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The reflections of the Mother Confessor, in her white dress, rotated around the polished black columns as she marched down the gallery, the Mother Confessor's private entrance to the Council chambers. Kahlan was an hour early. She planned to be sitting in the First Chair as she watched all the Councilors arrive. She didn't want them talking among themselves before she was present.
She froze to a halt as she threw the doors open. The room was packed. Every Council chair was occupied. The galleries were all packed with people; not only officials, administrators, staff, and nobility, but ordinary people: farmers, shop keepers, merchants, cooks, tradesmen, wagon drivers, and laborers. Men and women of every sort. Every eye was on her as she stood before the doors.
Across the huge room, the Councilors all sat in their chairs. No one made a sound. Someone was sitting in the First Chair. From this distance, she couldn't see who it was, but she knew.
Kahlan touched her fingers to the bone necklace at her throat and prayed to the good spirits for protection and strength. Her boots echoed off the marble as she strode through patches of sunlight. There was something on the floor before the dais, but she couldn't tell what it was.
When Kahlan reached the curved desk, the man sitting in the First Chair was not the one she expected. Stretched out on a litter before the dais lay the body of Prince Fyren. His skin was pasty. His arms were folded, his hands laid over the blood soaked ruffles of his shirt. His sword rested across his body. Prince Fyren's throat had been sliced open nearly to his spinal column.
Kahlan looked up to the solemn, dark eyes watching her. He came forward from the back of the First Chair and folded his hands together on the desk. A quick glance revealed what she hadn't noticed before: a ring of guards around the room.
She glared up at the man with the dark hair and beard. "Get out of my chair, or I will kill you myself."
The room rang with the sound of swords being drawn. Without taking his dark eyes from her, the man gave a flick of his hand. Every sword went hesitantly back into its scabbard.
"You are done killing people, Mother Confessor," he said in a quiet voice. "Prince Fyren was your last victim."
Kahlan frowned. "Who are you?"
"Neville Ranson." Still, his eyes did not leave her as he turned his hand up. A ball of flame ignited above his palm. "Wizard Neville Ranson."
Still, his eyes did not leave her as he cast the ball of flame skyward. It rose obediently toward the peak of the dome, where it broke, with a pop, into thousands of sparkles. Astonished gasps filled the room.
Wizard Ranson leaned back and drew open a scroll. "We have a great many charges, Mother Confessor. Where would you like to begin?"
Without turning her head, Kahlan's eyes took a sweep of what she could see of the room. There was no chance of escape. None. Even if the man before her were not a wizard.
"Since they will all be invented, I guess it doesn't matter. Why don't we just dispense with the mockery, and simply proceed to the execution."
The room remained dead silent. Wizard Ranson did not smile. His eyebrows lifted.
"Oh, no mockery, Mother Confessor, but serious charges. We are here to get to the truth of them. Unlike the Confessors, I refuse to put an innocent person to death. Before we are finished today, everyone here will know the truth of your treason. I want the people to know the full extent of your vile tyranny."
Kahlan clasped her hands together as she stood with her back straight. She wore her Confessor's face, as her mother had taught her. The people all leaned forward a little.
"Since it is a long list," Ranson said, "We might as well begin with the most serious charge." He glanced down. "Treason."
"And since when is defending the people of the Midlands treason?"
Wizard Ranson slammed his fist to the desk as he shot to his feet. "Defending the people of the Midlands! I have never in my life heard such filth from the mouth of a woman!" He smoothed his tan robes at his stomach and then sat back down. "Your 'defense' of the people was to plunge them into war. You would condemn thousands to die, to assuage your dread that someone other than yourself would rule. And rule with the unanimous agreement of the Council, I might add."
"It is hardly unanimous if the Mother Confessor dissents."
"Dissents for her own selfish motives."
"And who is it that you would have rule the Midlands? Kelton? Yourself?"
"The saviors of all people. The Imperial Order."
