It was High Prince Fyren, of Kelton, sitting in the chair. His feet were up on the desk, and he didn't take them down as he watched her draw near. His eyes were on her, but he was listening to a man with smoothed-down dark hair and beard, streaked with a touch of gray, leaning over whispering to him. The man's hands were in the opposite sleeves of his plain robes. Strange, she thought, for an advisor to be dressed so, like a wizard.
Prince Fyren lifted his eyebrows in delight. 'Mother Confessor!' With deliberate care he took his polished boots down and came to his feet. He put his hands to the desk and leaned over, looking down. 'So good to see you!'
Before, Kahlan had always had a wizard; now, she had none. No protection. She could not afford to appear timid or vulnerable.
She glared up at Prince Fyren. 'If I ever again catch you in the chair of the Mother Confessor, I will kill you.'
He straightened with a smirk. 'You would use your power on a councilor?'
'I will slit your throat with my knife, if I have to.'
The man in the plain robes watched her with unmoving dark eyes. The other councilors blanched.
Prince Fyren pulled his dark blue coat open and rested a hand on his hip. 'Mother Confessor, I meant no offense. You have been gone for a long time. We all thought you were dead. There has been no Confessor in the palace for... what?' He looked to a few of the other men. 'Four, five, six months?' Hand still on his hip, he held his other out and gave a bow. 'I meant no offense, Mother Confessor. Your chair is returned to you, of course.'
Kahlan eyed the remaining men. 'It is late. The council will meet in full session first thing in the morning. Every councilor will be present. The Midlands is at war.'
Prince Fyren lifted an eyebrow. 'War? On whose authority? We have not discussed such a grave matter.'
Kahlan swept her gaze over the councilors, letting it finally settle on Prince Fyren. 'On my authority as the Mother Confessor.' Whispering broke out among the men. Prince Fyren never let his eyes leave hers. When she glowered at the men who were whispering, it sputtered out. 'I want every councilor here, first thing in the morning. You are adjourned, for now, gentlemen.'
Kahlan turned on her heel and marched from the room.
She didn't recognize any of the guards she saw throughout the palace, but then she wouldn't; Zedd had told her before how most of the Home Guard had been killed in the fall of Aydindril to D'Hara. She missed the old faces.
The center of the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril was dominated by a monumental eight-branched staircase, lit, from four stories overhead, by natural light that came through the glass roof. The vast square was surrounded at midlevel by arcaded corridors, their arched openings separated by polished columns of wildly variegated gold and green marble standing on square plinth blocks, each decorated with a medallion of a past ruler of one of the lands of the Midlands. The hundreds upon hundreds of glistening, vase-shaped balusters had been turned from a mellow yellow stone that seemed to glow from within. The square newels, made of a dusky brown granite, were nearly as tall as she, and each was capped with a gold-leafed lamp. Florid carvings in stone covered expansive panels under the complex bands of dentil moldings that ran in mitered bands over the tops of the capitals. The center landing held statues of eight Mother Confessors. Kahlan had seen modest palaces that would fit within the space the staircase occupied.
The monumental staircase and the room that held it had taken forty years to build, the expense borne entirely by Kelton, in partial recompense for their opposition to the joining of the lands into the Midlands, and the war it spawned. It was also decreed that no leader of Kelton could ever be honored with a medallion at the base of the columns. The staircase was dedicated to the people of the Midlands, and was to honor them, not those who built it as penalty. Kelton was now a powerful land of the Midlands in good standing, and Kahlan thought it foolish to rebuke a people for something their ancestors had done centuries ago.
As she reached the central landing and turned up the second flight toward her room, she saw a phalanx of servants waiting at the top of the stairs. They all bowed as one when her eyes fell on them. She thought it must look absurd -nearly thirty sparkling, combed and buffed people in clean, crisp uniforms, all bowing to a filthy woman in wolf hides, carrying a bow and heavy pack. Well, this could only mean one thing: word of her arrival had swept through the whole of the palace already. There wasn't likely to be a gardener in the farthest greenhouse that didn't by now know the Mother Confessor was home.
