The Sword of the Truth, Book 12 - The Omen Machine (10 page)

K
ahlan woke to the distinctive sound of Richard’s sword coming out of the scabbard. The clear ring of the Sword of Truth’s steel brought her wide awake and brought her heart rate up.

She lifted her head from his shoulder. “What is it?”

Richard had the sword gripped in a fist above her. He shushed her as he gently, carefully slipped out from under her loose embrace. It was a bewitchingly fluid movement that ended with him standing silent and still beside the bed looking into the darkness.

Kahlan expected that at any moment something might fly at him out of that darkness. Nothing did.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Do you feel like someone is watching us?” he asked back over his shoulder.

“I don’t know. I was sound asleep.”

“You’re awake now.”

Kahlan sat up. “I don’t know, Richard. I could convince myself that I do, but I don’t know if it’s real or just my imagination.”

Richard stared off at the darkness at the end of the room. “It’s real.”

That made Kahlan’s heart beat even faster. She inched closer to him, making sure to stay out of the way of his sword in case he needed to use it.

“Can you tell what it is?”

His muscles relaxed. “It’s gone.”

Kahlan squinted, trying to see better in the dimly lit bedroom. “You mean it’s gone like maybe you were imagining it and now you realized as much?”

Richard turned to her. “No, I mean that when I deliberately looked back at it, it left. It was there. I have no doubt of it.”

The tension might have gone out of his muscles, but she recognized all too well the rage that still lit his eyes. It was the magic of the Sword of Truth he was gripping tightly in his fist. It was the righteousrage of the Seeker.

Kahlan could hear distant thunder. She rubbed her arms against the chill. “Who, or what, could do such a thing? I mean, who could look in at us that way?”

“I haven’t any idea. Zedd didn’t know either.”

Richard slid the sword back into the gold and silver scabbard he was holding in his other hand. As the sword slipped back into its lair, the anger faded from his gray eyes.

Richard lifted the sword’s baldric over his head and let it rest on his right shoulder while Kahlan went to the window and drew the drapes aside enough to peek outside. “It’s light out.”

“What about the storm?”

“Looks like it’s worse. You’re quite the prophet.”

“Great,” Richard muttered. “Now all the representatives get to stay around and badger us about prophecy some more.”

“They’re just worried, Richard. You have to admit, something is going on. They’re not stupid. They know it too. You are the Lord Rahl. They look to you to protect them from things they don’t understand and fear.”

“I suppose,” he said as he turned to a knock on the door.

After pulling on his boots he went to the door and looked out. Kahlan could seen Nathan down the hall talking to Benjamin. Cara had been the one who knocked. She was wearing her red leather and a grim expression. When Nathan and Benjamin saw Richard and Kahlan they hurried over.

“You look like you slept in that dress,” Cara said as Kahlan joined Richard at the door.

“I’m afraid that I did.”

“Ah,” Cara said with knowing nod. “So it was in your room, watching you again.”

“I don’t like the idea of taking off my clothes in front of prying eyes.”

“Did you and Benjamin sense anyone watching you in your room again last night?” Richard asked Cara.

“No, and I was waiting for them. They never showed up so I guess it was looking for you, as you suspected, and not us. It was quiet all night— until this morning, anyway.”

“Why, what happened this morning?” Kahlan asked.

Nathan leaned forward, impatient to get down to business. “Do you remember the stocky regent in the red tunic, the one at the reception yesterday who wanted to know if there is some prophetic event lying ahead for us?”

Richard yawned. “The regent who said that our future is rooted in the past and part of that past is prophecy? All that roundabout nonsense?”

“That’s the one.”

Richard wiped a weary hand across his face. “He was pretty insistent about how everyone is eager to hear my insight on prophecy and what the future holds for us. I suppose he can’t wait for me to meet with him and the others so that I can reveal the future to them.”

“Not exactly,” Nathan said. “He had a vision of his own early this morning.”

Richard straightened with a suspicious look. “I didn’t know that any of the representatives were gifted with even a little talent for such things.”

Nathan leaned closer. “He’s not. That’s the strange thing. His aides said that the regent had never before given any kind of prophecy. They said that he was always fascinated by it, and sought out people who claimed to be able to foretell the future, but he had never shown any ability for it himself.”