A prickling sensation rose up her legs. Kahlan felt as if the whole of the dome overhead were collapsing down on her. Her head spun. She thought she might be sick right there, in front of everyone. She forced her stomach to behave.
"The Imperial Order! The Imperial Order slaughtered Ebinissia! They crush all opposition to steal rule for themselves!"
"Lies. The Imperial Order is dedicated to benevolent rule. They simply wish to put your murderous intents to an end."
"Benevolent! They raped and butchered the people of Ebinissia!"
Ranson chuckled. "Come, come, Mother Confessor. The Imperial Order has murdered no one." He turned to a man Kahlan didn't recognize. "Councilor Thurstan, has your crown city been harmed by anyone?"
The jowly man looked surprised. "I have just arrived two days ago from the beautiful city of Ebinissia, and they know nothing of their slaughter."
The crowd chuckled with him. Ranson smiled petulantly at her.
"Did you not expect, Mother Confessor, that we would have witnesses to expose your preposterous stories? This is simply a fiction meant to inflame people's fears, and stir them to war."
Ranson snapped his fingers. A woman in drab, worn clothes came in and stood to the side. Ranson gently told her not to be frightened, and to tell her story. The woman told of how her children had to go to bed hungry, because she had no money. She said she had been forced into prostitution to feed her children. Kahlan knew it was a lie. There was no scarcity of charitable people and groups who would help anyone truly needing it.
For the next hour, one witness after another was paraded in, and each told a story of hunger and want, and how the Palace would not give them money to feed and clothe themselves, not caring if their children starved. The people in the balconies listened with rapt attention to the sad stories, some weeping with the witnesses.
Kahlan recognized a few of the people testifying. She remembered Mistress Sanderholt offering them work in the past. She had told Kahlan that when they had come in, they scoffed at the things they were asked to do. Mistress Sanderholt ended up having to do many of the tasks herself.
Wizard Ranson rose to his feet, after the last witness had told his tearful story, and turned to each side, addressing the people gathered. "The Mother Confessor has a vast treasury, and she intended to use it to finance a war against the people of the Midlands who would wish to be free of her rule. She first takes the food from your mouths, and the mouths of your children, and then, to keep you from thinking about the gnawing hunger in your gut, invents an enemy, and starts a war with your hard earned money, which she has stolen for her already wealth friends.
"While you people go hungry, she eats well! While you need clothes, she would buy weapons! While your sons would bleed to death in battle, she lounges in the lap of luxury! When your family members are unjustly accused of crimes, she uses her magic to make them confess to crimes they did not commit to silence their protests against her tyranny!"
People were weeping. A few cried out with anguish at the last part. Still more angrily demanded justice. Kahlan began to doubt that she would be beheaded. This mob would probably tear her apart before she ever made it to the block.
Ranson held his arms open to the people gathered. "As a representative of the Imperial Order, I direct that the people get what they really need. The treasury of Aydindril will be put to its best use. It will be turned back to the oppressed. I direct that every family shall be entitled to one gold piece a month, to clothe and feed your children. There will be no starvati
on allowed under the rule of the Imperial Order."
Cheering erupted in the great hall. The wild applauding and huzzah went on unabated for a good five minutes. Ranson sat and steepled his fingers while he listened to the celebration. He never took his eyes from Kahlan, nor she from his.
Kahlan knew that life's hardships were not that simple to eradicate. She knew that seeming kindness could in truth be cruel. She calculated that the payments would take, at most, six months to empty the treasury. She wondered what would happen the following month, when the money was gone, and people would have by then stopped working, or planting, to provide for themselves. Then there certainly would be hunger and starvation—in the guise of generosity.
At last the noise died out. Ranson leaned forward.
"There is no way of telling how many people have gone hungry, or starved to death, or died in war, by your command, Mother Confessor. It is obvious you are guilty of treason against the people of the Midlands. I see no reason to draw the evidence out, as we could, for weeks." The other Councilors all gave yeas of agreement. Ranson slapped his hand to the desk. "Guilty of the first charge then: treason."
