Wizard's First Rule (83 page)

“What was not for us to know?” Kahlan asked with a frown, her own anger flashing a little. Apparently, she didn’t like it any more than Richard did that they were in danger without knowing it all.

“Well, you see,” Zedd said, “the three boxes work just as I said, each with their own purpose, but you have to know which to open. That is the part I know. It’s all in a book, called the Book of Counted Shadows. The Book of Counted Shadows is an instruction book for the boxes. I’m its keeper.”

Richard went rigid. The tooth felt as if it would jump right off his chest. He couldn’t move a muscle, could hardly breathe.

“You know which box is which?” Kahlan asked. “You know which he must open?”

“No. I’m the keeper of the book. That information is all in the book. But I’ve never read it. I don’t know which box is which, or even how to figure it out. If I were to open the book, it would risk spreading the knowledge. It must not be opened; that could be very dangerous. So I never did. I am the keeper of many books, this only one among them, but a very important one.”

Richard realized that his eyes were open wide and tried to relax them back to normal with a few blinks. Almost his whole life he had been looking forward to the day he would find the keeper of the book, and it had been Zedd the whole time. The shock left him frozen.

“Where was it?” Kahlan asked. “What happened?”

“It was in my Keep. The Wizard’s Keep. In Aydindril.”

“You went to Aydindril?” Kahlan asked, her voice anxious. “How is Aydindril? Is it safe?”

Zedd averted his eyes. “Aydindril has fallen.”

Kahlan’s hand went to her mouth; tears filled her eyes. “No.”

Zedd nodded. “I’m afraid so.” He picked at his robes. “It is not going well for them. At least I gave the occupiers something to think about,” he added under his breath.

“Captain Riffkin? Lieutenants Delis and Miller? The Home Guard?”

Zedd kept his eyes to the ground and shook his head as she named each in turn. Kahlan put her hands to her breast as she took deep breaths and bit her lip. Whoever these men were, she looked to be pretty upset by the news.

Richard thought he should cover his own shock by saying something. “What’s this Wizard’s Keep?”

“It’s a refuge, a place where the wizards preserve important things of magic, such as the books of prophecies, and books of even more importance—books of magic and instruction, such as the Book of Counted Shadows. Some of the books are used to teach new wizards, some are used as reference, and some are used as weapons. Other items of magic are kept there also, such as the Sword of Truth, between Seekers. The Keep is sealed by magic; none can enter but a wizard. At least none but a wizard was supposed to be able to enter. But someone did. How they did without being killed is beyond me. It must have been Darken Rahl. He must have the book.”

“Maybe it wasn’t Darken Rahl,” Richard managed, his back straight as a board.

Zedd’s eyes narrowed. “If it wasn’t Darken Rahl, then it was a thief. A very clever thief, but a thief nonetheless.”

Richard swallowed back the dryness in his mouth. “Zedd… I… Do you think this book, the Book of Counted Shadows, would be able to tell us how to stop Rahl? How to keep him from using the boxes?”

Zedd shrugged his bony shoulders. “As I said, I’ve never opened the cover. But from what I know from other books of instruction, it would only be of aid to the person with the boxes; it’s designed to help use magic, not to help another in stopping its use. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t have helped us. My plan was to simply get the book, and destroy it, to keep Rahl from getting the information. Having the book lost to us leaves us with no alternative; we must find the last box.”

“But without the book, can Rahl still open the boxes?” Kahlan asked.

“With as much as he knows, I am sure he can. But he still wouldn’t know which one.”

“Then, with or without the book, he’s going to open a box,” Richard said. “He has to. If he doesn’t, he dies. He has nothing to lose. Even if you had recovered the book, he would still open a box—after all, there is a chance he will pick right.”

“Well, if he has the book, then he will know which to open. I was hoping that if we couldn’t find the last box, at least I could destroy the book, and keep it from Rahl, give us at least that one chance. The chance he might pick right—for us.” Zedd’s face soured. “I would give anything to destroy that book.”

