's lust.
Nothing stirred him to anger quicker than the whiff of argument or
contradiction, no matter how reasoned. In the heat of his passion, Neal was
perfectly willing to destroy any dissension, torture any opposition, kill
any number, who failed to bow before the pedestal upon which stood his
irrefutably noble ideals.
No misery, no failure, no amount of wailing and anguish and death,
could dim his glowing conviction that the ways of the Order were the only
correct course for mankind.
The other disciples, all, like Neal, wearing hooded brown robes, were
an incongruous collection of the cruel, the pompously idealistic, the
bitterly greedy, the resentful, the spiteful, the timid, and, most of all,
the dangerously deluded. All shared an underlying, caustic, inner loathing
for mankind which manifested itself in a conviction that anything
pleasurable for the people could only be evil and accordingly only sacrifice
could be good.
All, with the exception of Neal, were blind followers and completely
under the spell of Brother Narev. They believed Brother Narev far closer to
the Creator than to man. They hung on his every word, believing each to be
divinely inspired. Were he to tell them they must kill themselves for the
cause, Richard was sure they would break their necks rushing for the nearest
knife.
Neal was alone in that he believed in the divinity of his own words, in
addition to Brother Narev's. Every leader had to have a successor. Richard
was pretty sure Neal had already decided who would best serve as the next
incarnation of the Order.
"A peculiar choice of words, joyful." Brother Narev circled a knobby
finger toward the cowering, deformed, frightened figures Richard was working
on. "This makes you . . . joyful?"
Richard gestured to the Light he had carved so as to shine down on the
wretched men. "This, Brother Narev, is what makes me joyful-being able to
show men cowering before the perfection of the Creator's Light. It makes me
joyful to show mankind's wickedness for all to see, for in this way they
will know their duty to the Order above all else."
Brother Narev made a suspicious sound deep in his throat. The sunlight
hooded his dark eyes more than usual and seemed to deepen the creases around
his mouth as he regarded Richard with a look sharing mistrust and loathing,
laced with apprehension. Only the apprehension was any different than the
look he gave everyone. Richard fed him a vacant stare. The brother's mouth
finally twisted with the dismissal of his private thoughts.
"I approve . . . I forgot your name. But then, names are not important.
Men are not important. Individually, each man is but a meaningless cog in
the great wheel of mankind. How that wheel turns is all that matters, not
the cogs."
"Richard Cypher."
One brow, flocked in tangled white and black hair, lifted.
"Yes . . . Richard Cypher. Well, I approve of your carving, Richard
Cypher. You seem to understand better than most how man is properly
depicted."
Richard bowed. "It is not my hand, but the Creator guiding it to help
the Order show the way."
The suspicious look was back, but Richard's expression made Brother
Narev finally believe the words. Brother Narev, his hands clasped behind his
back, glided away to see to other matters. Neal, like a child sticking close
to his mother's skirts, scurried to stay close to Brother Narev's robes. He
cast a scowl back over his shoulder. Richard almost expected to see Neal
stick out his tongue.
As best as Richard could figure, there were about fifty of the
brown-robed disciples. He saw them often enough to come to know their
nature. Victor had mentioned to Richard that one of the foundries had cast
in pure gold, from the master that the blacksmith had made; somewhere near
the same numbers of the spell-forms. Victor thought them only decorations.
Richard had seen several of the gold spell-forms being installed onto the
tops of huge, ornate stone pillars set out around the grounds of the
Retreat. The pillars, in polished marble, were designed and placed to look
like grand decorations for a grand place. Richard suspected they were more.
Richard went back to chiseling a thick, unbending limb. At least, now,
his own limbs worked again. It had been a while, but he was healed. This,
though, seemed no less a torture.
People gathered every day to view the low relief carvings already up on
the walls. Some people knelt on the cobblestone walks before the scenes,
praying, till their knees bled. Some brought rags to put beneath their knees
as they prayed. Many simply stared with forsaken looks at the nature of
mankind depicted in stone.
Richard could see in the faces of many who came that they had come with
some kind of vague, undefinable hope, hungering for some essential answer to
a question they could not formulate. The emptiness in their eyes as they
left was heartbreaking. They were people being drained of life no less than
those bled to death in the dungeons of the Order.
