The Omen Machine Read online

  “It was an eventful day yesterday, with a lot of people gathered for your wedding, with a lot of people all watching you and Benjamin.” Richard gestured toward Kahlan. “Even now, as much as I’ve gotten used to people watching Kahlan and me all the time, when we’re finally alone I sometimes can’t shake the feeling people are still staring at me.”

  “People watch Mord-Sith all the time,” Cara said, clearly not liking the implication that she was only imagining it.

  “Yes, but they watch out of the corner of their eye. People rarely look directly at a Mord-Sith.”

  “So?”

  “Yesterday it was different. You aren’t used to people looking directly at you. Yesterday everyone was looking at you and Benjamin— looking directly at you. Every eye was on you. It wasn’t what you’re used to. Could it simply be a feeling left over from being the center of so much focus and attention?”

  Cara considered the question as if she hadn’t thought of it that way. Her brow finally drew tight with conviction. “No. Someone was watching me.”

  “All right. When did you first have this feeling that someone was watching you?”

  “Just before dawn,” she said without hesitation. “It was still dark. At first I thought there was someone in the room, but there wasn’t anyone in there other than the two of us.”

  “Are you sure that it was you they were watching?” Zedd asked, the question sounding innocent enough. Kahlan knew better.

  Silent up until then, Benjamin looked puzzled. “You mean you think they may have been watching me?”

  Zedd directed a meaningful look at the tall, blond-headed D’Haran general. “What I mean, is that I’m wondering if they were actually watching the both of you.”

  “We were the only ones in there,” Cara said, her growl back.

  Zedd tilted his head toward her. “You were in one of the Lord Rahl’s bedchambers.”

  Understanding suddenly flashed in Cara’s intense blue eyes. With the realization, her voice turned from annoyed to icy as she took on the demeanor of the interrogator, a role that fit Mord-Sith as well as their leather outfits. She narrowed her eyes at the wizard.

  “Are you suggesting that someone was looking into that room to see if it was Lord Rahl in there?”

  She had clearly caught Zedd’s meaning.

  Zedd shrugged his bony shoulders. “Were there mirrors in the room?”

  “Mirrors? Well, I guess…”

  “There are two mirrors in that room,” Kahlan said. “There is a tall one off to the side, on a stand beside the bookcase, and a smaller one over the dressing table.”

  The room was one of Richard and Kahlan’s gifts to Cara and Benjamin. The Lord Rahl, while in his palace, had the choice of a number of bedchambers— probably an ancient defensive ploy to thwart assassins. There were probably more private rooms belonging to Richard in the palace than he had visited or was even aware of. Richard and Kahlan had wanted Cara to have one of the lovely rooms as hers and Benjamin’s whenever they were at the People’s Palace. It only seemed right, seeing as how Benjamin was the head of the First File, the Lord Rahl’s guards when he was in the palace, and Cara was Richard and Kahlan’s closest bodyguard.

  Richard, having grown up as a woods guide, had thought that one bedroom was more than adequate. Kahlan thought so as well. They also had rooms at the Confessors’ Palace, in Aydindril, as well as yet other quarters set aside for them in various other places.

  Kahlan didn’t really care what rooms they had, or where, as long as she and Richard were together. In fact, some of her happiest memories were of living one summer in the small house Richard had built for them in the wilderness of Westland.

  Cara had willingly accepted the room in the palace. No doubt in large part because it was close to Richard and Kahlan’s room.

  “Why do you want to know if there were mirrors in the room?” Benjamin asked. His voice, too, had changed. He was now the general in charge of the Lord Rahl’s safety at the People’s Palace.

  Zedd lifted an eyebrow and fixed the man in the meaningful gaze. “There are those, I hear tell, who have the ability to use dark forms of magic to gaze through mirrors into another place.”

  “Are you certain of that,” Richard asked, “or is it just idle gossip?”

  “Gossip,” Zedd admitted with a sigh. “But sometimes gossip turns out to be reliable.”

