hardship necessary to conduct such a war. He now knew that thought  had been
but a feeble daydream.
     It didn't take a wizard, or  a prophet, to know that the armies the New
World

     could raise, even  given  wildly  optimistic  conditions, had  no  hope
whatsoever  of  prevailing  against the millions upon  millions  of soldiers
Richard had seen  pouring north,  to say nothing of the ones  he hadn't seen
who would be taking other routes. The Midlands was doomed.
     Ever since the people of Anderith chose  the Order over freedom, he had
known in his  heart that  the New World  was going to  fall to the Order. He
felt  no satisfaction in realizing how right he had been. Seeing the size of
the enemy, he  realized  that freedom was lost, and resisting the  Order was
but suicide.
     The course  of  events seemed irrevocable, the world lost to the Order.
The future for him and Kahlan seemed no less hopeless.
     By far the strangest place  he and Nicci  had  visited in their journey
southeast, a  place she never spoke of afterward, had been  less than a week
south of Tanimura. Richard  had still been in  a dismal mood  thinking about
the carvings he had seen, when Nicci  took an old, seldom-used track off the
main  road. It led back  toward  the hills, to a rather  small city beside a
quiet river.
     Most of  the  businesses had been abandoned. The wind, at will, carried
dust through  the broken windows of warehouses. Many of the homes had fallen
to ruin,  their roofs caved in, weeds  and vines doing  their best  to bring
down crooked walls. Only the homes  on  the  outskirts were still  occupied,
mostly by people raising animals and farming the surrounding land.
     On  the northern side  of  the city, one small store remained  to  sell
staples  to  surrounding   farmers.  There  was  also   a  leather  shop,  a
fortune-teller,  and a lonely inn. In the center of town  stood the bones of
buildings,  long since picked clean by scavengers. Several of the  buildings
still  stood,  but  most  had long  ago  collapsed. Richard and Nicci walked
through the center of town watched only by a fitful wind.
     At the southern edge, they arrived at the remains of what had once been
a  large brick building.  Without a  word,  Nicci turned  off  the  road and
marched deliberately into the forlorn site. The wood beams and roof had been
consumed by fire. A  thick mat  of weeds  and brush  were devouring the wood
floor. The brick walls were all that was left, really,  and they were mostly
fallen to rubble, with only a portion of the east  wall still tall enough to
contain a lone window frame.
     The wind ruffled Nicci's sunlit hair  as she looked  down the length of
the  skeletal remains  of the building. Her  arms languid at  her sides, her
back not  quite as straight as  it  usually  was, she stood vulnerable where
once a roof would have sheltered her.
     For nearly an hour, she was lost among the ghosts.
     Richard  stood  off  to  the  side, leaning  a hip  against the charred
remains of part of a workbench, one of the only things left inside the brick
frame.
     "Do you know this place?" he finally asked her.
     She blinked at his question. She stared into his eyes for  a long time,
as if he,  too, were a ghost. She stepped close  to him then, her  blue eyes
finally  looking away  to  let her fingers reminisce  as they glided lightly
over the remains of the workbench.
     "I grew up in this town," she answered in a distant voice.
     "Oh." Richard gestured around them. "And this place?"
     "They made armor here," she whispered.
     He couldn't imagine why she would want to see such a place. "Armor?"
     "The best  armor  in all  the land. Double-proofed  standard. Kings and
noblemen came here to buy armor."
     Richard  gazed around at the  ruins of the place,  wondering what  more
there must be to the story.

     "Did you know the man who made the armor?"
     Her blue eyes seeing ghosts again, she shook her head.
     "No," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, but I never knew him."
     A  tear ran down her cheek to drip  off her smooth jaw. She seemed very
much a child at that moment, alone in the world, and frightened.
     Had he  not known what he  knew about her,  Richard would have put  his
arms around this forlorn frail child and comforted her.


