“Do you know what it was about?”
Nathan squinted one eye as he searched his memory. “Like I said, I couldn’t read it, but I remember some of the Sisters, the ones who told me it was a Cerulean scroll, referred to it as the Warheart scroll.”
“If they couldn’t read it, then how do they know it was called the Warheart scroll?”
Nathan shrugged. “I don’t know, Richard. I don’t even know where it came from.”
Richard let out a sigh. “And I suppose that it disappeared and no one knew what ever happened to it.”
“As a matter of fact, I believe it was traded for a number of rare books of prophecy.”
If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Richard might have laughed out loud. “That figures.”
“Why?” Nathan asked.
“I’ve read the Warheart scroll. I was just wondering if you had seen any others like it, here at the palace.”
Nathan leaned in with surprise. “You found it and you read it? What was it about?”
“It was about me,” Richard said as he stretched up looking over rooftops. He pointed. “That’s the glass roof of the Garden of Life.”
Nathan looked back over his shoulder at where Richard had pointed. “Yes, what of it?”
“I need to go there. Right now. I need to go see Regula.”
Kahlan came away from the wall, seized his shirt at the shoulder, and pulled him around toward her. “We can go see the omen machine later. Right now we need to get you to the containment field so that Nicci can get that poison out of you.”
“Besides,” Nicci pointed out, “to understand the omen machine and how it works you would first need to go to the Temple of the Winds to recover the other half of the book, Regula–the half that tells how Regula works.”
Richard looked back at Nicci. “That book hidden away in the Temple of the Winds is a false lead, much like The Book of Counted Shadows was a decoy. It’s a fake meant to protect Regula. I don’t even need to see it to tell you it’s full of misinformation.”
“Without seeing it?” Nicci looked incredulous. “How can you possibly say that?”
“Zedd taught me that a lot of powerful magic is protected by such misleading information. Such stories send people off track looking for supposedly authentic information. Even if they do find it, it’s actually a fake like The Book of Counted Shadows, just meant to mislead people and prevent them from knowing how something really works.”
Nathan lifted his arms. “But how can you know that is the case with this book, Regula? The half we have reveals that the other half, hidden in the Temple of the Winds, fills in the parts we don’t understand. How would you know that it doesn’t really reveal how Regula works?”
Richard waited patiently until the old wizard was done. “Because I already know how it works.”
Nathan’s arms came down. “How could you know such a thing?”
“Because I’ve read the Warheart scroll.”
Nathan stammered, looking like he had so many questions he didn’t know where to start.
“We need to go,” Richard told everyone before Nathan could put voice to all his questions. “I need to get to the omen machine.”
Kahlan snatched his sleeve again. “No you don’t, Richard. First we go to the containment field. I can see in your eyes how much worse that poison has gotten, and how sick you are. I remember what it was like and how it grows. The poison is advancing and you can’t afford to waste any more time. Against all odds, we’ve finally made it here. Now that we’re here we are going to the containment field and have Nicci heal you before we do anything else. If you’re right and Sulachan’s forces do get in, we all need you well so that you can fight.”
“You’re right,” Richard said with a sigh. “But Regula is on the way. I just need to stop there first to see that it’s safe and nothing has happened to it, and then we will go right to the containment field. All right?”
Kahlan folded her arms as she peered at him from under her brow for a moment. Finally her arms came unfolded and she shook her head as she was overcome with a smile.
“All right, Richard. We’ll stop on our way if it will make you happy.”
CHAPTER 52
At the bottom of the wedge-shaped, circular stairs, the proximity spheres around the excavated, dead-still room beneath the Garden of Life began to glow. The ancient room made of simple stone blocks had been discovered only when its roof collapsed. It was simple and without any decorations, and they had at first thought it was an abandoned storage room of some kind. There were no doors, and there was no way in except down the narrow shaft of spiral stone stairs.
The first time he had seen the room, it reminded Richard of a crypt of some sort that had been sealed and forgotten. In some ways that was exactly what it was, but it was actually much more than that.
Sitting in the center of the plain room was the imposing, square omen machine. The shielded, heavy metal that housed the power of Regula was decoration enough. Each side of the machine had an emblem in the language of Creation, identifying it, almost as a ward to keep everyone away. Around the edges of the room in neat stacks against the walls were thousands of blank metal strips that when fed through the omen machine allowed it to give prophecy directly.
At one time, the machine must have been used for that purpose. By the supply of blank metal strips, it must have once been in heavy use. Richard wondered how many of the books of prophecy, especially those in the People’s Palace, originated with Regula.
Even if books of prophecy were not directly transcribed from the machine, and even if prophecy was not given directly by the machine, Regula was the conduit bringing prophecy into the world of life. Even if it was buried and no longer used to give prophecy directly, it was still in the world of life generating prophecy through the gifted. Even if it had been sent from the underworld to protect it, its presence still constituted a breach between worlds that, much like the poison of death in him, was slowly working toward the extinction of life.
Richard checked the output tray to see if the omen machine had issued any prophecies in his absence. The slot was empty.
Richard leaned over, placing both hands on the cool metal of the machine’s flat top. At his touch, the ground shook with a hard thud as the machine came to life.
He now knew that the apparatus itself was not really Regula. Regula was an underworld power and there was no such mechanical mechanism in the world of the dead. The machine itself was something that had been built by ancient wizards called makers.
Makers were gifted with the ability to create things that had never been before. Richard’s sword was one such item, an ancillary object, created as a worldly means necessary to interact with the power of Orden. In much the same way, the omen machine was merely a worldly mechanism created by makers to house and protect the actual power of Regula. It was a container, something like the boxes that held the power of Orden, as well as a way for the power of Regula to communicate directly with those in the world of life.
With a dull thud that shook the ground more sharply, light shot up from the center of the machine, like lightning in the near darkness, projecting a symbol in the language of Creation up onto the ceiling. The design, drawn in lines of light, slowly rotated as the gears within turned. It was the same symbol for “Regula” that was etched into the sides of the machine.
Nathan scratched his scalp. “That makes my skin crawl. I’ve been down here countless times since you’ve been gone, Richard. The machine never once stirred. Why would it suddenly start up when you touch it? With that poison in you, your magic doesn’t even work.”