Stone 57

**Chapter 57**

We now return to Kahlan, who has, at long last, reached Aydindril. But alas! Zedd isn't there. We learn that it's taken Kahlan and Chandelier a month to get here (since leaving the Childrens' Army), that Kahlan doesn't want to be recognized yet, and that Chandelier, as the Noble Savage, is staying out in the woods.

*"Chandalen wanted to go home to his people, now that she was delivered safely to Aydindril.* [as was the original agreement, I believe] *She could understand his desire to be off, but asked him to rest the night, and say good-bye to her in the morning."* Which, given that it's Kahlan we're talking about here, probably translates into "bullied, threatened, and verbally abused him into staying."

Kahlan also makes Orsk, the one-eyed guy she mindraped, stay with Chandelier. Why? *"His presence was wearing; his one eye following her everywhere, his jumping to help her with everything, his constantly standing ready to do her bidding at the slightest indication...She needed a night away from that."* Oh, boo-hoo; poor Kahlan. She MINDRAPED the guy, utterly destroying him as a person and annihilating his free will, and now it's *"wearing"* that he's trying to serve her. So instead of, I don't know, *ordering him to leave her alone* (since he literally cannot refuse), she inflicts him on Chandelier. \~/

Kahlan avoids Kings [sic] Row, which is where all the important nations of the Midlands maintain palaces where their rulers can stay when they come to Aydindril. She finally reaches the Mindrapists' Palace, which is awesome and speshul and better than all the other palaces. She slips in the kitchen entrance and is met by Mistress Sanderholt, who is apparently in charge of the kitchen. Sanderholt (hereafter Sandy) is all motherly to Kahlan.

Kahlan wanders through the palace and we get descriptions of how awesome it is. There is *"a round, two-story-high pantheon dedicated to the memory of heroines: the founding Mother Confessors. Their portraits...were twice life size."* There are seven of them, and we learn the name of the first Mother Mindrapist (Magda Searus) and her wizard (Merritt). No, I don't know why Merritt only gets one name, or why he's referred to as Magda Searus's possession.

Kahlan marches into the council chambers, which are even more opulent and awesome and gorgeous than all the rest of the place. I hereby redub this room the Ostentatiatory, with apologies to Jim Butcher. There's a cluster of men sitting around the First Chair, which is where the Mother Mindrapist sits, and which is therefore awesome and gorgeous and - you get the picture. Anyway, there's someone sitting in the Chair, which is a rarely-enforced capital crime.

The chair-sitter proves to be High Prince Fyren of Kelton, who we know is Eeeevil. And, no, I don't know what "High Prince" means. Kahlan threatens him out of her chair and he complies in a smarmy fashion, commenting on how long it's been since there was a Mindrapist in the place: *"Four, five, six months?"* Kahlan announces a full council session in the morning, to discuss the fact that she has just committed the Midlands to war. She then stomps out.

There's an entire paragraph dedicated to describing a huge and awesome *"eight-branched"* staircase. I kid you not. It took forty years to build, is bigger than some castles, yadda yadda. I'm not quoting it. You're welcome.

I am, however, taking a drink, \~/

Blah blah, an army of maids takes care of Kahlan, she has to greet dignitaries but doesn't want to, she's tired, she misses Richard, she needs Zedd.

And with that, we segue back to the Zedd and Adie Show. Tragically, they are not dead of skrinitis, but they've lost their memories, as well as (apparently) their magical powers. They're still with Ahern the arms runner, who explains that they are Ruben and Elda Rybnik, husband and wife...except that they aren't. Apparently, before he lost his memory, Zedd told Ahern not to tell Zedd and Adie their real names. Zedd is "comically" outraged, \~/ insisting that Ahern has kidnapped them, has hired three sorceresses to bewitch them, et cetera. We also learn that Zedd magically compelled Ahern to assist them, and that Ahern knows this and seems to be fine with it.

Ahern continues to exposit that Zedd and Adie successfully found the Sorceressess Three, and in order to cure their skrinitis, the sorceresses had to give them amnesia and block their ability to work magic. Skrinitis, it develops, "feeds" on magic, so without spellcasting ability it withers.

Actually, what Ahern says is *" '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."* But...Ahern just *told* them that they have magic. And how does a person not knowing something prevent a magical disease from "knowing" that fact?

The Three Unnamed Sorceresses were willing to do this because Adie is *"a legend among the sorceresses of Nicobarese."* And not in a good way, I'm thinking.

So Zedd and Adie will live (BOO!). However, the Sorcerous Triad didn't believe they would ever get their spellcasting ability back (YAY!). HOWEVER, they also said that it was just possible (BOO!). If Zedd and Adie recieve a strong emotional shock, like getting angry enough, that might re-trigger their spellcasting. Isn't that convenient. Why not just make it the old cartoon standby of a whack on the head reversing the effects of amnesia? Here, I'll volunteer to administer the head-whack...

