“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?”