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

He smiled sadly. “You have just done something against your nature. You have acted of free will and told me something that you did not need to say.”

When the answer came through, Richard puzzled over it.

It was not against my nature. It is prophecy, one of them that has been true.

Richard nodded. “I guess that maybe you’re right.”

Another metal strip ran through and finally dropped out. Richard bent down and picked it up.

Why do I exist?

He sighed. “You are a part of the underworld. You are meant to regulate certain things there–things the dead tell you. You are the keeper of the eternal now.”

Immediately another metal strip came through.

That is my purpose in that world. Prophecy says that I was sent here to fulfill my purpose, but not what that purpose is. What is my purpose here, in this world?

Richard stared at the metal box that now somehow seemed alive to him. “You are the keeper of the eternal now. How can you not know your purpose?”

The machine hardly paused before inscribing its answer.

Because you act on free will. You determine my purpose.

It felt like the machine was feeling him out, prodding him to say the right thing.

“I believe you have answered your own question about what is it like not to know what will happen. Not to know all the possibilities. You only have to ask yourself what it is like to be surprised. Maybe you are coming to understand the Wizard’s Rule?”

As Regula waited, Richard leaned over and rested both hands on the machine. “My choice is to help you get back to the world where you belong before your presence here destroys the world of life. That will help you be where you belong. Your purpose is to help me.”

The machine sat still and quiet, as if considering, or maybe testing his words against some kind of original constraints. The ground suddenly thumped as Regula started up again, snatching a metal strip out of the stack in the bin. Richard peered down through the thick, wavy viewing glass, watching the plate move through the tracks and gears, being pulled along by metal pincers. When Regula was finished inscribing the symbols of the message, it dropped the metal strip into the bin. Richard stared at it for a moment before picking it up and carefully laying it on top of the machine.

He stared at what it said, what it confirmed in his mind.

The lost are among us. You are their only hope. You are the Warheart. Do what you must. Act according to the Wizard’s Rule.

He knew exactly what it meant. He remembered Naja Moon’s words written on the cave wall in Stroyza.

Before he could say anything, Regula jumped to life again, but this time with an abrupt thud. Four metal plates were pulled into the machine, one right after the other. The machine rumbled as the strips ran their course through the gears and inner workings. This time, though, it sounded somehow different.

When the first dropped into the tray, he saw it steaming. He gingerly tested it with a finger. The metal strip was scalding hot. He knew what that meant.

It said, My children are coming.

The second hot metal strip emerged from the machine. He let it cool for a moment before picking it up.

They will devour you all.

The third plate said, Retribution is finally at hand.

The last plate plinked down into the tray. Richard plucked the hot strip out of the tray and tossed it on top of Regula.

Here they come.

He knew exactly what was happening. Emperor Sulachan and Hannis Arc had taken control of what the omen machine said. They were using it. They had done it before. When they did, the metal strips always came out hot.

This time they were telling him that the invasion of the palace was about to begin. It was their way to announce their arrival to strike paralyzing fear into their victims.

CHAPTER

53

Richard pressed his hand to the top of the machine in a silent thank-you.

He turned and hurried to the cramped landing for the spiral stairs where the others waited.

Nicci looked up. “So, what was that all about? What did it say?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said, flicking a hand back toward Regula. “Nothing much, really. Nothing that made any sense. You know the way it likes to talk in riddles. Just more of those same games and nonsense we’ve gotten from it before.”

Nicci made a sound to say that she knew what he was talking about. Nathan looked disappointed.

Richard rubbed the back of his neck. The pain from the poison was making his head hurt so much it was making him sick to his stomach. Kahlan, watching him, could see how he was feeling.

“I knew it was a waste of time. Now can we go to the containment field?” There was no mistaking by her tone that it was not really a question.

He gave in with a weary nod. “Of course. I told you we would go there as soon as I checked the machine. It’s fine. I’m done. Let’s go.”

Kahlan blinked, apparently having expected an argument of some sort. “Well, all right, then. Good.”

Richard grabbed Nathan’s arm and turned the frowning prophet to get him started up the circular stone stairway. He needed to distract them from the omen machine.

“Are all the defenses in place,” Richard asked Nathan, “like I told you we needed in case those unholy half-dead get into the palace?”

Nathan looked back over his shoulder as Richard prodded him upward. “How would they get in? The palace is sealed tight.”

“Well, there are catacombs out there on the plains, remember? That’s how I got in before. Jagang managed to launch an attack in that same way. Sulachan is one of the dead, after all, so he would likely be aware of such places. And then there are the walls that are melting–”

“You’ve made your point,” Nathan said, holding up a hand. “You go on to the containment field while I check with General Zimmer and make sure that the defenses are in place and ready. If need be, I can always use wizard’s fire to hold any invaders back. Happy?”

“Yes, thank you, that would ease my mind if you would coordinate it with him. If those unholy half-dead get in here, we are going to be in a lot of trouble.”

“Once I’m done healing you,” Nicci said, “I’ll go help them. If the enemy breaks in there are plenty of choke points inside where we can keep them contained with the help of fire.”

“Good,

” Richard said with a firm nod, not believing a word of it. There would be no containing such forces, at least not for long.

At the top of the stairs as they went around the empty structural chamber and climbed the ladder up and out of the hole where the floor of the Garden of Life had collapsed, Richard gestured to the prophet. “Nathan, you had better get going while we have the chance. Get General Zimmer and his men in place. The rest of us will head for the containment field.”

Back up on the floor of the Garden of Life, surrounded by the heady fragrance of jasmine that grew in great swaths beside the walkway that wandered down toward them in the heart of the room, Richard paused to look across the remaining grass to the altar. There on top of the granite slab where lives were once sacrificed, right where he had left them, sat the three boxes of Orden.

All of their covers were off. Each sinister-looking box was blacker than black. Each looked like a window through the world of life into the underworld itself.

He supposed that in a way that’s exactly what they were. The power of Orden could create spectral folds that brought worlds together. Now, the world of the dead was coming together with the world of life.

Richard glanced up at the glass roof over the Garden of Life. The sun had set and the sky was darkening. Richard couldn’t yet see the first stars.

“It will be night soon,” Nicci said. “Night is the best time to use the containment field, so we will have that on our side to help us.”

“We can’t get there soon enough to satisfy me.” Kahlan gestured around the room. “The Garden of Life is a containment field. Why can’t we do it here?”

Nicci shook her head, dissuading them from the notion. “With the breach in the floor down into the substructure and below that into the room with the omen machine, we dare not trust that the containment field would still be intact. We know that the omen machine goes down through the plateau, like a deep taproot. That could drain the power protecting the field right into the ground. We simply can’t trust it. The consequences of a field breach would be catastrophic. We know that the other one, down in that lower library, is intact. We need to get down there and use that one.”