Chapter Four: The Manifest of the Harikan Squall

"Pure ice harvested from a mountain peak unconquered by men, proven to cure ailments of both the body and the spirit," the man in pink answers. "A single cube costs two silver, but for a proper holistic treatment you will require six cubes, which I would sell you for one gold piece."

"You may consume it. You may apply it directly to wounds or wens. The most optimal method, however, is to place a cube of ice on each of the six points of confluence of bodily energies and allow it to melt naturally."

The man in pink favors Zangua with a patient smile. "It is ice, my friend. To become water again is a fate it cannot avoid."

To Domarc, he explains: "Those beings who dwell upon the mountain gift the ice to the men who commune with them, and from them I am given a portion to sell to the people of Hazard."

"It is an ennobled place, a peak seen often in dreams, but rarely by eyes. The dirt and impurities of the common Werld cannot reach it. There is nothing to the ice but the purest elemental water and the numinous character of the peak and its masters."

"Thank you kindly," the man in pink says. He opens his cart and takes a small cube of ice from the insulated, straw-lined interior, which he places in Zangua's hand. "Should you develop an affinity for curative ice, you will find me here again."

Zangua eats the ice cube.

It has a pleasant, fresh taste. It is very cold and not watery at all; although it has surely been in the handcart for awhile, it feels as if it had been freshly cut from a block and hadn't yet begun to melt.

There is something more to this guy, but I have no idea what it is or how to figure it out.

"Ah...on to the Temple, then?" Makis Meti asks the group.

From the square, Makis Meti leads you to a narrow lane that winds up a low hill behind the Temple of Marduk, past small shrines, a tiny, fenced-in, and very dense graveyard, and several large oak trees, to a large cleared area paved flat with sandstone. The stumps of palm trees that could not survive Bload's climate line either side of the paved area. Before you is a tall obelisk, and past that is the temple itself, the rather compact front doorway flanked by two large pylons painted with colorful murals in the Mezian style. There are about a dozen beggars camped out by the front of the temple, one of whom has a loud, ceaseless hacking cough. A young novitiate in a heavy black wig and a gauzy dress paces in circles around the obelisk, swinging an incense burner.

"Behold, the Temple of Isis," Makis Meti says.