g in  thought  over the
words.
     "A faceless artisan,  his only hope in life that  he could one day work
in stone to show man's wickedness, so that he might help others see the need
to sacrifice  to their fellow man and the Order and in this way hope to earn
his reward in the afterlife."
     The blacksmith quickly  recovered  and  added to her words. "As you may
know, many  of the carvers at the Retreat were  traitors-thank  the  Creator
they  were discovered-and  so there is much carving to be done for the glory
of the Order. Brother Narev can confirm this for you, Protector Muksin."

     The  Protector's dark eyes shifted among the three.  "How much money do
you have?"
     "Twenty-two gold marks," Nicci said.
     He scowled his condemnation as he pulled a ledger book close and dipped
his pen in a  chipped ink bottle.  The Protector bent forward and wrote  the
fine in his  book. He next wrote an order on a piece of  paper and handed it
up to the blacksmith.
     "Take this to  the workers' hall at the docks"-he gestured with his pen
off  behind them-"down that street.  I will  release  the prisoner after you
bring me a workers' group seal  to  prove that  the fine was paid to the men
who  deserve it most-those in need. Richard Cypher must be  stripped of  his
ill-gotten gains."
     Richard deserved it most, Nicci thought bitterly. He had earned it, not
those other men. Nicci  thought  about all  the nights  he'd worked  without
sleep, without food. She remembered him wincing as he lay down to sleep, his
bask aching from his labor.  Richard  had  earned that money-she  knew that,
now. Those  men  who would  get it had done nothing for it but to desire it,
thus proclaiming their right to it.
     "Yes,  Protector Muksin," Nicci  said as she bowed. "Thank you for your
wise justice."
     Mr. Cascella let out a quiet  sigh. Nicci leaned  confidentially toward
the Protector.
     "We will carry out your equitable instructions immediately." She smiled
deferentially. "Since  you have treated us so fairly in this matter, might I
ask one further consideration?" It was a lot of gold that  would be credited
to  his  effort  on behalf of the Order;  she knew he would likely  be in  a
generous mood at that moment. "It's more a matter of curiosity, really."
     He wheezed an annoyed sigh. "What is it you want?"
     Nicci leaned closer, close enough to  smell the man's stale sweat. "The
name of the  person who reported my  husband.  The one who  rightly  brought
Richard Cypher to justice."
     Nicci  knew  that he  was  thinking  that  men  were more likely  to be
welcomed  into the fellowship  when they helped collect great sums for those
in need. The matter of the name would only  be a gnat bothering his pleasant
thoughts. He pulled  some  papers close and  scanned  through them, flipping
them aside as he searched.
     "Here it is," Protector Muksin said at last. "Richard Cypher's name was
reported by  a  young soldier volunteering in the Imperial Order  army.  His
name is  Gadi.  The report is months old. It  took some  time to see justice
done, but the Order  always sees justice done  in the end.  That is why they
call our great emperor 'Jagang the Just.' "
     Nicci straightened. "Thank you, Protector Muksin."
     Her calm face concealed her inner fury that the little thug  was out of
her reach. Gadi deserved to suffer.
     The Protector wrote  out his sentence for a civil  crime  as  he spoke.
"Take  the  order of fine I  gave you to the workers' group at the docks and
return  here when you  have seals to prove  that his fine of twenty-two gold
marks was paid in full.
     "Richard  Cypher is further ordered to report to the carver's committee
for  work  assignment." He  handed  her the paper  with the orders. "Richard
Cypher is now a stone carver for the Order."
     --]----
     The  sun was setting by the time they returned with all the  papers and
seals.  The  blacksmith  was  impressed with the  way she  had  handled  the
official when the offer

     of gold  failed to work. Ishaq  thanked  her  a hundred  times. It only
mattered to her that Richard would be freed.
     She was relieved to know that she had been wrong, that Richard wasn't a
cheat and a thief after all. It  had been such an ugly feeling, thinking ill
of Richard. It had for a time tainted her whole world. She had never been so
happy to be wrong.
     Better yet, they had done it; she was to have him back.
     At  the  side door to the stronghold,  Mr.  Cascella,  Ishaq, and Nicci
waited. The shadows grew darker. Finally, the door opened.  Two guards  held
Richard  between them  as  they  came  out onto the landing.  When they  saw
Richard,  his  condition,  Mr.  Cascella  cursed  under  his  breath.  Ishaq
whispered a prayer.