Some of those people gathered to watch the carvers work. In the two
months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, the crowds grew larger
to watch him than any of the other men. The people sometimes wept at what
they saw emerge from beneath Richard's chisels.
In the two months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, he had
come to understand the nuance of carving in stone. What he carved was
dispiriting, but the act of carving itself helped to make up for it. Richard
reveled in the technical aspects of applying steel to stone, guided by
intent.
As much as he hated the things he had to carve, he came to love working
stone with a chisel. The marble seemed almost alive under his touch. He
would often carve some tiny part with reverence for the subject-a finger
gracefully lifted, a eye with knowing vision, a chest holding a heart of
reason.
After he accomplished such grace, he would deface it to suit the Order.
More often than not, that was when people wept.
Richard invented impossibly stiff, stilted, contorted people bent under
the weight of guilt and shame. If this was the way to preserve Kahlan's
life, then he would make everyone who saw the carvings weep their hearts
out. In a way, they were doing the weeping for him, suffering over the
carvings for him, being destroyed by what they saw, for him.
In this way, he was able to endure the torture.
When the shadows lengthened to dusk and the day was finished, the
carvers started putting away their tools into simple wooden boxes before
going home for the night. They all would return not long after first light.
The master builder provided them with orders for areas and shapes to be
covered with carving so they could shape the stones to the correct size.
Brother Narev's disciples came by to provide the details of the stories to
be told in stone.
The stone Richard carved was for the grand entrance to the Retreat.
Marble steps swept around in a half circle, leading up to the huge, round
plaza. A colonnade of pillars in a half circle, mirroring the steps,
surrounded the back half of the plaza. Richard's job was carving the sweep
of scenes that were placed above those columns.
It was to be an entrance which set the tone for the entire palace. In
the center of the plaza Brother Neal had told Richard that Brother Narev's
vision was that there would be the statue dominating the entrance to the
palace, and it was to be a work which would strike down any observer with an
overpowering sense of their own guilt and shame at mankind's evil nature.
The statue, in its horror, was a call to selfless sacrifice, and was to be
built into the form of a sundial, showing people cowering under the Light of
their Creator.
Neal had described it with such delight that the image it created in
Richard's mind sickened him.
Richard was the last to leave the site. As he often did, he headed up
the hill, along the winding road, to the workshops. Victor was in his shop,
banking his coals for the night. With autumn upon them, the days weren't
insufferably hot, so the forge wasn't the miserable place it had been in
high summer. Winter this far south in the Old World was never harsh, but the
forge in winter would be a good place to banish the chill that would come on
cold rainy days.
"Richard! So good to see you." The blacksmith knew why Richard was
there. "Go on back. Maybe I will come sit with you when I'm finished, here?"
Richard gave his friend a smile and said, "I'd like that."
Richard opened the double doors at the rear, letting the last of the
light fill the room where stood the marble. He came often to see the
monolith. Sometimes, after a day of carving ugliness, he had to come and
look at the stone and imagine the beauty inside. That balance sometimes
seemed as if it was all that sustained him.
Richard's fingers, dusty from his work carving stone, reached out to
feel the white Cavatura marble. It was slightly different from the stone he
carved down at the site. He had the experience, now, to discern the subtle
difference. The grain was finer in Victor's stone, harder; it would better
take and hold detail.
Under Richard's fingers, the stone was as cool as moonlight, and just
as chaste.
When he looked up, Victor was standing nearby, smiling wistfully,
watching Richard and the stone.
"After carving such ugliness, it is good to look upon the beauty of my
statue?"
Richard chuckled in answer.
Victor strode across the room, gesturing. "Come, sit with me and have
some lardo."
In the failing light, they sat on the threshold, eating thin slices of
the heavy delicacy, savoring the cool air coming up the hill.
"You know, you don't need to come here to look at my beautiful statue,"
Victor said. "You have a beautiful wife to look at."
Richard didn't say anything.
"I never recalled you mentioning your wife. I never knew about her,
until she came to me that day. For some reason, I always believed you had a
good woman . . . ."