The people cheered, again. Kahlan stood with her back stiff, wearing her Confessor's face. Ranson read off charges she could scarcely believe could be read with a straight face. Witnesses came forward and testified to atrocities that Kahlan thought anyone with common sense would laugh at. No one laughed.
People she had never met before confided their intimate knowledge of what Confessors did in secret. A lump rose in Kahlan's throat as she heard what people thought of her. People repeated irrational fears and rumors of every sort of outrage committed by Confessors, and the Mother Confessor in particular.
Her whole life she had sacrificed everything, as had the other Confessors, to protect these people, and the whole time they believed these monstrosities instead. Kahlan thought, when she heard a witness testify that in order to retain their magical power, Confessors had to dine regularly on human flesh, that there would be laughter at the charge. Instead, wide-eyed people leaned forward and gasped. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting into tears, not because she was being charged with such things, but because people truly believed them of her.
Kahlan finally stopped listening. As Ranson listed charges, brough forth witnesses, and the Council found her guilty of charge after charge, she thought about Richard. She tried to remember all the moments she had spent with him, all the times he had smiled, all the times he had touched her. She tried to remember every kiss.
"You think it amusing!" Ranson railed.
Kahlan looked up. She realized she was smiling. "What?"
A woman was standing to the side, weeping into a kerchief. Kahlan blinked at her, and then looked up to Ranson.
"I'm sorry, I guess I missed her performance."
The crowd grumbled in anger. Ranson leaned back in his chair with a disgusted shake of his head.
"Guilty, of practicing your Confessor's magic on children."
"What? Are you insane? Children?"
Ranson held a hand out toward the woman, who broke into wild wailing. "She has just testified that her child is missing, and has told how other women have had their children disappear, too, and how it is common knowledge that the children are taken so that Confessors may practice their magic on them. As a wizard, I can verify the truth of this." The crowd howled with rage.
Kahlan blinked up at him. "I have a headache. Why don't you just chop it off for me."
"Uncomfortable, Mother Confessor? Uncomfortable that the people would be given the chance to face their oppressor, and hear the extent of her heinous crimes?"
Kahlan held her Confessor's face to keep from tears. "I am sorry, only that I have given my whole life to the people of the Midlands. Had I known they would be so ungrateful, and believe instead such filth after what I have sacrificed for them, I would have been more selfish and left them to true tyranny."
Ranson scowled down at her. "You have worked your whole life for the Keeper." The crowd gasped again. "That is who you serve. That is what you work for. You offer the souls of your people to your Master, the Keeper, in the underworld."
People in the balconies wailed with terror. Cries of anger and calls for vengeance echoed in the dome. Shaking their fists, the crowd on the main floor tried to push forward, but the guards spread their arms and held them back. Ranson lifted his hands, calling for calm and quiet.
Kahlan moved her gaze over the people to each side.
"I give you to the Imperial Order," she called out in a loud voice. "I work no longer to save you. You will be punished for your unthinking willingness to believe these lies. Punished by what your own selfish desires will bring upon you. You will come to regret the torment your have willingly cast yourselves into. I am joyful that I will be dead, so I will not be tempted to help you. I regret only that I have ever shed a tear for your suffering. To the Keeper with all of you!
Kahlan glared up at a smirking wizard Ranson. "Get on with it! Chop off my head! I'm sickened with this travesty of truth! You and your Imperial Order win. Kill me, so I may be rid of this life, and go to the spirit world, where I will not have to suffer to help anyone. I confess to everything. Execute me. I am guilty of it all." She looked down at the body at her feet. "Except killing this Keltish pig. I wish, now, that I would have killed him, but unfortunately, I can't claim credit."
Ranson lifted an eyebrow. "A liar to the end, Mother Confessor; you cannot even admit the truth of this murder."
