The Omen Machine Read online

  People saw the captain’s purposeful stride and made way for him, yet the celebration, the lilt of laughter, the drone of conversation throughout the room went on unabated. Benjamin saw the man as well and straightened, looking suddenly more like General Meiffert than husband Benjamin. Several Mord-Sith started to close in, apparently thinking, because of how serious the man looked, that they might need to keep him away from the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor, who were there to enjoy themselves and didn’t need to be bothered with business. Cara gave them a slight gesture, though, and they let the man pass without intervening.

  The captain came to a smart halt and clapped a fist to his heart. “I apologize for interrupting you, Lord Rahl.”

  Richard bowed his head slightly in recognition of the salute. “It’s all right. Did you find the boy, Captain?”

  “No, Lord Rahl. We’ve looked everywhere. The boy is gone.”

  Richard thought that sounded a little too definite. “He has to be somewhere down there. He’s sick, he couldn’t have gone too far. Keep looking. I’m sure your men will find him.”

  The captain cleared his throat. “Lord Rahl, two of my men, two of the men who went after the boy, were found dead just a short while ago.”

  Richard’s heart sank at the thought that these brave men who had fought so long and suffered so much had died now that peace had finally arrived.

  “Dead? How did they die?”

  The man shifted his weight. “I don’t know, Lord Rahl. There were no wounds or anything like that. They had not drawn their weapons. Their faces showed no last indication of trouble. They were simply lying peacefully in a narrow passage behind rows of tents. They was no sign of any kind of struggle.”

  Richard’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. “And they had no wounds?”

  “No, Lord Rahl. They were just plain dead.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Not long after Richard had sent the captain to collect a larger force of men to help find the boy, the delegations from various lands who had come for the grand wedding saw their opening and began gathering in around Richard and Kahlan. While many of them expressed their gratitude to the two of them for all they had done to end the threat of tyranny, some wanted to ask questions. Everyone was eager to hear what the Lord Rahl and Mother Confessor had to say in answer to those questions.

  Richard had met some of the representatives, ambassadors, and emissaries over the past few days as they had arrived at the palace, but many of the gathered people he didn’t know. The smiles and the gratitude, as well as the questions, seemed genuine.

  After dispensing with the formality of expressing their delight with being invited, with the warmth of their reception, and with the beauty of the palace, they all quickly fell into asking questions about trade policy and the establishment of uniform laws. They wanted assurances that what they had heard, that they would all have the chance to be involved in such things, was true.

  With urgent matters of war and the need for supplies and men now a thing of the past, everyone was turning to considerations of how to use their resources and goods to the best advantage of their own homeland and people. It was clear that the unity they had all felt during the war had softened and each of them was concerned that their land might now somehow be placed at a disadvantage when it came to trade and matters of law.

  Richard let Kahlan assure them that there would be no restrictions on trade, and that they needn’t fear special favors to some that would put others at a disadvantage. Many of the people were from the Midlands. She reminded them of her policies when she had ruled the Midlands as the Mother Confessor and assured them that now being part of the D’Haran Empire would not change those matters of fairness. Her calm manner and authoritative demeanor made them confident in the truth of what she said.

  A number of the officials reminded her that in the Midlands most of the lands were formally represented in Aydindril, sometimes with rulers of the lands spending extended periods of time there, sometimes with emissaries and representatives, but there were always officials of some sort at hand so the different lands could always be involved in the decisions of the council or in matters of setting laws. Kahlan assured them that the People’s Palace was now the formal seat of power in the D’Haran Empire, so there would be similar arrangements made for them and their representatives to have permanent quarters from where they could participate in the shaping of their common future. Everyone seemed not merely relieved to hear this, but genuinely pleased.

  Kahlan was used to being in command and carried her power with an easy grace. She had grown up mostly alone because, as a Confessor, she had grown up being feared. When Richard had first met her he saw people tremble in her presence. In the past people saw only the terrifying power she wielded, not the nature of the woman behind that power, but in the time she and Richard had fought on behalf of these people, she had come to be admired and respected. People had come to look up to her.

  At the most inopportune moment, in the midst of Kahlan’s answers to questions, Nathan marched up behind Richard, took hold of his arm, and pulled him back a little. “I need to speak with you.”

  Kahlan paused in her answer about an ancient boundary dispute. She had been telling people that there was nothing to dispute; they were all now part of the D’Haran Empire and it didn’t really matter where a meaningless line was drawn on a map. As she fell silent, every eye went to the tall prophet. They all knew who he was.

  Richard noticed that Nathan had the book End Notes in hand, with one finger acting as a placeholder in the book.

  “What is it?” Richard asked in a low voice as he took several steps back from the suddenly silent crowd watching him. Prophecy was apparently of more concern to them than matters of trade or arbitrary boundaries.

  Nathan leaned in and spoke confidentially. “You told me that the boy you encountered down in the market today told you something about darkness in the palace.”

  Richard straightened and turned back to look around at all the people watching him. “I’m sorry for the interruption. If you will excuse me it will only be a moment.”

