Wizard's First Rule

"It's of limited use; he can at most get a yes or no to a single question, and sometimes, a name. Nonetheless, he continues to favor its use. I'm sorry, Richard. Please forgive me for telling you this."

Memories of his father's kindness, his laughter, his love, his friendship, their time together with the secret book, and a thousand other brief glimpses tore through him in a flood of anguish. The scenes and sounds converged into dim shadows and hollow echoes in Richard's mind and melted away. In its pace, memories of the bloodstains on the floor, the white faces of the people there, images of his father's pain and terror, and the things Chase had told him flashed vividly in snatches through his mind. He didn't try to stop them, but instead pulled them onward, hungering for them. He washed himself in the detail of it all, felt the twisting torment. Pain flared up from a pit deep inside him. Invoked heedlessly, it came screaming forth. In his mind he added the shadowed figure of Darken Rahl, hands dripping crimson blood, standing over his father's body, holding the red, glinting blade. He held the vision before him, twisting it, inspecting it, drinking it into his soul. The picture was complete now. He had his answers. He knew how it had been. How his father had died. Until now that was all he had ever sought-answers. In his whole life, he had never gone beyond that simple quest.

In one white-hot instant that changed.

The door that held back his anger, and the wall of reason containing his temper, burned away in a flash of hot desire. A lifetime of rational thinking evaporated before his searing fury. Lucidity became dross in a cauldron of molten need.

Richard reached out to the Sword of Truth, curled his fingers around the scabbard, gripping it tighter and tighter until his knuckles were white. The muscles in his jaw flexed. His breathing came fast and sharp. He saw nothing else of what was around him. The heat of anger surged forth from the sword, not of its own volition, but summoned by the Seeker.

Richard's chest heaved with the burning hurt of his grief at knowing now what had happened to his father, and with that knowledge there was closure, too. Thoughts he had never permitted himself to have became his only desire. Caution and consequence vanished before a flood of lust for vengeance.

In that instant, his only want, his only desire, his only need, was to kill Darken Rahl. Nothing else had any significance.

With his other hand he reached out and seized the hilt of his sword to pull it free. Zedd's hand clamped down over his. The Seeker's eyes snapped up, livid at the interference.

"Richard." Zedd's voice was gentle. "Calm down."

The Seeker, his muscles flexing powerfully, glowered into the other's tranquil eyes. Some part of him, deep in the back of his mind, kept warning him, trying to regain control. He ignored the warming. He bent over the table to the wizard, his teeth gritted.

"I accept the position of Seeker."

"Richard," — Zedd repeated calmly, "it's all right. Relax. Sit down."

The world came rushing back into his mind. He pulled his readiness to kill back a notch, but not his rage. Not only the door, but also the wall that had contained his anger, was gone. Even though the world about him had returned, it was a world seen through different eyes-eyes he had always had, but had been afraid to use: the eyes of a Seeker.

Richard realized that he was standing. He didn't remember getting up. He sat again next to Kahlan, removing his, hands from the sword. Something inside him regained control of his anger. It wasn't the same as before, though. It didn't shut it away, didn't lock it behind a door, but pulled it back, unafraid, to make it ready when needed again.

Some of his old self seeped back into his mind, calming him, slowing his breathing, reasoning within him. He felt liberated, unafraid, unashamed of his temper for the first time. He allowed himself to sit there while he uncoiled, feeling his muscles relax.

He looked up into Zedd's calm, undisturbed face. The old man, his thatch of white hair framing an angular face set in a perceptive cast, studied him, assessed him with the slightest hint of a smile fixed at the corners of his thin mouth.

"Congratulations," the wizard said. "You have passed my final test to become Seeker." Richard pulled back in confusion. "What do you mean? You already appointed me Seeker."