The Omen Machine

The sheer inaccessibility of the city palace, if the drawbridge on the road was raised and the great inner doors were closed, made assaults futile. Throughout history sieges of the palace withered out on the inhospitable Azrith Plain long before the strength of those in the palace began to wane. Many had tried, but there was no practical way to attack the People’s Palace.

The old woman would have had a hard time making the climb all the way up the inner passageways to the palace proper. Because she was blind, it must have been especially difficult for her. Although there were always people wanting to know what the future held, Richard supposed that she probably found more customers up top willing to pay for her simple fortunes, and that made the climb worth the effort.

Richard gazed out at the seemingly endless corridor filled with people and the ever-present whisper of footsteps and conversation. He supposed that the woman, being blind, would be attuned to all the sounds of the people in the corridors and by that judge the enormity of the place.

He felt a pang of sorrow for her, as he had when he had first spotted her sitting alone at the side of the hallway, but now because she could not see the splendor all around her, the soaring marble columns, stone benches, and elaborately patterned granite floors that glowed wherever they were touched by the streamers of sunlight coming in from the skylights high overhead. Other than his homeland of the Hartland woods where he had grown up, Richard thought that the palace was just about the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He never failed to be awed by the sheer overwhelming intellect and effort it must have taken to envision and construct such a place.

Many times throughout history, as when Richard had first been brought in as a prisoner, the palace had been the seat of power for evil men. Other times, as now, it was the center of peaceful prosperity, a beacon of strength that anchored the D’Haran Empire.

“A penny for my future?” Richard asked.

“And a worthy bargain it is,” the woman said without hesitation.

“I hope you aren’t saying that my future is worth no more than a penny.”

The old woman smiled a slow smile. Her clouded eyes stared without seeing. “It is if you don’t heed the omen tendered.”

She blindly held out her hand, a question waiting for his answer. Richard placed a penny on her upturned palm. He imagined that she had no other way to feed herself except by offering to tell people their future. Being blind, though, in a way gave her a certain marketable credibility. People probably expected that, being blind, she had access to some kind of inner vision, and that belief probably helped bring her business.

“Ah,” she said, nodding knowingly as she tested the weight of the coin he had given her, “silver, not copper. Clearly a man who values his future.”

“And what would lie in that future, then?” Richard asked. He didn’t really care what a fortune-teller might have to say, but he expected something in return for the penny.

She turned her face up toward his, even though she could not see his face. The smile ghosted away. She hesitated for just a moment before speaking.

“The roof is going to fall in.” She looked as if the words had come out differently than she had intended, as if they surprised her. She looked abruptly speechless.

Kahlan and some of the soldiers waiting not far away glanced up at the ceiling that had covered the palace for thousands of years. It hardly looked in danger of falling in.

A strange fortune, Richard thought, but the fortune had not been his real purpose. “And I predict that you will have a full belly when you sleep tonight. The shop not far back, to your left, sells warm meals. That penny will buy you one. Take good care of yourself, my lady, and enjoy your visit to the palace.”

The woman’s smile returned, but this time it reflected gratitude. “Thank you, sir.”

Rikka, one of the Mord-Sith, rushed up and came to a halt. She flicked her single, long blond braid back over her shoulder. He was so used to the Mord-Sith wearing their red leather outfits that he found it somewhat strange to see them now wearing brown leather, another sign that the long war was over. Notwithstanding the less intimidating outfit, there was suspicious displeasure in her blue eyes. That, coming from a Mord-Sith, he was more than used to.

A dark look had settled into Rikka’s flawless features. “I see that the word I received is true. You’re bleeding. What happened?”

Rikka’s tone reflected not simple concern, but a Mord-Sith’s rising anger that the Lord Rahl she was sworn on her life to protect appeared to have run into trouble. She was not simply curious, she was demanding answers.

“It’s nothing. And it’s not bleeding any longer. It’s just a scratch.”

Rikka cast a dissatisfied look at Kahlan’s hand. “Do you two have to do everything together? I knew we shouldn’t have let you go out without one of us to watch over you. Cara will be furious, and with good reason.”

