The Omen Machine

Henrik didn’t question where he was going, or why; for that matter, he didn’t even think about it— he simply started down. Since that first day when he had scratched the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor and then dashed away, he hadn’t questioned what he was doing or the need to run. Crossing the Azrith Plain, he hadn’t even questioned where he was running. He had simply run from the hounds. He had instinctively known that if he’d taken another course they would have had him. In his mind, there had been only one possible direction to run and he had taken it.

By the time he made it to the bottom his face was covered with sweat and grime. He’d looked back a few times and had seen the short-haired brown dog that was usually near the front of the pack. Both the black and the brown dogs, the two leaders, were powerfully built, with thick necks. Long frothy drool swung from their jowls as they snarled when they caught sight of him.

That quick glimpse was all Henrik needed to bound down the trail as fast as he could, slipping downward between rock outcroppings at a reckless rate. In places he had simply let himself slide down the steep funnel of dirt and scree because it was faster.

He finally stumbled off the precipitous path onto a flatter area among vines and tangles of brush. The air was oppressive. The place stank with rot.

Out under the deep shade of thick growth he could see trees with broad, flaring bottoms that seemed made to help them balance in the soft, boggy areas. Here and there cedars grew on patches of slightly higher ground, but the broad-bottomed trees were the only ones standing in the stagnant stretches of foul-smelling water. Their gnarled branches, extending outward not far above the water, held veils of moss. In places the moss dragged in the water. In other places, twisting vines hung down all the way to the water from somewhere in the canopy above, providing support for smaller vines with deep violet flowers.

Lizards darted up the wispy trailers of plants as he came close. Snakes, lounging over branches, tongues flicking the air, watched him pass. Things under the water swam lazily away, leaving a wake of quiet ripples that lapped at the soggy trail.

The deeper into the wooded bog he went, the thicker the tangle of shoots and vines grew as they closed in from the sides, making the way in a tunnel through the snarl of woody growth. Out beyond, unseen birds let out sharp calls that echoed across the still stretches of water.

Behind, the hounds sounded like they were in a rabid rage to get to him.

He paused in the dark tunnel of dense woods, uncertain if he dared go on.

Henrik knew where he was. Before him, the tangle of growth and trailers of vine marked the outer fringe of Kharga Trace. He had heard from his mother that a person had to have a powerful need to go into this place, because not many ever came out again. He and his mother had been two of the lucky ones who had made it back out, making it seem all the more foolish to tempt fate twice.

His heart pounding, his breath coming in rapid pulls, he stared ahead with wide eyes. He knew what was waiting for him.

Jit, the Hedge Maid, was waiting for him.

There was only one thing worse than facing the Hedge Maid again: the certainty of being torn apart and eaten alive by the pack of dogs chasing him.

He could hear them getting closer. He had no choice. He plunged ahead.

CHAPTER 50

After a frightening race along the trail as it tunneled in places through the dense growth, the landscape opened somewhat as he reached some of the more open stretches of water. The trail, never more than inches above the muddy water, was gradually taken over by tangled roots, sticks, vines, and branches all woven together into a mat that made a walkway of sorts. Without it, the solid ground of the trail in places would simply have vanished beneath stretches of duckweed. As it was, the pathway of sticks and vines barely cleared the surface of the dark brown water.

Henrik worried about what would happen should he slip off the trail of tangled shoots and branches. He worried about what waited in the water for the unwary, or the careless.

He was so tired, so afraid, that only raw fear kept his feet moving. He wished he could be back, safe, with his mother. But he couldn’t stop or the hounds would get him.

While the stick and vine walkway was in places wide enough for several people to walk abreast, much of it was only wide enough for one person. In those narrow places where it became a bridge over stretches of open water, there were sometimes handholds or even rails made of crooked branches, lashed by thin vines to supports sticking up out of the tangle of wood underfoot. The whole thing creaked and moved as he made his way farther out onto it, as if it were a partially submerged monster displeased to have someone walking on its back.