Stone 3

Chapter 3
Zedd starts checking the wounded but, conveniently, most are either suffering minor injuries that the mundane healers can handle, or too far gone for the mighty wizard to help. He finds a woman who has had her stomach ripped open, but who insists that the healers tend to the others before her. We know this woman is going to be important, because she's wearing a blue stone on her forehead. “The blue stone matched her eyes so, [sic] that it almost made her look to have three eyes. The wizard thought he recognized the stone, and wondered if it could be true, or only a bauble bought on a whim. He had not seen anyone wearing the Stone as a calling in a very long time.”
So Stonehead turns out to be the servant of Ye Generic Self-Centered Noblewoman (YGSCN), who insists that Zedd tend her minor cuts and bruises before her servant's gaping stomach wound. Rather than blow her off and heal Stonehead's gaping stomach wound, Zedd plays along with YGSCN and exact petty vengeance by ordering the healer to use too many stitches and prescribing a powerful laxative.
Our hero, Zedd. \~/
So YGSCN is bundled away to be mildly tormented, and we get another glimpse of Casanova Zedd as he considers boning the head healer. Thanks for that. \~/ We also learn that Stonehead's name is Jebra Bevinvier, and the blue eyeball-like stone on her head is a Seer's Stone. She's astonished that Zedd recognizes it, and even more astonished that he's a wizard of the First Order. Her wound is at the limit of his healing capabilities, and trying to heal it might kill them both.
Zedd starts healing her. He experiences horrible agony, which is apparently unrelated to her hideous stomach wound; this is “the pain of her visions.” So she wears a Seer's Stone and has visions, and those visions cause horrible agony.
So Zedd heals Jebra, and she says she didn't know a wizard could heal a Seer (and note that Seer is capitalized for some reason, while wizard is not). There's an infodump on Jebra's background, the gist of which is that she's been fired by YGSCN and Zedd wants to hire her. She refuses when she finds out she'd be working for the new Lord Rahl, making her arguably the smartest character we've yet encountered.
Jebra says she say Richard at the end of the last book, and we get to see it again from her perspective. When she looked at him, she had a vision, or rather, “I saw every kind of vision I have ever had, from the confusing to the clear; from the possible to the certain.“ Jebra describes several of the visions, which include Richard with something around his neck; Richard in the bottom half of an hourglass; Richard about to stab himself with a knife; Richard stabbed in the back, wearing a red coat; and Richard burning and branded with the mark of the Keeper of the underworld.
More chatter, and Zedd finally convinces Jebra to work for him, and the chapter ends.
Drinks: 2
<Previous Chapter  -  Next Chapter>