     The  guards  released Richard with  a  shove. He  stumbled forward. The
blacksmith and Ishaq raced to the steps to help him.
     Richard  caught himself and  straightened,  a dark form  upright in the
last of the  light,  defiant of the long shadows around  him. He held a hand
out,  commanding the  two men to stay where they  were. Both stopped with  a
foot on the bottom step, ready to run up  to him  should he need them. Nicci
couldn't  imagine what  pain it  had to  cost  Richard to walk  so steadily,
proudly, smoothly down the stairs without help, as if he were a free man.
     He did not yet know what she had done to him.
     Nicci knew there could be no worse plight for Richard. The torture down
in the  depths  of the  stronghold  was not  as  bad  as what she  had  just
condemned him to.
     Nicci was sure  that this was the  one thing, at last, that would force
out the answer she sought, if there really was an answer to be found.


        CHAPTER 57

     Brother Narev paused behind Richard's shoulder, a shadow come to visit.
He  often  lurked  nearby,  making  sure  the carvings were  progressing  as
directed. This was the first time the great man himself had stopped to watch
Richard work.
     "Don't I know you?" The voice was like stone grating on stone.
     Richard  let  his arm holding the hammer  drop to his side as he looked
up. He  wiped  the dusty sweat from his brow with the back of his left hand,
still holding the clawed stone chisel.
     "Yes, Brother  Narev. I was a laborer hauling iron, at the time.  I was
bringing a load to the blacksmith one day when I was honored to meet you."
     Brother  Narev frowned suspiciously. Richard allowed  no  crack in  his
facade of innocent calm.
     "A laborer, and now a carver?"
     "I have ability which I am joyful to contribute  to my fellow man. I am
grateful for the opportunity the Order has given me to earn my reward in the
next life by sacrificing in this."
     "Joyful."  Neal, the shadow of the  shadow, stepped  forward.  "You are
joyful to carve, are you?"
     "Yes, Brother Neal."
     Richard  was joyful  that Kahlan was  alive. He  didn't think about the
rest  of it. He  was a prisoner, and what he had to do to keep Kahlan alive,
he would do; that was all there was to it. What was, was.
     Brother Neal  smirked his superiority  at Richard's obeisance. The  man
had come often to lecture the carvers, and Richard had  come to know him all
too well.  The carvers' work, being the  influential  face the  palace would
show  to the  people, was critically  important to the Fellowship of  Order.
Richard was frequently the object of Neal's harangues. Neal, a wizard, not a
sorcerer  like Brother Narev,  always seemed to  feel,the need  to prove his
moral authority around  Richard. Richard gave him no rough edge to grip, yet
Neal still persisted in clawing for one.
     Brother Narev believed his own words with grim conviction:  mankind was
evil; only through selfless sacrifice to your fellow man had you any hope to
redeem yourself  in the afterlife.  There was no joy in  his faith, simply a
ruthless duty to it.
     Neal, on the other hand, bubbled over with his feelings. He believed in
the Order's  doctrine with  an  impassioned,  incandescent, arrogant  pride,
gleefully  convinced  the  world  needed  iron-fisted direction  which  only
enlightened intellectuals,  such  as  himself,  could  provide-with grudging
deference to Brother Narev, of course.
     Richard had more than once overheard Neal proclaim with conviction that
if he had to order the tongues cut out  of a million innocent men,  it would
be better than

     to  allow  one  man  to blaspheme against  the self-evident,  righteous
nature of the Order's ways.
     Brother Neal,  a  fresh-faced  young  man-no  doubt  deceptively young,
considering  that  Nicci said  he  had  once  lived  at  the  Palace of  the
Prophets-frequently  accompanied  Brother Narev,  basking  in  his  mentor's
approval. Neal  was  Brother  Narev's chief lieutenant. His face  might have
been  fresh,  but his  ideas  were not; tyranny was ancient,  even  if  Neal
deluded himself  in believing  it the bright  new  salvation of mankind when
applied by him and his fellows. His ideas were a paramour he embraced with a
lover's boundless, blind passion-a truth discovered with a lover's lust.
     Nothing  stirred  him  to  anger quicker  than the whiff of argument or
contradiction, no matter how reasoned. In the heat of his  passion, Neal was
perfectly  willing to destroy any dissension, torture  any  opposition, kill
any  number, who  failed  to bow before the  pedestal upon  which stood  his
irrefutably noble ideals.
