The Omen Machine

Richard glanced around. “I suppose you still have all the things she wrote down.”

“Oh yes, of course.” Lauretta replaced the tea on the stand after she finished pouring herself some. She set a chipped white plate with sweet crackers on the table. “When I was old enough I started writing down my predictions myself.”

“Mmmm,” Zedd moaned in ecstasy, waving a sweet cracker, “cinnamon, my favorite. These are quite good.”

Lauretta flashed him a toothless grin. “Made them myself.”

Richard wondered where and how. “So,” he said, “why do you keep all of the things you write down?”

She turned a puzzled look on him. “Well, they’re my predictions.”

“Yes, you told us that,” Richard said, “but what is the purpose of keeping them?”

“To record them. I have so many predictions that I can’t remember them if I don’t write them down. But more importantly, they need to be kept, to be documented.”

Richard frowned, trying not to look exasperated. “What for?”

“Well,” she said, confounded by the question, as if it was almost too obvious to need an answer, “all prophets write down their prophecy.”

“Ah, well, yes, I suppose that—”

“And aren’t those prophecies kept? The ones prophets write down?”

Richard straightened. “You mean, like the books of prophecy?”

“That’s right,” she said patiently. “Those are prophecy written down, just like I write mine down, are they not? Then, because prophecy is important, they are all kept, aren’t they? Of course those are kept in libraries all over the palace. But I have no other place to store all of mine, so I must keep them all in here.” She swept an arm around. “This is my library.”

Zedd glanced around at Lauretta’s library as he munched on his sweet cracker.

“So you see, I’m very careful with fire because these are prophecy written down, and prophecy is important. I must protect them from harm.”

Richard was seeing prophecy in a new light— a less flattering light.

“That all makes sense,” Zedd said, seemingly disinterested in continuing the line of conversation. “And your sweet crackers really are some of the best I’ve ever had.”

She gave him another toothless grin. “Come back any time for more.”

“I may do that, kind lady.” Zedd picked up another and gestured with it. “Now, what of the prophecy you say you have for Lord Rahl?”

“Oh yes.” She put a finger to her lower lip as she looked around. “Now, where did I put them?”

“Them?” Richard asked. “You have more than one?”

“Oh yes. Several actually.”

Lauretta went to a wall of papers and randomly pulled out one of them. She peered at it briefly. “No, this isn’t it.” She stuck the paper back where she’d found it. She reached to the side, pulling out others, only to end up replacing them as well. She kept plucking papers from different places among the thousands and then replaced each after reading it.

Richard shared a look with Nathan.

“Maybe you could just tell Lord Rahl what your prediction was,” Zedd offered.

“Oh dear me no, I’m afraid that I couldn’t do that. I have too many predictions to remember them all. That’s why I have to write them down. If I write them down, then I always have them and they can’t be forgotten. Isn’t that the purpose of writing down prophecy? So that we will always have them? Prophecy is important, so it must be written down and kept.”

“Very true,” Nathan said, apparently eager not to upset her. “Maybe we could help you look? Where would you have put your recent prophecies?”

She blinked at him. “Why, where they belong.”

Nathan looked around. “How do you know where they belong?”

“By what they say.”

Nathan stared a moment. “Then, how do you find them? I mean, if you don’t remember what they say, then how do you know where they would have belonged in the first place and where you would have put them? How do you know where to look?”

She squinted as she gave serious consideration to the question. “You know, that very thing has always been the problem.” She took a deep breath. The buttons on her sweaters looked like they might burst before she let it out. “I can’t seem to come up with an answer to that quandary.”

From the confusion they had always had with the location of books in the libraries, seemingly placed there in no order, Richard thought that it appeared to be a common problem with written prophecy on what ever scale.

Zedd pulled a piece of paper from a stack and peered at it. He waved it in the air.

“This one only says ‘rain.’”

Lauretta looked up from the papers she had in her hand. “Yes, I wrote that down one day when I had a premonition that it was going to rain.”

“This is a waste of time,” Richard said in a confidential voice to Nathan.

“I cautioned you that it was likely nothing worthwhile.”

Richard sighed. “So you did.”

He turned to Lauretta. She had moved, pulling out another paper in another place near the bottom of a mountain of papers, boxes, and binders. Before he could say that they were leaving, she gasped.

“Here it is. I’ve found it. Right where it belonged.”

“So what does it say, then?” Richard asked.