Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

Alessandra laid a compassionate hand on Ann’s arm. “You brought me back from the Keeper, back into the Light of the Creator. I was in Jagang’s hands, and treated you terribly when they captured you, yet you never gave up on me. Who else would have cared? Without you, my soul would be lost for all time. I doubt you could fathom my gratitude for what you did, Prelate.”

Despite Alessandra’s apparent return to the Creator’s Light, Ann had been fooled by the woman before. Years before, Alessandra had turned to the Keeper, becoming a Sister of the Dark, and Ann had never known. How could one have faith in a person after such a betrayal?

Ann looked up into Alessandra’s eyes. “I hope so, Sister. I pray such is really true.”

“It is, Prelate.”

Ann lifted a hand toward the shrouded sun. “And perhaps when I go to the Creator’s Light in the next world, that one good act will erase the thousands of lives lost because of me?”

Alessandra looked away, rubbing her arms through the layers of clothes. She turned and put two sticks of wood on the fire.

“We should have a hot meal. That will make you feel better, Prelate. It will make us both feel better.”

Ann sat on the ground watching Alessandra prepare her hearty camp soup. Ann doubted that even the pleasant aroma of soup would arouse her appetite.

“Why do you think Nicci took Richard?” Alessandra asked as she put dried mushrooms from a pouch into the soup.

Ann looked up at Alessandra’s puzzled face. “I can’t imagine, except to think that she may be lying, and she is taking him to Jagang.”

Alessandra broke up dried meat and dropped it into the boiling pot of soup. “Why? If she had him, and he was forced to do as she asked—why lie? What would be the purpose?”

“She’s a Sister devoted to the Keeper.” Ann lifted her hands and let them flop back into her lap. “That’s excuse enough to lie, isn’t it? Lying is wrong. It’s wicked. That’s reason enough.”

Alessandra shook her head in admonition. “Prelate, I was a Sister of the Dark. Remember? I know better. That isn’t the way it is at all. Do you always tell the truth just because you are devoted to the Creator’s Light? No; one lies for the Keeper just as you would lie for the Creator—to His ends, if lying is necessary. Why would Nicci lie about that? She was in control of the situation and had no need to lie.”

“I can’t imagine.” Ann had difficulty caring enough to consider the question. Her mind was in a morass of hopeless thoughts. It was her fault Richard was in the hands of the enemy, not Nicci’s.

“I think she did it for herself.”

Ann looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I think Nicci is still looking for something.”

“Looking for something? What ever do you mean?”

With a finger, Alessandra brushed a measure of spices into the pot from a waxed paper she’d unfolded. “Ever since the first day I took her from her home and brought her to the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci continually grew more…detached, somehow. She always did whatever she could to help people, but she was always a child who made me feel as if I was inadequate at fulfilling her needs.”

“Such as?”

Alessandra shook her head. “I don’t know. She always seemed to me to be looking for something. I thought she needed to find the Light of the Creator. I pushed her mercilessly, hoping it would open her eyes to His way and fill her inner need. I allowed her no room to think about anything else. I even kept her away from her family. Her father was a selfish lover of money and her mother…well, her mother was well intentioned, but always made me feel uncomfortable. I thought the Creator would fill that private void within Nicci.” Alessandra hesitated. “And then I thought it was the Keeper she needed.”

“So, you think she took Richard to fill some…inner need? How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know.” Alessandra breathed out heavily in frustration. She stirred the soup as she drizzled in a pinch of salt. “Prelate, I think I failed Nicci.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I failed to involve her adequately in the needs of others—gave her too much time to think of herself. She always seemed devoted to the welfare of her fellow man, but maybe I should have rubbed her nose in other people’s troubles more, to teach her the Creator’s way of virtue through caring more for her fellow man rather than her own selfish wants.”

“Sister, I hardly think that could be it. Once she asked me for an extravagant black dress to wear to her mother’s funeral, and of course I refused such a profligacy because it was unfitting for a novice needing to learn to put others first, but other than that one time, I never knew Nicci to once ask for anything for herself. You did an admirable job with her, Alessandra.”

Ann recalled that, after that, Nicci started wearing black dresses.

“I remember that.” Alessandra didn’t look up. “When her father died, I went with her to his funeral. I always felt sorry for taking her away from her family, but I explained to her that she was so talented that she had great potential for helping others and must not waste it.”

