Luck in the Shadows

Dragon, the Cloud Eye, the Moon Bow.
    Leaning over the nearest brazier, Seregil bathed his face in the smoke, then seated himself to wait for an acolyte to notice him. The floor was polished to mirror smoothness and, looking down, his gaze came to rest on the reflected image of the Cloud Eye— magic, secrets, hidden forces, roads to madness. Accepting the symbol, he meditated on it through half-lidded eyes.
    Instead of the expected flow of thought, however, he suddenly experienced a dizzying sense of vertigo. The smooth black floor turned to bottomless void beneath him. The illusion was so strong that he pressed his palms to the floor on either side of him and focused on the nearest pillar to clear his head. Soft footsteps approached from behind.
    "What do you seek in Illior?" the masked figure asked. His palm, exposed in greeting, showed the green, yellow, and blue detailing of a Third Chamber initiate.
    "To make a thank offering," Seregil replied, rising to present a heavy purse. "And to seek knowledge in the Golden Chamber."
    The acolyte accepted the purse and led him out through the pillars to an audience room at the back of the temple. With a ritual gesture, he bade Seregil be seated on the small bench in the center of the room, then withdrew.
    A carved chair stood on a raised dais at the front of the room. Behind the dais an exquisite tapestry hung suspended between two great pillars, the Columns of Enlightenment and Madness. Worked in the twelve ritual colors, it depicted the Fertile Queen driving her chariot through the clouds of a night sky.
    Presently a corner of the tapestry was pulled back and a robed figure stepped into the room.
    Despite the golden mask covering her features, Seregil recognized the mass of grey hair tumbling over the thin shoulders; this was Orphyria a Malani, oldest of the high priests and maternal great-aunt to Queen Idrilain.
    Regarding him impassively through her mask, the priestess sat down and raised one frail hand to display the completed emblem on her palm.
    "Lend me your light, Blessed One," Seregil said, bowing his head.
    "What would you ask of me, Seeker?"
    "Knowledge pertaining to this." Drawing the little parchment roll from his pouch, he passed it to her.
    On it he'd drawn, to the best of his ability, the symbol from the wooden disk. It was not complete, he knew; from the first time he'd seen the thing it had been impossible to reproduce or even memorize. But perhaps it would be enough.
    Orphyria unrolled it on her knee, gazed at it briefly, then handed it back. "A sigla, obviously, but what it obscures I cannot tell.
    Can you tell me something of it?"
    "That's not possible," Seregil replied. He had stretched his oath to Nysander far enough for now.
    "Then perhaps the Oracle?"
    "Thank you, Blessed One." Rising from the bench, he bowed deeply and headed back to the central chamber of the temple.
    Orphyria did not rise until the Seeker had gone. It became more of an effort each day, it seemed. Soon she would have to swallow her pride and allow some young acolyte to assist her. Reflecting sourly on the price of a wise old age, she stumbled as she pulled back the tapestry and barked her knee painfully against the Pillar of Madness.
    Seregil had always suspected that the stairs leading down to Illioran Oracle's chamber had been designed to test the fortitude of the Seekers who had to descend it. Wedge-shaped steps scarcely wide enough to accommodate a man's foot spiraled tightly down into blackness below. The steps nearest the top were made of marble, but these soon gave way to speckled granite as the shaft descended into the bedrock beneath the city.
    Grasping a ritual lightstone in one hand, Seregil pressed the other firmly against the curved wall of the stairwell as he made his way down in reverent silence. At the bottom a narrow corridor led off into darkness. No light burned there, and it was required that the Seeker leave the lightstone in the basket at the base of the stairs before proceeding. Before he relinquished it, however, Seregil sat down on the bottom step to arrange the necessary items for the Oracle.
    Custom dictated that items for divination by the Illioran Oracle must be presented as part of a collection. The Oracle would separate the item of import without being told which it was.
    Fishing through various pockets and pouches, Seregil found a harp peg, a bit of Alec's fletching, a ball of waxed twine, a bent pick he'd meant to leave on the worktable, and a