Richard, a woodsman and guide along the paths in the mountains of Westland, found a vine that bit him, saw the shadow of a huge creature flying above, and helped rescue a woman being chased by four men. The woman, Kahlan, did most of it, though with some kind of magic, which was unheard of, since there was no magic in Westland. He went back to his cabin for dinner, but realized that the killer of his father some three weeks prior must be in his cabin, because there were no spider webs along the trail. On the advice of Kahlan, he sneaked around to the other side and retrieved his pack, with the tooth that he always wore, as proof that he had not stolen the knowledge of the Book of Counted Shadows, which his father had made him memorize, and after he could write it out without errors, burned. They spent the night under a wayward pine (a pine with long branches that hide a fire) they went to old Zedd, a wise old man who had nurtured Richard’s sense of curiosity.

The bite from what Zedd identified as a snake vine had become serious, and Zedd had to go out and find a root for Richard, and he slept for two days. Much to Richard’s shock, old Zedd turned out to be the great Wizard that Kahlan was seeking. Furthermore, Zedd appointed Richard as the Seeker and gave him a sword. Zedd and Kahlan swore to serve the seeker in his mission. After dinner Zedd defused a mob trying to burn him as a witch (“if you’re sure I’m a witch, why wouldn’t I use some of those powers right now? Like take your manhood?) instead of letting Richard start a killing with his sword, and the anger it fed. Then left hastily because it became clear that whoever had been waiting at Richard’s cabin was coming and had used the mob as a diversion to make them feel safe after they had overcome it. They fled to Richard’s friend’s Chase’s house, where they spent the night. Chase was the head of the border patrol, which kept people away from the Boundary, because it was unsafe—both because you died if you touched it, and because deadly creatures increasingly came out at night.

As Seeker, Richard needed to figure out how to prevent Darken Rahl from getting the three boxes of Orden, and opening the one that would give him power over everyone (or the one which would destroy the world). But to do that they needed to cross the Boundary, which was the underworld. Kahlan had crossed, but she had protection from five wizards who had killed themselves to make the protection work, and Darken Rahl now waited for them if they crossed. Richard reasoned that there must be the equivalent of a mountain pass, since, as he now knew, there was a small trickle of people coming over. Chase confirmed that there was a pass to the south, and the went on their way in the morning.

Chase left them partway to take care of some business, which turned out to be killing some heart hounds (they jump at your chest and tear out your heart with huge teeth). After returning, Chase took them to see the boundary, so Richard would experience the green glow as one neared it and know exactly how far one could go. However, something came out from the boundary and pulled all of them except Richard towards it. Chase and Zedd had gone unconscious, so they laid them over the horses and hurried to get to the swamp that Chase had mentioned would bring protection against the hounds. They reached it just in time, waded through the snake-infested waters, and spent the evening on a hill.

The next day the reached an inn at the town near the pass. The customers, a rough bunch, wanted to take Kahlan, but she defused the situation (again, a better solution than the sword Richard was about to use). The proprietor helped them, gave them a secluded room, warned them in the morning, and told them how to get to Adie, the bone lady who was the only healer in the area. She lived very close to the boundary, in an unnaturally cozy and natural area. She had bones from all kinds of creatures from the wall, which protected her, since the bones confused the creatures’ sense of location. She began the healing process, but said it would take at least five days, which they could not afford to wait. It was early autumn, and on the first day of winter Darken Rahl would open the box. Everyone had been very clear that even their individual lives were of lesser importance than finishing the job. Adie gave them instructions on crossing the pass, and she gave Richard a nightstone to light his way, but only in grave need. She also gave Kahlan a bone necklace to wear for protection, but noted that Richard already was wearing a bone (despite him having never said anything to anyone about it, which he wore hidden).

