Wizard's First Rule

Zedd came forward against the table in a blink. He had expected that this would be the next question. "Open the wrong box, and the magic claims him. He's dead." Zedd snapped his fingers. "Just like that. We are all safe; the threat is removed." He leaned closer, his brow furrowed, and gave Richard a hard look. "Open the other wrong box, and every bug, every blade of grass, every tree, every man, woman, and child, every living thing, is incinerated into nothingness. It would be the end of all life. The magic of Orden is twin to the magic of life itself, and death is part of everything that lives, so the magic of Orden is tied to death, as well as life."

Zedd sat back, seeming to be overwhelmed by the telling of the choices of catastrophe. Though Richard already knew it all, he still swallowed hard at hearing it out loud. Somehow it seemed more real to him like this, more real when there was a name put to it. When he had learned the book, it was all so abstract, so hypothetical, that he had never given any thought to the possibility that it would come to pass. His only concern had been that the knowledge be preserved so as to be returned to its keeper. He wished he could tell Zedd what he knew, but his oath to his father prevented him from saying anything. It also required him to keep up the pretense by asking another question to which he already knew the answer.

"How will Rahl know which box to open?"

Zedd rearranged the sleeves of his robes and looked down at the table, watching his hands as he spoke. "Putting the boxes in play imparts to the person certain privileged information. It must be that this information tells him how he can discover which box is which."

That made sense. No one knew of the book but its keeper, and, it appeared, the person who put the boxes in play. The book made no reference to this, but it seemed logical. A sudden jolt went through him: Darken Rahl must be after him for the book. He almost didn't hear Zedd beginning to speak again.

"Rahl has done something out of the ordinary, though. He has put the boxes in play before he has all three."

Richard came to attention immediately. "He must be stupid, or very confident."

"Confident," the wizard said. "When I left the Midlands, it was for two main reasons. The first was because the High Council took the naming of the Seeker upon itself. The second was because they mishandled the boxes of Orden. People had come to believe that the power of the boxes was just a legend. They thought me an old fool for telling them it was no legend but the truth. They refused to heed my warnings."

He pounded his fist down on the table, causing Kahlan to jump. "They laughed at me!" His face was red with-anger, making it stand out all the more against the mass of his white hair. "I wanted the boxes kept far apart from each other, and with magic, hidden and locked away so as to never be found again. The council, instead, wanted them given to important people, like trophies to be shown off. They used them as payments for favors or promises. This exposed the boxes to covetous hands. I don't know what happened to them in the intervening years. Rahl has at least one, but not all three. Not yet anyway." Zedd's eyes flashed with fervor. "Do you see, Richard? We don't have to go up against Darken Rahl, we have only to find at least one of the boxes before he does."

"And keep it from him, which may prove considerably harder than finding it," Richard pointed out, letting the words hang in the air a moment. He had a sudden thought. "Zedd, do you think one of the boxes could be here in Westland?"

"Not likely."

"Why not?"

Zedd hesitated. "Richard, I never told you I was a wizard, but you never asked before, so I didn't really lie about it. I did tell you one lie, though. I told you I came here before the boundary went up, in reality I didn't come here before it went up, because I couldn't. You see, in order to create a Westland free of magic, there could be none here when the boundary went up. Magic could come here after the boundary was established, but not be here before. Since I have magic, my presence would have prevented it from happening, so I had to stay in the Midlands until after, and only then was I able to come through."

"Everyone has their little secrets. I don't begrudge you yours. But what's your point?"

"My point is, we know none of the boxes could have been here before the boundary went up, or their magic would have prevented it. So if they were all in the Midlands before the boundary, because of the magic, and I didn't bring one with me, they have to still be in the Midlands."

Richard thought about this awhile, feeling his spark of hope die. He turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

"You still have not told me what a Seeker is. Or my part in this."