The Omen Machine (Sword of Truth 12)

Out of nowhere from the darkness at the sides of the room, other big dogs lunged out at her, just missing her.

Kahlan gasped in fright and dove through the open door out to the small balcony. The railing caught her in the middle, driving the wind out of her. She was lucky it did, because she could see that it was quite a drop to the ground, a drop that would have killed her.

She spun to shut the door but the dogs were already through. She saw that up against the side of the building, not far from her balcony, there was another balcony. There were several feet of space separating them, and quite a drop between them.

There was no time to consider it, and no other option. She put a foot up onto the top of the railing and used it to boost herself across the space toward the other balcony. Teeth snapped closed, just missing her ankle.

She landed on the top of the fat railing on the second balcony, but slipped and fell sprawling on the floor. Looking up, she saw that on the far side of the balcony there was a narrow stairway down to the ground. She looked back and saw the dogs stand with their front paws on the balcony of her room, looking to see where she had gone.

She looked back at the stairs. This had to be how they had gotten up to her room. They had come up the stairs, leaped across to the balcony outside her room, and gotten in that way.

She saw the dogs back up on the balcony to her room, getting the space they needed to make the leap. She had no time to stop and think. She was in full terror mode as she jumped up and raced for the stairs.

She bounded down the steps three at a time as the first dog made the leap across. She panted, out of breath, as she frantically ran down the steps, hooked a hand on the end cap of the railing to spin herself around for the next flight, and launched herself down those as well.

She looked back briefly, reasoning that she could use her backpack to fend them off if they got too close. When she saw the snapping jaws lunging for her, she realized that fending them off with her pack was not going to work. She ran all the faster down the steps, taking each turn by hooking her hand over the newel and spinning around to change directions at each switchback flight of stairs.

Having to make those turns slowed the snarling pack of dogs as they slid on the stone, scrambling to gain footing as they turned the corners. Kahlan was able to gain a lead on them. It was not a comfortable lead, but it at least gained her a bit of distance from the teeth.

Her head hurt so much that she thought she might simply collapse and then they would have her.

She remembered the prediction of the woman who had murdered her children, the woman Kahlan had taken with her power, the prediction that fangs would come for Kahlan and tear her apart.

Kahlan ran all the harder.

But even as she ran, she knew that she was near the end of her endurance. She could feel her strength waning. As she found herself racing across the ground in the dead of night, she was near to dropping from exhaustion. Behind, the hounds were coming, and they were catching up again. She had no choice but to keep running.

The hammering pain in her head was close to overwhelming her. She knew that she would not be able to go on for long, and then the hounds would have her.

She remembered the horrific sight of Catherine, killed by animals of some kind. Kahlan was pretty sure that she now knew what had killed the pregnant queen.

The same thing had killed Catherine and her unborn child that was now after Kahlan. There was no doubt that if these beasts caught her, they would rip her apart the way they had ripped apart Catherine. That image, that memory, powered her legs.

The only chance she had was to run. But even if she hadn’t been near to the end of her strength, the dogs were running faster. What distance she had gained on the stairs, they were rapidly making up. Worse, the initial fright that had powered her and carried her on, that burst of fear-driven strength, was expended. She was near to dropping.

She had to do something.

Kahlan saw a wagon up ahead in the darkness moving away from her.

She changed course a little and ran toward it. She was out of breath, but she knew that even a momentary pause in her maximum effort would mean that the hounds would sink their teeth into her and bring her down once and for all— they were that close.

Kahlan nearly cried out with giddy joy when she reached the wagon, but she didn’t have the voice or the breath. She timed her paces right and leaped up onto the iron rung step hanging down off the back.

As the dogs leaped, snapping, trying to get ahold of her leg, she pulled herself up to the second step and, with a final mighty effort, dove up and over into the wagon.

As she landed, she cracked her head hard on something dead solid. The pain was stunning.

Her world went black.

CHAPTER 68

It was deep in the middle of the night by the time Richard finally stepped off the spiral stairs and into the room with Regula. It had been a long journey from the guest quarters up to the Garden of Life. The palace complex was a sprawling city and it sometimes seemed that he spent half his time crossing back and forth through it.

He gritted his teeth in anger at the sight of the machine. He was fed up with the way its predictions had been at the core of every one of the recent deaths. And now the machine was predicting that the hounds would take Kahlan from him.

He couldn’t get the image out of his mind of the manner in which the hounds had taken Catherine from her husband. The thought of that happening to Kahlan had him seeing red.

On the way from the murdered Queen Orneta, despite Nicci’s assurance that Kahlan was sleeping peacefully, he had stopped in to check for himself. He had slipped quietly into the room and by the light of a single lamp burning on a table by the bed he had seen her, covered by the blanket he had tucked under her chin earlier, sound asleep. Her breathing had been even and she wasn’t tossing and turning, so it seemed to Richard that she was resting comfortably. He had gently kissed her forehead and left her to her rest.

He had also checked with Rikka, Berdine, and the soldiers to make sure that they understood that anything at all unusual was to be taken as dead serious. They all understood.

The whole time, the words from the machine, The hounds will take her from you, kept running through his mind.

Zedd looked up when he saw Richard coming. “What is it?”

Richard flicked his hand at the machine. “Remember the prediction the machine issued earlier this evening? ‘A queen’s choice will cost her her life.’”

“What of it?” Zedd asked. “Have you figured out what it means?”

Richard nodded. “Turns out it was about Queen Orneta. She made a decision to throw her allegiance behind Hannis Arc, of Fajin Province, because he believes in the use of prophecy, deals in it all the time, and would be only too happy t

o reveal it to her and anyone else who wants to be guided by it. A short time later she was killed.”

“Killed? How?”

Richard took a deep breath. “Killed by a Mord-Sith. It makes no sense. I don’t want to believe that one of them did it, but there is no doubt that it was done at the hands of a Mord-Sith.”

“I see.” With a troubled expression, Zedd turned and paced a few steps away as he considered the implications.

Richard pulled the strip of metal out of his pocket and waved it as he spoke. “The machine later issued this omen— the one you sent with Nicci.”

Zedd looked back over his shoulder. “What does it say?”

“It says ‘The hounds will take her from you.’”

Zedd’s hazel eyes reflected how tired he was. His gaze sank. “Dear spirits,” he whispered.

Richard pointed back at the machine. “Zedd, I want this thing destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Zedd, rubbing his chin with his fingertips, looked up with a frown. “I understand your feelings, Richard, but do you really think that’s wise?”

“Do you know of any prophecy, any at all, that results in a joyous event? Any you’ve seen throughout your life?”

Zedd seemed puzzled by the question, and his frown deepened. “Yes, of course. I don’t recall them exactly, offhand, but I know I’ve seen them before and recall the general nature of a few. They are not as plentiful as more ominous prophecies, but there are prophecies of joyous events sprinkled regularly throughout books of prophecy. Nathan, as well, has had prophecies of happy events or outcomes.”

“And has this machine issued a single prophecy other than simply predictions of suffering and death?”

Zedd glanced at the machine standing silently in the center of the gloomy room lit by the strange light from the proximity spheres.

“I don’t suppose it has.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Odd? What do you mean?”

“There’s no balance. Prophecy is magic. Magic has to have balance. Even the existence of prophecy itself has to be balanced by free will. But there is no balance to the prophecies this thing has been issuing, is there? It’s all death and suffering.”