The Sword of the Truth, Book 12 - The Omen Machine (11 page)

R
ichard held his tongue. He wasn’t in the mood to argue about what was done and over and couldn’t be changed. He instead turned away from the dead woman and stepped over the high doorsill to the waiting captain.

“The woman is dead. Take me to see the man who was put in here this morning, the jeweler, before he too drops dead.”

The captain glanced through the open door, perhaps expecting to see blood, then gestured. “It’s the cell down there, Lord Rahl, across the way.”

In short order he had the outer door unlocked and the key turning the lock of the second door. After looking through the small hole in the door, he pulled it open.

Nyda cut in front of Richard and went in ahead of him, lantern in one hand and Agiel at the ready in the other.

“You bastard!” the man cried as he went for Richard when he stepped inside.

Nyda’s Agiel caught him across the throat. He fell back with a shriek, pressing his hands to his throat as he gasped in agony.

This time Richard didn’t protest Nyda’s use of her Agiel. The man had given her ample cause.

Richard was losing his patience and didn’t waste any time with formalities. “You tried to kill your family today. Why?”

“Because of what’s going to happen to them, that’s why.” His voice was hoarse and gravelly from the lingering effects of the Agiel. His eyes bulged with anger. “It’s your fault!” Blood came out with his words.

“And how do you figure it’s my fault?”

The man jabbed a finger toward Richard. “Because you won’t listen to prophecy.” He had to swallow back the pain and blood. It was lowering his voice, but not his fury. “You think you’re too important to heed prophecy. You think you know better.”

“I know a great deal about prophecy,” Richard said. “It isn’t as simple as you seem to think.”

“It is. I’ve had visions of the future before and they’re stone simple to understand. What’s more, they always come true.”

“What kind of visions have you had?”

The man was still comforting his throat. His anger cooled a little. He cast a wary look at Nyda before answering.

“Things such as having a feeling that a customer I hadn’t seen in a long time would come to me with a commission. He soon did. One time I was making a ring for a wealthy man, and while working on it I had a premonition that the man would die before the ring was finished. The next day the man died.”

“Those are different,” Richard said. “Those are small things, small foretellings. Those aren’t the same thing as prophecy.”

“They came true. They were foreknowledge and they came true, just as I had envisioned them.”

“Having a premonition that someone is going to return for more of your work is not the same as a vision that would cause you to try to murder your family.”

“Not murder! Mercy!”

The man sprang up, his hands going for Richard’s throat. Nyda dropped him with her Agiel. He hunched on the floor, arms folded across his chest, gasping in shuddering pain. She put a boot on his back and leaned down close.

“If you try that again I will make you sorry you were born. After I get done with you, you will curse my very existence until the day you die, but you will behave yourself. Do you understand me?”

The man, trembling in the lingering pain from the touch of the Agiel, nodded as he panted, trying desperately to catch his breath. Nyda pushed him with her boot. He toppled back. Finally he sat up with his back against the wall, glaring at Richard.

“My family is going to suffer unimaginable torture because you keep me locked in here where I can’t give them a merciful end.”

“I heard all about your vision. Even if it was true, you are the one who will be responsible for their pain, either that of torture or the death you would inflict on them, all because you never stopped to think that there might be another way.”

The man blinked in confusion. “Another way? What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say that you really do believe that your premonition is true, that men will come and torture your wife and children to try to make them reveal where your gold is hidden.”

“It is true!”

“Fine, let’s say it is. Then why didn’t you do something to protect your family?”

The man swallowed, still trying to recover his breath. “Protect them?”

“Yes. If you care so much about them then why wasn’t your first thought to protect them? Why wouldn’t you go to someone— the First File, or Nathan the prophet, or me?”

“No one would help me. No one would believe me or be able to prevent those murdering thieves from coming and grabbing my wife and children. My family will be tortured.”

“Because of you.” When the man frowned at Richard, he went on, “The men in your vision want to know where your gold is hidden. Your wife and children don’t know, so they can’t reveal the location. The thieves don’t believe them and try to torture the information out of them.”

