Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Omen Machine
The Omen Machine
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C H A P T E R
T
here is darkness,” the boy said.
Richard frowned, not sure that he had understood
the whispered words. He glanced back over his shoul-
der at the concern on Kahlan’s face. She didn’t look to have
understood the meaning any more than he had.
The boy lay on a tattered carpet placed on the bare ground
just outside a tent covered with strings of colorful beads.
The tightly packed market outside the palace had become a
small city made up of thousands of tents, wagons, and stands.
Throngs of people who had come from near and far for the
grand wedding the day before flocked to the marketplace,
buying everything from souvenirs and jewelry to fresh bread
and cooked meats, to exotic drinks and potions, to colorful
beads.
The boy’s chest rose a little with each shallow breath, but
his eyes remained closed. Richard leaned down closer to the
frail child. “Darkness?”
The boy nodded weakly. “There is darkness all around.”
There was, of course, no darkness. Streamers of morning
sunlight played over the crowds of people coursing by the
thousands through the haphazard streets between the tents
7
T E R RY G O O D K I N D
and wagons. Richard didn’t think that the boy saw anything
of the festive atmosphere all around.
The child’s words, on the surface so soft, carried some
other meaning, something more, something grim, about an-
other place entirely.
From the corner of his eye, Richard saw people slow as
they passed, watching the Lord Rahl and the Mother Con-
fessor stopped to see an ill boy and his mother. The market
out beyond was fi lled with lilting music, conversation, laugh-
ter, and animated bargaining. For most of the people passing
nearby, seeing the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor was
a once-in-a-lifetime event, one of many over the last few days,
that would be recounted back in their homelands for years to
come.
Guards of the First File stood not far away, also watching
attentively, but they mostly watched the nearby crowds shuf-
fl ing through the market. The soldiers wanted to make sure
that those crowds didn’t close in too tightly, even though
there was no real reason to expect any sort of trouble.
Everyone was, after all, in a good mood. The years of war
had ended. There was peace and growing prosperity. The
wedding the day before seemed to mark a new beginning, a
celebration of a world of possibilities never before imagined.
Set amid that sunlit exuberance, the boy’s words felt to
Richard like a shadow that didn’t belong.
Kahlan squatted down beside him. Her satiny white dress,
the iconic symbol of her standing as the Mother Confessor,
seemed to glow under the early-spring sky, as if she were a
good spirit come among them. Richard slipped his hand un-
der the boy’s bony shoulders and sat him up a little as Kahlan
lifted a waterskin up to the boy’s lips.
“Can you take just a sip?”
8
THE OMEN MACHINE
The boy didn’t seem to hear her. He ignored her offer and
the waterskin. “I’m alone,” he said in a frail voice. “So alone.”
The words sounded so forlorn that they moved Kahlan to
reach out in silent compassion and touch the boy’s knobby
shoulder.
“You’re not alone,” Richard assured the boy in a voice meant
to dispel the gloom of such words. “There are people here with
you. Your mother is here.”
Behind closed eyelids, the boy’s eyes rolled and darted, as
if looking for something in the darkness.
“Why have they all left me?”
Kahlan laid a hand gently on the boy’s heaving chest. “Left
you?”
The boy, lost in some inner vision, moaned and whined.
His head tossed from side to side. “Why have they left me
alone in the cold and dark?”
“Who left you?” Richard asked, concentrating in an effort
to be sure he could hear the boy’s soft words. “Where did
they leave you?”
“I have had dreams,” the boy said, his voice a little brighter.
Richard frowned at the odd change of subject. “What kind
of dreams?”
Disoriented confusion returned to haunt the boy’s words.
“Why have I had dreams?”
The question sounded to Richard like it was directed in-
ward and didn’t call for an answer. Kahlan tried anyway.
“We don’t—”
“Is the sky still blue?”
Kahlan shared a look with Richard. “Quite blue,” she as-
sured the boy. He didn’t appear to hear that answer, either.
Richard didn’t think that there was any point in continu-
ing to pester the boy for answers. He was obviously sick and
9
T E R RY G O O D K I N D
10
THE OMEN MACHINE
11
T E R RY G O O D K I N D
12
THE OMEN MACHINE
13
T E R RY G O O D K I N D
14
THE OMEN MACHINE
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
CONNECT WITH OTHER SCIENCE FICTION FANS
tor.com
macmillan.com