  “And who can accomplish such a thing?” Richard’s voice, it seemed to Kahlan, was sounding very much like the Lord Rahl demanding answers. What ever was happening, it was making each of them edgy.

  Zedd turned his palms up. “I don’t know, Richard. It’s not something I can do. I’m not familiar with the skill, or if it is even true. Like I said, it’s gossip I’ve heard, not personal experience.”

  “Why would they be looking for Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor?” Cara asked. She was clearly now more upset over that than she had been when she had thought someone was looking in on her and Benjamin.

  “Good question,” Zedd said. “Did you hear anything?”

  Cara considered for only an instant. “No. I heard nothing and I saw nothing. But I could feel someone looking.”

  Zedd twisted his mouth as he considered. “Well, I’ll put a shield on the room for you to keep prying eyes out.”

  “And will a shield of magic be able to stop the product of gossip?” Richard asked.

  Zedd’s smile finally returned. “Can’t say for sure. I don’t know if such an ability is real or not, and I don’t know if there really was someone looking in on that room.”

  “There was,” Cara insisted.

  Kahlan spread her hands. “Seems that the simplest thing to do would be to cover the mirrors.”

  “No,” Richard said in a thoughtful tone as he gazed into the atrium, “I don’t think they should cover the mirrors, or put a shield on the room.”

  Zedd planted his fists on his hips. “And why not?”

  “If someone, somehow, was looking in on that room and we cover the mirrors or shield the place, then they can’t look in there again.”

  “That’s the point,” Kahlan said.

  “And then they would know that we were aware of them and we won’t know why they were looking in there.”

  Zedd stuck one long bony finger into his disorderly thatch of wavy white hair and scratched his scalp. “You lost me, my boy.”

  “Well, if whoever was looking in there was really looking for Kahlan and me, then they’ve already learned that it wasn’t us in that room. So, if we leave the room unshielded and the mirrors the way they are, and Cara doesn’t feel like she is being watched again tonight, then that would confirm that they weren’t actually interested in Cara and Benjamin. If they’re really looking for Kahlan and me, then they will have moved on to look elsewhere.”

  Kahlan knew Richard well enough to know that there was some inner calculation going on in his head.

  Cara fingered the chain holding her Agiel as she thought it over. “That makes sense. If they don’t come looking in again tonight then that means they’re probably looking for you and the Mother Confessor.”

  Zedd gestured offhandedly. “Or it could mean that it wasn’t real and that you were only imagining it.”

  “How do we find out who could be doing such a thing? Looking into a room like that?” Benjamin asked, before Cara had a chance to argue.

  Zedd shrugged. “I’m not saying that such a thing is even possible. I’ve never heard of any specific magic that could do such a thing, only rumors of it. I think we’re all letting our imaginations get away from us. Tonight, let’s try to be a little more objective, shall we?”

  After a moment of silent consideration, Cara nodded. “I’ll pay more attention tonight. But I wasn’t imagining it.”

  Kahlan could tell by the way Richard was staring blankly into the atrium that he was already thinking about something else. The others sensed the same thing and waited in silence to see what was on his mind.

  “Have
any of you heard of Kharga Trace?” he finally asked into the quiet.

  CHAPTER 4

  Kharga Trace?” Benjamin asked.

  He hooked a thumb behind his weapons belt and frowned down at the floor, trying to recall if he’d ever heard the name before. Zedd shook his head. Kahlan could see in Rikka’s eyes that she knew the name, but instead of answering herself, she glanced at Cara, deferring, as all the Mord-Sith did, to Cara’s implicit authority.

  “Kharga Trace is in the Dark Lands,” Cara said.

  Richard picked up on the subtle, but chilling, change in her voice. His gray eyes turned from the atrium to focus on her.

  “Where?”

  “The Dark Lands— an outlying region of D’Hara.” She aimed a thumb over her shoulder. “To the north and east of here.”

  “Why is it called the Dark Lands?”

