The Omen Machine

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “Well, hounds— wild hounds I think— came sniffing around here last night. I had just run out to get us a loaf of bread. Henrik was watching our bead wares. He was scared when the hounds showed up so he hid inside. When I got back they were sniffing and growling around the doorway of our tent, the hair on their backs standing up all stiff and such. I grabbed a stick and chased them off. This morning he was like this.”

Richard was about to say something when the boy abruptly twisted wildly. He lashed out with clawed fingers at both Richard and Kahlan as if he were a cornered animal.

Richard jumped up, pulling Kahlan back out of the boy’s reach as soldiers brought swords out.

Quick as a rabbit, the boy darted away toward the confusion of tents and crowds. Two soldiers immediately raced after him. The boy dove under a low wagon and popped up on the other side. The men were too big to follow and had to go around the wagon, giving the boy a head start of a dozen strides. Richard didn’t think his lead would last long.

In an instant the boy, with the soldiers hot on his heels, vanished among the wagons, tents, and people. It was a mistake to run from men of the First File.

Richard saw that the scratch on the back of Kahlan’s hand had drawn blood.

“It’s just a little scratch, Richard,” she assured him when she saw the look in his eyes. “I’m fine. It just startled me.”

Richard glanced down at the lines oozing blood on the back of his own hand and let out a sigh of frustration. “Me too.”

The captain of the guards, sword in hand, stepped forward. “We’ll find him, Lord Rahl. Out here on the Azrith Plain there’s no real place to hide. He won’t get far. We’ll find him.” The man didn’t look at all pleased that someone, even a boy, had drawn the Lord Rahl’s blood.

“Like the Mother Confessor said, it’s just a scratch. But I’d like you to find the boy.”

A dozen men of the guard detail clapped fists to their hearts.

“We’ll find him, Lord Rahl,” the captain said, “you can count on that.”

Richard nodded. “Good. When you do, see to it that he gets safely back here to his mother. There are healers among the people selling their wares and services. Bring one here when you find the boy and see if they can help him.”

As the captain detailed additional guards to search for the boy, Kahlan leaned closer to Richard. “We had better get back up to the palace. We have a lot of guests.”

Richard nodded. “I hope your boy is well soon,” he said to the woman before starting out toward the immense plateau atop which sat the People’s Palace, the place he had inherited when he had inherited the rule of D’Hara, a land that he had never even known existed as he’d grown up. In many ways D’Hara, the empire he ruled, was still a complete mystery to him.

CHAPTER 2

A penny for your future, sir?”

Richard paused to look down at the old woman sitting cross-legged out of the way at the side of one of the many grand halls of the People’s Palace. She leaned back against the wall beside the base of a marble arch that soared several stories overhead as she waited to see if she had won herself a new customer. A brown cloth bag with her belongings along with a thin cane lay close up against her hip. She was dressed in a simple but neat long gray woolen dress. A cream-colored shawl lay draped over her shoulders as protection against the occasional bite of departing winter. Spring had arrived, but so far it had proven to be more promise than substance.

The woman smoothed back stray strands of brown and gray hair at her temple, apparently wanting to look presentable for potential customers. By the milky film over her eyes, the way her head tilted up without facing anyone accurately, and her searching movements, Richard knew that the woman couldn’t see him or Kahlan. Only her hearing would be of any help in taking in the grandeur all around her.

Out beyond where the woman sat, one of the many bridges in the palace crossed the hall at a second-floor level. Clutches of people engaged in conversation strolled across the bridge while others stood at the marble balusters, gazing down on the vast passageway below, some watching Richard and Kahlan and their accompanying contingent of guards. Many in the thick crowds of people strolling the expansive corridors of the palace were visitors who had come for the festivities of the day before.

Though the People’s Palace was more or less under one roof, it was really a city tightly clustered atop a lone, immense plateau rising up out of the Azrith Plain. Since the palace was the ancestral home of the Lord Rahl, parts of it were off-limits to the public, but most of the expansive complex was home to thousands of others. There were living quarters for people of every sort, from officials to merchants, to craftsmen, to workers, with other areas set aside for visitors. The sprawling public corridors linked the city palace together and provided access to it all.