'Rise, my children,' Kahlan said when she reached the top of the stairs. They moved back to make way for her.
And then it started. Would the Mother Confessor like a bath, would the Mother Confessor like a massage, would the Mother Confessor like her hair washed and brushed, would the Mother Confessor like her nails buffed, would the Mother Confessor care to take any petitioners, would the Mother Confessor like to see any advisors, would the Mother Confessor like any letters written, would the Mother Confessor like, wish, want, need, or require a whole list of things.
Kahlan addressed the mistress of the maidservants. 'Berna-dette, I would like a bath. Nothing else. Just a bath.'
Two women rushed off to see to the bath.
Mistress Bernadette's eyes made an involuntary flick down at Kahlan's attire. 'Would the Mother Confessor like to have any of her clothes mended, or cleaned?'
Kahlan thought about the blue dress in her pack. 'I guess I have a few things that need cleaning.' She thought about all the rest of her clothes, most soaked with blood from one battle or another. 'I guess I have a lot of things that need to be washed.'
'Yes, Mother Confessor. And would you like me to lay out your white dress for tonight?'
'Tonight?'
Mistress Bernadette reddened. 'Runners have already been sent to Kings Row, Mother Confessor. Everyone will want to welcome the Mother Confessor home.'
Kahlan groaned. She was dead tired. She didn't want to greet people, just to tell women how fine their hair looked all pinned and decorated, or men how fine the cut of their coat was, or to listen patiently to supplications that invariably involved the distribution of funds and always sought to prove that the appellant was in no way seeking advantage, but only relief from the inequitable situation in which he was mired.
Mistress Bernadette gave her a corrective look, as she had done when Kahlan was little, as if to say, 'Look here, young lady, you have obligations, and I expect no trouble about it.'
What she said, though, was 'Everyone has been fraught with concern over the safe return of the Mother Confessor. It would do their hearts good to see you safe and well.'
Kahlan doubted that. What Mistress Bernadette really meant was that it would do Kahlan good to remind people that the Mother Confessor was still alive and in charge. Kahlan sighed. 'Of course, Bernadette. Thank you for reminding me people have kept me in their hearts and been worried.'
Mistress Bernadette smiled as she bowed her head. 'Yes, Mother Confessor.'
As the rest of the servants rushed off, Kahlan leaned toward Mistress Bernadette. 'I remember when you would have added a swat on my behind for having to remind me of things.'
Mistress Bernadette's smile returned. 'I think you are too smart, now, for that, Mother Confessor.' She rubbed an invisible spot from the back of her hand. 'Mother Confessor... did you bring any of the other Confessors home with you? Will any of the others be returning, soon?'
Kahlan's features slid into her Confessor's face, as her mother had taught her. 'I'm sorry, Bernadette, I thought you knew. They are all dead. I am the last living Confessor.'
Mistress Bernadette's eyes filled with tears as she whispered a prayer. 'May the good spirits be with them always.'
'Why should they commence now,' Kahlan said tersely. They didn't bother to be with Dennee the day the quad caught her.'
The fireplaces in her rooms were all blazing, as she had known they would be, and would have been every day she had been away, month after month. The fires in the Mother Confessor's rooms would never be allowed to go out in the winter, in case she returned. There was a silver tray on a table, with a fresh loaf of bread, a pot of tea, and a steaming bowl of spice soup. Mistress Sanderholt knew spice soup was her favorite.
Spice soup reminded Kahlan of Richard, now. She remembered making it for him, and he for her.
After dropping her pack and bow to the floor, Kahlan crossed the plush carpets and went into the next room. She stood, idly rubbing her fingers on one of the great, polished posts at the foot of her bed, staring, remembering that she was supposed to be here with Richard. The day they arrived in Aydindril they were to already have been wed. She had promised him this big bed.
