Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule

“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.”