Faith of the Fallen

"Nobility. Ali, but wouldn't that be something-the most sublime form of beauty." He shook his head. "But I will not do it. Not unless the revolt comes."

"Revolt?"

Victor's careful gaze swept the hillside through the open door. "The revolt. It will come. The Order ca

"We used to be a land of abundance. Now, what food is grown, rots, while it awaits committees to decide who should have it, who should move it, and what it should cost. Meanwhile, people starve.

"Insurgents, those disloyal to the Order, are blamed for all the starvation and strife that slowly destroys us, and so ever more people are arrested and put to death. We are a land of death. The Order continually proclaims its feelings for mankind, but their ways can but cultivate death.

On my way here, I have seen corpses by the thousands go uncounted and unburied. The New World is blamed for every ill, every failure, and young men, eager to smite their oppressors, march off to war.

"Many people, though, have come to see the truth. They, and the children of these people-me, and others like me-hunger for freedom to live our own lives, rather than be slaves to the Order and their reign of death.

There is unrest in my homeland, as there is here. A revolt is coming."

"Unrest? Here? I've seen no unrest."

Victor smiled a sly smile. "Those with revolt in their hearts do not show their true feelings. The Order, always fearful of insurrection, tortures confessions from those they wrongly arrest. Every day more are put to death. Those who want things to change know better than to make themselves targets before the time has come. Someday, Richard, revolt will come."

Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Victor. Revolt takes resolve. I don't think such real resolve exists."

"You have seen people who are unhappy with the way things are. Ishaq, those at the foundries, my men and me. All those you deal with, other than the officials you bribe, hunger for change." Victor lifted an eyebrow at Richard. "Not one of them complains to any board or committee about what you do. You may want nothing to do with it, as I believe is your right, but there are those who listen to the whispers of the freedom to the north."

Richard tensed. "Freedom to the north?"

Victor nodded solemnly. "They speak of a savior: Richard Rahl. He leads them in the fight for freedom. They say that this Richard Rahl will bring us our revolt."

Had it not all been so overwhelmingly tragic, Richard would have burst out laughing.

"How do you know this Rahl character is worth following?"

Victor fixed Richard with a look that Richard remembered from the first time he met the blacksmith.

"You can judge a man by his enemies. Richard Rahl is hated by the emperor, and by Brother Narev, and by his disciples, as no other man is hated. He is the one. He bears the torch of revolution."

Richard could muster only a desolate smile. "He is but a man, my friend. Don't worship a man. Worship his cause, but not him."

Victor's glare, so full of his emotion, his burning hunger for freedom, turned back to his wolfish grin.

"Ah, but that is what Richard Rahl would say. That is why he is the one."

Richard thought it would be best to change the subject. He saw that it was getting light.

"Well, I have to get going. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with the stone, Victor. It will come to you when the time is right."

The blacksmith feigned a scowl, but it was a poor spoof of the very real one that had just departed. "That is always what I thought, too."

Richard scratched his head. "Have you ever carved anything Victor?"

"No, nothing."

"Are you sure you are able to carve? That you have the ability?"

Victor tapped his temple, as if to dissuade a skeptic. "In here I have ability. In here I have beauty. That is all that matters to me. If I never touch steel to this stone, then I will always have the beauty of what it could be, and that, the Order can never take away from me."

CHAPTER 51

Nicci wiped the sweat off her brow as she went down the line, checking to see if her clothes were dry. Summer was only around the corner, and it was already hot. Her back hurt from her earlier work at the washtub and various other chores. The other women were chatting in the warm sunshine.

They occasionally giggled over some quirk that one of them, after a round of amiable urging, would divulge about her husband. Everyone in the building, it seemed, had begun coming alive along with the new spring growth.

Nicci knew that spring had nothing to do with it.

That knowledge drew frustration up from her darkest recesses. She couldn't figure out how Richard did it. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't unravel the knot he seemed to tie around everything. She was begi

The backyard, such an overgrown tangled place, so filthy, with piles of scrap and garbage, was now a garden. The men who lived in the building, after they came home from work, had rid the yard of the refuse. Even several of the ones who didn't work had come out of their rooms to help cart away an item or two. After it was cleared out, — the women of the building had turned the soil and planted a garden. They were going to have vegetables.

Vegetables! There was talk of getting a few chickens.

The single latrine off in the back corner, so overused and so foul, was now two privies in good repair. Now, there was rarely a wait to use a privy and there were no more urgent pleas or frayed tempers. Kamil and Nabbi had helped Richard build them-partly out of scraps of lumber salvaged from the refuse piles in the yard, before they were hauled away, and some they collected from other rubbish heaps.

Nicci had hardly believed her eyes when she had seen Kamil and Nabbi-in shirts--digging the holes for the new privies. Everyone thanked them profusely. The two toughs beamed with pride.

The outdoor cooking hearth had been repaired, so the women could set more pots in it and cook at the same time, requiring less wood to be hauled.

Richard and some of the other men of the building built stands for the washtubs, so the wives wouldn't have to bend so far or chafe their knees raw. The men made a simple roof of canvas salvaged from the refuse so that the women could cook and wash without getting wet when it rained.

The people in the buildings to either side, at first surly and suspicious of the activity, began asking curt questions. Richard, Kamil, and Nabbi went over and explained what they had done, and how they could put their place in shape, too, and even helped them get started. Nicci had yelled at Richard for spending his time at other people's places. He said that she was the one who had told him that it was his duty to help others. Nicci had no answer-at least, none that made any sense so as she could say it aloud and not sound a fool.

When Richard showed people how to improve their homes, he didn't lecture, or teach, but rather, somehow-Nicci couldn't understand how-managed to infect them with his enthusiasm. He hadn't told them what to do, but rather he'd made them pant to figure out for themselves how they could make things better for themselves. Everybody took a liking to Richard. It made her growl under her breath.