Kahlan remembered the joy in her heart the day they talked about being wed and coming to Aydindril as husband and wife. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. She gasped a deep breath against the hot pain that burned through her chest, and wiped the tear away with her fingertips.
Kahlan went to the glassed doors, opening them out onto the expansive balcony. She put her trembling fingers to the broad, icy railing and stood in the cold air, looking up the mountainside to the Wizard's Keep, its dark stone walls standing out in the last golden rays of the sunset.
'Where are you, Zedd?' she whispered. 'I need you.'
----------
He came awake with a gasp as he slid and thumped his head. He sat up, blinking. An old woman with straight, black and white, jaw-length hair was sitting opposite him, cowering in a corner. The two of them were inside a coach. It rolled abruptly, sliding him across to the other side. The woman was staring in his direction. He blinked in surprise at her. Her eyes were completely white.
'Who are you?' he asked.
'Who be you?' she asked right back.
'I asked first.'
'I...' She drew her cloak around her fine, green dress. 'I don't know who I be. Who be you?'
He held a finger skyward. 'I'm... I'm...' He let out a thin sigh. 'I'm afraid I don't know who I am, either. Don't I look like anyone you recognize?'
She pulled her cloak a little tighter. 'I do not know. I be blind. I cannot see what you look like.'
'Blind? Oh. Well, I'm sorry.'
He rubbed his head where he had hit it on the side of the coach. Looking down, he saw that he was wearing fine clothes; a maroon robe with black sleeves that had three rows of silver brocade around them. Well, he thought, at least I must be wealthy.
He picked a black cane off the floor, giving its fine silver-work a look. He turned and thumped it against the roof, in the direction of where the driver must be sitting, up top. The old woman jumped with a fright.
'What be that noise!'
'Oh, sorry. I was trying to get the driver's attention.'
The driver must have heard. The coach slid to a stop, and then rocked as someone climbed down. When the door drew open and he saw the size of the man in a longcoat sticking his windburned face in, he clutched his cane and slid back.
'Who are you?' he asked, brandishing the cane.
'Me? I'm just a big fool,' the big man growled. His deeply creased face softened into a little smile. 'Name's Ahern.'
'Well, Ahern, what are you doing with us? Have you kidnapped us? Are we being held for ransom?'
Ahern chuckled. 'More like the other way around, I'd say.'
'What do you mean? How long have we been asleep? And who are we?'
Ahern looked to the sky. 'Dear spirits, how do I get myself into these things?' He let out a sigh. 'You've both been asleep since late yesterday. You've slept last night, and all day today. Your name is Ruben. Ruben Rybnik.'
'Ruben?' He harrumphed. 'Ruben. Well, that's a fine name.'
And who be I?' the woman asked.
'You are Elda Rybnik.'
'Her name is Rybnik, too?' Ruben asked. Are we related?'
Ahern hesitated. 'Yes and no. You two are husband and wife. Sort of.'
Ruben leaned toward the big man. 'I think that needs explaining.'
Ahern gave a sigh, and a nod. 'Your name's Ruben, and hers is Elda. But that's not your real names. You told me that for now, it would be best if I not tell you your real names.'
'You have kidnapped us! You've knocked us on the head and spirited us away!'
'Just calm down, and I'll explain.'
'Then explain, before I give you a thrashing with my cane.'
'It isn't worth it,' Ahern mumbled to himself. 'How did I ever get into this? Gold, that's how,' he answered himself.
Ahern pushed into the coach, sitting next to Ruben. He pulled the door closed against the flying snow.
'Well, just invite yourself right in,' Ruben said.
Ahern cleared his throat. All right, now, you two listen to me. You both were sick. You had me take you to see three women.' He leaned closer to Ruben and scowled. Three sorceresses.'
'Sorceresses!' Ruben yelped. 'No wonder we don't know who we are! You took us to witches and had a spell put on us!'
