The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 36

Hannis Arc, working on the tapestry of lines linking constellations of elements that constituted the language of Creation recorded on the ancient Cerulean scroll spread out among the clutter on his desk, was not surprised to see the seven ethereal forms billow into the room like acrid smoke driven on a breath of bitter breeze. Like an otherworldly collection of spectral shapes seemingly carried on random eddies of air, they wandered in a loose clutch among the still and silent mounted bears and beasts rising up on their stands, the small forest of stone pedestals holding massive books of recorded prophecy, and the evenly spaced display cases of oddities, their glass reflecting the firelight from the massive hearth at the side of the room.

Since the seven rarely used doors, the shutters on the windows down on the ground level several stories below stood open in a fearless show of invitation. Though they frequently chose to use windows, they didn’t actually need the windows any more than they needed the doors. They could seep through any opening, any crack, like vapor rising in the early morning from the stretches of stagnant water that lay in dark swaths through the peat barrens.

The open shutters were meant to be a declaration for all to see, including the seven, that Hannis Arc feared nothing.

Many people in Saavedra, the ruling city of Fajin Province down in the broad valley below the citadel, shuttered themselves in at night.

Everyone out in the Dark Lands did.

Shutting in at night for fear of what might be outside was only wise, after all. While that was true for those down in the city, it was doubly true for those who lived out in the more remote areas. There were corporeal dangers in the night, creatures that hunted with fang and claw, worthy of fear. There were other things to fear as well, things one rarely saw coming, if at all, until it was too late.

Hannis Arc, though, did not fear the things that came out at night. He bent those elements to his own ends, mastered them, making him the source of fear, not its victim. He banked the hot coals of those fears in the hearts of others so that they would always be ready to roar to life in order to serve him.

Hannis Arc wanted people to fear him. If they feared him, they respected him, they obeyed him, they bowed down to him. He made sure that people were never without cause to fear him.

No, unlike most people who inhabited the Dark Lands, Hannis Arc was not himself burdened by fears. Instead, he was driven by a ceaseless, smoldering rage, a rage that was like a thing alive within him. That rage left no room for fear to find a foothold.

That ever-present rage dwelling within him was a brightly burning star that always guided his way. It was always there to compel him, counsel him, even to chide him, as it drove him to set great wrongs right. Anger was not only his constant companion, it was his trusted friend, his only friend.

The glow of the dozens of candles in the stand at the far end of the room wavered as the seven familiars swirled around them on their way by, as if lingering to ride the eddies of heat rising from the flames.

Mohler, the old scribe hunched over a massive book laid open on a stand not far away, straightened as if he thought he might have heard something. One of the seven glowing forms glided around him, trailing a tendril hand along his jaw. The man glanced around, seeming to feel the touch, but he couldn’t find its source.

He couldn’t see the familiars.

The woman standing guard back near the doors could.

With gnarled, arthritic fingers, Mohler touched his cheek, but when he could find no cause for the sensation his hand dropped to his side and he returned his attention to recording the latest prophecies from the abbey while the seven spiraled up toward the vaulted ceiling to glide along the hulking stone arches and skim just beneath the heavy beams, surveying the gloomy, candlelit room.

“It’s your move,” Hannis Arc reminded the hunched scribe.

Mohler glanced back momentarily to see his master watching him. “Ah yes, so it is,” he said as he laid down his quill and turned from his work at the massive book to shuffle over to the stone pedestal that held the board laid out with carved alabaster and obsidian pieces.

He’d had more than enough time to consider his next move. He’d had most of the night, in fact. Hannis Arc hadn’t pressed. He had already worked out the array of moves available to the man. None seemed to be good choices, although some were not as swiftly fatal as others.

Hesitantly, Mohler reached out and moved an alabaster piece to another square, taking an inky black piece that occupied it off the board and setting it aside. It was a move that he had probably pondered for hours, a move that captured a valuable piece and put him into a position to threaten to win.

Hannis Arc rose and, hands clasped behind his back, strode to the board. He stroked the knuckle of his first finger along his gaunt cheek to make it look as if the loss of his piece might have taken him by surprise and his next move required consideration. It did not.

