The Sword of the Truth, Book 12 - The Omen Machine (4 page)

K
ahlan watched Zedd pace across the gold and blue carpet and back again toward the heavy mahogany table, his long robes swishing around his legs when he turned, as if they were having trouble keeping up. Windows up on the balcony level lit the long library with cold, flat light. Through those windows she could see that since they had been down in the market earlier in the day, iron gray clouds had moved in, bringing the threat of a spring storm.

Though there were windows along that far wall of the balcony, the lower floor of the library near ground level had none. Kahlan thought that the library must be somewhere near to being under the Garden of Life, located in massive parts of the palace above them. Because of the complex construction of the palace it was hard for her to tell for sure.

Off in a far corner, Nathan leaned against a fluted wood column broader than his broad shoulders. With a ruffled shirt, high boots, and green cape hooked to one shoulder, to say nothing of the sword he wore, he looked more like an adventurer than a prophet. But a prophet he was. Under the warm yellow light of a reflector lamp mounted on the column in the shadowy niche he looked totally engrossed in the study of a book.

Before Kahlan, books lay in orderly stacks and disorderly piles at random intervals all along the length of the table. Papers sat in batches among the books, along with lamps, ink bottles, pens, and empty mugs. Reflector lamps on the columns at either end of rows of shelves helped illuminate the more secluded areas of the library. With the overcast, and despite the lamps, gloom had settled over the still room.

Berdine, wearing a brown leather outfit, folded her arms and leaned against the table as she, along with the rest of them, watched Zedd pace. While her eyes were as blue as Cara’s, her wavy hair was brown rather than blond. She was shorter and curvier than most of the other Mord-Sith.

Unlike most of the other Mord-Sith, Berdine was fascinated by books and had many times proven to be a tremendous help to Richard in ferreting out useful information among the thousands of volumes. While Berdine usually went about her book work with bubbly enthusiasm, she was no less deadly than Cara or any of the other Mord-Sith.

Zedd finally came to an impatient halt. “I’m not convinced that it can work, Richard— or at least, work effectively. For one thing, there are many ways to classify books, as well as books that contain more than one subject. If a book is about a city located beside a river, and you place it in a section on cities, then later when you need information about rivers you won’t be aware that this book on cities might have something important to say about a river.”

He sighed as he glanced around the library. “I’ve been reading and studying these kinds of books my whole life and I can tell you from long experience that you can’t always pigeonhole a book in a category.”

“We’ve taken that into account,” Richard said with quiet patience.

Exasperated, Zedd turned to a disorderly pile of books on the table, and after taking a quick look at a book that lay open on the top, he picked it up. He waggled it before Richard. “And then there are books like this. How do you find a classification for things that don’t even make any sense?”

Berdine scratched the hollow of her cheek. “Which book is it? What’s it about?”

Zedd closed it briefly to read the title. “
Regula
,” he announced in annoyance. He scanned a few pages, then shook his head in surrender. “I don’t know what the title means and after looking at it I have even less of an idea what it’s about.”

As he handed the book to Berdine, Kahlan could see that after the title
Regula
on the spine, there was a strange circular symbol with a triangle in it embossed into the leather. Inside that circle with a triangle lay a curving, hooked symbol that she’d never seen before. It looked something like the number nine, but it was backward.

“Oh, this one,” Berdine said as she flipped over a few pages. “Some of it is in High D’Haran, but a lot of it isn’t. I suspect that it’s a wordbook.”

Zedd puzzled at her a moment. “What does that mean?”

“Well, I can understand bits of it, the parts that are in High D’Haran, but I’m not sure what all these weird squiggly lines and symbols mean.”

“If you’re not sure what it is,” Zedd fumed, “then how can you even classify it?”

Richard laid a hand on Zedd’s shoulder. “We’ll put it on the list with all the other books that make no sense to us. That is its classification for now: unknown.”

Zedd stared at him for a moment. “Well, I guess that makes some sense.”

“Oh, it’s not unknown, Lord Rahl,” Berdine said. “Like I was explaining, I think it’s a wordbook.”

“A wordbook?” Zedd waggled a finger over the open book Berdine was holding. “It’s full of all those peculiar symbols, not words.”

“Yes, I know.” Berdine brushed a stray lock of wavy brown hair back off her face. “I haven’t been able to study it much, but I suspect that the symbols are an ancient form of writing. I saw a place that referred to it as the language of Creation.”

