Wizard's First Rule

Richard nodded and rose to his feet, pulling his cloak around himself. "Thank you, my friend. Sorry I've been so hard on you tonight. I don't know what's gotten into me. Maybe the good spirits have deserted me. I'm sorry I can't tell you what Shota said.

"And Zedd, be careful tonight. There's something out there. It's been following us for days. I don't know what it is, I haven't had the time to snap a circle on it. But I don't think it means us harm, at least it hasn't so far, but you never know in the Midlands."

"I will be careful."

Richard started to walk away. Zedd called his name. He stopped and turned.

"Just be glad she cares for you as much as she does. If she didn't, she might have touched you."

Richard stared back at him a long moment. "I'm afraid, in a way, she already has."

–+-

Kahlan picked her way along in the dark among the rocks and trees, and found Zedd sitting on a rock, watching her come, his legs crossed under him.

"I would have come and woke you when it was time," he said.

She went and sat next to him, hugging her cloak around herself. "I know, but I couldn't sleep, so I thought I would come and sit with you."

"Did you bring anything to eat?"

She reached in her cloak, pulling out a small bundle. "Here." She smiled. "Some rabbit and biscuits."

While Zedd rubbed his hands together and started right in, she watched out into the night, thinking how to put the question she had come to ask him. It didn't take him long to finish the snack.

"Wonderful, dear one, wonderful. That's all you brought?"

Kahlan laughed. "I also brought some berries." She pulled out a cloth bundle. "I thought you might like something sweet. Can I share them with you?"

He eyed her up and down. "I guess you're small enough, you couldn't eat that many."

She laughed again and took a small handful from the open bundle in his hands. "I think I know why Richard is so good at finding food. Growing up around you, he had to be good, or he would starve."

"I would never let him starve," he protested. "I care for him too much."

"I know. Me, too."

He chewed a few berries. "I want to thank you for keeping your word."

"My word?"

Zedd peered up at her as he hunched over the bundle, eating berries one at a time. "Your word not to touch him, not to use your power on him."

"Oh." She looked off into the night, gathering her courage. "Zedd, you are the only wizard left, other than Giller. I am the last Confessor. You have lived in the Midlands, you have lived in Aydindril. You are the only one who knows what it is like to be a Confessor. I tried to explain it to Richard, but it takes a lifetime to truly understand, and then, I think none but another Confessor or a wizard can really understand."

Zedd patted her arm. "You may be right."

"I have no one. I can have no one. You can't imagine what that's like. Please, Zedd." Her eyebrows wrinkled together. "Please, can you use your magic to remove this from me? Can you take the Confessor's magic from me, and let me be a normal woman?"

She felt as if she was hanging by a thin strand over a gaping, dark, bottomless pit. She twisted on the end of the strand while she watched his eyes.

His head bent. He didn't look up. "There is only one way to release you from the magic, Mother Confessor."

Her heart leapt into her throat. "How?" she whispered.

His eyes came to hers. They were filled with pain. "I could kill you."

She felt the strand of hope break. She put all her effort to making her face show nothing, a Confessor's face, as she felt herself disappearing down into the blackness. "Thank you, wizard Zorander, for hearing my request. I didn't really think there was, I just thought I would ask. I appreciate your honesty. You better go get some sleep now."

He nodded. "First, you must tell me what Shota said."

She maintained her expression. "Ask the Seeker. It is to him she spoke; I was covered with snakes at the time."

"Snakes." Zedd lifted an eyebrow. "Shots must have liked you. I have seen her do worse."

Kahlan held his eyes. "She did worse to me, too."

"I asked Richard. He won't tell me. You must."

"You would have- me step between two friends? You would ask me to betray his trust? No, thank you."

"Richard is smart, perhaps the smartest Seeker I have ever seen, but he knows very little of the Midlands. He has seen only a tiny portion of it. In some ways it's his best defense and strongest asset. He found where the last box is by going to Shota. No Seeker from the Midlands would have done that. You have spent your whole life here, you know many of the dangers. There are creatures here who could use the magic of the Sword of Truth against him. There are creatures who would suck the magic from him and kill him with it. There are dangers of every kind. We don't.have the time to teach him all he needs to know, so we must protect him, so he can do his job. I must know what Shota said so I can judge if it's important; if we need to protect him."

