Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Zedd, having made his way down the steps, laid a reassuring hand on the back of her shoulder. "Of course not, my dear, of course not. At that point it would have done you no good to have pressed the issue. No one would expect you to go beyond what you did; it would have served no purpose. You did your best; you showed her the truth. She made the conscious choice to be blind to it."

Fussing with her fingers, Jebra nodded. "I guess that her insanity never really left her."

"Those who are far from insane often act in an irrational manner. Don't excuse such conscious and deliberate actions with so convenient an explanation as insanity." When she gave him a puzzled look, Zedd opened his hands in a gesture of pained frustration at an old dilemma he had seen all too often. "All sorts of people who strongly want to believe in something are frequently unwilling to see the truth no matter how obvious it is. They make that choice."

"I guess so," Jebra said.

"Seems like, rather than heed the truth, she instead believed a lie that she wanted to believe," Richard said, remembering part of the Wizard's First Rule, the rule he had learned from his grandfather.

"That's right." Zedd swept an arm out in a grim parody of a wizard granting a wish. "She decided what she wished to happen and then assumed that reality would bend to her wishes." His arm dropped. "Reality doesn't indulge wishes."

"So Queen Cyrilla was angry with Jebra for speaking the truth aloud, for bringing it out where it could not be so easily overlooked and ignored," Cara said. "And then punished her for doing so."

Zedd nodded as his fingertips gently rubbed Jebra's shoulder. Her tired eyes had closed under his touch. "People who for whatever reason don't want to see the truth can be acutely hostile to it and shrill in their denunciation of it. They frequently turn their venomous antagonism on whoever dares point out that truth."

"That hardly makes the truth vanish," Richard said.

Zedd shrugged with the straightforward simplicity he saw in it. "To those seeking the truth, it's a matter of simple, rational self-interest to always keep reality in view. Truth is rooted in reality, after all, not the imagination."

Richard rested the heel of his hand on the hickory handle of the knife at his belt. He missed the sword being at hand, but he had traded it for information that eventually led him to the Chainfire book and the truth of what had happened to Kahlan, so it had been worth it. Still, he sorely missed the sword and worried over what Samuel might be using it for.

Thinking of the Sword of Truth, wondering where it was, Richard stared off at nothing in particular. "Seems hard to fathom how people can turn away from seeing what is in their own best interest."

"Doesn't it, though." Zedd's voice had changed from a tone of casual conversation to that thin, reedy tone that told Richard there was something more on his mind. "Therein lies the heart of it."

When Richard looked his way, Zedd's gaze focused intently on him. "Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self."

Shota, arms folded, paused in her pacing to lean toward Zedd. "A wizard's rule, wizard?"

Zedd arched an eyebrow. "The tenth, actually."

Shota turned a meaningful look on Richard. "Wise advice." After holding him in the grip of that iron gaze for an uncomfortably long time, she went back to her pacing.

Richard imagined that she thought he was ignoring the truth — the truth of the invading army of the Imperial Order. He wasn't in the least bit ignoring the truth, he just didn't know what more she expected he could do to stop them. If wishes worked he would already long ago have banished them back to the Old World. If he only knew what to do to stop them, he would do it, but he didn't. It was bad enough to know the horror that approached and feel helpless to stop it, but it infuriated him that Shota seemed to think he was simply being obstinate in not doing something about it — as if the solution was within his grasp.

He glanced up the steps at the statuesque woman watching him. Even in a pink nightdress she looked noble and wise. While Richard had been raised by people who encouraged him to deal with things the way they really were, she had been indoctrinated by people who were driven by the beliefs taught by the Order. It took a remarkable individual, after a lifetime of authoritarian teachings, to be willing to see the truth.

He gazed into her blue eyes for a long moment, wondering if he would have had her courage… the courage to grasp the nature and magnitude of the terrible mistakes she had made, the courage to then embrace the truth and change. Very few people had that kind of courage.