        CHAPTER 45

     Ncci was tired, cold, and impatient. She wanted a room.
     Her  purpose  in  guiding  Richard  to  the  center  of the  empire  in
Altur'Rang  was  to  bring him face-toface with the  righteous  cause of the
Order. She  knew  Richard to be a  man of profound moral integrity,  and she
wanted to see how he would react when confronted by the undeniable virtue of
his enemy's intentions.
     She wanted Richard to learn how difficult it was for ordinary people to
live, to get along in the  world. She was curious as to how he would fare in
the same circumstances-she wanted to throw him into  the fire and see how he
reacted  to  the heat, as it were. She had expected him to  be agitated  and
frustrated by now. He remained cool and unruffled.
     She  thought he would be furious at learning what he had to do to get a
job.  He was not. He had listened to that Mr. Gudgeons fellow explaining the
near impossible task that  faced anyone wanting work. Nicci had expected him
to punch  the pompous official; instead, Richard had cheerfully thanked him.
It was as if the things he so naively stood for, so selfishly  defended when
she had known him before, no longer mattered to him.
     At the Palace of the Prophets when she had been his teacher, every time
she thought  she knew  how he would react, he did  something she would never
have anticipated. He did that now, too, but in a subtly  different way. What
before had been, in a manner of speaking, unorganized youthful rebellion had
turned  to the  dangerous scrutiny of a predator. Only the chains around his
heart kept him from turning his claws on her.
     When Nicci had first  captured Richard, she had briefly  seen, standing
in the window of his house, a carving of  a proud woman. Nicci had known, as
sure as she knew night followed day, that Richard had carved it; it betrayed
his unique vision, which she recognized. The statue was tangible evidence of
a hidden side to his gift;  it was a form of balance to his ability for war,
yet she detected no magic in it.
     Knowing that Richard had carved it, Nicci  expected that he  would have
been interested  in the carving job offered him back in Tanimura. He  turned
it down. He became moody and hardly spoke for several days afterward.
     Whenever  they went  through  a  new  city,  she saw him taking  in the
statues and relief carvings. Since he, too, carved, she expected him to find
such creations  fascinating. He did  not.  She couldn't  understand it. None
were as finely executed  as what he had carved, to be sure, but still,  they
were carvings and she  thought he would be at least interested in  them. She
was baffled by his grim mood whenever he saw them.
     One time, she had taken the  two of them out of their way for no reason
but to

     show  him  a  famous  city  square  and the heroic  work of art proudly
displayed there. It was her thought to bring  him a  bit of cheer at  seeing
such  a widely heralded  work. He  was not cheered. Surprised, she had asked
him why he appeared to so dislike the sculpture, called Tormented Vision.
     "It's death," he had said with distant revulsion as he turned away from
the widely worshiped work.
     It  was a  grand scene of a group of men, some gouging out  their  eyes
after having seen the  perfect Light of the Creator. Other of the men at the
base of the  statue,  who'd not blinded themselves,  were  being  mauled  by
underworld beasts.  The Keeper's minions shrank from the blinded men wailing
at what they had seen before taking their own sight.
     "No," Nicci said, trying not to laugh and thereby humiliate him for his
unenlightened  view. She sought instead  to gently rectify his perception of
the famous work by explaining it to him.
     "It's  a portrayal of the unworthy nature of mankind.  It shows men who
have just witnessed  His  perfect Light, and in so doing have thus been able
to see the hopeless nature of man's depravity. That they would cut out their
own eyes  shows how perfect the Creator is that they could no longer bear to
look upon themselves.
     "These men in  the  statue  are heroes  for showing us that we must not
arrogantly endeavor to  rise  above our  corrupt essence, for  that would be
sinfully comparing  ourselves  to  the  Creator. It shows  that  we are  but
faceless, insignificant  parts of  a greater  whole  of  mankind,  which  He
created, and thus no single life can hold any importance. This work  teaches
us that only the society  as a whole can be worthwhile. Those at the bottom,
here, who failed to join  in with their fellow man and blind themselves, are
suffering their grim eternal fate at the Keeper's hands.
     "Do you see, now?  It honors mankind as the flawed  creature he  is, in
order  that  we  may  see  that  each of  us  must devote  ourselves  to the
betterment of our fellow man  because that is our only means  of  doing good
and honoring the Creator's creation-us. So, you see, it's not about death at
all, but about the true nature of life."
     Nicci had been taught that  the  statue was uplifting  for  the people,
since it confirmed everything they knew to be true.
     In the whole of her life, no  one had ever given  her a look that  made
her feel smaller than the look Richard gave her.
     Nicci  swallowed in horror at that look in his eyes-it was the complete
opposite of that elusive thing she sought  from him. Without saying a  word,
he had made her want nothing so much at that moment as to crawl under a rock
and die.
     She couldn't fathom how, but he made her feel unworthy to live. In some
bewildering way,  that look made her feel as blind as the men in the statue.
He hadn't said  one word, but it was days before  she could bring herself to
look him in the eye again.
     Sometimes,  Richard  seemed  meek  when she  expected  fierceness,  and
intense when she expected  indifference. She was beginning  to wonder if she
had been mistaken in thinking there was something special about him.
     Once, she had even  given in to despair of  there really being anything
in him worth discovering. Watching him  sleep, dejected  that she  had dared
hope to uncover some meaning to life beyond what  her mother had taught her,
she had sadly resolved that the next  day, after visiting the place  she had
grown  up,  she would  end  the  whole senseless undertaking  and return  to
Jagang.