Ahern put a calming hand on him. 'Be quiet and listen. You are a wizard.' Ruben gawked at Ahern. Ahern turned to Elda. And you are a sorceress.'
Ruben waved his arms around with a flourish. 'No I'm not,' he snapped, at last, 'or you'd be changed to a toad.'
Ahern shook his head with a grumble. 'Your power is gone.'
'Well,' Ruben asked as he straightened his back, 'was I a talented wizard?'
'You were good enough to put those cursed fingers of yours to the side of my thick head and put it in my mind to help you. You said wizards had to use people sometimes, to do what must be done. The burden of a wizard you called it. You said helping you was something I would have done anyway, that you were only calling on the "goodness" within me to hurry my thinking along. Anyway, that, and more gold than I've ever seen, convinced me to do something I ought to know better than to get tangled in. I surely don't like anything to do with wizards and magic.'
'And I be a sorceress?' Elda asked. 'A blind sorceress?'
'Well, no, ma'am. You were blind, but you could use your gift to see - see better than I can see with my eyes.'
'Then why be I blind, now?'
'Both of you were sick. Sick with some kind of evil magic. The three sorceresses agreed to help you, but in order to cure you, they had to... well, they had to give you both something that would make your magic, your gift, go away. You made me wait outside, so I don't know what they did. I just know what you told me before you went back in for the last time to have it done.'
Ruben leaned in. 'You're making this up.'
Ahern ignored him and went on. 'The sickness you two had was feeding on your good magic. I don't know the way magic works, and the spirits know I don't want to know, I only know what you told me, the way you explained it to me, when you came out and convinced me to help you. You said that in order to help you, the three sorceresses had to give you something to make your magic go away. Only in that way could you two heal. The evil magic wouldn't wither and die, and your wounds heal, as long as it had the good magic to latch on to, to feed on.'
'So now we have no magic?'
'Well, I don't know how it all works, but as I understand it, you can't really get rid of your magic. What the three women did was make you forget everything about yourselves, so you wouldn't know you had any magic, so the evil magic wouldn't know, either, that it was there. So that's why neither of you knows who you are, or how to use magic. That's why Elda is blind.'
Ruben squinted. 'Why would the sorceresses agree to help us?'
'Mostly because of Elda. They said she was a legend among the sorceresses of Nicobarese. Something about what she did when she was younger and used to live here.'
Ruben stared at the big man. 'It has to be true.' He turned to Elda. 'It has to be true. No one could invent such an absurd story. What do you think?'
'I think as you. I think he be telling us the truth.'
'Good,' Ahern said. 'Now comes the part you aren't going to like.'
'What about our magic? When does it come back? When do we remember who we are?'
Ahern raked his meaty fingers through his shaggy, gray hair. 'That's the part you aren't going to like. The three women said they doubt you two will ever get it back. You may never remember. You may never get your magic back.'
The silence echoed in the coach. Ruben finally spoke. 'Why would we agree to such a thing?'
Ahern picked at his fingers. 'Because you had no choice. You were both sick. Mighty sick, Elda more than you. She would have been dead by now, and you within another day or two, at most. You had no choice. It was the only way.'
Ruben folded his hands over the silver head of his cane. 'Well, if that is so, then we had to. If we never remember, we will just learn to be Ruben, and Elda, and start our lives over.'
Ahern shook his head. 'There's a problem about that. You told me that the three women said that if the evil magic finally left you, then you might be able to get your memory, and your magic, back. You told me that it was imperative that you get it back. You said that there was great trouble in the world that you had to help with. You said that it was a matter of grave importance to every person alive. You said you had something you must do.'
'What trouble? What is it I must do?'
'You didn't tell me. You said I wouldn't understand.'
'Well, how do we get our memories, our magic, back?' Ahern glanced to each. 'It may not come back. The three women didn't know if it ever would, but if it is to come back, it will only come back with a shock. A great emotional jolt, or shock.'
