Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

She said nothing else, but her eyes must have said that she thought he was dead, for he answered her unspoken question.

“Remember that little girl? The one you seemed to care so much about? She urged the town’s people to save me. She refused to allow me to die there on the fire, where you had put me. She hated you so much she was determined to save me. She selflessly devoted herself to caring for me, to helping her fellow man, as you had ordered the town’s people to do.

“Oh, I wanted to die. I never knew a person could have that much pain and still live. As much as I wanted to die, I lived, because I want you to die even more. You did this to me. I want the Keeper to sink his fangs into your soul.”

Nicci looked deliberately at his grotesque scars. “And so, for this, you have come seeking your revenge.”

“No, not for that. For making me beg, where my men could hear it. For allowing other people to hear me beg for my life. It was for that reason they saved me—and their hatred of you. It is for that that I seek revenge—for not allowing me to die, for condemning me to this life of a freak where passing women toss pennies in my cup.”

Nicci gave him a smooth smile. “Why, Kadar, if you want to die, I can certainly oblige you.”

He released her arm as if it had burned his fingers. His imagination gave her powers she didn’t have.

He spat at her.

“Kill me, then, you filthy witch. Strike me dead.”

Nicci flicked her wrist and brought her dacra to hand. The dacra was a knifelike weapon carried by Sisters. Once the sharpened rod was stuck into a victim, no matter where, releasing her power into the dacra killed them instantly. Kadar Kardeef didn’t know she had no power. But even without her power behind it, the dacra was still a dangerous weapon that could be driven into a heart, or through a skull.

He wisely backed away. He wanted to die, yet he feared it.

“Why didn’t you go to Jagang. He would not have let you become a beggar. Jagang was your friend. He would have taken care of you. You would not have to beg.”

Kadar Kardeef laughed. “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you? To see me living off the scraps of Jagang’s table? You would love to sit at his side, the Slave Queen, and have him see me fallen to this, to watch as you two tossed me your crumbs.”

“Fallen to what? To see you wounded? You’ve both been wounded before.”

He snatched her wrist again. “I died a hero to Jagang. I would not want him to know I begged like any of the weak fools we have crushed beneath our boots.”

Nicci pressed her dacra against his belly, backing him off.

“Kill me, then, Nicci.” He opened his arms. “Finish it, like you should have. You never left a job incomplete before. Strike me dead, like I should have been long ago.”

Nicci smiled again. “Death is no punishment. Every day you live is a thousand deaths. But you know that, don’t you, Kadar?”

“Was I that repulsive to you, Nicci? Was I that cruel to you?”

How could she tell him that he was, and how much she hated him having her as chattel for his amusement? It was for the good of all that the Order used men like Kadar Kardeef. How could she put herself, her own interests, above the good of mankind?

Nicci turned and rushed off down the alleyway.

“Thank you for the penny!” he called mockingly after her. “You should have granted my request! You should have, Nicci!”

Nicci wanted only to go home and scrub the lice out of her hair. She could feel them burrowing into her scalp.

Chapter 64

Richard pulled away the fistful of straw. He brushed the fragments of grasses from his leather apron. His arms ached from the labor of rubbing the straw, lightly loaded with fine abrasive clays, against the stone.

Yet, when he saw the luster of the stone, the character of the high polish, the way the marble glowed, taking light deep into the stone and returning it, he felt only exhilaration.

The figures emerged from a sparkling stone base of rough marble. The grooved lines of the toothed chisels used in opposing directions to shear off thin layers of stone were still evident on the lower calves, where the legs emerged—he wanted the statue to bear testimony to the hand of man and the figures’ origin in stone.

They rose up to nearly twice his height. The statue was in part a representation of his love for Kahlan—he could not keep Kahlan out of the work, because Kahlan was his ideal of a woman—yet the woman in the statue was not Kahlan. It was a man of virtue with a woman of virtue joined in purpose. They complemented each other, the two universal parts of what it was to be human.

The curved section of the sundial had been placed by Victor and his men several days before, when Richard had been working down at his job at the site of the emperor’s palace. They had left the tarp over the statue as they worked. After the ring had been set, Richard had placed the pole that served as the gnomon, and finished the hand holding it. The base of the pole was fixed with a gold ball.

Victor had yet to see the statue. He was beside himself with eager anticipation.

As Richard stared at the figures, only the light from the window above entered the darkened room. He had been given the day from work down at the site in order to prepare the statue to be moved to the plaza that evening. In the rooms beyond the shop door, the hammers of the blacksmiths rang ceaselessly as Victor’s men worked on orders for the palace.

Richard stood in the near darkness, listening to the sounds of the blacksmith shop, as he stared up at the power of what he had created. It was exactly as he had intended.

The figures of the man and woman seemed as if they might draw a breath at any moment and step out of the stone base. They had bone and muscle, sinew and flesh.

Flesh in stone.

There was only one thing missing—one thing left to do.

Richard picked up his mallet and a sharp chisel.

When he looked up at the finished statues, there were moments when he could almost believe, as Kahlan insisted, that he used magic to carve, yet he knew better. This was a conscious act of human intellect, and nothing more.

Standing there, chisel and mallet in hand, gazing at the statue that was his vision in stone, was a moment when Richard could savor the supreme achievement of having his creation exist exactly as he had originally conceived it.

For this singular moment in time, it was complete, and it was his alone.

It was, for this moment, pure in its existence, untainted by what others thought. For this moment it was his accomplishment, and he knew its value in his own heart and mind.

Richard went to one knee before the figures. He laid the cold steel of the chisel to his forehead and closed his eyes as he concentrated on what he had left to do.

“Blade, be true this day.”

He pulled the red cloth tied at his throat up over his nose so not to have to breathe the stone dust, then set the chisel to the marks in the flat place he had already prepared just above the heart of the flaw. Richard brought the mallet down, and began to carve the title of the statue in the base for all to see.

Nicci, standing behind the corner of a building around a curve in the road, watched farther down the hill as Richard left the shop where he had carved his statue. He was probably going to see about getting the team to move the stone. He closed the door, but he didn’t put the chain on it. No doubt, he didn’t intend to be gone for long.