They reached the pass at night, and Richard had to take out the nightstone to light their way, since the path had disappeared in a landslide and they had to find their way back and forth using the green glow when they got too close to either of the sides in the narrow, invisible path. Shadow things reached out, and Richard succumbed to the temptation of his father, and he loosened his hold on Kahlan’s hand, who continued without him. He came to himself, but she was gone. He could see that she had not gone forward, so he raced back, finding her just as one of the same kind of people hunting her was poised to kill her. He took out the sword, felt its anger and killed him. Immediately had had intense pain, seeing how he had killed someone, and revealing his internal intentions, which were not as pure as he had thought in the moment. (It was unnecessary, though, Kahlan was a Confessor, and could “take” one person, which made them effectively a slave to their doting servant-love of her. It was why Confessors were feared in the Midlands and in D'Hara.) Then they returned back through.

They went fist to the Mud People. As Confessor, Kahlan had traveled the entire Midlands, her home, and knew most of the languages. She knew that the Mud People could get information from the spirits. After some cross-cultural misunderstanding, they took a liking to Richard. He asked that they observe him for a few days, and consider if his request to talk to the spirits on this important mission. The Bird Man said that if he did the tribe a service with no requirement of payment, he might be adopted into the tribe and could then request it. So he taught them how to make clay roofs, since their grass roofs leaked. (When Kahlan ask why not teach them how to make grass roofs that did not leak, he noted that neither of them knew how to do that, but he did know about clay roofs.) The council of elders declined, saying that did not serve outsiders. They went to leave, and Richard missed his nightstone, which he now knew summoned shadows from the underworld when held. They realized that their host’s son, Siddin, must be playing with it, and rushed to save him. He had just taken it out, and Richard whipped his sword the swirling shadows, with Kahlen helping by killing the elder who tried to attack him, all while they were shooting arrows at him until the Bird Man called them off. With difficulty he reached the stone and put it back in the back. The Bird Man (essentially the witch doctor), and as Richard noted, the real leader essentially forced the elders to demand that he be made part of the tribe for his service. He requested the ceremony.

Now Richard and Kahlan had been falling increasingly in love with each other. She was the first woman of intelligence Richard had met, and Richard was the first person who treated her as a friend. In addition to it being his nature, he knew nothing of the Confessor’s power (nor had she told him), and he had no fear of her. Her whole life, people had treated her with fear, because she could take anyone she wanted, and when she decided to take a mate, it could be any man. She was required to wear a white dress (she was, in fact, Mother Confessor, the most innately strong Confessor) and long hair, to be immediately identifiable. But, they could never be lovers, because the power had to be held back, and in the passion she would probably lost control of it.

Since Richard was single, and when the Bird Man asked, Kahlan said that she was not taking him as her mate, as a tribal duty he was offered his choice of one of four girls, who fawned on him all banquet long. He kept asking an increasingly annoyed Kahlan to help him choose, but when she did not, he eventually chose the Bird Man’s niece. Then he asked Kahlan to bring him an apple from his pack, and he started eating it. Now Darken Rahl had made red-color fruit poisonous in the Midlands, because children especially liked colorful things and he liked to make people suffer, but the Boundary had gone up outside the area of effect, because the purpose of the Westlands was to be a place for people who wanted no magic. So while it was safe for him to eat, it was poisonous for the Midlands, and he suggested that his semen might be poisonous, so if this possibility was a problem, he would regretfully consent to remain single. Everyone took him up on this. He gave Kahlan the advice that friends don’t make decision for their friends, nor do they abandon their heart. The night before the spirit ceremony Kahlan was seized with desire for him, but Richard’s sword had been warning him increasingly strongly, and he said stopped her, saying he did not want to go there until she told him what she was. She kept her secret to herself.

