“I see.” Zedd laid the cheese on a rock.
“I know she likes me, but I get the feeling she’s keeping me at arm’s length. When we were setting up camp tonight, I told her that if it had been her, like Chase today, I would have come after her. A while ago she came out here to see me. She said she didn’t want me coming after her, but she meant more than that. She meant she didn’t want me coming after her, period.”
“Good girl,” Zedd said under his breath.
“What?”
“I said she’s a good girl. We all like her. But Richard, she is other things, too. She has responsibilities.”
Richard frowned at the old man. “And what are those other things?”
Zedd leaned back a little. “It’s not for me to say. She is the one to answer that.
I would have thought she would have done so by now.” The old man put his arm around Richard’s big shoulders. “If it makes you feel any better, the only reason she hasn’t is because she cares for you more than she should. She is afraid of losing your friendship.”
“You know about her secrets, and Chase knows; I can see it in his eyes. Everyone knows but me. She tried to tell me tonight, but she couldn’t. She shouldn’t worry about losing my friendship. That won’t happen.”
“Richard, she is a wonderful person, but she is not the one for you. She can’t be that.”
“Why?”
Zedd plucked something off his sleeve as he spoke, avoiding Richard’s eyes. “I gave my word I would allow her to be the one to tell you. You will just have to trust me; she cannot be what you want. Find another girl. The land is awash with them. Why, half of all the people are girls; there are plenty to pick from. Pick another.”
Richard drew his knees up, folding his arms across them, looking away. “All right.”
Zedd looked up in surprise, then smiled and patted his young friend’s back.
“All right on one condition,” Richard added as he scanned the boundary woods. “You answer one question, honestly, toasted toads honest. If you can answer yes, then I will do as you ask.”
“One? Only one question?” Zedd asked cautiously, putting a bony finger to his thin bottom lip.
“One question.”
Zedd thought about it a minute. “Very well. One question.”
Richard turned his fierce eyes to the old man. “Before you married your wife, if someone—tell you what, let’s make it even easier for you to say yes—if someone you trusted, a friend, someone you loved like a father, if that person had come to you, and said pick another, would you have done so?”
Zedd looked away from Richard’s eyes and took a deep breath. “Bags. You would think by now I would have learned not to let a Seeker ask me a question.” He picked up the cheese and took a bite.
“I thought as much.”
Zedd threw the cheese away into the darkness. “That doesn’t change the facts, Richard! It will not work between you two. I’m not saying this to hurt you. I love you like a son. If I could change the way the world works, I would. I wish it were not so, for your sake, but there is no way for it to work. Kahlan knows it, and if you try, you will only hurt her. I know you don’t want that.”
Richard’s voice was calm, quiet. “You said it yourself. I am the Seeker. There is a way, and I will find it.”
Zedd shook his head sadly. “I wish it were so, my boy, but it is not.”
“Then what am I to do?” Richard asked in a broken whisper.
His old friend put his skinny arms around him and hugged him close in the darkness. Richard felt numb.
“Just be her friend, Richard. That’s what she needs. But you can be nothing more.”
Richard nodded in Zedd’s arms.
After a few minutes the Seeker, a suspicious look in his eye, pushed away, holding the wizard at arm’s length.
“What is it you came out here for?”
“To sit with a friend.”
Richard shook his head. “You came out here as wizard, away from the others, to counsel the Seeker. Now, tell me why you’re here.”
“Very well. I came here in my capacity as wizard, to tell the Seeker he almost made a serious mistake today.”
Richard took his hands from Zedd’s shoulders, but continued to hold his gaze. “I know that. A Seeker cannot put himself at risk when by so doing he puts everyone else at risk.”
“But you were going to do it anyway,” Zedd pressed.
“When you named me Seeker, you took the bad with the good. I’m new at the responsibilities of the position. It’s hard for me to see a friend in trouble and not help. I know I can’t afford that luxury anymore. Consider me reprimanded.”
