He dipped his head forward in a hesitant bow, apparently not sure if it was proper to bow or not. "It's an honor to see you again."
He was perhaps a couple of years younger than Richard, with curly black hair that brushed the broad shoulders of his buckskin tunic. He wore a long knife at his belt but no sword. His ears stuck out to the sides of his head as if he were straining to listen to every little sound. Richard imagined that as a boy he'd probably endured a lot of taunts about his ears, but now that he was a man his ears made him look rather intent and serious. As muscular as the man was, Richard doubted that he still had to contend with taunts.
"I'm.. I'm sorry, but I can't quite seem to recall…"
"Oh, no, you wouldn't remember me, Lord Rahl. I was only-"
"Sabar," Richard said as it came to him. "Sabar. You loaded the furnaces in Priska's foundry, back in Altur'Rang."
Sabar beamed. "That's right. I can't believe you remember me."
Sabar had been one of the men at the foundry able to have work because of the supplies Richard hauled to Priska when no one else could. Sabar had understood how hard Priska worked just to keep his foundry alive under the oppressive, endless, and contradictory mandates of the Order. Sabar had been there the day the statue Richard carved had been unveiled; he had seen it before it was destroyed. He had been there at the beginning of the revolution in Altur'Rang, fighting close alongside Victor, Priska, and all the others who had seized the moment when it was upon them. Sabar had fought to help gain freedom for himself, his friends, and for his city.
That had been a day everything had changed.
Even though this man, like many others, had been a subject of the Imperial Order-one of the enemy-he wanted to live his own life under just laws, rather than under the dictates of despots who extinguished any hope of bettering oneself under the crushing burden of the cruel illusion of a greater good.
Richard noticed, then, that everyone was standing in tense anticipation, as if they had expected this to be trouble.
Richard smiled at Cara. "It's all right. I know him."
"So he told me," Cara said. She put a hand on Sabar's shoulder and pushed him down. "Have a seat."
"Yes," Richard said, glad to see that Cara had been fairly amiable about it. "Sit down and tell us why you're here."
"Nicci sent me."
Richard rose again in a rush, Kahlan coming up right beside him.
"Nicci? We're on our way to meet her."
Sabar nodded, rising into a half crouch, seeming not to be sure if he was supposed to stand, since Richard and Kahlan had, or stay seated Cara hadn't sat down; she stood behind Sabar like an executioner. Cara had been there when the revolution in Altur'Rang had started and might remember Sabar, but that would make no difference. Cara trusted no one where the safety of Richard and Kahlan was concerned.
Richard gestured for Sabar to remain seated. "Where is she," Richard asked as he and Kahlan sat down again, sharing a seat on a bedroll. "Is she coming soon?"
"Nicci said to tell you that she waited as long as she could, but there have been some urgent developments and she could wait no longer."
Richard let out a disappointed sigh. "Some things came up for us, too."
Kahlan had been captured and taken to the Pillars of Creation as bait to lure Richard into a trap. Rather than go into all that, he kept the story short and to the point. "We were trying to get to Nicci, but needed to go elsewhere. It was unavoidable."
Sabar nodded. "I was worried when she returned to us and said that you had not shown up at your meeting place, but she told us that she was sure you were busy taking care of something important and that was the reason you had not come.
"Victor Cascella, the blacksmith, was very worried, too, when Nicci told us this. He was thinking you would be returning with Nicci. He said that other places he knows, places he and Priska have dealings with for supplies and such, are on the verge of revolt. These people have heard about Altur'Rang, how the Order has been overthrown there, and how people are beginning to prosper. He said that he knows free men in these places who struggle to survive under the oppression of the Order as we once did, and they hunger to be free. They want Victor's help.
"Some of the Brothers in the Fellowship of Order who escaped from Altur'Rang have gone to these other places to insure that such revolt does not spread there. Their cruelty in punishing any they suspect of insurrection is costing the lives of many people, both the innocent and those valuable to the cause of overthrowing the Imperial Order.
