Laughter, pleased laughter, rippled through the crowd.
Brother Narev’s scowl grew. “We’ve heard enough of your extremist rambling! Destroy your profane statue. Now.”
Richard cocked his head. “Oh? The collective assembly of the Order, and of brothers, fears to hear what one insignificant man could say? You fear mere words that much, Brother Narev?”
Dark eyes stole a quick glance at the crowd as they leaned forward, eager to hear his answer.
“We fear no words. Virtue is on our side, and will prevail. Speak your blasphemy, so all may understand why moral people will side against you.”
Richard smiled out at the people, but he spoke with brutal honesty.
“Every person’s life is theirs by right. An individual’s life can and must belong only to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but a slave. No one can deny another person their right to their life, nor seize by force what is produced by someone else, because that is stealing their means to sustain their life. It is treason against mankind to hold a knife to a man’s throat and dictate how he must live his life. No society can be more important than the individuals who compose it, or else you ascribe supreme importance, not to man, but to any notion that strikes the fancy of that society, at a never-ending cost of lives. Reason and reality are the only means to just laws; mindless wishes, if given sovereignty, become deadly masters.
“Surrendering reason to faith in these men sanctions their use of force to enslave you—to murder you. You have the power to decide how you will live your life. These mean little men up here are but cockroaches, if you say they are. They have no power to control you but that which you grant them!”
Richard pointed with the sledgehammer back at the statue. “This is life. Your life. To live as you choose.” He swept the head of the sledgehammer in an arc, pointing out the carvings up on the walls. “This is what the Order offers you: death.”
“We’ve heard enough of your blasphemy!” Brother Narev shrieked. “Destroy your evil creation now, or die!”
The spears rose.
Richard calmly swept a fearless glance around at the guards, then stepped to his statue. Nicci’s heart was pounding against her ribs. She didn’t want it destroyed. It was too good to destroy. This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t take this away.
Richard rested the sledgehammer across his shoulder. He lifted his other hand up to the statue as he addressed the crowd one last time.
“This is what the Order is taking from you—your humanity, your individuality, your freedom to live your own life.”
Richard briefly touched the sledgehammer to his forehead.
With a mighty swing, the steel head arced around. Nicci could hear the air whistle. The entire statue seemed to shudder as the sledgehammer struck the base with a thunderous boom.
In a moment of brittle silence, she heard the faintest sound, the ripping popping crackling whisper of the stone itself.
Then, the entire statue crashed down in a roar of fragments and billowing white dust.
The officials at the back of the plaza cheered. The guards hooted and hollered as they waved their weapons in the air.
They were the only ones. The crowd was dead silent as dust rolled out across the plaza. All their hope, embodied in the statue, had just been destroyed.
Nicci stared in a daze. Her throat constricted with the agony of it. Her eyes watered. They all watched, as if having just witnessed a tragic, pointless death.
The guards moved toward Richard with their spears leveled, prodding him back to other guards waiting with heavy shackles.
Down closer to the steps, a clear voice rang out from the stunned crowd. “No! We’ll not stand for it!”
In the gathering darkness, Nicci saw the man who had yelled. He was up close to the front, furiously trying to fight his way through the press of people to get to the plaza.
It was the blacksmith, Mr. Cascella.
“We’ll not stand for it!” he roared. “I’ll not let you enslave me any longer! Do you hear? I’m a free man! A free man!”
The entire mass of people before the palace erupted in a deafening roar.
And then, as one, they lunged forward.
Fists in the air, voices raised in cries of rage, the mass of humanity avalanched toward the plaza. Ranks of heavily armed men marched down the steps to meet the advance. They vanished beneath the onslaught.
Nicci screamed with all her might, trying to get Richard’s attention, but her voice was lost in the hurricane.
Chapter 68
Richard didn’t know what stunned him more: to see his statue in rubble, or to see the crowd charging up the steps after Victor had declared himself a free man.
The mob rolled without pause over armed guards descending the steps to meet them. A number of people fell wounded or killed. The bodies were trampled beneath the surge of people. Those in front couldn’t stop if they wanted to—the weight of tens of thousands behind them propelled them onward. But they didn’t want to stop. The roar was deafening.
The brothers panicked. The officials in the rear panicked. The few thousand armed guards panicked. In that instant, the nature of the world transformed from the omnipotent power of the Order assembled on the plaza, to every man for himself.
Richard wanted Brother Narev. He saw, instead, armed men rushing in at him. Richard swung and buried the head of the sledgehammer in the chest of a man who came at him with sword raised high. As the man flew past, the handle of the sledgehammer sticking from the crater in his chest, Richard snatched the sword from his fist, and then, blade in hand, he unleashed himself.
A small group of guards saw fit to protect the brothers. Richard charged into them, cutting with every stroke. Every slash or thrust took a man down.
But guards were not what Richard was mainly interested in. If he was to lose everything, he wanted Narev’s head in the bargain. As he fought his way through the chaos of people crushing into the plaza, he couldn’t find Brother Narev anywhere.