Zedd harrumphed. “Sounds like you could classify it as ‘useless.’ I think this is going to be such a common problem that I’m not sure I see the point of all this work.”

“Look,” Richard said, “there have been times when we’ve gotten into a lot of trouble, or couldn’t prevent trouble, because we couldn’t find answers when we needed them.

“In the past there were scribes who kept track of the vast amount of information in each library. From what I know of it, they were responsible for particular books, or specific sections of a specific library. If there was need for books that might contain information on a particular subject, the scribes could be consulted and they could narrow the search to books where answers were most likely to lie.

“Without all those knowledgeable scribes who knew about and cared for the books, the vast information in the libraries is, for all practical purposes, inaccessible. We need a way to find books on any given subject in order to find answers.

“Since the last time you were here we’ve begun cataloging everything. We’re trying to create a system to include all the books in all the libraries so that if we need answers we have a way to find information on specific topics.”

Zedd gestured to the table. “That’s these stacks of papers?”

Richard nodded. “I don’t want to move the books around too much because I don’t know why they’re in a particular library, or for that matter why they’re on particular shelves. Other than dangerous books on magic that are placed in restricted libraries, I haven’t been able to figure out any logic to where books are kept, but it’s possible that there is a reason for them being where they are. Without knowing the reason, I don’t want to move them around and chance inadvertently creating a new problem.

“So, we’re making up a sheet for each book with its title, location, and some kind of description of what’s in the book. That way we can sort the pages into categories instead of having to sort the books themselves.

“In the example you mentioned, we would have a sheet for the book in with the cities category and we’d make a copy of that sheet to put in the rivers category. That way, we’re less likely to miss important secondary information.”

Zedd looked around at the row upon row of shelves. There were thousands of books in this library, and it was only one of many in the palace.

“That’s going to be a lot of work, my boy.”

Richard shrugged. “We have a wealth of information in the tens of thousands of books in various libraries throughout the palace, but no effective means to find specific information when we need it. Instead of fixating on that problem, I came up with a solution. If you have a better one, then I’d like to hear it.”

Zedd’s thin lips pressed tight for a moment as he considered the problem. “I guess not. I have to admit, what you say makes sense. I used to do something similar, but on a much, much smaller scale.”

“The First Wizard’s enclave, at the Wizard’s Keep,” Richard said as he nodded. “I remember the way books were stacked in piles all over the place.”

Zedd stared off into memories. “I put books about specific things I wanted to have at hand together in stacks. I had once meant to organize them on shelves. Never got around to it, though, and there were relatively few books there in that one place. Maybe now, with the war ended, when I get back to the Keep I can finally return to that long-forgotten work.”

“Lord Rahl had us start here, in this library, because for the most part it doesn’t seem to contain especially valuable or rare books,” Berdine said, drawing Zedd’s attention away from his memories. “Back when Darken Rahl was the Lord Rahl, he didn’t use this library that I saw. I think that means the books here are less important.”

“That you know of,” Zedd admonished. “You can’t depend on that to say that at least some of the books in here might not be rare … or dangerous.”

“True,” Berdine said. “But some of the other libraries have books that we know for a fact are filled with dangerous things.”

“We thought this would be a good place to start,” Richard said, “before we move on to the larger or more restricted libraries. And if there are important books in here we’ll now know they’re here because we will eventually merge all the sheets on all the books. That way we’ll know where any of the books on any given subject are located, no matter which library they’re in, no matter if they are scattered all over the palace.”

Zedd seemed to have calmed down. “That makes sense.”

“So,” Richard said as he gestured to the book on the table that Zedd and Berdine had looked at before, “when we do have a book like that one, we mark it unknown, or I guess maybe ‘wordbook,’ as Berdine suggested.”

“Well actually, Lord Rahl, that one happens to be unlike anything else I’ve run into. I was going to talk to you about how we should handle it. It’s not unknown, exactly, but it’s not exactly a wordbook, either.”

Richard folded his arms. “You said it was a wordbook.”

“Possibly, but I can’t classify it that way,” she said.

Richard frowned at her. “Why not?”

“Well, what I meant was that it was starting to look that way, but I can’t tell for sure.”

Richard scratched an eyebrow. “Berdine, you’re confusing me.”

Berdine leaned over and pulled the book back. She flipped it open on the table, looking up at Richard as if she were about to pass on some bit of juicy gossip.

“Look here. This book was rebound. This isn’t its original cover.”