Lady Ordith came in, her nose in the air, and testified that she had heard Kahlan threaten Prince Fyren only the night before. The Council all spoke up, that they, too, had heard her threaten to cut his throat.
"This is your proof?" Kahlan asked.
Ranson gestured to the side. "Bring in the witness. You see, Mother Confessor, we know the truth. One of your former friends wanted to help hide the truth of your ways, and we had to use extreme measures to make her cooperate, but in the end, she did."
A shaking Mistress Sanderholt was led into the chamber. Guards stood to each side of her stooped, thin frame. Her face was drawn, her red eyes heavy with dark bags underneath. Her familiar vitality was gone. Swaying slightly, she looked as if she could hardly stand without aid.
Mistress Sanderholt held her mangled hands out, in fear they would touch anything. All her fingernails had been pulled off with tongs. Bile rose in Kahlan's throat.
A stern faced Neville Ranson looked down at the woman. "Tell us what you know of this murder."
Mistress Sanderholt gazed unblinking up at him. She bit her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears. It was obvious she didn't want to speak.
Ranson slammed his fist on the desk. "Speak! Or we will find you guilty of aiding the murderer!"
"Mistress Sanderholt," Kahlan said softly. The woman's eyes came to her. "Mistress Sanderholt, I know the truth, and you know the truth; that is all that matters. These people are going to do as they plan, with or without your help. I do not want you to suffer on my account. Please tell them what they wish to hear."
Tears rolled down her face. "But..."
Kahlan straightened her back. "Mistress Sanderholt, as Mother Confessor, I command you to testify against me."
Mistress Sanderholt gave her a twitch of a smile. She turned her face up to the Council. "I saw the Mother Confessor sneak up behind Prince Fyren. She cut his throat before he knew she was there. She gave him no chance to defend himself."
Ranson smiled down and gave her a nod. "Thank you, Mistress Sanderholt. And you were her friend, but you came forward and agreed to testify, because you wanted the Council, and the people, to know the truth?"
More tears streamed down. "Yes. Though I loved her, I had to tell the people the truth of her murderous ways."
After she was escorted out, and the Council had unanimously found her culpable, Ranson stood, lifting his hand for silence before addressing the people.
"The Mother Confesso
r has been found guilty of all charges!" Everyone hooted and hollered their satisfaction. They shouted for an immediate execution. "The Mother Confessor will be executed, but not this day." He held his hand up angrily against the protests. They quieted. "She has committed crimes against all the people. They must be given a chance to hear of justice being done. They must be given a chance to come to the beheading. It will be held in a few days, when everyone harmed by this criminal has had a chance to come to see her executed."
Neville Ranson stepped down and came around the dais. He stood in front of her, looking into her eyes. He spoke quietly, to her, and not to the crowd.
"You would think to use your power on me, Mother Confessor?"
That had been exactly what she had been thinking, to use her power knowing she would die in the process. But she said nothing.
Ranson's smile was cold and cruel. "You shall not have the chance. I am going to strip you of three things. First, your power and its symbol. Second, your dignity. Third, your life."
Kahlan threw herself at him. He stood, his hands clasped, and watched as she was able to move only inches before she was mired in a thickness of air that held her tight. She fought unsuccessfully against the staggering power that held her.
The wizard lifted his hands. Kahlan saw a flash. She cried out as she felt a cold shock flood through her body. It felt as if she had plunged naked into an icy river. She shivered violently. The sting of cold brought tears to her eyes. The cold pain felt as if could grow no worse, could hurt no more, but then it did.
It felt as if her insides ripped, as if her heart were being torn from her chest. She screamed in pain. Stunned by the shock of it, she realized she was on her knees. Ranson was holding his hands out, over her head.
When the pain lifted, she felt tingling panic.
Her power was gone.
Where she had always felt it before, without even being aware of it most of the time, she now felt a forlorn emptiness.
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