Stone of Tears

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 voiced 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.

For 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 nave 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 you 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!”