     After they went to her  father's business, though, she had  seen  again
that quality in his  gray eyes, and knew beyond  doubt that she had not been
mistaken.
     This dance had only begun.
     As they  marched down the dim  hallway of a rooming house, she gestured
for Richard to stand aside.  Nicci wanted this room. She wanted  to lie down
where  it was dry and go  to sleep. She resolutely rapped her knuckles on  a
door that looked as if it might come apart if she wasn't careful.
     She peered down at the register she had and then stuffed it in her pack
as she  waited for the door to be answered. The lodging house,  like all the
others they had been to, was supposed to let rooms to those new to the city.
The emperor needed workers.
     In her mind, she  imagined that this would be  the place. She stared at
the stain on the  sickly green  plaster. She imagined seeing the tea-colored
stain, in the shape of a horse's rump with its tail flicked up, every day as
she went about her life. She imagined Richard walking past the  stain  every
day when he  went to a  job, and every  night  when he came home. Just  like
everyone else had to do.
     Richard  was  watching  the stairway beyond the door  where Nicci again
knocked. The  stairs  faced away. She couldn't understand why he watched all
the things he watched, but she didn't discount his instincts. By the look on
his face, he wasn't  pleased about  the shadowed stairway. Being a Sister of
the  Dark,  she was hardly frightened by  the simple  things that frightened
other people. She knocked again.
     A voice inside told them to go away.
     "We need a room," Nicci  declared  to the door in a  tone that said she
meant to  have it. She knocked harder.  "You're on the register. We want the
room."
     "It's a mistake," came the muffled voice from inside. "No room."
     "Now look here," Nicci called out heatedly, "it's getting late-"
     Three youths she hadn't seen sitting on the stairs swaggered around the
newel  post.  The  three  were without shirts, showing off their  muscles as
young men were wont to do. All three had knives.
     "Well, well," one of the youths said with a cocky grin as his eyes took
her in with lewd intent. "What have we here? Two little drowned rats?"
     "I like the fancy tail on the little blond rat," a second chortled.
     Richard seized  her arm and without a word shepherded her out the front
door,  back out  into the rain.  Nicci  dragged  her heels,  protesting in a
whisper  the  whole  way. She  couldn't believe that Lord  Rahl himself, the
Seeker  of  Truth, and  the bringer of  death  would be intimidated by three
men-boys, really.
     As they descended the rickety front stoop, Richard lifted an eyebrow at
her  while tipping  his head  close. "You have no power, remember? We  don't
want this kind of  trouble.  I'd  not like to get  knifed over  a room. This
fight isn't  worth it. Knowing when  not to  fight is  just  as important as
knowing how."
     Nicci  wanted  the room,  but  she  finally  conceded that Richard  was
probably right. The three sneering  youths slouched at the door and watched,
laughing, calling Richard names.  So far, they weren't interested  in  going
out  in the rain. She had  seen young men like them before. This latest crop
was  no  different  from any  of the  others-arrogant, aggressive, and often
dangerous. At least they made good soldiers for Jagang's army.
     Richard hurried her along the street. He cut through some of the narrow
passageways, taking several turns at random just to be sure they wouldn't be
followed.
     The  city  of  Altur'Rang  seemed endless. In the  overcast  and  rain,
visibility was