At the ceremony the spirits said that they needed to go to the witch Shota, and then said that Darken Rahl was killing people, and they could save them and die, or stay hidden until morning. Richard, always one to save people, had a hard time with the decision, but the success of the mission was primary, so they waited. They went to find Shota, who had sent servants to have them captured. One got Kahlan, but Richard overcome another, who kept thinking that Richard’s Sword of Truth was his. Shota’s valley in the mountains was ringed by high, nearly impassible mountains, led to by a hidden path. The valley was the most beautiful place he had seen. The witch was quite beautiful, too, and granted him a wish for “saving” her from the wizard’s fire that what turned out to be an illusory Zedd threw at him (he deflected it with the magic of the sword). He asked for his wish that she spare the life of Zedd, and of Kahlan, who she had covered with poisonous snakes which would kill her if she moved. Shota tried to talk him out of it, and seemed to be seducing him with magic. She sadly agreed to his wish. Sadly, because her foresight showed her that Zedd would attack him with wizard’s fire for real, and Kahlan would use her power on him. She told him that Queen Milena in the south of the Midlands had the last box, although she would not have it for long. (Indeed, in a parallel story, the wizard Giller, formerly the wizard assigned to protect Kahlan, enlisted the assistance of the Queen’s daughter’s abused playmate to help him and her escape, although in the end he put the box in a loaf of bread, telling her the importance of it, and she escaped, because she was a nobody and the guards ignored her.)

Kahlan could not bear the responsibility of going to “take” Richard and thereby prevent him from preventing Darken Rahl from opening the box and dominating everyone forever, so she kept trying to kill herself. He told her that while the witch’s prophecies did not have the context, and maybe it was necessary for the to use her (unknown to him) power on him to defeat Rahl. But eventually he could not take the pain of her any more, and unbound her hands, and told her to make sure she killed herself properly; let the gars they had seen do it. (A gar uses blood flies to bite living things, then uses the scent of the blood to viciously hunt them down and eat them.) During the night she decided that he was right, plus she was excited that she had learned how to trap rabbits from him. She told him that she was Mother Confessor, and about her power, which made it clear to him that they could never have a romantic relationship.

The next night he discovered what had been quietly following him: a wolf, which defended him from a heart hound (he had dumped his tooth necklace in the river, which was how it could find him). The wolf turned out to be a man who had been condemned to die for a crime against children. Condemned men could request a Confession; the Confessor “took” them, and then they willing confessed to please her. He was innocent (of crimes against children), and a wizard changed his form to an animal of his choice, as this altered the magic enough that it gave him some free will. They also met Rachel, who said she had fled from the Queen with Giller’s help. Richard decided she must have something important in the loaf of bread; she was clearly very hungry but had not even nibbled on the bread. But Rachel ran away in the night: she like Richard, and she wanted to like Kahlan, but did not trust anyone with long hair. (Long hair was a status symbol, and both Queen and her daughter Violet, who were nasty people and were mean to her, obviously had long hair.)

Zedd came back and agreed with Richard’s assessment of Shota’s prophecies (and noted that Kahlan got between her and a man she desired, so she might have made the prophecy particularly painful without being incorrect). Knowing that the box not in Darken Rahl’s hands, decided to find Giller and find out where he had sent the box (they still assumed he was working with Darken Rahl). Zedd introduced Richard to Wizard’s First Rule: people want to believe in their version of things, and if you help them out with this, you can do a lot of things without magic. Richard promptly turned it on Zedd, a wizard of the First Order (the most talented) the next morning. Zedd said showed that he had a lot of talent pulling off something like that against a trained wizard, but Richard dismissed it (partly because he did not want anything to do with magic).

Kahlan used her status as Mother Confessor to walk into the Queen’s palace and request to inspect the prisoners. All the prisoners seemed to be in for things like lighting a fire (Darken Rahl had pushed to make it illegal and harshly punished), so Kahlan demanded that they be released and restored. She asked to see Giller, and they found him dead, hanging upside down, with a smile on his face knowing that his Wizard’s Life Fire had prevented Rahl from finding out the location of the box. They left without the box, but shortly afterwards they found Chase riding towards him, with Rachel, whom he had rescued from a gar that was just about to kill her. They told her the importance of the box and she gave it to them. But a little while later, Richard found himself blocked from going over a bridge. Zedd assessed that a magic user had drawn a spell around him, and he had to find the spell in the cave they used and erase or add to it to undo it. He managed to do it just as it closed about him, but then he was captured by a Mord-Sith, who used the anger of his sword to trap him.

