The Omen Machine (Sword of Truth 12)

The other six retreated to a safe distance, or at least what they believed to be a safe distance, suddenly cautious, fearing to be too hasty in their response.

As the familiar, cradling the stub at the end of her arm, slowed to glare at him, Hannis Arc crooked a finger at her, compelling her to return. Hesitantly, she approached the desk, rage and fear twisting her already twisted features. He noted that despite her rage, despite her hesitancy, she had nonetheless obeyed him.

He was pleased to see that she was beginning to respect him.

“Don’t you ever threaten me again,” he told her in a deadly tone. “Do you understand?”

She glanced down at her severed hand pinned to the desk. “Yesss,” she hissed.

“Now, answer my question. Has your mistress completed her tasks?”

“She watches the one you want watched. She still waits for the one she has summoned. The hounds drive him and will deliver him to her.” She lifted her remaining hand, pointing at him. “Once she has him, then her task is completed and she will be through with you.”

“She lives in my land and will do exactly as I say, when I say it, or she will lose my protection.”

“Jit does not need you to protect her.”

“Without my protection, Kharga Trace would not be a safe haven from the half people. She would be meat for their stew. You all would.”

The familiar paused for a moment, scrutinizing his eyes. “The half people? The half people do not exist. They are merely a dusty rumor from ages long past.”

“Oh, the half people exist. In fact, did you know that they make extraordinary weapons? Weapons that can be used against the dead?”

“Bah. Whispered gossip, nothing more.”

He arched an eyebrow. “And just who do you suppose made the knife pinning your hand to the desk?”

The familiar’s dark gaze descended to the knife impaling her dismembered hand before finally regarding him again with a murderous look. She seemed to think better of what she was going to say and instead took a defiant tone.

“The half people are no threat to us or our mistress. Even if they do exist, they remain locked away beyond the north wall as they have for thousands of years.”

Hannis Arc showed her a hint of a smile. “Not any longer.”

The familiar’s upper lip curled back in a snarl. “Another lie. The half people cannot breach the north wall.”

“They didn’t need to. I went beyond the wall and walked among them, talked with them. They listened, and in the end they chose to bow to me as their sovereign lord. So, I opened the gates for them. Now, they hunt the Dark Lands … but only where I tell them they may hunt, and who I tell them they may hunt.”

She studied his face for a moment. “You make a mistake thinking you can control the half people.”

“Jit is the one who had better worry about making mistakes.”

“Jit can protect herself,” the familiar hissed. “She does not need you to protect her, and neither do we. The half people would not come into the Trace. They would fear Jit as they feared the wall. They would fear to tread the Trace.”

The other six floated in close around her to reinforce the point.

“Have you been beyond the north wall?” He knew they hadn’t. The wall worked both ways— it had for thousands of years. “You know nothing of what they fear, and what they don’t fear. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you do.”

Hannis Arc yanked the axe free from the desk and gestured with it.

“They don’t hunt the Trace only because I told them to stay out. They would eagerly enter Kharga Trace if I were to allow them in … especially if I give them the disembodied limbs of you seven for their stewpots.”

The seven backed away as one and wisely remained silent.

“All of you, the Hedge Maid included, like the people of the Dark Lands, like the half people from beyond the north wall, are my subjects. You all live under my rule. You all owe your loyalty to me if you want to continue to enjoy the privileges you receive in return.”

The curiosity of one of them overcame her caution. “What privileges?”

Hannis Arc cocked his head to the side. “Why, the privilege of being allowed to live, of course.”

None of the seven questioned what he meant.

“You tell Jit that she had better do as she’s told. You tell her my words. You tell her that she also had better make sure that her familiars show proper respect to her ruler or none of you will have any hands left with which to feed her.”

They all retreated a bit more, fright clearly registering on their faces.

Abruptly, they swirled around to leave. “It will be as you have commanded, Bishop,” the handless one said. “We will tell our mistress your words.”

“See that you do.”

Hannis Arc watched as they swirled like smoke and slipped out through the cracks around the heavy door. On their way out, as Mohler before them, they were careful not to meet the gaze of the woman standing guard there.

Hannis Arc’s rage still burned out of control. He would set the wrongs right. The spirit of his father would watch from his hallowed place in the underworld as his son finally visited vengeance upon the House of Rahl.

This was the awakening of a new day in D’Hara, in more ways than one. The ages of darkness under the House of Rahl were about to be over.

Richard Rahl was about to lose his grip on power. He was about to lose everything. Hannis Arc would see to it. And when he did, a fearful people would clamor for a new leader.

Justice would finally be done.

Hannis Arc yanked the knife from the desk, the now slack hand still impaled on the blade. As he held it out toward the woman by the door, she stepped to the desk.

“Dispose of this, would you?”

As she reached for t

he knife, he abruptly drew it back. “No, I have a better idea.” He gestured with it. “Place it in that display case, there, for visitors to see.”

The woman in red leather flashed a grim smile. “Of course, Lord Arc.”

CHAPTER 38

Richard yawned. He looked up from the complexities of translating the symbolic elements he was working on to see Zedd coming back into the library. Through the high windows above, the first blush of dawn revealed a clear sky.

The strange spring storm had broken, but it seemed that it had merely been the harbinger of bigger problems. It was clear to Richard that there was trouble about, but what ever the core of the trouble might be, it was hidden from him. He was getting that familiar, uneasy feeling that he was in the dark about what was really going on.

All of it, from the boy down in the market to the storm, to the strange deaths, to the variety of strange prophecies, to the machine buried for so long that had suddenly come to life, was too much to be a coincidence. Things that seemed to be a coincidence always made him edgy. He was worried the most about the machine they had discovered, worried that it was somehow at the heart of it all.

The translations of the metal strips were only confirming his suspicions.

Since he had discovered that everything in the book was backward, those translations, while tedious, had been working smoothly. The more he learned from those translations, the more his concern grew.

As his grandfather crossed the library, Richard noticed that Zedd didn’t have the usual spring in his step. He thought at that moment that Zedd looked like nothing so much as an old man, a tired old man. Richard could read the creases in Zedd’s face and tell that he, too, was concerned about what kind of trouble they might have on their hands. Zedd’s typical exuberant, sometimes childlike way of looking at the world was nowhere in evidence. That, more than any words, framed for Richard the seriousness of the situation.