The Omen Machine. Terry Goodkind

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      As they started out, Kahlan hung back, snagging Cara’s arm to hold her back as well. They both slowed, letting the others think that maybe they wanted to talk about the wedding and Cara now being married— something that as far as Kahlan knew had never happened before. Until Richard came along, who would ever have had the unthinkable thought of a Mord-Sith marrying?

      “What is it?” Cara asked in a low voice.

      Kahlan glanced toward Richard, Zedd, Benjamin, and Rikka out ahead, engaged in conversation. The rich carpets muted their words as well as their footsteps.

      “Something is going on. I don’t know what, but I know Richard well enough to know when he has the bit in his teeth.”

      “What would you like me to do?”

      “I want a Mord-Sith to stick close to him at all times.”

      “Mother Confessor, I had already made that decision when Zedd told us that whoever was looking in the room might have been looking because it was Lord Rahl’s room.”

      Kahlan smiled and put a hand on Cara’s shoulder. “Glad to see that marriage hasn’t dulled your senses.”

      “Yours either. What do you think is going on?”

      Kahlan drew her lower lip through her teeth.

      “Earlier today a boy with a fever told Richard that there is darkness in the palace. I think it was just the fever talking, but I know Richard and I know that those words stuck in his head.

      “Just before we came down here, an old woman, a fortune-teller, stopped Richard and told him that ‘The roof is going to fall in.’ Then, when we come down to see you, we find out about this business with someone looking into your room.”

      “What do you suppose Lord Rahl is thinking?”

      Kahlan looked over to meet Cara’s intent blue-eyed gaze. “If I know Richard— and I do— he’s thinking that he has just met the third child of trouble.”

      “I knew I should have put on my red leather this morning.”

      “No need to get ahead of ourselves. I’m only being cautious. Just because Richard is thinking it, that doesn’t mean it’s true.”

      “Mother Confessor, when Lord Rahl gets like this trouble usually follows.”

      “There is that,” Kahlan agreed.

      CHAPTER 5

      Kahlan watched Zedd pace across the gold and blue carpet and back again toward the heavy mahogany table, his long robes swishing around his legs when he turned, as if they were having trouble keeping up. Windows up on the balcony level lit the long library with cold, flat light. Through those windows she could see that since they had been down in the market earlier in the day, iron gray clouds had moved in, bringing the threat of a spring storm.

      Though there were windows along that far wall of the balcony, the lower floor of the library near ground level had none. Kahlan thought that the library must be somewhere near to being under the Garden of Life, located in massive parts of the palace above them. Because of the complex construction of the palace it was hard for her to tell for sure.

      Off in a far corner, Nathan leaned against a fluted wood column broader than his broad shoulders. With a ruffled shirt, high boots, and green cape hooked to one shoulder, to say nothing of the sword he wore, he looked more like an adventurer than a prophet. But a prophet he was. Under the warm yellow light of a reflector lamp mounted on the column in the shadowy niche he looked totally engrossed in the study of a book.

      Before Kahlan, books lay in orderly stacks and disorderly piles at random intervals all along the length of the table. Papers sat in batches among the books, along with lamps, ink bottles, pens, and empty mugs. Reflector lamps on the columns at either end of rows of shelves helped illuminate the more secluded areas of the library. With the overcast, and despite the lamps, gloom had settled over the still room.

      Berdine, wearing a brown leather outfit, folded her arms and leaned against the table as she, along with the rest of them, watched Zedd pace. While her eyes were as blue as Cara’s, her wavy hair was brown rather than blond. She was shorter and curvier than most of the other Mord-Sith.

      Unlike most of the other Mord-Sith, Berdine was fascinated by books and had many times proven to be a tremendous help to Richard in ferreting out useful information among the thousands of volumes. While Berdine usually went about her book work with bubbly enthusiasm, she was no less deadly than Cara or any of the other Mord-Sith.

      Zedd finally came to an impatient halt. “I’m not convinced that it can work, Richard— or at least, work effectively. For one thing, there are many ways to classify books, as well as books that contain more than one subject. If a book is about a city located beside a river, and you place it in a section on cities, then later when you need information about rivers you won’t be aware that this book on cities might have something important to say about a river.”

      He sighed as he glanced around the library. “I’ve been reading and studying these kinds of books my whole life and I can tell you from long experience that you can’t always pigeonhole a book in a category.”

      “We’ve taken that into account,” Richard said with quiet patience.

      Exasperated, Zedd turned to a disorderly pile of books on the table, and after taking a quick look at a book that lay open on the top, he picked it up. He waggled it before Richard. “And then there are books like this. How do you find a classification for things that don’t even make any sense?”

      Berdine scratched the hollow of her cheek. “Which book is it? What’s it about?”

      Zedd closed it briefly to read the title. “Regula,” he announced in annoyance. He scanned a few pages, then shook his head in surrender. “I don’t know what the title means and after looking at it I have even less of an idea what it’s about.”

      As he handed the book to Berdine, Kahlan could see that after the title Regula on the spine, there was a strange circular symbol with a triangle in it embossed into the leather. Inside that circle with a triangle lay a curving, hooked symbol that she’d never seen before. It looked something like the number nine, but it was backward.

      “Oh, this one,” Berdine said as she flipped over a few pages. “Some of it is in High D’Haran, but a lot of it isn’t. I suspect that it’s a wordbook.”

      Zedd puzzled at her a moment. “What does that mean?”

      “Well, I can understand bits of it, the parts that are in High D’Haran, but I’m not sure what all these weird squiggly lines and symbols mean.”

      “If you’re not sure what it is,” Zedd fumed, “then how can you even classify it?”

      Richard laid a hand on Zedd’s shoulder. “We’ll put it on the list with all the other books that make no sense to us. That is its classification for now: unknown.”

      Zedd stared at him for a moment. “Well, I guess that makes some sense.”

      “Oh, it’s not unknown, Lord Rahl,” Berdine said. “Like I was explaining, I think it’s a wordbook.”

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