Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

Cara, too, had a hand on his arm. “Lord Rahl, it’s the same statue we saw the last time we were here.”

Nicci nodded her agreement. “The statue that the carvers created after the revolt.”

The sight of the statue made Richard ache. The feminity of its exquisite shape, the curves, the bone and muscle, were clearly evident beneath the flowing robes of stone. The woman in marble almost looked alive.

“And where did the carvers get the model for this statue?” Richard asked the two women.

Both gave him a blank look.

With a hooked finger, Nicci pulled back a strand of hair that the humid breeze had lifted across her face. “What do you mean?”

“To carve such a statue, expert carvers typically scale it up from a model. What do you recall about that model?”

“Yes,” Cara said as her face brightened in recollection, “it was something you carved.”

“That’s right,” he said to Cara. “You and I searched together for the wood for the small statue. You were the one who found the walnut tree I used. It had been growing on a slope just above a broad valley. The tree had been knocked over by a windblown spruce. You were there when I cut the wood from that fallen, weathered walnut tree. You were there when I carved that small statue. We sat together on the banks of the stream and talked the hours away as I worked on it.”

“Yes, I remember you carving while we sat in the countryside.” A hint of a smile ghosted across Cara’s face. “What of it?”

“We were at the home I built in the mountains. Why were we there?”

Cara looked up at him, puzzled by the question, as if it seemed too obvious to warrant the effort of retelling. “After the people of Anderith voted to side with the Imperial Order, rather than with you and D’Hara, you gave up on trying to lead people against the Order. You said that you couldn’t force people to want to be free, but that they must choose it for themselves before you could lead them.”

It was difficult for Richard to calmly tell things to a woman who should know them as well as he did, but he knew that reproach wouldn’t help to spark her memory. Besides, whatever was going on, he knew it wasn’t a willful deception on the part of Nicci and Cara.

“That was part of it,” he said. “But there was a much more important reason why we were there in those trackless mountains.”

“A more important reason?”

“Kahlan had been beaten nearly to death. I took her there so that she would be safe while she recovered. You and I spent months caring for her, trying to nurse her back to health.

“But she wasn’t getting better. She sank into a deep despondency. She had despaired of ever recovering, of ever being whole again.”

He couldn’t bring himself to say that part of the reason Kahlan had nearly given up was because when those men had beaten her nearly to death, it had caused her to lose her child.

“And so you carved this statue of her?” Cara asked.

“Not exactly.”

He stared off at the proud figure in white stone rising up against the deep blue sky. He had not intended the little statue he’d carved to look like Kahlan. Through this figure, her robes flowing as she faced into a wind, as she stood with her head thrown back, her chest out, her hands fisted at her sides, her back arched and strong as if in opposition to an invisible power trying to subdue her, Richard had conveyed not what Kahlan looked like, but rather a sense of her inner nature.

This was not a statue of Kahlan, but of her living force, her soul. The magnificent statue before them was her spirit encased in stone.

“It’s Kahlan’s courage, her heart, her valor, her determination. That’s why I named this statue Spirit.

“When she saw it, she understood what she was seeing. It made her hunger to be well again, to be strong and independent again. It made her want to be fully alive again. That was when she started to get well.”

Both women looked more than simply dubious, but they didn’t dispute his story.

“The thing is,” Richard said as he started out across the broad stretch of grass, “if you were to ask the men who carved this statue where that small statue is, that statue I carved and which they used as a model to scale up this one, they would not be able to find it or tell you what happened to it.”

Nicci hurried to keep up with him. “So where is it, then?”

“That little statue I carved for her out of walnut wood that summer in the mountains meant a great deal to Kahlan. She was eager to have it back after the men were finished using it. Kahlan has it.”

Nicci let out a sigh as she returned her gaze to where she was walking. “Of course she does.”

He frowned over at the sorceress. “And what does that mean?”

“Richard, when a person is suffering delirium, their mind works to come up with things to fill in the blank places, to knit together the tattered fabric of that delirium. It’s a way for them to try to make sense out of their confusion.”

“Then where is the statue?” he asked both women.

Cara shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened to it. There is this big one now, in marble. That’s the one that seems important.”

“I don’t know, either, Richard,” Nicci said when he looked her way. “Maybe if the carvers look around they will be able to come up with it.”

It seemed like she was missing the purpose of his story and that they only thought that he was interested in finding his carving.

“No, they won’t be able to come up with it. That’s the whole point. That’s what I’m trying to make you understand. Kahlan has it. I remember her pleasure the day she got it back. Don’t you see? No one will be able to find it or remember what happened to it. Don’t you see how things don’t fit? Don’t you see that something strange is going on? Don’t you see that something is wrong?”

They paused at the base of the broad expanse of steps.

“The truth? Not really.” Nicci gestured up at the statue standing before the semicircle of pillars. “After this statue was finally finished and the model was no longer needed it was probably lost or destroyed. As Cara said, we now have the statue here in stone.”

“But don’t you see the importance of the small carving? Don’t you see the importance of what I’m telling you? I remember what happened to it, but no one else will. I’m tying to prove a point—to show you something, to show you that I’m not dreaming up Kahlan, to show you that things just don’t add up and you need to believe me.”

Nicci slipped a thumb under the strap of her pack in an effort to ease the ache caused by the burden of its weight.

“Richard, your subconscious mind in all likelihood recalls what happened to the carving—that it was lost or destroyed after this statue was finished—and so it uses that small detail to try to patch in one of the holes in the insubstantial story you dreamed up in your delirium. It’s just your inner mind trying to make things seem like it all makes sense for you.”

So that was it. It wasn’t that they didn’t get his point, it was that they got it all too well and simply didn’t believe it. Richard took a deep breath. He still hoped to be able to convince them that they were the ones who were mistaken, who weren’t taking everything into account.

“But why would I invent such a story?”

“Richard,” Nicci said as she gently gripped his arm, “please, let’s just drop it. I’ve said enough. I’m only making you angry.”

“I asked you a question. What possible reason would I have for creating such a story?”

Nicci cast a sidelong glance at Cara before finally giving in. “If you want to know the truth, Richard, I think you recalled this statue here—partly because it was only recently carved after the revolt and it was fresh in your memory—and when you were hurt, when you were at the brink of death, because this was fresh in your mind you wove it into your dream. It became part of this woman you dreamed up—part of the story. You linked it all together and used it to help create something meaningf

ul for yourself, something you could hang on to. Your mind used this statue because it serves to connect your dream to something in the real world. In that way, it serves to help make your dream more real for you.”

“What?” Richard was stunned. “Why would—”

“Because,” Nicci said, fists at her sides, “it makes it look as if you can point to something solid in the real world and say ‘this is her.’”

Richard blinked, unable to speak.

Nicci glanced away. Her voice lost its heat and dropped to a near whisper. “Forgive me, Richard.”

He withdrew his glare from her. How could he forgive her for what she sincerely believed? How could he forgive himself for not being able to make her understand?

Fearing to test his voice just then, he started up the expanse of steps. He couldn’t look into her eyes, couldn’t look into the eyes of someone who thought he was mad. He was hardly aware of the effort of climbing the hill of steps.

At the top, as he crossed the expansive marble platform he could hear Nicci and Cara rushing up the steps after him. For the first time, he noticed that there seemed to be quite a few people on the grounds of the former palace. From the height of the platform he could see the river that cut through the city. Flocks of birds wheeled above the swirling water. Beyond the towering columns behind the statue, green hills and trees wavered in the heat.