He advanced a black pawn toward the white side. Mohler had hoped for just that move and he was ready. Without thinking it through he immediately took the pawn, placing his alabaster rook in its place on a square that now placed his opponent in peril.

Hannis Arc had been expecting such impatience from the old scribe. Unlike most people, Hannis Arc was not plagued by the flaw of impatience. He had been practicing restraint and patience all day for this very moment, just as he had practiced it for de cades for other things. He finally reached out and with a slender finger and thumb slid an obsidian queen to the square where the man had placed his rook, pushing it aside. He hooked the pale rook with his little finger and removed it from play. With measured care he set the captured piece to the side.

“Checkmate.”

In unexpected alarm, Mohler’s gaze darted about the board, looking for salvation. His bushy brow finally lifted and he sighed in resignation. “So it is. I’m afraid that I’ve proven yet again to be a poor foil for your skill, Bishop.”

“Leave me.”

The man looked. “Bishop?” He lifted a hand back toward the book. “I have not finished recording the reports.”

“The hour grows late. I will retire soon. You can enter the rest of the reports from the abbey in the morning.”

Mohler bowed. “Of course, Bishop. As you wish.” He started away but then stopped and turned back. “Do you need anything before I leave you? Anything to eat or drink?”

One of the familiars spiraled her form around the man, teasing at him. Mohler glanced around, almost feeling it, almost aware of her. In the end he gave up, probably ascribing the sensation to his old bones, and returned his gaze to the bishop, awaiting his master’s wishes.

“No. I will want to look over the latest words from the abbey first thing in the morning.”

“Of course, Bishop,” the man said as he dipped another bow. He paused, hand on the door handle, and turned back, as if reading his master’s dark thoughts. “You will have your revenge, Bishop. You will be pleased to see from the latest prophecies that your patience will be rewarded. You will have your rightful place as ruler of D’Hara, I know you will. Prophecy seems to say as much.”

Hannis Arc glared at the man, assessing whether he was being obsequious or genuinely meant it. He saw the glint of hope in the man’s eyes and knew then that it was the latter. Some men needed an iron fist to rule them. Mohler was one of those, one who found great comfort in the shadow of a great man.

More than that, though, Mohler had been there. He knew the rage that burned in his master, and he knew the reason for it.

At that thought, Hannis Arc was visited by a flash of memory he’d had times beyond counting, the jarring, jagged, fragmented impression of his father being dragged out into the courtyard in the night, fighting every inch of the way, proclaiming his loyalty to the House of Rahl even as the powerfully built soldiers began clubbing him; of clinging to his mother before she hurriedly pulled his slender arms off her and stuffed him into an entryway bench, closing the lid before the men charged back in to drag her out as well; of the terrible, singular sound made by a single violent blow of a heavy mace studded with spikes caving in his older sister’s skull as she stood in the entryway, frozen in panicked fear; of the cries and grunts from his mother as she was being beaten to death; of all the blood in the entry, on the courtyard cobblestones; of the still form of his sister lying in the entry; of the corpses of his parents on the cobblestones; of the screams of servants who had witnessed the murders; of the fading cries as they ran off into the night in fear for their own lives.

Of peeking out again from under the lid of the bench to see the heavily armed soldiers swing up into their saddles and charge away into the night, their assignment of assassination completed.

Of hiding in the darkness all night, trembling in fear that they would come back and find him.

Of hours later, just after dawn, when Mohler, a new young servant come up from the city to work at the citadel, found him hiding in the bench and lifted him out.

All because Panis Rahl believed in striking down any potential challenge to the House of Rahl before it had a chance to develop. He had his soldiers slaughter anyone, real or imagined, who could be a potential threat to his rule. Even the minor ruler of Fajin Province in the distant Dark Lands, who had harbored no particular ill will toward the ruling House of Rahl and had always been loyal, was guilty of possessing the potential to one day be a threat, and so he and his family had to die for the crime of existing.