Zedd smiled. “Well, that part went well.” He sat a minute, his smile faded. “But Richard, the issue is bigger than just what happened today. You must understand that, as Seeker, you may cause the death of innocent people. In order to succeed in stopping Rahl you may have to turn away from those who might be saved with your help. A soldier knows that on the battlefield, if he bends to help a downed comrade, he might take a sword in the back, and so, if he is to win, he must fight on despite the cries for help from his fellows. You must be able to do this to win; it may be the only way. You must steel yourself to it. This is a struggle for survival, and in this battle the ones crying for help probably won’t be soldiers, but innocents. Darken Rahl will kill anyone to win. Those who fight on his side will do the same. You may have to do the same. Like it or not, the aggressor makes the rules. You must play by them, or you will surely die by them.”
“How could anyone fight on his side? Darken Rahl wants to dominate everyone, to be the master of all. How could they fight for him?”
The wizard leaned back against the rock and looked out over the hills, as if seeing more than was there. His tone was sorrowful. “Because, Richard, many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves.
“Some of them think that when Rahl wins, he will smile on them, and they will be rewarded, and so they are as ruthless as he to gain his favor. Some are simply blind to the truth and fight for the lies they hear. And some find, once that guiding light is lit, that they are wearing chains, and then it is too late.” Zedd smoothed his sleeves down his arms as he sighed. “There have always been wars, Richard. Every war is a murderous struggle between foes. And yet, no army has ever marched into battle thinking that the Creator had sided with their enemy.”
Richard shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I am quite sure that Rahl’s followers think we are bloodthirsty monsters,
capable of anything. They will have been told endless tales of their enemy’s ruthless brutality. I’m sure none of them know much about Darken Rahl except what they have been told by Darken Rahl.” The wizard frowned, his intelligent eyes sharp. “It may be a perversion of logic, but that makes it no less threatening, or deadly. Rahl’s followers need only to crush us, they don’t have to understand anything else. But for you to win, against a stronger foe, you must use your head.”
Richard ran his fingers through his hair. “That leaves me stuck in an awfully tight crack. I may have to let innocent people die, yet I can’t kill Darken Rahl.”
Zedd gave him a meaningful look. “No. I never said you couldn’t kill Darken Rahl; I said you couldn’t use the sword to kill him.”
Richard looked intently over at his old friend, the moonlight dim on the other’s angular face. Sparks of thought lit in the darkness of his mood.
“Zedd,” he asked quietly, “have you had to do that? Have you had to let innocent people die?”
Zedd’s face turned hard, and pensive. “In the last war, and again now, as we speak. Kahlan told me Rahl kills people to get my name. No one can give it, but he continues to kill in the hope someone will finally offer it. I could turn myself over to him to stop the killing, but then I wouldn’t be able to help defeat him, and many more would die. It’s a painful choice, let a few die horribly, or let even more die horribly.”
“I’m sorry, my friend.” Richard wrapped his cloak tighter about himself, chilled from without and from within. He looked back out over the still landscape, then back at Zedd. “I met the night wisp, Shar, before she died. She gave her life to get Kahlan here, so others might live. Kahlan also bears the burden of letting others die.”
“She does,” Zedd said softly. “It makes my heart ache to know the things that girl’s eyes have seen. And the things your eyes may have to see.”
“Makes my problem about the two of us seem pretty small.”
Zedd’s expression was gentle with compassion. “But not hurt any less.”
Richard made another scan of the countryside. “Zedd, one more thing. Before we reached your house, I offered Kahlan an apple.”
Zedd gave a surprised laugh. “You offered a red fruit to someone from the Midlands? That’s tantamount to a death threat, my boy. In the Midlands, red fruit of any kind is deadly poison.”
“Yes, I know that now, but I didn’t at the time.”
Zedd leaned over, lifting an eyebrow. “What did she say?”
Richard looked at him sideways. “It isn’t what she said, it’s what she did. She grabbed me by the throat. For a moment, I could see in her eyes that she was going to kill me. I don’t know how she was going to kill me, but I’m sure she was going to do it. She hesitated long enough for me to explain. The point is, she was my friend, and she had saved my life several times, but in that instant she was going to kill me.” Richard paused. “That’s part of what you are saying, isn’t it?”
