The Omen Machine Read online

  Kahlan sighed as she idly picked one of the metal strips out of the opening near the glass window. Something about it caught her eye. She was surprised to see that there were markings on it. She held it closer.

  She was stunned by what she saw.

  “Richard, look.” As he bent close she held it out in the light for him to see. “This one in here isn’t blank.”

  Richard took it from her when she held it out and carefully looked over the line of symbols seemingly burned into the metal.

  “They’re all different,” he said, half to himself.

  Kahlan looked in the slot where she had found it. “There are two more strips in here.” She pulled them out, took a quick look, and then handed them to him.

  He looked them over, one at a time, studying each for a moment. “More symbols. But they’re different. Each strip has distinctive emblems on it. Look, this one has a whole string of markings, but the one that was on the bottom only has a few.”

  When the machine began to make more noise, as if a whole bank of additional gears had been engaged, Richard bent to look into the slit of a window. Kahlan could see the light from inside reflecting in lines that moved parts of symbolic elements over the contours of his face.

  “I can see a strip of metal being pulled out from the bottom of the stack on the other side. It’s being pulled into the machine and going way down inside.”

  Kahlan put her head close to his, trying to see what he was talking about. Then she saw it, way down among the gears, shafts, and levers, being pulled through by a small pincer mechanism holding the front of the metal strip. The pincer was attached to a large wheel that carried the strip of metal up and around with it to place it in a track where a series of levers moved it along different junctions of track until another geared pincer finally picked it up.

  Kahlan and Richard both turned aside a little as a flash of intense orangish white light ignited deep within. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a bright pinpoint of light dance across the metal strip. The focused beam of light from far below moved with lightning speed but in a tightly controlled manner. The light was so intense that she could see a moving, glowing white-hot spot of light shining through the top of the metal where the beam hit it from underneath.

  As the strip came around with the wheel, another mechanism took it in turn and rotated it around so that the symbol that had been burned into the underside of the metal was now facing up. At exactly the correct point in the arc of the gear, the pincers opened and a lever on a geared mechanism swung in from the side to push the metal strip through a slot in the side of the machine.

  She heard it drop into the tray.

  Richard and Kahlan straightened from the little window and looked at each other.

  “Did you see that?” he asked.

  Kahlan nodded. “Pretty hard to miss.”

  Richard pulled the strip of metal out of the tray. He immediately tossed it on top of the machine and shook his hand, then blew on his fingers. He pushed the hot metal strip around with a finger for a moment until it cooled, then gingerly picked it up and studied the single symbol etched into it.

  “What about that one? Do you recognize it?” Kahlan asked.

  Richard stared at it with a troubled expression. “I’m not entirely certain. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s pretty close.”

  “Pretty close to what? What is it?”

  Richard looked up at her again.

  “It’s the emblematic representation for fire.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Outside of the Garden of Life hundreds of heavily armed guards filled the corridor in both directions. They all looked a great deal more than edgy. Kahlan realized that they would have had to have heard the lightning hit the Garden of Life. They probably heard the glass roof breaking and falling as well. They undoubtedly wondered what in the world had been going on beyond the doors.

  They might even have feared that it was an attack of magic of some sort, and so they were standing ready in case they were called upon to defend the palace.

  She knew, though, that despite their worry, none of them, not even a Mord-Sith, would dare to enter the Garden of Life while the Lord Rahl was inside unless he invited them in.

  The grim look on Richard’s face and the set of his jaw as he came marching out probably only confirmed to all the men watching him approach that they had made the right decision to remain outside.

  The only people who regularly went into the garden were the staff assigned to tend the grass, flowers, shrubs, and trees. Only the most highly trusted people on the palace staff were allowed to work in the garden. Even then, when they went in to do their work officers of the First File watched them at all times.

  During the war, when they were under constant threat and there were dangerous objects of magic containing tremendous power locked away in the Garden of Life for safekeeping, not even the people who tended the garden had been allowed to go in to take care of the plants and trees. As a result it became for a time a wild, overgrown place that had taken on an eerie look that in a way matched the gloomy mood of everyone in the palace.

  After the war had ended, it had taken a lot of work to return the garden to the state of splendor it was now in.

  Kahlan had a feeling, though, that even such occasional tending was at an end and the Garden of Life was about to again become strictly off-limits to everyone except on Lord Rahl’s instructions.

  Throughout history the Garden of Life had been a place where the Lord Rahl, from time to time, had unleashed some of the most powerful magic in existence.

  It had been a place that on occasion had been a gateway to the underworld itself.

  Magic was a mystery to most people and therefore greatly feared. Kahlan knew that magic could be glorious, wondrous, a magnificent affirmation of life. But Kahlan knew magic’s other side, its dark and dangerous side. Most people only knew magic as a dark, mysterious danger. For the D’Haran people, the Lord Rahl was their protection against those dark dangers of magic. For their part, these soldiers were meant to be the steel against steel. They would lay down their lives in that service.