“So what was this important prophecy of his?”

“He said only that he’d had a vision.”

“But he didn’t reveal this vision, didn’t say what he saw?” Kahlan asked.

“No. He only told his aides that he’d seen what the future holds. They say that he was a talkative man, but after saying he’d had a vision he was unusually quiet and seemed distracted.”

“If he didn’t reveal the nature of his prophecy, then what’s so meaningful about it?” Richard wiped a hand across his face. “For that matter, how do we even know that he’s telling the truth?”

“We don’t, I suppose, but after he told his aides that he’d had this vision, he walked outside into the teeth of the storm, still dressed in his bedclothes, and jumped off the side of the plateau.”

“He killed himself?” Richard gaped at the prophet. “With no word on the nature of his vision?”

“No word at all,” Nathan confirmed.

Richard drew a deep breath as he considered the regent’s sad end. “Well, I guess Cara was right, it was an eventful morning.”

“I’m afraid that’s not all, Lord Rahl,” Benjamin said. “After the regent’s inexplicable behavior, and considering the two women yesterday who killed their children after having a vision, I suggested to Nathan that we ought to go check on anyone else he knew of who showed any history of visions, even if it was only a minor ability.”

Richard looked back at Nathan. “There are others?”

Nathan shrugged. “I hardly know everyone living at the palace. There’s no telling how many people might have had small premonitions. I do know of a man, though, who from time to time claims to foresee future events. I’ve never tested him so I have no idea if he really can, if he’s telling the truth. But considering recent events I thought we’d best pay him a visit.”

Richard nodded as he considered. “That makes sense.”

“When we got to his quarters,” Benjamin said, taking up the story, “we heard screams coming from inside. We broke in the door and saw that the man had his wife down on the floor. He was straddling her. She was struggling mightily trying to fight him off. The man had a knife in his fist, trying to kill her. Three young children were huddled in the corner, crying in terror, waiting their turn to be murdered, I believe.”

Nathan gestured to head off making more drama of the story than he apparently thought it warranted. “Nothing had happened, yet. As the man held his knife up in the air to strike, I used a quick bit of magic, that’s all, throwing him off the woman so that he would be unable to carry out his intentions. The general and some of his men rushed in and disarmed him.”

“So then no one was hurt?” Kahlan asked.

“No,” Nathan said. “We got there in time to prevent another tragedy.”

Kahlan let out her breath. “That’s a relief.”

“So this man had also had a vision?”

Nathan nodded. “He’s a jewelry maker. He told us that he had a vision that men are going to come to his house to rob him but he won’t be there. In this vision, the thieves torture his wife and children, trying to get them to reveal where the gold he uses to make jewelry is hidden. They don’t know. The men don’t believe them and over a period of hours torture his family to death, one at a time, trying to make them talk. The man insisted that he could not bear to allow such a horrific thing to happen to his family, that it was better to kill them quickly than let them endure the agony they would otherwise suffer.”

Richard looked puzzled. “That’s not at all like the other prophecies.”

“We have him locked up, if you want to question him,” Benjamin said.

Richard nodded, lost in thought.

The general hooked a thumb behind his weapons belt. “There is something else, Lord Rahl.”

Richard looked up. “What else?”

Benjamin took a deep breath. “Well, my men managed to get all the people and their animals down on the plain into the plateau before the worst of the storm descended on us last night. While the last of them were being ushered inside, the men conducted a wide sweep, wanting to make sure that they didn’t miss anyone, that no one was left behind or got lost in the storm to freeze to death in one of those flimsy market tents.

“While they were scouting they found a boy who had been dragged off and killed. He was maybe ten, no older.”

“Killed?” Richard asked. “What do you mean he was dragged off? How was he killed?”

The general didn’t shrink from the question. “He’d been partially eaten, Lord Rahl.”

Richard blinked in surprise. “Eaten?”

“Yes, Lord Rahl. His insides had all been eaten out. His face had been chewed off. The skull had long gouge marks from teeth. One arm and the other hand were missing. Animals had feasted on him, tore him open, and mostly ate out his innards.”

Richard sagged a little at the news. “A small boy, out in the storm, lost, away from people, would be easy prey for wolves, or even a pack of coyotes. It was probably Henrik, the sick boy I talked to, the one who ran off.”

