When Kahlan first told me about the history of the three lands, she said the council had taken actions that had made the death of a wizard's wife and daughter at the hands of a quad stand for nothing, and as punishment the wizard did the worst thing possible to them: he left them to suffer the cosequences of their own actions.
Terry Goodkind
Source: Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth, Book 1), Pages: 106
Contributed by: Fred