The Omen Machine

“Of course. Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?” Nicci frowned around at everyone. “I thought you said that you knew all about it. Her husband found out what had happened and was going to kill her. He was screaming for her blood. I was afraid that the guards who grabbed the woman were going to let him have her. I sympathize with his feelings, but I couldn’t allow it for now. I had her locked up, instead, because I thought you or Kahlan would want to question her.”

Richard was incredulous. “Why did she do it? What did she say?”

Nicci appraised them all as if they had collectively gone mad. “She said that she had a vision and couldn’t stand the thought of her children having to face the terror to come, so she killed them swiftly instead. You said that you knew about it.”

“We knew about the other one,” Richard said.

“Other one?” Nicci looked from face to face, finally settling on Richard. “What other one?”

“The one who cut her two children’s throats and then came to the reception and tried to kill Kahlan.”

Nicci’s concerned gaze darted to Kahlan. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I took her with my power and had her confess. She told us what she had done and what she intended to do.”

Nicci pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Wait, you’re saying that there was a second woman who also had a vision and killed her children?”

Kahlan and Richard both nodded.

“That would help explain why people are so unnerved and want to know what prophecy has to say about it,” Richard said.

“What’s going on?” Nicci asked.

“I don’t know, yet.” Richard rested the palm of his left hand on his sword. “We saw a sick boy down in the market this morning who said that there is darkness in the palace, and then a blind woman who said that the roof is going to fall in.”

Nicci reflexively glanced up. “The roof?”

Richard nodded. “Yes, and some other things that make just as little sense.”

Nicci’s troubled blue eyes turned to Richard. “When I asked the woman what her vision had been, she said that she couldn’t let her children live to face what will happen after the roof falls in.”

“That makes three people who have said that very thing.”

“Three?”

“Yes.” Richard tapped the hilt of his sword with a thumb as his mind raced down all the various dark paths, trying to think of where they could be leading. “Besides the blind woman, a fortune-teller told me the same thing. That makes three people who said it. Plus the book.”

With a finger on the side of his chin, Nicci turned his face back toward her. “Book?”

“Nathan found a book, End Notes, that says those very words— that the roof is going to fall in— and a number of the other strange things I’ve heard today.”

“I know the book, End Notes.” Nicci folded her arms as she appraised Kahlan’s eyes and then looked back at Richard. “Strange things. Like what?”

“Nathan took me to see another woman a while ago about her predictions. She said that the sky is going to fall in. ‘Sky’ is not the same as ‘roof,’ but it does have a certain similar ring to it. Then she told me another prediction, and that one, word for word, is in the same book. But it makes no sense.”

“What did this woman say that’s also in the book?”

“Actually, she wrote it down a day or two back. She writes down all her predictions. She fancies herself a prophet. It said ‘Queen takes pawn.’ Like I said, it makes no sense.”

Nicci didn’t look at all mystified. “It’s a move in chess.”

Richard couldn’t help frowning again. “Chess? What’s that?”

“It’s an obscure, little-known game.”

“Never heard of it.” He looked around at the others. None of them had ever heard the word, either. “What is it? Something played with a ball, like Ja’La?”

Nicci waved off the notion. “No, nothing like that. Chess is a board game. It has a variety of pieces, like a queen, king, bishop, pawn— things like that. Queen takes pawn is a move in the game. It means what it sounds like. The queen captures a pawn, removing it from play, killing it, I guess you could say.”

Zedd let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never heard of such a game.”

“Like I said, it’s pretty obscure. As far as I know it’s only played in a few remote places.”

“What places?” Richard asked.

“Well, for one, Fajin Province.” Nicci gestured back down the hall yet again. “In the Dark Lands, where the abbot is from.”

Richard looked off down the hall, almost as if he thought he might see the abbot.

“By the way,” Nicci said, “what were you doing with the little weasel?”

“I was asking him about a Hedge Maid.”

Nicci rammed the heel of her hand into his chest, driving Richard up against the wall. Fury flashed in her blue eyes.

She gritted her teeth. “What did you say?”

Richard took hold of her wrist and removed her hand from his chest. The angry glare remained firmly in place.

“I wanted to know about a Hedge Maid named Jit. She lives in a place called Kharga Trace in Fajin Province. Why?”