"Zedd, please, he is my only friend. Don't ask me to betray his trust."

"Dear one, he is not your only friend. I'm your friend too. Help me protect him. I will keep it from him that you told me."

She gave him a meaningful glare. "He has an unca

Zedd gave a knowing smile at that; then his face hardened. "Mother Confessor, this is not a request, this is an order. I expect you to treat it as such."

Kahlan folded her arms, half turning away from him as she bristled. She could hardly believe he was doing this to her. She no longer had a say in the matter. "Shots said Richard was the only one who has a chance to stop Darken Rahl. She doesn't know how, or why, but he is the only one with a chance."

Zedd waited in silence. "Go on."

Kahlan gritted her teeth. "She said you would try to kill him, that you would use wizard's fire against him, and that he has a chance to beat you. There is a chance you will fail."

Silence settled around them again. "Mother Confessor…"

"She said that I too will use my power on him. But he has no chance against it. If I live, I will not fail."

Zedd took a deep breath. "I see why he didn't want to tell me." He thought in silence a moment. "Why didn't Shota kill you?"

Kahlan wished he would stop asking questions. She turned back to him. "She pla

Zedd lifted an eyebrow. "Really…

Kahlan nodded. "In return for `saving' her, she granted him a wish. He used it to save us. He made her spare our lives. Richard wouldn't back down. Shota was not happy. She said that if he ever comes back to Agaden Reach, she will kill him."

"That boy never fails to amaze me. He really picked the information over my life?"

She was a little surprised by his smile. She nodded. "He jumped right in front of the wizard's fire. He-used his sword to turn it away."

Zedd rubbed his chin. "How wondrous: That's precisely what he should have done. I had always feared he wouldn't be able to do what was necessary, if it came right down to it. I guess I need fear no longer. Then what?"

Kahlan looked down at her hands. "I Wanted Shota to kill me, but she wouldn't, because she had granted him the wish. Zedd, I… I couldn't stand the thought of doing that to him. I begged him to kill me. I didn't want to live to carry out the prophecy, to hurt him."

She paused, and for a moment silence hung between them

"He wouldn't do it. So I tried to. For days I tried. He took my knife away, he tied me up at night, he watched me every second. I felt like I had lost my mind. Maybe for a time, I had. At last, he convinced me that we couldn't know what the prophecy meant, or even that it wasn't he who would turn against us, and would have to be killed in order to defeat Darken Rahl. He made me see that I couldn't act on a prophecy we didn't yet understand."

"I'm very sorry, dear one, that I had to make you tell me, and for what you two have been through. But Richard is right. Prophecies are dangerous things to take too seriously."

"But a witch woman's prophecies are always true, aren't they

"Yes." He shrugged as he spoke softly. "But not always in the way.you think. Sometimes, prophecies can even be self fulfilling."

She gave him a puzzled look. "Really?"

"Sure. Just imagine, for the sake of illustration, that I tried to kill you because I wanted to protect Richard, from this prophecy coming true. He sees this, we fight, one of us wins, say it's him. That part of the prophecy is fulfilled, so he fears the other part will be too, and thinks he must kill you. You don't want to be killed, so you touch him to protect yourself. There you have it; prophecy fulfilled.

"The problem is, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Without it, none of these things would have happened. There was no outside influence other than the prophecy. Prophecies are always true, but we seldom know how." He gave her a look as if asking of she understood.

"I always thought prophecies were to be taken seriously."

"They are, but only by those who understand such things; prophecies are dangerous. The wizards guard books of prophecies, as you know. When I was at my Keep, I reread some of the pertinent books. But I don't understand most of them. There used to be wizards who did nothing else but study the books of prophecies. There are prophecies in them I have read that would scare you blind, if you knew them. They sometimes make even me wake at night in a sweat. There are things in them I think might be about Richard, that frighten me, and there are things in them I know are about Richard, but I don't know what they will turn out to mean, and I dare not act on what I have read. We can't always know what the prophecies mean, and so they must be kept secret. Some of these could cause great trouble if people heard them."