The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 70

Well isn’t that something,” Zedd said as he stepped out of the stairwell. “Seems that none of us has it in us to destroy the machine.”

Richard wondered why.

He staggered back from the machine as its internal mechanism gradually came to life, the internal parts progressively gathering momentum.

He stood silently staring at the waking machine, stunned that the sword had halted so abruptly. He hadn’t expected it to.

He’d had the same experience before, when somewhere deep down inside he’d had a glimmer of doubt. This time, as well, some part of him didn’t think the machine was at fault for the things that had happened. Some part of him thought that it was wrong to blame the machine for the terrible things that had happened.

If he hadn’t had those doubts, he knew, the sword would have shattered the machine.

Even so, he had fully committed himself. It was disorienting to come back from that lethal brink.

The fact that doubts existed prevented the sword from doing harm. But that didn’t mean that those doubts were justified. It could very well be that the machine was the source of the deaths and they would need to destroy it.

As the gears came up to speed, and the light from within projected the machine’s emblem up onto the ceiling, the room filled with the mechanical rumble of all the interior components at last in full motion.

Richard didn’t have to look through the window. He knew what was happening. In a moment, a metal strip dropped into the tray. He slid his sword back into its scabbard and tested the strip briefly, finding it cool to the touch. He pulled it out and in his head started translating the message.

“So,” Zedd asked impatiently, “what does it say?”

“It says ‘You can destroy those who speak the truth, but you cannot destroy the truth itself.’”

Zedd cast a dark look of suspicion at Regula. “So now the machine is spouting Wizard’s Rules?”

“So it would seem,” Richard said. He laid his hands on the top of the machine, leaning his weight on it, recovering from the experience of using the sword and having it stop cold, as he thought about what he should do next. “I’d still like to know how to destroy it if we have to.”

“The thing is obviously shielded somehow,” Nicci said. “But I can’t detect its presence and it doesn’t work like any shield I’ve ever encountered. There are powers involved here that we don’t understand.”

Zedd was nodding as she spoke. “It would appear that sometime in the past, someone else must have tried to destroy it as well. No one would have gone to this much trouble and effort to bury this thing unless it was the only option remaining to them.”

“I wish I knew that story,” Nicci said.

“We may one day end up having to bury it ourselves,” Richard said, “just like whoever buried it in the first place.”

The machine, never entirely still since inscribing the strip with a Wizard’s Rule, spun back up to speed. In a moment another strip dropped into the tray. It was as cool to the touch as the one before. Richard pulled it out and translated for the others.

“‘You would fault me for speaking truth?’”

Richard recognized the words he himself had spoken to Ambassador Grandon. It was unnerving that the machine had just repeated them back to him.

He realized, then, the reason the sword would not destroy the machine. He didn’t think, deep down inside himself, that the machine was actually the cause of the problems.

“I guess I did,” he whispered aloud in answer to its question. He leaned on the machine. “All of this isn’t exactly your doing, is it?” he asked the machine. “You’re just the messenger.”

The machine hardly slowed, and in a moment it was back at full speed, inscribing another strip. Richard pulled the cool metal out as it dropped into the slot and read it aloud.

“‘When the messenger becomes the enemy, the enemy gets buried.’”

Zedd, coming up beside Richard, also laid a hand on the machine. “Isn’t that interesting.”

Richard wondered exactly how, and why, the machine had managed to get itself unburied.

Again the machine gradually spun up to full speed and then pulled another strip through the beam of light, burning symbols in the language of Creation onto it. When the strip dropped into the tray, Richard paused for a moment before pulling it out.

“Well, come on,” Zedd said impatiently, “have a look.”

Richard finally pulled the strip out and silently worked the translation. It was more complex than the previous ones, but he finally got it and read it aloud.

“‘Darkness has found me. It will find you as well.’”