  But it was Richard’s responsibility as the Lord Rahl to deal with any matters involving magic.

  It seemed that the Garden of Life had once again become the stage for dangerous magic.

  Nyda stood before the ranks of soldiers, her arms folded, watching Richard and Kahlan come. The Mord-Sith was in her red leather. She looked to be in a foul mood, but for a Mord-Sith that wasn’t necessarily at all unusual.

  “What’s going on?” Nyda asked.

  As Richard stormed past, he took her by the arm and turned her around to walk with him, but he spoke to the commander of the soldiers on his way by.

  “No one is to go in there. No one. Do you understand?”

  The commander clapped a fist to his heart in salute. “Of course, Lord Rahl.”

  The commander immediately assigned men to guard the doors and then issued orders to the rest of them to take up stations along the hallways and intersections. The hall came alive with movement and the echoing jangle of metal as men rushed to take up their posts.

  Richard leaned close to Nyda. “Go get Berdine. Bring her to the library.”

  Nyda, still being carried along with him by her arm, pointed downward. “You mean the library down there, below us, where she has been working?”

  “That’s right. Get her and send her there. Then get my grandfather and bring him there, too. You had better bring Nicci, Nathan, and Cara as well.”

  “All of them? Now, in the middle of the night?”

  “In the middle of the night,” Richard confirmed.

  Nyda leaned out past Richard to look over at Kahlan. “What’s going on?”

  “The roof fell in.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Kahlan’s throbbing hand lay in her lap as she sat in a wooden library chair, not far from Richard’s side, as she worked on translating a few passages in a book written in an obscur
e language she happened to know. She was having trouble making her eyes focus. Richard needed her help to cross-reference a few descriptions in the book that he and Berdine were studying.

  Kahlan yawned and looked up when she heard a commotion and saw Zedd storming in through the doors at the far end of the room. His robes looked like they were having a difficult time keeping pace with the rawboned wizard. Richard only glanced up momentarily from the book he was absorbed in reading.

  Kahlan went back to her work but from time to time checked out of the corner of her eye as Zedd made his way resolutely across the gold and blue carpets. His face, set with grim creases, fell into shadow between each of the reflector lamps hung on columns at the end of the rows of shelves.

  “Bags, Richard, what’s going on?”

  “No need for that kind of language. I need to see you, that’s all.”

  Zedd came to a halt on the other side of the heavy mahogany table. Finally having a chance to catch up, his simple robes swirled in around his legs. He took in Kahlan’s face, searching her expression for any hint of the nature of the problem, before returning his attention to Richard.

  “I have good reason for my language. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be awakened in the middle of the night by a Mord-Sith?”

  Kahlan glanced up at the windows on the balcony. She could see only darkness. Morning was still a long way off. She knew they weren’t going to have a chance to get any sleep. At least the storm seemed to have broken.

  Richard didn’t look up from the book. “As as matter of fact, I do. Did she use her Agiel to wake you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then believe me, you have nothing to complain about.”

  Zedd planted his fists on his hips. After again assessing the look on Kahlan’s face, he seemed to think better of what he had been about to say. His tone softened.

  “What’s going on, my boy?”

  “There’s been an incident.”

  Zedd scowled at his grandson a moment. “An incident. What do you mean, there’s been an incident? You mean, like the cook burned the gravy? That kind of incident?”

  “Not exactly.” Richard sighed as he leaned back in his chair to look up at his grandfather. Kahlan could see the weary frustration in Richard’s gray eyes. “We found something buried under the Garden of Life.”

  Zedd cocked his head. “What do you mean, you found it? How did you find it?”

  “The roof fell in.”

  “The roof…” He glanced again at Kahlan. She didn’t have so much as a smile in her.

  Zedd looked back over his shoulder when Nathan charged into the library leading Nicci, Cara, Benjamin, and Nyda.

  “What’s going on?” Nathan demanded in a booming voice from halfway across the room.

  “Seems the roof over the Garden of Life fell in,” Zedd announced. “I don’t know yet what the boy did to cause it to collapse.”

  “Me? I didn’t do—”

  “So then the fragment prophecy is confirmed,” Nathan said. “Doesn’t sound all that important, though. Not important enough to wake us all in the middle of the night.”

  Richard folded his arms and waited until both wizards fell silent. When they looked at him innocently, waiting for him to explain, and he was sure they would remain silent, he finally went on.

  “There’s more to it. The glass roof was covered in heavy, wet snowdrifts. When it all fell in it landed in the center portion of the floor in the Garden of Life. The weight and shock of the impact, along with a lightning strike, in turn caused the floor to give way.” Richard wiped a weary hand back across his face. “There’s a room buried under there that looks not to have had a visitor in thousands of years.”

  Zedd placed his hands on the table and leaned in with a scowl. “Obviously there must be something in that room that would cause you to send Nyda to wake us in the middle of the night.”

  “Obviously.”

  Nathan turned to Zedd. “What do you think is in there?”

  “Well how should I know?”

  Nicci shot them each a hot glare. “Would you two give him a chance to tell us?”