Kahlan smiled, apparently to dispel Rikka’s concern. “Like Richard said, it’s just a scratch. And I don’t think that Cara has reason to be anything other than contented and happy today.”

Rikka let the claim go without objection and turned to other business. “Zedd wants to see you, Lord Rahl. He sent me to find you.”

“Lord Rahl!” The woman at his feet clutched at his pant leg. “Dear spirits, I didn’t realize … I’m sorry, Lord Rahl. Forgive me. I didn’t know who you were or I would not have—”

Richard touched his fingers to the woman’s shoulder to cut off her apology and let her know that it wasn’t necessary.

He turned to the Mord-Sith. “Did my grandfather say what he wants?”

“No, but by his tone it was clear to me that it was important to him. You know Zedd and how he gets.”

Kahlan smiled a bit. Richard knew all too well what Rikka meant. While Cara had for years been close to Richard and Kahlan, ever watchful and protective of them, Rikka had spent a great deal of time with Zedd at the Wizard’s Keep. She had become familiar with how Zedd frequently thought the simplest things were urgent. Richard thought that Rikka, in her own way, had taken a liking to Zedd and felt protective of him. He was, after all, still First Wizard as well as the grandfather to the Lord Rahl. Even more important, she knew how much Richard cared about him.

“All right, Rikka. Let’s go see what Zedd is all wound up about.”

He started to take a step, but the old woman sitting on the floor tugged his pant leg to stop him.

“Lord Rahl,” she said, trying to pull him closer, “I would not ask for payment from you, especially since I am but a humble guest in your home. Please, take your silver back with my appreciation for the gesture.”

“It was a bargain struck,” Richard said in a tone meant to reassure her. “You held up your part. I owe you payment for your words about the future.”

She let her hand slip from its grip of his pants. “Then heed the omen, Lord Rahl, for it is true.”

CHAPTER 3

Following Rikka deep into the private, warmly paneled corridors of the palace, Kahlan spotted Zedd standing with Cara and Benjamin at a window overlooking a small courtyard at the bottom of a deep pocket formed by the stone walls of the palace that rose up out of sight. A simple, unadorned door not far beyond the window provided access to an atrium where a small plum tree grew beside a wooden bench sitting on a stone pad surrounded by lush green ivy. As small as the room was, it still brought a welcome bit of the outdoors and daylight into the deep interior of the palace.

Kahlan was relieved to be away from the public corridors, away from the constant gazes that were always on them. She felt a profound sense of calm as Richard slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her close for a moment. He laid his head atop hers as she leaned in toward him. It was a moment of closeness that they didn’t generally feel comfortable allowing themselves when in public view.

Cara, wearing her white leather outfit, stood gazing out the window into the courtyard. Her single blond braid was perfectly done. Her red Agiel, the weapon carried by Mord-Sith that always hung at the ready by a fine chain on their wrists, stood out against the white leather like a bloodstain on a snow white tablecloth. An Agiel, looking like nothing more than a short leather rod, was just as lethal as the women who carried them.

Benjamin had on a crisp general’s uniform and wore a gleaming silver sword at his hip. The sword was no ceremonial accessory. Countless times Kahlan had seen how commanding he was in combat, seen his heart. She had been the one who had appointed him a general.

Kahlan had expected that Cara and Benjamin might be dressed casually. They were not. They both looked ready for the war that was over. She supposed that as far as both of them were concerned, there was never an excuse to relax their guard. Both their lives were devoted to the protection of Richard, the Lord Rahl.

Of course, the man they guarded was far more lethal than either of them. Dressed in his black and gold war-wizard outfit, Richard looked every bit the part of the Lord Rahl. But he was more than that. At his hip he wore the Sword of Truth, a singular weapon meant for a singular individual. Yet despite the weapon’s power, it was the individual behind it that was the true weapon. That was what really made him the Seeker, and what made the Seeker so formidable.

“Were they watching all night?” Zedd was asking as Kahlan and Richard came to a halt beside Richard’s grandfather.

Cara’s face turned nearly as red as her Agiel.

“I don’t know,” she growled, still glaring out the window. “It was my wedding night and I was otherwise occupied.”

Zedd smiled politely. “Of course.”

