The Sword of the Truth, Book 12 - The Omen Machine (20 page)

A
s he ran down the service hallway, Richard could smell the smoke. Such a familiar smell when it came from campfires had always offered warmth and protection, but in the palace such an acrid smell carried terrifying implications. When he slid around the last corner he saw it billowing up thick and dark from under a door down the hall.

Berdine clutched his sleeve in one hand to prevent him from getting ahead of her. Whenever there was even a hint of trouble, all of the Mord-Sith did what ever they could to stay as close as possible to him. Berdine had lost her bubbly demeanor, turning as implacable as any of the Mord-Sith when there was a threat. From time to time as she ran, she spun her Agiel up into her fist, as if to reassure herself that it was there at the ready.

Down the hallway beyond the smoke, Richard spotted men of the First File running in from the other direction. Several of them had buckets. Water slopped out as they ran, splashing across the wood floor. Several women, awakened at the early hour by the commotion, had come out of their rooms to stand in their doorways, clutching nightgowns at their throats in fright as they watched soldiers racing past.

“What is it?” Nathan asked as he rounded the corner and caught up. Zedd was right on his heels.

Richard pointed. “It’s Lauretta’s place. It’s on fire.”

Lauretta stumbled to a halt, gasping for breath. Her short, rapid gait had left her face bright red and her hair in disarray.

“My room!” She swallowed, trying to get enough air. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “My prophecies!”

The soldiers with the buckets kicked open the door. Black smoke laced with crackling sparks and burning pieces of paper rolled out into the hall and along the ceiling. Flags of flame unfurled out along the ceiling of the hallway. The soldiers heaved water in through the open doorway. From the amount of smoke and the heat from the flames, Richard didn’t think their buckets of water were going to be anywhere near enough.

Lauretta screamed when she saw the soldiers throwing water into her room. She pushed past Zedd and Nathan. “No! You’ll ruin my prophecies!”

Richard knew that it was too late to worry about that. Besides, water was not the real threat to her prophecies. He caught Lauretta’s arm and dragged her to a halt. He knew that if left to her own devices she would run into the burning room to try to save her precious prophecies. As thick as the smoke was, and as heavily as she was breathing, she would have been overcome in mere seconds.

The heat, even at a distance, was withering. Richard was relieved that the palace was made mostly of stone. Still, parts of it, like the floors under them and beams above, were wood. They needed to put out the fire as quickly as possible.

More soldiers raced up with yet more buckets of water. They ran in toward the door, turned their faces away from the heat, and heaved the water in. Angry, hot flames licked out through the open door in defiance of the water. As Richard had suspected, such an effort was hopelessly in effective.

Zedd knew it, too. He rushed past Richard and down the hall, ducking under the lowering black smoke hugging the ceiling to make his way toward the doorway into the inferno.

Urging soldiers back out of the way with one arm, he cast the other out toward the open door as yet more smoke and flames poured out. Richard could see the air waver before Zedd’s hand, forcing the smoke back into the room, but more flames boiled out of the doorway, as if to chase the wizard away. The heat drove Zedd back.

“Bags! My gift is too weak in this place.”

Nathan caught up with Zedd and lifted his palms out toward the smoke-filled doorway, adding his gift to the effort. He, too, caused the air to waver, but it also slowed the amount of smoke as the flames withdrew back into the room. At last the smoke coming out the doorway was choked off entirely, confining it to the room inside, leaving the hallway in a dark and pungent haze.

Nathan was a Rahl. His gift wasn’t hampered by the palace’s spell. He stepped in closer, holding the flats of his hands out toward the doorway again. As Richard restrained Lauretta, he watched Nathan gradually circle his palms, sealing off the room, suffocating the fire at its source. After a few tense moments, the fire died out and the prophet spun a web that cooled the remains of Lauretta’s home.

As Nathan entered the room, checking that it was safe, Richard let go of Lauretta, allowing her to follow. Weeping in misery, she rushed into the room behind Nathan.

She lifted her arms in distress. “My prophecies! Dear Creator! My prophecies are ruined!”

Richard could see that she was right. There looked to be some stacks in the farthest reaches that might not have been totally destroyed, but the blackened, wet mess covering the floor was all that was left of most of them.

Lauretta fell to her knees, scooping up handfuls of the useless, wet ash.

“They’re ruined,” she wept.

