“If we leave now, we should be able to escape winter’s grip. We have the map, so we can stay away from the routes the Order’s troops use, and the heaviest population centers. There are good roads, and open country down there. Riding hard, I think that we can make it in a few weeks. A month at most.”
Zedd’s face contorted with concern. “But the Order controls much of the southern Midlands. It’s dangerous country, now.”
“I have a better way.” Cara flashed a sly smile. “We’ll go where I know the country—D’Hara. We will go east from here and cross over the mountains, then go south down through D’Hara—through mostly wide-open country were we can make good time—down through the Azrith Plains, to eventually join the Kern River far to the south. After the river valley clears the mountains, we will cut southeast into the heart of the Old World.”
Zedd nodded his approval of the plan. Kahlan curled her fingers lovingly around the old wizard’s thin arm.
“When will you go to the Keep?”
“Adie and I will leave in the morning. I think it best not to dally here any longer. Today we’ll settle matters of the army with the officers and the Sisters. I think that as soon as the people are out of Aydindril, and when the snow quickly deepens to insure the Order won’t be going anywhere until spring, then our men should begin slipping out of this place to make their way over the mountains to the safety of D’Hara. It will be slow going in winter, but without having to fight as they travel, it won’t be as difficult as it otherwise would be.”
“That would be best,” Kahlan agreed. “It will get our men out of harm’s way for now.”
“They won’t have me to be the magic against magic for them, but they will have Verna and her Sisters. They know enough by now to carry on protecting the army from magic.”
At least for a while. The words hung in the air, unspoken.
“I want to go see Verna before I leave,” Kahlan said. “I think it will be good for her to have other people to worry about. Then I want to see General Meiffert; and then we’d best start riding. We have a long way to go, and I want to be south before the snow hobbles us.”
Kahlan embraced Zedd fiercely one last time.
“When you see him,” Zedd whispered in her ear, “tell the boy I love him dearly, and I miss him something awful.”
Kahlan nodded against his shoulder, and told him a bold lie.
“You’ll see us both again, Zedd. I promise you.”
Kahlan stepped out into the early light of winter’s first breath. Everything was dusted with snow, making it look as if the world were carved from white marble.
Chapter 63
In one long fluid motion, with his fingertips adeptly guiding the far end of the file, Richard glided the steel tool down the fold of cloth held forever crisp in white marble. Concentrating on applying steady pressure to cut a precise, fine layer, he was lost in the work.
The file held hundreds of ridges, row upon row of tiny blades of hardened steel, which did the work of cutting away and shaping the noble stone. These were blades he wielded with the same commitment with which he wielded any blade. He blindly reached back and set the file down on the wooden bench, careful to put it on the wood and not to let it clang against other steel, lest he dull it prematurely. He exchanged the file for another, with even finer teeth, and took out the roughness left by the correction accomplished with the one before.
With fingers as dusty-white as those of a baker laboring with flour, Richard examined the surface of the man’s arm, testing it for flaws. Until polished, the minor flaws and facets were often easier to see with the fingers than the eye. Where he found them, he used a smaller file in one hand, while his other hand followed behind, riding the swell of muscle, feeling the subtle difference in what the tool had done to the stone. He was removing only paper-thin layers of material, now.
It had taken him several months to arrive at this final layer. It was exhilarating to be so close to the flesh. The days had passed, one upon another, in an endless procession of work, carving death in the day down at the site, and life in the night. Carving for the Order was balanced by carving for himself—slavery and freedom in opposition.
Whenever one of the brothers inquired about the statue, Richard was careful to hide his satisfaction with what he was creating. He did it by recalling the model he had been commanded to carve. He always bowed his head respectfully and reported his progress on his penance, assuring them that his work was on schedule and would be done on time to install in the palace plaza for the dedication.
Stressing the word “penance” helped to direct their thoughts to that issue and away from the statue itself. The brothers were invariably much more satisfied with his weariness from his toil at his work of contrition that they were interested in yet another dreary stone carving. There were carvings everywhere; this was but one more manifestation of the irredeemable inadequacy of mankind. Just as no one man in their cosmos was important, no one work mattered. It was the sheer number of carvings which was to be the Order’s overpowering argument for man’s impotence. The carvings were merely background props for the stage upon which the brothers moralized on sacrifice and salvation.
Richard always humbly reported his nights with little food and little sleep as he worked on his penance after his carving work during the day. Selfless sacrifice being the proper cure for wickedness, the brothers went away pleased.
Richard switched to a smaller file, one bent in a decreasing radius curve, and worked the muscle where it narrowed into sinew, showing the tension in the arm which revealed the underlying structure. During the day he observed other men as they worked, in order to study the complex shapes of muscle as it moved with life. At night, he referred to his own arms held up to the lamplight so that he might accurately depict veins and tendons standing proud on the surface. He referred to a small mirror at times. The surface of the skin he carved was a rich landscape stretched over bone and muscle, creased in corners, drawn smooth as it swept over curves.