He glanced over at Richard and Kahlan to greet them with a brief smile. Kahlan thought that the smile looked a bit briefer than she would have expected.

Before his grandfather could say anything else, Richard interrupted. “Cara, what’s going on?”

She turned to him with a heated look. “Someone was watching us in our room.”

“Watching you,” he repeated in a flat tone. “You’re sure?”

Richard’s face didn’t reveal what he might be thinking about such a strange claim. Kahlan noted that he did not dismiss Cara’s assertion out of hand. Kahlan also noted that Cara hadn’t said that it felt like they were being watched. She said that they were being watched. Cara was hardly a woman given to skittish delusions.

“It was an eventful day yesterday, with a lot of people gathered for your wedding, with a lot of people all watching you and Benjamin.” Richard gestured toward Kahlan. “Even now, as much as I’ve gotten used to people watching Kahlan and me all the time, when we’re finally alone I sometimes can’t shake the feeling people are still staring at me.”

“People watch Mord-Sith all the time,” Cara said, clearly not liking the implication that she was only imagining it.

“Yes, but they watch out of the corner of their eye. People rarely look directly at a Mord-Sith.”

“So?”

“Yesterday it was different. You aren’t used to people looking directly at you. Yesterday everyone was looking at you and Benjamin— looking directly at you. Every eye was on you. It wasn’t what you’re used to. Could it simply be a feeling left over from being the center of so much focus and attention?”

Cara considered the question as if she hadn’t thought of it that way. Her brow finally drew tight with conviction. “No. Someone was watching me.”

“All right. When did you first have this feeling that someone was watching you?”

“Just before dawn,” she said without hesitation. “It was still dark. At first I thought there was someone in the room, but there wasn’t anyone in there other than the two of us.”

“Are you sure that it was you they were watching?” Zedd asked, the question sounding innocent enough. Kahlan knew better.

Silent up until then, Benjamin looked puzzled. “You mean you think they may have been watching me?”

Zedd directed a meaningful look at the tall, blond-headed D’Haran general. “What I mean, is that I’m wondering if they were actually watching the both of you.”

“We were the only ones in there,” Cara said, her growl back.

Zedd tilted his head toward her. “You were in one of the Lord Rahl’s bedchambers.”

Understanding suddenly flashed in Cara’s intense blue eyes. With the realization, her voice turned from annoyed to icy as she took on the demeanor of the interrogator, a role that fit Mord-Sith as well as their leather outfits. She narrowed her eyes at the wizard.

“Are you suggesting that someone was looking into that room to see if it was Lord Rahl in there?”

She had clearly caught Zedd’s meaning.

Zedd shrugged his bony shoulders. “Were there mirrors in the room?”

“Mirrors? Well, I guess…”

“There are two mirrors in that room,” Kahlan said. “There is a tall one off to the side, on a stand beside the bookcase, and a smaller one over the dressing table.”

The room was one of Richard and Kahlan’s gifts to Cara and Benjamin. The Lord Rahl, while in his palace, had the choice of a number of bedchambers— probably an ancient defensive ploy to thwart assassins. There were probably more private rooms belonging to Richard in the palace than he had visited or was even aware of. Richard and Kahlan had wanted Cara to have one of the lovely rooms as hers and Benjamin’s whenever they were at the People’s Palace. It only seemed right, seeing as how Benjamin was the head of the First File, the Lord Rahl’s guards when he was in the palace, and Cara was Richard and Kahlan’s closest bodyguard.

Richard, having grown up as a woods guide, had thought that one bedroom was more than adequate. Kahlan thought so as well. They also had rooms at the Confessors’ Palace, in Aydindril, as well as yet other quarters set aside for them in various other places.

Kahlan didn’t really care what rooms they had, or where, as long as she and Richard were together. In fact, some of her happiest memories were of living one summer in the small house Richard had built for them in the wilderness of Westland.

Cara had willingly accepted the room in the palace. No doubt in large part because it was close to Richard and Kahlan’s room.

“Why do you want to know if there were mirrors in the room?” Benjamin asked. His voice, too, had changed. He was now the general in charge of the Lord Rahl’s safety at the People’s Palace.