Richard laid a hand on her shoulder. “You can write more, Lauretta. You can use the library as a place to write more.”

She nodded absently. He wondered if she even heard him.

Out in the hall, people had gathered to see what was happening. Many of them covered their noses against the stench left from the fire.

Richard saw a number of representatives he recognized at the back of the crowd. They looked grim. The fire was obviously confirmation of the prophecy they had all heard that morning.

Murmuring warnings to one another, the crowd parted. Cara marched through as if the people were not there, expecting everyone to get out of her way. There was never any problem with that. People were only too eager to get out of the way of a Mord-Sith, especially when she looked as angry as Cara looked. The last thing in the world that most people wanted was to cause a Mord-Sith to take notice of them.

“Are you all right?” Cara asked as Richard nodded. “I heard that there was trouble.”

“Lauretta’s prophecies caught fire,” he told her.

Among the crowd, Richard spotted Ludwig Dreier, the abbot from Fajin Province. His face was set in a stony expression as he took in all the activity. He finally moved through the onlookers to come in closer.

“Was anyone hurt?” he asked.

“No,” Richard said. “Lauretta’s place was full of papers. It was a fire waiting to happen.”

Ludwig glanced through the doorway. “Especially since it was foretold in prophecy.”

“Says who?”

The abbot shrugged. “The blind woman for one. Several others had the premonition as well.”

Richard glanced past the abbot to the faces in the crowd and saw a number of representatives watching and listening.

“The woman used open flames in her room,” Richard said. “There were papers everywhere. I told her myself that she had to move all the papers or there was going to be a fire.”

“Nonetheless, it was predicted by prophecy.”

“The man is right,” Lauretta said as she stepped out into the hall, looking heartbroken. “I had the prophecy myself. I wrote it down and gave it to Lord Rahl,” she told the abbot as she wiped tears from her cheeks. “I guess that now we all know what it meant.”

The abbot turned his frown to Richard. “You had a dangerous prophecy about fire in the palace brought directly to you and you told none of us? You kept the prophecy to yourself?”

“I had only just told him about it and he raced right here,” Lauretta said before Richard could answer, unwittingly saving him from having to explain himself. “There was no time to warn anyone, or to do anything to stop the fire in time.”

The abbot let out a troubled breath. “Still, Lord Rahl, you would be well advised to take prophecy more seriously. Especially when the prophecy could have bearing on the lives and safety of others. Your duty, after all, is to protect the subjects of the D’Haran Empire. You are the magic against magic that we all depend on for our safety. Prophecy is magic that the Creator has given us and you need to take it seriously.”

“I think that Lord Rahl takes prophecy quite seriously,” Nathan said, glaring down at the man.

“Good,” Ludwig said. “Good. He needs to take it seriously.” Others back in the crowd added nods of agreement.

Cara spun her Agiel up into her fist. She pointed the red weapon at the abbot’s face. “Lord Rahl does not need you to tell him his responsibility or how to carry it out. Lord Rahl protects us all.”

Cara’s deadly tone was a clear warning that the man was overstepping his place.

His gaze finally left Cara and returned to Richard. “Your sword can’t protect you from prophecy, Lord Rahl. It can’t protect any of us from the future. Prophecy is what protects us. That is why the Creator gave mankind the gift of prophecy.”

Richard’s glare caused the abbot’s gaze to falter and drift to the ground. “That’s enough.”

Ludwig took a hesitant step back as he dipped his head in a deferential bow. “As you command, Lord Rahl.”

Once safely withdrawn, he turned and left, several of the other representatives falling in with him and following behind.

“Let me kill him,” Cara said as she scowled at the man’s back.

“Let me do it,” Berdine said. “I could use the practice.”

Richard watched the departing abbot. “If only it were that simple.”

“Oh, I think it would be pretty simple,” Berdine said.

Richard shook his head as he saw the knot of people disappear down the hall. “Killing people isn’t the way to have peace.”

Cara looked like she agreed with Berdine, but she dropped the subject and went on to other business. “Benjamin would like to see you. I told him that I’d find you and bring you to the Garden of Life.”

A
s Richard passed between phalanxes of guards and through the doors into the Garden of Life, with Zedd, Nathan, and Cara close behind, he noticed that scaffolding had already been erected. A number of men clambered along lengths of plank at the top. Some of the men were cutting off twisted metal, while others were beginning the work of laying in new framework so they could replace the glass and close in the roof.

