The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 15

Out in the corridor, as Ludwig was leaving, Richard spotted Nicci coming their way. With her black dress and long blond hair flowing out behind her she looked like nothing so much as a vengeful spirit come among them to vent her wrath. She glanced at the abbot as he hurried past her. Ludwig deliberately didn’t look at the sorceress on his way by, as if fearing that if he did she might bring lightning down on him. Such a thing wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Richard thought that there were few things as dangerous-looking as a stunningly beautiful woman who was angry, and Nicci looked very angry. He wondered why.

“What’s the matter?” he asked as she came to a halt.

She clenched her jaw a moment before she spoke.

“I’ve been dealing with fools.”

“What do you mean?” Kahlan asked.

Nicci aimed a thumb back the way she had come. “All they want to hear about is prophecy. They want know what the future holds, what prophecy says. They think we’re privy to the secrets of the future and we’re withholding those secrets from them.”

Kahlan glanced over at Richard as she asked, “Who, exactly, are you talking about?”

Nicci pulled thick locks of blond hair back over her shoulder. “Those people.” She flicked a hand back the way she’d come. “You know, the representatives from the different lands. After the reception nearly all of them sought me out wanting to know what I knew about prophecy and what it had to say about their future. They wanted to know about the omen that caused the woman to kill her children.

“They think we know all about the prophecy behind the vision the woman had and that we’re keeping that information from them. They want to know what other dire omens we’re withholding from them.”

Kahlan nodded. “I know what you mean. They were all of a mind to hear prophecy from us as well.”

Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. “As much as I don’t like it, and as angry as it makes me, I guess that it’s to be expected from people who have just heard that a woman killed her children to spare them what she says she saw in a vision.”

Zedd pushed his hands up the opposite sleeves of his robes. “People can’t help fearing such grim warnings. They fear to believe that they’re true, fear what it will mean in their lives, and so, in the grip of that fear, they believe such things. We can try to reason with people— Richard and Kahlan both did so— but overcoming fear is hard to do, especially after hearing of a vision so fearsome that it would cause a woman to murder her children because of it.”

“I suppose,” Nicci said. Her blue eyes flashed anger again. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. All because of what a crazy woman says.”

“I didn’t see you at the reception,” Richard said. “Where did you hear about her killing her children?”

Nicci frowned up at him. “Hear about it? I was there.”

“There? What do you mean you were there?”

Nicci folded her arms and stared at him as if he were the one who was crazy. “I was there. I was down in the market helping to get people organized and hurrying them along to move into the passages in the plateau and out of what is shaping up to be a monstrous storm. They need to move into shelter. Those tents aren’t going to protect them.”

“That’s true enough.”

Nicci sighed as she shook her head. “So, I was down there in the market when the first one hit.”

The creases in Richard’s brow deepened. “What do you mean, when the first one hit? First what?”

“Richard, aren’t you listening? I was there when the first child hit the ground.”

Richard’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“It was a girl, not ten years old. She came down on a log wagon, on one of the upright stake poles. That pole was bigger than my leg. She came down face-first, shrieking all the way. It went right through her chest. People were screaming and running around in confusion and panic.”

Richard blinked, trying to makes sense of what he was hearing. “What girl are you talking about?”

Nicci looked at all the faces watching her. “The girl that the woman threw off the palace wall, over the edge of the plateau, after she had her vision.”

Richard turned to Benjamin. “I thought you said you found the children.”

“I did. We found both of them.”

“Both?” Nicci’s brow drew tight. “There were four of them. All four of her children hit within seconds of one another. The first, the girl, was the oldest. When the woman threw them off the top of the plateau they all landed right there near me. Like I said, I was there. It was a horrifying scene.”

Kahlan seized a fistful of Nicci’s dress at her shoulder. “She killed four more?”

Nicci didn’t try to remove Kahlan’s hand. “Four more? What are you talking about? She killed her four children.”

Kahlan pulled Nicci closer. “She had two children.”

“Kahlan, she had four.”

Kahlan’s hand slipped from Nicci’s dress. “Are you sure?”

Nicci shrugged. “Yes. She told me so herself when I questioned her. She even told me their names. If you don’t believe me you can ask her yourself. I have her locked up in a cell down in the dungeon.”

Zedd leaned in closer. “Locked up…?”

“Wait a minute,” Richard said. “You’re telling me that this woman killed her four children by throwing them off the side of the plateau? And you locked her up?”

“Of course. Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?” Nicci frowned around at everyone. “I thought you said that you knew all about it. Her husband found out what had happened and was going to kill her. He was screaming for her blood. I was afraid that the guards who grabbed the woman were going to let him have her. I sympathize with his feelings, but I couldn’t allow it for now. I had her locked up, instead, because I thought you or Kahlan would want to question her.”

Richard was incredulous. “Why did she do it? What did she say?”

Nicci appraised them all as if they had collectively gone mad. “She said that she had a vision and couldn’t stand the thought of her children having to face the terror to come, so she killed them swiftly instead. You said that you knew about it.”

