Wizards First Rule   ::   Goodkind Terry

As a Wizard of the First Order, he knew better than to go to D'Hara, and yet what else could he do? He had to go if there was any chance of rescuing Richard. In three days, it would be the first day of winter. Darken Rahl had only two boxes; he was going to die. If they didn't get Richard out of there, Darken Rahl would kill him first.

He thought again of the encounter with Darken Rahl the day before. Try as he might, he couldn't understand it. It was bizarre in the extreme. Rahl had obviously been frantic to find the box, so frantic that he didn't kill him when he had the chance. The wizard who had killed his father, the one he had been searching for, and when he found him, he did nothing. But his other behavior defied sense.

The sight of him wearing Richard's sword gave Zedd chills. Why would Darken Rahl, master of the magic of both worlds, be wearing the Sword of Truth? More to the point, what had he done to Richard to get the sword from him?

The most disturbing behavior had been when he held the sword to Kahlan. Zedd had never felt more helpless in his life. It was stupid to try to use wizard's pain on him. Those with the gift, and who had survived the test of pain, could survive the touch. But what was he to do? To see Darken Rahl holding the Sword of Truth at her throat gave him pain, the worst kind of pain. For a moment, he had been sure Rahl was going to kill her, and then the next moment, before Zedd had a chance to do anything, futile as it would have been, Rahl got tears in his eyes, and put the sword away. Why would Darken Rahl bother to use the sword, if he wanted to kill her, or any of them for that matter? He could kill any of them with a snap of his fingers. Why would he want to use the sword? And why then stop?

Worse, though, was that he had made the blade turn white. When Zedd had seen that, he had almost parted company with his skin. The prophecies spoke of the one who would turn the Sword of Truth white. Spoke with great caution. That it would be Darken Rahl gave him a fright to his very core. -That it might have been Richard who would turn the sword white had caused him a dread all its own, but for it to be Rahl…

The veil, the prophecies called it, the veil between the world of life and the underworld. If the veil was torn by the magic of Orden, through an agent, the prophecies foretold, only the one who had turned the Sword of Truth white could restore it. Unless he was able to, the underworld would be loosed on the world of the living.

The word agent had terrible significance that worried Zedd greatly.