The Sword of the Truth, Book 12 - The Omen Machine (19 page)

“Prophecy is on your side,” Mohler said. “Surely, Bishop, the Creator is no less on your side. I have always believed that He has protected you since that awful day when your parents were murdered because He has great things planned for you. He has helped you rise up and overcome all the obstacles in your path. The Creator will see this, too, finally come to pass.”

“He reveals to us through prophecy that it is so.”

“I look forward, then, to a new awakening out of darkness, as prophecy itself has foretold.”

Little did the man know that there had already been an awakening out of darkness.

Little did the man know that the seven familiars huddled together in the peak of the ceiling, watching, listening. Hannis Arc knew that they would report every word back to the Hedge Maid.

“Soon, Bishop, you will rule D’Hara. You will rule the empire.”

M
ohler did not look up to meet the steady gaze of the blue-eyed woman watching him as he pulled open the door. Few people had the courage to meet her gaze. Hannis Arc returned to his desk as the old scribe pulled the heavy iron-bound oak door closed on his way out.

As he scooped his dark robes under his legs to sit at the desk in his massive leather chair, he watched from the corner of his eye as the seven glided in closer.

Their flowing robes radiated a supple, bluish blush with a soft, ethereal glimmer to it. They moved with fluid grace, their robes never still, giving him the impression that he was actually looking in at them in another place, seeing them in an ethereal world of continual gentle breezes.

From a distance, each seemed as elegant a creature as ever existed. To all appearances they seemed to be made of air and light as much as flesh and bone. As they glided closer, he fancied that they looked like nothing so much as good spirits.

He knew, though, that they were anything but good spirits.

Six of them drifted idly together, like corks in a pond, watching from not far away as the seventh floated in close on the other side of the desk.

As she leaned in he could finally see beyond the edge of the cowl covering her head, see the wrinkled flesh of her pitted and pockmarked face, the knotted blue veins, the warts and ulcers that ravaged her distorted features, the hanging tags of skin, the eyes the color of rancid egg yolks. She smiled a wicked smile that promised overwhelming pain and suffering should she wish it.

Hannis Arc was not in the least bit intimidated. Rather, he was indignant to be shown such little respect. He did not try to keep the displeasure from his voice.

“Has Jit completed the tasks I gave her?”

The familiar laid a gnarled hand on the desk as she leaned over toward him. With long, curved nails, bunched, callused skin, and knobby joints, her hand looked more like a claw.

She was close enough to have rattled most people down to their very soul, close enough to paralyze a victim with fear. Hannis Arc was no more unnerved by her appearance than she appeared to be of his.

Her voice came like a hiss across silk. “You dare to demand of us, to demand of our mistress?”

Hannis Arc whipped his arm around and slammed his knife down with all the force he could muster, pinning the familiar’s disfigured hand to the desktop. She let out a squealing screech that seemed as if it might break the glass in all the display cases and crack the stone walls besides. It was a shriek that he thought must be something like what would come from those dragged down to the darkest depths of the underworld. It was the stuff of nightmares brought to life.

The arms of the other six waved in rage, like pennants in a gale. They swooped in around their trapped companion, incredulous to see her stuck fast, clicking their bewilderment to one another in a tongue that sounded like nothing so much as small little bird bones snapping.

“Surprised?” He arched an eyebrow. “Surprised that a knife wielded by a mere man could harm you?”

She let out another squealing screech that was loud enough to raise the dead as she again tugged and twisted wildly at her hand pinned to the desktop by the knife. Her bluish black lips curled back in a snarl, showing her fangs as she leaned toward him. It did her no good.

The heavy desk rattled and wobbled, the feet lifting clear of the floor every time she yanked on her arm, trying without success to free it. The other six snaked through the air around her in sympathetic outrage. When they grabbed at her to try to pull her free they received a lightning jolt from the knife that shot though them, forcing them to release their grip.

“What have you done?” the one stuck fast demanded in a screech.

“Why, I have pinned you to the desk. Isn’t it obvious?”

“But how!”

“Right now that is really not what should concern you. What should matter most to you now is recognizing that I am no mere man and that it would be in your best interest to show me a great deal of respect. As you have discovered, I have abilities to handle the likes of you seven arrogant little lizard-eaters. That goes for your mistress as well.”

Her eyes betrayed confusion behind the hot glare of hate.

Hannis Arc smiled without humor. “Didn’t the Hedge Maid tell you that much of it when she called you forth from beneath the ground to serve her? Well”— his smile widened— “perhaps she had her reasons. Perhaps you seven weren’t really important enough for it to matter to her.”

