The Omen Machine

Out of the corner of his eye to the right, Richard saw the blue robes of one of the serving women coming up on the far side of Kahlan.

The woman gently laid her left hand on Kahlan’s forearm as if wanting to speak to her confidentially.

That, more than anything, was what got Richard’s attention. People didn’t just come up and casually lay a hand on the Mother Confessor.

As she came around and turned in toward Kahlan, Richard saw the haunted look in the woman’s eyes and the blood down the front of her robes.

He was already moving when he saw the knife in her other hand sweeping around toward Kahlan’s chest.

CHAPTER 10

Time itself seemed to stop.

Richard recognized all too well the eternal emptiness between the heartbeats of time, that expectant void before the lightning ignition of power.

He was a step too far away to stop the woman in time, yet he also knew that he was too close for what was about to happen.

It was already out of his hands and there was nothing he could do about it.

Life and death hung in that instant of time. Kahlan could not afford to hesitate. His instinct to turn away tensed his muscles even though he was well aware that nothing he could do would be fast enough.

The sea of people stood wide-eyed, frozen in shock. Several Mord-Sith in red leather had already begun to leap a distance that Richard knew they could never make in time. He saw Cara’s red Agiel beginning to spin up into her hand, soldiers’ hands going for swords, and Zedd’s hand lifting to cast magic. Richard knew that not one of them had a chance to make it in time.

At the center of it all, Richard saw the woman holding Kahlan’s forearm down out of the way as the bloody knife in her other hand arced around toward Kahlan’s chest.

In that instant everyone had only begun to move.

Into that silent void in time, thunder without sound suddenly ignited.

Time crashed back in a headlong rush as the force of the concussion exploded through the confined space of the banquet hall.

The impact to the air raced outward in a circle.

People near the front cried out in pain as they tumbled backward to the ground. Those farther away in the rear were knocked back a few steps. In shock and fear they too late protectively covered their faces with an arm.

Food flew off tables and carts; glasses and plates shattered against the walls; wine bottles, cutlery, containers, small serving bowls, napkins, and fragments of glass were blown back by the shock wave sweeping across the room at lightning speed. When it hit the far end of the room the glass in all the windows blew out. The bottoms of curtains flapped out through the shattered windows. Knives, forks, food, drink, plates, and pieces of broken glass clattered across the floor.

Richard was by far the one closest to Kahlan as she had unleashed her Confessor power. Too close. Proximity to such power being loosed was dangerous. The pain of it seared through every joint in his body, dropping him to a knee. Zedd fell back, knocked from his feet. Nathan, a little farther away, staggered back, catching Cara’s arm to steady her.

When pieces of shattered glass finally stopped skipping across the floor, the tablecloths and curtains finally settled and stilled, and people sat up in stunned silence, the woman in bloody blue robes was kneeling at the Mother Confessor’s feet.

Kahlan stood tall at the center of the settling chaos.

People stared in shock. None of them had ever seen a Confessor unleash her power before. It was not something done before spectators. Richard doubted that any of them would ever forget it as long as they lived.

“Bags, that hurts,” Zedd muttered as he sat up rubbing his elbows and rolling his shoulders.

As Richard’s vision and mind cleared from the needle-sharp stab of pain that had instantly stitched its way through every joint in his body, he saw that the woman had left a bloody handprint on the sleeve of Kahlan’s white dress.

Kneeling there before the Mother Confessor, the woman didn’t look at all like an assassin. She was of average build with small features. Limp ringlets of dark hair just touched her shoulders. Richard knew that a person touched by a Confessor’s power didn’t feel the same pain as those nearby, but, more than that, things such as pain would be merely distant considerations to her. Once touched by a Confessor, the Confessor was all.

Whoever the woman had been, she was no more.

“Mistress,” the woman whispered, “command me.”

Kahlan’s voice came as cold as ice. “Tell me again what you have done, what you said to me before.”

“I’ve killed my children,” the woman said in a dispassionate voice. “I thought you should know.”

The words cut through the somber silence, running a shiver up many a spine, Richard was sure. Some people gasped.

“That’s why you came to me?”

The woman nodded. “Partly. I had to tell you what I had done.” A tear ran down her cheek. “And what I had to do.”