     limited. The haphazard streets and byways were a confusing maze. It had
been many years since she had  been here last. With all the Order's efforts,
the  place  still had fallen on hard  times. She  feared to think of what it
would have been like had the Order not been here to help.
     When they emerged on a wider street,  they found shelter  under a small
overhanging roof  along with a small group of  others trying  to stay out of
the rain. Nicci hugged herself  against the cold. Richard,  along  with  the
others huddled under the  roof, watched the occasional  wagon making its way
past on  the muddy  street. She didn't know  how Richard  could keep warm in
such  weather. She  appreciated his  warmth, though,  when  the  small crowd
pressed her up against him. Richard glanced down at her, seeing her  shiver,
but  he  couldn't bring himself to  put an arm around  her to help  keep her
warns. She didn't ask.
     Nicci sighed; the Old  World didn't stay cold for long. In another  day
or two it would again be warm and muggy.
     When  she  had been at the crumbled remains of  her father's  business,
just before they left, Richard  had looked as if he almost wanted to put his
arms around  her  and comfort her.  As much  as  he hated her, as much as he
wanted to get away from her, he had been moved to sympathy.
     Standing in the ruins, Nicci had let the memories wash through her, and
had reveled in the exquisite anguish.
     Richard's eyes were  fixed on something. She followed his gaze and  saw
that  a wagon not far down the street  was moving with an odd wiggle. Almost
as soon as she noticed it, the wheel broke with a loud crack.
     With the strain imposed by the wagon slipping and being  twisted in the
ruts, the spokes had snapped under the heavy load. The side of the wagon bed
dropped with a splash. People on  the walkway were splattered with mud. They
cursed the two men in the wagon.  The four-horse team struggled to a halt as
the uneven load  broke  the  axle,  causing the good rear  wheel to snap its
spokes, too. The whole rear of the wagon collapsed into the mud.
     The two  men climbed down to  assess  the damage.  The rawboned  driver
cursed and kicked at the  broken wheel lying at a lopsided angle.  The other
man, shorter and stoutly built, calmly checked the rest of the wagon and its
load.
     With  a frown of  curiosity, Richard nudged  Nicci  ahead  of him as he
moved down the street toward the wagon. She went reluctantly,  unhappy to be
out from under the roof.
     "We have to," the husky man said with  calm resolve. "It's only a short
distance."
     The other cursed again. "It's not my job, Ishaq, and you  know it. I'll
not do it!"
     Then Ishaq threw up his hands in  a helpless gesture  as his headstrong
partner went  to the front of the wagon and urged the team  on,  managing to
drag  the  wagon to  the  side  of the road and out of the way  of the other
wagons that were beginning to back up down the street. Once he had the wagon
to the side, he started unhitching the team.
     The man at the back of the wagon turned and peered around at the people
watching.
     "I need some help," Ishaq called to the sparse crowd.
     "Doing what?" a nearby man asked.
     "I've got to get this load of iron to the  warehouse." He stretched his
thick neck and pointed. "Just there-in the brick building with the faded red
paint on the side."
     "How much will you pay?" the bystander asked.

     Ishaq  was  getting frustrated as he glanced  over his shoulder and saw
his partner leading the horses  away. "I'm  not  authorized to pay anything,
not without approval, but I'm sure that if you came round tomorrow-"
     The people watching laughed with knowing disgust and went on their way.
The  man  stood in  the downpour, ankle  deep in  mud, alone. He  sighed and
turned to his wagon, pulling back the tarp to reveal iron bar stock.
     Richard stepped  out into the street. Nicci  wanted to  check some more
rooms on the list  before  it got dark.  She snatched at his sleeve, but  he
only  gave her  a  scolding  look.  She huffed her displeasure  but followed
anyway as  he made his  way through the  mud to the man struggling to pull a
long bar from the wagon bed.
     "Ishaq, is it?" Richard asked.
     The man turned and gave Richard a nod. "That's right."
     "If  I  help  you, Ishaq,"  Richard  asked,  "will I  really  get  paid
tomorrow? The truth, now."
     Ishaq, a stocky fellow with a curious red  hat  with a narrow brim  all
around, finally shook his head in resignation.
     "Well," Richard said, "if I help you get this load into your warehouse,
then would you allow me and my wife to sleep in there where we could get out
of the rain for the night?"
     The man scratched his neck. "I'm not  allowed to let  anyone  in there.
What if  something happened?  What if things came up missing? I'd be  out of
work"-he snapped his fingers-"quick as that."
     "Just until tomorrow. I only want to get her out of the rain before she
comes down sick. I have no use for iron. Besides, I don't rob people."
     The man scratched his neck again as he gazed back at the wagon over his
shoulder. He glanced at Nicci. She was shivering and it  was not an  act. He
peered at Richard.
     "Sleeping  in the warehouse  for one  night  is  not a  fair  price for
lugging all this in there. It will take hours."
     "If you agree to it, and I agree to it," Richard said over the sound of
the rain, "then  it's a fair price. I asked for  no more, and I'm willing to
do it for that price."
     The man stared  at Richard as if he might be  crazy.  He pulled off his
red hat and scratched his head of dark hair.  He swept his wet hair back and
replaced the hat.
     "You  would  have to clear out when I  come first thing  in the morning
with a new wagon. I could get in trouble-"
     "I'll not let you get in trouble over me. If I should get caught,  I'll
say I broke in."
     The man  thought about it  for a moment,  looking surprised at the last
term Richard had thrown in an effort to close the deal. The man took another
look over his shoulder at the load, then nodded his consent.
     Ishaq  hoisted  a  long bar  of steel  and put his shoulder  under  it.
Richard lifted two and extended his  arm forward  to steady  it, resting the
heavy steel on the bunched muscles of his shoulder.
     "Come on," he said to  Nicci. "Let's get you inside where you can start
to dry out and get warm."
     She tried to lift  a steel bar to help, but it was beyond her strength.
There were  times  when Nicci missed  her power. She could  at least feel it
through  the link to the Mother Confessor. It took  more effort, but even at
this great of a distance she was still able to maintain the link. She walked
beside Richard as they followed the man to the dry room Richard had just won
for her.