Zedd, Kahlan, and even Cara leaned in a little to see the book.

Richard focused on it with renewed interest. “How do you know?”

Berdine ran her finger along the inside of the spine where it attached to the back cover. “You can see here where it was mended together, but it doesn’t match. The book itself isn’t complete. Most of it is missing. This binding was made specially to hold only what was left.”

Richard cocked his head to try to see the book better. “Are you sure that most of the book is missing?”

“I am.” Berdine turned the last page back over and tapped the words in High D’Haran at the end of the book. “Look here. Except for some of the book’s beginning, most of the pages were removed. They inserted this note as a last page to explain what they’d done.”

Richard took the book off the table and read to himself. As he silently worked out the translation, a little of the color left his face.

“What does it say?” Kahlan asked.

Richard’s troubled gaze rose to meet hers. “It says that the rest of the book was removed and taken to ‘
Berglendursch ost Kymermosst
’ for safekeeping. This remaining part, here, was left as a marker.”

Kahlan remembered that name.
Berglendursch ost Kymermosst
was High D’Haran for Mount Kymermosst. Mount Kymermosst was where the Temple of the Winds had originally been built.

Three thousand years ago the Temple of the Winds, because it contained so many dangerous things, had somehow been cast out of the world of life to where no one could get to it.

It had been hidden away, out of reach, in the underworld.

On occasion over the intervening thousands of years, there had been those who had traveled to the world of the dead to try to get into the Temple of the Winds. None had survived the attempt.

Until Richard.

He had gone alone to the underworld and had been the first in thousands of years to set foot in the temple.

When he had unlocked the power of the boxes of Orden to end the war, he had righted a number of wrongs, eliminating dangers and traps that had killed a great many innocent people.

He had also returned the Temple of the Winds to the world of life, to its rightful place atop Mount Kymermosst.

W
ell,” Zedd finally said into the hush, “at least you know where the rest of this book is located.” His bushy brows drew down over his intent hazel eyes. “When you told me that you had returned the temple to this world, you said that no one but you can get into it. That is the case, isn’t it, Richard?”

It sounded to Kahlan more like a command than a question.

Despite the intensity in Zedd’s voice, the tension finally eased out of Richard’s posture. “Right. What ever the rest of the book contains, it’s safely locked away.”

Richard let out a sigh as he closed the strange book and placed it back on the table. “Well, Berdine, I guess that you should mark the sheet for
Regula
as unknown and put down its location as both here and in the Temple of the Winds.”

Zedd turned back to Berdine, as if wanting to save the topic of the Temple of the Winds for later, for a private conversation with Richard. “So, you are making up a page for each of the books in here?”

Berdine nodded as she scooped up a fat stack of papers. “Each of these pages is a book. In this case, all the books in this stack are books of prophecy. We put down the title and include some of what the book is about if we can.”

“That way,” Richard said, “by having a sheet of paper on each book, we’ll eventually have a virtual library of all the books in the palace. I don’t think prophecy can be of much help to us, but at least we’ll know where all those books are located and what subjects they revolve around.”

Kahlan thought that was a slim chance. Most books of prophecy contained random predictions, not subjects about which prophecy was written. Prophets, gifted people who were once not so extremely rare as they became over the centuries, wrote down any prophecy that came to them, whenever it came to them, about what ever came to them. As a result, many books of prophecy had no chronology much less common subject, making them notoriously difficult to categorize.

More than that, though, they were only really meant to be read by other prophets. A person without the gift could not properly interpret a prophecy’s meaning by the words alone. Prophecy, written or spoken, rarely turned out to mean anything like what you thought it meant. Rather, the vision it invoked in prophets contained the true meaning.

Everyone turned when Nathan walked up along the opposite side of the table. “And I’m here to look over all the books of prophecy to help with categories, if they apply. I’ve spent my life reading prophecy so I’m usually already familiar with each volume. Just listing them as prophecy is usually the most that can be done, but at least we’ll then have an inventory of all of them and know where each is to be found.”

“Nathan’s help is invaluable,” Berdine said. “I don’t even try to categorize books of prophecy.”

Richard folded his arms as he leaned a hip against the table. “Speaking of prophecy, Nathan, in the halls today I ran into an older woman who tells fortunes.”

Kahlan had been wondering how long it would take Richard to get around to the second child of trouble.

“Was she blind?”

“Yes.”

Nathan nodded. “Sabella. I’ve met her. She’s the real deal.”