  Zedd’s mouth twisted irritably. “All right, so what did you find?”

  Berdine leaned forward and tapped the book she and Richard had been sharing. “Lord Rahl says it speaks in this language.”

  Both Zedd and Nathan blinked in astonishment.

  “‘It’?” Nicci asked. “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

  “Yes, what do you mean?” Nathan added.

  “Berdine is being dramatic.” Richard tossed a metal strip across the table to his grandfather. It spun on the mahogany tabletop, reflecting flashes of lamplight for a moment before it slowed to a halt. “In a second room down under the Garden of Life there is a machine that inscribes these strips of metal with symbols.”

  Zedd stared in astonishment. “A machine?”

  Nathan cocked his head to eye the metal strip on the table. “A machine that inscribes symbols?”

  “Yes. I believe that the inscriptions are a form of language. That’s what Berdine was talking about when she said it speaks.”

  Zedd smoothed back his unruly shock of wavy white hair. “A machine…” With great care he picked up the metal strip. His bushy brows drew down as he studied the series of designs. Nathan looked over one shoulder, Nicci the other. Cara, Benjamin, and Nyda peered around from the side.

  “What kind of symbols are these?” Zedd asked. “I’ve never seen anything like most of these before.”

  Richard lifted the book, letting them see the spine. He didn’t look any happier than his grandfather. “Symbols out of this book, Regula.”

  Zedd eyed the book as if it were a treacherous agent of the Keeper himself. “It would have to be that one.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Richard said.

  Zedd gestured at the book. “I know a few words of High D’Haran here and there, but I don’t know that one, ‘regula.’ What does it mean?”

  “It means to regulate with sovereign authority.”

  “Sovereign authority,” Zedd scoffed.

  Nathan arched an eyebrow. “Richard is being restrained in his translation.”

  “Quite restrained,” Nicci added under her breath.

  Kahlan sat in silent worry about just what it was that the Regula machine was supposed to regulate. Everything about it— the size, the complexity, the way it burned messages in an ancient form of language onto the metal strips with focused beams of light, and especially the way it had been hidden and sealed away for ages yet still seemed to function— had her stomach tightened into a knot.

  As Nathan took the strip of metal from Zedd to have a closer look, Zedd again waggled a hand at the book. “So what does the book have to do with these strips of metal?”

  “I believe that the book is what Berdine thought it was from the first, a wordbook, a manual of sorts. I think that the book is the means to decipher the symbols in order to be able to understand what the strips say.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we have the book,” Nathan said in a cautious tone that suggested he didn’t think it could be that simple. “So what have you been able to figure out about the symbols?”

  Richard stared off a moment before speaking, apparently reluctant to have to admit it aloud.

  “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

  Nathan’s scowl grew. “I thought you said the book was intended as a means to decode the strips?”

  “I believe it is. But it doesn’t work.”

  His grandfather’s brow drew down even tighter. “What do you mean, it doesn’t work? If it is what you say it is then it has to work.”

  “I know,” Richard said in a quiet voice. “But it doesn’t.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Zedd peered again at the metal strip when Nathan handed it back, squinting at it as he turned it in the light. He finally surrendered with an unhappy sigh.

  “You say that this machine you found inscribe
d these symbols? What kind of machine could do such a thing?”

  “It’s a big square metal box.” Richard flicked his hand. “About as big as from here to the end of the table, there. It has a small slit fitted with a glass window so that you can see down inside. The box is filled with all kinds of gears and levers and mechanical mechanisms all linked together. From looking down in, you can see that it goes much deeper than it looks like from the outside. It’s not sitting on the ground, it’s coming up out of the ground.”

  Zedd glanced at the book lying open on the table. “Can you tell anything at all from the book about these designs that the machine inscribes on the strips?”

  “Well, since symbols are a language of sorts, much like an innkeeper might have a drawing of a mug of ale on his sign, or a farrier might have a horse shoe nailed to his gate, that means that these strings of symbols are saying something, but it’s something complex. Some of the symbols on the strips are familiar, but a lot of what’s inscribed on them are unlike any designs I’ve ever seen before. Since these same symbols appear in the book, I believe that the book must be a means to decipher the metal strips.”

  “That’s what Berdine means when she says it talks?” Nicci asked.

  Richard nodded. He tapped the book as he fixed the three standing before him with a meaningful look. “This book, Regula, calls these symbols the language of Creation.”

  “That’s a bit of a leap at this point,” Nathan said. “Especially since the book doesn’t work to decode the symbols the way you thought it would.”

  “I realize it may look that way at the moment, but I believe that’s the true purpose of the book. Just because I haven’t been able to figure out how to make it work, yet, doesn’t mean that it isn’t the true purpose of the book. I’m missing some kind of key to turn the lock keeping its secrets hidden, that’s all.”

  Zedd broke Richard’s gaze to look down once more at the metal strip he was holding. He finally spoke in a quiet, troubled tone.

  “I recognize a few fragments of those symbols.”