Now, at stands on almost every corner, bread was plentiful and starvation looked to have receded into nothing more than a horrific memory. It was amazing to see how freedom had made everything so plentiful. It was amazing to see so many people in Altur'Rang smiling.

The revolt had been opposed by a good number of people who supported the Imperial Order, who wanted things to continue the way they were. There were many who believed that people were wicked and deserved no more out of their lives than misery. Such people believed that happiness and accomplishment were sinful, that individuals, on their own, could not make their own lives better without causing harm to others. Such people scorned the very idea of individual liberty.

For the most part, those people had been defeated-either killed in the fighting or driven away. Those who had fought for and won their liberty had fierce reasons to value it. Richard hoped that they would have the will to hang on to what they had won.

As they passed into the older sections of the city, he noticed that many of the dingy brick buildings had been cleaned so that they almost looked new. Shutters were painted bright colors that actually looked cheerful in the hazy, late-afternoon sun. A number of the buildings that had been burned down in the revolt were already being rebuilt. Richard thought it a wonder, after the way it used to be, that Altur'Rang could look cheerful. It gave him a flutter of excitement to see a place so alive.

He knew, too, that it was the simple, sincere happiness of people pursuing their own interests and living their lives for the sake of themselves that would draw the hate and wrath of some. The followers of the Order believed that mankind was inherently evil. Such people would stop at nothing to suffocate the blasphemy of happiness.

As they turned onto a broader street that led deeper into the city, Victor came to a stop at a corner of major thoroughfares.

"I need to go see Ferran's family and the families of some of the other men. If it's all right with you, Richard, I think I should speak with them alone, for now at least. The grief of sudden loss and important visitors are a confusing mix."

Richard felt awkward being viewed as an important visitor, especially by people who had just lost loved ones, but in the midst of such bad news it was not the time for him to try to soften that view.

"I understand, Victor."

"But I was hoping that maybe later you could say some words to them. It would be a comfort if you told them how brave their men had been. Your words would honor their loved ones."

"I'll do my best."

"There are others who will need to know that I've returned. They will be eager to see you."

Richard gestured to Cara and Nicci. "I want to show them something"-he pointed toward the center of the city.»down this way."

"You mean Liberty Square?"

Richard nodded.

"Then I will meet you there as soon as I can manage it."

Richard briefly watched as Victor vanished down a narrow cobbled street to the right.

"What do you want to show us?" Cara asked.

"Something that I'm hoping may help jog your memory."

The first sight of the majestic statue carved from the finest white Cavatura marble, glowing in the amber light of the late-day sun, nearly buckled Richard's knees.

He knew every intimate curve of the figure, every fold of the flowing robes. He knew because he had carved the original.

"Richard?" Nicci said as she clasped his arm. "Are you all right?"

He could manage hardly more than a whisper as he stared at the statue off across the green sweep of lawns. "I'm fine."

The vast open expanse had been the site of thee construction of the former palace that was to be the seat of rule for the Imperial Order. It had been where Nicci has brought Richard to toil for the greater glory of the cause of the Order in the hope that he would learn the importance of sell sacrifice and the corrupt nature of mankind. Instead, in the process, she had learned the value of life.

But while he'd still been Nicci's captive, he had worked for months in the construction of the emperor's palace. That palace was gone, now, erased from the face of the ground. Only a semicircle of columns from the main entrance remained to stand watch around the proud statue in while marble that marked the place where the flame of freedom had first ignited in the heart of darkness.

After the revolt against the rule of the Order, the statue had been carved and dedicated to the free people of Altur'Rang and the memory of those who had given their lives for that freedom. This place, where people had first spilled blood to gain their liberty, was now hallowed ground. Victor had named the place Liberty Square.

Lit by the warm light of the low sun, the statue shone like a beacon.

"What do you two see?" Richard asked.

Cara, too, had a hand on his arm. "Lord Rahl, it's the same statue we saw the last time we were here."

Nicci nodded her agreement. "The statue that the carvers created after the revolt."

The sight of the statue made Richard ache. The feminity of its exquisite shape, the curves, the bone and muscle, were clearly evident beneath the flowing robes of stone. The woman in marble almost looked alive.

"And where did the carvers get the model for this statue?" Richard asked the two women.

Both gave him a blank look.

With a hooked finger, Nicci pulled back a strand of hair that the humid breeze had lifted across her face. "What do you mean?"

"To carve such a statue, expert carvers typically scale it up from a model. What do you recall about that model?"

"Yes," Cara said as her face brightened in recollection, "it was something you carved."

"That's right," he said to Cara. "You and I searched together for the wood for the small statue. You were the one who found the walnut tree I used. It had been growing on a slope just above a broad valley. The tree had been knocked over by a windblown spruce. You were there when I cut the wood from that fallen, weathered walnut tree. You were there when I curved that small statue. We sat together on the banks of the stream and talked the hours away as I worked on it."

"Yes, I remember you carving while we sat in the countryside." A hint of a smile ghosted across Cara's face. "What of it?"

"We were at the home I built in the mountains. Why were we there?"

Cara looked up at him, puzzled by the question, as if it seemed too obvious to warrant the effort of retelling. "After the people of Anderith voted to side with the Imperial Order, rather than with you and D'Hara, we gave up on trying to lead people against the Order. You said that you couldn't force people to want to be free, but that they must choose it for themselves before you could lead them."

It was difficult for Richard to calmly tell things to a woman who should know them as well as he did, but he knew that reproach wouldn't help to spark her memory. Besides, whatever was going on, he knew it wasn't a willfull deception on the part of Nicci and Cara.

"That was part of it," he said. "But there was a much more important reason why we were there in those trackless mountains."

"A more important reason?"

"Kahlan had been beaten nearly to death. I took her there so that she would be safe while she recovered. You and I spent months caring for her, trying to nurse her back to health.

"But she wasn't getting better. She sank into a deep despondency. She had despaired of ever recovering, of ever being whole again."

He couldn't bring himself to say that part of the reason Kahlan had nearly given up was because when those men had beaten her nearly to death, it had caused her to lose her child.

"And so you carved this statue of her?" Cara asked.

"Not exactly."

I le stared off at the proud figure in white stone rising up against the deep blue sky. He had not intended the little statue he'd carved to look like Kahlan. Through this figure, her robes flowing as she faced into a wind, as she stood with her head thrown back, her chest out, her hands fisted at her silk's, her back arched and strong as if in opposition to an invisible power trying to subdue her, Richard had conveyed not what Kahlan looked like, but rather a sense of her inner nature.