Wizard 7

Chapter 7
Richard is sick and feverish. He hallucinates; we get an infodump. Richard's father, George, had “saved” (stolen) a book called the Book of Counted Shadows. The books is uber special, so George has Richard memorize it and not tell anyone, even George, what it said. Richard memorized the entire book until he could write the whole thing perfectly. Then Richard and George burned the book.
Zedd makes medicine for Richard, and Kahlan gives us another infodump. This one is mostly stuff we already know: the Darken Rahl, fire is outlawed, looking for Nameless Wizard, etc. Apparently Kahlan once had a wizard named Giller who sold his services to a queen...and I doubt this was the intent, but the dialogue makes it sound like Kahlan was a slave-owner. “Your wizard,” “My wizard.”
Darken Rahl has put the three boxes of Orden into play (and now I'm wondering who or what Orden is), which is apparently similar to Sauron finding the One Ring. Also, all the other Confessors have been killed by quads (bad news for all you Catholics, I guess). Kahlan is the last Confessor. She found her sister, another Confessor, after the quad had left, and her sister died in her arms. Which...actually makes the quads look either weak or stupid. What kind of assassin squad leaves the victim alive? Pathetic. \~/
Kahlan wants the Nameless Wizard to appoint a Seeker. This leads to another infodump, this one from Zedd, regarding Seekers. A Seeker carries the Sword of Truth and is awesome and special. The council made the Seeker a political appointment, blah blah. Apparently a true Seeker is something like a Chosen One.
One wonders why Zedd knows so much about Seekers. Hmm...
Kahlan intends to be the Seeker's guide and bodyguard, because “Confessors spend their lives traveling the lands.” Kahlan claims to speak “every major language, and most of the minor ones.” Which is a hollow boast, as we shall see, since there appear to be a grand total of TWO languages in the world, one of which is a dead language. And Kahlan doesn't know that one. Wonderful. \~/
(Edit from the future: It turns out there are a couple of other languages, which Kahlan knows. I stand corrected, although I shall temper this by saying that it doesn't ''matter'' very much that Richard doesn't speak these languages.)
Zedd gets the thorn out of Richard's hand (FINALLY!) and burns it. He then walks outside and confronts a short-tailed Fish (twice as fierce as long-tailed Fish, remember) that ambushes him. Zedd uses magic to stop the Fish, then learns its name and sends it off to kill the latest quad, promising to kill it if it fails.
OMG ZEDD USED MAGIC!! I am...so not surprised. He's done everything but tattoo “eccentric wizard” across his forehead. Ten bucks says he's the Nameless Wizard! Anyone? You in the back? Anyone?
Anyway, Zedd turns his cloud-watching rock to liquid and stirs it like a bowl of soup. This conjures up the ghosts of his parents (not making any of this up), who play Gandalf to his Frodo Baggins, telling Zedd that he has to help, that he must appoint the Seeker, to basically get off his bony butt and do something.
And thus ends the chapter.
Drinks: 2
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