She took him to Darken Rahl’s People’s Palace in D'Hara, and spent fifty pages torturing him and took him as a SDM mate. He was her “pet”, who basically needed to behave towards her the way a person did when a Confessor “took” him, only it was enforced by pain, and focusing on some pleasant part of her to avoid stirring up the greater pain which Mord-Sith latched to anger in order to hold them captive. Richard found out that “Mistress Denna” felt the pain he felt when she inflicted it on her, and that she had been broken as a child, through pain and wicked acts by Darken Rahl, and functioned somewhat as a long-leashed “pet” of his. Knowing this, he forgave her. Darken Rahl summoned him and told him to tell him the contents of the book. But Richard had locked his self-esteem on a piece of his mind, so he was not broken like Denna thought, just had done whatever was necessary. Now he took that part out and killed his guards, despite the pain Denna’s spell inflicted on him with the anger of the sword. Darken Rahl saw that there was no way to get the contents from him, so he let him go, but said that he needed to be back in a week or Kahlan would suffer pain (and in any case would bear his child after he opened the box). He said he would have the third box; Richard had been betrayed. Richard returned to Denna to free himself from her spell. She was expecting him and was lying down, waiting to die, since she had found him most unusual, in that at the end he returned kindness for torture, and she suspected he would come to get free, which would only happen if he killed her. He could not kill in anger (since that was how he was imprisoned), but he found that the sword became white if killing out of love/forgiveness. She welcomed it and asked him to do it, since all she knew was giving and inflicting pain, and she insisted she could not change. But she was naked, since all she had was Mord-Sith and she wanted to die as not one. She also asked that he wear the Agiel, the magical pain instrument, around his neck in memory of her, which he agreed to.

Richard left, and a guard offered him a horse, which he accepted. He also warned Richard not to go left at a certain boulder if he was going west, since that led to Rahl’s dragon. But when he got there, Richard figured he needed a dragon to search for Zedd and Kahlan, as a horse was way too slow. The dragon ate his horse, while he hid behind a rock, but came to a grudging agreement when Richard offered to get the dragon’s egg that Rahl was using as hostage for her obedience in flying him places (a humiliation to any dragon, let alone a red dragon), in exchange for her helping him find his friends. Richard guessed that all the gars they had seen around a warm, black, egg-like object must be guarding her egg. He managed to get many of the gars to fight themselves by tying pieces of his bloodied clothing (from a tentacled monster in the tunnel which had attacked him) around rocks and throwing them into the gars. He also used the bird whistle the Bird Man had given him; he was terrible at it, he could only say that there was food here, instead of selectively calling a bird, but huge numbers of birds came and started eating the flies. They noticed their flies missing and attacked each other. He managed to kill some, but just in time the dragon showed up and rescued him, although she had come because she did not trust him. They flew to a hidden spot she had picked out, safe from Darken Rahl, then flew him around for a couple days until he found his friends on the plain, going towards the People’s Palace to rescue him. (They had sent the box safely back to Westland with his brother, which Richard had told them to do before he left for the cave.) However, Darken Rahl had put an “enemy’s web” on him, which made him look like an enemy to his friends, and indeed, Zedd attacked him with wizard’s fire, as predicted, which Richard dispelled with the sword.

Sadly, Richard left to find his brother, finding him quickly with the aid of the dragon. But he discovered that he had ignored the symptoms of his brother’s character, and he had not connected the fact that his brother’s first act on becoming the top political person was to outlaw fire, with the fact that Darken Rahl outlawed fire. He easily evaded his brother’s guards with his woods skills, as it was night, stole a horse and released the others to create havoc.

