“Closing a land to a Confessor is tantamount to an admission of guilt, and is sufficient cause for the leader to be taken from power. This is why the Mud People, for example, allow me in, even though they do not often let other outsiders in. Not allowing a Confessor access would raise questions and suspicions. A leader involved in any sort of plot would gladly grant a Confessor free access, to try to hide their involvement in any subversion.
“In those times, there were some among the Confessors who were more than willing to use their power as they wanted, to root out wrongdoing, as they saw it. The wizards exerted their influence to bring this under control, but the Confessors’ zeal showed the people what a Confessor was capable of. But those were different times.”
Taking a ruler from power. Different times or not, Richard found all this hard to take, to justify. “What gave these Confessors the right?”
She shook her head slowly. “What we are doing now, you and I, is it much different from what has been done in the past? Taking a ruler from power? We all do what we think we must, what we think is right.”
He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I see your point,” he admitted. “Have you done this before? Removing a ruler?”
She shook her head. “Still, the leaders of the lands are all keen to avoid my attention. It is much the same way with the Seeker. At least, it used to be, before you and I were born. Then, Seekers were more feared and respected than Confessors.” She gave him a meaningful look. “They, too, have dethroned kings. Now, though, because the Old One was ignored, and the sword had become a political favor, they are seen as less; little more than pawns, thieves.”
“I’m not sure that has changed,” Richard said, more to himself than to her. “Much of the time, I feel as if I am nothing more than a pawn, being moved by others. Even by Zedd, and…”
He shut his mouth and didn’t finish; she did it for him.
“And by me.”
“I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that, sometimes, I wish I had never heard of the Sword of Truth. But at the same time, I can’t allow Rahl to win, so I’m stuck with my duty. I guess I have no choice, and that’s what I hate.”
Kahlan smiled sadly as she folded her legs under her. “Richard, as you come to understand what I am, I hope you can remember it’s the same with me. I, too, have no choice. But with me, it’s worse, because I was born with my power. At least when this is all done, you can give the sword back if you want. I am a Confessor for as long as I live.” She paused, then added, “Since I have come to know you, I would pay any price to be able to give it up, and just be a normal woman.”
Richard didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he picked up a stick and started drawing lines in the dirt. “I still don’t understand, why are you called ‘Confessors’? What does ‘Confessor’ mean?” He was able to look up at her only with great difficulty.
Kahlan took on an expression of pain that made him feel sorry for her. “It is what we do. We are the final arbiters of truth. It is the reason the wizards gave us the power, back in times long forgotten. It is how we serve the people.”
“Final arbiter of truth.” he repeated with a frown. “Something like a Seeker.”
She nodded. “Seekers and Confessors are linked in purpose. In a way, we are the opposite ends of the same magic. The wizards of long ago were almost like rulers, and they became frustrated by the corruption about them. They hated the lies and deception. They wanted a way to prevent corrupt leaders from using their power to deceive and subvert the people. You see, these unscrupulous leaders would simply accuse their political enemies of a crime, and have them executed for it, at once dishonoring them and eliminating them.
“The wizards wanted a way to put a stop to this. They needed a way that left no room for doubt. So they created a magic, and gave it a life of its own. They created the Confessors from a select group of women. They picked the women carefully, because once brought to life in these women, the power had a life of its own, and would pass to their offspring—forever.” She looked down at the stick, idly watching him draw lines. “We use our power to find the truth, when the truth is important enough. Mostly, now, it is used to make sure a person sentenced to death is really guilty. When a person is condemned to death, we touch them, and then, once they are ours, we have them confess.”
Richard found himself leaning over, the stick frozen in place. He forced himself to move it as she went on.
“Once touched, even the most vile of murderers will do as we command, and will confess his crimes. Occasionally, the courts are not sure they have the right man, and so a Confessor is called in to find the truth. In most lands, the law states that none can be put to death without first giving a confession, so all can be sure they are putting the right man to death, and not letting the guilty escape, and that it’s not an act of political revenge.
“Some peoples of the Midlands won’t use a Confessor; the Mud People, for example. They don’t want what they see as outside interference. But they still fear us, because they know what we can do. We respect the wishes of these people; there is no law forcing them to use our services. But still, we would force it on them if we suspected there was deception involved. Most lands, though, do use us. They find it expedient.
“The Confessors were the ones who first uncovered the plotting and subversion taking place on behalf of Darken Rahl. Discovering important truths, such as this, is the very reason wizards created Confessors, and Seekers, in the first place. Darken Rahl was not happy we discovered his scheming.
“In rare cases, someone who is to be put to death without the use of a Confessor will call for a Confessor to be brought in, so that he may give a true confession, and thus prove his innocence. In all of the Midlands, this is the right of the condemned.”
Her voice became softer, weaker. “I hate that the most. No one who is guilty would call for a Confessor; it would only prove them to be guilty. Even before I touch these men, I know they are innocent, but I must do it anyway. If you ever saw the look in their eyes when I touch them… you would understand. So when we are called, and even though these men are innocent, they are left…”
Richard swallowed. “How many confessions have you… taken.”