  “Most of it is beyond the reach of civilization. It’s a place something like the Wilds— isolated, insular, inhospitable— but instead of being flat and open like the Wilds, it’s mostly a vast, trackless land of mountains and dark forests. That makes it too hard to reach the isolated tribes in the farther reaches, or to even find them. But if you go into those remote places they inhabit, you run the risk that they will find you.”

  Cara’s words were all business, as formal as they would be for any report the Lord Rahl might have asked for, but her tone had an icy edge to it. “The weather there is overcast and gloomy most of the time. In the Dark Lands one rarely sees the sun. That might have been the origin of the name.”

  By the way Cara had carefully framed the suggestion, Kahlan suspected that the name might have had other origins.

  “But civilized people live there, call the place home,” Richard said. “After all, it’s part of D’Hara.”

  Cara nodded. “In Fajin Province, besides the ruling city of Saavedra, there are small towns in valleys here and there, a scattering of mountain villages, that sort of thing, but beyond those outposts of civilization lies a dark and forbidding land. People don’t wander far from the towns and when they do they stay to the few roads. Not a lot is known about the region because there isn’t much trade there, in part because there isn’t much there worth trading for.”

  “What’s the other part?” Richard asked.

  Cara paused only momentarily before answering. “Many of those who go into the Dark Lands are never seen again. Most people avoid straying from settled parts. From time to time, even some of those who live there, and do stay to the roads and shut themselves in at night, are never seen again, either.”

  Richard folded his arms. “What would be the cause of these people vanishing?”

  Cara shrugged. “I can’t say for sure, Lord Rahl. It’s a place of superstition, black arts, and tight lips. People don’t speak of things they fear lest those things come looking for them.”

  Richard didn’t let it go at that. “Superstition doesn’t cause people to vanish.”

  Cara, in turn, didn’t shy from his intent gaze. “Whispers say that scavengers of the underworld hunt the Dark Lands.”

  Everyone collectively took a breath as they considered such a grim warning.

  “There are places like that in the Midlands,” Zedd finally offered. “Some of it is superstition, as you say, but there are also places where talk of dangerous things is well founded.”

  Kahlan certainly knew the truth of that. She was from the Midlands.

  “I think that may be the case with the Dark Lands as well,” Cara agreed. “But the uncivilized regions are more vast, more remote, than such places in the Midlands. If something goes wrong in the Dark Lands there is not going to be anyone to come help you.”

  “Why would anyone live there?” Kahlan asked.

  Cara shrugged. “Despite how savage, or harsh, or destitute a place might be, it’s still home to those who were born there. Most people rarely stray far from home, from what they know, for fear of what they don’t know about other places.”

  “Cara is right,” Richard said. “We also have to remember that it’s still a land with people who fought alongside us for our freedom, who stood with us. They also lost a great many people to the war.”

  Cara conceded with a sigh. “True enough. I knew a few soldiers from Fajin Province, and they fought fiercely. None of them were from Kharga Trace, though. From what I’ve heard of it, Kharga Trace is even more inhospitable than the rest of the Dark Lands. Few people, if any, actually live in the Trace. Few would ever have reason to venture in there.”

  “How do you know so much about these Dark Lands?” Kahlan asked.

  “I don’t know a lot, actually. Darken Rahl used to have dealings in the Dark Lands so that’s the only reason I know anything at all. I remember him mentioning Kharga Trace once or twice.” Cara shook her head at the memory. “The Dark Lands rather fit his nature, as well as that of his father before him. They both used brutality and fear to maintain rule over the people who live there. He often said that it was the only way to keep the Dark Lands in line.

  “Like his father before him, Darken Rahl also sometimes sent Mord-Sith to the Dark Lands to remind the people there of their loyalty to D’Hara.”

  Richard frowned. “So you’ve been there, then?”

  “No, he never sent me. As far as I know, none of the Mord-Sith who are still alive have been there.”

  She gazed off at nothing in particular for a moment. “Many of those he sent never came back.”

  Cara’s blue eyes finally turned back to Richard. “Darken Rahl used to send Constance.”

