The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 74

“Anything at all?” Richard asked Berdine in a quiet voice.

“Dead quiet out here, Lord Rahl.” Berdine pointed a thumb back over her shoulder. “I looked in on the Mother Confessor earlier and she was sleeping soundly. After that I took a tour of the area just to satisfy myself that there was no one around and nothing out of the ordinary. Then I came back up to this end of the hall and I’ve been right here outside the door ever since. The Mother Confessor has been a perfect patient. I haven’t heard a peep out of her.”

Richard laid a hand gently on the Mord-Sith’s red-leather-clad shoulder. “Thanks, Berdine.”

“Has the machine had anything else to say, Lord Rahl?”

Richard paused and looked back at her. “It’s had a lot to say, but I’m afraid that none of it is very useful.”

“Maybe we need the missing part of the book Regula in order to understand it.”

He’d had the same thought. “Maybe.”

Richard left Berdine outside in the hall and the soldiers of the First File off down the corridor to either side making certain that no one could get to their room.

Alone, Richard quietly closed the door behind himself as he stepped into the nearly dark bedroom where Kahlan was sleeping. He had turned down the wick on the lamp when he had checked on her earlier, so it was difficult to see much of anything. He didn’t want to turn the lamp up and risk waking her.

He was exhausted. It was going to be morning soon. He needed to get some sleep. He wished he hadn’t wasted so much time with the machine.

Not wanting to disturb Kahlan, Richard thought that maybe he would sleep in a chair. She needed a good rest in order to recover from her fever. He was thankful that his grandfather had put a poultice on her arm to help draw out the infection.

His own scratch from the boy down in the market had long ago healed. He had thought that Kahlan’s had as well. It was more than a little worrisome the way it had returned so suddenly, especially after Zedd had healed it with his gift.

On his way to the chair, Richard’s feet caught up a blanket lying in the middle of the floor.

He thought that Kahlan, in a fevered sleep, must have thrown off her cover. He picked it up by the edge and held it up to lay it back over her.

In the dim light from the lantern, on the way to the bed, Richard paused. Something was wrong. Even if Kahlan had thrown the blanket off in her sleep, it seemed unlikely she could have thrown it that far.

The first thing that instantaneously flashed through his mind was the machine’s warning that hounds would take her from him. Almost at the same time, he remembered Queen Catherine lying dead on the floor, her middle viciously ripped open by some kind of animals with fangs.

Richard dropped the blanket and rushed to the bed. Kahlan wasn’t there. He stared for a moment at the rumpled, empty bed before turning up the wick on the lamp and scanning the room. He didn’t see her anywhere.

When he glanced up, Richard saw that the door to the balcony was open. His first thought was that maybe her fever had driven her out on the balcony to get some relief in the cool night air.

Before he could go to the balcony, his attention was caught by his pack on the floor. Kahlan’s pack had been beside it before. He knew, because he had been the one who had put them both there. He supposed that Kahlan might have wanted to get something out of it and could have moved it somewhere, but he didn’t really believe that. Something told him that it would be a waste of time searching the room for it.

Richard instead ran to the balcony doors. He was worried that, at the least, she might have gotten worse. He expected to see her passed out on the balcony floor. She wasn’t there.

The bedroom, like the balcony, wasn’t that big. There was no way he could have missed her back in the room. Baffled as to where she could be, he reluctantly looked over edge of the railing, fearing that she might have fallen. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but not impossible. He was relieved to see nothing on the ground far below.

As he started to turn to go back inside, Richard saw that there was another balcony. It wasn’t connected or even all that close, but he went to the railing closest to it anyway for a look. He saw that it had a stairway down on the far side.

He saw, then, the scuff mark on the top of the railing where he was standing. It looked to have been made by a boot.

Richard hopped up on the railing and leaped across the daunting drop to the other balcony. The doors on the second balcony were locked and it was dark inside. It was possible that Kahlan had gone inside and then locked the doors, but he didn’t really believe that. It made no sense. If she feared something, there were guards and Mord-Sith just outside their bedroom door.

Instead of breaking in the door, Richard took Kahlan’s more likely route. He raced in the darkness down the flights of stairs, eventually reaching the grounds of the palace.

The moonlight coming through the thin haze of clouds wasn’t bright, but it was bright enough for him to recognize Kahlan’s bootprints. With a lifetime of tracking experience, he also recognized her unique gait. He could read the features of the way she walked and the tracks she made nearly as well as he could read the features of her face.

There was no doubt about it. Kahlan had come down the stairs outside the palace to the grounds at the top of the plateau.

The thing that worried him the most was that he could see by the prints that she had been running as fast as she could. He looked around for other prints, the prints of anyone who might have been chasing her, but there were no other footprints.

It didn’t make any sense.

Richard stood and stared off across the top of the dark plateau. What could she have been running from?