The sun was up, filling the room with light. Soldiers of the First File patrolled the room, keeping an eye on the men up above near the source of light and also watching the opening into the darkness below.

Richard found it unsettling to have people in the Garden of Life. He had come to feel of it as a private refuge. He supposed that his ancestors had for thousands of years felt much the same way about the garden sanctuary, a place where the occasional release of some of the most dangerous magic in existence made the garden a frightening place to be, yet a place that most of the time offered the peace of quiet seclusion.

Benjamin, talking with an officer of the guard, spotted Richard and rushed his way. The workers on the scaffolding kept working, but they couldn’t help watching out of the corner of an eye.

“Lord Rahl, are you all right?” Benjamin asked. “I heard there was a fire. The Mother Confessor is worried, too.”

“I’m fine.” Richard aimed a thumb over his shoulder toward his grandfather and the prophet. “Zedd and Nathan were there, thankfully. They were able to put it out.”

“That’s a relief.”

Richard glanced around. “Where is Kahlan?”

Benjamin flicked a hand toward the ragged hole in the floor. “She and Nicci are down there, with the machine.”

As Richard started toward the ladder, Cara joined Benjamin. “I told Lord Rahl that you wanted to see him.”

Benjamin fell in beside Richard. “Yes, that’s right. I have the information you wanted, Lord Rahl.”

Richard paused at the ladder leading down into the gaping hole. “You mean about how far the machine goes down in the ground?”

Benjamin nodded. “First of all, you were right. That funny kink in the library several floors below us is because of that thing down in the hole. The library wall has to have that odd notch in order to go around the machine. It’s behind the wall.”

Behind the wall where the book
Regula
had sat on a shelf. It made him wonder all the more about the placement of books in the libraries. Their locations had never made any sense. Maybe that was only because he knew far too little about them.

Richard held the ladder and let Zedd and Nathan go down first. Richard went next, with Cara and then her husband following. At the bottom of the ladder they had to climb over some of the larger rubble as they went around the walkway to the spiral stairs. In single file they all descended into the tomb of the machine.

The hushed room below was lit by the eerie light of the proximity spheres. Kahlan smiled when she saw him, looking relieved to see that he was all right. Nicci, her arms folded, deep in thought as she studied the silent metal box, only glanced up briefly. Richard was glad to see that she was there, watching out for Kahlan.

“It looks quiet,” Richard said.

“Dead quiet,” Kahlan said.

“It hasn’t made a sound or given off that strange light you spoke of,” Nicci said, emerging from her thoughts. “It appears to be as still and silent as it probably was for thousands of years.”

Zedd skimmed his bony fingers along the top of the machine, almost as if fearing any greater contact, but unable to resist touching it. “That’s what Nathan and I found as well. Not a peep out of it.”

Richard wasn’t actually all that unhappy to hear it. He would not be unhappy if the thing went back to sleep for another few thousand years.

“How’s your hand?” he asked Kahlan.

She lifted it, turning it to show him. There was only a faint red mark left where it had been swollen and inflamed.

Kahlan flashed a smile at Richard’s grandfather. “Despite the difficulty of using his gift in the palace, Zedd was able to heal it. Quite the accomplishment, I’d say.”

Zedd waved off the flattery. “Not all that difficult, healing a scratch. Just don’t ask me to reattach your head or anything demanding.”

Richard was relieved that it was taken care of. It was one less thing to worry about. He turned his attention once more to the general.

“Were you able to map where this thing goes down through the palace?”

“With my help,” Cara said as she dragged a finger along the top of the machine in imitation of Zedd, as if tempting the sleeping menace.

“So how many floors down does it go?”

General Meiffert shifted his weight to his other foot. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Lord Rahl. We haven’t been able to find the bottom, yet.”

“I thought you said that you had the palace under here mapped out.”

“We do. We were able to determine that the machine goes all the way down through the palace.”

Richard was more than a little surprised. The Garden of Life was one of the highest places in the palace. There were a lot of floors below them down in the palace.

“All the way? It’s that big?”

“It’s worse than that, Richard,” Kahlan said in a troubled voice.

“I’m afraid that the Mother Confessor is right. Once we had a diagram of the palace below here drawn out and we could see how it went down through the core of the palace, we went down into the foundation inspection tunnels below the lowest floor. We opened up a small hole in a foundation wall and behind it we found solid metal”— with his knuckles Benjamin rapped the side of the metal box—“just like the sides of this machine, here, and just like behind the wall in the library.”

