The Omen Machine

“Well, all the other symbols— on the sides of the machine and in the book— are the same, but the one projected by light from within the machine up onto the ceiling was reversed. Up on the ceiling, the nine wasn’t backward. That emblem, projected from inside the machine up onto the ceiling, is what the symbol looks like from inside the machine, looking out. It’s what the machine would see on the ceiling. That’s how it sees its own emblem.”

“How it sees its own emblem?” Zedd repeated in frustration. “You can’t be serious.”

Richard pulled a piece of paper close and dipped his pen in an ink bottle and drew a large, boldly dark figure nine on it. He held it up for Zedd to see.

“This is what the machine is drawing with light, what it sees: a nine.”

Zedd rolled his hand. “Go on.”

Richard turned the paper around and held it in front of a lamp so Zedd could see the nine through the back of the paper. “When you look down into the machine at the light, at what the machine sees as a nine, what it is drawing with light, you see the nine like this— backward.

“The emblem, as we see it marked down everywhere, the impressions, the imprints, are what we would see looking down into the machine, at the designs in light it would be creating and projecting outward. But that’s backward from the machine’s view out onto the world”— Richard flipped the paper around so Zedd could see the front with the nine the way he had drawn it—“of the way it sees the emblem it projects onto the ceiling.”

Kahlan rose from her chair as the simplicity of it dawned on her. “Of course. Richard is right, these are all backward.”

Zedd eyed them both as if the insanity had become infectious. “You’re making this machine sound alive. It’s gears and levers, you said. A machine.”

“Of course.”

With one hand on a hip, Zedd paced as he considered it. “I hate to say it,” he finally admitted, “but as crazy as it sounds that actually does make sense. Dangerous books involving magic usually have safeguards to keep just anyone from using them. It may sound crazy when you hear it at first, but it certainly would make a powerful safeguard.”

“It seems like a pretty easy safeguard to crack,” Berdine said. “Sure, it took Lord Rahl a little while, but he figured it out. Seems like a safeguard would have to be more difficult to solve if it really is going to protect a dangerous book.”

“You really think so?” Zedd slowly shook his head as his gaze left Berdine to meet Richard’s. “The only reason he figured it out was because he activated the magic that showed him the projected symbol.

“I have a feeling that only the right person could have done that. Many forms of magic are keyed to specific users. Someone else might have found that machine, but I have a feeling that only Richard could have activated it. In so doing it gave him the solution he needed to make the book work for him so that he could use that clue to understand what the machine wants to tell him. I doubt anyone else would have had access to that clue. That makes the safeguard doubly safe.”

Zedd tossed a metal strip on the table.

Richard stared at the old wizard for a moment. “Now you’re the one making it sound alive.”

Zedd only smiled.

Richard finally sat and scooted his chair up to the table. “Berdine, we have to invert all those rules we had listed out and then link them to the High D’Haran translations.”

Berdine dipped her pen in an ink bottle and pulled a piece of paper close. “Here, let me see one of those other strips.”

Richard picked one of the strips up off the table. He turned it over in his fingers a moment before looking at the symbols inscribed on it. He laid it at the top of Berdine’s paper so she could use it as reference.

“This is going to take a while,” Richard told Zedd as he pulled the book back. “But we’ve already established all the links, so hopefully it will be a little easier this time through.”

CHAPTER 35

Richard turned his attention to Benjamin, standing back out of the way with Cara and Nyda, watching. “I need you to do something, General.”

Benjamin stepped forward. “Yes, Lord Rahl?”

With the back end of his pen, Richard pointed toward the ceiling. “I need you to take a work crew up there, to the Garden of Life, and have them fix the glass roof. It needs to be done as soon as possible.”

Benjamin tapped a fist to his heart. “I’ll take care of it, Lord Rahl.”

“Zedd, Nathan, Nicci, while Berdine and I are working on this, why don’t you go down there and see what you can find out about the machine.”

Zedd nodded. “I would like to get a look for myself.”

“And Benjamin, I need you to do something else.” Richard gestured back over his shoulder. “You see that odd notch in the wall? It really makes no sense for this room to have that corner intruding into it like that. We’re somewhere under the Garden of Life. I want you to see if you can’t figure out a floor plan of this area of the palace.”

Benjamin glanced to the notched corner. “A floor plan?”