“You mean that you think she really can tell people their fortunes?”

Nathan held his thumb and finger barely apart. “Little ones. She has only a very small amount of genuine ability. Most of what she says is pure embellishment, telling people what they want to hear so she can earn her way in life. A lot of what she does is to make the most likely future sound as if she had seen it in a vision. For instance, she might tell a young woman that she sees marriage in her future. Hardly divination, as most young women will marry.

“But she does have a smidgen of actual ability. If she didn’t, I would have brought her to your attention. I don’t think you would want a charlatan in the palace cheating people about prophecy any more than I would.”

Kahlan was well aware that Nathan, the only living prophet that she knew of, was rather protective of the reputation of prophecy. Richard didn’t place much belief or reliance in prophecy, but Nathan did. He viewed Richard’s avoidance of prophecy, his free will, as the balance that prophecy, like all magic, needed to exist.

“Is there anyone else here who, while obviously not gifted like you, at least has some genuine ability with prophecy?” Richard asked.

“There are several people in the palace who have a small amount of talent at predictions. Everyone has a spark of the gift. That’s how they interact with magic, including prophecy.”

Nathan gestured vaguely. “Everyone, from time to time, has had a sudden thought about a friend or loved one they haven’t seen for ages. They may be overcome with a need to see that person. When they do, they discover the person is sick or maybe just passed away. Most people have experienced a feeling that someone they haven’t thought about for ages is about to visit, and suddenly they knock on the door.

“Most people have had such little foreknowledge from time to time. These are all manifestations of prophecy. Because we all carry at least a small spark of the gift, this ability, even though very weak, will sometimes produce an omen.

“In some it’s a little stronger, and they regularly experience these minor prophetic events. While not true prophecy such as I have, this does give them the ability to see a shadow of the future. Some people are self-aware enough to pay attention to these little inner whispers.”

“And you know of people like that here at the palace?”

Nathan shrugged. “Certainly. One woman works on the official kitchen staff. She is visited by small premonitions. There is another, Lauretta, who works at a butcher shop in the palace. She, too, has a hint of ability. In fact, she has been pestering me to convince you to come see her. She claims to have something for you, some omen.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“Richard, there must be ten people a day who want me to use my influence with you to gain them some favor, to have you buy their wares, to get them an audience with you, even to invite you for tea so they might give you their advice about issues that are important to them. I don’t bother you with matters you don’t have time for. Lauretta is a good enough woman, but she is especially strange, so I haven’t brought her to your attention.”

Richard sighed. “I know what you mean. I’ve run into a number of those people on my own….”

Kahlan thought that Richard was often a little too patient with people. She thought that he let them take up too much of his time, divert him from more important matters, but that was just the way Richard was. He was simply, innocently, interested in everything, including people’s lives and concerns. In that, she could see some of Zedd in him. It was also part of what she loved about him, even if from time to time it tried her patience.

“So, what did Sabella, the blind woman, tell you?”

Richard gazed off into a distant corner of the library for a moment before looking back at the prophet. “That the roof is going to fall in.”

Nathan stared, unblinking, for an even longer moment. “That kind of foretelling is too specific. It’s beyond her ability.”

“Well, that’s what she said.” Richard appraised the ashen look on Nathan’s face. “Are you sure it’s beyond her ability?”

“Afraid so.”

“Do you know what the prophecy means?”

Kahlan thought that Nathan might not answer, but finally he did. “No, can’t say that I do.”

“If you don’t know what it means, then why do you have that look on your face and how do you know that it’s beyond Sabella’s ability? How do you even know that it’s a real omen and not simply an empty warning she made up in exchange for a coin?”

Nathan took the stack of papers from Berdine. “Most of the books in this library are rather common,” he said as he thumbed through the pages. “I’ve been reading books of prophecy my whole life. I’d venture to say I know just about every one that exists. Most of these books here, including the books of prophecy, are copies that can be found in libraries in any number of other places.”

Nathan finally found the sheet he was looking for and pulled it out. “Except this one. This one is a rather curious volume.”

“What’s so unusual about it?” Richard asked.

The tall prophet handed the sheet to Richard. “Not a lot until today. That’s why I haven’t studied it much.”

Richard scanned the page. “
End Notes
. Strange title. What does it mean?”

“No one is really sure. This is a particularly ancient work. Some think it’s merely a compilation of random bits of longer prophecies that have been lost over the ages. Others have believed that it means exactly what it implies, that it contains notes about the end.”