     --]----
     The  next day dawned clear. Rainwater  still  dripped  from the  eaves,
though.  The night before,  as  Richard helped Ishaq lug  the load into  the
warehouse, Nicci had used a light rope Richard had in his pack, stringing it
between racks so she could  hang  up their  wet things. By morning, most  of
their clothes were reasonably dry.
     They'd slept on wooden pallets,  the only other  choice being the dirt.
Everything  smelled of iron  dust, and was covered  with a fine  black film.
There  was nothing in the warehouse to  keep them warm,  other than a single
lantern Ishaq had left them, over which Nicci could at least warm her hands.
They slept as best they could in their wet clothes. By  morning, those, too,
were reasonably dry.
     Much of  the  night,  Nicci  hadn't slept, but, by  the light  of  that
lantern warning  her hands, had watched Richard sleep  as  she thought about
his  gray eyes.  It  had  been a  shock to see  those eyes in  her  father's
business. It brought back a flood of memories.
     Richard opened  the  warehouse door just enough  to squeeze through and
carried their things  out into  the  breaking dawn.  The  sky  over the city
looked  as  if it  were rusting. He left her to watch  their things while he
went back in to lock the door from  inside. She could hear  him climbing the
racks in the warehouse to get up to a window. He had to jump to the ground.
     When Ishaq finally came up the street with the fresh wagon, Richard and
Nicci were  sitting on  a  short wall on the entrance road  to the warehouse
doors.  When  the wagon rolled past them into the yard outside  the building
and came to a halt before the  double doors, Nicci  saw that the driver  who
had abandoned Ishaq the night before was at the reins.
     The lanky driver set the brake as he eyed them suspiciously.
     "What's this?" he asked Richard.
     "I'm sorry to bother you," Richard said, "but I just wanted to get here
before  you  opened up  so  I  could inquire if  there  might  be  any  work
available."
     Ishaq glanced  at  Nicci,  seeing  that  she was dried out. He eyed the
locked door  and  realized Richard had kept his word,  and kept him from the
possibility  of  getting  in  trouble  for  letting  someone  sleep  in  the
warehouse.
     "We can't hire people," the driver said. "You have to go  to the office
and put your name on the list."
     Richard sighed. "I see. Well, thank you, gentlemen. I'll give it a try.
A good day to you both."
     Nicci  had learned to  recognize in Richard's voice when  he was up  to
something.  He gazed up the street, and then down  the street, as if he were
lost.  He was  up  to  something,  now.  He seemed  to be  giving  Ishaq  an
opportunity  to offer  more  than  he  had paid for the help. Ishaq had  let
Richard carry twice  as much of the load the night before.  Richard had done
so without a word of protest.
     Ishaq cleared  his  throat.  "Hold on there." He climbed down from  the
wagon  to unlock the door, but paused before  Richard. "I'm the load master.
We  need  another man. You look to have a strong back." Using the toe of his
boot, he drew a little map in the mud. "You go to the office"-he lifted  his
thumb  over  his shoulder"down  this street, here,  to the third turn,  then
right, past six more streets." He made an X in the mud. "There's the office.
You get your name on the list."
     Richard smiled and bowed his head. "I'll do that, sir."
     Nicci knew that Richard  remembered  Ishaq's  name,  but he was playing
like he
     didn't for the sake of the driver, whom Richard didn't trust, after the
man  had  abandoned  his  fellow  the  night  before.  What  Richard  didn't
understand was that  the driver had only done what he was supposed to do. It
was not permitted for one man to take the work that belonged to others. That
was  stealing.  The  load  was the responsibility of the load  man, not  the
driver.
     "You go  enlist first in the load  workers' group," Ishaq told Richard.
"Pay your dues. They  have an office in  the same  building. Then you go put
your name on the  list for the job. I'm in the citizen workers'  group  that
goes before the review  assembly to  consider new  applicants. You just  sit
tight and wait outside. When we meet, later on, I'll vouch for you."
     The driver leaned out and spat over the far side of the wagon. "Why you
want to go and do that, Ishaq? You don't even know this fellow."
     Ishaq scowled up at the driver. "Did you see anyone at the hall who was
as big as this  fellow? We need another  loader  for the  warehouse. We just
lost a man and need a replacement. You want me to get stuck with some skinny
old man so as I'll have to do all the work?"
     The driver chuckled. "Suppose not."
     Ishaq  gestured toward Nicci. "Besides,  look at  his  young wife.  She
needs some meat on her  bones, don't  you  think?  Looks like a  nice  young
couple."
     The driver spat over the side of the wagon again. "I suppose."
     Ishaq  casually flicked a hand at Richard on his way to unlock the door
to the warehouse. "You be there."
     "I'll be there."
     Ishaq paused and turned back. "Almost forgot-what's your name?"
     "Richard Cypher."
     Ishaq gave him  a nod and turned back to  the door. "I'm Ishaq. See you
tonight, Richard  Cypher. Don't you let me down-you hear? You turn out to be
lazy and  let me down,  and I'll throw your sorry hide  in the river with an
iron bar tied around your neck."
     "I won't let you down, Ishaq." Richard smiled. "I'm a good swimmer, but
not that good."
     As they trudged though the muddy streets on their way to find some food
before they went to the offices to get on  the list for work, Richard asked,
"What's wrong?"
     Nicci shook her head in disgust. "Ordinary people don't have your luck,
Richard. Ordinary people suffer and struggle while your luck gets you into a
job."
     "If  it was  luck,"  Richard asked, "then how come my  back  hurts from
lugging that load of iron bars into the warehouse?"