Richard stared at the silent machine lit in the glow of the proximity spheres. It didn’t seem all that tall. He had to lean over to look in the little window. But he had been able to tell from looking down into it that it went much deeper than it appeared, much deeper than the floor where they stood.

“If it goes down through the palace foundation and into the plateau, then there’s no telling how deep it goes.”

No one spoke into the uneasy silence. Richard looked from one grim expression to another.

“Tell him,” Nicci finally prompted.

“Well,” Benjamin said with an uneasy sigh, “we actually did find more of the machine down lower.”

“Down lower? You mean in the passageways up through the plateau?”

“Not exactly,” Cara said, apparently unhappy with the slow pace of the explanation. “We kept mapping downward, since we had the pattern of how the machine went through the palace and the way the rooms and stairways were placed around it. Nathan and Zedd helped with that pattern. It creates such a complex layout in the palace that we’ve been unaware all this time that there was something that big hidden away behind the walls of various rooms and stairwells.”

“We’ve always known that the palace is laid out in the shape of a spell-form.” Nathan gestured toward what was above them. “The Garden of Life is the central node of the spell-form, giving it power as a containment field.”

Richard frowned at the prophet. “You mean, you think that because the Garden of Life is a containment field, that hid the machine within the central node?”

“In a way, but not exactly,” Nathan said. “The central node made it hard to know the machine was there simply because of its location within that central part of the spell-form. For the spell-form to work, the central node can’t be breached from the sides, or from beneath, so the stairwells and passage-ways below are laid out in the same shape that the spell-form dictates. That’s why the rooms and passageways go around the machine. They are actually avoiding breaching the node, not avoiding the machine or trying to hide it.”

Richard was lost in thought, contemplating the design of the spell-form. Spell-forms were emblematic. He understood those designs. He understood how this one worked— in theory, anyway.

“Of course,” he said, thinking out loud. “You can’t breach the axis of the form. A spell’s web isn’t two-dimensional, it’s three-dimensional. Something below would breach the axial confluence the same way that a hallway running right through the center of the Garden of Life would ruin the containment field.” He looked up at the gifted people watching him. “The central part of the spell-form is walled off by the rooms and passageways below in order to protect the node.”

“That’s right,” Nicci said. “And beyond those walls just happens to lie this machine.”

The staggering implications were beginning to dawn on him. “Such an axial convergence in the spell-form is fed from below.” He was taken aback by the realization. “That’s why the passageways and stairs coming up to the palace, to this central node, through the plateau below, all spiral upward.”

“That’s what they do,” Cara confirmed. “The stairs and passageways twist in a spiral upward, just like the rooms in the palace below us. That actually made it easy to diagram the plateau. It may be a great height, but the basic design, spiraling up with rooms and stairs along the way, is simple once you understand how it works.”

Richard couldn’t imagine a Mord-Sith thinking magic was simple or understanding how it worked. He looked from one face to another.

“Do you mean to say that the machine goes all the way down somewhere into the center of that spiral up through the plateau?”

“Worse.” Cara leaned in. “Once we had started mapping it out, with Nathan and Zedd showing us how the spell-form would be drawn, we were able to go down through the palace and find the central shaft that is this node thing. That central area contains the machine. That also allowed us to map it downward through the plateau.”

“But you didn’t tunnel into the walls down in the plateau to see if the machine was at the core? So you aren’t sure it goes that far down.”

“We didn’t have to,” Benjamin said.

Cara folded her arms. “I sent Nyda with some of the other Mord-Sith, armed with the map we had made, to escort Benjamin down into the catacombs. Sure enough, the same pattern is laid out in those tunnels, too. They have the same protected core that the palace above has.”

Richard nodded. “They would have to because they feed the axis of the spell-form—the containment field that is the Garden of Life. The spell-form has to go to ground intact. You can’t breach it from below or the whole thing wouldn’t work.”

“Well, down there, in the lowest reaches of the catacombs, in the hub of those tunnels, that’s where Nyda and I dug an inspection hole.” Benjamin tapped a finger on the silent machine. “We hit the metal wall of this thing.”

Richard’s head spun with the dizzying implication. The machine that rose up through the palace to just under the Garden of Life came all the way up through the plateau from the Azrith Plain far below.