Victor appeared out of the melee gripping a brother by the hair. Other men had joined Victor—and each had a hand on the brother. The burly blacksmith wore a scowl that would bend iron. The brother’s eyes were rolling around as if he’d been hit on the head, and couldn’t gather his senses.
“Richard!” Victor called out.
The men, some still grasping the brother’s brown robes, rushed in around Richard. They stood in a sweep around him, ten or fifteen deep.
“What should we do with him?” one man asked.
Richard glanced around at all the people. He saw men he knew from the site. Priska was among them, and Ishaq, too.
“Why ask me? It’s your revolt.” He met the eyes of the men with challenge. “What do you think you should do with him?”
“You tell us, Richard,” one of the carvers said.
Richard shook his head. “No. You tell me what you intend to do with him. But you should know, this man is a wizard. When he comes around, he’s going to start killing people. This is a matter of life and death, and he knows it. Do you? This is about your lives. It is for you to decide what to do, not me.”
“We want you with us this time, Richard,” Priska called out. “But if you still won’t join us, then we’re having our lives back, having this revolt, without you. That’s the way it’s going to be!”
The men all shook their fists as they yelled their agreement.
Victor hugged the groggy brother to his chest and wrenched his head until his neck broke. The limp body slipped to the floor.
“And that’s what we intend to do with him,” Victor said.
Richard held out his hand as he smiled. “Always glad to meet a free man.” They clasped forearms. Richard looked into Victor’s eyes. “I’m Richard Rahl.”
Victor blinked; then his belly laugh rolled out. With his free hand, he clapped Richard on the side of his shoulder.
“Sure you are. We all are! You had me going for a second, there, Richa
rd. You really did.”
The press of the crowd drove them back to the columns. Richard reached down and snatched the dead brother’s robes, pulling the body along with him. The mass of towering stone walls and marble columns afforded some protection from the raging river of people.
The ground shuddered. A blast from the inside blew a hole out through the wall. The darkness ignited with light. Stone fragments whistled through the air. Dozens of bloodied people were thrown back.
“What was that!” Victor called out through the din of screaming, yelling, and the roar of the explosion.
Ignoring the danger, the crowd continued to advance on the men who had enslaved them. Throngs swarmed over the spot where the statue had stood, scooping up shards of marble. They kissed their fingers and, as they swept past, planted those kisses on the words on the back of the fallen bronze ring. They were choosing life.
Hordes of people had captured a number of the brothers and officials, and were beating them to death with chunks of white marble from the rubble of the statue.
“Brother Narev is a sorcerer,” Richard said. “Victor, you have to organize some of these men—get control of this mob. Narev can use powerful magic. I commend people’s desire to be free, but we’re going to have a great many killed and injured if we don’t get this under control.”
“I understand,” Victor said as he fought to keep from being swept away.
A number of men who had been crowded around Richard, protecting him, heard what he said and nodded their agreement. The commands to organize started to spread through the crowd. These people wanted to succeed. They were willing to work toward their goal, and saw reason in the orders beginning to be called out. Many of these men were used to handling large groups of workers. They knew the business of organizing men.
Richard started pulling off the dead brother’s robes. “You men have to keep these people out of the palace. Narev is in there. Anyone who goes in could easily be killed. You have to keep people out. It will be a death trap in there with the brothers.”
“I understand,” Victor said.
“We’ll keep them back,” men called to Richard.
Richard threw the dead brother’s brown robes up over his head. Victor snatched him by the arm. “What are you doing?”
Richard popped his head up through the neck opening. “I’m going in there. In the darkness, Narev will think I’m a brother, and I’ll be able to get close to him.” He poked his confiscated sword through the robes to hide the blade. He covered the hilt with his wrist. “Keep people out—Narev commands dangerous magic. I have to stop him.”
“You watch yourself,” Victor said.
The men who had assumed command began fanning out, urging people to follow their orders. Some people did, and as they did, yet more followed. With all the officials who they’d captured now dead, the mob was slowly being brought to task, and not a moment too soon. The crushing weight of people flooding up onto the plaza was a danger to everyone.
Passing people wept as they picked up pieces of marble from the statue, holding the tokens of freedom and beauty to their breast as they moved on to allow others to do the same. These were people who had been offered life, and had taken it. They had proven themselves.
Victor saw what everyone was doing. “Richard… I’m so sorry—”
A fiery blast exploded through the plaza, cutting down well over a hundred people. Bodies were ripped apart in the violence of it. A huge stone column toppled, crushing people who couldn’t get out of the way because of the press of the throng.
“Later!” Richard yelled over the pandemonium. “I’ve got to stop Narev! Keep these people out—they’ll only die in there!”
Victor nodded before he rushed off with the other men he knew to try to gain control of the situation.
Richard put the tumult and confusion behind him, and stepped through a gaping doorway between the columns…into the darkness.
There were miles of unfinished corridors, some clogged with bodies. In the first crush, as the people swept up onto the plaza, they had chased brothers and officials into the labyrinth of the palace. Many of those people had been unfortunate enough to find Brother Narev. The stench of burned flesh filled Richard’s nostrils as he moved silently through the darkness.
