He shrugged again. "Just money. I'd rather live."

Nicci smiled and wiped the tears from her cheeks. That was the best thing she could have hoped to hear.

The door opened. "Pull your skirt down, woman. Time's up."

As he dragged her out by her arm, she stuffed the last of the chicken in Richard's mouth.

"Civil infraction!" she called to him. "Don't forget!"

He had to confess to a civil infraction that could be paid with a fine. Then they would release him. Any other crime was death.

"I won't forget."

She reached back toward him as she was pulled from the tiny cell. "I'll be back for you, Richard! I swear!"

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CHAPTER 56

Nicci paced as Ishaq bent over the trapdoor in the corner of the room. He had been at it a long time. He had pushed the wardrobe aside to get at the secret place in the floor. Occasionally he muttered under his breath, cursing himself for having made it so difficult to get into.

"At last!" Ishaq scrambled to his feet.

Nicci hoped that the meager money Richard could have managed to save would be enough to satisfy Protector Muksin. In her head, she was going through a list of people who had offered money to help Richard.

Ishaq scurried close. "Here it is."

He hurriedly placed the leather purse in her hand. The weight shocked her. The purse filled her palm. It didn't make sense. She realized Richard must have put some metal items in with his savings-that would account for the weight. She pulled open the top and dumped the contents in her palm.

Nicci gasped. There were close to two dozen gold marks. There wasn't any silver. It was all gold.

"Dear Creator..." she whispered, her eyes wide. "Where would Richard get all this money?"

It was more money than most wealthy men saw in their lifetime. She looked up into Ishaq's eyes.

"Where would Richard get all this money?"

He swept his red hat off his head. He waved impatiently at all the gold lying in her palm. "Richard earned it."

She felt her frown darkening. "Earned it? How? No one man could earn this much money-not honestly, anyway." She felt her anger building. "Richard stole this gold, didn't he?"

"Don't be silly." Ishaq gestured irritably. "Richard earned it. He bought and sold goods."

She gritted her teeth. "How did he get this money?"

The man flung up his hands. "I'm telling you. He earned it himself-all by himself. He bought things and sold them to people who needed them."

"Things? What kind of things? Contraband?"

"No! Things like iron and steel-"

"Nonsense. How would he move it? Carry it on his back?"

"At first. But then he bought a wagon to-"

:.A wagon!.,

"Yes. And horses. He bought charcoal and ore and sold them to the foundries. Mostly, he bought metal from the foundry, and sold it to the blacksmith. The black

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smith uses a great deal of metal. He bought it from Richard. That was how he earned the money."

Nicci seized the man's collar at his throat. "Take me to this blacksmith."

Nicci was furious. All this time, she had thought Richard an honest hardworking man, and now she had discovered that he was imprisoned properly. He was guilty of swindling honest working people out of their money. He was profiteering.

At that moment, she was not sorry at all for what they were doing to him in the prison. He deserved it all, and more. He was a criminal, cheating honest hardworking people out of gold. She burned with humiliation, knowing she had been deceived by him.

--]--- Nicci had seen the site of the palace before, but at a distance as she went about her business in the city. She had never been this close. It was going to be everything Jagang said it would be. It filled her with awe. All the inspiring words of Brother Narev from her youth were like a sacred choir singing from the depths of her memories as she looked upon the sweep of scenes being erected.

The walls were already up over the openings for the windows on the first floor. In some sections, beams were being laid, spanning the interior walls, to support the next story.

But it was the outside which took her breath. The stone walls were banded with carvings on a scale she had never imagined. Just as Brother Narev would have directed, the carvings were inspirational, and convincing. Nicci saw people gazing upon the scenes, weeping at the events recounted in stone, weeping at the depiction of the miserable creature that was man, and the unattainable glory that was the perfection of the Creator. With such moving visions, there could be no doubt that the Order was mankind's only hope of salvation. Just as Jagang had said, this would be a palace to stir the people with overpowering emotion.

"Why are those poles there?" she asked Ishaq as they marched along the wide cobbled path where people stood and watched the construction, while others knelt and prayed at various horrific scenes depicted on the walls.

"Carvers." Ishaq removed his red hat as he looked at the sight. "It was said they took part in the revolt."

Nicci's gaze passed among the rotting corpses hanging at the tops of the poles. "Why would the carvers take part in the revolt? They have work." More than that, they were working on the scenes of the glory of the Order. They, of all people, should have known how their only hope of reward in the next world required suffering in this.

"I did not say they took part. I said that it was said that they took part."

Nicci didn't correct the man. All men were corrupt. There wasn't a man who could not be put to death without it being justified. That included Richard.

Many of the stones under protective roofs where men had worked now sat idle. Ramps were constructed, along with scaffolding, for the masons to work on the palace walls. As they placed their stone, other men, slave labor, worked at hauling huge blocks up the ramps to them, carried baskets of mortar or dirt and rock, or worked in trenches building the underground cells where the Order would purge the world of the worst sinners and where criminals would confess their crimes.

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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

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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

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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

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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.

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CHAPTER 57

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

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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?"

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"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.

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CHAPTER 58

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 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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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CHAPTER 59

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.

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"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.

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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

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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."

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"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."

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"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."

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"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."

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CHAPTER 60

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

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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

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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?"

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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 more lean and defined since he came to the Old World. All that labor of loading iron and now moving rock and swinging a hammer had built him up even more. When he went out back to the washtubs and removed his shirt to rinse off the stone dust, the sight of him made her knees weak.

Nicci heard footsteps passing down the hallway, and the excited voices of Kamil and Nabbi asking questions. She couldn't understand Richard's words, but she easily recognized the timbre of his voice calmly giving the two the answers to their questions.

As tired as he was, as much as he was away at his work, he still took time to talk to Kamil and Nabbi, and to the people of the building. He was no doubt now on his way out back to give pointers to the two young men on their carving. During the day, they worked around the building, cleaning and caring for the place. They turned over the dirt in the garden, mixing in compost when it was ready. The women appreciated having the heavy spade work done for them. The two washed, painted, and repaired, hoping Richard would approve and then show them how to do new things. Kamil and Nabbi always offered to help Nicci with anything she might need-she was, after all, Richard's wife.

. Richard came in the door as Nicci stood at the table cutting up carrots and onions

into a pot. He slumped down into the chair across the table. He looked spent from his day of work-after having been up hours earlier working on the statue.

"I came home to get something to eat. I have to go back and work on the statue."

"This is for tomorrow's stew. I have some millet cooked."

"Is there anything more in it?"

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She shook her head. "I only had enough money for the millet today."

He nodded without complaint.

Despite how exhausted he looked, there was some remarkable quality in his eyes, some inner passion, that made her pulse race faster. Whatever it was that she had seen in him from the first moment seemed to have only gotten stronger since that night she had almost put the knife through his heart.

"Tomorrow, we'll have this stew." she said. His gray eyes were staring off into his private visions. "From the garden."

She retrieved the cook pot after setting a wooden bowl on the table before him and spooned millet into his bowl until it was full. There was little left, but he needed it more than she. She had spent the morning waiting in line for the millet, and then had spent the afternoon picking all the worms out of it. Some of the women just cooked it until you couldn't tell. Nicci didn't like to feed that to Richard.

Standing close to-the table, cutting up carrots, she could finally stand it no more. "Richard, I want to come to the site with you and see this statue that you're carving for the Order."

He was silent for a moment as he chewed and then swallowed. When he finally did speak, it was with a quiet quality that matched that inexplicable look in his eyes.

"I want you to see the statue, Nicci-I want everyone to see it. But not until I'm finished."