Zedd lifted an eyebrow and fixed the man in the meaningful gaze. “There are those, I hear tell, who have the ability to use dark forms of magic to gaze through mirrors into another place.”

“Are you certain of that,” Richard asked, “or is it just idle gossip?”

“Gossip,” Zedd admitted with a sigh. “But sometimes gossip turns out to be reliable.”

“And who can accomplish such a thing?” Richard’s voice, it seemed to Kahlan, was sounding very much like the Lord Rahl demanding answers. What ever was happening, it was making each of them edgy.

Zedd turned his palms up. “I don’t know, Richard. It’s not something I can do. I’m not familiar with the skill, or if it is even true. Like I said, it’s gossip I’ve heard, not personal experience.”

“Why would they be looking for Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor?” Cara asked. She was clearly now more upset over that than she had been when she had thought someone was looking in on her and Benjamin.

“Good question,” Zedd said. “Did you hear anything?”

Cara considered for only an instant. “No. I heard nothing and I saw nothing. But I could feel someone looking.”

Zedd twisted his mouth as he considered. “Well, I’ll put a shield on the room for you to keep prying eyes out.”

“And will a shield of magic be able to stop the product of gossip?” Richard asked.

Zedd’s smile finally returned. “Can’t say for sure. I don’t know if such an ability is real or not, and I don’t know if there really was someone looking in on that room.”

“There was,” Cara insisted.

Kahlan spread her hands. “Seems that the simplest thing to do would be to cover the mirrors.”

“No,” Richard said in a thoughtful tone as he gazed into the atrium, “I don’t think they should cover the mirrors, or put a shield on the room.”

Zedd planted his fists on his hips. “And why not?”

“If someone, somehow, was looking in on that room and we cover the mirrors or shield the place, then they can’t look in there again.”

“That’s the point,” Kahlan said.

“And then they would know that we were aware of them and we won’t know why they were looking in there.”

Zedd stuck one long bony finger into his disorderly thatch of wavy white hair and scratched his scalp. “You lost me, my boy.”

“Well, if whoever was looking in there was really looking for Kahlan and me, then they’ve already learned that it wasn’t us in that room. So, if we leave the room unshielded and the mirrors the way they are, and Cara doesn’t feel like she is being watched again tonight, then that would confirm that they weren’t actually interested in Cara and Benjamin. If they’re really looking for Kahlan and me, then they will have moved on to look elsewhere.”

Kahlan knew Richard well enough to know that there was some inner calculation going on in his head.

Cara fingered the chain holding her Agiel as she thought it over. “That makes sense. If they don’t come looking in again tonight then that means they’re probably looking for you and the Mother Confessor.”

Zedd gestured offhandedly. “Or it could mean that it wasn’t real and that you were only imagining it.”

“How do we find out who could be doing such a thing? Looking into a room like that?” Benjamin asked, before Cara had a chance to argue.

Zedd shrugged. “I’m not saying that such a thing is even possible. I’ve never heard of any specific magic that could do such a thing, only rumors of it. I think we’re all letting our imaginations get away from us. Tonight, let’s try to be a little more objective, shall we?”

After a moment of silent consideration, Cara nodded. “I’ll pay more attention tonight. But I wasn’t imagining it.”

Kahlan could tell by the way Richard was staring blankly into the atrium that he was already thinking about something else. The others sensed the same thing and waited in silence to see what was on his mind.

“Have any of you heard of Kharga Trace?” he finally asked into the quiet.

CHAPTER 4

Kharga Trace?” Benjamin asked.

He hooked a thumb behind his weapons belt and frowned down at the floor, trying to recall if he’d ever heard the name before. Zedd shook his head. Kahlan could see in Rikka’s eyes that she knew the name, but instead of answering herself, she glanced at Cara, deferring, as all the Mord-Sith did, to Cara’s implicit authority.

“Kharga Trace is in the Dark Lands,” Cara said.

Richard picked up on the subtle, but chilling, change in her voice. His gray eyes turned from the atrium to focus on her.

“Where?”

“The Dark Lands— an outlying region of D’Hara.” She aimed a thumb over her shoulder. “To the north and east of here.”

