"Richard." "I'll carry your pack all day long if you give me ten more minutes." "Are you all right?" "Have a heart, Zedd." "Richard, it's me, Michael." "Michael?" "How did you...?" "How did I get here?" "Some guards found you at the bottom of the cliff and carried you home." "You've been out for two days." "That's not true." "Where's Zedd?" "Where's Kahlan?" "How did I get through the Boundary?" "You're not making sense." "You should be lying down, you had quite a fall." " This is some kind of trick, isn't it?" " Richard..." "Well, it's not going to work." "I know it wasn't Kahlan who killed Dad." "I know it was Fane." " And you helped him." " Richard, what are you talking about?" "I'm talking about Dad dying, right outside that door." "I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late." "Dad?" "I felt the life go out of him." "Richard." "We saw the smoke." "What happened?" "He's dead." "You accused me, your own brother." "Did the witch make you do this?" " Michael, you can't possibly believe..." " I don't know what to believe." " It was Ranssyn Fane." " No." "He's with Chase, looking for you." "You're not going anywhere." "Take him." "Stay back!" "Witchcraft." "Fane was right." "Hyah." "You would have had me arrested." "And who knows what else if I hadn't gotten away." "I'm calling a healer." "You must have hit your..." "Tell me what you did to Zedd and Kahlan, or I swear, I will beat it out of you!" "Richard." "Son." "You're up and about." " Dad?" " Oh, thank the Spirits." "It wasn't a dream." "I've been gone for months." "I've fought battles, I've..." "I've killed people." "I fell asleep in the forest with Zedd and Kahlan, and then..." "I know what happened." "Darken Rahl used some kind of magic to wind the clock back to the day I met Kahlan." " To right before it all began." " Who's Kahlan?" "She's a Confessor." "She came through the Boundary with The Book of Counted Shadows, looking for me." "But the D'Harans were after her." "They were hunting her like an animal." "They chased her all the way across the Midlands, and through the Boundary, trying to kill her." "I had to help her." "They cornered her on the edge of Dead Man's Cliff." "Stay back." "Shoot her." "Leave her alone." "You're making a mistake, boy." "This girl is dangerous." "Four men against one woman?" "I think she's the one in danger." "Now, go home." "I'm not going any..." "Easy." "Do not let her grasp you." "They were scared of her." "She used magic against them." "But using her power made her weak." "Fane would have killed her if I hadn't been there." "It's over for you, Confessor." "We were at the edge of the cliff." "The fall should have killed him." "But when I looked over, he was gone." "He fell a hundred feet and walked away." "Whoever thought my son would have such a vivid imagination?" "Richard, not so much as a mosquito has ever crossed the Boundary." " Everybody knows it's impenetrable." " Well, then everybody is wrong." "I need to talk to Zedd." "What, the crazy old man who talks to his chickens?" "Why would you wanna talk to him?" "Don't try to stop me." "Zedd." "Something terrible has happened." "Darken Rahl did some kind of spell that sent me back to the day I first came here." "But I know everything." "I know I'm the Seeker..." "Slow down, slow down." "You're Richard Cypher, aren't you?" "George's boy." "Grown up to be a fine figure of a young man, don't you think, Clara?" "Zedd, I know who you are." "I know you brought me here from the Midlands," "I know you've been watching over me my whole life." "He fell off Dead Man's Bluff and hit his head." "It's gotten him all mixed up." "Zedd, tell them it's true." "Tell them you're a Wizard." "Well, that's a new one." "Imagine, someone taking me for a Wizard?" "Hmm?" "Heh, heh, heh." "He's pretending because he doesn't trust you." "But it's true." "I got bit by some kind of vine that Kahlan brought through the Boundary." "It made me sick, I fell off my horse, and when I came to I was right there, on that bed." "You healed me with magic." "His fever's broken." "Now take me to the Seeker." "He's here." "It turned out I was the person she came all this way looking for." "Him?" " But he's..." " What?" "Not good enough?" "You wanted a Seeker, there he is." "If he's not up to your standards, well, that's fine by me." "Find yourself another." "Seeker?" "What are you talking about?" "You never told him?" "You were supposed to train him, prepare him." "What have you been doing for the last 20 years?" "Letting him catch worms, steal apples, skin his knees, find out what makes his heart beat faster." "My sister gave her life to make sure that I got here, to make sure that I put the Book in the Seeker's hands." " And he's catching worms?" " I never knew a great man who didn't" " have a little