  Richard met Cara’s meaningful gaze but he said nothing. He had known Constance when he had been a captive of Darken Rahl.

  He had been the one who had killed her.

  Since the war had ended Richard and Kahlan had learned a little more about D’Hara, though much of it was still a mystery to them. It was a vast land, with cities they had never known about before, much less visited. There were also districts in far-flung places like these Dark Lands that were so remote that they were more or less self-governing.

  “Most of the city and district leaders are here now,” Benjamin said. “As far as I know, despite how distant and primitive some of those outlying lands might be, none dared to ignore an official invitation to our wedding from the Lord Rahl himself. With them all here we can inquire more about Kharga Trace, if you like.”

  Richard nodded absently, his mind apparently already on to the next part of his inner equation.

  “Richard,” Zedd said when the conversation stalled while they all watched Richard staring off into the distance, “I heard that you’re doing something with all the books in the palace.”

  “We’re organizing them all,” Kahlan said when Richard failed to hear the question.

  “Organizing them?”

  “Yes,” Richard finally said, having heard the question after all. “With all the thousands of books here in the palace it’s virtually impossible to find information when we need it. I don’t even have a way of knowing if information I might need even exists in one of the libraries. There is no one who knows where everything is located or what’s there.

  “So, I’m having the information organized. Since Berdine can read High D’Haran, and already knows a lot about the different libraries, I put her in charge. Nathan is helping as well.”

  Zedd looked skeptical. “That’s an incredibly complex task, Richard. I’m not even sure that such a thing is possible, even with the prophet helping Berdine. I think I ought to see what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.”

  Richard nodded. “Sure. Come on, I’ll take you down to one of the larger libraries where Berdine is working. I was going there anyway. There’s something I want to look into.”

  Kahlan wondered what.

  As they started out, Kahlan hung back, snagging Cara’s arm to hold her back as well. They both slowed, letting the others think that maybe they wanted to talk about the wedding and Cara now being married— something that as far as Kahlan knew had
never happened before. Until Richard came along, who would ever have had the unthinkable thought of a Mord-Sith marrying?

  “What is it?” Cara asked in a low voice.

  Kahlan glanced toward Richard, Zedd, Benjamin, and Rikka out ahead, engaged in conversation. The rich carpets muted their words as well as their footsteps.

  “Something is going on. I don’t know what, but I know Richard well enough to know when he has the bit in his teeth.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “I want a Mord-Sith to stick close to him at all times.”

  “Mother Confessor, I had already made that decision when Zedd told us that whoever was looking in the room might have been looking because it was Lord Rahl’s room.”

  Kahlan smiled and put a hand on Cara’s shoulder. “Glad to see that marriage hasn’t dulled your senses.”

  “Yours either. What do you think is going on?”

  Kahlan drew her lower lip through her teeth.

  “Earlier today a boy with a fever told Richard that there is darkness in the palace. I think it was just the fever talking, but I know Richard and I know that those words stuck in his head.

  “Just before we came down here, an old woman, a fortune-teller, stopped Richard and told him that ‘The roof is going to fall in.’ Then, when we come down to see you, we find out about this business with someone looking into your room.”

  “What do you suppose Lord Rahl is thinking?”

  Kahlan looked over to meet Cara’s intent blue-eyed gaze. “If I know Richard— and I do— he’s thinking that he has just met the third child of trouble.”

  “I knew I should have put on my red leather this morning.”

  “No need to get ahead of ourselves. I’m only being cautious. Just because Richard is thinking it, that doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  “Mother Confessor, when Lord Rahl gets like this trouble usually follows.”

  “There is that,” Kahlan agreed.

  CHAPTER 5

  Kahlan watched Zedd pace across the gold and blue carpet and back again toward the heavy mahogany table, his long robes swishing around his legs when he turned, as if they were having trouble keeping up. Windows up on the balcony level lit the long library with cold, flat light. Through those windows she could see that since they had been down in the market earlier in the day, iron gray clouds had moved in, bringing the threat of a spring storm.