The Omen Machine

And then came a scream of such power, such malevolence, such evil, that it seemed to rip through the very fabric of the world of life.

It was a scream born in the world of the dead.

Jars and bottles exploded. Their contents flew everywhere. Bony creatures covered their heads protectively with their gangly arms.

Broken glass, pottery, sticks, and pieces of vine began to move around the room in fits and starts, as if driven by gusts of wind, but then, with ever-growing speed, all the debris lifted into the air and began to circle the room. Even the bony creatures found themselves dragged into the building vortex, their arms and legs flailing as they orbited helplessly around the room among clouds of broken glass and pottery and all the things they had contained.

The deadly power of the scream went on unabated, catching all the creatures up in it, along with the mass of rubble.

The forms in the cowled cloaks covered their ears as they screamed in terror and pain. It did them no good. As Jit’s unleashed scream ripped through the room, they began to be drawn up in the growing tornado of sound and wreckage storming around the room.

Blood ran from the ears of those encased in the walls as they shook violently.

The bony creatures began to disintegrate, coming apart as if they had been cast of sand, dust, and dirt. Arms and legs fell apart, dissolving in the maelstrom, mixing in with the rest of the rubble circling the room. They shrieked and howled even as they were coming apart. Their terrified cries joined the cry of the endless scream coming from the Hedge Maid.

The glowing forms in the cowled capes began to elongate and rip apart in streams of glowing vapor as they were carried helplessly along in the power of the Hedge Maid’s scream.

Lightning flashed and flickered as it, too, was carried around the outside of the room. The very air roared and thundered.

In the center of it all, the Hedge Maid stood, head thrown back, jaws wide, as she screamed her life away.

The poison of who she was, of what she was, her wickedness, her corruption, her evil, her dedication to death and her contempt for life in any form, was escaping in a ripping scream that was the dead end of what she worshiped.

The scream was death itself.

Now that the truth of the dead soul within her was released, it was taking the life of its host.

She was seeing the truth of her dead inner self. Life, her life, was incompatible with the death she carried inside.

Death showed her no appreciation, and no mercy.

Her face began to melt as her own evil, the death at her core, escaped its prison. Blood veins broke, muscle ripped apart, and her skin split open until her bones were exposed. It all added power and force to her death shriek.

That scream, its power, its poison, lanced into Richard as well. The pain of it was more than he could stand. Every joint cried out in agony. Every nerve fiber vibrated with the torture of the sound escaping the Hedge Maid.

He, too, was being touched by death that had been freed.

As he began to lose consciousness, Richard realized that the plugs he had made for his ears, and for Kahlan’s ears, were not sufficient to stand up against the malevolence he had unleashed.

He had failed. He had failed Kahlan.

He felt a tear of grief for Kahlan, of his love for her, run down his face as the screaming, roaring, flashing world went slowly dark and silent.

CHAPTER 86

If he lives,” Cara said, “I’m going to kill him.”

Nicci smiled, but the thought of Richard dying sent a renewed spike of panic through her. It was too terrifying a thought to contemplate.

She laid a hand to his chest as somber soldiers gently laid his unconscious form beside Kahlan in the back of the wagon.

Blood seeped through the blankets Richard and Kahlan were both wrapped in. But Nicci could feel his heart beating, feel the breath of life in his lungs. Kahlan, thankfully, was alive as well. For now, the two of them were alive and that was what mattered most.

“He will live,” Nicci said. “Both of them will, if I have anything to say about it.”

By the looks of what had happened in the room where they had found them, it was perhaps surprising that they were both alive, much less in one piece. It had been frightening to have to pull them both out of the prison of thorn branches and vines they had been encased in.

“What’s this?” Zedd asked with a frown.

Nicci came out of her thoughts and took the little object from him. It looked to be a rolled-up wad of cloth.

“I don’t know. Where did you find it?”

“In his ear.” Zedd sounded astonished. He waved a finger, pointing. “Look, there’s another in his other ear.” He pulled it out and held it up to show her.

Nicci bent over the side of the wagon and checked Kahlan. She had them, too. Nicci pulled a little plug out of each of Kahlan’s ears and held them up to look at them.

She smiled, then, as she closed them in her fist.

“No wonder they’re alive.”

“What are you talking about?” Zedd asked.

“How much do you know about Hedge Maids?”