dirt under his nails." " And while he's getting his nails dirty, did it ever occur to you to give him the slightest inkling that he is the first true Seeker in the last thousand years?" "He has a destiny." "Who are you to decide a man's destiny?" "It's not me, it's the Prophecy..." " Prophecy be damned!" "Stop." "What are you talking about?" "And what's a Seeker?" "And then you told me it was my destiny to kill Darken Rahl, the leader of the D'Harans." "And then you gave me the Sword of Truth." "Sword of Truth?" "Which was right over there." "It was invisible." "You pulled it out of the air." "We'd give all our toes and feathers if our lives could be only that exciting, wouldn't we, Clara?" "I can't believe I could have dreamed all that." "I'm not dead, Richard." "I'm right here." "And I'm not going anywhere." "But if all this is real, and everything that happened was a dream," "then there's no Kahlan." "She doesn't exist." "Yes, I do." "Richard, I'm right here." " She's just something I dreamed." "No." "Richard, you're dreaming now." "Wake up." "What is it?" "He's talking in his sleep." "How could all that have just been a dream?" "I can't wake him." " You won't be able to." " What do you mean?" "The Three Stars of Amberlis appear within the circle of the crescent moon once every 119 years." "And when they do, it becomes possible to cast the Spell of the Lying Moon." "What kind of spell is that?" "Powerful magic that causes the victim to fall into a dream where he believes he is among friends when he is among enemies." "And in that dream, a man will reveal secrets that in his waking life he would only share with those he trusts most." "Who would have done this to Richard?" "And why?" "Only one Wizard in the world besides me is capable of working this magic, and that Wizard works for Darken Rahl." " We have to get him out of the moonlight." "It's too late." " The spell has already taken hold." " Well, can't you undo it?" "I can try." "What's going to happen to him?" "Do you see how one star is beginning to disappear behind the moon?" "If we can't get him out before all three stars have gone, we may never get him out." "Richard, there's nobody called Kahlan." "And Zedd isn't a Wizard." "We need to get him to a healer." "The boy doesn't need a healer." "He just needs a little time." "I only wish I had the powers you dreamt up for me." "But I do know a few little healing tricks, and one of them is that there's no cure for the frightening grip of a nightmare like telling it to a friendly listener." "And there's no one friendlier than Clara." "So tell us, did you take up this sword?" "Did you defeat this dastardly Ranssyn Fane?" "Come, Richard." "At the very least, it'll make a good story." "It doesn't feel like a story." "I know, but tell it anyway." "I promise you, it'll do you good." "Go on, son." "After I rode home, after Dad died in the burning house," "I came after Fane, but he got away." "He was heading for the Boundary." "We raced after him, I fought him." "We had to stop him." "He had The Book of Counted Shadows." "If Rahl got the Book, it would have given him the secrets of power." "I didn't know how I was able to fight like that." "It was like I was getting some kind of power from the Sword." "I felt rage, anger, like I'd never felt before." "I was the bringer of death." "It was the first time I ever killed anybody." "But not the last." "You did it." "You are the Seeker." "Fascinating!" "Incomparable!" "Magical swords, magical vines." "I admit I've always had a fondness for this sort of tale." "What other wondrous objects did you come upon?" "This isn't funny to me." "Forgive me." "Forgive me." "I've just gotten so caught up in the story." "Please, keep going." "Give a little pleasure to a lonely old man." "Well, there were a lot of magical objects." "But nothing was amazing as the magical people." "I met a boy who could see what people were thinking, like he was reading a book." "Now, there's a trick I'd like to have up my sleeve." "Tell us about him." "Well, we had to save him from the D'Harans, so Darken Rahl couldn't get control of his powers." "It's okay." "We're friends." "We just wanna take you home." "But he didn't exactly wanna be saved." "He was used to getting his own way." "I want pheasant with blackberry sauce." "Well, the first pheasant I see is all yours." "I saw a nest of pheasants a mile back, and there were blackberries growing all over." "No, no, we don't have time." "If you're in a hurry, I'm not stopping you." "I'll just wait right here for the D'Harans to find me." "Listen, we're not stopping to pick blackberries and hunt pheasant." "Then I guess I'll have to tell her about the secret you've been keeping from her." "I don't have any secrets from Kahlan." "I'm a Listener." "Do you