For the woman’s body, his memory of Kahlan was vivid enough to require little other reference.
He wanted this work to show the capacity for movement, for intent, for accomplishment. The posture of the figures displayed awareness. The expression of the faces, especially the eyes, would show that most sublime human characteristic: thought.
If the statues he had seen in the Old World were a celebration of misery and death, this was a celebration of life.
He wanted this to show the raw power of volition.
The man and woman he carved were his refuge against his despair over his captivity. They embodied freedom of spirit. They embodied reason rising up to triumph.
To his great annoyance, Richard noticed that light was coming in the window above the statue, taking over from the lamps that had burned all night. All night; he had done it again.
It was not the quality of the light, which he actually very much favored, which vexed him, but that it signified the end of his time with his statue; he now had to go carve ugliness down at the site. Fortunately, that work required no thought or careful effort.
As he draw-filed the curve of the man’s shoulder muscle, there was a knock at the door. “Richard?”
It was Victor. Richard sighed; he had to stop.
Richard pulled the red cloth tied around his neck down away from his nose and mouth, where it kept him from breathing all the marble dust. It was a little trick Victor had told him about, used by the marble carvers from his homeland of Cavatura.
“Be right there.”
Richard stepped down off the ledge made by the base, where he had carved out the legs at midcalf. He stretched his back, realizing how much it hurt from hunching over, and from lack of sleep. He retrieved the canvas tarp and shook the dust from it.
Just before he flung the cover over the statue, he got the full view of the figures. The floor, shelves, and tools were covered in a fine layer of marble dust. But against the black walls, the marble stood out in the glory o
f light from above.
Richard threw the tarp over the incomplete figures and then opened the door.
“You look a ghost,” Victor announced with a lopsided grin.
Richard brushed himself off. “I forgot the time.”
“Did you see in the shop last night?”
“The shop? No, what?”
Victor’s grin returned, wider this time. “Priska had the bronze dial delivered yesterday. Ishaq brought it. Come see.”
Around the other side of the blacksmith’s shop, in the stock room, the bronze sat in a number of pieces. It was too big for Priska to cast as one piece, so he had made several that Victor would join and mount. The pedestal for the partial ring that would be the dial plane was massive. Knowing it was for a statue Richard was carving, Priska had done a job to be proud of.
“It’s beautiful,” Richard said.
“Isn’t it, though? I’ve seen him do fine work before, but this time Priska has outdone himself.”
Victor squatted and ran his fingers over the strange symbols filled in with black. “Priska said that at one time, long ago, his home city of Altur’Rang had freedom, but, like so many others, lost it. As a tribute to that time, he cast it with symbols in his native tongue. Brother Neal saw it, and was pleased because he thought it a tribute to the emperor, who is also from Altur’Rang.”
Richard sighed. “Priska has a tongue as smooth as his castings.”
“Would you have some lardo with me?” Victor asked as he stood.
The sun was already well up. Richard stretched his neck and peered down at the site.
“I’d best not. I need to get to work.” Richard squatted down and lifted one end of the pedestal. “First, though, let me show you where this goes.”
Victor grabbed the other end and together they lugged the bronze casting around the shop. When Richard opened the double doors, Victor saw the statue for the first time, even if it was covered in a tarp that revealed only the round bulges that were the two heads. Even so, Victor’s eyes feasted. It was apparent in those eyes how his vivid imagination was filling in some of it with his fondest hopes.
“Your statue is going well?” Victor nudged Richard with an elbow. “Beauty?”
Richard was overcome with a blissful smile. “Ah, Victor, you will see for yourself soon enough. The dedication is only a couple weeks off. I will be ready. It will be something to bring a song to our hearts…before they kill me, anyway.”
Victor dismissed such talk with a flourish of his hand. “I am hoping that when they see such beauty again, and at their palace, they will approve.”
Richard held out no such illusion. He remembered then, and reached into a pocket to pull out a piece of paper. He handed it to the blacksmith.
“I didn’t want Priska to cast words on the back of the dial because I didn’t want the wrong people to see them. I would ask you to engrave these words on the back surface—about the same height as the symbols on the front.”
Victor took the paper and unfolded it. His grin melted away. He looked up at Richard with an open look of surprise.
“This is treason.”
Richard shrugged. “They can only kill me once.”
“They can torture you a long time before they kill you. They have very unpleasant ways to kill people, too, Richard. Have you ever seen a man buried in the sky while he was still alive, bleeding from a thousand cuts, his arms bound, so that the vultures could feast on his living flesh?”
“The Order binds my arms, now, Victor. As I work down there, as I see the death around me, I am bleeding from a thousand cuts. The vultures of the Order are already feasting on my flesh.” With grim resolve, Richard held Victor’s gaze. “Will you do it?”
Victor glanced down at the paper again. He took a deep breath and then let it slowly out as he studied the paper in his hand. “Treason though these words be, I like them. I will do it.”
Richard clapped him on the side of the shoulder and gave him a confident smile. “Good man. Now, look here, where the pedestal is to be attached.”