Zedd let out a long breath and nodded. “It is. Richard, if you suspected I was a traitor, weren’t sure, just suspected, and you knew that if it were true, our cause would be lost, would you be able to kill me? If you had no time or way to find the truth, only the strong belief I was a traitor, and only you knew, could you kill me
on the spot? Could you come at me, your old friend, with lethal intent? With enough violence to see the job done?”
Zedd’s stare burned into him. Richard was stunned. “I… I don’t know.”
“Well you had better know that you could, or you have no business going after Rahl. You won’t have the resolve to live, to win. You may be called upon to make a life-and-death decision instantly. Kahlan knows this, she knows the consequences if she fails. She has the resolve.”
“She hesitated, though. From what you’re saying, she made a mistake. I could have overpowered her. She should have killed me before I had a chance to.” Richard frowned. “And she would have been wrong.”
Zedd shock his head slowly. “Don’t flatter yourself, Richard. She had her hand on you. Anything you would have done wouldn’t have been quick enough. All it would have taken is a thought on her part. She was in control and could afford to give you the chance to explain. She made no mistake.”
A little shaken, Richard still wasn’t ready to concede the issue. “But you wouldn’t, you couldn’t be a traitor to us, just as I would never hurt her. I don’t see the point.”
“The point is, even though I wouldn’t, if I did, you have to be prepared to act. You have to have the strength to do even that, if necessary. The point is that even though Kahlan knew you were her friend, and wouldn’t hurt her, when she thought you were trying to, she was prepared to act. If you hadn’t quickly made her believe you, she would have.”
Richard sat in silence for a moment, watching his friend. “Zedd, if it were the other way around, if you thought I was a danger to our cause, well, you know, could you…?”
The wizard leaned back, frowning, and without a hint of emotion in his voice, said, “In a twinkling.”
The answer appalled Richard, but he understood what his friend was telling him, even if the scenario seemed far-fetched; anything less than total commitment could spell their failure. If they faltered, Rahl would not be merciful. They would die. It was that simple.
“Still want to be Seeker?” Zedd asked.
Richard stared out at nothing. “Yes.”
“Scared?”
“To the bone.”
Zedd patted his knee. “Good. Me too. I would worry only if you were not.”
The Seeker gave the wizard an icy glare. “I intend to make Darken Rahl afraid too.”
Zedd smiled and nodded. “You are going to make a good Seeker, my boy. Have faith.”
Richard gave a mental shudder at the thought of Kahlan killing him just for offering her an apple. He frowned. “Zedd? Why are all red fruits in the Midlands deadly poison? It isn’t natural.”
The wizard gave a sorrowful shake of his head. “Because, Richard, children like red fruit.”
Richard’s frown deepened. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Zedd looked down, pushing a bony finger at the dirt for a moment. “It was about this time of year, in the last war. The harvests were in. I had found a constructed magic. That’s a magic made by wizards of long ago. Something like the boxes of Orden. It was a poison magic, specific to color, and only able to cast one spell, one time. I wasn’t sure how it was used, but I knew it was dangerous.” Zedd took a deep breath and put his hands in his lap. “Anyway, Panis Rahl got his hands on it, and figured out how to make it work. He knew children loved fruit, and wanted to strike a blow at our hearts. He used the magic to poison all red fruit. It’s a little like the poison of the snake vine. Slow at first. It took time for us to realize what caused the fever, and death. Panis Rahl deliberately chose something he could be sure children, not just the adults, would eat.” His voice was barely audible as he looked out into the darkness. “A lot of people died. A lot of children.”
Richard’s eyes were wide. “If you found it, how did he get hold of it?”
Zedd looked into Richard’s eyes with an expression that could have frozen a summer day. “I had a student, a young man I was training. One day I chanced upon him tinkering with something he shouldn’t have been. I had an odd doubt about him. I knew something was wrong, but I was very fond of him and so I didn’t act upon my suspicion. Instead, I decided to think on it for the night. The next morning, he was gone, and so was the constructed magic I had found. He had been a spy for Panis Rahl. If I had acted when I should have, and killed him, all those people, all those children, wouldn’t have died.”