The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 71

Nicci stepped up beside Richard. “Darkness has found it?”

“That’s what I had suspected,” Richard said. “I think it’s telling us that someone is using it, speaking through it. That’s the reason the sword wouldn’t harm it.

“The morning after Cara and Ben’s wedding, the boy down in the market, Henrik, said that darkness was seeking darkness. He also asked why he’d had dreams. None of it made sense at the time, so we thought the boy was sick and delusional, but it had to be that the machine was somehow speaking through him, saying that it knew someone was trying to coopt it. Maybe when it began, the only way the machine could describe it was as darkness finding it and interpreted the experience of someone speaking through it as dreams.”

Nicci’s brow tightened. “You mean you think that what the boy said was actually the machine? That it was a cry for help?”

Richard shrugged. “Could be.”

Zedd let out a noisy breath as he shook his head. “I don’t know, Richard. I think we have to be careful about letting ourselves act like this collection of gears and wheels and shafts can actually say anything as a result of conscious intellect. We’re all starting to act like this thing can think on its own, like it’s alive. It’s a machine. Machines can’t think.”

“Then how is it answering Lord Rahl’s questions?” Cara asked. They all turned and looked at her. She flicked a hand out at the machine. “How is it managing to tell us what we want to know, to fill in some of the blanks as we go along?”

“We might merely be reading more into it than is warranted,” Zedd told her.

Cara looked unconvinced. “It says what it says. We are not making up or imagining the things it says.”

Zedd smoothed back his unruly mass of wavy white hair. “There is a children’s game called Ask the Oracle. It’s a small box with a round hole in the top. On the side are painted scenes of the oracle with mysterious mist curling around her as she communes with the spirit world. The box holds a number of answers already written out on small discs. A child will ask a question— like will I marry someone I love when I grow up, or does so-and-so really like me— and then reach into the box and pull out a disc with an answer printed on it. They then replace the disc and the box is shaken for the next player’s turn to select an answer to their question.”

“Really?” Cara looked skeptical. “And it actually works?”

“Pretty well, actually. The answers are things like ‘Most assuredly,’ or ‘Not unless something changes,’ or ‘The spirits say yes,’ or ‘The answer is in doubt,’ or ‘It seems likely,’ or ‘It won’t be,’ or ‘Ask again later when the spirits are willing to answer.’ You see, no matter what disc the child pulls out of the box, it seems to them like the box is directly answering the question they asked.

“But it’s just a trick of the human mind to think that the answers fit the question, that the oracle of the box hears their question and can answer it. We’re all gullible to some extent. The answers are general in nature, but because they often seem to be so accurate people think the oracle of the box really can reveal the answers.

“Some people believe wholeheartedly in the oracle in the box. Some people actually believe that they really do have some magical power, or some connection to the spirit world which guides their hand to select the correct disc. But there is no magic involved. It is a simple trick that the human mind plays on itself.”

Cara folded her arms. “So you think that this machine is simply a big elaborate trick?”

“I don’t know.” Zedd clasped his hand. “I’m just saying that we need to be cautious and not jump to conclusions. It’s often easy to believe in readymade answers.”

Richard didn’t think the explanation was that simple. “I don’t know, Zedd. There seems to be more to it.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the way the machinery starts up when it’s about to give terrible prophecies is distinctive. It starts abruptly, all at once. And another thing, the metal strips come out burning hot. But when it seems to be … I don’t know, communicating I guess you could say, then it starts gradually and the strips come out cool to the touch.

“We’ve been assuming that the strips that come out are the responsibility of the machine. I think that maybe two very different things are going on.”

“I agree,” Nicci said. “It could be that someone is using it, giving it something to say, possibly even forcing it to say certain things. When they force it to speak, the strips come out hot. When it speaks on its own the strips are cool.”

“You think the machine is being exploited?” Frowning, Zedd scratched his scalp. “Let’s assume for the moment that it’s true. Who do you think would be doing such a thing? And why?”

Richard leaned a hip on the machine. “What is our problem?”

Zedd shrugged. “Our problem?”

“Our problem,” he explained, “our reason for being down in this long-buried room with this exiled device, is prophecy. What does the machine do? Give prophecy. What has been central in all the recent deaths? Prophecy. What have all the representatives decided they must have? Prophecy. What has us running around in circles, always one step behind events? Prophecy from this machine.”

