The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 9

Richard stepped back to the waiting group of officials, mayors, regents, representatives and even a few kings and queens of some of the lands in what used to be the Midlands before they were all joined into the D’Haran Empire. When Zedd and Kahlan went with him, Nathan tucked the book under his arm, put on his widest smile, and came along.

Nathan, being the only living prophet as well as a Rahl, was well known to just about everyone at the palace. That, and his flamboyant nature, made him a celebrity of sorts. He dressed the part, with a ruffled shirt and a fashionable green cape. Elaborate engraving covered the gold scabbard and sword at his hip.

Richard thought that a wizard of Nathan’s abilities wearing a sword made about as much sense as a porcupine carrying a toothpick to defend himself. Nathan claimed that the sword made him look “dashing.” He enjoyed the looks he got, usually acknowledging them with a broad grin and, if the looks came from a woman, a deep bow. The more attractive the woman, the wider his smile tended to be. The women often blushed, but they almost always returned a smile.

Despite being somewhere near to a thousand years old, Nathan often approached life with the glee and wonder of a child. It was an infectious nature that attracted some people to him. Others, no matter Nathan’s often pleasant nature, considered him to be just about the most dangerous man alive.

A prophet could tell the future and in the future pain, suffering, and death often lay in wait. People believed that, if he chose to, he could reveal what fate awaited them. Nathan dealt with prophecy; he could neither invent it or make it happen. But some still believed he could. That was why many considered him dangerous.

Others considered him profoundly dangerous for an entirely different reason. They feared him because there had been times when prophecies he revealed had started wars.

There were those women who were drawn to that aura of danger about him.

When asked why he would bother to carry a sword, Nathan had reminded Richard that he was a wizard as well, and he carried a sword. Richard protested that he was also the Seeker, and the Sword of Truth was bonded to him. It was part of him, part of who he was. Nathan’s sword was more ornamental. Nathan didn’t need a sword to reduce someone to ash.

Nathan had reminded Richard that, Seeker or not, and no matter how he framed it, Richard was far more deadly than the sword he carried.

“Lord Rahl,” a stocky man in a red tunic asked as everyone gathered close, “may we know if there is some prophetic event lying ahead for us?”

Many in the crowd nodded, relieved that the question had finally been asked, and moved in a little closer. Richard was beginning to suspect that the answers to such questions were the only things they were really interested in hearing from him.

He looked around at all the eager faces watching him. “Prophetic event? What do you mean?”

“Well,” the man said, sweeping an arm expansively, “with so many gifted right here, First Wizard Zorander, the prophet himself, Nathan Rahl”— the man bowed his head toward Richard—“and not least of all you, Lord Rahl, who has more than proven to everyone what a remarkable gift you possess, surely you would have to be privy to the deepest secrets of prophecy. We are all hoping, since we are all gathered here, that you would be willing to share with us what such prophecy has revealed to you, what it holds in store for us.”

People in the gathered crowd voiced their agreement or nodded as they smiled hopefully.

“You want to hear prophecy?”

Heads bobbed and everyone inched in closer, as if they were about to be privy to a palace secret.

“Then heed what I say.” Richard gestured to the gloomy gray light coming from the windows at the far end of the room behind the crowd. Everyone glanced briefly over their shoulder, then turned back, lest they miss what Richard would say.

“There will be a spring storm the likes of which has not been seen for many years. Those of you who wish to return home sooner rather than later should plan to leave at once. Those who delay too long will shortly be stranded here for a number of days.”

A few people whispered among themselves as if Richard had just revealed the secrets of the dead. But most of those waiting for his word on the future seemed to be a great deal less impressed.

The heavyset man in a red tunic held a hand aloft. “Lord Rahl, while that is fascinating, and I am sure quite prophetic, and no doubt useful to some of us here, we were hoping to hear of things more … significant.”

“Like what?” Nathan said in a deep voice that rattled some in the crowd.

A woman in the front dressed with layered golds and greens forced a smile. “Well,” she said, “we were hoping to hear some true words of prophecy. Some of fate’s dark secrets.”

Richard was feeling more uneasy by the moment. “Why the sudden interest in prophecy?”

The woman seemed to shrink a little at his tone. She was trying to find words when a tall man farther back wove his way between people as he stepped forward. He wore a simple black coat with a turned-up, straight collar that went all the way around. The coat was buttoned to his neck so that it pulled the collar nearly closed at his throat. He wore a rimless four-sided hat of the same color.

It was the abbot Benjamin had told Richard about.

“Lord Rahl,” the abbot said as he bowed, “we have all heard warnings from people who have been endowed with an element of insight into the flow of events forward in time. Their dark warnings trouble us all greatly.”

Richard folded his arms. “What are you talking about? Who is coming up with these warnings?”

The abbot glanced about at his fellow guests. “Why, people back in all of our homelands. Since arriving at the palace, as we have talked among ourselves, we have discovered that we are all hearing dark warnings from soothsayers of every sort—”

“Soothsayers?”

“Yes, Lord Rahl. Diviners of the future. Though they live in different places, different lands, they are all speaking of dark visions of the future.”

