Warheart

CHAPTER 25

Up on the top floor of the citadel, Mohler, the old scribe, looked back over his shoulder as he lifted the lantern out toward the oak door. With its heavy iron straps it looked like it could be a door to a treasure vault, or a dungeon.

“This is the place, Lord Rahl,” Mohler said. “This is–was–Bishop Arc’s study. It’s the recording room where all the prophecies have always been kept and where he worked most of the time.”

Richard wasn’t especially happy about getting tangled up in the uncertainties and misdirection of prophecy, but he needed to know what information Hannis Arc had been using as he hatched his plot to bring Emperor Sulachan back from the underworld. It was clear that something he had been using was effective or Sulachan would still be in the world of the dead.

Mohler lifted a finger out from his fist holding the metal ring of the lantern and placed it against the door as he smiled back at Richard, Kahlan, Nicci, and the three Mord-Sith. Richard thought it was more an apologetic smile than one of pleasure.

“Like the scribes before me, I’ve spent nearly my entire life working in here, devoted to the prophecies kept here, tending the old ones and recording new ones that came in for Bishop Arc.”

Richard glanced from the old scribe to the door. “Let’s hope there is something in them that will help us stop the man.”

The hunched scribe conceded the point with a nod before leaning down even more to pick the proper key from the ring of keys he always had with him. Long wisps of gray hair did little to cover the top of his bald head and the blotches of dark spots scattered across his scalp. Richard lifted the lantern from the man’s hand to make it easier for him to select the right key and unlock the door.

Mohler finally stuck the correct key in the lock, and holding the handle, jiggled it in a way the old lock needed to be finessed in order to make the bolt clang back. He pushed the heavy door inward and retrieved his lantern from Richard before leading them into the room. Once inside, cocooned in the lantern light against the darkness, he plucked a long sliver from a small iron cup mounted on the wall near the door and lit it in the flame of his lantern, then let the glass cover back down before rushing around the room using the flaming sliver of fat wood to light candles and lamps along the way. Each flame added its own little bit of light until the room was fully revealed.

There were no windows to allow the night to look in. High beams on the ceiling were all decorated with ornamental carving. The plastered walls had darkened over the ages from the soot of candles and lanterns, leaving them a dark, mottled tan.

Laurin closed the door and then stood before it. The other two Mord-Sith took up posts to either side of the door, guarding it so that no one could disturb them.

Considering the size of the citadel, the recording room was far more expansive than Richard had expected, even though it wasn’t nearly as large as many prophecy rooms he had seen before. Since the citadel was primarily a prison to hold those who had been born with occult power leaking out from beyond the barrier until they could be executed, it seemed strange that so much space would be devoted to prophecy.

He supposed that it might not have been intended for such a use when it had been first built, and along the way those who ran the citadel, like many people, became increasingly obsessed with prophecy. Prophecy, too, even false prophecy, gave those controlling it power over people.

Mohler pointed to ledgers lining shelves of tall bookcases to the left side, as if to answer the question in Richard’s expression. “I believe that originally, many ages ago, this was the place where information from the condemned was recorded. All those books there hold names and family links. I think that those in charge back then used those ledgers as a way to try to contain the spread of any infection leaking from the third kingdom. But at some point, prophecy became more important to the people who ran this place and the ledgers were forgotten, along with the original purpose of the citadel.”

Richard nodded. “I think that the inmates took over the prison, so to speak. Once they were in charge, they came to believe that prophecy was their means of changing their place in the world to one of domination.”

“Prophecy certainly was an obsession of Hannis Arc,” Mohler confirmed, “and he was obsessed with domination. Especially of the House of Rahl.”

“Why would he be so concerned with the House of Rahl?” Kahlan asked.

Mohler turned to look at her. “They murdered his family when he was still a boy.”

Richard nodded. “Some of my ancestors murdered a lot of people and made a lot of enemies.”

“Well,” Nicci said, changing the subject as she looked around, “this is no match for the vaults of prophecy that were once at the Palace of the Prophets.”

“Let’s hope that what is here at least turns out to be valuable to us,” Kahlan said.

Even with all the candles and lanterns Mohler had lit, the recording room was rather dark and gloomy, but more than that, the place was decidedly strange. An odd assortment of various items stood all throughout the expansive room. Glassed display cases held odd collections of smaller objects. Randomly throughout the room were low cabinets, cases, statues, and pedestals grouped in no particular order that Richard could make out, but he did see that everything had been placed in an even grid pattern, so that they almost resembled pieces on a giant game board. Around the edges of the room in several places there were overstuffed chairs, comfortable spots to relax or read.

