Temple 19

**Chapter 19**

And we're back with Zedd and Hypocrite.

Oh joy.

Zedd is still in a collar (which, you may recall from the end of the last book, he can take off whenever he likes) and he and Hypocrite are pursuing Nathan for the heinous crime of escaping his enslavement. They're pondering the Jester's Inn, which Zedd's magic has lead them to, and Hypocrite is insisting that this time she does the talking and Zedd should shut up. Zedd, of course, is Zany and talks about food. \~/

Hypocrite is all set to nab Nathan, but Zedd indicates the sign, and we learn that *“a pair of woman's legs pointed up in the shape of a V.”* So it's a brothel, then. Zedd is suspicious that Nathan, having finally gotten free after nine centuries of slavery and imprisonment, would risk it all to have some meaningless sex. He notes that *“it probably took [Nathan] hundreds of years of planning . . . I dread to consider how that man may have influenced, or even directly altered events through prophecy to bring to pass the turn of fate that allowed him the opportunity to get off his collar.”*

Quoting Terry Goodkind is always interesting, since I have to actively suppress my own knowledge of grammar and punctuation.

Hypocrite is *“stunned”* at the implication that Nathan might have *“influenced events – prophecies – just to get his collar off?”*

I want you to look at that word, “just.” In this context, it means “merely,” as if referring to a minor or inconsequential thing. Hypocrite considers Nathan's freedom after *nine centuries of unjust imprisonment* to be a minor thing. Not a big deal. It was *just* slavery. Merely slavery. A petty detail, really.

\~/\~/

Also, the 900-year-old sorceress and Popette, who has been running a small city-state for centuries and manipulating the lives of men and women for most of her life is absolutely shocked that a **prophet** might consider manipulating **prophecy** in an effort to escape his monstrously unjust imprisonment.

Yeah.

\~/

Zedd and Hypocrite blather for a page about prophets and prophecy, and Hypocrite attempts to justify her heartless actions by talking about how the ignorant scum commoners can't handle prophecies, and they were really protecting Nathan lest he be murdered by the ignorant scum commoners who are stupid and brutish.

Zedd calls attention to his own collar, and Hypocrite says *“desperate need calls for desperate acts. The good spirits will have the final say on my actions.”* Which is a pathetic dodge by a despicable oathbreaking bitch. When her slave escaped, she compounded her crime by enslaving an innocent man and then breaking her sworn word to release him. I may not like Zedd very much, but he is clearly in the right here, and nothing that has happened makes me hate Hypocrite any less.

We randomly learn that the moon is red. Hypocrite notes that a red moon was mentioned in *“an ancient text, a text from the great war,”* which said that it *“brought great alarm”* but didn't have any actually useful information. Zedd remembers a red moon being mentioned in one of the books in Wizards' Keep, where it was supposed to be a warning of a *“breach between worlds.”* The warning would be three nights of the red moon.

Hypocrite promises to remove Zedd's collar and help him figure out what the red moon means, just as soon as she has finished using it to compel his assistance in recapturing her escaped slave. For some unholy reason, this causes Zedd to sympathize with her, and he ponders how dreadfully dangerous prophecy is. He says that Nathan must mean a lot to Hypocrite, and she says *“I care greatly for that incorrigible, wonderful man.”*

Yes, that wonderful man you've kept enslaved and imprisoned for no just reason since he was four years old.\~/

Hypocrite notes that Nathan is a wizard, while she is *“only a sorceress”* (because penis > vagina) \~/ and so she can't be sure of overpowering Nathan. Zedd, recognizing that he cannot possibly allow Nathan to roam free (even though Nathan has done literally nothing wrong and has never shown any indication of harmful intent, even *in extremis),* casts a spell on Nathan's collar. Basically, if Nathan comes out of the inn, Hypocrite will have *“twenty heartbeats”* to get the collar on him before he burns alive. Nathan will this either be dead, or safely re-enslaved. \~/

Yay.

Drinks: 7

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