Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [280]
“He does the same thing with people. He’s relentless in the search for an answer. He has been heading for the box like an arrow. He has never been to the Midlands before, yet he found a way through the boundary, and has found the answers he needed to keep going, to seek out the target. That is the way of a true Seeker. The problem is, if I give him too much information, he starts doing what he thinks I want him to do, instead of what he feels. I have to point him in the right direction, toward the target, and then let him go. Let him find it himself.”
“That’s pretty cynical. He is a human being, not an arrow. He only does that because he thinks so much of you, and he would do anything to please you. You are an idol to him. He loves you very much.”
He gave her a somber look. “There is no way I could be any more proud of him, or love him any more, but if he doesn’t stop Darken Rahl, I will be a dead idol. Sometimes, wizards must use people to accomplish what must be done.”
“I guess I know how you feel, not telling him what you wish you could.”
Zedd rose. “I’m sorry the two of you have had a hard time of it. Maybe with me here, it will be easier. Good night, dear one.” He started off into the darkness.
“Zedd?” He stopped and looked back toward her, a dark form against the moonlit forest. “You had a wife.”
“I did.”
She cleared her throat and swallowed. “What was it like? Loving someone more than life itself, and being able to be with them, and having them love you back?”
Zedd stood still and silent for a long time, staring at her in the darkness. She waited, wishing she could see his face. She decided he wasn’t going to answer.
Kahlan held her chin up. “Wizard Zorander, I am not making a request. This is an order. You will answer the question.”
She waited. His voice came softly. “It was like finding the other half of myself, and being complete, whole, for the first time in my life.”
“Thank you, Zedd.” She was glad he couldn’t see her tears as she struggled to hold her voice steady. “I was just wondering.”
CHAPTER 37
Richard woke when he heard Kahlan come back and toss some wood in the fire. Light was just starting to creep across the tips of distant mountains, casting them in a soft pink glow, dark clouds behind making the snowcapped peaks stand out all the more. Zedd lay on his back, eyes wide open, snoring. Richard rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned.
“How about some tava-root porridge?” he whispered, wanting to let Zedd sleep.
“Sounds good,” she whispered back.
Richard pulled the roots from his pack and began peeling them with his knife while Kahlan retrieved a pot.
When he finished cutting them up, he tossed the roots in with the water she had added from a skin. “This is the last of them. We’ll have to start digging some more roots tonight, but I doubt we’ll find tava. Not in this rocky ground.”
“I picked some berries.”
Together they warmed their hands at the fire. More than a queen, he thought. He tried to imagine a queen in fine robes and a crown, picking berries.
“You see anything while you were on watch?”
She shook her head. Then she seemed to remember something and her face came up. “But one time, I did hear something strange. It was down here, near the camp. It was like a growl, then a yelp. I almost came and woke you, but it was gone as soon as it started, and I didn’t hear it again.”
“Really.” He glanced over each shoulder. “Down here. Wonder what that was about. I guess I was so tired it didn’t wake me.”
Richard mashed the pot of roots when they were done and added a little sugar. Kahlan dished up the porridge and added a big handful of berries on top of each.
“Why don’t you wake him,” she said.
Richard