She shook her head slowly. “Too many to count. I have spent half my life in prisons and dungeons, with the most vicious and loathsome animals you could imagine, yet most look to be nothing more than a kindly shopkeeper, or brother, or father, or neighbor. After I touch them, I have heard them all tell me the things they have done. For a long time, in the beginning, it gave me such nightmares I feared sleeping. The stories of the things they had done… you can’t even imagine…”
Richard tossed the stick aside and took her hand in his, squeezing it tightly. She was starting to cry. “Kahlan, you don’t have to…”
“I remember the first man I killed.” Her lip quivered. “I still have dreams about him. He confessed to me the things he had done to his neighbor’s three daughters… the oldest was only five… he looked up at me with wide eyes after he told me the most ghastly things you could imagine… and he said, ‘What is your wish, my mistress’… and without thinking, I said, ‘My wish is for you to die.’” She wiped some of the tears off her cheek with trembling fingers. “He dropped dead on the spot.”
“What did the people there say?”
“What would they dare to say to a Confessor who has just made a man drop dead in front of their eyes simply by her command? They all just backed up and got out of our way when we left. It is not something every Confessor can do. It even scared my wizard speechless.”
Richard frowned. “Your wizard?”
She nodded as she finished wiping the tears away. “Wizards see it as their duty to protect us, as we are universally feared and hated. Confessors almost always travel with the protection of a wizard. One is… well, one was, assigned to each of us when we were called to take a confession. Rahl managed to separate us from our wizards, and now they are dead too. Except Zedd, and Giller.”
Richard picked up the rabbit. It was getting cold. He cut off another piece and handed it to her, then tore off a piece for himself. “Why would the Confessors be feared and hated?”
“The relatives and friends of the man to be executed hate us because they often don’t believe their loved one would do the things they confess to. They would rather believe we somehow trick them in to confessing.” She picked at the meat, pulling off little pieces and chewing them slowly. “I have found that people do not often want to believe the truth. It is of little value to them. Some have tried to kill me. This is one of the reasons a wizard was always with us, to protect us until our power is recovered.”
Richard swallowed his mouthful. “That doesn’t sound like enough reason to me.”
“It is more than simply what we do. This must all sound very strange to someone who has not lived with it. The ways of the Midlands, of magic, must seem very odd to you.”
Odd was not the right word, he thought. Frightening was more like it.
“Confessors are independent; people resent that. Men resent that none of them can rule us, or even tell us what to do. Women resent that we do not live the kind of life they do, that we do not live in the traditional role of women; we do not take care of a man, or submit to one. We are seen as privileged. Our hair is long, a symbol of our authority; they are made to keep their hair short, as a sign of submission to their man and every other person of higher status than they. It may seem a small matter to you, but to our people, no matter having to do with power is small. A woman who allows her hair to grow beyond the length appropriate to her status is forced to forfeit some of that status in punishment. In the Midlands, long hair on a woman is a sign of authority, bordering on defiance. It is a sign that we have the power to do as we wish, and that none may command us; that we are a threat to all. Much as your sword tells people the same thing. No Confessor would wear her hair short, and that rankles people, that none could dare make us do so. It is ironic that we are less free than they, yet they don’t see that part of it. We do their distasteful tasks for them, and yet we are not free to choose what we will do with our own lives. We are prisoners of our power.”
Kahlan ate the rest of the meat he had given her while he thought about how ironic it also was that the Confessors brought love to the most hateful of criminals, yet they could not bring it to ones with whom they would choose closeness. He knew there was something else she was trying to explain.
“I think your long hair is pretty,” he said. “I like it the way it is.”
Kahlan smiled. “Thank you.” She tossed the bones into the fire, watching it for a time, then looked down at her hands as she clicked her thumbnails together. “And then there is the matter of choosing a mate.”
Richard finished his piece of meat and threw the bone in the fire. He leaned back against the log, not liking the sound of this. “Choosing a mate? What do you mean?”
She studied her hands as if trying to find refuge in them. “When a Confessor reaches the age to be a proper mother, she must choose a mate. A Confessor may choose any man she wishes, even one already married. She may roam the Midlands, searching for a proper father to her daughters, one who is strong, and maybe one who is handsome to her eyes. Whatever she wants.
“Men are terrified of a Confessor who is looking for a mate, because they don’t want to be chosen, to be touched by her. Women are terrified because they don’t want their man, or their brother, or their son to be taken. They all know they have no say in the matter; any who stood in the way of a Confessor’s choosing would be taken by her. People are afraid of me, first because I am the Mother Confessor, and second because I am long past the time I should have chosen a mate.”
Richard still clung tenaciously to his hopes and dreams. “But what if you care about someone, and they care for you?”
Kahlan shook her head sadly. “Confessors have no friends but other Confessors. It is not a problem; no one would ever have feelings for a Confessor. Every man is afraid of us.” She left unsaid that it was a problem now. Her voice was choking up again. “We are taught from a young age that the mate we choose must be a man of strength, so that the children we bear will be strong. But it must not be someone we care for, because we would destroy him. That is why nothing can come of… of us.”
“But… why?” He felt himself fighting against her words, her power.