Kahlan put her hand on Richard’s arm; he almost jumped. “Then Richard has
done as the Seeker should; he has found where the box is. Queen Milena has it.” She gave Richard a smile of reassurance. “The Seeker has done his job well.” His mind was spinning too fast to return the smile properly.

Zedd drew a finger and thumb down opposite sides of his chin. “And how do you propose we get it from her? Knowing is one thing, getting is quite another.”

Kahlan gave Zedd a smooth smile. “Queen Milena is the one to whom the snake in the silver robes sold his services. He is about to have an unpleasant meeting with the Mother Confessor.”

“Giller? Queen Milena is the one Giller went to?” The wrinkles on Zedd’s face deepened with his scowl. “I think he will be astonished to meet my eyes again.”

She frowned. “You just leave this task to me. He is my wizard. I will deal with him.”

Richard’s eyes went back and forth between the two of them. He felt suddenly out of place. The great wizard and the Mother Confessor discussing how they would deal with an upstart wizard, as if they were talking of pulling weeds in a garden. He thought of his father, of how his father had told him he had taken the book to prevent it from falling into covetous hands. Darken Rahl’s hands. He spoke without thinking.

“Maybe he had a good reason for doing what he did.”

They both turned and looked at him, as if they had forgotten he was there.

“A good reason?” Kahlan snapped. “Greed was his good reason. He deserted me, and left me to the quads.”

“Sometimes people do things for reasons that aren’t what they seem.” Richard gave her an even look. “Maybe he thought the box was more important.”

Kahlan looked too surprised to speak.

Zedd frowned, his white hair looking wild in the firelight. “Perhaps you are right. It could be that Giller knew about the Queen having the box, and wanted to protect it. He certainly knew what the boxes were about.” He gave Richard an ironic smile. “Maybe the Seeker has given us a new perspective. Maybe we have an ally in Tamarang.”

“And maybe not,” Kahlan said.

“We will know soon enough,” the wizard sighed.

“Zedd,” Richard asked, “yesterday, we went to a place called Horners Mill.”

Zedd nodded. “I saw it. And I have seen many more just like it.”

Richard leaned forward. “It wasn’t Westlanders, was it? It couldn’t have been Westlanders. I told Michael to get the army together and protect Westland. I didn’t tell him to attack anyone. Certainly not helpless people. It couldn’t have been Westlanders; they wouldn’t do that.”

“No, it wasn’t anyone from Westland. I haven’t seen or heard from Michael.”

“Then who?”

“It was Rahl’s own men who did it, by his command.”

“That does not make any sense,” Kahlan said. “The town was loyal to D’Hara. There were forces of the People’s Peace Army there, and they were killed to a man.”

“That’s the very reason he did it.”

They both gave him puzzled looks. “That doesn’t make any sense,” Kahlan said.

“Wizard’s First Rule.”

Richard frowned. “What?”

“Wizard’s First Rule: people are stupid.” Richard and Kahlan frowned even more. “People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

“Because of the Wizard’s First Rule, the old wizards created Confessors, and Seekers, as a means of helping find the truth, when the truth is important enough. Rahl knows the Wizard’s Rules. He is using the first one. People need an enemy to feel a sense of purpose. It’s easy to lead people when they have a sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is more important by far than the truth. In fact, truth has no bearing in this. Darken Rahl is providing them with an enemy, other than himself, a sense of purpose. People are stupid; they want to believe, so they do.”

“But they were his own people,” Kahlan protested. “He was killing his supporters.”

“You will notice not all the people were killed; some were raped, tortured, but left alive to flee, to spread the news. You will also note how none of the soldiers were left alive to dispute the story. That it isn’t the truth doesn’t matter, and the ones hearing the story will believe it because it provides them with a sense of purpose, an enemy to rally against. The survivors will spread the word like a wildfire. Even though Rahl has destroyed a few towns that were loyal to him, and a few of his soldiers, he has gained many more towns to his side, a hundredfold over. Even more people will rally around him and support him because he has told them he wants to protect them from this enemy. Truth is hard to sell; it gives no sense of purpose. It is simply truth.”

Richard sat back, a little stunned. “But it isn’t true. How can Rahl get away with it? How could everyone believe it?”

