Warheart: Sword of Truth: The Conclusion (Sword of Truth 15)

“You wrote all these books?” Kahlan asked.

“Oh my no,” he said with a short chuckle. “I work with these books, record into them, but they predate me by many centuries. They contain the work of a long line of scribes who came before me, going back several thousand years, almost to the time when the citadel was built, I believe. All of it is recorded here. As did those before me, I have worked at this my entire life. Since I was young I have entered new prophecy in these books, most of that time for Bishop Arc.”

Knowing what he knew about prophecy, Richard was having a hard time believing that these books of recorded prophecy were the source of Hannis Arc’s knowledge and power. Prophecy, especially what he suspected was more folklore than true prophecy, could not provide that level of expertise.

“How do you choose which book to record these new prophecies in?” Nicci asked the scribe. “Was that also your job, to decide where they belong?”

He looked somewhat puzzled by the question. “They are categorized and then recorded according to their subject. I record them in the proper book for the subject contained in the prophecy.”

Richard shared a look with Nicci before he gazed out over the books lying open all over the room. “I was just starting to organize the prophecies at the People’s Palace. But it takes a true prophet to read the prophecy first and determine the proper subject.”

“Really?” Mohler asked, his eyes brightening. “I had no idea you were interested in such matters. Bishop Arc never cared much about the mundane aspects of my work. He only cared to read the new prophecies once I recorded them. Are there many books of prophecies there, at the People’s Palace?”

Richard arched an eyebrow. “The books in this room would not fill one small corner of one of the smaller libraries. There are a great many libraries there. Some of them, by themselves, as large as this citadel.”

Mohler’s eyes widened. “Really? I would love to see such a sight one day.”

“I hope that someday you can,” Richard said. He frowned, getting to what he really wanted to know. “Why aren’t the prophecies here recorded by chronology, rather than subject? Chronology is ultimately what matters. After all, a prophecy is irrelevant if it’s about an event that took place a thousand years ago, or will take place thousands of years from now. You need to know where a prophecy fits in time to know if it is relevant to what is happening today. Prophecy can only be linked, and more importantly put in context, if it can be placed chronologically.”

Mohler looked befuddled. “I rarely have any way of determining chronology, Lord Rahl, so I must instead use the subject as the category. That is how it has always been done.”

Richard didn’t want to tell the man right then and there that his life’s work had not only been misguided but was virtually useless. He couldn’t let it go entirely, either.

“The subject of the written words is misleading unless you are gifted and can confirm that the subject as written is actually related to the underlying prophecy. Are you gifted?”

Mohler touched a finger to his lower lip. “No, Lord Rahl. But I can read, so I know the subject.”

Richard shook his head. “The problem with that is that the words are not really the prophecy.”

The old scribe’s eyes widened. “They aren’t? But how can that be?”

“The meaning of the prophecy is hidden in a layer of magic beneath the words. What most people don’t understand is that the words are not actually the prophecy. They are only a trigger for the meaning of the real prophecy. A prophecy, for example, that says it will rain, may actually mean it will rain blood. Or a bounty of good crops. It takes a prophet to be able to see the vision of the real prophecy veiled by the words. The words are what trigger the vision, they don’t actually reveal it.”

Mohler looked about the room at his life’s work, seeming confused and lost, probably for the first time in his career.

“Even using the words,” Nicci said, “prophecy often contains references to a number of subjects. How do you determine which subject book to record them in?”

“I had to do the best I could, Mistress. I used my experience and judgment.” Mohler pointed. “For example, all the prophecy in that book is about the House of Rahl–a subject of great interest to Hannis Arc.” He looked up at Richard. “Do you mean to say that my entire life’s work is meaningless? That the categories are meaningless?”

Richard sighed as he looked around at the books lying open on pedestals. “I can’t say for sure. All I can tell you is that prophecy says I’m the one who is supposed to end prophecy–whatever that means. So, I guess that ultimately, if I’m successful, none of this will mean anything.”