“We knew about the other one,” Richard said.

“Other one?” Nicci looked from face to face, finally settling on Richard. “What other one?”

“The one who cut her two children’s throats and then came to the reception and tried to kill Kahlan.”

Nicci’s concerned gaze darted to Kahlan. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I took her with my power and had her confess. She told us what she had done and what she intended to do.”

Nicci pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Wait, you’re saying that there was a second woman who also had a vision and killed her children?”

Kahlan and Richard both nodded.

“That would help explain why people are so unnerved and want to know what prophecy has to say about it,” Richard said.

“What’s going on?” Nicci asked.

“I don’t know, yet.” Richard rested the palm of his left hand on his sword. “We saw a sick boy down in the market this morning who said that there is darkness in the palace, and then a blind woman who said that the roof is going to fall in.”

Nicci reflexively glanced up. “The roof?”

Richard nodded. “Yes, and some other things that make just as little sense.”

Nicci’s troubled blue eyes turned to Richard. “When I asked the woman what her vision had been, she said that she couldn’t let her children live to face what will happen after the roof falls in.”

“That makes three people who have said that very thing.”

“Three?”

“Yes.” Richard tapped the hilt of his sword with a thumb as his mind raced down all the various dark paths, trying to think of where they could be leading. “Besides the blind woman, a fortune-teller told me the same thing. That makes three people who said it. Plus the book.”

With a finger on the side of his chin, Nicci turned his face back toward her. “Book?”

“Nathan found a book, End Notes, that says those very words— that the roof is going to fall in— and a number of the other strange things I’ve heard today.”

“I know the book, End Notes.” Nicci folded her arms as she appraised Kahlan’s eyes and then looked back at Richard. “Strange things. Like what?”

“Nathan took me to see another woman a while ago about her predictions. She said that the sky is going to fall in. ‘Sky’ is not the same as ‘roof,’ but it does have a certain similar ring to it. Then she told me another prediction, and that one, word for word, is in the same book. But it makes no sense.”

“What did this woman say that’s also in the book?”

“Actually, she wrote it down a day or two back. She writes down all her predictions. She fancies herself a prophet. It said ‘Queen takes pawn.’ Like I said, it makes no sense.”

Nicci didn’t look at all mystified. “It’s a move in chess.”

Richard couldn’t help frowning again. “Chess? What’s that?”

“It’s an obscure, little-known game.”

“Never heard of it.” He looked around at the others. None of them had ever heard the word, either. “What is it? Something played with a ball, like Ja’La?”

Nicci waved off the notion. “No, nothing like that. Chess is a board game. It has a variety of pieces, like a queen, king, bishop, pawn— things like that. Queen takes pawn is a move in the game. It means what it sounds like. The queen captures a pawn, removing it from play, killing it, I guess you could say.”

Zedd let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never heard of such a game.”

“Like I said, it’s pretty obscure. As far as I know it’s only played in a few remote places.”

“What places?” Richard asked.

“Well, for one, Fajin Province.” Nicci gestured back down the hall yet again. “In the Dark Lands, where the abbot is from.”

Richard looked off down the hall, almost as if he thought he might see the abbot.

“By the way,” Nicci said, “what were you doing with the little weasel?”

“I was asking him about a Hedge Maid.”

Nicci rammed the heel of her hand into his chest, driving Richard up against the wall. Fury flashed in her blue eyes.

She gritted her teeth. “What did you say?”

Richard took hold of her wrist and removed her hand from his chest. The angry glare remained firmly in place.

“I wanted to know about a Hedge Maid named Jit. She lives in a place called Kharga Trace in Fajin Province. Why?”

Nicci held a finger up right in front of his face. “You listen to me, Richard Rahl. You stay away from Hedge Maids. Do you understand me? Stay away. You have no defense against a Hedge Maid. None of us do. You stay away from her. Their magic is different than any of ours. Not even your sword would protect you from them.”

“You mean she might try to do us harm?”

“Hedge Maids are vipers. If you leave them lie under their rock they’re not likely to bother you, but if you go poking at them in their hidey-hole they’ll come out and kill you in a heartbeat. Hedge Maids deal in occult powers. Stay away from her. Do you hear me?”

“Well I don’t know that—”

“It would be best if you never breathed her name again.” Nicci shoved him against the wall again to make her point. “Do you understand me!”

Richard rubbed the back of his head where it had smacked the wall. “No, not really. What’s a Hedge Maid?”

Nicci let her hand drop. Her eyes went out of focus as she stared off.

“A Hedge Maid is an evil, nasty, dirty, wicked, foul, vile being, an oracle who trades in the darkest kinds of suffering and depravity. Everything they do revolves around death.”

“How do you know this Jit?”

“I don’t. But I know all too well what a Hedge Maid is.”

“And how do you know what they are?”

Her blue eyes cooled as they turned up to focus on his face. Her deadly words came in little more than a whisper. “Do you forget so easily that I was once a Sister of the Dark? Do you forget that I was once committed to the Keeper of the underworld? Do you forget that I was once Death’s Mistress?”