'An emotional shock? Like what?'
'Like maybe anger. Maybe if you are angry enough.'
Ruben frowned. 'So... what? You are to slap me, to make me angry?'
'No. You said that you didn't know how, but something like that wouldn't work. You said it required a great emotional shock, but you didn't know what it could be, or how to bring it about. You also said that if something did bring on the anger, it would be violent, and terrible, because of the magic. You said you had no choice, though, because you would die if you didn't do this.'
Ruben and Elda sat in silence and thought while Ahern watched them. 'So, where are you taking us? Why are we in this coach?'
'Aydindril.'
'Aydindril? Never heard of it. Where is it? How far?'
'Aydindril is the home of the Confessors, clear on the other side of the Rang'Shada Mountains. It's a long journey: weeks, maybe a month. It will be close to winter solstice, the longest night of the year, before we get there.'
'Seems a long way to go,' Ruben said. 'Why did I want you to take us there?'
'You said you had to go to the Wizard's Keep. You said that it takes magic to get in, but you don't have any magic, now, so you told me how to get you in. Seems you were a troublesome child, and had a secret way to sneak in and out of the Keep without triggering the magic.' Ruben drew his finger and thumb down his smooth jaw. 'And you say I told you it was urgent?'
Ahern gave a grim nod.
'Then we'd best be on our way.'
----------
Just as she had been smiling to people all evening, Kahlan smiled to the woman in an elaborate dark blue gown before her. The woman was relating how concerned everyone had been for the Mother Confessor. Her insincerity was as transparent as the hypocrisy from everyone else. Kahlan had spent her whole life listening to duplicitous people try to mask their avaricious nature with words of altruism and amity. It sickened her.
Kahlan wished that just once, one of these people she lived and worked with would have the honesty to admit how strongly they hated her and how it infuriated them that she wouldn't allow them to rape the Midlands and its people for their own benefit. She admonished herself that they were not all like that.
Kahlan idly wondered, as she half listened, what this dignified wife of an ambassador would think if instead of seeing the Mother Confessor standing before her in a sparkling white dress, wearing a choker of jewels worth half her kingdom, she were to see her on a horse, naked, painted white and drenched in blood, as she hacked with a sword at the faces of men trying to kill her. Kahlan decided the woman would probably faint.
When the woman finally paused for a breath, Kahlan thanked her for her concern, and moved away. It was getting late and she was tired. She had an early appointment with the council. Seeing herself as she passed a mirror, Kahlan felt as if she had been dreaming for a very long time, and had awakened, the same as she was before, the Mother Confessor, in her white Confessor's dress, at the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril.
But she wasn't the same as the last time she had been here. She felt a hundred years older. She smiled; at least the bath had been wonderful. She couldn't remember finding a bath so luxurious. She had almost forgotten what it was like to be clean.
Near the doorway, another finely dressed lady approached. A twitch of a frown touched Kahlan's brow. The woman's sandy hair seemed too short - out of character with the other women's hair, which brushed their shoulders. But her dress certainly was in character; it was a costly looking black gown, letting her shoulders, and the sparkling emerald necklace, show.
The woman blocked the doorway just before Kahlan stepped through. She dropped a hurried curtsy, her blue eyes darting about as she came up.
'Mother Confessor, I must speak to you. It's urgent.'
'I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't remember you.'
The woman's blue eyes never looked up; they were constantly checking the other people. 'You don't know me. We have a friend in common....'
When the woman caught sight of a sour-faced, older woman looking in their direction, she put her back to the woman.
'Mother Confessor, did you come to Aydindril alone, or did you bring someone with you?'
'I have a friend, Chandalen, who came with me, but he is in the woods to the south for the night. Why?'
'That is not the name I was hoping to hear.' She looked up into Kahlan's eyes. 'You must...'
Her words trailed off. Her intense blue eyes slowly opened wider. She stood as if turned to stone.