Richard lifted the tarp enough to uncover the base. “I’ve carved you a flat face tilted at the proper angle. I didn’t know where the holes in the casting would be, so I left it for you to drill the holes and fill them with lead for the pins. Once you attach the pedestal, then I can calculate the angle of the hole I’ll need to drill for the gnomon.”
Victor nodded. “The gnomon pole will be ready soon. I will make you a drill bit the proper size for it.”
“Good. And a round rasp to do final fitting in the hole?”
“You will have it,” Victor said as they both stood. He waved his hand toward the covered statue. “You trust me not to peek while you are off carving your ugly work?”
Richard chuckled. “Victor, I know you want more than anything to see the nobility of this statue when it is finally finished. You would not spoil that experience for yourself for anything.”
Victor let out his rolling belly laugh. “I guess you are right. Come after your work, and we will have lardo and talk of beauty in stone and the way the world once was.”
Richard hardly heard Victor. He was staring at what he knew so well. Even though it was covered from his eyes, it was not hidden from his soul.
He was ready to begin the process of polishing. To make flesh in stone.
Her head bent, her scarf protecting her from the chill winter wind, Nicci hurried down the narrow alleyway. A man coming the other way bumped against her shoulder, not because he was rushing, but because he simply didn’t seem to care where he was going. Nicci threw a fiery scowl at his empty eyes. Her fierce look fell away down a bottomless well of indifference.
She clutched her sack of sunflower seeds closer to her stomach as she moved on through the muddy alleyway. She stayed close to the rough wooden walls of the buildings so she wouldn’t be jostled by the people going the other way. People bundled against the current cold snap moved through the alleyway toward the street beyond, looking for rooms, for food, for clothes, for jobs. She could see men beyond the alley sitting on the ground, leaning against buildings on the far side of the street, watching without seeing as wagons rumbled down the roads, taking supplies out to the site of the emperor’s palace.
Nicci wanted to get to the bread shop. She had been told they might have butter today. She wanted to get butter for Richard’s bread. He would be home for dinner—he had promised. She wanted to make him a good meal. He needed to eat. He had lost some weight, though it only added distracting definition to his muscular build. He was like a statue in the flesh—like the statues she used to see, long ago.
She remembered how when she was little her mother’s servants made cakes out of sunflower meal. She had been able to buy enough to make him some sunflower cakes, and maybe she would have butter to put on them.
Nicci was growing increasingly anxious. The dedication was to take place in a few days. Richard said his statue would be ready. He seemed too calm about it, as if he had come to some inner peace.
He seemed almost like a man who had accepted his imminent execution.
Whenever Richard spoke to her, despite the conversation, his mind seemed elsewhere, and his eyes held that quality which she so valued. In the wasteland that was life, the misery that was existence, this was the only hope left to her. All around her, people looked forward only to death. Only in her father’s eyes when she was younger, and more so now in Richard’s, did she see any evidence that there was something to make it all worthwhile, some reason for existence.
Nicci was slowed to a halt by the clink-clink-clink of pebbles rattling in a cup. The sound was the unmistakable rattle of her chains. She had been a servant to need her whole life, and as much as she tried, there it was, the cup of some poor beggar, still rattling for her help.
She could not deny it.
Tears filled her eyes. She had so wanted to serve Richard butter with his bread. But she had only one silver penny, and this beggar had nothing. She at least had some bre
ad and some sunflower seeds. How could she want butter for Richard’s bread and cakes, when this man had nothing?
She was evil, she knew, for wanting to keep her silver penny, the penny Richard had earned with his own sweat and effort. She was evil for wanting to buy butter for Richard with it. Who was Richard, to have butter? He was strong. He was able. Why should he have more, while others had none?
Nicci could almost see her mother slowly shaking her head in bitter disappointment that the penny was still in Nicci’s fist, and not helping the man in need.
How was it that she could never seem to live up to her mother’s example of morality? How was it she could never overcome her evil nature?
Nicci turned slowly and dropped her silver penny in the beggar’s cup.
People gave the beggar a wide berth. Without seeing him, they avoided coming near him. They were deaf to the rattle of his cup. How could people not yet have learned the Order’s teachings? How could they not help those in need? It was always left to her.
She looked at him, then, and recoiled at the sight of the hideous man swathed in filthy rags. She pulled back more when she saw lice hopping through his thatch of greasy hair. He peered out at her through a slit in the rags draped around his face.
But it was what she saw through that slit that caught her breath in her throat. The scars were gruesome, to be sure, as if he had been melted by the Keeper’s own fires, yet it was the eyes that gripped her as the man slowly rose to his feet.
The man’s grimy fingers, like a claw, curled around her arm. “Nicci,” he hissed in startled triumph, drawing her close.
Caught in the grip of his powerful fingers, and his burning glare, she was unable to move. She was so close she could see his lice hopping at her.
“Kadar Kardeef.”
“So, you recognize me? Even like this?”
Faith of the Fallen Page 79