        CHAPTER 46

     When Richard had finished unloading the last  wagon of  iron, he leaned
forward and placed his hands on the pile, hanging his head as he panted. The
muscles in his arms and shoulders throbbed. It was  always easier having two
men to handle the bars, one in the wagon, and one on the ground, but the man
who was supposed to help with the load had quit several days back, saying he
hadn't been treated properly. Richard didn't really miss him all that  much;
even when the man got  up off his  backside, his assistance was more trouble
than it was worth.
     The light coming in the high windows was fading, leaving the sky in the
west a deep purple. Sweat ran down his neck, making trails through the black
iron dust. He wished he could jump in a cool mountain lake. That thought, in
and  of itself, was refreshing. He  let his mind  go there as he  caught his
breath.
     Ishaq came  down  the  aisle with  the  lantern. "You  work  too  hard,
Richard."
     "I thought I was hired to work."
     Ishaq peered at Richard for a moment, one eye catching the harsh yellow
light of the lantern he was holding.  "'fake my  advice.  You work too hard,
it's only going to get you into trouble."
     Richard  had  been working  at the warehouse for three weeks, unloading
wagons and loading others. He'd come to know a number of  the other  men. He
had a good idea of what Ishaq meant.
     "But I'm  still worried about trying  to swim  with an iron bar wrapped
around my neck."
     Ishaq gave up on  his  scowl and grunted  a laugh. "I was just spouting
for Jori's sake, that day."
     Jori was  the driver who had refused to  help unload the  wagon when it
broke down. Richard yawned. "I know, Ishaq."
     "This  isn't  no  farm,  like where you came from.  This is  different,
living under the ways of the Order. You  got  to take the needs of others in
mind if you hope to get along. It's just the way the world is."
     Richard caught the thread of caution in Ishaq's voice,  and the meaning
of the gentle warning.
     "You're right, Ishaq. Thanks. I'll try to remember."
     Ishaq  gestured  with  his  lantern  toward  the door. "Workers'  group
meeting tonight. Best be on your way."
     Richard  groaned.  "I don't know. It's late  and I'm tired. I'd  really
rather-"
     "You don't want your name to start going around. You  don't want people
to start talking that you're not civic-minded."
     Richard smirked. "I thought the meetings were voluntary."

