The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 29

Kahlan looked from Richard’s troubled face to the glowing symbol made of lines of amber light slowly turning on the ceiling.

“You recognize it, don’t you?”

Richard nodded as he watched the complex emblem of light rotate on the ceiling above the box.

“Regula.”

Kahlan didn’t like the sound of the word. She thought she remembered it. She squinted in thought as she tried to recall where she’d heard the word. It finally came to her.

“You mean Regula as in the book in the library that we were looking at the other day?”

“That’s the one,” Richard said. “That symbol was on the spine.”

“That’s right,” Kahlan said in wonder. “I remember now.”

As he was focused on studying the symbol made up of light above them, Kahlan cradled her throbbing hand against her stomach. It was getting worse just since earlier in the night, since they saw that thing watching them in their room. It stung so badly that it nearly made her eyes water. The stitch of pain finally eased up. She let out the breath she had been holding.

She’d had much worse injuries, and suffered far greater pain, so she wasn’t overly concerned. It was more of an annoyance than anything. She knew, though, that even such simple injuries could develop into serious infections, so she knew she should probably ask Zedd to take a look at it before it got any worse. He would be able to heal it.

Richard had in the past used his gift to heal, but it wasn’t something he could do at will, like other wizards. Not for minor things, anyway. His gift was not only more powerful than Zedd’s, or Nathan’s, or Nicci’s, but it was unique in the way it worked. Possibly because he was a war wizard, his power required great need, or anger, as a component in order to come to life within him. Healing a scratch, as painful as it was becoming, was not enough. It would be better to let Zedd look at it.

But with the representatives causing trouble over the strange prophecies, the thing that had been watching them in their room suddenly attacking them, and now the collapse of the floor of the Garden of Life and the discovery of what was beneath it, there were more important immediate concerns. She would have Zedd look at her hand when she had time.

“Do you know what Regula means?” Kahlan asked.

Still looking up at the symbol projected onto the ceiling, Richard nodded. “Yes, but it’s kind of difficult to translate accurately. In High D’Haran ‘regula’ means to regulate.”

“That sounds simple enough.”

His gray eyes finally turned down to look at her. “It may seem that way but it’s not. Its full meaning is a great deal more significant than that simple translation sounds.”

Kahlan studied his eyes for a moment. “Well, can you give me some kind of sense of what it means?”

Richard raked his fingers back through his hair, apparently considering how to explain it. “I guess the best way to put it is that Regula represents, well, a kind of autonomous control, but as in…” He made a face as he tried to come up with the right word. Finally he did. “As in to regulate with a sovereign authority.”

“Sovereign authority?”

“Yes. Something like the way the laws of nature regulate the world of life.”

Kahlan didn’t like that sound of that. “So if that symbol up there is also on the book, then maybe the book can help us figure out what this thing is. Maybe even what it’s doing down here.”

“Could be,” Richard said as he studied the lines of light once again. “There’s a problem, though.”

“And what would that be?”

“This symbol may be the same, but it’s backward from the one on the spine.”

Kahlan shook her head. It was nearly indecipherable to her. It looked like little more than a collection of little circles and hen scratchings within circles with a triangle tying parts of it together along with a collection of other strange designs she’d never seen before.

“How in the world can you remember that it’s the same symbol? As complex as it is, how can you be sure it really is the same, much less that it’s backward?”

His gaze returned to her. “Because I understand some of the language of symbols. A lot of spell-forms are really ideas expressed through symbols or emblems rather than words. Symbols, even ones I’ve never seen before, stick in my head. That’s how I solved a number of things in the past. This one is largely new to me. But elements of it seem oddly familiar.”

Kahlan sighed as she idly picked one of the metal strips out of the opening near the glass window. Something about it caught her eye. She was surprised to see that there were markings on it. She held it closer.

She was stunned by what she saw.

“Richard, look.” As he bent close she held it out in the light for him to see. “This one in here isn’t blank.”

Richard took it from her when she held it out and carefully looked over the line of symbols seemingly burned into the metal.

“They’re all different,” he said, half to himself.

Kahlan looked in the slot where she had found it. “There are two more strips in here.” She pulled them out, took a quick look, and then handed them to him.

He looked them over, one at a time, studying each for a moment. “More symbols. But they’re different. Each strip has distinctive emblems on it. Look, this one has a whole string of markings, but the one that was on the bottom only has a few.”

When the machine began to make more noise, as if a whole bank of additional gears had been engaged, Richard bent to look into the slit of a window. Kahlan could see the light from inside reflecting in lines that moved parts of symbolic elements over the contours of his face.

“I can see a strip of metal being pulled out from the bottom of the stack on the other side. It’s being pulled into the machine and going way down inside.”

Kahlan put her head close to his, trying to see what he was talking about. Then she saw it, way down among the gears, shafts, and levers, being pulled through by a small pincer mechanism holding the front of the metal strip. The pincer was attached to a large wheel that carried the strip of metal up and around with it to place it in a track where a series of levers moved it along different junctions of track until another geared pincer finally picked it up.

Kahlan and Richard both turned aside a little as a flash of intense orangish white light ignited deep within. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a bright pinpoint of light dance across the metal strip. The focused beam of light from far below moved with lightning speed but in a tightly controlled manner. The light was so intense that she could see a moving, glowing white-hot spot of light shining through the top of the metal where the beam hit it from underneath.

As the strip came around with the wheel, another mechanism took it in turn and rotated it around so that the symbol that had been burned into the underside of the metal was now facing up. At exactly the correct point in the arc of the gear, the pincers opened and a lever on a geared mechanism swung in from the side to push the metal strip through a slot in the side of the machine.

She heard it drop into the tray.

Richard and Kahlan straightened from the little window and looked at each other.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

Kahlan nodded. “Pretty hard to miss.”

Richard pulled the strip of metal out of the tray. He immediately tossed it on top of the machine and shook his hand, then blew on his fingers. He pushed the hot metal strip around with a finger for a moment until it cooled, then gingerly picked it up and studied the single symbol etched into it.

“What about that one? Do you recognize it?” Kahlan asked.

Richard stared at it with a troubled expression. “I’m not entirely certain. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s pretty close.”

“Pretty close to what? What is it?”

Richard looked up at her again.

“It’s the emblematic representation for fire.”