Richard frowned up at Nathan. “The end? The end of what?”

Nathan arched an eyebrow. “The end of time.”

“The end of time,” Richard repeated. “And what do you think?”

“That’s the odd thing about it,” the prophet said. “I don’t know what to think. Having the gift, as I read prophecy I often have visions of their true meaning. But this book is different. I’ve looked at it a number of times throughout my life. When I read it I have no visions.

“What’s more, I’m not the only one. Part of the reason that no one is sure of the meaning of the title is that other prophets have had the same difficulty with this book that I have. They, too, had no visions from the prophecies in it.”

“Doesn’t seem so hard to figure out why,” Cara said. “It sounds to me like that simply shows that what’s written in the book aren’t real prophecies. You’re a prophet. If they were real prophecies you would know it. You would have the visions.”

A sly smile overcame Nathan’s face. “For someone who knows nothing about magic, you have managed to arrive at the heart of the issue. That has been the contention of many who say they are random snippets and therefore too incomplete to be viable, or that the book is a fraud.” The smile ghosted away. “There is only one problem with that theory.”

“And what would that be?” Richard asked before Cara could.

“Let me show you.”

Nathan marched off down the center aisle with Richard, Kahlan, Zedd, Cara, Benjamin, and Berdine in tow. Rikka stayed back by the door to the library where she had been standing guard to make sure they weren’t disturbed. At the very end of the room Nathan started scanning the titles in the tall, ornately decorated bookcase against the wall. He finally bent and pulled a book from a lower shelf.

“Here it is,” he announced as he showed them the spine with the title
End Notes
. After searching for a moment, he handed the open book to Richard and tapped a place on the right-hand page.

Richard stared at the words as if he was having trouble believing what he was seeing.

“What does it say?” Kahlan finally had to ask.

Richard’s gray eyes turned up to her. “It says, ‘The roof is going to fall in.’”

“You mean just like that old woman said today?” Kahlan frowned. “What does the rest of it say?”

“Nothing. That’s the only thing on the whole page.”

Nathan glanced around at the small group surrounding him. “It’s a fragment prophecy.”

Richard stared at the writing in the book. Benjamin seemed puzzled. Zedd wore a stony expression that deepened the wrinkles on his angular face. Berdine looked decidedly worried.

Cara scrunched up her nose. “A fragment prophecy?”

Nathan nodded. “A prophecy so concise that it can appear to be nothing more than a fragment, a snippet. Prophecy is usually at least a little more complex than this and usually a great deal more involved.”

Richard glanced down again at the book. “Or it’s simply empty boasting.”

Nathan straightened. “Boasting?”

“Sure. Someone wanted to make themselves sound impressive so they came up with something that sounds specific but isn’t.”

As Nathan cocked his head, his long white hair brushed his shoulder. “I don’t follow.”

“Well, how long ago do you think this was written?”

“I can’t be sure, but the prophecy itself has to be several thousand years old, at least. Possibly much older than that.”

“And in all that time since then don’t you suppose that a roof or two has collapsed? It’s an impressive-sounding prophecy, saying a roof is going to fall in, but it’s really nothing more than like announcing on a sunny day that you predict that it will rain. Sooner or later it’s going to rain, so such a prediction is pretty safe to make. In the same way, over the years, sooner or later, a roof is going to fall in. When it does, that event makes the person who said it sound prophetic.”

“That makes sense to me,” Cara said, happy to have the magic of prophecy defanged.

“There’s only one problem with that,” Nathan said.

Richard handed back the book. “Like what?”

“Empty predictions are usually open-ended. Like you say, sooner or later it’s going to rain. But with real prophecy they repeat themselves. You might say that the omen resurfaces to remind people of it.”

Richard looked up at Nathan from under his lowered brow. “You mean to say that you think that because this woman today repeated this fragment prophecy that means it’s real? That the time for it has arrived?”

Nathan smiled the slightest bit. “That’s the way it works, Richard.”

Kahlan noticed someone arrive at the doorway. By the robes with gold trim she recognized the man as a palace official. Rikka spoke briefly with him, then hurried down the aisle.

“Lord Rahl, the reception is beginning. The new husband and wife should be there to greet people.”

Richard smiled as he put his arms around Benjamin’s and Cara’s shoulders and started them toward the door. “Let’s not keep people waiting for the guests of honor.”