But the cunning folk, as they were called, were not to be trifled with. Even the gifted rightly feared their occult powers. Panis Rahl knew that such powers and abilities as dwelled in the Dark Lands could be a threat, but in striking against the ruler of Fajin Province, he had made a mistake. He had struck a generation too soon.

As the fires of rage roared within him, Hannis Arc knew that the threat to the rule of the House of Rahl this time was all too real. He would see to it. He would never again tremble in fear of a Rahl. He would see the wrongs righted.

He would have revenge.

That this new Rahl ruler, Richard Rahl, was said to be different from Panis Rahl and nothing like Darken Rahl, who had managed to outdo his father in every murderous way, made no difference at all to Hannis Arc.

As vicious as Darken Rahl had been, he had also been a man distracted by an obsession. Since Hannis Arc had not yet been ready to strike, he had turned Darken Rahl’s attention away with a gift to feed his obsession— he had given Darken Rahl what he wanted more than anything else. He had given him one of the boxes of Orden that had long been hidden away in the Dark Lands. Hannis Arc had no use for a box of Orden, but Darken Rahl had coveted it, and thus the gift had bought Hannis Arc autonomy as well as certain useful favors.

As Hannis Arc had heard it, Darken Rahl’s obsession had ultimately been his undoing and he had ended up being killed by his son, Richard Rahl. A Rahl killing his father hardly surprised Hannis Arc.

It made no difference to Hannis Arc that Richard Rahl had not interfered with the rule of the Dark Lands or made demands for tribute. Being the ruler of D’Hara, he could at any time choose to do so, as had his ancestors.

Besides, he was a Rahl, and that alone sealed his fate.

This new Lord Rahl had led the D’Haran Empire to a great victory, defeating a tyrannical threat to their very existence. In so doing, he had unwittingly saved Hannis Arc, the man who would now bring him down.

The new Lord Rahl, like his father before him, had no idea of the abilities Hannis Arc possessed, or the powers he could command. Hannis Arc could have struck earlier, as Richard Rahl was forging the D’Haran Empire and fighting the war for their survival, but then he would have had a war on his hands. It would have been difficult to survive against the incredible might of the Imperial Order.

Instead, he had lain back, saving himself for the right time, working on his abilities, and let Richard Rahl fight the long and difficult war. Hannis Arc had even sent troops to support the effort, as would anyone loyal to the D’Haran Empire. He had saved himself and worked on his plans. Now that war was ended, the time to extract his revenge on the House of Rahl had at long last arrived.

The new Lord Rahl was said to be widely respected, admired, and even loved by many. He was a man at the height of power, a conquering hero.

Hannis Arc was pleased that the man was as powerful as he was. That would make his fall all the farther, all the harder, and therefore, Hannis Arc’s rise all the more momentous, all the more satisfying.

Still, Hannis Arc knew that simply killing a man like that would accomplish nothing except to make him a martyr. Making Richard Rahl a martyr would not bring Hannis Arc the rule of the D’Haran Empire.

He knew that he couldn’t merely kill a popular Lord Rahl and expect to move into the People’s Palace and rule the D’Haran Empire. It would not be that simple. After all, as a ruler of a distant province Hannis Arc was unknown to most people.

No one would respect his rule. Not yet, anyway.

Hannis Arc first needed people to stop believing in Lord Rahl, in the man, in his ability to protect them from their rightful fears. Once his people lost their respect and rejected him, Richard Rahl’s fall from power would be swift.

Only then, in that moment of chaos and panic, would D’Hara be ready to cast off the shackles of the House of Rahl and at last embrace someone who would speak to their fears about the future.

While Darken Rahl had been preoccupied with his obsession for the boxes of Orden, and Richard Rahl had fought the long war for the D’Haran Empire, Hannis Arc had been working on the means to accomplish his lifelong goal of removing the House of Rahl from power and taking its place himself. His patience had at last been rewarded.

Now that goal was within his grasp. The means were at hand.

“Rest assured, Mohler, I will rule D’Hara,” he said softly. “That day will come sooner than we have ever before dared hope. The great gears of change have been set in motion. The pieces are finally moving into place, all to my advantage. There will be no stopping me, now. It will soon be check-mate for the House of Rahl.”

“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.”