Zedd pushed his sleeves up his arms a little. “There is a magic,” he began, “an ancient and dangerous magic of immense power. It’s a magic spawned from the earth, from life itself. It is held in three vessels called the three boxes of Orden. The magic is dormant until the boxes are put into play, as it is called. To do so is not easy. It requires a person who has knowledge gained from long scholarship and who can call upon considerable power on his own. Once a person has at least one of the boxes, the magic of Orden can be put in play. He then has one year from that time to open a box, but he must have all three before any will open. They work together—you can’t simply have one and open it. If the person who puts them in play fails to acquire all three, and to open one within the allotted time, he forfeits his life to the magic. There is no going back. Darken Rahl must open one of the boxes, or die. On the first day of winter, his year is up.”

Zedd’s face was tight with hard wrinkles and determination. He leaned forward a little. “Each box holds a different power, which is released upon its opening. If Rahl opens the correct one, he gains the magic of Orden, the magic of life itself, power over all things living and dead. He will have unchallenged power and authority. He will be a master with immutable dominion over all people. Anyone he doesn’t like, he will be able to kill with a thought, in any manner of his choosing, wherever that person is, no matter how far away.”

“Sounds like a terribly evil magic,” Richard said.

Zedd leaned back, taking his hands from the table. He shook his head. “No, not really. The magic of Orden is the power of life. Like all power, it simply exists. It’s the user who determines what use it will be put to. The magic of Orden can just as easily be used to help crops grow, to heal the sick, to end conflict. It’s all in what the user wants. The power is neither evil nor good—it simply exists. It is up to the mind of man to put it to use. I think we all know which use Darken Rahl would choose.”

Zedd paused, as was his way, to let Richard ponder the meaning of what he had been told. His thin face fixed in resolve as he waited. Kahlan, too, had a look that told him she was determined to have him fully understand the ominous nature of what Zedd was saying.

Richard, of course, didn’t need to ponder it, since he knew it all from the Book of Counted Shadows. The book was explicit. From the book, he knew Zedd was barely touching on the full extent of the cataclysm that would sweep the land if Darken Rahl opened the correct box. He knew, also, what would happen if one of the other boxes was opened, but he couldn’t reveal his foreknowledge, and so had to ask anyway. “And if he opens one of the others?”

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.”

Zedd folded his hands together. “A Seeker is a person who answers to no one but himself—he is a law unto himself. The Sword of Truth is his to wield as he wishes, and within the limits of his own strength, he can hold anyone to answer for anything.” Zedd held up his hand to forestall Richard’s objections and questions. “I realize this is vague. The problem with explaining it is that it is like all power. As I told you before, it’s how the person uses power that makes it what it is. This is the core of why it is so important to find the right person, a person who will use the power wisely. You see, Richard, a Seeker does exactly as the name implies—he seeks. He seeks the answers to things. Things of his own choosing. If he is the right person, he will seek the answers that will help others, not just himself. The whole purpose of a Seeker is to be free to quest on his own, to go where he wants, ask what he wants, learn what he wants, find answers to what he wants to know, and if need be, do whatever it is the answers demand.”