Victor frowned off at the shell of the Retreat. "Why didn't you ever
mention her?"
Richard shrugged.
"I hope you don't think me a terrible person, Richard, but she just
doesn't fit my idea of the woman I thought would be with you."
"I don't think you're a terrible person, Victor. Everybody should have
the right to think for themselves."
"Do you mind if I ask you about her?"
Richard sighed. "Victor, I'm tired. I'd really rather not talk about my
wife. Besides, there's nothing-to say. She's my wife. What is, is."
Victor grunted as he chewed a big bite of red onion. After he
swallowed, he waved the half of onion he had left. "It's not good for a man
to carve such things in the day, and then at night have to go home to-What
am I saying! What has gotten into me? Forgive me, Richard. Nicci is a
beautiful woman."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"And she cares for you."
Richard didn't say anything.
"Ishaq and I tried to get you out of that place by bargaining for you
with your gold. It wasn't enough. The man was a pompous official. Nicci knew
how to wiggleworm him. She used her words to turn the key on your prison
door. Without Nicci, you would be buried in the sky."
"So, she told them that I could carve-to save my life."
"That's right. It is she who got you the job of carver."
Victor waited for more, and finally sighed in resignation when it
wasn't forthcoming.
"How are those chisels I sent down?"
"Good. They work well. I could use a clawed chisel with finer teeth,
though."
Victor handed Richard another small slice of lardo. "You will have it."
"What about the steel?"
Victor waved his onion. "Not to worry. Ishaq is doing well in your
place. Not as good as you, but he is doing well. He gets me what I need.
Everyone likes Ishaq, and is happy he decided to fill in the need. The Order
is so desperate for progress to continue that they turn a blind eye to his
work. Faval the charcoal maker asked about you. He likes Ishaq, but misses
you."
Richard smiled at the memory of the nervous fellow. "I'm glad Ishaq is
buying his charcoal."
There were a lot of good people in the Old World. Richard had always
envisioned them as the enemy, and now he was friends with a number of them.
It had happened to him so often and in the same way; people were basically
the same everywhere, once you got to know them.
There were those who loved liberty, who cried out to live their own
lives, to strive, to rise above, to achieve, and those bent on the mindless
equality of stagnation brought about through the enforcement of an
artificial, arbitrary, gray uniformitythose who wanted to transcend through
their own effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were
willing to pay the ultimate price for it.
Kamil and Nabbi both stood and grinned when Richard climbed the steps.
"Nabbi and I worked on our carving, Richard. Will you come and see?"
Richard smiled and put an arm around Kamil's shoulders. "Sure. Let's
see what you've done today."
Richard followed them down the clean hallway and out to the back, where
Kamil and Nabbi had carved faces in an old log. The carvings were terrible.
"Well, Kamil, it looks pretty good. Yours, too, Nabbi."
The carvings of the faces wore smiles, and to Richard that alone was
priceless. Despite how poorly done, they had more life to them than what
Richard saw executed day in and day out in precious marble by master
carvers.
"Really, Richard?" Nabbi asked. "You think Kamil and I could be
carvers?"
"Someday, maybe. You need more practice-you still have much to
learn-but all carvers have to practice to become adept. Here, look at this,
right here, for example. What do you think of this? What's wrong with it?"
Kamil folded his arms as he frowned in concentration at the face he'd
carved. "I don't know."
"Nabbi?"
Ill at ease, Nabbi shrugged. "It doesn't look like a real face. But I
can't tell why."
"Look at my face, at my eyes. What's different?"
"Well, I think your eyes are a different shape," Kamil said.
"And they are closer together-not out at the side of the head," Nabbi
added.
"Very good." Richard smoothed some of the dirt where the carrots had
been pulled up, and then molded the moist dirt into a mound. He used his
finger and thumb to shape a simple face. "See here? By putting the eyes
closer, like this, it looks more like a real person."
Both young men nodded as they studied what he had done.
"I see," Kamil said. "I'll start a new one, and do it better."
Richard clapped him on the back. "Good man."
"Maybe one day we can be carvers, too," Nabbi said.
"Maybe" was all Richard said.