     Ishaq barked a laugh again. Richard collected his pack from  a shelf in
the back corner and then ran to the door so Ishaq could lock it.
     Outside, in the gathering darkness, Richard could just make out Nicci's
curvaceous form  sitting  on the wall at  the warehouse entrance. Her curves
often put him in mind of nothing  so much as a snake. They had no room, yet,
so she often came by the warehouse after she'd spent much of the day waiting
in  lines to buy bread and other necessities. They would  walk together back
to  their shelter in a  quiet alley about  a  mile away.  Richard had paid a
small price to some of the boys there  to guard their place and make sure no
one else took  it.  The boys were young enough to be  thankful for the small
price and old enough to be diligent about their job.
     "Get any bread?" Richard asked as he approached.
     Nicci hopped down off the  wall. "No bread today-they were  out.  But I
got us some cabbage. I'll make us a soup."
     Richard's stomach was growling. He'd been hoping for bread so he  could
eat a piece right then. Soup would take time.
     "Where's your pack? And if you bought cabbage, where is it?"
     She smiled and produced something small. She held it out before them as
they walked so as to silhouette it against the deep violet of dusk. It was a
key.
     "A room? We got a place?"
     "I checked the lodging office this afternoon. Our name finally came up.
They  assigned  a  room to us.  Mr. and Mrs.  Cypher.  We  can sleep  inside
tonight. Good thing, too; it looks like it will rain  tonight. I already put
my things in our room."
     Richard rubbed his sore shoulders. He  felt a wave of revulsion at  the
sham she  was  putting him through . .  . putting Kahlan through. There were
times when  he felt a hint of something profoundly important  about her  and
what she  was doing, but most of the time  he was merely overwhelmed  by the
lunacy of it all.
     "Where is this room?" He was hoping  it wasn't clear over on  the other
side of the city.
     "It's one  we  were at before-not too far from here.  The one with  the
stain on the wall just inside the door."
     "Nicci, they all had stains on the walls."
     "The stain that looked like a horse's  rear  end with its tail  flicked
up. You'll see it soon."
     Richard was starving. "I have to  go  to a workers' group meeting again
tonight."
     "Oh," Nicci said. "Workers'  group meetings  are important.  They  help
keep a  person's mind on what's proper and on everyone's duty to  his fellow
man."
     The meetings were torture. Nothing worthwhile  ever  came  about at the
meetings. They sometimes lasted hours. There  were people, though, who lived
for the meetings so they could stand up in front  of  others and talk  about
the  glory  of  the Order.  It was their  shining hour,  their  time  to  be
somebody, to be important.
     Those who didn't  show up for the  meetings were  used  as  examples of
people  who  weren't properly  committed to the  cause  of the Order. If the
absent person  didn't mend his ways, it was  possible he could  end up being
suspected of subversion.  The lack of truth to the suspicion was irrelevant.
Stating the charge  made some people  feel more  important  in a  land where
equality was held as the highest ideal.
     Subversion seemed to be a dark  cloud hovering constantly over  the Old
World. It  wasn't at all  unusual to see the city guard  taking people  into
custody on  suspicion  of subversion.  Torture  produced  confessions, which
proved the veracity of the ac-

     cuser. The people  who  spoke at length  at  the meetings  had, by this
logic,  accurately  pointed  a  finger at a number  of insurrectionists,  as
evidenced by their confessions.
     The  undercurrent of tension in  Altur'Rang left many worried over  the
constant  scourge of  insurrection-coming  from the New World, it was  said.
Officials of  the Order wasted no time in stamping  it  out whenever it  was
discovered. Other people  were  so consumed with fear that the  finger would
turn  toward  them that  the  speakers at the workers'  group  meetings were
assured of having a large number of zealous supporters.
     In many a  public square, as  a constant reminder of what would  happen
should you fall into the wrong company,  the bodies of subversives were left
to  hang  from high poles  until the  birds picked  their  bones clean.  The
running joke, if  an incautious person said anything that sounded at all out
of line, was "You looking to be buried in the sky?"
     Richard  yawned again as they turned down the street toward the meeting
hall. "I don't remember the stain that looks like a horse's rear end."
     Rocks crunched  beneath their boots as they walked down the side of the
dark street. Off  ahead of them,  in  the distance,  he  could  see  Ishaq's
lantern swinging as the man hurried to the meeting.
     "You were paying attention to something else at the time. It's the room
where those three live."
     "Three what?"
     A number  of other people, some he knew, most he didn't, hastened along
the street on their way to the meeting.
     Richard remembered then. He stopped.
     "You mean the  place where those three bullies  live-the three with the
knives?"
     He could just barely see her nod in the dim light. "That's the place."
     "Great."  Richard  wiped  a hand  across his face as  they started  out
again. "Did you ask if we could have a different room?"
     "New people in the city are fortunate  to get rooms. Rooms are assigned
as your name comes up. If you turn it down, you go back to the bottom of the
list."
     "Did you have to give the landlord any money, yet?"
     She shrugged. "Just what I had."
     Richard ground his teeth as he walked. "That's all we have for the rest
of the week."
     "I can stretch the soup."
     Richard didn't  trust her. She probably somehow saw to it that they got
that particular room. He suspected  that she wanted to see what  he would do
about the  three young men, now that  he was forced  into the situation. She
was  always   doing  little   things,  asking  odd  questions,  making  bold
statements, just  to see what his reaction would  be,  how  he would  handle
matters. He couldn't imagine what it was she wanted from him.
     He began  to  worry  about the  three.  He remembered quite clearly how
Cara's Agiel had caused Kahlan  to suffer the same  pain as Nicci. If  those
three abused  Nicci, Kahlan would  suffer it, too.  That thought made him go
cold and sweaty with worry.
     At the workers' group meeting, Richard and Nicci sat  on benches at the
rear of a  smoky room while  people up  front  spoke about the glory of  the
Order, and  how it helped all people  to live a moral life.  Richard's  mind
drifted to the brook behind the

