They raced out from the long shadows of the buildings and poured around the corner. The people off at the end of the street all turned when they spotted Richard's force coming. More people--men and women from the city--surged into the street in front of the compound of buildings the soldiers had taken up as barracks and a command post. The people looked like a scraggly lot.

"No war! No war! No war!" the people shouted as Richard led the men up the street at a dead run.

"Out of the way!" Richard yelled as he closed the distance. This was no time for subtlety or discussions: the success of their attack depended in large part on speed. "Get out of the way! This is your only warning! Get out of the way or die!"

"Stop the hate! Stop the hate!" the people chanted as they locked arms.

They had no idea how much hate was raging through Richard. He drew the Sword of Truth. The wrath of its magic didn't come out with it, but he had enough of his own. He slowed to a trot.

"Move!" Richard called as he bore down on the people.

A plump, curly-haired woman took a step out from the others. Her round face was red with anger as she screamed. "Stop the hate! No war! Stop the hate! No war!"

"Move or die!" Richard yelled as he picked up speed.

The red-faced woman shook her fleshy fist at Richard and his men, leading an angry chant. "Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!"

On his way past her, gritting his teeth as he screamed with the fury of the attack begun, Richard took a powerful swing, lopping off the woman's head and upraised arm. Strings of blood and gore splashed across the faces behind her even as some still chanted their empty words. The head and loose arm tumbled through the crowd. A man mad the mistake of reaching for Richard's weapon, and took the full weight of a charging thrust.

Men behind Richard hit the line of evil's guardians with unrestrained violence. People armed only with their hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied, terribly injured, and dead. The line of people collapsed before the merciless charge. Some of the people, screaming their contempt, used their fists to attack Richard's men. They were met with swift and deadly steel.

(Richard says) "Murder goes against nature."

The wizard smiled. "Murder is the way of nature, of all living things."

Richard knew Zedd was sucking him in -- it was his way draw you in with an outrageous statement - but his blood was up and he couldn't help protesting. "Only some of nature. Like predators. And that's only to survive. Look at these trees, they can't even think of murder."

"Murder is the way of all things, the way of nature," Zedd repeated. "Every living thing is a murderer."

Richard looked to Kahlan for support. "Don't look at me," she said. "I learned a long time ago not to debate with wizards."

Richard looked up, at the beautiful big pine spreading over them, illuminated in the firelight. A spark of understanding lit in his mind. He saw the branches, stretched out with murderous intent, in a years-long struggle to reach the sunlight and dispatch its neighbors with its shade. Success would give space for its offspring, many of which would also shrivel in the shade of the parent. Several close neighbors of the big pine were withered and weak, victims all. It was true: the design of nature was success by murder.

Zedd watched Richard's eyes. This was a lesson, the way the old man had taught Richard since he was young. "You have learned something, my boy?"

Richard nodded. "Life for the strongest. There is no sympathy for the slain, only admiration for the winner's strength."

"But people don't think that way," Kahlan said, unable to keep her tongue.

Zedd gave a sly smile. "No?" He pointed to a small, withered tree near them. "Look at this tree, dear one." He pointed to the big pine. "And this. Tell me which you admire more."

"This one," she said, pointing at the big pine. "It's a beautiful tree."

"This one. You see? People do think this way. It's beautiful, you said. You chose the tree that murders, not the one murdered." Zedd smiled triumphantly. "The way of nature."

Kahlan folded her arms. "I knew I should have kept my mouth shut."

My sense of identification with Hamilton had begun a couple years prior, when I was working as the substitute receptionist at a NYC design firm. One day there, while in the library of that firm contemplating the pointless and groveling condition of my current state, I held one of the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, wishing that, rather than a book about other people and things it was a book about me, so I could understand who I was and what I should be doing. With that hopeless wish clearly in mind, I (I want to say absent-mindedly) opened the book to Alexander Hamilton, with whom, I found, I share a birthday. Later that week, one of the designers (with whom I was beginning a brief emotional affair) commented that she kept wanting to call me Alexander. (Though in her mind it was a reference to Alexander the Great… with whom I was fascinated as a child. She was of Persian descent and had the idea that I was going to help her effect a break from her father; hence, Alex.)

Anyway, the next morning when I showed up to work (back at the dot-con) I found a book on my chair, left there by our mutual friend (JS). On it there was a post it note that read: “someone left this on the trunk of my car in the Home Depot parking lot last night and I figured of all the people I know you might get the most out of it.” It was Joseph Ellis’ FOUNDING BROTHERS: The Revolutionary Generation. Chapter One was titled The Duel, much of which was spent exploring the question of whether or not Hamilton fired at Burr. There was even a report of something Hamilton said as he briefly regained semi-consciousness, in the boat crossing back over the Hudson after having been shot, suggesting that he himself was unsure.

That day I finally went to the DMV to register the blue Miata I’d bought used. As is typical at the DMV, there was a long line, and I read this chapter as I waited. Behind me was a completely bald guy in a ratty t-shirt with a small image of angel wings on the breast. We’d been in silence for our entire time in line, till just a few moments before I was called up to the counter. Suddenly he asked me, “Is it a good book?” And I replied, “It is if you like history.” To which he said, “Well, we were all there, you know. We’ve all lived before.” Then I was called to the next available teller.

More tomorrow. I have to go to sleep.

Exactly the same reasoning was applied to Omar M. Burke’s book. Again, an apparently experienced author whom one would have expected to produce other works.

This then is the ‘evidence’ such as it is.

Do you have an particular reason for not believing Shah was the author of the Lefort work? May I ask why it would matter to you? Would you be disappointed if Shah is the author? I know I was just a little disappointed since it suggested, obliquely, as in other books, that Shah was a central figure. I always reasoned that away in terms of this being a posture necessary for western readers to get them to pay attention in the first instance. They too are suckers for pedigree as it were and, if that is what it takes to get them to sit up. then so be it etc etc.