     No misery, no failure,  no  amount  of wailing and  anguish and  death,
could dim his glowing conviction that the  ways  of  the Order were the only
correct course for mankind.
     The other  disciples, all, like Neal, wearing hooded brown  robes, were
an  incongruous collection  of  the  cruel,  the pompously  idealistic,  the
bitterly  greedy, the resentful, the spiteful, the timid, and,  most of all,
the  dangerously deluded. All shared an underlying, caustic,  inner loathing
for  mankind  which  manifested   itself  in  a  conviction   that  anything
pleasurable for the people could only be evil and accordingly only sacrifice
could be good.
     All,  with the exception of  Neal, were  blind followers and completely
under the spell of Brother Narev. They believed Brother Narev far  closer to
the  Creator  than to man. They hung on his every word, believing each to be
divinely inspired.  Were  he to tell them they must kill  themselves for the
cause, Richard was sure they would break their necks rushing for the nearest
knife.
     Neal was alone in that he believed in the divinity of his own words, in
addition to  Brother Narev's. Every leader had to have  a successor. Richard
was pretty  sure Neal had  already decided who would best serve as the  next
incarnation of the Order.
     "A  peculiar choice  of  words, joyful." Brother Narev circled a knobby
finger toward the cowering, deformed, frightened figures Richard was working
on. "This makes you . . . joyful?"
     Richard gestured to the Light he had carved so as to shine down on  the
wretched men. "This,  Brother  Narev, is what  makes me joyful-being able to
show men cowering before the perfection  of the Creator's Light. It makes me
joyful to  show  mankind's  wickedness for all to see, for in  this way they
will know their duty to the Order above all else."
     Brother Narev made a suspicious sound deep in his throat.  The sunlight
hooded his dark eyes more than usual and seemed to deepen the creases around
his mouth  as he regarded Richard with a look sharing mistrust and loathing,
laced with  apprehension. Only the apprehension was any different  than  the
look he  gave  everyone. Richard fed him a vacant stare. The brother's mouth
finally twisted with the dismissal of his private thoughts.
     "I approve . . . I forgot your name. But then, names are not important.
Men  are not important.  Individually, each man  is but a meaningless cog in
the great wheel of mankind.  How  that wheel turns is  all that matters, not
the cogs."
     "Richard Cypher."

     One brow, flocked in tangled white and black hair, lifted.
     "Yes . . .  Richard Cypher.  Well, I approve of  your  carving, Richard
Cypher.  You  seem  to  understand  better than  most  how  man is  properly
depicted."
     Richard bowed.  "It is not my  hand, but the Creator guiding it to help
the Order show the way."
     The suspicious  look was  back, but Richard's  expression  made Brother
Narev finally believe the words. Brother Narev, his hands clasped behind his
back, glided away to see to other matters. Neal, like a child sticking close
to his mother's skirts, scurried  to stay close to Brother Narev's robes. He
cast a  scowl back over his  shoulder. Richard  almost expected to see  Neal
stick out his tongue.
     As  best  as  Richard  could  figure,  there  were about fifty  of  the
brown-robed  disciples.  He  saw  them  often  enough to come to know  their
nature.  Victor had mentioned to Richard that  one of the foundries had cast
in pure gold, from  the master that the blacksmith had made;  somewhere near
the same  numbers of  the spell-forms. Victor thought them only decorations.
Richard had seen several of  the  gold  spell-forms being installed onto the
tops of  huge, ornate  stone pillars set  out  around  the  grounds  of  the
Retreat. The pillars,  in polished marble, were designed and placed to  look
like grand decorations for a grand place. Richard suspected they were more.
     Richard went back to chiseling a thick, unbending limb. At  least, now,
his  own  limbs  worked again. It had been a while, but he was healed. This,
though, seemed no less a torture.
     People gathered every day to view the low relief carvings already up on
the walls. Some  people knelt  on  the cobblestone walks before the  scenes,
praying, till their knees bled. Some brought rags to put beneath their knees
as they  prayed.  Many  simply stared  with  forsaken looks at the nature of
mankind depicted in stone.
