Temple of the Winds

Cara smiled conspiratorially. "A sister of the Agiel must be able to strike fear into people's hearts. Mother Confessor, you wear the Agiel well. I thought I could hear some of their knees knocking all the way up here."

CHAPTER 27

Armor and weapons clattered and clanged as the soldiers following behind marched up the steep cobbled street. Narrow houses, mostly three and four stories, sat cheek by jowl, with the upper floors overhanging the lower so that the topmost almost closed off the sky. It was a gloomy part of the city.

Soldiers throughout the city had cheered their thanks as Richard passed, wishing him good health and long life. Some had wanted to buy him a drink. Some had run up to bow before him and give the devotion: "Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours."

They had hailed him as a great wizard for protecting them and healing their sickness. Richard felt more than a little uncomfortable at their acclaim: he had. after all, simply instructed them to take well-known cures for intestinal distress. He hadn't worked any magic.

He had tried to explain it wasn't magic; that the things they ate and drank had cured them. They would hear none of it. They had expected magic from him. and. in their eyes, they had gotten it. He had finally given up on explaining and took to waving his thanks for their praises. Had they gone to an herb seller, they would no doubt be just as healthy, and complaining about the price.

He had to admit, though, that it did make him feel good to know that he had helped people for a change instead of hurting them. He understood a little of what Nadine must feel when she helped people with her herbs.

He had been warned of a wizard's need for balance. There was balance in all things, but especially in magic. He could no longer eat meat-it made him sick- and suspected it was the gift seeking balance for the killing he sometimes had to do. He liked to think that helping people was part of the balance in being a war wizard.

Sullen people, going about their business, moved to the side of the cramped street, tramping through the dirty snow still in the sheltered places in order to squeeze past the soldiers. Grim-looking groups of older boys and young men watched warily and then vanished around corners as Richard and his escort approached.

Richard absently touched the gold-worked leather pouch on his belt. It contained white sorcerer's sand that had been in the pouch when he found the belt in the Keep. Sorcerer's sand was the crystallized bones of the wizards who had given their lives into the Towers of Perdition separating the Old and New Worlds. It was a sort of distilled magic. White sorcerer's sand gave power to spells drawn with it- good and evil. The proper spell drawn in white sorcerer's sand could invoke the Keeper. He touched the other gold-worked pouch on his belt. A little leather purse tied securely inside contained black sorcerer's sand. He had gathered that sorcerer's sand himself from one of the towers. No wizard since the towers were built had been able to gather any black sorcerer's sand; it could only be taken from a tower by one with Subtractive Magic.

Black sorcerer's sand was the counter to the white. They nullified each other. Even one grain of the black would contaminate a spell drawn with the white, even one drawn to invoke the Keeper. He had used it to defeat Darken Rahl's spirit and send him back to the underworld.

Prelate Annalina had told him to guard the black sand with his life-that a spoonful of it was worth kingdoms. He possessed several kingdoms' worth. He never let the little leather purse containing the black sand out of his sight or his reach.

Children, layered with ragged clothes for warmth against the cold spring day, played catch-the-fox in the tightly hemmed street, running from doorway to doorway, giggling with glee at the prospect of finding the fox, and more so at seeing the impressive procession coming up their very own street. Even seeing happy children didn't bring a smile to Richard's face. "This one. Lord Rahl," General Kerson said.

The general lifted a thumb to a door on the right, set back a few feet into the clapboard face of a building. The faded red paint was flaking off the bottom of the door where the weather worked on it the most. A small sign said: "Latherton Rooming House.

A big, stocky man inside didn't look up from a chair behind a rickety table set with dry biscuits and a bottle. He stared at nothing with red-rimmed eyes. His hair was disheveled and his clothes rumpled. He seemed in a daze. Beyond him was a stairway, and beside that a narrow hall that ran back into darkness. "Closed," he murmured.