“Why is it called the Dark Lands?”

“Most of it is beyond the reach of civilization. It’s a place something like the Wilds— isolated, insular, inhospitable— but instead of being flat and open like the Wilds, it’s mostly a vast, trackless land of mountains and dark forests. That makes it too hard to reach the isolated tribes in the farther reaches, or to even find them. But if you go into those remote places they inhabit, you run the risk that they will find you.”

Cara’s words were all business, as formal as they would be for any report the Lord Rahl might have asked for, but her tone had an icy edge to it. “The weather there is overcast and gloomy most of the time. In the Dark Lands one rarely sees the sun. That might have been the origin of the name.”

By the way Cara had carefully framed the suggestion, Kahlan suspected that the name might have had other origins.

“But civilized people live there, call the place home,” Richard said. “After all, it’s part of D’Hara.”

Cara nodded. “In Fajin Province, besides the ruling city of Saavedra, there are small towns in valleys here and there, a scattering of mountain villages, that sort of thing, but beyond those outposts of civilization lies a dark and forbidding land. People don’t wander far from the towns and when they do they stay to the few roads. Not a lot is known about the region because there isn’t much trade there, in part because there isn’t much there worth trading for.”

“What’s the other part?” Richard asked.

Cara paused only momentarily before answering. “Many of those who go into the Dark Lands are never seen again. Most people avoid straying from settled parts. From time to time, even some of those who live there, and do stay to the roads and shut themselves in at night, are never seen again, either.”

Richard folded his arms. “What would be the cause of these people vanishing?”

Cara shrugged. “I can’t say for sure, Lord Rahl. It’s a place of superstition, black arts, and tight lips. People don’t speak of things they fear lest those things come looking for them.”

Richard didn’t let it go at that. “Superstition doesn’t cause people to vanish.”

Cara, in turn, didn’t shy from his intent gaze. “Whispers say that scavengers of the underworld hunt the Dark Lands.”

Everyone collectively took a breath as they considered such a grim warning.

“There are places like that in the Midlands,” Zedd finally offered. “Some of it is superstition, as you say, but there are also places where talk of dangerous things is well founded.”

Kahlan certainly knew the truth of that. She was from the Midlands.

“I think that may be the case with the Dark Lands as well,” Cara agreed. “But the uncivilized regions are more vast, more remote, than such places in the Midlands. If something goes wrong in the Dark Lands there is not going to be anyone to come help you.”

“Why would anyone live there?” Kahlan asked.

Cara shrugged. “Despite how savage, or harsh, or destitute a place might be, it’s still home to those who were born there. Most people rarely stray far from home, from what they know, for fear of what they don’t know about other places.”

“Cara is right,” Richard said. “We also have to remember that it’s still a land with people who fought alongside us for our freedom, who stood with us. They also lost a great many people to the war.”

Cara conceded with a sigh. “True enough. I knew a few soldiers from Fajin Province, and they fought fiercely. None of them were from Kharga Trace, though. From what I’ve heard of it, Kharga Trace is even more inhospitable than the rest of the Dark Lands. Few people, if any, actually live in the Trace. Few would ever have reason to venture in there.”

“How do you know so much about these Dark Lands?” Kahlan asked.

“I don’t know a lot, actually. Darken Rahl used to have dealings in the Dark Lands so that’s the only reason I know anything at all. I remember him mentioning Kharga Trace once or twice.” Cara shook her head at the memory. “The Dark Lands rather fit his nature, as well as that of his father before him. They both used brutality and fear to maintain rule over the people who live there. He often said that it was the only way to keep the Dark Lands in line.

“Like his father before him, Darken Rahl also sometimes sent Mord-Sith to the Dark Lands to remind the people there of their loyalty to D’Hara.”

Richard frowned. “So you’ve been there, then?”

“No, he never sent me. As far as I know, none of the Mord-Sith who are still alive have been there.”

She gazed off at nothing in particular for a moment. “Many of those he sent never came back.”

Cara’s blue eyes finally turned back to Richard. “Darken Rahl used to send Constance.”

Richard met Cara’s meaningful gaze but he said nothing. He had known Constance when he had been a captive of Darken Rahl.