Ahern is taking Zedd and Adie to Aydindril, because pre-amnesia Zedd told him they had to get there. Ahern estimates that it'll take them up to a month to get there, and that they'll arrive around *"winter solstice, the longest night of the year"* (and thanks for explaining that, Terry. Thanks bunches).

Okay, calender time. The last book ended on the first day of winter, December 21st (I'm assuming a Dickland year is identical to an Earth year here). The winter solstice is, by definition, the first day of winter. Therefore, the events of this book thus far have taken approximately eleven months.

Which is clearly impossible. Prince Traitor - I mean Fyren - indicated that there had been no Mindrapists in the Ostentatiatory for, at most, six months; yet Kahlan, the Last Confessor, has been off adventuring since at least several weeks before the end of *Wizard's First Rule,* which ended on the winter solstice.

Maybe Terry Goodkind meant the spring equinox? The first day of spring, March 20th or thereabouts? But this doesn't jibe with the Majendie knifing Rapegirl in time for the *"planting sacrifice,"* which one would expect to be in the spring.

All right, he said "solstice;" maybe he meant the *summer* solstice...except that that's the *shortest* night of the year, and it would mean Kahlan and Zedd have been fighting their way through the heavy snows of May.

\~/

Apropos of nothing, I have a new appreciation for *Appendix B: The Tale of Years* in the back of *Lord of the Rings,* and the sheer amount of time and effort Tolkien took to make his imagined world internally logical and consistent.

ANYWAY, pre-amnesia Zedd told Ahern a secret way into the Wizard's Keep that doesn't require magic. I assume that, once he's fulfilled his part of the bargain, Ahern will be callously murdered, since that's some fairly critical information to leave floating around.

Back to Kahlan, who is listening to a woman say how happy she is that Kahlan is back. *"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 altrusim and amity. It sickened her."*

That's a drink for irony. \~/ And I thought Kahlan had spent her whole life among the Mindrapists, who were all a big happy sisterhood, with hugs and cookies and slumber parties and everything?

*"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..."* Because you want diplomats to express their fully-justified hatred frankly and openly, right?

*"...and how it infuriated them that she wouldn't allow them to rape the Midlands and its people for their own benefit."* Because ALL leaders of state are ONLY interested in their own personal glory, and in actively screwing over the common people whenever possible. Also, another drink for irony. \~/

Kahlan is approached by another woman, who turns out to be Jebra the Seer from waaaay back when. Jebra wants to know if Kahlan brought anyone with her to Aydindril, but Chandelier's name is not the one she was hoping to hear. Suddenly, she spontaneously faints. Ye Generic Self-Centered Noblewoman (Jebra's *still* working for her??) appears and is Generic and Self-Centered. Kahlan has Jebra taken to a guest room to recover from her faint.

Kahlan makes her way back to her rooms and finds some of those damn dirty Kelts standing guard outside her doors. Inside her bedchamber is "High" Prince Fyren...peeing on her bed.

Yes, that just happened. \~/ I guess scatological displays really are a Keltish trait.

Fyren smarms his way out the door and to my astonishment, Kahlan does not mindrape him, stab him, order him arrested, or even snark at him. One of the few times I would completely support Kahlan throwing her weight around, and she fails to do...anything, really. Pathetic. \~/

Kahlan orders her mattress burned, and only *then* does she tell the guards *" 'Diplomatic privilege is suspended! If I see that Keltish pig or any of his personal guard in this palace before the council session tomorrow morning, I will personally skin you all alive after I kill him!' "*

So let's see...Fyren urinates on the Mother Mindrapist's bed *right in front of her,* which is about as egregious an offense as I can think of short of physically assaulting her. Kahlan, who we've been repeatedly told is above the law and can order royalty around and is effectively Empress of the Midlands...makes him leave. Not even permanently; she makes him leave *until the next morning.*

See, what I would have done was to have him immediately arrested (on my authority as High Mindrapist And Who's Going To Stop Me) and imprisoned. At the council meeting next morning, I would have had him dragged in in chains, stripped of all ranks and titles, and banished (or executed, but I'm feeling merciful). Then the council would have proceeded with Fyren's successor acting on Kelton's behalf. Best possible response? Maybe not, but what Kahlan actually does makes her appear weak and ineffectual, which is the last thing she needs.

And what's with the excessive threats to Kahlan's own guards? Ick.

Kahlan then returns to her bed-less chambers and stands on the balcony to watch the bed being burned in the courtyard below. *"Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched flames leap up from her bed; the bed she had promised Richard."*

Lady, *it's a bed.* You're the freaking *Empress of the Midlands.* Buy another one. Angsting over a peed-on bed does not earn you any sympathy from me. \~/

Drinks: 8

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