Blood 10

Chapter 10
We return to the charming duo of Tobias Brogan and his sister Lunetta, who are questioning some nameless townsperson . . . and to my surprise, that's meant literally. They're just asking questions, not bringing out the thumbscrews and hot irons. It turns out that Lunetta can tell truth from lies with her magic, this one talent instantly making her infinitely better at the Confessors' job than the Mindrapists.
Frustratingly, Terry Goodkind refuses to let us know exactly what questions Brogan was asking; only that the answers displease him and are apparently common knowledge. We randomly learn that Galtero is out seeking more witnesses, and a man named Ettore brings in another Random Townsperson for Brogan to interrogate. This proves to be a woman who smarts off to Brogan, demanding to know why she was abducted off the street and held against her will all day. Brogan decides to play it smooth and assures her that he only wants some answers, and they know she's an honest and reliable person.
There's two pages of give-and-take between Brogan and the townswoman, mostly recapping what we already know (Mindrapists dead, Darken Rahl dead, Mother Mindrapist executed, Imperial Order trying to take over), and then we learn that the woman is Sandy. Finally, despite her incessant backtalk, Brogan lets Sandy go free.
After some pointless chatter between Brogan and Lunetta, the guards bring in the next questionees: an old lady and her little granddaughter, who I'm almost positive are the honey-cake saleswoman and cute widdle girl from earlier. Brogan questions them, and we learn that the Little Girl saw Kahlan's execution. When Brogan sighs and says “She is dead, then,” Little Girl replies “I didn't say that, m'lord. I said I saw them chop off her head.”
Okay, Little Girl is getting renamed Creepy Little Girl until such time as we learn her actual name.
Brogan demands (quite rightly) to know what she means by that, and Granny says that Aydindril is a city full of magic, implying that Kahlan's death may have been faked. What reason she has to even suspect such a thing, I don't know. Brogan and Granny get into a debate on whether magic is inherently evil or just a tool, and Bogan again demands to know what she's going on about. He asks “Could you explain how death could be revoked?” to which Granny replies “The Keeper has such power.”
Brogan takes this to mean that Satan brought Kahlan back to life, but Granny says that “You do not pay attention, and hear only what you want to hear.”
>_<
“How could the Mother Mindrapist's death be revoked?”
“Satan could do it.”
“Are you saying that Satan brought the Mother Mindrapist back to life?”“I never said anything like that. You sure are obsessed with Satan!”Is it bad that I'm starting to sympathize with the psychotic Cotton Mather stand-in? \~/
Granny blathers some more, and then Brogan demands that she explain herself. Granny basically says that it's possible for magic to create the illusion of death when no death actually occurred. I would have expected Brogan the witch-hunter, in a world where magic actually exists, to already know about illusions, but I guess he didn't.
Granny blathers on some more (sheesh, I'm getting tired of this character) about death spells. Apparently a death spell is – well, I'll let you read Granny's words and judge for yourself:
“Seeing a death, comprehending it, is something we all recognize at a spiritual level. It's this seeing of a body without its soul, or spirit, departed, that we recognize as death. A death spell can mimic a real death by making people believe they have seen a death, that they have seen the body without its soul, and so make them viscerally accept the event as true.
“Very dangerous, it is. It requires invoking the aid of the spirits to hold the person's spirit while the web is cast. If anything goes wrong, the subject's spirit would be cast helpless into the underworld – a very unpleasant way to die. If everything goes right, and if the spirits return that which they have preserved, I am told it will work, and the person will live, but those seeing it will think them dead.”
A random honey-cake saleswoman knows all this?? No. She's a sorceress in disguise or some damn thing. Even for Dickland, where random innkeepers recognize the Seeker when trained, centuries-old spellcasters do not, this is WAY too much information for the person giving it.
So, I've been thinking a death spell was a simple illusion, but as far as I can tell from Granny's . . . um . . . “explanation,” it's not. Instead, the subject has their soul ripped out, because people can viscerally identify corpses through their mystical ability to sense souls. \~/ Then (presumably) the illusion comes in, unless Zedd just decided to hack Kahlan's head of for reals, then sew it back on before stuffing her soul back in.
That is seven different kinds of stupid. \~/\~/
Having finished with her frustrating “answers,” Granny then casually insults Brogan and goes to leave. Brogan wants to know who could perform such a spell, and Granny says that it would have to be “a wizard of immense power and great knowledge.” Well, ya think? Here I was assuming there were street-corner death-spell peddlers who could rip out your soul and stuff it back in for a few copper pennies! \~/
Brogan wants to know if there are any such wizards in Aydindril. For answer, Granny tosses him the silver coin Richard gave her, and tells him the name of the structure depicted on in: the Palace of the Prophets. She then leaves.
Brogan sends Ettore after them, assuring him that Granny is a Satanist and the Creepy Little Girl is her familiar, and once again I find myself mildly sympathetic to the bloodthirsty witch-hunter. He then opens “the case” (what case I don't know) and starts pawing through his trophies inside. Said trophies being preserved human nipples – left nipples – each taken from a Satanist Brogan has hunted down.”
Nipples. \~/
If this is supposed to be creepy, it is. If it's supposed to be taken seriously . . . not so much.
We learn that the prize Brogan wants above all others is the Mother Mindrapist's nipple. Yes, really. And on that note, the chapter ends.
Drinks: 6
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