Faith of the Fallen

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. “Take 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 accuser. 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 work, young man. Right now, there are those who are not as fortunate in life as you, those with greater need than you. Suffering and need comes before selfish personal enrichment.”

Richard sighed. What did it really matter? After all, he was lucky in life.

“Yes, sir. I see what you mean. I’m happy to volunteer my share toward those with needs.”

He wished Nicci hadn’t given away all their money.

“Well,” he said to Nicci as they shuffled out into the night, “I guess we can ask the landlord for the rent money back. We can stay on where we were staying before, until I can work some more and save up some money.”

“They don’t give rent money back,” she said. “The landlord will understand our need and let our debt build until we can start paying on it. Next meeting, you just have to go up before the review board and explain your hardship. If you present it properly, they will give you a hardship charity to pay your rent.”

Richard was exhausted. He felt like he were having some kind of silly dream.

“Charity? It’s my wages—for the work I do.”

“That’s a selfish way of looking at it, Richard. The job is at the grace of the workers’ group, the company, and the Order.”

He was too tired to argue. Besides, he didn’t expect any justice in anything done in the name of the Order. He just wanted to go to their new room and get some sleep.

When they opened the door, one of the three youths was pawing through Nicci’s pack. Holding some of her underthings in one hand, he aimed a smirk back over his shoulder at them.

“Well, well,” he said as he stood. He still wore no shirt. “Looks like the two drowned rats have found a hole to live in.” His leering gaze slid to Nicci. He wasn’t looking at her face.

Nicci snatched the pack away first, then her things from his other hand. She stuffed her personal clothes back in the pack while he watched, grinning the whole time. Richard feared she might abandon the link to Kahlan in order to use her power, but she only glared at the youth.

The room reeked of mold. The low ceiling made Richard feel uncomfortably hemmed in. The ceiling had once been whitewashed, but was now dark with soot from candles and lamps, making the room feel cavelike. A candle sitting on a rusted bracket by the door provided the only light. A wardrobe stood crookedly in the corner in front of dirty walls spotted with flyblows. The wardrobe was missing a door. Two wooden chairs at a table under one small window on the far wall were the only place to sit, other than the warped and gouged pine floor. The small squares of window glass were opaque under a variety of different-colored layers of paint.

Through a small triangle in the corner where the glass was broken out, Richard could see the gray wall of the next building.

“How did you get in here?” Nicci snapped.

“Master key.” He waved it like a king’s pass. “See, my father’s the landlord. I was just checking your things for subversive writings.”

“You can read?” Nicci sniped. “I would have to see that to believe it.”

The defiant grin never left his face. “We’d not like to find we have subversives living under our roof. Could endanger everyone else. My father has a duty to report any suspicious activity.”

Richard stepped aside to let the young man by as he headed for the door, but then caught his arm as the youth picked up the candle.

“That’s our candle,” Richard said.

“Yeah? What makes you think so?”

Richard tightened his grip on the bare, lean, muscular arm. Looking him in the eye, he gestured with his other hand.

“Our initials are scratched in the bottom, there.”

Before he thought, the young man instinctively turned the candle to have a look. The hot wax spilled over his hand. He dropped the candle with a yelp.

“Oh my, I am sorry,” Richard said. He stooped and picked up the candle. “You’re all right, I hope. You didn’t get any of that burning wax in your eyes, did you? Hot wax in your eyes hurts something fierce.”

“Yeah?” He swiped his straight dark hair back from his eyes. “How would you know that?”

“Back where I came from, I saw it happen to some poor fellow.”

Richard leaned partway out into the hall, into the light of another candle on a shelf. With his thumbnail, he made a show of carving an R and a C in the bottom of the candle. “See, here? My initials.”

The youth didn’t bother to look. “Uh-huh.”

He swaggered out the door. Richard went with him and lit the candle from the flame of the one in the hall. Before walking away, the young man turned back with a haughty look.

“How did that fellow manage to be stupid enough to get hot wax in his eyes? Was he a big dumb ox like you?”

“No,” Richard said offhandedly. “No, not at all. He was a cocky young man who foolishly put his hands on another man’s wife. He got the hot wax dripped in his eyes by the husband.”

“Yeah? Well why didn’t the dumb jackass just shut his eyes?”

Richard gave the lad a deadly smile for the first time.

“Because his eyelids had been cut off, first, so he couldn’t close them. You see, where I come from, anyone touching a woman against her wishes isn’t treated indulgently.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The young man’s eyelids weren’t the only thing that got cut off.”

The young man swiped his black hair back again. “You threatening me, ox?”

“No. There would be nothing I could do to you that would harm you more than what you’re already doing to harm yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You are never going to amount to anything. You will always be the worthless muck people scrape from their shoes. You only get one life and you are wasting yours. That’s a terrible shame. I doubt you will ever know what it is to be truly happy, to achieve anything of worth, to have genuine pride in yourself. You bring it all on yourself, and I could do no worse to you.”

“I can’t help what life deals me.”

“Yes, you can. You create your own life.”

“Yeah? How do you figure?”

Richard gestured around himself. “Look at the pigsty you live in. Your father is the landlord. Why don’t you show some pride and fix up the place?”

