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His eyes came to Richard “Tell me of the trouble”

Richard related hoas bitten by a vine, and told Zedd about seeing the thing in the sky, seeing Kahlan at Trunt Lake, and being followed by the four men He told the whole story with every detail he could remember He knew Zedd liked to have every detail, no matter how unimportant Occasionally Richard stopped to take a sip fro Kahlan ate some carrots and berries, and drank the apple juice, but she pushed away the plate with the cheese She nodded or offered help when he couldn’t re he left out was the story Kahlan had told him of the history of the three lands and about Darken Rahl taking over the Midlands He thought it better that she tell it in her oords At the end, Zeddto knohat Richard had been doing in the high Ven in the first place

“When I went to e jar It was about the only thing not broken Inside was a piece of vine For the last three weeks, I’ve been looking for the vine, trying to find out what ethat bit ue felt thick

Zedd bit off a chunk of carrot while thinking “What did the vine look like?”

“It was… Wait, I still have it inand plunked it down on the table

“Bags!” Zedd whispered “That’s a snake vine!”

Richard felt a shock of icy cold sweep through hiainst hope it did not mean what he feared it did

Zedd sat back “Well, the good part is now I know the root to use to cure the fever The bad part is I have to find it” Zedd asked Kahlan to tell her part but to s he ht about the story she had told in the ard pine the night before, and wondered how she could possibly make it shorter

“Darken Rahl, son of Panis Rahl, has put the three boxes of Orden in play,” Kahlan said sireat wizard”

Richard was thunderstruck

From the secret book, the Book of Counted Shadows, the book his father had had him commit to memory before they destroyed it, the line jumped into his mind: And when the three boxes of Orden are put into play, the snake vine shall grow Richard’s worst night to pass

7

Pain and dizziness from the fever made Richard only diroaned while his mind spun with the implications of what Kahlan had told Zedd; of the prophecy of the secret Book of Counted Shadows co Kahlan to help get hiround slipped this way and that,it difficult to catch it with his feet Then they were laying hi, but he couldn’t make sense of the words, which slurred in his mind

Darkness sucked his ht He seeain He wondered who he was and as happening Tiripped the bed to keep fro off Sometimes he knehere he was, and tried desperately to hold on to what he knew… only to slip away again into blackness

He becah he didn’t have any idea how much Was it dark? Maybe it was just that the curtains were pulled So a cool, wet cloth on his forehead His , soothing He could alood, she always took such good care of him

Until she died He wanted to cry She was dead Still, she smoothed his hair That couldn’t be; it had to be someone else But who? Then he remembered It was Kahlan He spoke her name

Kahlan was s his hair “I am here”

It ca back in a torrent: the murder of his father, the vine that bit him, Kahlan, the fourfor hi him to seek the answer or die; what Kahlan said, that the three boxes of Orden were in play; and his secret, the Book of Counted Shadows…

He remembered how his father had taken him to the secret place in the woods, and had told him how he had saved the Book of Counted Shadows frouarded it until its ht it with him to Westland to keep it from those covetous hands, hands that the keeper of the book didn’t know threatened His father had told hi as the book existed, but he couldn’t destroy the knowledge in it; he had no right It belonged to the keeper of the book, and it must be kept safe until it could be returned The only way to do that was to commit the book to e be preserved, but not stolen, as it otherwise surely would be

His father chose Richard That it was to be Richard and not Michael was for reasons of his own No one could know of the book, not even Michael; only the keeper of the book, no one else, only the keeper He said Richard ht never find the keeper, and in that case he was to pass the book on to his child, and then that child to his own, and so on, for as long as was necessary His father couldn’t tell him who the keeper of the book was, as he didn’t know Richard asked hoas to know the keeper, but his father said only that he would have to find the answer himself, and not to tell anyone, ever, except the keeper His father told Richard he was not to tell his own brother, or even his best friend, Zedd