“My men took account of everyone we herded inside. We were still trying to find the boy you had talked to. We talked to his mother. She told us that her boy hadn’t come back. She was worried sick.”

“That must have been him, then— the dead boy you found.”

Benjamin was shaking his head before Richard had finished. “That was our thought, too, but it wasn’t him. We described the clothes to the mother. She said that wasn’t what Henrik wore. A little later a man came to us for help. He was looking frantically for his boy. My men asked what he was wearing. The man described the dead boy’s clothes perfectly.”

Richard pressed his lips together in regret. “Then that means that the sick boy, Henrik, is lost out there on the Azrith Plain. In this storm he’s frozen to death by now. If a pack of wolves didn’t take him first.”

I
t was a long journey down to the dungeons, but it was something Richard had to do. He needed to question the woman who had thrown her four children to their death. He needed to try to figure out what was happening.

Kahlan had gone instead to meet with the representatives to try to calm their concerns about prophecy while Richard was looking into the source of those concerns. Richard’s flip tongue had more than once gotten him into trouble. Kahlan would be less likely to get frustrated with them than he would. She had been schooled in diplomacy.

He wished that Verna, the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light, could have gone with Kahlan to help explain the dangers of a layperson inferring anything from prophecy. Prophecy was not at all as clear as it sounded. That was because it was not intended for those who weren’t gifted. It was actually a kind of private message passed down from prophets in the past. Only a prophet could have the visions a true prophecy engendered and in that way understand its true meaning.

Verna knew a great deal about those dangers. After all, the Sisters of the Light had imprisoned Nathan in the Palace of the Prophets for nearly a thousand years out of fear that he would reveal prophecy to ordinary people.

Verna could have helped dissuade people from thinking they could properly understand prophecy. Unfortunately, along with Chase and his family, she had left for the Wizard’s Keep immediately after Cara’s wedding. There were gifted boys there who needed supervision and training. Zedd was supposed to return as well, but he had wanted to stay for the reception, and now the storm and troubling events had further delayed him.

As Richard stepped off the rusty iron rungs of the ladder, the captain of the dungeon guards straightened and clapped a fist to his heart in salute. Richard dipped his head in response. He glanced around in the flickering torchlight as he brushed grit off his hands. At least the smell of burning pitch helped cover the stench.

The captain looked worried to see the Lord Rahl himself down in his dungeon. His level of concern eased a bit when he saw Nyda come down the ladder. The tall Mord-Sith’s red leather outfit and blond hair stood out in stark contrast to the dank, drab stone room. The captain flashed a polite smile at Nyda as he nodded in greeting. He obviously knew her.

Richard realized that Mord-Sith were hardly strangers to dungeons, especially this one. In the past, enemies, real or imagined, would have been held in these dungeons and Mord-Sith would have come to torture information out of those with the gift.

Having once been one of those prisoners, Richard knew all about it.

He gestured to the iron door. “I want to see the woman who killed her children.”

“And the man who tried to kill his family?”

“Yes, him too,” Richard said.

The captain worked a big key in the door. The lock resisted for a moment, but after the latch clanged open, the man yanked the heavy iron door open enough to slip through. After hooking the keys on his belt, he took a lantern from a table and led the way into the inner dungeon. In a well-practiced sweep of her arm, Nyda took another lantern off an iron peg in the wall.

Before Richard could go through the door, she stepped in front of him and went in first. He was quite familiar with Mord-Sith’s insistence on going first so they could check for danger. He had long ago learned that his life was easier if he let them have their way and didn’t argue with them over such minor issues. He saved commands for times when they really mattered. Because of that, the Mord-Sith heeded his commands.

The captain led them down a series of narrow passageways that in most places had been carved out of solid rock. Even after thousands of years, the chisel marks looked as fresh as when they had first been cut through the stone.

They passed cell doors behind which criminals were held. Up ahead, in the light of the captain’s lantern, Richard saw fingers sticking out, gripping the edges of tiny openings in the iron doors. He saw eyes looking out through some of the black openings. When the prisoners saw Nyda coming behind the captain, the fingers withdrew and the eyes disappeared back into the blackness. No one called out. No one wanted to draw her attention.

