Stone 5

**Chapter 5**

We shift to someone named Sister Margaret, who is wandering around somewhere in the middle of the night. She meets a guard, and we learn that *“the Prophet”* has been calling for *“the Prelate.”* The guard seems quite alarmed by what the Prophet has been saying, so Sister Margaret threatens to have him executed if he speaks of it. Sounds like a nun to me.

We learn that the Prophet's guards are sworn to never repeat anything they hear him say, and that the Prophet has figured out how to get his voice through the shields. Sister Margaret orders our unnerved guard reassigned, since *“you are obviously not cut out for this duty.”* He swears to never repeat anything he's heard and runs off.

Sister Margaret continues on and meets two more Generic Goons, er, I mean, guards. We know *these* guards are bad news, since they offer to murder the previous guard. Worse, they speak fluent Goonish: *“You want we should make it so's he don't hear nothin' again? Or speak it?”*

Remember kids, people who speak like that are evil and untrustworthy.

Sister Margaret heads into the Prophet's quarters, stopping to patch up the flaw in the magical shields he was communicating through. The quarters are opulent, rosewood table, padded chair, etc. The Prophet appears, an we learn that his name is Nathan. He has long, straight, white hair, azure eyes, and is clean-shaven. He wears black robes and a collar, and we're told that he's *“ruggedly handsome...despite being the oldest man [Sister Margaret] had ever known.”*

He's also either mad, or so clever he can convince everyone he's mad. Not sure why he would want to do that, but we shall see. Anyway. Sister Margaret thinks he's probably the most dangerous man alive.

Nathan and Margaret have some pointless sexual banter, and Nathan asks her to send him a prostitute. She first claims that *“It is not the task of the Sisters to procure harlots for you,”* but then refers to a previous time when they did just that. Apparently Nathan told her something, after promising not to tell her any prophecies, and she spread whatever he said and it started a civil war. *“Nearly six thousand people died.”* Call me callous, but that seems remarkably low for a civil war.

Nathan professes to know nothing of this, and says that he doesn't have a prophecy to share. After some more juvenile banter, Nathan reveals dramatically that *“There has been a fork in the prophecies.”* This alarms Margaret, and we get an infodump on how prophecies work.

*“Some prophecies were 'if' and 'then' prophecies, bifurcating into several possibilities. There were prophecies that followed each branch...*

*“Once one of these kinds of prophecies came to pass and resolved which fork was to be true, and one of the alternative prophecies took place, a prophecy had forked, as it was called. All the prophecies that followed down the path that had been voided now became false prophecies...”*

This doesn't sound like how prophecies are supposed to work, but I'll let it go since it's not a terrible idea. Certainly no worse than “this will happen,” and that's that.

So anyway, the point is that a forked prophecy renders a whole bunch of other prophecies invalid, and it can take weeks or months to figure out which ones. Nathan declares that this affects *“a core prophecy. There could be none more important.”* But! Nathan knows which fork is the false fork, and what has already happened. We get Ye Standard Prophetic Gibberish, which clearly refers to the events of the previous book. Interestingly, Nathan says that the prophecy has taken *“the worst [fork].”* Apparently the options were: Darken Rahl wins, or the Keeper of the underworld wins. If the latter occurs, *“Salvation's hope, then will be as slim as the white blade of the one born True.”*

This is interesting (random capitalization aside) since it obviously refers to Richard, but I'm not sure I'd call him *“born True,”* whatever that's supposed to mean. He grew up ignorant of his real father, or his real (maternal) grandfather. He bears the Sword of Truth that has nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of truth. All in all, a pretty shaky connection.

This prophecy goes on to say *“Of all there were, but a single one born of the magic to bring forth truth will remain alive when the shadow's threat is lifted. Therefore comes the greater darkness of the dead. For there to be a chance at life's bond, the one in white must be offered to her people, to bring their joy and good cheer.”* Hearing this Sister Margaret recognizes “the one in white” as a reference to the Mother Confessor.

Yes, the Teflon wedding dress is so awesome that it's mentioned in the prophecies. \~/

Sister Margaret speculates that the prophecy means the Mother Confessor will be married. Nathan laughs and mocks her and the other Sisters, comparing them to chickens who think they understand higher mathematics. He offers to show her the prophecy (I thought there was no prophecy?), rather than just tell her about it. Sister Margaret looks into Nathan's eyes, and we get a brief recap of events from the last book: the slaughtered Confessors; Darken Rahl with the three magic boxes; Kahlan happy and in love; Kahlan beheaded...

Wait; what? One of these things is not like the other ones...

Apparently it is destined that the people will rejoice to see the Mother Confessor beheaded. This is clearly supposed to be a shocking revelation, but I find that I can bear the prospect with great serenity, since the Confessors are such demonstrably horrible people. Also, I don't believe it will actually happen. Anyway, Sister M wants Nathan to do his hypnosis-prophecy-holodeck routine for the other Sisters, but he refuses. They squabble about it for a while, and she finally agrees.

There's some more chatter, and Sister Margaret promises to deliver Nathan's message to the Prelate, that message being: *“the pebble is in the pond.”* Sounds like code to me. The duck flies at midnight. The eagle has landed. Maybe Nathan's a spy.

Nathan then shows some bitterness, claiming that *“all the Creator's gifts are tainted,”* and that he's not convinced that the Creator is better than the Keeper. I haven't mentioned it yet, since it's boring, but it appears that Sister Margaret and the other Sisters serve the Creator in some nun-like fashion. Yay, religion! Finally! Vague, unspecified religion, but religion nonetheless.

Hereafter, the Sisters will be referred to as Nuns.

Nathan asks Sister Margaret to hire him a prostitute, and there's some disturbing talk that reinforces the whole “sex equals love” concept. \~/ Margaret promises to personally hire Nathan's prostitute, and to make sure *“she will not be empty between the ears.”* Because brains are what you want in your hired sex workers, right?

Yes, the nun just promised to hire a prostitute for the wizard. That's *got* to be a drink. \~/

Nathan implies that he told his last prostitute whatever he told her, and caused the death of nearly six thousand people, because one of the woman who died would otherwise have had a child who would grow up to become a brutal tyrant and *“go on to torture and slaughter tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of innocent people.”* So...I guess predestination is the rule in this world. No free will; no fighting destiny. *Que sera, sera.* What will be, will be.

Drinks: 3

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