     Richard could see in the faces of many who came that they had come with
some kind of vague, undefinable hope, hungering for some essential answer to
a question they could not  formulate.  The  emptiness in their  eyes as they
left was heartbreaking. They were people being drained  of life no less than
those bled to death in the dungeons of the Order.
     Some of  those  people  gathered to watch  the carvers work. In the two
months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, the crowds grew larger
to  watch him than any  of the other men.  The people sometimes wept at what
they saw emerge from beneath Richard's chisels.
     In the two months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, he had
come to  understand  the  nuance  of carving in stone.  What  he carved  was
dispiriting, but the act of carving itself helped to make up for it. Richard
reveled  in the  technical aspects  of  applying steel  to stone, guided  by
intent.
     As much as he hated the things he had to carve, he came to love working
stone with a chisel.  The marble seemed almost alive  under  his  touch.  He
would often carve  some tiny part with  reverence  for the subject-a  finger
gracefully  lifted,  a eye  with knowing  vision, a chest holding a heart of
reason.
     After he accomplished such grace, he would deface it to suit the Order.
More often than not, that was when people wept.
     Richard invented impossibly stiff, stilted, contorted people bent under
the weight of  guilt and shame.  If  this was  the way to  preserve Kahlan's
life, then  he would make  everyone who saw the carvings weep  their  hearts
out.  In  a  way, they were doing the  weeping  for him, suffering  over the
carvings for him, being destroyed by what they saw, for him.

     In this way, he was able to endure the torture.
     When the  shadows lengthened to  dusk  and  the day  was finished,  the
carvers started putting away  their  tools  into simple  wooden boxes before
going home for the night. They all would return not  long after first light.
The master builder provided  them with  orders for  areas and  shapes to  be
covered with  carving  so they could shape  the stones  to the correct size.
Brother  Narev's disciples came by to  provide the details of the stories to
be told in stone.
     The stone  Richard carved was  for  the grand entrance to  the Retreat.
Marble steps swept  around in  a half circle, leading up  to the huge, round
plaza.  A  colonnade of pillars in  a  half  circle,  mirroring  the  steps,
surrounded the back half  of the plaza. Richard's job was carving the  sweep
of scenes that were placed above those columns.
     It was to be an  entrance which  set the tone for the entire palace. In
the center  of the plaza  Brother Neal had told Richard that Brother Narev's
vision  was that there would be  the statue  dominating  the entrance to the
palace, and it was to be a work which would strike down any observer with an
overpowering sense  of their own guilt  and shame at  mankind's evil nature.
The statue, in its horror, was a  call to selfless sacrifice,  and was to be
built into the form of a sundial, showing people cowering under the Light of
their Creator.
     Neal had described  it with such delight that the image it  created  in
Richard's mind sickened him.
     Richard was the last to leave the site. As  he often did, he headed  up
the hill, along the winding road, to  the workshops. Victor was in his shop,
banking his  coals  for the night. With autumn upon them,  the  days weren't
insufferably  hot, so  the forge  wasn't the miserable place  it had been in
high summer. Winter this far south in the Old World was never harsh, but the
forge in winter would be a good place to banish the chill that would come on
cold rainy days.
     "Richard! So good  to  see you."  The  blacksmith knew  why Richard was
there. "Go on back. Maybe I will come sit with you when I'm finished, here?"
     Richard gave his friend a smile and said, "I'd like that."
     Richard opened the  double doors at  the  rear, letting the last of the
light fill  the room  where  stood  the  marble. He came often  to  see  the
monolith. Sometimes, after  a day  of carving ugliness, he had  to come  and
look at  the stone  and imagine  the beauty inside.  That balance  sometimes
seemed as if it was all that sustained him.
     Richard's fingers, dusty from  his  work carving stone, reached  out to
feel the white Cavatura marble. It was slightly different  from the stone he
carved down at the  site. He had the experience, now, to discern  the subtle
difference. The grain was finer in Victor's stone,  harder; it  would better
take and hold detail.
     Under Richard's  fingers, the  stone was as cool as moonlight, and just
as chaste.
     When  he  looked  up, Victor was standing  nearby,  smiling  wistfully,
watching Richard and the stone.
     "After carving such ugliness,  it is good to look upon the beauty of my
statue?"
     Richard chuckled in answer.
     Victor strode across the room,  gesturing. "Come, sit  with me and have
some lardo."
     In the failing  light, they sat on the threshold, eating thin slices of
the heavy delicacy, savoring the cool air coming up the hill.