“It’s always hard to bring young ones to the palace. It’s difficult to part a child from loving parents. Some adapt better than others.”

“She told me she understood. Nicci was always good that way. She never objected to anything, any duty. Perhaps I assumed too much because she always threw herself into helping others, never once complaining.

“At her father’s funeral, I wanted to help her over her grief. Even though she had that same cool exterior she always had, I knew her, I knew she was hurting inside. I tried to comfort her by telling her not to remember her father like that, but to try to remember him as he was when he was alive.”

“Those are kind words to one in such grief, Sister. You offered wise advise.”

Alessandra glanced up. “She was not comforted, Prelate. She looked at me with those blue eyes of hers—you remember her blue eyes.”

Ann nodded. “I remember.”

“Well, she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, like she wanted to hate me, but even that emotion was beyond her, and she said in that lifeless voice of hers that she couldn’t remember him as he was when he was alive, because she had never known him when he was alive. Isn’t that the strangest thing you’ve ever heard?”

Ann sighed. “It sounds like Nicci. She always was one to say the strangest things at the strangest times. I should have offered her more guidance in her life. I should have taken more interest in her…but there were so many matters needing my attention.”

“No, Prelate, that was my job. I failed in it. Somehow, I failed Nicci.”

Ann pulled her cloak tighter against a bitter gust of wind. She took the bowl of soup when Alessandra handed it to her.

“Worse, Prelate, I brought her to the shadow of the Keeper.”

Ann looked over the rim of the bowl as she took a sip. She carefully set the steaming bowl in her lap.

“What’s done is done, Alessandra.”

While Alessandra sipped at her soup, Ann’s mind wandered to Kahlan’s words. They were words spoken in anger, and as such, were to be forgiven. Or were they to be considered in an honest light?

Ann feared to say Kahlan’s words were wrong; she feared they were true. For centuries Ann had worked with Nathan and the prophecies, trying to avoid the disasters she saw, and the ones he pointed out to her. What if Nathan had been pointing out things that were only dead words, as Kahlan said? What if he only pointed them out so as to bring about his own escape?

After all, what Ann had set in motion with Richard had also resulted in the prophet’s escape. What if she had been duped into being the one to bring about all those terrible results?

Could that be true? Grief threatened to overwhelm her.

She was beginning to greatly fear that she had been so absorbed in what she thought she knew that she had acted on false assumptions.

Kahlan could be right. The Prelate of the Si

sters of the Light might be personally responsible for more suffering than any monster born into the world had ever brought about.

“Alessandra,” Ann said in a soft voice after she finished her bowl of soup, “we must go and try to find Nathan. It’s dangerous for the prophet to be out there, in the world that is defenseless against him.”

“Where would we look?”

Ann shook her head in dismay at the enormity of the task. “A man like Nathan does not go unnoticed in the world. I must believe that if we set our minds to it, we could find him.”

Alessandra watched Ann’s face. “Well, as you say, it is dangerous for the prophet to be loose in the world.”

“It is indeed. We must find him.”

“It took Verna twenty years to find Richard.”

“So it did. But part of that was by my design. I hid facts from Verna. Then again, Nathan is no doubt hiding facts from us. Nonetheless, we have a responsibility. Verna is with the Sisters, and with the army; they will do what they can in that capacity. We must go after Nathan. That part of it is up to us.”

Alessandra set her bowl aside. “Prelate, I understand why you believe the prophet must be found, but, just as you feel you must find him, I feel I must find Nicci. I’m responsible for bringing her to the Keeper of the underworld. I may be the only one who can bring her back to the Light. I have a unique understanding of that journey of the heart. I fear what will happen to Richard if I don’t try to stop Nicci.

“Worse,” Alessandra added, “I fear what will happen to the world if Richard dies. Kahlan is wrong. I believe in what you’ve worked for all these years. Kahlan is making a complex thing sound simple because her heart is broken, but without what you did, she would never even have met Richard.”

Ann considered Alessandra’s words. The seduction of acquittal was undeniable.

“But, Alessandra, we don’t have the slightest idea where they went. Nicci is as smart as they come. If, as she says, she is acting on her own behalf, she will be clever about not being found. How would you even go about such a search?