“He’s the landlord, not the owner. The man who owned it was a greedy bastard, charging more rent than many could afford. The Order took the place over. For his crimes against the people they tortured the owner to death. My father was given the job of landlord. We just run the place to help out fools like you who don’t have a place; we’ve no money to go around fixing up the building.”

“Money?” Richard pointed. “It takes money to pick up that garbage left there in the hall?”

“I didn’t put it there.”

“And these walls—it doesn’t take money to wash the walls. Look at the ceiling in this room. It hasn’t been washed in a decade, at least.”

“Hey, I’m no scrub woman.”

“And the front stoop? Someone is going to break their neck on it. Could be you, or your father. Why don’t you do something worthwhile for a change and fix it?”

“I told you, we’ve no money to fix things.”

“It doesn’t take money. You just need to take it apart, clean the joints, and put in some new wedges. You can cut them from any little scrap of wood lying around.”

The young man wiped his palms on his pants. “If you’re so smart, then why don’t you fix the stairs?”

“Good idea. I will.”

“Yeah?” His sneer returned. “I don’t believe you.”

“Tomorrow, after I get home from work, I will fix the stairs. If you show up, I’ll teach you how it’s done.”

“I might show up just to see some dupe going to the work of fixing something that isn’t even his, and for nothing besides.”

“It isn’t for nothing. It’s because I use the front steps, too, and for the pleasure in the place where I live. I care if my wife falls and breaks her leg. But if you want to come and learn how to fix the steps, you will wear a shirt out of respect for the women in your building.”

“And if I show up and watch you, and I don’t wear a stupid shirt like some old geezer?”

“Then I wouldn’t have enough respect for you to bother teaching you how to fix the stairs. You will learn nothing, then.”

“What if I don’t want to learn something?”

“Then you will have taught me something, about you, instead.”

He rolled his dark eyes. “Why should I care about learning to fix some dumb stairs?”

“You shouldn’t necessarily care about fixing some stairs, but if you care about yourself, you should care about learning—even learning simple things. You come to have pride in yourself only by accomplishing things, even from fixing some old stairs.”

“Yeah? I got pride in myself.”

“You intimidate people and then mistake that for respect. Others can’t grant you self-respect, even others who care about you. You have to earn self-respect yourself. All you know right now is how to stand around and look stupid.”

He folded his arms. “Who you calling—”

Richard jabbed a finger against the young man’s smooth chest, forcing him back a pace. “You only get one life. Is that all you want out of it standing around calling names, scaring people with your gang? Is that all you want your one life to mean to you?

“Anyone who wants more out of life, who wants their life to mean something, would care about learning things. Tomorrow I’m going to fix those stairs. Tomorrow we’ll see what sort you are.”

The youth folded his arms again in a defiant stance. “Yeah? Well, maybe I’d rather spend time with my friends.”

Richard shrugged. “That’s why your lot in life isn’t fate. I don’t have any say in much of my life, but I make whatever choices I can make in my own rational best interest. It’s my choice to fix those stairs and make the place I live a little better—instead of whining and waiting and hoping for someone else to do something for me. I have pride that I know how to do that for myself.

“Fixing stairs isn’t going to make you a man, but it’s going to make you a little more confident in yourself. If you want, bring your friends, and I’ll teach you all how to use those knives of yours for something more than just waving in people’s faces.”

“We might come to laugh at you working, Ox.”

“Fine. But if you and your pals want to learn anything of worth, then you’d better start out by showing me you mean to learn by showing respect and showing up with shirts. That’s the first choice you have. If you make it wrong, then your choices as you go along are only going to become more limited. And my name is Richard.”

“Like I said, you might be good for a laugh.” He made a face. “Richard.”

“Laugh all you want. I know my own worth and don’t need to prove it to someone who doesn’t know theirs. If you want to learn, you know what you must do. If you ever wave a knife at me again, though—or, worse, my wife—then you will be making the last of your many mistakes in life.”

He chose to ignore the threat with more bravado. “What am I ever going to be? Some dupe, like you, working your tail off for that greedy Ishaq and his transport company?”

“What’s your name?”

“Kamil.”

“Well, Kamil, I work in exchange for wages so I can support myself and my wife. I have have something of value—myself. Someone values my worth enough to pay me for my time and ability. Right now, choosing to work at loading wagons is one of the few choices I have to make in my life. I chose to fix the steps because it improves my life.” Richard narrowed his eyes. “And what does Ishaq have to do with it, anyway?”

“Ishaq? He’s the one who owns the transport company.”

“Ishaq is just the load master.”

“Ishaq used to live here, back before the Order took over the building. My father knew him. Matter of fact, you’ll be sleeping in his parlor. Back then, it was his transport company. He chose the path of enlightenment over greed, though, when it was offered him. He let the citizen workers’ group help him to learn to be a better citizen of the Order, learn his place under the Creator. Now he knows he’s no better than any of the rest of us—even me.”

Richard glanced at Nicci, who was standing in the middle of their room, watching the conversation. He’d forgotten all about her. He didn’t feel like talking anymore.

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening, whether you come to laugh or to learn. It’s your life, Kamil, and your choice.”