     "You know, you don't need to come here to look at my beautiful statue,"
Victor said. "You have a beautiful wife to look at."

     Richard didn't say anything.
     "I  never recalled you mentioning your  wife. I  never knew  about her,
until she came to me that day. For some  reason, I always believed you had a
good woman . . . ."
     Victor frowned off at the shell  of  the Retreat. "Why  didn't you ever
mention her?"
     Richard shrugged.
     "I  hope you  don't think me a terrible  person,  Richard, but she just
doesn't fit my idea of the woman I thought would be with you."
     "I  don't think you're a terrible person, Victor. Everybody should have
the right to think for themselves."
     "Do you mind if I ask you about her?"
     Richard sighed. "Victor, I'm tired. I'd really rather not talk about my
wife. Besides, there's nothing-to say. She's my wife. What is, is."
     Victor  grunted  as he  chewed  a  big  bite of  red  onion.  After  he
swallowed, he waved the half of onion he  had left. "It's not good for a man
to carve such things in  the day, and then at night have to go  home to-What
am I  saying!  What has  gotten into  me?  Forgive me, Richard.  Nicci  is a
beautiful woman."
     "Yes, I suppose so."
     "And she cares for you."
     Richard didn't say anything.
     "Ishaq and I tried to  get you out of that place by bargaining  for you
with your gold. It wasn't enough. The man was a pompous official. Nicci knew
how to  wiggleworm him. She  used her words to turn  the key on your  prison
door. Without Nicci, you would be buried in the sky."
     "So, she told them that I could carve-to save my life."
     "That's right. It is she who got you the job of carver."
     Victor  waited for  more, and  finally  sighed  in resignation when  it
wasn't forthcoming.
     "How are those chisels I sent down?"
     "Good. They  work well.  I could use a clawed  chisel with finer teeth,
though."
     Victor handed Richard another small slice of lardo. "You will have it."
     "What about the steel?"
     Victor  waved  his onion. "Not  to worry.  Ishaq  is doing well in your
place. Not as  good as you,  but  he is doing well. He  gets me what I need.
Everyone likes Ishaq, and is happy he decided to fill in the need. The Order
is so desperate for progress to  continue that they turn  a blind eye to his
work. Faval  the charcoal  maker asked about you. He likes Ishaq, but misses
you."
     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  uniformitythose 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."
     Neal backed away, giving  Richard  an appraising look, as if to measure
whether or  not  the words  had been mocking. Richard  hadn't given Neal the
opening he wanted, so Neal simply spilled out his point.
     "I thought some among them might be deriding the Order with their work.
I thought  they might be using their carving  to mock and ridicule our noble
cause."
     "Really, Brother Neal? I never suspected."
     "That  is why  you are nobody, and never  will  be  anybody.  You are a
nothing. Just like all those carvers."
     "I realize I am nobody  important, Brother Neal. It would be  wrong  to
think I was

     of any value other than in what I can contribute. I aspire only to work
hard in service to the Creator so I might earn my reward in the next life."
     The smile was  gone,  replaced by a fiery scowl. "I ordered them put to
deathafter I had confessions tortured out of each one of them."
     Richard's fist  tightened on the chisel. Through a calm expression,  he
contemplated driving his chisel through Neal's skull. He knew he could do it
before the man could react. But what would it gain? Nothing.
     "1 am  grateful, Brother  Neal, that you uncovered the  traitors in our
midst."
     Neal squinted in suspicion for a moment. He finally dismissed it with a
twist of his mouth before suddenly swirling amid a flourish of his robes.
     "Come with me," the brother  commanded in a grave  tone  as  he marched
away.
     Richard followed him across the field churned to mud by all the workers
going back and forth, by all  the supplies being dragged, carried, or rolled
to the construction site.  They strode, past what seemed the endless face of
the palace. The stone  walls were getting ever higher, with row upon  row of
window openings. Their  trim  was beginning to  take form. Many of the beams
for  the second floor had  been placed in sockets  in the walls.  A  maze of
inner walls was going up, too,  defining the  interior  rooms and  hallways.
There would be miles of corridors in the palace. Dozens of  stairwells stood
in various stages of construction.