think there's anything you can hide from me?" "How would you like her to know what you think about when you look at her?" "I blush to think of what thoughts the little monster may have glimpsed." "Oh, he wasn't so bad." "Once the D'Harans attacked, and he saw what they were really about, he started to trust us." "It's okay." "It's just an owl complaining about something, the way owls do." "Does it still hurt?" "I would say no, but you'd know I'd be lying." "Why haven't you told her what you feel about her?" "It's complicated." "You'll understand when you get older." "It's not that complicated." "You're just scared she doesn't feel the same way." "But you don't have to be scared." "She feels the same way you do." "I don't wanna talk about this anymore." "Richard, come back!" "You need to..." " rest yourself and stay calm." "A blow to the head can be a dangerous thing." "Be careful, Lord Rahl." "If you push him too hard, you could shatter the spell." "I will push him as hard as I have to, until he tells me where he has hidden the Third Box of Orden." "The deeper the spell takes him, the more the fever will rage." "Richard, your father..." " and your brother are worried sick about you." "Come back." "What is it, boy?" "You can talk to me." "I can't believe Kahlan's not real." "How could I just imagine feeling that way about somebody?" "We all have our little fantasies." "I'd like to be alone right now." "I'm not getting anywhere." "The idiot's gone and fallen in love with his Confessor." "She's all he can think about." "Now, why can't I just reach into his mind and see where he hid the box?" "Childhood memories are easy, Lord Rahl." "But a secret as important to the Seeker as where he has hidden the box is sure to be locked away where even the Magic of Amberlis has to work hard to find it." "As for his love of his Confessor, he's a young man like any other." "Surely there's a girl he left behind, some fresh-faced maiden of the forest who can draw his thoughts away from Kahlan Amnell." "Richard." "Anna." "What are you doing here?" " How did you get...?" " I came as soon as I heard." "South Haven to Hartland in two days." "Let somebody try beat that." "Do you hate me?" "For moving away, for never writing?" "I was angry for a long time, but I could never hate you, Anna." "Only Richard Cypher would be crazy enough to go running around the edge of Dead Man's Cliff." "What were you thinking?" "I was helping somebody." " The woman in the white dress?" " You saw her too?" "No." "I went to your house." "Your brother and your father told me about your dream." "Tell me what happened in this other place." "For a dream to be that real, there must be something important in it." "Something you can learn from." "Richard, do you remember that little black dog you had that got swept away in the big flood?" "Arrow." "We were what, 7 years old?" "You ran away, and nobody could find you." " I was hiding in your cellar." " Because you didn't want anyone..." " to see you cry." "And you stayed there all day, and you told me all about Arrow's great heroic deeds." "And then you went home, and nobody ever saw a tear on your face." "Except me." "Talk to me, Richard." "Get it out." "Tell me everything." "Tell me the worst, scariest thing that happened." " It was one scary thing after another." " Like what?" "Well, nothing was scarier than the Mord-Sith." "No one's going to train me." "Did you not feel my Agiel?" "The harder you fight, the more painful its magic will become." "And after I've finished training you with it, you'll do anything to please me." "Anything." "And nothing will please me more than to see the Seeker stand at the gates of the People's Palace, and there, before the multitudes, take the hand of Lord Rahl and pledge his undying love and fealty to him." "No." "I'm going to take that sword, and I'm going to kill him with it." "After I kill you." "I do enjoy a challenge." "Shall we begin?" "Nothing in a dream could hurt like that." "Nothing in a dream could leave a scar." "Anna, it left a scar, right here." "Just keep telling it, Richard." "Keep getting it out." "How did you escape from that horrible place?" " Kahlan tried to save me." " Who's Kahlan?" "The woman in white." "I don't even know how long I'd been in that dungeon." "I was completely under Denna's power." "Do it now." "Kill her." " I can't." " Then watch her suffer." "End her pain, Richard." "But she wouldn't give up." "She was testing me, tormenting me." "But something stopped me." "I was so close." "I can't explain it." "Any magic you use against a Mord-Sith comes back at you ten times stronger, with more pain than you can possibly imagine." "How did you...?" "You taught me how to withstand pain." "That's quite a dream." "You almost died for this Kahlan." "Not as many