“Because…” She looked away, her face unable to mask her pain, her green eyes filling with tears. “Because in the throes of passion, a Confessor’s hold on the power would relax, and she would release it into him, even though she didn’t mean to, and then he would no longer be the person she cared for. There is no way for her to prevent herself from doing it. None. He would be hers, but not in the same way. The very one she cared for would be with her, but only because of the magic, no longer by his choice, and not because he wanted to. He would only be a shell, holding what she had put into him. No Confessor would want that for a man for whom she cared.
“That is why Confessors, since time long forgotten, have shut themselves away from men, for fear they would grow to care for one. Though we are seen as heartless, it is not true; we all fear what our touch would do to a man we held dear. Some Confessors choose men who are disliked, or even hated, so as not to destroy a kind heart. Though it is only the choice of a few, it is the way they deal with it, and is their right. No other Confessor would criticize one who has chosen in this manner; we all understand it.” Her tearful eyes looked at him, pleading for him to understand.
“But… I could…” He could think of no defense for his heart.
“I could not. For me, it would be the same as you wanting to be with your mother, and instead having Shota, appearing to be your mother. But she wasn’t. It would just be an illusion of love. Do you understand?” she cried. “Would that bring you any true joy?”
Richard felt the hopes of his world collapsing in the flames of his understanding. His heart sank into the ashes.
“The spirit house,” he asked in a dry voice, “is that what Shota was talking about? Is that when you came within a breath of using your power on me?” His tone was a little colder than he wished it to be.
“Yes.” Her voice broke with emotion as she tried to keep from crying. “I’m sorry, Richard.” She knitted her fingers together. “I have never before cared for anyone the way I care for you. I wanted to be with you so badly. I almost forgot who I was. I almost didn’t care.” Tears started running down her cheeks. “Do you see now how dangerous my power is? Do you see how easily I could destroy you? If you hadn’t stopped me when you did… you would have been lost.”
He felt an agony of compassion for her, for what she was, and for the fact that she couldn’t do anything about it, and he felt the ache of his own pain at the feeling of loss, even though he realized now that there was nothing to lose, she could never have been his, or more precisely, he hers; it all had just been a fantasy in his mind.
Zedd had tried to warn him, tried to save him this pain. Why couldn’t he have listened? Why did he have to be so stupid and think he would be smart enough to figure something out? He knew why. He stood slowly and took a step to the fire so she wouldn’t see his tears. He kept swallowing so he could try to talk.
“Why do you always say ‘she,’ ‘her,’ ‘daughter’? Why always women? What of the men, don’t Confessors bear male children?” He realized his voice sounded as if it were scraping over gravel.
He listened to the fire crackling for a long time as she didn’t answer. He turned back to her when he heard her crying. She looked up and held her hand out for him to help her up. Once up, she leaned against the log, pulled her long hair back from her face, and then folded her arms below her breasts.
“Yes, Confessors bear male children. Not as often as in the past, but they still do.” She cleared her throat. “But the power is stronger in them; they need no time to recover. Sometimes, the power becomes everything to them, corrupts them. This is the mistake
the wizards made.
“They chose women for this very reason, but didn’t give sufficient thought to how the power would take on a life of its own. They didn’t foresee how the power would be passed on to the offspring, and be so different in men.
“Long ago, a few male Confessors joined forces, and brought about a terrible reign of cruelty. It was called the dark time. They were the cause of it. It was a time something like now, with Darken Rahl. At last, the wizards hunted them all down and killed them. Many of the wizards died too. From that time, the wizards withdrew from trying to rule the lands. Too many of them had been killed anyway. Instead, now they only try to serve the people, to help where they can. But they no longer interfere with rulers if they can help it. They have learned bitter lessons.”
Kahlan looked down, away from his eyes as she went on. “For some reason, it takes the unique compassion of a woman to handle the power, to be free from its corrupting influence. The wizards don’t know the reason for this. It is similar with the Seeker: he must be the right one, one found by a wizard, or he will use the power for corrupt reasons. That is why Zedd was so angry at the council of the Midlands for taking the naming away from him. Male Confessors, not all, but most, cannot retain their sense of balance with the power. They don’t have the strength to hold it back when they should.” She peered up at him.
“When they wanted a woman, they simply used the power and took her. Many women. They had no restraint, no sense of responsibility for what they were doing. From what I have been told, the dark time was one long night of terror. Their reign lasted for years. The wizards had to do a lot of killing. They eventually killed all the offspring of this lust, to prevent the power from spreading, uncontrolled. To say the wizards were displeased would not touch it.”
“So what happens now?” he asked warily. “What happens when a Confessor bears a male child?”
She cleared her throat again, swallowing back her sobs. “When a boy is born to a Confessor, he is brought to a special place in the center of Aydindril, where his mother places him on the Stone.” She shifted her weight; she was clearly having difficulty telling him about this. He took her soft hand in both of his and rubbed the back of it with his thumbs, even though he felt for the first time that he had no business touching her in a familiar manner. “As I told you, a man touched by a Confessor will do whatever she tells him.” He could feel her hand trembling. “The mother commands her husband in what he is to do… and he… he places a rod over the baby’s throat… and… and he steps on both ends.”
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