Faith of the Fallen

"Where would Richard get all this money?"

He swept his red hat off his head. He waved impatiently at all the gold lying in her palm. "Richard earned it."

She felt her frown darkening. "Earned it? How? No one man could earn this much money-not honestly, anyway." She felt her anger building. "Richard stole this gold, didn't he?"

"Don't be silly." Ishaq gestured irritably. "Richard earned it. He bought and sold goods."

She gritted her teeth. "How did he get this money?"

The man flung up his hands. "I'm telling you. He earned it himself-all by himself. He bought things and sold them to people who needed them."

"Things? What kind of things? Contraband?"

"No! Things like iron and steel-"

"Nonsense. How would he move it? Carry it on his back?"

"At first. But then he bought a wagon to-"

:.A wagon!., "Yes. And horses. He bought charcoal and ore and sold them to the foundries. Mostly, he bought metal from the foundry, and sold it to the blacksmith. The black smith uses a great deal of metal. He bought it from Richard. That was how he earned the money."

Nicci seized the man's collar at his throat. "Take me to this blacksmith."

Nicci was furious. All this time, she had thought Richard an honest hardworking man, and now she had discovered that he was imprisoned properly.

He was guilty of swindling honest working people out of their money. He was profiteering.

At that moment, she was not sorry at all for what they were doing to him in the prison. He deserved it all, and more. He was a criminal, cheating honest hardworking people out of gold. She burned with humiliation, knowing she had been deceived by him.

-]--

Nicci had seen the site of the palace before, but at a distance as she went about her business in the city. She had never been this close. It was going to be everything Jagang said it would be. It filled her with awe. All the inspiring words of Brother Narev from her youth were like a sacred choir singing from the depths of her memories as she looked upon the sweep of scenes being erected.

The walls were already up over the openings for the windows on the first floor. In some sections, beams were being laid, spa

But it was the outside which took her breath. The stone walls were banded with carvings on a scale she had never imagined. Just as Brother.

Narev would have directed, the carvings were inspirational, and convincing.

Nicci saw people gazing upon the scenes, weeping at the events recounted in stone, weeping at the depiction of the miserable creature that was man, and the unattainable glory that was the perfection of the Creator. With such moving visions, there could be no doubt that the Order was mankind's only hope of salvation. Just as Jagang had said, this would be a palace to stir the people with overpowering emotion.

"Why are those poles there?" she asked Ishaq as they marched along the wide cobbled path where people stood and watched the construction, while others knelt and prayed at various horrific scenes depicted on the walls.

"Carvers." Ishaq removed his red hat as he looked at the sight. "It was said they took part in the revolt."

Nicci's gaze passed among the rotting corpses hanging at the tops of the poles. "Why would the carvers take part in the revolt? They have work."

More than that, they were working on the scenes of the glory of the Order.

They, of all people, should have known how their only hope of reward in the next world required suffering in this.

"I did not say they took part. I said that it was said that they took part."

Nicci didn't correct the man. All men were corrupt. There wasn't a man who could not be put to death without it being justified. That included Richard.

Many of the stones under protective roofs where men had worked now sat idle. Ramps were constructed, along with scaffolding, for the masons to work on the palace walls. As they placed their stone, other men, slave labor, worked at hauling huge blocks up the ramps to them, carried baskets of mortar or dirt and rock, or worked in trenches building the underground cells where the Order would purge the world of the worst si

It was a terrible business, but you couldn't have a garden unless you got your hands dirty first.

The blacksmith's shop, up on the side of a hill overlooking the colossal undertaking, was the largest she had ever seen. With a project of this scale, it was understandable. She stood outside while Ishaq hurried in to fetch the blacksmith for her.

The sounds of hammers ringing on steel, the smells of the forge, the smoke, the oils, the acid, the brine, all brought back a flood of memories of her father's shop. For a brief moment, Nicci's heart beat faster-she was a girl again. She almost expected to see her father come out and smile at her with that wondrous energy of his showing in his blue eyes.

Instead, a brawny man stepped out of the shadows into the daylight. He wore no smile, but a menacing glare. At first, she thought he was bald. Then she saw that his full head of hair was simply cropped close to his scalp.

Some of her father's men who worked with hot iron did the same. His scowl would have set any other woman back three paces.

He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked through the milky sunlight toward her, appraising her eyes more carefully than most men-other than Richard. His thick leather apron was speckled with hundreds of tiny burn marks.

"Mrs. Cypher?"

Ishaq backed away, contenting himself to be a shadow.

"That's right. I'm Richard's wife."

"Fu

"Richard has been taken into custody."

The scowl changed in an instant to wide-eyed concern. "Richard's been arrested? For what?"

"Apparently, for the most base of crimes: cheating people."

"Cheating people? Richard? They're out of their minds."

"I'm afraid not. He is guilty. I have the evidence."

"What evidence?"

Ishaq swooped in close, unable to contain himself any longer.

"Richard's money. The money he made."

"Made!" Nicci's shout drove Ishaq back a step. "You mean the money he stole."

The blacksmith's scowl had returned. "Stole? Who do you think he stole this money from? Who are his accusers? Where are his victims?"

"Well, you are one."

"Me?..

"Yes, I'm afraid you were one of his victims. I'm here to return your money. I can't use stolen money to rescue a criminal from his just punishment. Richard will have to pay the price for his crime. The Order will see that he does."

The blacksmith tossed his towel aside and planted his fists on his hips. "Richard never stole one 'silver pe

"He cheated you."

"He sold me iron and steel. I need iron and steel to make things for the Retreat. Brother Narev comes in here and growls at me to get things made, but he doesn't deliver me the iron from which I must make them.

Richard does. Until Richard came along, I nearly got buried in the sky myself, because Ishaq, here, couldn't get me enough iron and steel."

"I couldn't! The committee only gives me permission to bring what I bring. I would be buried in the sky myself if I bring more than I have permission to bring. Everybody at the transport company watches me. They report me to the workers' group if I spit wrong."

"So," Nicci said, folding her arms, "Richard has you over your own brine barrel. He brings you iron at night and you have no choice but to pay him his price, and he knows it. He makes all this gold by gouging you.

That's how he got rich-by overcharging you. That's the worst kind of thievery."