The Omen Machine

The boy’s small hand suddenly grabbed Richard’s forearm.

Richard heard the sound of steel being drawn from scabbards. Without turning, he lifted his other hand in a silent command to the soldiers behind him to stand down.

“Why have they all left me?” the boy asked again.

Richard leaned in a little closer, hoping to calm him at least. “Where did they leave you?”

The boy’s eyes opened so abruptly that it startled both Richard and Kahlan. His gaze was fixed on Richard, as if trying to see into his soul. The grip of the thin fingers on Richard’s forearm was powerful beyond what Richard would have believed the boy capable of.

“There is darkness in the palace.”

A chill, fed by a cold breath of breeze, shivered across Richard’s flesh.

The boy’s eyelids slid closed as he sagged back.

Despite his intent to be gentle with the boy, Richard’s voice took on an edge.

“What are you talking about? What darkness in the palace?”

“Darkness … is seeking darkness,” he whispered as he drifted down into incoherent mumbling.

Richard’s brow drew tight as he tried to make some kind of sense of it. “What do you mean, darkness is seeking darkness?”

“He will find me, I know he will.”

The boy’s hand, as if too heavy to hold up, slipped off Richard’s arm. It was replaced by Kahlan’s as the two of them waited a moment to see if the boy would say any more. He seemed to finally have fallen silent for good.

They needed to get back to the palace. People would be waiting for them.

Besides, Richard didn’t think, even if the boy did say more, that it would be any more meaningful. He looked up at the boy’s mother, standing above him, dry-washing her hands.

The woman swallowed. “He scares me, he does, when he gets like this. I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, I didn’t mean to distract you from your business.” She looked to be a woman aged prematurely by worries.

“This is my business,” Richard said. “I came down here today to be among people who couldn’t make it up to the palace yesterday for the ceremony. Many of you have traveled a great distance. The Mother Confessor and I wanted to have a chance to show our appreciation to everyone who came for our friends’ wedding.

“I don’t like to see anyone in such obvious distress as you and your boy. We’ll see if we can get a healer to find out what’s wrong. Maybe they can give him something to help him.”

The woman was shaking her head. “I’ve tried healers. Healers can’t help him.”

“Are you sure?” Kahlan asked. “There are very talented people here who might be able to help.”

“I already took him to a woman of great powers, a Hedge Maid, all the way to Kharga Trace.”

Kahlan’s brow creased. “A Hedge Maid? What kind of healer is that?”

The woman hesitated, her gaze darting away. “Well, she’s a woman of remarkable abilities as I hear told. Hedge Maids … have talents, so I thought she might be able to help. But Jit— that’s her name, Jit— said that Henrik was special, not sick.”

“Does this happen with your son often, then?” Kahlan asked.

The woman worked some of the cloth of her simple dress into her fist. “Not often. But it happens. He sees things. Sees things through the eyes of others, I think.”

Kahlan pressed her hand to the boy’s forehead a moment and then ran her fingers back through his hair. “I think maybe it’s fevered dreams, that’s all,” she said. “He’s burning up.”

The woman was nodding knowingly. “He gets like that, all fevered and such, when he sees things through the eyes of others.” She met Richard’s gaze. “Some kind of telling, I think. I think that’s what he does when he gets like this. Some kind of foretelling.”

Richard, like Kahlan, didn’t think the boy saw anything more than fevered visions, but he didn’t say so. The woman already looked distressed enough.

Richard also didn’t hold much favor with prophecy. He liked prophecy even less than he liked riddles and he didn’t like riddles at all. He thought people made far more of prophecy than was justified.

“Doesn’t sound at all specific,” Richard said. “I don’t think it’s anything more than a childhood fever.”

The woman didn’t look to believe one word of it, but she also didn’t look inclined to contradict the Lord Rahl. It wasn’t all that long ago that the Lord Rahl was a greatly feared figure in the land of D’Hara, and with good reason.

Old fears, like old grudges, lived long lives.

“Maybe he ate something that was bad,” Kahlan suggested.

“No, nothing bad,” the woman insisted. “He eats the same things I eat.” She studied their faces for a moment before adding, “But the hounds have come around bothering him.”

Richard frowned up at the woman. “What do you mean, the hounds have come around bothering him?”