'What is it?' Kahlan asked.
The woman seemed to be seeing specters. 'You... you...'
The color had drained from her in a sickening rush. The woman staggered back a step. The sudden whiteness of her shoulders against the black fabric of her gown made her look like a spirit in a dress. Her jaw trembled as she tried without success to bring words forth. Her face was a mask of terror.
Her blue eyes rolled back into her head. Too late, Kahlan reached out for her. The woman crumpled into a heap on the floor.
People nearby gasped. Kahlan, along with others, bent to the woman. Men and women crowded around, murmuring to each other about too much wine.
The sour-faced woman elbowed her way through to the front. 'Jebra! I thought it was Jebra!'
Kahlan looked up. 'You know this woman? And who are you?'
The woman abruptly realized who she was speaking to. She flashed a sudden smile and curtsied awkwardly. 'I am the Lady Ordith Condatith de Dackidvich, Mother Confessor. I'm so pleased to meet you, at last. I've been wanting to talk...'
Kahlan cut her off. 'Who is this woman? Do you know her?'
'Know her?' Her sour expression returned. 'She is my body servant. Her name is Jebra Bevinvier. I'll have the lazy wench thrashed!'
'Body servant?' a man said. 'I don't think so. I've had dinner with Lady Jebra, and I can assure you, she is a lady.'
Lady Ordith sniffed. 'She's an imposter.'
'Then you must pay her well,' the man said sarcastically. 'She stays in the finest inns, and pays with gold.'
Lady Ordith gave the man another haughty sniff and snatched a guard's arm. 'You! Take this wench to my quarters. I'm staying at the Kelton Palace. I'll get to the bottom of this.'
Kahlan came to her feet and gave the Lady Ordith a withering glare. 'You will do no such thing. Unless you are presuming to tell the Mother Confessor what to do in her own palace?'
Lady Ordith stammered an apology. Kahlan snapped her ringers to the side while holding Lady Ordith's gaze. Guards jumped forward.
Kahlan turned. 'Take Lady Jebra to a guest room. Have a servant bring her some ginger tea, cold towels for her head, and anything else she wants. I do not want her disturbed by anyone, and that includes the Lady Ordith. I'm retiring for the night, and I do not wish to be disturbed by anyone, either. I have an early session with the council. After I meet with the council, I want Lady Jebra brought to me.'
The guards saluted and bent to Lady Jebra.
When Kahlan reached her room, she was brought out of her troubled thoughts by the sight of two Keltish guards, from the Kelton Palace, at the doors to her room. When the guards saw her, one of them coolly tapped on the door with the butt of his spear. Someone was in her rooms. Kahlan glared at the impassive guards as she stalked through the doors.
No one was in the outer room. She stormed into the bedroom. When she saw him, she froze to a halt. Prince Fyren was standing on her bed, with his back to her.
He gave her a smirk over his shoulder while he urinated in the center of her bed.
When he was finished, Prince Fyren turned while he buttoned his trousers.
'What in the name of the spirits do you think you are doing?' she whispered.
He lifted an eyebrow to her as he strutted past. 'Just letting the Mother Confessor know how happy we all are to have her home.' His coat was open. He smoothed the ruffles on the front of his white shirt as he paused at the door. 'Sleep well, Mother Confessor.'
Kahlan yanked six times on the bell cord. Six breathless maidservants met her as she was charging down the hall.
'You wanted something, Mother Confessor?'
Kahlan gritted her teeth. 'Take my mattress and bedcovers outside to the courtyard and burn them.'
The girl blinked. 'Mother Confessor?'
'Drag the mattress from my bed, along with all the bedcovers, out into the courtyard below my balcony, and set them on fire.' Kahlan clenched her fists. 'What part don't you understand!'
The six flinched back a step. 'Yes, Mother Confessor.' They stood trembling, their eyes wide. 'Now, Mother Confessor?'
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