     It wouldn't be long before oak floors were laid over some  of the rooms
below,  enclosing  them. The roof had to be completed over  those  sections,
first, though, lest  rain ruin the flooring. Some of the outer rooms were to
have roofs lower than  the main section, which was to rise up to a  towering
height. Richard expected to see those lower rooms capped with slate and lead
roofs before the winter rains.
     He  stayed close behind  Brother Neal  as they marched toward  the main
opening  into the  palace. There, the walls  were higher and more  complete,
with  many of the ornate decorations in place. Neal charged two at a time up
the semicircle of  marble  steps  leading  up to the entry  plaza. The white
marble pillars stood  in an impressive sweep, and over the  top of them many
of  the  stone  carvings had been  installed. With all  the  tortured people
frozen in stone, it was an intimidating sight, as it was meant to be.
     The floor of  the plaza was gray-veined white  Cavatura marble. The sun
on the marble  made the plaza, half encircled by  the soaring columns,  glow
with glorious  light.  The decrepit  people in  the  stone ringing the plaza
seemed to  be screaming in  pain at  that light-which  was  just  the effect
Brother Narev had wanted.
     Neal made a  sweeping  gesture with an  arm.  "Here  will be the  great
statue-the statue to crown the entry  to the emperor's Retreat." He turned a
complete revolution  while holding the arm aloft.  "This  will  be the place
where people enter the great palace. This is where people will come while on
their way  to  see the officials of the Order. This is where they  will come
closer to the Creator."
     Richard said nothing. Neal watched him  for a moment, then stood in the
center and threw his arms up toward the sunlight.
     "Here!-will be  the statue to the glory of the Creator, using His Light
in  a sundial.  The  Light  will  reveal  the  loathsome  creatures  of  the
statues-mankind. This will be a monument to man's evil nature, doomed to the
misery  of  his existence in this  world,  wicked of  character, cowering in
humiliation  as His Light reveals  man's hateful body and  soul for  what it
is-perverted beyond hope."
     Richard thought that if madness had a champion,  it was  the Order, and
people who thought like them.

     Neal's  arms swept  back  down,  a conductor  concluding  a  triumphant
performance. "You, Richard Cypher, are to carve this statue."
     Richard was  acutely  aware of  the hammer in his straining fist. "Yes,
Brother Neal."
     Neal waggled  a  finger  held close  to  his  nose as  he  grinned with
fiendish delight.  "I don't  think you understand, Richard." He thrust up  a
commanding hand. "Wait. Wait right there."
     He strode  off, his brown robes swirling behind like muddy  waters in a
flood. Neal collected something from  behind the marble pillars and returned
holding it in one hand.
     It was a small statue. He set it down, where the radiating lines of the
marble floor  converged at a  point  in the middle of the  plaza.  It was  a
plaster statue of  what Brother  Neal  had  just  revealed  to  Richard.  If
anything, it was  even  more  gruesome than Neal had  described it.  Richard
ached to smash  it with  his hammer, right on  the spot. It  would almost be
worth dying to destroy such a vile thing.
     Almost.
     "This is it," Neal said. "Brother Narev  had  a master carver do up the
model of  the sundial  to his  instructions. Brother Narev's vision is truly
remarkable. It's perfect, don't you think?"
     "It is just as horrifying as you said it was, Brother Neal."
     "And you are to carve it. Just scale this model up into a great  statue
in white marble."
     Feeling numb, Richard nodded. "Yes, Brother Neal."
     The finger waggled again  with  great delight. "No,  no, you don't  yet
really understand, Richard." He was grinning  like a washwoman standing at a
fence  with basket full of dirty gossip. "You see,  I did some  checking  on
you.  Brother  Narev  and I never trusted you, Richard  Cypher. No, we never
did. Now, we know all about you. I found out your secret."
     Richard's flesh went cold. His muscles  tightened as  hard as stone. He
prepared to throw himself into battle. There appeared to be no choice but to
fight, now. Neal was about to die.
     "You see, I talked to People's Protector Muksin."
     Richard was taken aback. "Who?"
     Neal displayed a triumphant grin. "The man who sentenced you to work as
a  carver. He knew your name.  He showed me the disposition of the case. You
confessed to a civil infraction. He showed me the finetwenty-two gold marks.
Quite a sum."  Neal  waggled the  finger  again. "That was a miscarriage  of
justice, Richard, and you  know  it.  No  man  can get.  a fortune like that
through a mere civil infraction. Such a gain can only be ill-gotten."