“You will be made to suffer for this,” she said in a hiss.

“I just told you that you need to show me a great deal of respect, and instead you threaten me?” He leaned toward the familiar, glaring into her wild eyes as he seized the handle of the crescent-bladed axe propped against the desk beside his right leg. “For this offense, you lose the hand. Threaten me again and you lose your existence.”

He brought the axe around with one swift, powerful swing. It thunked into the desk, sticking fast, chopping the familiar’s hand off at the wrist. Freed, she wheeled in frantic pain and shot away, crashing blindly off the stone walls, knocking over a stand holding a book and breaking the glass in one of the cases.

The wriggling hand remained pinned by the knife, the wrist terminating against the axe blade stuck deep in the desktop.

“Oh, look there, you’ve lost some of your precious blood,” he said with mock sincerity. “Well, that really is a shame.”

The other six retreated to a safe distance, or at least what they believed to be a safe distance, suddenly cautious, fearing to be too hasty in their response.

As the familiar, cradling the stub at the end of her arm, slowed to glare at him, Hannis Arc crooked a finger at her, compelling her to return. Hesitantly, she approached the desk, rage and fear twisting her already twisted features. He noted that despite her rage, despite her hesitancy, she had nonetheless obeyed him.

He was pleased to see that she was beginning to respect him.

“Don’t you ever threaten me again,” he told her in a deadly tone. “Do you understand?”

She glanced down at her severed hand pinned to the desk. “Yesss,” she hissed.

“Now, answer my question. Has your mistress completed her tasks?”

“She watches the one you want watched. She still waits for the one she has summoned. The hounds drive him and will deliver him to her.” She lifted her remaining hand, pointing at him. “Once she has him, then her task is completed and she will be through with you.”

“She lives in my land and will do exactly as I say, when I say it, or she will lose my protection.”

“Jit does not need you to protect her.”

“Without my protection, Kharga Trace would not be a safe haven from the half people. She would be meat for their stew. You all would.”

The familiar paused for a moment, scrutinizing his eyes. “The half people? The half people do not exist. They are merely a dusty rumor from ages long past.”

“Oh, the half people exist. In fact, did you know that they make extraordinary weapons? Weapons that can be used against the dead?”

“Bah. Whispered gossip, nothing more.”

He arched an eyebrow. “And just who do you suppose made the knife pinning your hand to the desk?”

The familiar’s dark gaze descended to the knife impaling her dismembered hand before finally regarding him again with a murderous look. She seemed to think better of what she was going to say and instead took a defiant tone.

“The half people are no threat to us or our mistress. Even if they do exist, they remain locked away beyond the north wall as they have for thousands of years.”

Hannis Arc showed her a hint of a smile. “Not any longer.”

The familiar’s upper lip curled back in a snarl. “Another lie. The half people cannot breach the north wall.”

“They didn’t need to. I went beyond the wall and walked among them, talked with them. They listened, and in the end they chose to bow to me as their sovereign lord. So, I opened the gates for them. Now, they hunt the Dark Lands … but only where I tell them they may hunt, and who I tell them they may hunt.”

She studied his face for a moment. “You make a mistake thinking you can control the half people.”

“Jit is the one who had better worry about making mistakes.”

“Jit can protect herself,” the familiar hissed. “She does not need you to protect her, and neither do we. The half people would not come into the Trace. They would fear Jit as they feared the wall. They would fear to tread the Trace.”

The other six floated in close around her to reinforce the point.

“Have you been beyond the north wall?” He knew they hadn’t. The wall worked both ways— it had for thousands of years. “You know nothing of what they fear, and what they don’t fear. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you do.”

Hannis Arc yanked the axe free from the desk and gestured with it.

“They don’t hunt the Trace only because I told them to stay out. They would eagerly enter Kharga Trace if I were to allow them in … especially if I give them the disembodied limbs of you seven for their stewpots.”

The seven backed away as one and wisely remained silent.

“All of you, the Hedge Maid included, like the people of the Dark Lands, like the half people from beyond the north wall, are my subjects. You all live under my rule. You all owe your loyalty to me if you want to continue to enjoy the privileges you receive in return.”

The curiosity of one of them overcame her caution. “What privileges?”

Hannis Arc cocked his head to the side. “Why, the privilege of being allowed to live, of course.”

None of the seven questioned what he meant.

“You tell Jit that she had better do as she’s told. You tell her my words. You tell her that she also had better make sure that her familiars show proper respect to her ruler or none of you will have any hands left with which to feed her.”

They all retreated a bit more, fright clearly registering on their faces.

