Richard and Kahlan are contentedly enjoying Cara's marriage when a boy named Henrik warns them of dark things to come before scratching them both and running away.

Shortly after these events, prophecies are given by the most unexpected places and people, but appear equally in a book titled End Notes.

After failing to reason with the delegates alarmed by these prophecies, Kahlan and Nicci frighten them into silence with a prediction invented by themselves.

Meanwhile, Richard finds a strange machine underground, bearing an emblem exactly as on a wordbook for translating the language of creation, only reversed.

Richard remembers the machine's last warning, protects his and Kahlan's ears, and cuts the leather strips on the Hedge Maid's mouth, whereupon she emits a terrible shriek and dies.