Meanwhile, Darken Rahl’s second, Demmin, came with a party and overpowered Chase, Zedd, and Kahlan. Kahlan used her power too early, and they attempted to rape her, none to discreetly worded. She taunted Demmin to do it himself and manipulated him into telling her what happened to Richard, which he was happy to do to dispirit her. He had not seen Richard die, but knew that Denna would have killed him. At that point Kahlan called down Con Mar, which is a blood oath for vengeance on Richard, and Demmin died instantly. They came to palace and went to the Garden of Life in the center. Zedd could tell from the feeling in the air that all three boxes were there. Darken Rahl was there, with the Seeker’s sword, and in vengeance she engaged him. Something about his actions, as well as Darken Rahl’s (really Richard) strange visit a few days earlier tipped something off in Zedd and he cried out that it was really Richard and not Darken Rahl. It was too late, she had just used her power on Richard. The real Darken Rahl showed himself, put Zedd in a wizard cage, and by means of threatening Kahlan, whom Richard now desired her favor with all of his being, forced Richard to recite the Book of Counted Shadows, which told how to tell which box was which. The process turned out to require several days, orienting the boxes correctly beginning on the first day of winter, counting how many shadows were cast. When Richard came to the end, he went to kill Kahlan to prove that Richard had recite the entire book. He apparently had found some information from other sources, but as Zedd knew, the wizard books had varying level of correctness, and the one on the specific subject took precedence. Darken Rahl hesistated, but followed the wizard guidance, and opened the second box, despite his information saying that it was the box that would kill him. In fact, it did begin to kill him. Surprised, he asked how this could be. Richard said he had used Wizard’s First Rule: Rahl wanted to believe Kahlan’s power worked on him, so he acted like it, but did not recite the last line of the book, which said that now you should pick one earlier box to rule in love and one later to rule in power. Then he went found Kahlan, who was just about to kill herself. She released her power had not “taken” him when he said no to her request to let her kill herself. In answer to her surprised query, he said that when she came he already had decided that he was completely willing to be “taken” and become her adoring-slave; his love and devotion for her had only grown, and it was that he was completely willing, with no doubt, that the magic passed over him and did not touch him. (Zedd confirmed this when she asked why he had not told her of this possibility when she asked him to take away her power because she wanted to love him. He said that it had only happened with a Confessor once before [suggesting perhaps himself], but that if he had said anything to Richard, it would have planted a doubt and made it impossible.) She rejoiced and they kissed passionately.

 Emerging from the palace, both his brother’s army and the D'Hara army were assembled in front of the steps to swear loyalty to him. He refused to be anything other than a woods guide, and then proceeded to issue some decrees: all hostilities were at an end, the Westland army should return home, the fire-ban repealed and the armies should help the people who were cold (and starving because of the excessive taxes). Scarlet, the dragon, showed up, asking if he needed some fire, but he said it was okay. Richard inevitably made friends with everyone he encountered, and despite the dragon’s saying it wanted to eat him after the six days of their agreement, it had come back to tell him that its daughter had hatched and to bring him back to show him. He said yes, if she would take Kahlan as well, and then when Sidden, whom Rahl had abducted from the Mud People when he left showed up, freed from the Queen’s dungeon, he persuaded her to take him back to the Mud People afterwards. In view of his imminent departure, he said that the guard who had warned him about the dragon seemed like a go-getter, and told him to figure out how to destroy all the Agiels except the one around his neck, and to confiscate the Mord-Sith’s clothes, and figure out how to have them serve others and be honored for it, so that they could be healed from only knowing pain (but any who clung to the old life would be killed). Then he left.

We the reader also learned that Richard’s father was actually Darken Rahl, who had raped Zedd’s daughter. In the past, wizard’s ruled for power, but it did not go well, so they chose to take the path of love and help those who did rule and keep their corruption in check. (This also led to the creation of the Confessors, since the wizards did not manage it.) The wizards of D'Hara still chose power (and indeed, the people were magically bound to the Rahl family, and the soldiers had recognized Richard as their ruler because of that.) Richard combined Zedd’s branch of love with Rahl’s branch of power, which was how he was able to defeat Rahl, who had combined the additive magic of the living world with the subtractive magic of the underworld (which was completely unknown to the wizards). However, Rahl had warned that he was merely an agent of the underworld, as indeed the prophecies had said. Zedd went to find Adie, not just because she was attracted to him, but to bring her to the wizard’s tower so that they could study the prophecies, since she knew the most of anyone about the underworld.