Abruptly, they swirled around to leave. “It will be as you have commanded, Bishop,” the handless one said. “We will tell our mistress your words.”

“See that you do.”

Hannis Arc watched as they swirled like smoke and slipped out through the cracks around the heavy door. On their way out, as Mohler before them, they were careful not to meet the gaze of the woman standing guard there.

Hannis Arc’s rage still burned out of control. He would set the wrongs right. The spirit of his father would watch from his hallowed place in the underworld as his son finally visited vengeance upon the House of Rahl.

This was the awakening of a new day in D’Hara, in more ways than one. The ages of darkness under the House of Rahl were about to be over.

Richard Rahl was about to lose his grip on power. He was about to lose everything. Hannis Arc would see to it. And when he did, a fearful people would clamor for a new leader.

Justice would finally be done.

Hannis Arc yanked the knife from the desk, the now slack hand still impaled on the blade. As he held it out toward the woman by the door, she stepped to the desk.

“Dispose of this, would you?”

As she reached for the knife, he abruptly drew it back. “No, I have a better idea.” He gestured with it. “Place it in that display case, there, for visitors to see.”

The woman in red leather flashed a grim smile. “Of course, Lord Arc.”

R
ichard yawned. He looked up from the complexities of translating the symbolic elements he was working on to see Zedd coming back into the library. Through the high windows above, the first blush of dawn revealed a clear sky.

The strange spring storm had broken, but it seemed that it had merely been the harbinger of bigger problems. It was clear to Richard that there was trouble about, but what ever the core of the trouble might be, it was hidden from him. He was getting that familiar, uneasy feeling that he was in the dark about what was really going on.

All of it, from the boy down in the market to the storm, to the strange deaths, to the variety of strange prophecies, to the machine buried for so long that had suddenly come to life, was too much to be a coincidence. Things that seemed to be a coincidence always made him edgy. He was worried the most about the machine they had discovered, worried that it was somehow at the heart of it all.

The translations of the metal strips were only confirming his suspicions.

Since he had discovered that everything in the book was backward, those translations, while tedious, had been working smoothly. The more he learned from those translations, the more his concern grew.

As his grandfather crossed the library, Richard noticed that Zedd didn’t have the usual spring in his step. He thought at that moment that Zedd looked like nothing so much as an old man, a tired old man. Richard could read the creases in Zedd’s face and tell that he, too, was concerned about what kind of trouble they might have on their hands. Zedd’s typical exuberant, sometimes childlike way of looking at the world was nowhere in evidence. That, more than any words, framed for Richard the seriousness of the situation.

That, and the translations from the strips.

Richard stuck his hand in the book to stop the pages from turning over when out of the corner of his eye he spotted the part he was looking for.

“There’s the first one,” he told Berdine. He tapped an element on the page. “That’s the one. What’s the inversion of it?”

Berdine leaned in, looking, reading the High D’Haran explanation silently. “It has to do with falling.”

Richard had already begun to grasp the language of Creation and he knew what many of the symbols meant. He had only been looking to confirm his worst fears. Berdine just had.

“That’s the last symbol, so it—”

“So it ends the action of the subject,” Berdine finished in a mumble. She hadn’t yet figured out what Richard already had. She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth as she wrote it down, then started turning pages in the book. “I need the subject.”

Richard tapped the metal strip, showing her. “Here. If it’s inverted, then this part of the device is the subject.”

Zedd, coming to an abrupt halt across the table, leaned in, squinting, trying to read the paper she was working on.

“What’s that, there, that you’ve written down?”

“It’s the translation of the language of Creation inscribed on this strip,” Richard said. “How’s Kahlan? Were you able to heal her hand?”

“I’m a wizard, aren’t I?” He gestured to the paper where Berdine was writing. “So, you’ve figured out how the book works? How these symbols work?”

“Yes,” Richard said. “It’s quite remarkable, actually. The symbols are an incredibly efficient and compact form of language. What might take sentences, or even paragraphs for us to say, the language of Creation can express in a brief line of symbolic elements. With just a few devices combined in the right way it can tell you a whole story or convey a tremendous amount of information. It’s extraordinarily precise in conveying meaning in a compact fashion.”

Richard had long ago learned to understand emblematic devices. He understood their language, how they represented things, and how they functioned in spell-forms. It turned out that those emblems he had already learned were rooted in the language of Creation. Without knowing it, he had already long ago begun learning to use the language of Creation.