     house  he had  built, to  the sunlit summer afternoons  watching Kahlan
dangle her feet in the water. He ached with longing as his mind's eye traced
the curve of her  legs.  There were  speeches about  every worker's duty  to
their fellow man.  Many of the discourses were given in a  droning monotone,
having  been repeated  so  often  that  it  was  clear  that  the words were
meaningless, and that only the act of saying them mattered. Richard recalled
Kahlan laughing as he caught the fish he'd put in jars for her. Many of  the
people, the group leaders,  or citizen spokesmen, delivered with passion and
fire their praise  for  the ways  of the Order. A  few people stood  up  and
talked about those who weren't there, giving  their  names, saying what poor
attitudes  they had  toward  the welfare of their fellow  workers.  Whispers
passed among the crowd.
     After the speeches were given, some of  the workers' wives stood up and
explained that  they  had extra need  of late because they  had just had new
children, or their husbands were  laid up, or the  relatives  they cared for
were ill. After each spoke, there was a show of hands.  If you  agreed to do
the right thing and have the group help them, then you raised your hand.
     The names of these who didn't  raise their hand  were  noted. Ishaq had
explained to  Richard that you were  allowed not to raise your hand, if  you
didn't agree, but if you did it very often, you  were put  on  a watch list.
Richard didn't  know  what a  watch list  was,  but  it was  easy  enough to
surmise, and Ishaq had told Richard that he didn't want to be on one, and to
see to it that he raised his hand more often than not.
     Richard  raised it every  time. He didn't really care what happened. He
had no interest in taking part, no interest in trying to make things better,
and no interest in how well or poorly  people's  lives went. Most seemed  to
want the comfort  of the  Order running their  lives,  relieving them of the
burden of thinking on their own. Just like Anderith. Nicci seemed surprised,
and occasionally even  disappointed, to see  his  hand go up every time, but
didn't object or question.
     He was hardly even aware of his hand going up.  He was smiling inwardly
as  he recalled  the wonder  in Kahlan's expression, the astonishment in her
green  eyes, when  she saw Spirit  for the  first time.  Richard  would have
carved  a mountain for  her, just to see her tearful joy in seeing something
she admired, something she cherished, something she valued.
     Another man spoke, complaining  about  the  conditions, how unfair they
were, and how he had been forced to quit rather than subject himself to such
abuse by the transport company. He was the man who had quit and left Richard
to handle the loads by himself. Richard  raised his hand along with all  the
others to grant the man full wages for six months in recompense.
     After the show of hands, and some whispering and scratching on paper as
all the  obligations  were figured  up,  the  healthy  working  members were
assessed their just share  to help  those in  need.  Those  who  were  able,
Richard had been told, had a duty to produce with all their  effort in order
to help those who couldn't.
     When men's names were called, they stood to hear  the share to be taken
from  their  wages the next week.  Because  he was new,  Richard's  name was
called last.  He stood, staring off across  the dimly lit room at the people
in moth-eaten coats  sitting behind the  long  table made of two  old doors.
Ishaq sat at one end, going along with the others in  everything. Several of
the women still had their heads together. When they finished, they whispered
to the chairman and he nodded.
     "Richard Cypher, being as  you are new, you still have some catching up
to do

     on your duty to your workers' group. Your next weeks wages are assessed
as due in aid.."
     Richard stood dumbly for a moment. "How am I to eat to pay my rent?"
     People in  the room turned to frown  at him. The  chairman  slapped his
hand on the table, calling for silence.
     "You should thank the Creator to be blessed with  good health so as you
can