Richard frowned as he scanned the room, trying to make sense of it, but he decided in the end that maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense. Not everything had to make sense. Sometimes people simply put new things they collected wherever they could find space. Most likely, the items, everything from marble statues to a bronze sundial, were placed in the room as they were collected. Collected, though, by a disorderly mind that would put a sundial in a dark room with no windows, as if hiding it from its purpose. Either that, or Hannis Arc found comfort in chaos.

They walked slowly, silently, past glassed cabinets that held odd collections of items. There were bones from strange creatures Richard didn’t recognize, common-looking rocks, small figures made of straw wearing crudely sewn clothes, carvings of people and animals arranged in scenes of country life, and geared mechanical devices the purpose of which Richard couldn’t begin to guess.

Although, those geared devices did remind him in a way of Regula, the omen machine. Regula was filled with complex geared workings.

The shelves in the cabinets also held small boxes in a variety of sizes along with round tubes with symbols in the language of Creation carved all over them. Scanning a few of the boxes, Richard mentally translated some of the symbols and saw that each item told a story, not unlike the scenes depicted by some of the little carved figures.

Nicci shook her head as she stared into one of the cases. “I hate to imagine where Hannis Arc would have obtained some of these rare objects.”

When she looked at Mohler, he shrugged an apology for not having an answer. “He didn’t collect all of them. Some of these things were here since I was young. I know that he did add items from time to time, but others were here before I was born.”

There were also a number of preserved animals in different places around the room. Besides more common creatures in common poses such as a deer standing in a display thick with dried grass, a family of beavers posed on a mound of sticks, and raptors, their wings spread as they stood on bare branches, there was also a large bear towering up on its hind legs, jaws spread wide in a silent roar, its claws raised so that it looked perpetually ready to attack.

In various places throughout the room, conforming to the grid pattern, large pedestals stood in random spots within that gridwork, in no apparent order. Each carved wooden or stone pedestal held an enormous open book, each with a heavy leather binding. Some of the books were decorated with gold leaf. Most showed great age and wear, with frayed edges all around their covers. They would have been hard to move because of their sheer size, but because they appeared to be quite fragile they probably had permanent homes on their pedestals rather than on one of the bookshelves against the back wall.

They all lay open to different places in the volumes, places where the latest entries had been made. Some were opened in the middle, others closer to the end. Only a few lay open near the beginning.

Tables near the pedestals holding the books were piled with disorderly stacks of scrolls. Richard unfurled several and it confirmed his speculation that they were prophecies that had come in to the citadel for Mohler to record in the permanent collection of large books. While a few of the prophecies sounded complex, most were simpler than the typical prophecies he had read. The wax seals on many of the scrolls were unbroken, the scrolls waiting their turn to be opened and recorded.

Kahlan had told him the horror of how Ludwig collected prophecy by torturing captives. It was probable that for some of those scrolls, at least, someone had died at Ludwig Dreier’s hands. It had to be the ultimate terror to be at the mercy of such a madman.

And yet, strangely, it appeared that Hannis Arc was in no particular hurry to see all the new prophecies lying untouched. Richard was beginning to suspect that something else must have commanded the man’s attention, which meant that, for Hannis Arc at least, the prophecies were not the most important thing in the room, and not what occupied most of his time. Something else was. Richard wondered what that something else could be.

Mohler swept a hand of gnarled, arthritic fingers around, indicating the open books. “This has been my life’s work, Lord Rahl. These are the books where I recorded prophecy collected from out in the Dark Lands.” With a kind of reverent affection, he let the hand settle on one of the open books. “These books are where I would write down all the prophecy brought to the citadel, as scribes before me had done for generations.”

“Did all of these prophecies come from Ludwig Dreier?” Richard asked.

“Actually, only a small portion came from Abbot Dreier. He believed that he was the bishop’s most important source of prophecy, but actually he wasn’t. Most of the scrolls and even ledger books are brought in from various places around the Dark Lands. A number of emissaries from the citadel traveled the towns and more remote areas out among the villages and the cunning folk to collect prophecies from anyone with the talent for such foretelling. Once each foretelling arrived back here, I recorded it in these books.”

“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?