Stone of Tears

“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…”