times as she almost died for me." "Does she look like me?" "No." "Richard, going with my parents when they moved to South Haven was the stupidest thing I ever did." "You were 19, you could have stayed." "Why didn't you?" "All our lives, from when we were 5 years old, it was always:" ""Richard and Anna were born for each other." "What are you gonna wear to the wedding?"" "You were the only man I'd ever kissed." "It took hearing that you'd fallen off that cliff and almost died for me to realize" "that you're the only man I ever want to kiss." "I'm sorry that I don't have magical powers, and I'm not much good in a knife fight, but I love you, Richard." "Am I too late?" " Do you still care for me?" " Yes, I care for you, Anna." ""Anna"?" "Who's Anna?" "I will always care for you, but..." "You're home, Richard." "You're home, with me." "And I'm never leaving you again." "He's in my hands." " And now to find the box." " Not yet, Lord Rahl." "If you move too fast, if he suspects the truth..." "And he is the Seeker of Truth, after all." " the spell will shatter." "Keep pulling him in." "So, what happened with this woman in white?" " Did you marry her?" " No." "Well, that's good." "I wouldn't want you marrying somebody else, not even in a dream." " Actually, I did marry somebody else." " Oh." "Well, not really." "It's complicated." "A powerful witch put a spell on me that made everybody who looked at me think I was somebody else." "Even Kahlan." "What are you doing?" "Put down Richard's sword, Gryff." "The Sword of Truth is not a toy." "What's going on?" "How did Gryff get his hands on your sword, Richard?" "No harm done." "The Sword of Truth belongs in the hands of the Seeker." "This is insane." "It's me, Richard." "Bronwyn is a very lucky girl." "You'll make a fine husband." "I think we should get moving." "To Lord Rahl." "They all thought I was Gryff, the son of a wealthy merchant, betrothed to a girl named Bronwyn." "If these things are uncomfortable, we can take them off." "What's wrong with you?" "You know tradition doesn't allow it." "It stays on until morning." "After we've spent our first night together as man and wife." "There are a lot of things I want to say, but first let me start by wishing my little sister and her new husband many, many children." " And I hope..." " We should get started on that right away." "So in your dream, did you actually?" "No, no, no." "I had to get out of there." "Zedd and Kahlan were on their way to the ancient ruined city of Kelabra, where Darken Rahl was amassing hundreds of men." "What was Rahl looking for in the ruins?" "Did you ever find out?" "Yes, and it turned out to be something more important than we could have ever imagined." "It was the Second Box of Orden." " Richard." "Just as I feared." "Rahl is trying to find out where the box is." "Richard, don't say any more." "You see, each one of these boxes contained unbelievably powerful magic." "Rahl had the first box." "He found the second in Kelabra." "All through the dream, Zedd and Kahlan kept telling me if he got all three, he would have the power to enslave the world." "We had to get to the third box before Rahl did." " Richard." " What did I tell you, Lord Rahl?" "Your patience has been rewarded." "Where was it, Richard?" "Where was the Third Box of Orden?" "The box was in the treasure room of Tamarang, the most heavily guarded castle in the Midlands." "The only way in was for Zedd to enter a competition to be an entertainer at Princess Violet's birthday party." "Greetings, Your Highness." "But apparently Princess Violet was very hard to please." "Hello, Princess Violet." "I'm Mr. Stocking." "Happy Birthday." "Guards!" "Throw this idiot off the grounds before I chop off his head." "Forgive me, Your Magnificence, for disappointing you." "Hey." "Where you going without me?" "What do you mean, where am I going without you?" "I lost the job because of you, you worthless, stinking rag." "First you blame me for losing the job, and now you blame me for being stinky." "Something sure smells around here, but it isn't me." "You're hired." "Ruben Rybnik, Grand Puppeteer, at Her Majesty's service." "Once Zedd was inside the castle, he managed to steal the key to the treasure room." "He used his magic to turn an ordinary spice box into a perfect copy of the Third Box of Orden." "But that wasn't the end of the story." "What are you doing in here?" "Forgive me, princess." "My curiosity overcame me." "How stupid do you think I am?" "You have two seconds to tell me what's going on before I scream my head off and wake up the whole castle." "You may want to turn and look in the mirror before you make good on that threat." "My face!" "My beautiful face." "What have you done to me?" "Change me back right now, or I'll chop your head off." "How