“We know all that.” Zedd arched an eyebrow. “Is there a point?”

Richard nodded. “Look at the way everyone’s interest in prophecy has escalated. The prophecies that this machine puts forth have been conveniently repeated through others all over the palace. That insures that everyone knows them, which gets everyone stirred up about the importance of prophecy. Rumor and then gossip about the existence of an ‘omen machine’ have been on every tongue. People think we’re keeping prophecy from them, that we don’t want them to be safe from harm.”

Zedd was paying closer attention. “What’s your theory?”

“It seems to me that someone is planting these seeds.” Richard leaned in a bit toward his grandfather. “What has made people believe all the more in prophecy?” With a finger, he tapped the machine. “The prophecies that have come from the machine which shortly all come true, happening exactly as they are foretold in the prophecy. That’s where it all started. It has become a ghoulish game— like that children’s game you describe but with bloody consequences.

“The prophecies always come true, so people believe in their importance all the more and they’re even more eager to know the next one. Because this machine fits their belief that prophecy knows their future, they demand from us to know what prophecy says. And as you told us, back in Aydindril, and I would bet everywhere else, prophecy is on everyone’s mind. You said that there is a brisk trade in the prophecy business. Doesn’t that strike you as rather strange?”

“It has from the first,” Zedd confirmed.

“Back here, the machine’s prophecies have convinced the representatives of all those people preoccupied with prophecy that we’re wrong, that prophecy really is as easy to understand as it sounds. They therefore can’t understand why we wouldn’t want to reveal the danger to their lives that is so easy to see in the prophecies they’ve heard. The prophecies from this machine have helped whip everyone into a frenzy of belief.”

“What would you expect? They’ve come true,” Zedd said.

“Have they? Have you ever known prophecy to be so clear-cut and easy to understand, so plainspoken and straightforward? Or to turn out just the way it says, and soon after it says it?”

Zedd looked away as he considered the question. “Actually, I can’t say that I have. Prophecy, in all my experience, is ambiguous at best. What’s more, it can often take centuries to come to pass. But these all happen soon after they are given.”

“That’s another reason why I’m so worried about the prophecy that says ‘The hounds will take her from you.’ The only thing I don’t understand is that the strip that said it wasn’t like the other dire predictions— it came on a cool strip of metal, not a hot one.”

Zedd met his gaze. “Perhaps that means it isn’t like the others. Perhaps this is a real prophecy that has a hidden meaning.”

Richard cast a sidelong glance at the machine. “Or it was a warning the machine wanted me to have. On top of that, it just said that darkness had found it, and it will find me as well, like it was warning me. The machine seems to have some kind of connection with me.”

Zedd nodded. “That part is certainly clear enough.”

“For the prophecies that come out on the hot strips, at least, we know there is no balance. They are all dire.”

Zedd frowned back at Richard. “So you’re saying that you don’t believe that those are legitimate prophecy?”

“You tell me. Now that everyone is caught up in this prophecy frenzy, who have they all turned to for what they want? Who have they sworn loyalty to in exchange for prophecy?”

“Hannis Arc,” Cara said.

Richard nodded. “And it just happens to be Abbot Dreier, from Fajin Province, who has told us and everyone else how Hannis Arc believes in using prophecy to help guide his rule, the same as all the representatives want to do. I think Hannis Arc, not real prophecy, could somehow be at the center of this.”

“Like you say, though, he’s off in Fajin Province.” Cara gestured at the machine. “How could he be doing all of these things?”

“I don’t know,” Richard admitted. “But Abbot Dreier is here. Maybe he’s involved, somehow.”

Cara circled a finger skyward. “I thought that this place around the machine, the Garden of Life lying protectively over us, was a containment field. The whole point of a containment field is to prevent outside tampering with the dangerous magic inside. On top of that, the whole palace is made in the shape of a spell-form that weakens the gift of all gifted people in here except a Rahl.”

Zedd planted his fists on his hips and turned a look on Cara. “Now Mord-Sith have become experts in magic. What next?”

“A talking machine,” Nicci said.

Richard picked up a stack of metal strips from the tens of thousands piled against the wall and loaded it into the machine.

“So let’s let it talk.”