“That’s right!” the man said, shaking his finger at Richard again. “They will suffer that torture and die because you don’t heed the vision and see that it’s true.”

“No, they will suffer it because you don’t believe it’s true.”

The man paused, confused. “But I do believe it’s true.”

“If you truly believed your vision was true then all you had to do was to tell your wife and children where you have your gold hidden. Tell them that it’s a secret, but if anyone ever threatened to harm them, they should instead let the thieves have the gold. If you had simply done that, then you could have prevented the vision from coming to pass. Unless you value your gold more than your family?”

“No! Of course not!”

“Then why didn’t you just let them know where your gold is stashed? Or else why wouldn’t you think to take them away from here, away from the threat?”

The man looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know.”

“Why was your first thought not to protect them, but to kill them?”

The man face had gone ashen. He had no answer.

“I’ve had similar threats against people I love,” Richard said. “My only thought was how to protect them, how to defeat the prophecy. In the end I did. I didn’t murder them.”

The man’s gaze fell away. His certainty, his conviction, his rage, was gone.

But then he looked up again, conviction returning to his eyes in a hot rush. “Their suffering and death will be because of you! You are keeping me locked up in here when you know what will happen. My family will suffer unimaginable agony because you won’t allow me to save them from my vision by giving them a merciful death. Their suffering will be your fault.

“All because you will not do your duty to your people by heeding prophecy.”

Richard didn’t answer. There was no answer to madness.

The man slid his back up the wall until he was standing. He glared at Richard.

“You do not deserve to be the Lord Rahl. Soon, everyone will realize that.”

K
ahlan ingratiated herself with the representatives by first laying out an elaborate midday meal. Tables around the room were covered with platters of meats, fish, fowl, and sweet delights of every sort. Other tables offered a variety of wines. Musicians played soft, soothing music while servers carrying trays of colorful, honeyed nectar drinks threaded their way through the crowds. Guests plucked the heavy-bottomed glasses containing the prized drink from the trays as the servers passed.

Gazing out at all those assembled, Kahlan felt a pang of loneliness. She wished that Richard could be there with her. She missed him. But he had work to do.

So did she.

Circulating among the milling crowd as they sampled food and wine from the different tables and drinks from trays, not taking the time to eat herself, Kahlan smiled and greeted everyone personally, thanking them for attending as she saw to their every pleasure or whim. Staff were at hand to make sure the representatives had everything they wanted.

A number of people brought up prophecy, pressing their belief that it was one of their most important tools for guiding them into the future, insisting that she and Richard would do well to be more mindful of what such predictions had to say to them all. Kahlan listened patiently, occasionally gently asking for clarifications of certain assertions.

Cara, not trusting anyone, even these leaders from around the D’Haran Empire and allies in the war, was rarely more than an arm’s length away. Several times as Kahlan made her way through the room, people stopped her, wondering if the kitchens had this or that. Kahlan indulged them, immediately turning to ask the ever-attentive staff trailing not far behind to see to fulfilling the special requests.

When the elaborate luncheon finally drew to a close, she led the representatives into a nearby room where she stepped up onto a broad dais so that everyone could see her. Vanilla-colored walls decorated with intricate molding and blue carpets trimmed in gold gave the room a hushed, intimate feel.

Through a wall of double doors that led out to the terrace in the back, Kahlan could see that the storm had turned the world to white. The wind from time to time rattled the glass in the doors.

Now that people were fed and relaxed, Kahlan clasped her hands as she stood before them on the elevated platform, waiting patiently for conversations to die out and everyone’s attention to turn to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nicci arrive. The sorceress glided to a halt beside a table just behind Kahlan. Tall chairs, their backs carved to look like eagles with their wings spread, chairs Richard and Kahlan had used in the past as they’d greeted petitioners, many of whom now roamed the room, sat in commanding positions behind the table. Cara, in her red leather, stood behind Kahlan to her left.

Kahlan took a deep breath and began.