Richard had been a woods guide long before he became the Seeker, long before he became Lord Rahl. Darkness was his element. In his mind, he gathered that cloak of darkness around himself.
Within the massive stone walls, under the heavy beams, partial wooden floors, and slate roofs overhead, the riot of the crowd was a distant, echoing rumble. Through the gaping openings of undressed doorways stood rooms without roofs or floors above, allowing in a flood of moonlight. It all created a tangled mesh of shadows and faint light that suggested every form of danger.
Richard came across an older woman lying bleeding in the hall, whimpering in agony. He bent to one knee, putting a hand gently to her shoulder as he kept his eyes on the dark hall ahead and its sockets of blackness to each side.
He could feel the woman trembling beneath his fingers. “Where are you hurt?” he whispered. He pushed the hood of the robe back so that in the moonlight coming between the unfinished beams above she could see his face. “I’m Richard.”
A smile of recognition overcame her. “Leg,” she said.
She pulled her dress up. In faint light, he saw a dark wound just above the knee. With his sword, he sliced off the hem of her dress to use as a bandage to close the wound.
“I want to live. I wanted to help.” She took the strip of cloth and pushed his hands away. “Thank you for cutting me the cloth. I can do it, now.” She clutched his robe, pulling him closer. “You’ve showed us life with your statue. Thank you.”
Richard smiled as he squeezed her shoulder.
“I was trying to get that cockroach. Will you do it?”
Richard kissed his finger and pressed the kiss to her forehead. “I will. Bandage up your leg and lie still until we have the situation under control; then we’ll send people in to help.”
Richard started moving again. From the distance came screams of rage, and pain. Guards who had escaped into the maze of the unfinished palace were battling people who had gone in after them.
Richard spotted a brother trembling behind a corner. It wasn’t Narev—there was a hood, not a cap. Playing the part of a brother, Richard pulled his hood up again and strode to the man. The brother looked relieved to see a comrade.
“Who are you?” he whispered toward Richard, lifting his hand to use his magic to light a small flame above his palm.
“Justice,” Richard said to the wide eyes as he drove his sword through the man’s heart.
Richard pulled his sword free and concealed it once more under his robes.
Nicci would no doubt take her revenge. There seemed nothing he could do about it. Nicci had often enough made Richard’s choices clear. He was bound and determined to at least lay waste to the Order. If only there were a way to get Nicci to see reason, to get her to help him. At times, the look in her blue eyes seemed so tantalizingly close to comprehension. He knew Nicci had feelings for him. He wished he could use those feelings to get her to see reason, to help him, to cast off her chains, but he didn’t know how.
Richard stepped back into the blackness of a room as he heard guards running his way. As they turned into the hallway, Richard again drew his sword. When they were close, he burst out of the doorway and took off the first guard’s head. The second swung his sword, missed, and lifted it for another strike. Richard ran his sword through the man’s belly. The wounded guard pulled back, off the blade. Before Richard could finish him, more men burst into the hall. The man with the gut wound wasn’t going to be a problem anymore; it would take him hours of agony to die.
Richard retreated through the dark doorway, tempting men in after him. He stood still in the dark, and as they rushed in, panting, crunching debris beneath the balls of their feet as they turned, Richard located th
em by sound alone and cut them down. Half a dozen men died in the pitch black room before the rest ran.
Richard raced onward toward the sounds of explosions. Every time gouts of flame flashed through the morass of hallways, he hid his eyes with a hand in order to preserve his night vision. When the blinding flashes ceased, he quickly continued in the direction from which they had come.
There were mile upon mile of halls in the palace. Some opened out into grounds where nothing had yet been built. Others went along between walls open overhead. Still others tunneled through the darkness, enclosed by upper floors or roofs. Richard descended stairs into blackness, into the palace underground, following the roar of conjured flames.
Down below the main floor were networks of interconnected rooms, made up of a confusing snarl of chambers and narrow halls. As he plunged through a labyrinth of shadowy rooms, going through holes in unfinished walls and empty doorways, he came suddenly upon a cloaked man with a sword. He knew none of the people were armed.
The man spun around, his sword leading, but since Richard was disguised in robes, he knew the man might not be a true foe.
In a flash of moonlight, Richard was stunned to see the Sword of Truth over the shoulder of the person. It was Kahlan.
He froze in shock.
She saw only a figure in brown robes—a brother—standing in a shaft of moonlight. The hood shadowed his face.
In the same instant, before he could call her name, he saw, over Kahlan’s shoulder, someone running their way. Nicci.
In one terrible blinding instant, Richard knew what he had to do. It was his only chance—Kahlan’s only chance—to be free.
In that crystal clear instant of understanding, terror flashed through him. He didn’t know if he could do it.
He had to.
Richard drew his sword and blocked Kahlan’s thrust.
And then he attacked her.
He drove into her with controlled violence, careful not to hurt her. He knew how she fought. He knew because he had taught her. He played the role of a clumsy, but lucky, opponent.