Richard’s brow drew lower. “What do you mean by diviners of the future? They can’t be true prophets.” He gestured to his side. “Nathan here is the only living prophet. Who are these people you’re listening to?”

The abbot shrugged. “They may not be prophets, as such, but that does not mean they are bereft of abilities. Capnomancers have seen dire warnings in their readings of sacred smoke. Haruspices have found disturbing omens in animal entrails.” The man spread his hands innocently. “Those sorts of people, Lord Rahl. Like I say, diviners of the future.”

Richard hadn’t moved. “If these people are so talented and know the future and all, then why are you asking me about it?”

The man smiled apologetically. “They have talents, but not to compare with yours, Lord Rahl, or with those remarkably gifted people with whom you surround yourself. We would value hearing what you know of ominous warnings in prophecy so that we might take your word back to people in our homelands. From what they have been hearing, they are uneasy and hoping that we will return with word from those at the palace. A spring storm, while noteworthy, is not what concerns us most. It is the whispers and warnings we have all heard that worry us.”

Richard could not disguise his glare as stood before the silent crowd watching him. “Your people want to know what the Lord Rahl has to say on the subject?”

There were nods all around. Some people dared to inch forward again.

Richard let his arms down and stood taller. “I say that the future is what you make of it, not what someone says it will be. Your lives are not controlled by fate, or set down in some book, or revealed in smoke, or laid out in a twisted pile of pig intestine. You should tell people to stop worrying about prophecy and to put their minds to making their own future.”

Nathan cleared his throat as he took a quick step forward. “What Lord Rahl means to say is that prophecy is meant for prophets, for those with the gift. Only the gifted can understand the complexities tangled up in a genuine prophecy. Rest assured, we will worry about such things so that you don’t need to.”

Some in the crowd reluctantly seemed to think that made some sense. Others were not satisfied. A thin woman, a queen from one of the lands in the Midlands, spoke up.

“But prophecy is meant to help people. It is set down so that those words elicited by the gift will come forward through the dark tunnel of time to be of use to those of us who will be touched by those prophecies. What good is prophecy if the people aren’t informed of what it has to say about their fate? What use is the gift for prophecy if not to help people? What value is prophecy if it is kept secret?”

Nathan smiled. “Since you are not a prophet, Your Majesty, how can you know that there is a prophecy that is relevant, one that you would need to know about?”

She fingered a long jeweled necklace, the unseen end of which was located somewhere down in her cleavage. “Well, I suppose…”

Richard rested the palm of his left hand on his sword. “Prophecy causes more trouble than it ever helps.”

“We have encountered prophecy,” Kahlan said as she stepped up beside Richard, drawing everyone’s attention, “profoundly frightening core prophecy speaking specifically of Richard and of me. Had we followed the grim warnings in those prophecies, done what they said must be done to avert disaster, it would have actually ended up being not only our destruction but the destruction of all life.

“Had we done as you now wish to do, and heeded the words of those terrible prophecies, you would now all be dead at best, or worse, slaves in the hands of savage masters. In the end those prophecies turned out to be true, but not in the way that they sounded. Prophecy is profoundly dangerous in the wrong hands and not intended to be heeded in the way it sounds.”

“So, you are saying that we can’t be trusted with knowing our own future?” There was an edge to the queen’s voice.

Richard saw the flash of anger Kahlan’s green eyes and answered before she could. “We’re saying that the future is not fixed. You make your own future. If you believe you know the future, then that changes the way you behave, changes the decisions you make, changes how you live and how you plan for your future. Such unthinking choices could be ruinous. You need to act in your own rational best interest, not upon what you think prophecy says is in store for you.

“The future, at least for the most part, is not fixed in prophecy. Where prophecy may be valid it is not something that can be comprehended by just anyone.”

While that didn’t entirely satisfy people, it did take some of the wind out of their excitement to hear some juicy omens.

“Prophecy has meaning,” Nathan said, “but the true meaning can only be unraveled by those gifted in such things, and I can tell you that those things are not revealed in a pile of pig guts.”

When she saw the hesitancy in the crowd, Cara, in her white leather outfit, moved in to Richard’s left. “D’Harans have a saying: the Lord Rahl is the magic against magic; we are the steel against steel. He has more than proven himself to all of us. Leave the magic to him.”

Coming from a Mord-Sith, those words had a chilling finality.

The crowd seemed to realize that they were not merely pushing into areas where they didn’t belong, but overstepping bounds. Somewhat shamed, they spoke quietly among themselves, agreeing with one another that it made sense that maybe they should leave such matters to those who were best able to deal with them. Everyone seemed to relax a bit, as if having just pulled back from the brink.

Out of the corner of his eye to the right, Richard saw the blue robes of one of the serving women coming up on the far side of Kahlan.

The woman gently laid her left hand on Kahlan’s forearm as if wanting to speak to her confidentially.

That, more than anything, was what got Richard’s attention. People didn’t just come up and casually lay a hand on the Mother Confessor.

As she came around and turned in toward Kahlan, Richard saw the haunted look in the woman’s eyes and the blood down the front of her robes.

He was already moving when he saw the knife in her other hand sweeping around toward Kahlan’s chest.