“I know that many of you have concerns about the direction of the future. I have heard that you are all interested in what prophecy has to say to us about that future. A number of you have expressed those concerns to me personally in a most direct fashion. Because I recognize that all of us here are interested in insuring our common, successful future, I wanted to give everyone this opportunity to speak and air their concerns.”

Kahlan waited until everyone was smiling before she went on. “You all know that there has been some trouble caused by those who think they have been visited with prophecy. Several of these people have acted on their fears in the most unforgivable way possible. You even saw one of them yesterday and heard what she had done to her children as a result of what she said was a vision of the future. Her children, unfortunately, are now dead and have no future. Prophecy obviously held no value to help them, and only resulted in their untimely deaths.

“This is why Richard isn’t here with us this afternoon. He is attending to these matters along with serious issues of prophecy. As a gifted wizard and the Lord Rahl it is his responsibility to see to these issues. We all know from everything that has happened in recent years that he is more than competent to handle such matters.

“But my husband didn’t want to ignore your questions and concerns, either, so he asked me to be here with you today in order to address those concerns and answer any questions you might have.”

Kahlan spread her hands. “So, if anyone has anything to say, please do so now, with all of us here, so that we might clear the air and resolve the issue.”

Everyone looked pleased.

Queen Orneta wasted no time. “Our concern,” she said as she folded her bare, slender arms and stepped to the front of the crowd, “is that prophecy is our most important guide.”

“Prophecy is not our most important guide,” Kahlan said. “Reason is our most important guide.”

With a flick of her hand the queen dismissed Kahlan’s view. “Prophecy reveals what must be done if our people are to prosper into the future.”

“Prophecy, as you view it, reveals what will happen.”

“That’s right,” the queen said.

“So if you believe it reveals what will happen, then it makes no difference if you know it or not. You can’t change what will happen, or it would not be prophecy, but merely speculation.”

The queen’s gazed darkened. “Prophecy is given to help us, passed down through magic, to be our guide into the future it reveals.”

“In any event,” Kahlan said as she again smiled her assurance to the crowd, “as I told you, we are dealing with it. You needn’t concern yourselves with the complexities of prophecy. Besides the Sisters of the Light, we have Nathan the prophet here with us helping Richard with matters of prophecy. We also have other gifted people as well, like First Wizard Zorander”— she lifted a hand back—“and sorceress Nicci. That’s to say nothing of Richard himself. Right now he is seeing to such matters, as is his duty and responsibility to all of you. I can assure you, Lord Rahl takes his responsibility very seriously.”

“Yes,” Queen Orneta said in a tone of feigned indulgence, “so we have been told.”

Kahlan shrugged. “What more would you like?”

The queen held one bony elbow as she casually fingered her jeweled necklace with her other hand. “Mother Confessor, I want what all of us gathered here want. We’ve all heard dark warnings of the future. We want to know what prophecy has to say of such events.”

“Let me assure you, Queen Orneta, we also take such concerns very seriously. After all, we are all on the same side and share a common interest in the future prosperity of the D’Haran Empire. Please understand, though, that prophecy is a very specialized area. Those who are gifted in it, and who have experience in dealing with it, are handling it. Everything that can be done is already being done.”

The crowd fell silent, all eyes watching the broad-shouldered King Philippe from the western Midlands, as he stepped forward. He was a hero who had fought valiantly for their cause and had from early on been loyal to the newly formed D’Haran Empire. Though many others in the room were his equal in standing, even they looked up to him.

He wore a grand military-style coat in a deep mahogany color that fit his powerful frame with tailored precision. At his hip, on a broad, tooled, tan leather belt, he wore a gleaming, engraved, ceremonial sword lavishly adorned with gold and silver. It was no less a formidable weapon in his hands for all its embellishments. Kahlan knew that he was a reasoned leader, but she also knew that he had a volatile temper.

His wife, Catherine, his ever-present shadow, glided forward with him. She wore a beautiful dark green brocade dress embroidered with vibrant gold leaves. She looked stunning in the dress. Though she was a queen with as much authority as her husband, she had little interest in matters of rule.

