Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

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 uniformity—those who wanted to transcend through their own effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were willing to pay the ultimate price for it.

Kamil and Nabbi both stood and grinned when Richard climbed the steps.

“Nabbi and I worked on our carving, Richard. Will you come and see?”

Richard smiled and put an arm around Kamil’s shoulders. “Sure. Let’s see what you’ve done today.”

Richard followed them down the clean hallway and out to the back, where Kamil and Nabbi had carved faces in an old log. The carvings were terrible.

“Well, Kamil, it looks pretty good. Yours, too, Nabbi.”

The carvings of the faces wore smiles, and to Richard that alone was priceless. Despite how poorly done, they had more life to them than what Richard saw executed day in and day out in precious marble by master carvers.

“Really, Richard?” Nabbi asked. “You think Kamil and I could be carvers?”

“Someday, maybe. You need more practice—you still have much to learn—but all carvers have to practice to become adept. Here, look at this, right here, for example. What do you think of this? What’s wrong with it?”

Kamil folded his arms as he frowned in concentration at the face he’d carved. “I don’t know.”

“Nabbi?”

Ill at ease, Nabbi shrugged. “It doesn’t look like a real face. But I can’t tell why.”

“Look at my face, at my eyes. What’s different?”

“Well, I think your eyes are a different shape,” Kamil said.

“And they are closer together—not out at the side of the head,” Nabbi added.

“Very good.” Richard smoothed some of the dirt where the carrots had been pulled up, and then molded the moist dirt into a mound. He used his finger and thumb to shape a simple face. “See here? By putting the eyes closer, like this, it looks more like a real person.”

Both young men nodded as they studied what he had done.

“I see,” Kamil said. “I’ll start a new one, and do it better.”

Richard clapped him on the back. “Good man.”

“Maybe one day we can be carvers, too,” Nabbi said.

“Maybe” was all Richard said.

Nicci had dinner on the table, waiting for him. A bowl of soup sat next to the glowing lamp. The rest of the room was left to the evening gloom. Nicci, too, sat at the table waiting.

“How was the carving today?” she asked as Richard went to the basin to wash the dirt from his hands.

He splashed the soapy water on his face, rinsing off the stone dust.

“Carving is carving.”

Nicci rubbed her thumb on the base of the lamp.

“Are you able to stand it?”

Richard wiped his hands. “What choice have I? I can either stand it, or I can end it all. What choice is that? Are you asking me if I am ready to commit suicide, yet?”

She looked up. “That isn’t what I meant.”

He tossed the towel down beside the basin. “Besides, how can I not be grateful for a job you got for me?”

Nicci’s blue eyes turned back to the table. “Victor told you?”

“It wasn’t all that hard to figure out. Victor said only that you were beautiful, and you saved my life.”

“I had no choice, Richard. They would only release you if you had a skill. I had to tell them.”

More than most days, he felt the essence of the engagement with her, the dance. She felt secure behind her shield of “had to tell them.” Yet it allowed her to watch him, to see how he would react.

All the effort of the day, moving heavy stone blocks, lifting the hammer countless times, had sapped his strength. His hands tingled with the effect of all those ringing blows. Now, he had begun yet again the battle with Nicci. He sat down on his pallet as exhaustion took him.

Fatigue was part of any battle. As much as he ever felt it when he held the blade, he felt it now, that life-or-death dance. This was no less a battle than any Richard had ever fought. Nicci stood in opposition to freedom, to life.

This was a dance with death.

The dance with death was really the definition of life itself, since all people eventually must die.

“I want to know something, Nicci.”

She gazed expectantly at him. “What is it?”

“Can you tell if Kahlan is alive?”

“Of course. I can feel the link to her at all times.”

“And is she still alive, then?”

Nicci smiled in that assuring manner of hers. “Richard, Kahlan is fine. Don’t let that weigh on your mind.”

Richard stared at Nicci for a time. Finally, he withdrew his gaze and lay down in his prison bed. He rolled away from Nicci’s gaze, from the dance.

“Richard… I made you soup. Come eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He shut her from his mind and tried to remember Kahlan’s green eyes as weariness engulfed him.

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.”