will you get rid of the warts if you chop my head off?" "It's called a Tattletale Curse, Your Celestial Highness." "I can take it away, but if you ever even think of telling on me, the warts will reappear, forever." "Zedd gave the box to Violet's poor servant girl, Rachel." "You're now the most important person in the world." " Where is it?" "But she had to hide the box." "What are you doing in here?" " And Violet had very sharp eyes." " Nothing." "Do you have something behind your back?" "If they caught Rachel, they would have boiled her alive in molten lead." "Even though she was a little girl, she was one of the bravest people I've ever met." "I finally had the Third Box of Orden in my hands." "What did you do with the box once you had it?" "We were heading for a place where Zedd thought he could hide it away safe, when we passed through a forest crawling with D'Haran soldiers." "I broke away from the others, and found a place to bury the box." "Just for a little while, until things quieted down." "He's going to tell them where it is." "Richard." "Where could you possibly bury it that would be safe enough for something so precious?" "I hid it under a tree" " a few leagues west of Trollsbridge." "No." "Send the Dragon Corps to Trollsbridge." "Under a tree?" "Doesn't sound terribly safe to me." "What kind of tree was it?" "What does it matter what kind of tree?" "I was just wondering if they have the same kind of trees in dreamland as they do here." "Do they have wayward pine?" "Alghars?" "Wanderer's elm?" "How do you know about alghars?" "They only grow in the Midlands, not here." "There were alghars in the story books my mother used to read me." "Your mother must have read them to you too." "Maybe that's how they got into your dream." "So it was an alghar?" "I know this is crazy, but back there in my dream, or whatever it was, the fate of the world depended on nobody knowing where that box is." "And, I don't know, it just feels wrong to tell anyone where it is." "Richard, I love you." "I've always loved you." "I want to make a life with you." "I know that now." "Now that I almost lost you." "If you don't trust me enough to tell me something that happened to you in a..." " dream, then what did it all mean?" "All those years we were together, all the times we talked about our future..." " thinking up names for our children..." "Was that all a lie?" "No, Anna, it wasn't a lie." "These memories, these phantoms you think are so real, they're not just something from a dream." "They're bad spirits..." " trying to drag you into the dark, and they won't let go of you unless you show them that you don't believe their lies." "Say the word." "Say the name of the tree the box was buried under." "Break the chains, Richard." "Break the chains!" "Send the bad spirits back..." " where they came from." "I'm here, Richard." "I'm right here." " Come back to me." "It's no use." "The Spell of the Lying Moon is impenetrable." "No." "No." "I can get through." "I know that I can." "Richard, it's me, Kahlan." "Don't listen to what they're telling you." "Remember all the things we've been through." "Think of me, Richard." "I'm right here." "I need you, Richard." "I need you here with me." "That night, in the forest," "I never wanted that kiss to end." "And the next day, when you stopped me on the path..." "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't have the same feelings for me that I have for you." "I don't have any feelings for you." "And I never will." "But that was a lie." "This is the truth:" "I love you, Richard." "I love you, Richard." "I love you, Richard." "I love you, and I never want to lose you again." "Tell me." "Break the chains." "Richard, come back." "It's a kind of tree that doesn't grow near here." "No!" "Please, come back to me." "I love you, Richard." "I love you, Richard." " You'd like it, it blossoms..." " It blossoms in the spring?" "You are the Seeker." "Whatever lies they're telling you, use your inner power." "The power to see the truth." "What is it?" "What's wrong?" "See it." "See the truth." "You're scaring me, Richard." "Why are you looking at me like that?" "No!" "Zedd." "Kahlan." "We need to dig up the box." "Fast!" "Cast the spell again." "I'm not finished." "I'm afraid you are, My Lord." "It's too late." "You've been awfully quiet." "I've just been thinking." "If you really exist, and if Zedd is really a Wizard, and not the chicken man of Blackthorn Hill," "then my dad really is dead." "So how did you know it was a trick?" "What brought you out of it?" "As real as it was in every way, nothing in my life has been more real than you." "And right when I was about to tell Anna where the box was," "I suddenly, absolutely, knew you existed." "I knew, because I felt..." "I felt your love for me."