  He took Nathan by the arm and moved him back a few more steps toward the double doors all along the wall at the back of the room. Zedd came along, as did Kahlan. Cara and Benjamin, not far away, took the hint in the look Richard gave them and drew the attention of the delegates by asking about how the rebuilding was going in their homelands.

  Once sure that no one was within earshot, Richard turned back to Nathan. “The boy said that there is darkness in the palace. He said that darkness is seeking darkness.”

  Without a word, Nathan opened the book and handed it to Richard.

  Richard immediately spotted the line all by itself: Darkness is seeking darkness.

  “That’s the boy’s exact words,” Kahlan said, a tone of concern clearly evident in a low voice.

  Richard almost said that it had to be coincidence, but he knew better. Instead he asked, “Anything else about this, this fragment prophecy anywhere else in the book?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan said with obvious frustration. “I have no way of knowing if anything in the book is connected to anything else. For all I know, everything else might be tied to this darkness prophecy, or none of it is. I don’t even know if the other one, the one about the ceiling falling in, is connected to this line about darkness seeking darkness.”

  Richard knew it was.

  He was more than skeptical that it could be a coincidence that the boy spoke a line from a book that contained another line in it that the old woman had spoken. He knew it couldn’t all be connected by chance. He remembered the surprised look on the woman’s face when she had told him his fortune, that the roof was going to fall in, as if that hadn’t been what she had meant to say.

  Richard had learned that his gift often manifested itself in unique ways. Some texts called him the pebble in the pond, because he was at the center of ripples of events. Incidents that at first seemed li
ke chance events were in fact often elements that were somehow drawn to him, or drew his attention, by his gift, by the ripples he created around him. Such events could appear to be coincidence until he dug deeper.

  Or until the sky fell in on him.

  He knew now for certain that he couldn’t let this lie and let events get out ahead of him. He needed to dig deeper.

  He let out a deep breath. “All right. There’s nothing we can do about it at the moment. Let’s not get all these people worked up by letting them know that something is wrong.”

  “We don’t know that there really is something wrong,” Zedd reminded him.

  Richard didn’t want to argue that there was. “I hope you’re right.”

  “The way prophecy works,” Nathan reminded Zedd, “it’s likely that this is all connected somehow.”

  Zedd’s face twisted with a sour expression, but he didn’t challenge the point.

  Richard tapped his thumb against the hilt of his sword as he ran all the events through his mind for a moment. He couldn’t see any connection between the three events. He couldn’t even imagine any.

  That wasn’t true, he realized. Darkness seeking something could be connected to Cara’s feeling that someone was looking into her room in the night— in the dark.

  He turned to Nathan. “You said that there’s a woman who works for the palace and that she is visited by small premonitions.”

  “That’s right. She’s general kitchen help, usually doing preparation work like cutting up things for the palace cooks, but she helps out with other things when extra people are needed. As a matter of fact, I believe she’s one of the people in the blue robes helping serve tonight.” He glanced around without trying not to look obvious. “I don’t see her at the moment, though.”

  “And you said that there was another woman, Lauretta, I think you said her name was, who has a hint of ability. You said that she wanted to see me because she has something for me, some kind of omen.”

  Nathan nodded. “That’s right.”

  “As soon as we can break away from here I want you to take me to see her.”

  “Richard, I’d be happy to take you there, but it’s likely nothing. These kinds of things usually turn out to be a whole lot less than one thinks they are. People often believe that the most mundane and innocent things somehow have sinister implications. It’s likely nothing meaningful.”

  “That would please me just fine,” Richard said as he checked on the people waiting for him. “Then I won’t have to worry about it.”

  “I suppose so.” Nathan gestured toward the wall of doors behind them. “We’re near the kitchens. Lauretta works for a butcher who helps supply the palace for affairs like the wedding and this gathering here today. Her quarters aren’t far. When you feel like taking a stroll we can go see her.”

  Richard nodded. “For now, let’s get back to our guests.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Richard stepped back to the waiting group of officials, mayors, regents, representatives and even a few kings and queens of some of the lands in what used to be the Midlands before they were all joined into the D’Haran Empire. When Zedd and Kahlan went with him, Nathan tucked the book under his arm, put on his widest smile, and came along.

  Nathan, being the only living prophet as well as a Rahl, was well known to just about everyone at the palace. That, and his flamboyant nature, made him a celebrity of sorts. He dressed the part, with a ruffled shirt and a fashionable green cape. Elaborate engraving covered the gold scabbard and sword at his hip.

  Richard thought that a wizard of Nathan’s abilities wearing a sword made about as much sense as a porcupine carrying a toothpick to defend himself. Nathan claimed that the sword made him look “dashing.” He enjoyed the looks he got, usually acknowledging them with a broad grin and, if the looks came from a woman, a deep bow. The more attractive the woman, the wider his smile tended to be. The women often blushed, but they almost always returned a smile.

  Despite being somewhere near to a thousand years old, Nathan often approached life with the glee and wonder of a child. It was an infectious nature that attracted some people to him. Others, no matter Nathan’s often pleasant nature, considered him to be just about the most dangerous man alive.

