Luck in the Shadows

left hand thoughtfully, looking down at the smooth circle of healed flesh on his own palm.
    At the Orлska House, Nysander insisted on breakfast before anything else. Having fortified himself, he led them into the small casting room and closed the door. Instructing Seregil to remove his shirt, the wizard inspected the troublesome scar closely.
    "This ought to have stayed covered," muttered Nysander.
    "This isn't the first time it's reappeared," Seregil reminded him, staring nervously up at the ceiling while the wizard gently pressed and prodded. A sudden thought occured to him and he reached for Nysander's wrist. "But it didn't when you changed me into old Dakus."
    Nysander shook his head. "That was a lesser transformation. I simply altered your existing appearance."
    "You mean I could end up looking like that someday?"
    "Do be quiet, Seregil! I must concentrate."
    Pressing his hand over the scar, Nysander closed his eyes and waited for any impressions to form. Little came: the streak of a falling star; a flash of the mysterious blue; the faint roar of ocean; the hint of an unfamiliar profile. Then nothing.
    "Well?" demanded Seregil.
    "Just bits and pieces." Nysander massaged the bridge of his nose wearily. "Fragments of memories, perhaps, but nothing to suggest any residual power in these marks. It is most curious. How is your hand, Alec?"
    "Nothing's changed," Alec replied, holding it up for him to see.
    "Most curious indeed," mused Nysander, unruly eyebrows beetling. "The problem must lie in the markings of Seregil's scar."
    Seregil studied them in a hand mirror. "The side of the wooden disk that burned Alec was smooth, no carving at all. But these of mine are getting clearer instead of fainter. Don't you sense any magic at all around it?"
    "None," Nysander answered. "So it must somehow be the configuration of the characters themselves, whatever they are."
    Seregil looked up. "And you truly don't know what they are?"
    "I recognize the sigla, as I have said. What lies beneath it is as much a mystery to me as to you. You have my word on that."
    "Then we're right back where we began," Alec exclaimed in exasperation.
    "Perhaps not," Nysander said softly, touching Seregil's scar a last time, then casting another obscuration over it. "It reappeared after Seregil changed bodies with Thero, and again when he changed back from the owl form. There must be some significance to that, though I do not yet know what it means."
    "It means I'm going to spend the rest of my life trotting back to you to get it covered up again," grumbled Seregil, pulling on his shirt. "I bet Valerius could get it off."
    "You must not do that. Not yet, at least. To destroy it before we understand it could prove most unwise. Bear with it awhile longer, dear boy. Perhaps we may yet solve its riddle. In the meantime, it appears to be doing you no harm."
    "It's done enough of that already!" Seregil scowled. "Take care, Nysander. We'll be close by if you want us."
    Nysander retired to his sitting room after they'd gone. Sinking wearily into an armchair, he rested his head against its back and summoned up the impressions he'd gotten from the scar—the star, the sea sounds, the flash of blue, the hint of a face—
    His head ached. He'd had no rest since the raid and he was exhausted—too exhausted to delve further into the matter. A quick nap here in his chair was called for, he decided. Later, after making the proper preparations, he would meditate further on the matter.
    The quiet of the room enfolded him like a thick, comfortable blanket. The warmth of the fire was like summer sunshine on the side of his face—so pleasant, so soft, like the touch of a woman's lips. As he sank deeper into the welcome languor, he seemed to feel Seregil's chest beneath his hand again, the tiny ridges of the scar brushing his palm. But now Seregil's skin was cold, cold as a marble statue—
    Nysander stirred uneasily in his chair. A vision is coming , he thought in vague dismay. I am too wearyfor visions .
    But it came anyway.
    He was standing in the Orлska's central atrium. Bright sunshine streamed down through the greatdome overhead, warming him deliriously. Other wizards passed by without looking at him. Apprentices and servants hurried past at their daily tasks.
    But then the Voice spoke and all the people around him turned into marble statues.
    The Voice came from somewhere beneath him, a faint, sinister chuckle vibrating up from the depths below the stone floor. He