Nicci had dinner on the table, waiting for him. A bowl of soup sat next
to the glowing lamp. The rest of the room was left to the evening gloom.
Nicci, too, sat at the table waiting.
"How was the carving today?" she asked as Richard went to the basin to
wash the dirt from his hands.
He splashed the soapy water on his face, rinsing off the stone dust.
"Carving is carving."
Nicci rubbed her thumb on the base of the lamp.
"Are you able to stand it?"
Richard wiped his hands. "What choice have I? I can either stand it, or
I can end it all. What choice is that? Are you asking me if I am ready to
commit suicide, yet?"
She looked up. "That isn't what I meant."
He tossed the towel down beside the basin. "Besides, how can I not be
grateful for a job you got for me?"
Nicci's blue eyes turned back to the table. "Victor told you?"
"It wasn't all that hard to figure out. Victor said only that you were
beautiful, and you saved my life."
"I had no choice, Richard. They would only release you if you had a
skill. I had to tell them."
More than most days, he felt the essence of the engagement with her,
the dance. She felt secure behind her shield of "had to tell them." Yet it
allowed her to watch him, to see how he would react.
All the effort of the day, moving heavy stone blocks, lifting the
hammer countless times, had sapped his strength. His hands tingled with the
effect of all those ringing blows. Now, he had begun yet again the battle
with Nicci. He sat down, on his pallet as exhaustion took him.
Fatigue was part of any battle. As much as he ever felt it when he held
the blade, he felt it now, that life-or-death dance. This was no less a
battle than any Richard had ever fought. Nicci stood in opposition to
freedom, to life.
This was a dance with death.
The dance with death was really the definition of life itself, since
all people eventually must die.
"I want to know something, Nicci."
She gazed expectantly at him. "What is it?"
"Can you tell if Kahlan is alive?"
"Of course. I can feel the link to her at all times."
"And is she still alive, then?"
Nicci smiled in that assuring manner of hers. "Richard, Kahlan is fine.
Don't let that weigh on your mind."
Richard stared at Nicci for a time. Finally, he withdrew his gaze and
lay down in his prison bed. He rolled away from Nicci's gaze, from the
dance.
"Richard . . . I made you soup. Come eat."
"I'm not hungry."
He shut her from his mind and tried to remember Kahlan's green eyes as
weariness engulfed him.
Richard could feel Neal's breath on the back of his neck. The young
disciple watched over Richard's shoulder as he tap-tap-tapped the back of
the chisel, carving the gaping mouth of a sinner crying out in agony as his
body was being torn apart by the Keeper of the Underworld.
"Quite good," Neal murmured, overcome with delight in what he was
seeing.
Richard rested the wrist of his chisel hand against the stone to help
push himself upright. "Thank you, Brother Neal."
Neal's brown eyes, the same color as his drab robes, stared with
arrogant challenge. Richard did nothing to meet that challenge.
"You know, Richard, I don't like you."
"No man is worth liking, Brother Neal."
"You always have an answer, don't you, Richard?" The young wizard
smiled then as he reached under his hood and scratched his closely cropped
brown hair. "Do you know why you have this job?"
"Because the Order gave me a chance to help-"
"No, no," Neal interrupted as he suddenly grew impatient. "I mean do
you know why the position was open? Do you know why we needed carvers,
enabling you to gain this great opportunity at employment?"
Richard knew very well why they had needed carvers.
"No, Brother Neal. I was a laborer, at the time."
"Many of them were put to death."
"Then they must have been traitors to our cause. I'm happy the Order
caught them."
Neal's sly smile returned as he shrugged. "Maybe. I could tell that
they had a bad attitude. They thought too much of themselves, of what they
selfishly considered their . . . talent. A very old-fashioned notion, don't
you think; Richard?"
"I wouldn't know, Brother Neal. I only know I am able to carve, and I
am grateful for the opportunity to do my duty to help my fellow man by
contributing my efforts."
Neal backed away, giving Richard an appraising look, as if to measure
whether or not the words had been mocking. Richard hadn't given Neal the
opening he wanted, so Neal simply spilled out his point.
"I thought some among them might be deriding the Order with their work.
I thought they might be using their carving to mock and ridicule our noble