“Isn’t that something,” Mohler whispered to himself as he stared at all the books as if seeing prophecy for the first time in a new light. “And to think, Bishop Arc spent so much of his life in here.”

What bothered Richard most was that if Hannis Arc didn’t help in the assignment of prophecy to particular books, that could only mean that the man wasn’t as interested in these prophecies as Mohler believed. Something else had been the focus of Hannis Arc’s attention and the source of his knowledge.

“The people who used all this didn’t really know what they were doing,” Nicci said, being more forward about it than Richard. “From what you say,” she told Mohler, “the things collected from anyone with the ‘talent for foretelling,’ means that most of this would be false prophecy.”

He looked alarmed. “False prophecy, Mistress?”

Nicci nodded as she looked around at the books. “True prophecy comes from wizards–prophets–not from country folk who imagine they have such talent and dream up prophecy. Those kind usually have a head full of predictions that come from dreams, wishes, fears, or most often their fertile imaginations.

“True prophets are wizards and wizards in this day and age are exceedingly rare. Prophecy among wizards is even more rare. Prophecy is meant to be read by others with the gift at least, and especially by other wizards who were gifted for prophecy. True prophecy is a specialty of wizards, not regular people.”

Mohler was frowning with concern. “You mean this in here is … not true prophecy?”

Nicci shrugged. “If you make enough predictions, eventually you will get one right, but that is by accident, not design. People focus on the one that turns out correct and from that give credibility to the others they believe have simply not yet come to pass, but forget about the hundreds or even thousands like them that have been forgotten because they have proven to be false.

“This looks to have become an obsession of a few in the beginning who didn’t really understand prophecy, and they passed on their beliefs in this kind of ‘prophecy’ to those who came after them. It’s akin to superstition, nothing more.

“At the Palace of the Prophets I worked for a great many years with the prophecy kept down in the vaults. It was prophecy written by wizards who were true prophets. I can tell you from experience that while there might be a few gems here, most of it is just common rocks.”

Richard was thinking the same thing. He wondered what Hannis Arc had really been doing in the room. If this prophecy was largely useless for the purpose and of little value, then how did Hannis Arc learn to raise Emperor Sulachan from the dead?

CHAPTER

26

Richard turned to the scribe. “Where did Hannis Arc work most of the time? You said that he spent a great deal of his time working in here. What did he do?”

Mohler shrugged uncomfortably. “I was not privy to exactly what it was he did. He did not discuss such matters with me–I was only his scribe. I do know, though, that he liked to study old documents. At least, that was what I most often saw him doing. I started early in the morning recording prophecy in the books, here, and he usually came in later. He did a lot of his work in here at night after I was gone.”

The old man lifted an arm out toward a large desk off to the side of the pedestals that held the books of prophe

cy. The disorderly desk was piled with everything from decorated bone objects and simple candlesticks to rulers and dividers to papers and stacks of old scrolls. A fat candle in a silver stand rested on top of a stack of worn ledgers. By the way layers of candle wax dribbled down all over one side of the ledgers, their importance appeared to have been nothing more than as a stand to elevate candles.

“Sometimes he would go over to the books and read prophecy I had recorded. I assumed that he did that when I was gone as well, but I can’t actually say for sure. I can’t say that I ever saw him paying close attention, though. I think he merely scanned them, looking for anything that might warrant more of his attention later.

“When I was here he occasionally liked to play chess”–the scribe gestured to a small stand with a board set with black and white game pieces–“over there.” He turned back. “Mostly, though, he worked there, at his desk.”

Standing behind the broad desk, Richard noticed that the closest pedestal, the one not far away on the other side of the desk, was the one holding the book that Mohler said contained prophecies about the House of Rahl. Just beyond that book of prophecy, rising up behind it, Hannis Arc would have had a good view of the stuffed bear standing up on its hind legs to tower over the book. The man probably liked the symbolism. In that light, the placement of objects in the room was beginning to make a little more sense.