Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Richard finally knelt close to the silver-clad coffin and used the tip of his shovel to carefully pry the top loose. Cara retrieved the two lanterns, handing one to Zedd. She held the other lantern up over Richard's shoulder to help him see.

When the it finally came loose, Richard lifted the heavy lid enough to slide the top portion aside.

The glow from Cara's lamp fell across a decomposed corpse, now almost entirely skeletal. The careful workmanship of the coffin appeared to have so far kept the body dry on its long journey toward dust. The bones were mottled with stains from long burial and the inescapable process of deterioration. A fall of long hair, most still attached to the skull, draped over the shoulders. Little tissue was left, mostly connective tissue, especially that holding the bones of the fingers together. Even this long after death, those fingers still clutched a long-ago-crumbled bouquet of flowers.

The body of the Mother Confessor was wearing an exquisite, simply styled, satiny white dress, cut square at the neckline, that now revealed bare ribs.

The bouquet clutched in her hands had been enfolded in a wrapping of pearled lace with a broad golden ribbon attached to it. On the gold ribbon, in stitched letters of silver thread, it said, "Beloved Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell. She will always be in our hearts."

There could hardly be any doubt anymore as to the true fate of the Mother Confessor, or to the reality that what Richard had so strongly believed was his memories was nothing more than sweet delusions now turned to dust.

Richard, his chest heaving, his breath catching, could only stare into the open coffin at the skeletal remains, at the white dress, at the golden ribbon around the black fragments of what had once been a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Nicci felt sick.

"Are you satisfied now?" Zedd asked in a measured tone of smoldering anger.

"I don't understand," Richard whispered, unable to take his eyes from the ghastly sight.

"You don't? I think it seems pretty clear," Zedd told him.

"But I know she isn't buried here. I can't explain this. I don't understand the contradiction to what I know is true."

Zedd clasped his hand. "There is no contradiction to understand. Contradictions don't exist."

"Yes, but I know.»

"Wizard's Ninth Rule: A contradiction cannot exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole. To believe in a contradiction is to abdicate your belief in the existence of the world around you and the nature of the things in it, to instead embrace any random impulse that strikes your fancy-to imagine something is real simply because you wish it were.

"A thing is what it is, it is itself. There can be no contradictions."

"But Zedd, I have to believe.»

"Ah, you believe. You mean that the reality of this coffin and the Mother Confessor's long buried body has shown you something you did not expect and don't want to accept and so you wish to instead take refuge in the blind fog of faith. Is that what you mean to say?"

"Well, in this case.»

"Faith is a device of self-delusion, a sleight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breathe life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men.

"In reality, contradictions cannot exist. To believe in them you must abandon the most important thing you possess: your rational mind. The wager for such a bargain is your life. In such an exchange, you always lose what you have at stake."

Richard ran his fingers back into his wet hair. "But Zedd, something is wrong here. I don't know what, but I know it is. You have to help me."

"I just did. I've allowed you to show us the proof that you yourself named. Here it is, in this coffin. I admit that it isn't as desirable as what you wish were true, but the reality of it can't be evaded. This is what you seek. This is Kahlan Amnell, the Mother Confessor, just as it says on the gravestone."

Zedd arched an eyebrow as he leaned a little toward his grandson. "Unless you can show that this is some kind of trickery, that someone for some reason buried this here as part of an elaborate hoax just to make it look like you're wrong and everyone else is right. That would seem a pretty thin contention, if you ask me. I am afraid that from the clear evidence right here this is the reality-the proof you sought-and there is no contradiction."

Richard stared down at the long dead body before him.

"Something is wrong. This can't be true. It just can't be."

The muscles in Zedd's jaw flexed. "Richard, I've allowed you this gruesome indulgence when by all rights I shouldn't have, now tell me why you don't have the sword. Where is the Sword of Truth?"

Rain patted softly on the canopy of leaves above as Richard's grandfather waited. Richard stared into the coffin.