Wizard’s First Rule is clearly Goodkind’s first book. It makes the mistake of narrating both Richard and Kahlan’s thoughts, which are not really deep enough for me to want to be in their heads, and also destroys any narrative tension. For instance, the major source of romantic tension between the two is Kahlan’s secret of what her power does, but the reader knows pretty much everything well before Richard. But narrative tension is also destroyed by how easily Richard escapes situations. Either he has someone to tell him what to do (e.g. the gar at the beginning, or Chase with the hounds and the swamp), or he manages to come up with a solution virtually instantly. So despite the fact that the Great Wizard had no idea how to cross the Boundary without going through it, after a few minutes of thought the solution is obvious to Richard. There’s not even any internal doubt over gambling his life on a hunch that the thing the gars are guarding is the dragon’s egg. So while things move along at a good clip, there’s rarely a credible threat, nor much mystery.

This is no Middle-Earth or Narnia that you wish were real; Goodkind’s world is cruel. All the magic users and monsters are completely overpowered; how do normal people survive when there are things like gars about, where simply killing an insect biting you can get you brutally killed without warning? What kind of world has a magic box that lets you control everyone, or a self-destruct box? Sure it is guarded by a time limit, knowledge hidden in a book, and the skill to write complicated spell runes, but the fact that it is even a possibility is terrifying, since it is only a matter of time before a Darken Rahl appears. Richard is effectively taken hostage by Zedd when appointed Seeker: he is the one person who can stop the end of the world, and maybe not even then. No pressure. This situation also essentially requires a utilitarian ethic, that everything must be open to sacrifice in service of the saving the world, but that is a cruel situation. Contrast this with Tolkien, where the Ring puts everyone in a similar position, yet it never feels like a hostage plot. First, there is a clear path to success, albeit it unlikely to succeed: unmake the Ring in Mt. Doom. Second, everyone in the party chooses; no one is appointed, not even Frodo, the owner of the Ring. Third, while Sauron is more powerful, he is not so completely powerful that the only way to win is by a trick, a sort of sleight-of-mind.

The last half of the book is really hard to read, By this time you are completely wanting Kahlan to continue getting taught deeper and deeper love, and choosing to respond accordingly, but instead you have to read through fifty pages of literal torture, and not terribly subtly implied SDM rape perpetrated by Denna. That’s the cruel opposite of romance, yet Richard comes to love Mistress Denna. It is supposed to be forgiveness, but it feels like Stockholm Syndrome. Furthermore, I did not sign up for fantasy Auschwitz, nor did the romance novel first half prepare me for this possibility. Yes, the claim is that Richard learns forgiveness, but I think the torture did not need to be so explicit, and the forgiveness part definitely needed more than “oh, she all she knows is torture, now I totally empathize with her.” Then, after all this, we have to read through an attempted rape of Kahlan. I feel like the book ought to have an X-rated warning, even though there is nothing sexually explicit.

Darken Rahl, and his “pets”, the Mord-Sith are over-the-top cruel. C.S. Lewis shows the cruelty of the Satan-equivalent in Perelandra in one brief scene, yet Darken Rahl’s cruelty pervades the whole book. Even though Morgoth and Sauron’s touch stained all of Arda, Middle Earth was still clearly a wonderful place. Since the book has strong philosophical elements, it makes me wonder what his worldview is, whether he sees reality as fundamentally cruel.

The philosophical elements are the high point of the book. The dualism is a little simplistic, but there is attempted depth there. Anger with forgiveness, giving oneself in loving service vs. enforced worshiping service, ruling over people by power vs. being the servant of all. There is a fairly deep message on love, which is the only thing the book manages to show instead of tell, although it veers into worshiping the beloved at the end. The philosophical elements come across as overstated somehow, though.

I think this book wanted to be The Alchemist, which is charming, beautiful, deep, and overtly philosophical without feeling pushy. Unfortunately, it is a hostage plot married to a romance novel set in a cruel world. It is hard to care about anything because there is no narrative tension, and Evil is so laughably overpowered that you cannot take the world seriously. There is something compelling about the characters, but the reader has to suffer a lot of unpleasantness.