     Richard relaxed  a bit.  His fingers ached from  how  hard he had  been
gripping the hammer.
     "No," Neal said,  "you had to have done something much more  serious to
have  collected a fortune of twenty-two gold marks. You are obviously guilty
of a very serious crime."
     Neal spread his hands  like the Creator  before one of his children. "I
am going to show you mercy, Richard."
     "Does Brother Narev approve of your showing mercy?"
     "Oh, yes.  You see,  the statue is to be your penance to the Order-your
way to  atone for your evil  deed. You will create this statue when you  are
not doing your

     other carving for  the palace. You will receive no pay  for it. You are
commanded not to steal  any  marble from  that which the Order has purchased
for the emperor's Retreat, but to procure the marble with your own money. If
you have to work for a decade to earn such a sum, all the better." '
     "You  mean,  I am to carve, here, in the  day, at my  job, and  I am to
carve this statue for you on my own time, at night?"
     "Your own time? What a corrupt concept."
     "When am I to sleep?"
     "Sleep is not the concern of the Order justice is."
     Richard took a  calming breath. He pointed with his hammer at the thing
on the ground.
     "And this is what I am to carve?"
     "That's right.  The stone will be purchased by you, and your labor will
be contributed by you  to the benefit  of  your fellow man. It will be  your
gift to the people  of the Order in penance for  your  evil  deeds. Men like
you, with the ability, must happily contribute their all to help the Order."
     Brother Neal swept his  arm out.  "There is  to  be a dedication of the
palace, this winter. The people need to see tangible evidence that the Order
can bring such a great project as this magnificent  palace to reality.  They
desperately need the lessons this palace will teach them.
     "Brother Narev  is eager  to dedicate the palace.  He  wishes to hold a
great ceremony, this winter, which will be attended  by many dignitaries  of
the Order. The war is progressing;  the people need to see that their palace
is, too. They need to see results for their sacrifices.
     "You, Richard Cypher, are to carve the great statue for the entrance to
the emperor's Retreat."
     "I am honored, Brother Neal."
     Neal smirked. "You should be."
     "What if I'm not . . . up to the task?"
     Neal's smirk widened into a  grin. "Then you will go back into custody,
and  Protector Muksin's questioners will have you  until  you confess. After
you finally confess, you will be hung on  a  pole. The  birds will  feast on
your flesh."
     Brother Neal pointed down at the grotesque model.
     "Pick it up. This is what you shall devote your life to."
     --]----
     Nicci looked up when she heard Richard's voice. He was talking to Kamil
and  Nabbi. She heard him say that he  was tired and couldn't look  at their
carving, that he would look tomorrow. Nicci knew they would be disappointed.
That was unlike Richard.
     She spooned buckwheat mush and peas from a dented pot into  a bowl. She
placed the bowl and a wooden spoon on the table. There was no bread.
     She  wished she could make something  better for  him, but  after their
voluntary contributions were  taken out, they  had no money.  If not for the
garden the women of the  building  had taken to planting  in the back of the
house,  they would be in desperate straits.  Nicci had learned how  to  grow
things so she could have food for him.

     His shoulders were stooped, his eyes distant. He was carrying something
in one hand.
     "I have your dinner. Come and eat."
     Richard  set  the thing on the  table, beside  the  oil  lamp. It was a
small,  intricately carved  statue of  figures cowering in terror. They were
partially surrounded by a section of a ring. A tall lightning bolt, a common
symbol of retribution  by the Creator,  came down in the  center, piercing a
number of obviously evil men and women, pinning them to the ground. It was a
staggering representation  of the evil nature of mankind, and the  Creator's
anger at their wanton ways.
     "What's this?" she asked.
     Richard  slumped down into a  chair. His face sank into  his hands, his
fingers stabbed back into his hair. After a time, he looked up.
     "What you wanted," he said quietly.
     "What I wanted?"
     "My punishment."
     "Punishment?"
     Richard nodded. "Brother Narev found out about the  fine of  twenty-two
gold marks. He said  I  must have done something  criminal  to get that much
money,  and he sentenced me  to make  a statue for the grand entrance to the
emperor's palace."
     Nicci glanced down at the small thing on the table. "What is it?"
     "A sundial. This is the ring with the times etched on it. The lightning
bolt casts a shadow of the Creator's Light on the