Terry Goodkind - The Omen Machine

Richard noticed that Nathan had the book End Notes in hand, with one finger acting as a placeholder in the book.

“What is it?” Richard asked in a low voice as he took several steps back from the suddenly silent crowd watching him. Prophecy was apparently of more concern to them than matters of trade or arbitrary boundaries.

Nathan leaned in and spoke confidentially. “You told me that the boy you encountered down in the market today told you something about darkness in the palace.”

Richard straightened and turned back to look around at all the people watching him. “I’m sorry for the interruption. If you will excuse me it will only be a moment.”

He took Nathan by the arm and moved him back a few more steps toward the double doors all along the wall at the back of the room. Zedd came along, as did Kahlan. Cara and Benjamin, not far away, took the hint in the look Richard gave them and drew the attention of the delegates by asking about how the rebuilding was going in their homelands.

Once sure that no one was within earshot, Richard turned back to Nathan. “The boy said that there is darkness in the palace. He said that darkness is seeking darkness.”

Without a word, Nathan opened the book and handed it to Richard.

Richard immediately spotted the line all by itself: Darkness is seeking darkness.

“That’s the boy’s exact words,” Kahlan said, a tone of concern clearly evident in a low voice.

Richard almost said that it had to be coincidence, but he knew better. Instead he asked, “Anything else about this, this fragment prophecy anywhere else in the book?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan said with obvious frustration. “I have no way of knowing if anything in the book is connected to anything else. For all I know, everything else might be tied to this darkness prophecy, or none of it is. I don’t even know if the other one, the one about the ceiling falling in, is connected to this line about darkness seeking darkness.”

Richard knew it was.

He was more than skeptical that it could be a coincidence that the boy spoke a line from a book that contained another line in it that the old woman had spoken. He knew it couldn’t all be connected by chance. He remembered the surprised look on the woman’s face when she had told him his fortune, that the roof was going to fall in, as if that hadn’t been what she had meant to say.

Richard had learned that his gift often manifested itself in unique ways. Some texts called him the pebble in the pond, because he was at the center of ripples of events. Incidents that at first seemed like chance events were in fact often elements that were somehow drawn to him, or drew his attention, by his gift, by the ripples he created around him. Such events could appear to be coincidence until he dug deeper.

Or until the sky fell in on him.

He knew now for certain that he couldn’t let this lie and let events get out ahead of him. He needed to dig deeper.

He let out a deep breath. “All right. There’s nothing we can do about it at the moment. Let’s not get all these people worked up by letting them know that something is wrong.”

“We don’t know that there really is something wrong,” Zedd reminded him.

Richard didn’t want to argue that there was. “I hope you’re right.”

“The way prophecy works,” Nathan reminded Zedd, “it’s likely that this is all connected somehow.”

Zedd’s face twisted with a sour expression, but he didn’t challenge the point.

Richard tapped his thumb against the hilt of his sword as he ran all the events through his mind for a moment. He couldn’t see any connection between the three events. He couldn’t even imagine any.

That wasn’t true, he realized. Darkness seeking something could be connected to Cara’s feeling that someone was looking into her room in the night—in the dark.

He turned to Nathan. “You said that there’s a woman who works for the palace and that she is visited by small premonitions.”

“That’s right. She’s general kitchen help, usually doing preparation work like cutting up things for the palace cooks, but she helps out with other things when extra people are needed. As a matter of fact, I believe she’s one of the people in the blue robes helping serve tonight.” He glanced around without trying not to look obvious. “I don’t see her at the moment, though.”

“And you said that there was another woman, Lauretta, I think you said her name was, who has a hint of ability. You said that she wanted to see me because she has something for me, some kind of omen.”

Nathan nodded. “That’s right.”

“As soon as we can break away from here I want you to take me to see her.”

“Richard, I’d be happy to take you there, but it’s likely nothing. These kinds of things usually turn out to be a whole lot less than one thinks they are. People often believe that the most mundane and innocent things somehow have sinister implications. It’s likely nothing meaningful.”

“That would please me just fine,” Richard said as he checked on the people waiting for him. “Then I won’t have to worry about it.”

“I suppose so.” Nathan gestured toward the wall of doors behind them. “We’re near the kitchens. Lauretta works for a butcher who helps supply the palace for affairs like the wedding and this gathering here today. Her quarters aren’t far. When you feel like taking a stroll we can go see her.”

Richard nodded. “For now, let’s get back to our guests.”

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.