Once he started using the book, and started translating the symbols, at some point in the night it had all clicked into place for him and he saw how what he already understood related to this new language, and how to use that knowledge to interpret the symbols the machine used. It was like opening a door he had never known was there. In a flash of comprehension, everything he already knew fell into place in helping him to understand this new language.

He came to realize that it was more like learning a new dialect than a new language. As a result he had been able to rapidly grasp how it worked. Now he no longer needed the book
Regula
to understand the symbols.

Zedd picked up the strip to look at it again, as if he suddenly, magically, might understand it. He didn’t. “So if it worked, what’s the translation? What does this strip say?”

Richard pointed with the back end of his pen. “That one you’re holding says ‘The roof is going to fall in.’”

Zedd’s frown grew. “You mean, like that prophecy you mentioned? From that blind woman? The fortune-teller, Sabella, that you met out in the halls?”

“That’s the one.”

“After the warning about darkness from the boy down in the market the other day? The one with the fever who was delirious?”

Richard nodded. “That’s right.”

“The boy you thought was speaking gibberish.”

“We thought it was gibberish at the time, but maybe it wasn’t. After the boy’s warning, I got the fortune from the blind woman that turned out to be the same prophecy we then got from Lauretta and from the machine. The boy said something else that, at the time, we thought was the fever speaking. He said, ‘He will find me, I know he will.’”

“Certainly sounds like a fevered delirium.”

Richard picked up another strip. “This one was at the bottom of the stack in the machine. That means it was the first one the machine made since it seems to have awakened down there in the darkness. I could hardly believe it when we translated it. It says ‘He will find me.’”

Zedd gestured to the strip Richard was holding. “You mean to say that the machine predicted that you would find it?”

Richard shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Are you sure that you’ve translated it properly?”

Richard glanced toward the door to see Nathan marching into the library. He, too, looked grim.

“Now that I have the key I needed, yes,” Richard told Zedd. “There can be no doubt. It all works out perfectly.” Richard reached over and picked up the third strip. “This one here, the one I thought has only the symbol for fire on it, turns out to translate perfectly in the High D’Haran key. It’s exactly as I thought. It says only ‘fire.’”

“What’s that about fire?” Nathan called out as he rushed up.

Zedd took the strip from Richard’s hand and showed Nathan. “The translation worked out just like Richard thought. It does mean fire, and nothing else.”

At the far end of the library, Richard saw Lauretta trundle in carrying a load of her predictions. Two guards followed behind, lugging big stacks in their arms. It was going to be a lot of work for them to help carry all her predictions down from her room to their new home in the library. Richard was relieved to see that she was moving all that paper out of her place.

Nathan scowled. “Fire.”

“That’s right,” Richard said. “One of the others says ‘He will find me.’ That’s what the sick boy down in the market told Kahlan and me. The other says that the roof will fall in, like Lauretta and the blind woman, Sabella, told me.”

Nathan planted a fist on his hip. “So happens that I’m here about Sabella.”

“Really? What about her?”

“She’s been causing trouble. A few of the representatives went to her to hear her prophesy. They are insisting that they need to learn what the future holds.”

Richard sighed. “Oh great. What did she tell them?”

Nathan leaned in. “‘Fire.’”

“What?”

“That’s all she said: ‘Fire.’ The representatives went back and told the others. They’re all worked up, fearing that there will be a fire in the palace. Several of the representatives woke up a short time ago, and came running out of their rooms in their night clothes, all upset because they had dreams of fire.”

“That is curious,” Zedd mumbled as he rubbed his chin.

Richard caught sight of Lauretta hurrying toward them from across the library. “Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl!” She was waving a piece of paper. “There you are. I’m so glad I found you here.”

Richard stood as she came to a breathless halt. “What is it?”

She put a hand to her chest as she panted a moment, catching her breath. She thrust out a folded piece of paper.

“I had another prophecy for you. I wrote it down like always. I was going to put it with the others for safekeeping until I saw you again, but here you are.”

Richard unfolded the piece of paper. It had only one word on it.

FIRE.

“What is it?” Zedd asked.

Richard handed him the paper. Zedd’s brow drew down as he read the single word on the paper.

“And do you have any inkling as to what this means?” he asked the woman as he handed the paper to Nathan.

She shook her head.

The tall prophet read the single word silently and then looked up. “Just like Sabella.”

Zedd peered down at Richard. “Any idea what it could mean?”

Richard sighed. “I’m afraid—”

He stopped as icy realization washed over him.

He tossed his pen on the table and raced for the door.

“Come on!” he called back over his shoulder. “I know what it means! I know where the fire is!”

Zedd, Nathan, and Berdine ran to follow after him. Even Lauretta raced to catch up.