The Omen Machine

Richard let Kahlan assure them that there would be no restrictions on trade, and that they needn’t fear special favors to some that would put others at a disadvantage. Many of the people were from the Midlands. She reminded them of her policies when she had ruled the Midlands as the Mother Confessor and assured them that now being part of the D’Haran Empire would not change those matters of fairness. Her calm manner and authoritative demeanor made them confident in the truth of what she said.

A number of the officials reminded her that in the Midlands most of the lands were formally represented in Aydindril, sometimes with rulers of the lands spending extended periods of time there, sometimes with emissaries and representatives, but there were always officials of some sort at hand so the different lands could always be involved in the decisions of the council or in matters of setting laws. Kahlan assured them that the People’s Palace was now the formal seat of power in the D’Haran Empire, so there would be similar arrangements made for them and their representatives to have permanent quarters from where they could participate in the shaping of their common future. Everyone seemed not merely relieved to hear this, but genuinely pleased.

Kahlan was used to being in command and carried her power with an easy grace. She had grown up mostly alone because, as a Confessor, she had grown up being feared. When Richard had first met her he saw people tremble in her presence. In the past people saw only the terrifying power she wielded, not the nature of the woman behind that power, but in the time she and Richard had fought on behalf of these people, she had come to be admired and respected. People had come to look up to her.

At the most inopportune moment, in the midst of Kahlan’s answers to questions, Nathan marched up behind Richard, took hold of his arm, and pulled him back a little. “I need to speak with you.”

Kahlan paused in her answer about an ancient boundary dispute. She had been telling people that there was nothing to dispute; they were all now part of the D’Haran Empire and it didn’t really matter where a meaningless line was drawn on a map. As she fell silent, every eye went to the tall prophet. They all knew who he was.

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.