The Omen Machine

Kahlan let out her breath. “That’s a relief.”

“So this man had also had a vision?”

Nathan nodded. “He’s a jewelry maker. He told us that he had a vision that men are going to come to his house to rob him but he won’t be there. In this vision, the thieves torture his wife and children, trying to get them to reveal where the gold he uses to make jewelry is hidden. They don’t know. The men don’t believe them and over a period of hours torture his family to death, one at a time, trying to make them talk. The man insisted that he could not bear to allow such a horrific thing to happen to his family, that it was better to kill them quickly than let them endure the agony they would otherwise suffer.”

Richard looked puzzled. “That’s not at all like the other prophecies.”

“We have him locked up, if you want to question him,” Benjamin said.

Richard nodded, lost in thought.

The general hooked a thumb behind his weapons belt. “There is something else, Lord Rahl.”

Richard looked up. “What else?”

Benjamin took a deep breath. “Well, my men managed to get all the people and their animals down on the plain into the plateau before the worst of the storm descended on us last night. While the last of them were being ushered inside, the men conducted a wide sweep, wanting to make sure that they didn’t miss anyone, that no one was left behind or got lost in the storm to freeze to death in one of those flimsy market tents.

“While they were scouting they found a boy who had been dragged off and killed. He was maybe ten, no older.”

“Killed?” Richard asked. “What do you mean he was dragged off? How was he killed?”

The general didn’t shrink from the question. “He’d been partially eaten, Lord Rahl.”

Richard blinked in surprise. “Eaten?”

“Yes, Lord Rahl. His insides had all been eaten out. His face had been chewed off. The skull had long gouge marks from teeth. One arm and the other hand were missing. Animals had feasted on him, tore him open, and mostly ate out his innards.”

Richard sagged a little at the news. “A small boy, out in the storm, lost, away from people, would be easy prey for wolves, or even a pack of coyotes. It was probably Henrik, the sick boy I talked to, the one who ran off.”

“My men took account of everyone we herded inside. We were still trying to find the boy you had talked to. We talked to his mother. She told us that her boy hadn’t come back. She was worried sick.”

“That must have been him, then— the dead boy you found.”

Benjamin was shaking his head before Richard had finished. “That was our thought, too, but it wasn’t him. We described the clothes to the mother. She said that wasn’t what Henrik wore. A little later a man came to us for help. He was looking frantically for his boy. My men asked what he was wearing. The man described the dead boy’s clothes perfectly.”

Richard pressed his lips together in regret. “Then that means that the sick boy, Henrik, is lost out there on the Azrith Plain. In this storm he’s frozen to death by now. If a pack of wolves didn’t take him first.”

CHAPTER 18

It was a long journey down to the dungeons, but it was something Richard had to do. He needed to question the woman who had thrown her four children to their death. He needed to try to figure out what was happening.

Kahlan had gone instead to meet with the representatives to try to calm their concerns about prophecy while Richard was looking into the source of those concerns. Richard’s flip tongue had more than once gotten him into trouble. Kahlan would be less likely to get frustrated with them than he would. She had been schooled in diplomacy.

He wished that Verna, the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light, could have gone with Kahlan to help explain the dangers of a layperson inferring anything from prophecy. Prophecy was not at all as clear as it sounded. That was because it was not intended for those who weren’t gifted. It was actually a kind of private message passed down from prophets in the past. Only a prophet could have the visions a true prophecy engendered and in that way understand its true meaning.

Verna knew a great deal about those dangers. After all, the Sisters of the Light had imprisoned Nathan in the Palace of the Prophets for nearly a thousand years out of fear that he would reveal prophecy to ordinary people.

Verna could have helped dissuade people from thinking they could properly understand prophecy. Unfortunately, along with Chase and his family, she had left for the Wizard’s Keep immediately after Cara’s wedding. There were gifted boys there who needed supervision and training. Zedd was supposed to return as well, but he had wanted to stay for the reception, and now the storm and troubling events had further delayed him.