Zedd gave him a stern look. “You knew better, you knew it wasn’t Westlanders, yet even you doubted your knowledge. You were afraid it was true. Being afraid something is true is accepting the possibility. Accepting the possibility is the first step to believing. At least you are smart enough to question. Think of how easy it is to believe, for people who don’t question, who don’t even know how to question. For most people, it’s not the truth that is important, it’s the cause. Rahl is intelligent; he has given them a cause.” His eyes glinted with purpose. “It is the Wizard’s First Rule because it is the most important. Remember it.”

“But the ones who did the killing, they knew. It was murder. How could they do it?”

Zedd shrugged. “Sense of purpose. They did it for the cause.”

“But that goes against nature. Murder goes against nature.”

The wizard smiled. “Murder is the way of nature, of all living things.”

Richard knew Zedd was sucking him in—it was his way to draw you in with an outrageous statement—but his blood was up and he couldn’t help protesting. “Only some of nature. Like predators. And that’s only to survive. Look about at these trees, they can’t even think of murder.”

“Murder is the way of all things, the way of nature,” Zedd repeated. “Every living thing is a murderer.”

Richard looked to Kahlan for support. “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I learned a long time ago not to debate with wizards.”

Richard looked up, at the beautiful big pine spreading over them, illuminated in the firelight. A spark of understanding lit in his mind. He saw the branches, stretched out with murderous intent, in a years-long struggle to reach the sunlight and dispatch its neighbors with its shade. Success would give space for its offspring, many of which would also shrivel in the shade of the parent. Several close neighbors of the big pine were withered and weak, victims all. It was true: the design of nature was success by murder.

Zedd watched Richard’s eyes. This was a lesson, the way the old man had taught Richard since he was young. “You have learned something, my boy?”

Richard nodded. “Life for the strongest. There is no sympathy for the slain, only admiration for the winner’s strength.”

“But people don’t think that way,” Kahlan said, unable to hold her tongue.

Zedd gave a sly smile. “No?” He pointed to a small, withered tree near them. “Look at this tree, dear one.” He pointed to the big pine. “And this. Tell me which you admire more.”

“This one,” she said, pointing at the big pine. “It’s a beautiful tree.”

“This one. You see? People do think this way. It’s beautiful, you said. You chose the tree that murders, not the one murdered.” Zedd smiled triumphantly. “The way of nature.”

Kahlan folded her arms. “I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“You may keep your mouth closed if you wish, but don’t close your mind. To defeat Darken Rahl, we must understand him to know how to destroy him.”

“This is how he’s winning so much territory,” Richard said, tapping his finger on the hilt of his sword. “He’s letting others do it for him, giving them a cause; then all he has to worry about is going after the boxes. There is no one to interfere.”

Zedd nodded. “He uses the Wizard’s First Rule to do most of the work for him. This is what makes our job so hard. He gets people on his side because people don’t care about the truth; they do his bidding because they believe what they want to, and fight to the death for these beliefs, despite how false they are.”

Richard slowly stood, looking off into the night. “All this time, I thought we were fighting evil. Evil on the loose, run amok. But that’s not it at all. What we’re up against is more like a plague. A plague of fools.”

“You have gotten it right, my boy. A plague of fools.”

“Directed by Darken Rahl,” Kahlan noted.

Zedd peered at her a moment. “If someone digs a hole, and it fills with rainwater, where is the fault? Is it the rain’s fault? Or is it the fault of the person who digs the hole? Is it Darken Rahl’s fault, or the fault of those who dig the hole, and let him rain in?”

“Maybe both,” Kahlan said. “That leaves us with a lot of enemies.”

Zedd lifted a finger. “And very dangerous ones. Fools who won’t see the truth are deadly. As a Confessor, perhaps you have already learned this lesson, yes?” She nodded. “They don’t always do what you think they will, or should, and you can be caught off guard. People you don’t think should be trouble can kill you quick.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” Kahlan said. “If Rahl gets all the boxes, and opens the right one, he is the one who will kill us all. He is still the head to the snake; it is still this head we must remove.”