At the exact center of the seal court stood a waist-high granite surveying stone stand with a three-pronged bronze leveling socket leaded into its crown. Chief Examiner Vaska Ren fitted the base of his gimbal-mounted instrument into the socket and tightened the thumb-screws with long, patient fingers that showed no tremor despite his tiredness at the Hollow Summit. Three paces to his left, Hall Mistress Soran planted the butt of her plain iron spear on the flat stone slab. Then she kept her eyes fixed on his jaw and lips. Vaska had surrendered his custody over the testers and over Nara Soth, and Soran’s stance made plain that his hands were allowed to touch Court brass only. Meanwhile, they served the valley’s defense.
Seyun stood beside Daro and Ilyra at the edge of the central lane, his Account Book open against his left forearm and a stick of travel charcoal between his fingers. The instrument on the stone stand was no larger than a saucer. A thick lens of smoky, flaw-free mountain quartz ground in nested steps, set within two counter-rotating rings of dark fire bronze. Unlike the forcing test needles of the summit pillar, the disk carried no silver spirit vein wire and no blood-groove.
