Terry Goodkind - Faith of the Fallen

“Fellow citizens of the Order,” Brother Narev said in a voice that Nicci thought might crack the stone walls, “today you will see what happens to evil, when confronted by the virtue of the Order.”

He hooked a skeletal finger, signaling behind the heads of the officials. Guards muscled Richard forward. Nicci cried out, but her voice was lost in the clamor of tens of thousands of other voices.

Brother Neal swaggered forward, then, lugging with him a sledgehammer.

Nicci checked to the sides and saw that there were several thousand armed guards at hand. More screened the plaza off from the people. Brother Narev had taken no chances. Neal, with a polite smile and a deferential bow, handed the sledgehammer to Brother Narev.

Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer above his head as if it were a sword held high in triumph.

“Evil, wherever it is found, must be destroyed.” He aimed the weaving head of the sledgehammer toward the statue. “This is a thing of evil, created by an extremist who hates his fellow man, to victimize the weak. He contributes nothing to the advancement of his fellow man, nothing to the succor of his fellow man, nothing to the education or support of his fellow man. He offers only lewd and profane images to prey on the susceptible and feebleminded among us.”

The crowd was silent in their bewildered disappointment. From what Nicci could tell as she had walked among them throughout the day, they had come to believe that this statue was some new offering by the Order to the people—some grand thing for them to see at the emperor’s palace, some bright shining hope. They were confused and stunned by what they were hearing.

Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer. “Before this criminal’s corpse is hung from a pole for his crimes against the Order, he is to see his vile work destroyed to the cheers of virtuous people!”

As the sun’s last ray fled below the horizon, Brother Narev lifted the heavy sledgehammer high in the flickering light of smoking torches. The sledgehammer wobbled momentarily at the apex of its arc before descending in a heavy swing. The crowd sent up a collective gasp as the steel head rang out when it struck the male statue’s leg. A few small chips fell away. It had done surprisingly little damage.

In the absolute silence, Richard laughed derisively at Brother Narev’s impotent swing.

Even from the distance, Nicci could see Brother Narev’s face turning crimson as Richard stood watching and chuckling. The crowd murmured, hardly able to believe any man would laugh at a brother of the Order—at Brother Narev himself.

Brother Narev could hardly believe it.

The dozens of guards who had their spears leveled at Richard could hardly believe it.

In the tense silence, Richard’s laugh echoed off the semicircle of stone walls and soaring columns behind them. Death’s grin returned. Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer by the head, its weight awkward in his bony hand, and held the handle out to Richard.

“You will destroy your depraved work yourself.”

The words “or you will die on the spot” were not spoken, but everyone heard them implied.

Richard accepted the handle of the sledgehammer. He could have looked no more noble doing so if he had been taking a jewel-encrusted sword.

Richard’s raptor gaze left Brother Narev and swept out over the crowd as he took several strides toward the steps. Brother Narev lifted a finger, signaling the guards to hold their spears. By the smirk on the faces of Brothers Narev and Neal, they didn’t think the crowd would care to hear anything a sinner had to say.

“You are ruled,” Richard said in a voice that rang out over the multitude, “by mean little men.”

The people gasped as one. To speak against a brother was treason, most likely, and heresy for sure.

“My crime?” Richard asked aloud. “I have given you something beautiful to see, daring to hold the conviction that you have a right to see it if you wish. Worse . . . I have said that your lives are your own to live.”

A rolling murmur swept out through the multitude. Richard’s voice rose in power, demanding in its clarity to be heard above the whispering.

“Evil is not one large entity, but a collection of countless, small depravities brought up from the muck by petty men. Living under the Order, you have traded the enrichment of vision for a gray fog of mediocrity—the fertile inspiration of striving and growth, for mindless stagnation and slow decay—the brave new ground of the attempt, for the timid quagmire of apathy.”

With gazes riveted and lips still, the crowd listened. Richard gestured out over their heads with his sledgehammer, wielded with the effortless grace of a royal sword.

“You have traded freedom not even for a bowl of soup, but worse, for the spoken empty feelings of others who say that you deserve to have a full bowl of soup provided by someone else.

“Happiness, joy, accomplishment, achievement . . . are not finite commodities, to be divided up. Is a child’s laughter to be divided up and allotted? No! Simply make more laughter!”

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.