  A prophet could tell the future and in the future pain, suffering, and death often lay in wait. People believed that, if he chose to, he could reveal what fate awaited them. Nathan dealt with prophecy; he could neither invent it or make it happen. But some still believed he could. That was why many considered him dangerous.

  Others considered him profoundly dangerous for an entirely different reason. They feared him because there had been times when prophecies he revealed had started wars.

  There were those women who were drawn to that aura of danger about him.

  When asked why he would bother to carry a sword, Nathan had reminded Richard that he was a wizard as well, and he carried a sword. Richard protested that he was also the Seeker, and the Sword of Truth was bonded to him. It was part of him, part of who he was. Nathan’s sword was more ornamental. Nathan didn’t need a sword to reduce someone to ash.

  Nathan had reminded Richard that, Seeker or not, and no matter how he framed it, Richard was far more deadly than the sword he carried.

  “Lord Rahl,” a stocky man in a red tunic asked as everyone gathered close, “may we know if there is some prophetic event lying ahead for us?”

  Many in the crowd nodded, relieved that the question had finally been asked, and moved in a little closer. Richard was beginning to suspect that the answers to such questions were the only things they were really interested in hearing from him.

  He looked around at all the eager faces watching him. “Prophetic event? What do you mean?”

  “Well,” the man said, sweeping an arm expansively, “with so many gifted right here, First Wizard Zorander, the prophet himself, Nathan Rahl”— the man bowed his head toward Richard—“and not least of all you, Lord Rahl, who has more than proven to everyone what a remarkable gift you possess, surely you would have to be privy to the deepest secrets of prophecy. We are all hoping, since we are all gathered here, that you would be willing to share with us what such prophecy has revealed to you, what it holds in store for us.”

  People in the gathered crowd voiced their agreement or nodded as they smiled hopefully.

  “You want to hear prophecy?”

  Heads bobbed and everyone inched in closer, as if they were about to be privy to a palace secret.

  “Then heed what I say.” Richard gestured to the gloomy gray light coming from the windows at the far end of the room behind the crowd. Everyone glanced briefly over their shoulder, then turned back, lest they miss what Richard would say.

  “There will be a spring storm the likes of which has not been seen for many years. Those of you who wish to return home sooner rather than later should plan to leave at once. Those who delay too long will shortly be stranded here for a number of days.”

  A few people whispered among themselves as if Richard had just revealed the secrets of the dead. But most of those waiting for his word on the future seemed to be a great deal less impressed.

  The heavyset man in a red tunic held a hand aloft. “Lord Rahl, while that is fascinating, and I am sure quite prophetic, and no doubt useful to some of us here, we were hoping to hear of things more … significant.”

  “Like what?” Nathan said in a deep voice that rattled some in the crowd.

  A woman in the front dressed with layered golds and greens forced a smile. “Well,” she said, “we were hoping to hear some true words of prophecy. Some of fate’s dark secrets.”

  Richard was feeling more uneasy by the moment. “Why the sudden interest in prophecy?”

  The woman seemed to shrink a little at his tone. She was trying to find words when a tall man farther back wove his way between people as he stepped forward. He wore a simple black coat with a turned-up, straight collar that went all the way around. The coat was butt
oned to his neck so that it pulled the collar nearly closed at his throat. He wore a rimless four-sided hat of the same color.

  It was the abbot Benjamin had told Richard about.

  “Lord Rahl,” the abbot said as he bowed, “we have all heard warnings from people who have been endowed with an element of insight into the flow of events forward in time. Their dark warnings trouble us all greatly.”

  Richard folded his arms. “What are you talking about? Who is coming up with these warnings?”

  The abbot glanced about at his fellow guests. “Why, people back in all of our homelands. Since arriving at the palace, as we have talked among ourselves, we have discovered that we are all hearing dark warnings from soothsayers of every sort—”

  “Soothsayers?”

  “Yes, Lord Rahl. Diviners of the future. Though they live in different places, different lands, they are all speaking of dark visions of the future.”

  Richard’s brow drew lower. “What do you mean by diviners of the future? They can’t be true prophets.” He gestured to his side. “Nathan here is the only living prophet. Who are these people you’re listening to?”

  The abbot shrugged. “They may not be prophets, as such, but that does not mean they are bereft of abilities. Capnomancers have seen dire warnings in their readings of sacred smoke. Haruspices have found disturbing omens in animal entrails.” The man spread his hands innocently. “Those sorts of people, Lord Rahl. Like I say, diviners of the future.”

  Richard hadn’t moved. “If these people are so talented and know the future and all, then why are you asking me about it?”

  The man smiled apologetically. “They have talents, but not to compare with yours, Lord Rahl, or with those remarkably gifted people with whom you surround yourself. We would value hearing what you know of ominous warnings in prophecy so that we might take your word back to people in our homelands. From what they have been hearing, they are uneasy and hoping that we will return with word from those at the palace. A spring storm, while noteworthy, is not what concerns us most. It is the whispers and warnings we have all heard that worry us.”