She was also quite pregnant. Kahlan knew that this would be their first child, and they were eagerly looking forward to it now that the war was over.

King Philippe gestured around at the gathered dignitaries. “We are the leaders of the lands that make up the D’Haran Empire. Many of us here were loyal to you, Mother Confessor, before that, in the Midlands. All of our people have fought, bled, and died to help us stand here today, triumphant. They have a right, through us, to hear the shape of the future they have fought so hard to make possible. On their behalf, as their representatives, we should be informed of what prophecy has to say so we can make sure it is being heeded and not ignored.”

A roar of voices rose as everyone agreed with King Philippe.

Queen Orneta, not keen to cede her informal leadership role in arguing their position, swept a skeletal arm back at the crowd, calling for silence. “Prophecy must be obeyed. What we want, Mother Confessor, is for you to reveal what prophecy says so that we may see for ourselves that you are heeding it.”

“But I have just spent a great deal of time with all of you, listening to your concerns and explaining why prophecy is not meant for the uninitiated.”

The queen smiled in that patronizing manner that for some queens seemed to be an inborn ability bordering on theatric gift.

“So you have,” she said, glancing over at King Philippe as if telling him that he should let her do the talking. “Yet we have all heard the dark warnings from various diviners back in our homelands, those with a bit of prophetic talent. That is one reason we were all so eager to come here for this gathering. Something significant is happening— the signs are all there.

“We want to know what dark foretelling prophecy holds so that when this storm ends we might send word home to our people so they can prepare for looming dangers. Prophecy can be of no value if it is kept secret.”

Kahlan straightened her back. She let the smile slip away as she put on her Confessor’s face. The queen’s talent at presenting an intimidating presence was no match for Kahlan’s.

The crowd fell into an uneasy quiet.

“I’m not at all sure that you really want to hear prophecy.”

Queen Orneta did not take the chance Kahlan had just given her to withdraw her challenge.

“Mother Confessor, every one of us here appreciated the fine meal you just served us. You are an adroit hostess, but what we really want, what we demand, is to be informed of what prophecy has to say so that we can make sure that you and Lord Rahl bow to what it tells us must be done.”

“That’s right.” King Philippe lifted a fist to punctuate the point. “We must know that you and Lord Rahl follow what prophecy says must be done.”

“Ah, so you think that we must bow to prophecy, regardless of what action prophecy calls for, even though I have explained that it is not nearly so easy to understand prophecy from the words alone? You still insist that it’s the words themselves that define prophecy and that they must be heeded? Is that it? And you fear that we won’t have the strength to do just that?”

A few people throughout the room shouted their agreement. Others nodded insistently. Many more all tried to speak up at the same time, saying that that was their whole point.

Kahlan nodded sorrowfully. “So, is this everyone’s conviction?”

It was apparent from the outcry that it was.

“Prophecy must be served,” the queen said when the clamor had died down. “It must be revealed and obeyed.”

King Philippe, standing not far from Queen Orneta, folded his arms with finality, making clear his agreement.

Kahlan’s glare moved from Queen Orneta to the pregnant Queen Catherine. “You, too, would choose prophecy for your unborn child? After you have seen what prophecy did to those other, innocent children? How it brought them only pain and a terrifying death?”

Catherine cast a concerned look at her husband before she stiffened her resolve and gave Kahlan a single nod. “The Creator has given us prophecy. It must be heeded, Mother Confessor.”

Kahlan’s gaze rose again to sweep across the crowd.

“Are you all quite sure of this?”

Everyone spoke up impatiently that they were. Some shook their fists again to reaffirm their conviction.

“Well,” Kahlan said as she slowly, sorrowfully, shook her head, “I had hoped to convince you that prophecy and action based on it should be left to the experts in prophecy, but since you all insist, I am left no choice but to bow to your wishes.”

The representatives were obviously pleased to finally have gotten their way, even if their enthusiasm was somewhat tempered by the weight of responsibility they were so willingly assuming.

“You shall have what you demand,” Kahlan said. “You shall hear what prophecy holds in store for you.”