Faith of the Fallen

All the cities Richard had seen after they'd entered the Old World and traveled south from Tanimura were similar to this one, all suffering under grinding poverty and inhuman conditions. Everything seemed caught in a timeless trap, a morass of rot, as if the cities had once been vibrant with life and people striving to fulfill dreams, had once been places of hope and ambition, but somewhere the dreams had disintegrated into a gray pall of stagnation and decay. No one seemed to much care. Everyone seemed in a daze, biding their time, waiting for their lot in life to improve without even having a concept of the shape of that better life or how it might come to be. They existed on disembodied faith, confident only that the afterlife would be perfect.

The cities Richard had seen were startlingly similar to what Richard envisioned the future held for the New World under the yoke of the Order.

This place, though, was the single largest city Richard had ever seen.

He would never have believed the size of it had he not seen it himself.

Dilapidated buildings entangled by streets teeming with people sprawled over a sweep of low hills, across a broad bottomland, for miles along the convergence of two rivers. Squat ramshackle huts built haphazardly of wattle and daub, scraps of wood, or salvaged mud and straw bricks beset the city's core to a great distance out into the surrounding land, like fetid scum surrounding a rotting log in a stagnant pond.

It was the city of Altur'Rang-the namesake of the land which was now the heart of the Old World and the Imperial Order-the home city of Emperor Jagang.

When they had first entered the Old World on their way south toward Altur'Rang, Richard and Nicci had stopped at the northernmost large city in the Old World, 'Ianimura, where the Palace of the Prophets had once stood.

Tanimura, one of the last places in the Old World to fall under the rule of the Imperial Order, was a grand place, with wide boulevards lined with trees and ornate buildings soaring several stories high, faced with columns and arches and windows that let in the light. Tanimura, as large as it was, turned out to be but an outpost of the Old World, far enough away that the rot was only now reaching it.

For a span of a little over a month, Richard had found work in Tanimura as a mason's tender, one of a dozen, hauling stone and mixing mortar for a squat, unattractive building. The masons had simple huts the workers and their families lived in, so Nicci had shelter. The master came to trust Richard to keep up with his masons. When one of the stonecutters fell sick, Richard was asked to stand in at squaring the blocks of granite for the masons.

He found holding a chisel and mallet in his hands, cutting stone-shaping it to his will-a revelation. In some ways, it was like carving wood. . but somehow much more.

From time to time, the master stood with fists on his hips, watching Richard chisel square edges into the hard granite. Occasionally, in a gruff voice, he would make minor corrections to Richard's method. After a time, as the master saw that Richard took to the job and could cut a block square and true, he no longer bothered watching. Before long Richard's blocks were chosen first by the masons as cornerstones.

Other stonecutters arrived to do more demanding work-the adornments.

When they had first shown up, Richard had been eager to see their work. They cut into the face of blocks, meant to surround the entrance, a large flame representing the Light of the Creator. Below that, they carved a crowd of cowering people.

Richard had seen a number of stone carvings in the various places he had been, from the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril to the People's Palace in D'Hara, but he had never seen anything like the figures he saw being cut on that building in Tanimura. They were not graceful, or grand, or inspiring, but just the opposite. They were distorted, thick-limbed, cringing figures recoiling below the Light. Richard was told by one of the artisans that this was the only proper representation of mankind-profane, hideous, sinful.

Richard kept his mind on cutting square stones.

When the stonework to the Order's headquarters building was finished, the job ended. The carpenters didn't need any more help. The artisans said they could use some assistance carving the anguish of mankind and offered Richard the work. He declined, telling them that he had no ability for carving.

Besides, Nicci had been eager to move on; Tanimura had only been a place to earn some money to buy provisions for the long journey ahead of them. Richard was glad to be away from the depressing sight of the carving going on.