At the end of a particularly narrow, crooked passageway with doors spaced farther apart, the captain came to a halt at a cell on the left. There were no fingers in the opening, no eyes looking out. When the heavy door was pulled open, Richard saw the reason. The outer door opened not into a cell, but into a small inner room with another door. The second, smaller door held the prisoner in an inner room.

The man used a long sliver of fatwood to transfer a flame from his lantern to a second hanging on an iron peg. “These are the shielded cells,” the captain said in answer to the question on Richard’s face.

Even though the palace had been constructed in the form of a power spell that strengthened the gift of any Rahl, and weakened that of others, the shields around the cells were an extra layer of protection to contain anyone gifted, no matter how powerful they were. No chances were taken with the gifted.

The captain lifted his lantern to look in the small opening in the second door. When he was sure that the prisoner wasn’t going to spring at him, he unlocked the door. He used all his weight to pull on the door. Rusty hinges squealed in protest as they gave ground. When the door had been opened enough for Richard to enter, the captain went back out in the hall to wait.

Nyda, Agiel in her fist, entered first. The woman, sitting on the floor, scrambled backward until her back was pressed against the far wall. She didn’t have far to go. She shaded her eyes from the sudden intrusion of light. She didn’t look at all dangerous. Except to her children.

“Tell me about your vision,” Richard said.

The woman looked at Nyda and then back to him. “Which vision? I have had many.”

That wasn’t what Richard had been expecting to hear. “The vision you had that made you kill your children.”

The woman’s eyes reflected points of lamplight. She didn’t answer.

“Your four children. You threw them over the edge of the cliff. You killed them. Tell me about the vision that you thought was cause enough to do such a thing.”

“My children are safe now. They are in the hands of the good spirits.”

Richard stuck his arm out in time to bar Nyda from stepping in to ram her Agiel into the woman. “Don’t do that,” he said softly to her.

“Lord Rahl—”

“I said don’t do it.”

He had no sympathy for the woman, but he didn’t want her tortured with an Agiel, either.

Nyda briefly glared at him before pointing her Agiel at the woman. “Answer the question or I will spend some time alone with you making sure that you don’t ever fail to answer any of Lord Rahl’s questions again.”

The woman’s eyes turned toward him. “Lord Rahl?”

“That’s right: Lord Rahl. Now answer his question.”

“What vision did you have that made you kill your children?” Richard repeated.

“I have no children, thanks to you!” The woman held one arm out protectively, expecting the Agiel.

Richard planted a boot on the bench carved out of the solid stone of the cell wall. He rested an elbow on his knee as he leaned toward the woman. “What are you talking about?”

“You won’t protect us from what is to come when the roof falls in. You instead scorn prophecy’s warnings.” The woman lifted her chin defiantly. “Those children, at least, no longer have to fear what is to happen.”

“And what is going to happen?”

“Terrible things!”

“What terrible things?”

The woman opened her mouth to tell him. She seemed surprised to realize that she had nothing to say.

“Terrible things, that’s all,” she finally said.

“I want you to tell me about the terrible things that are going to happen,” Richard said.

She blinked in confusion. “I, I don’t…”

She unexpectedly clutched her throat as she slumped to the dark stone floor, where she convulsed once before going still.

Richard turned to someone behind him as his right hand went to the hilt of his sword.

There was no one there.

“What’s the matter?” Nyda asked as she turned, looking for a threat.

Richard glanced around. “I thought I felt something, but I guess it’s just the nature of this place.”

He bent to the woman. Her lips were covered in red froth. It was all too obvious that she was dead.

“Well, isn’t that something,” Nyda said. “You should have let me use my Agiel. If you had, we might have gotten answers.”

“I don’t want you using that thing on people unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

She regarded him with the singular, menacing look that all Mord-Sith seemed to be able to conjure at will. Richard knew that it was an aspect born in madness. He knew because he had once been lost in their world.

“It was necessary,” she said. “There is a growing threat to you. It is foolish to hesitate or to shy away from doing what is necessary to prevent that threat from harming you. If it harms you, it harms all of us. What threatens you threatens us all.”

Richard didn’t argue. He thought that maybe she was right. “I think that if you had used your Agiel she would have simply dropped dead right then.”

“Now we’ll never ever know.”