The Omen Machine

Though the bottom half of his torso was trapped in the thorny vines, his arms were starting to get their strength back, and they were still free, so he stretched around toward Kahlan, reaching out to touch her face, hoping that somehow she would know that he was there with her. She was unconscious and didn’t respond. He had to do something, and fast.

The creatures dancing and cavorting through the room, stepping among the shattered bones and limbs of their fellows, seemed to think it was funny to see his affection for Kahlan. They mocked him, mimicking his gestures, reveling in what they knew was to become of them both.

Jit turned to her work of adding pinches of this and that from jars to the smoldering fire in the shallow bowl in the center of the room. From time to time she picked up a slender stick decorated with glossy green feathers, snake skins, and shiny coins to draw spells in ash held in flat trays.

Ghostly forms curled out from the fire as she spoke key words in low, guttural, rasping, clicking sounds. Each wisp of smoke coalesced into a deformed figure looking like it had been freed from the darkest reaches of the underworld to float above them.

As Jit worked, and the frolicking creatures taunted him, Richard surreptitiously pulled off small pieces of his shredded shirt and rolled them between his finger and thumb.

When he had two of them that he judged to be about the right size, he leaned toward Kahlan to make a show of caressing her face again. Twisting around like that pulled at the thorns sticking in his legs. He had no choice but to endure it. He could hear the grotesque cackles behind him of those watching and waiting for Jit to finish her work.

With his left hand, so that it would cover her face and hide what he was doing, Richard slipped one of the rolled-up pieces of cloth into one of Kahlan’s ears. With a finger he pushed it firmly into place. Without pause, he did the same with her other ear.

A claw seized his left wrist and pulled it back. Other hands wrapped a thorny vine around the arm and pinned it back against the wall. Yet other creatures pulled a strip of thorny vine across his middle. Richard’s strength did no good against so many of these undead creatures.

Working as fast as he could with his free hand, he stuffed a rolled-up piece of cloth from his shredded shirt into each of his own ears.

He remembered what the machine had told him.

Your only chance is to let the truth escape.

He needed to do something the Hedge Maid wouldn’t expect. When Jit turned back toward him, he grinned at her.

All the creatures drew back, murmuring to themselves at his puzzling behavior. The unexpected was frightening to them.

He again gave the Hedge Maid a very deliberate grin to let her know that he knew something she didn’t.

He, in fact, knew the truth.

The Hedge Maid, her expression darkening dangerously, glared at him.

He needed to get her closer.

“You have me,” he said as he smiled broadly. “Let Kahlan go and I’ll cooperate with what ever you want.”

One of the glowing forms, who was missing a hand, poked him with a finger. “We do not need your cooperation,” she said.

“Yes you do,” Richard said with absolute conviction while he smiled at the Hedge Maid. “You need to know the truth.”

The cowled figure frowned. “The truth?” She turned and spoke to Jit in her strange language.

The Hedge Maid frowned at her companion as she listened, and then stepped up to him. He towered over her, but she did not fear him.

She should have.

Jit smiled back with as evil a grin as he’d ever seen, her lips parting with the grin as much as the leather sewn through her lips would allow.

Richard used his free hand to draw his knife from the sheath at his belt. It felt good to have a blade in his hand. A blade meant salvation. This one was as razor-sharp as truth itself.

The Hedge Maid didn’t fear his knife, and with good reason. After all, his sword had proven impotent against her.

Richard knew that using a blade to try to cut Jit would be not merely futile, but a deadly mistake. Her aura of powers shielded her, protected her from being cut by him. She had proven that his sword could not harm her, so she certainly didn’t fear a mere knife.

She should have.

CHAPTER 85

In a blink, before the Hedge Maid could have second thoughts or guess what he intended, Richard whipped the knife past her face, carefully avoiding cutting her, or even the thought of it, so as not to trigger her occult protection. If he was sincerely not trying to cut her, her defenses would not react.

With deadly precision, he instead made the tip of the razor-sharp blade sweep in just between her parted lips … and sever the leather strips holding her mouth closed.

The Hedge Maid’s dark eyes went wide.

Her mouth also went wide, something it had never done before.

Her jaws opened wide. It looked decidedly involuntary.