I read through my poem again, twice, to get its words firmly into my mind. I shut my eyes, erasing Vanerak. I concentrate hard, trying to imagine the magma seas and the sphere. But nothing comes—I just begin to feel sick. I smell sulfurous fumes, see jagged black shards, but no vision comes.

I open my eyes, gasping and sweating. Vanerak is watching impassively. I screw my eyes up tight again. I will the magma sea to come, for me to sink into its depths. I go through my poem again. No power comes.

Gasping for breath, I slump to my knees. I nearly retch. Where's the power? Where's it gone? In Vanerak's presence it won't show itself.

“If you could... If you wouldn't mind... Stepping back a few paces?” I manage to choke out.

Vanerak takes a single step back.

“I thank you most greatly, my Runethane.”

I stand back up and shut my eyes again. I try to remember what I told myself in the arena when I felt fear of him then. How did I break out of that fugue? I reminded myself of something, something important. What was it?

Try as I might, I cannot recall. I'll have to think of something new then. What?

I find something: I have a power no dwarf has held for a hundred thousand years, and it is my power. Mine alone. Try as he might, watch however closely as he might, Vanerak will never learn it. It is not something that can be learned. It springs forth from me and me alone.

And through it I will surpass him. When I grow great in skill, he shall be my prisoner, and he'll pay for his lies and tortures.

Heat subsumes me, the heat of magma, of deep and hot magma. It's thick and thick with power. Something displaces it, pushing me forward—the sphere. I can feel a coldness behind my back, the metal touching me, and beyond the metal three further coldnesses.

I chant my poem in my head, and alter it. Boiling heat eddies around me and around the lines I chant, and I see the runes twist. They take on new meanings. The runic flow alters, becomes smoother and stronger.

The flake of ice grows tenfold in complexity and fragility. The winds that carry it take on the forms of hands, passing it quickly and carefully from crag to crag, through wind-blown tunnel and over snow-coated spire. It comes to rest on the mountain peak under a dark sky of complete clarity.

I open my eyes. My fingers blur as I hurry to shape the runes. The script is still Volot, yet not quite. There are more flowing curves, less sun-circles. Elements inappropriate for my poem, for the particular objectives and imagery I want, have been culled.

All the while Vanerak watches on. But I will surpass him with this power. He can watch all he likes, but he will never be able to copy what I do.

I hope.

The poem is done. I rest my hands either side of it and breath heavily. My fingers are shaking and twitching. My ruby throbs warmly as it offsets my fatigue—this was combat of a sort, of my fear against my mind.

“Describe to me what you just did,” Vanerak orders.

“I...” I struggle to gain control of my breathing. “I felt the magma around me—”

“At first you did not. Why? And how did you eventually find the power?”

My vision swims. My fear has returned. One word wrong and terrible consequences will follow. As for surpassing him! I feel the solid power surrounding his armor more strongly than ever. It doesn't just surround his armor; it is his armor. There is no distinction between runic power and tungsten; they are one and the same.

“I was afraid,” I say quietly. I should be as honest as I can.

“Of me, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Yet you overcame this fear.”

I shake my head. “I simply ran away from it," I lie. "I told myself that within my power there was no fear. That I could just exist in the magma.”

“And then it took you?”

“Yes. I felt the heat come around me as it always does.”

“I thought it always came around your feet at first, as if you were sinking into it. Has something changed?”

“This time was different,” I say. My mouth has gone dry.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yet you said, 'as it always does.' Or did my ears deceive me?”

“Your ears did not deceive you, my Runethane. I misspoke, that is all. It has been a long time since I last used this power. For a moment I forgot how it usually came upon me.”

“Very well. And did the heat increase after it first subsumed you?”

“The magma grew thicker. Then it grew hotter as my power came forth.”

“Did it come upon you with no warning?”

“Not quite. I chanted my poem in my mind, and then my power came upon me. It swirled around me, changing the runes as I imagined them.”

“You did not consciously choose the design of the runes, however. They changed in their own ways to fit how you wished to improve your poem. Is this correct?”

“You are correct, my Runethane.”

He is silent for a while.

"Is there something wrong, my Runethane?" I say, beginning to feel sick. Has he seen through my lies, my omissions?

"Always when you create the runes you see them in your vision, then hurry to create them once your vision has faded. Is this correct?"

"It is, my Runethane."

"But how much of the new runes remain after your vision has faded?"

"Everything remains."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"I have a good memory for runes."

"But the place your vision takes place in is far from here. Who knows what becomes lost on the way back? Would it not be better to twist the runes while you remain in your trance?"

"My Runethane, with all respect, I do not see how that could be accomplished."

"It will not be if you do not try."

"My Runethane, I don't think it is possible."

"But it may be." He waves his hands over the runes. “This poem is improved. But it can be improved further, the runes made more original, more powerful and fitting. The sensitivity of your runic ears can be improved tenfold. Do you not want this?”

My nausea is increasing with every word he utters. “I'm not sure what you are suggesting, my Runethane.”

“I think I have made it very clear what my wish is. Take this poem and rewrite it while you are in the midst of a trance.”

“I... I don't know how, if—”

"Your greatest craft you have yet made is your ruby amulet. Yet you told me that you were not fully aware of what you were writing when you created it. At that time, you had never yet fallen into your magma trance—all the same, I think it is possible that you were in some kind of trance while you wrote it. Does that not seem likely to you?"

"I mean, maybe that's possible, but my Runethane, my ruby is cruel! I have told you what it drove me to—"

“Your ruby saved your life. You should be thankful to it. You should honor it.”

“My Runethane, I do not see how I can do what you ask!”

“As my runeknight, I expect you to do any task I set you, no matter how unclear the way may be. Some tasks I set my runeknights prove deadly—but that is my prerogative as Runethane. I may order you to do as I please. I have that right, which derives from my superior power. That is how order is maintained, how discipline is kept strict. The weak do as the strong—who are strong through hundreds of years of experience and wisdom—say, or the order of the underworld would disintegrate.

“So as your Runethane, I order you to redo this poem while in a runeforging trance. I am wise and see that you have the capability. You will now exercise it.”

I can see nothing past his mirror-mask. But in his voice there is anger and hunger. It does not sound quite like the voice of a dwarf. It is like the voice of the black dragon.

“Yes, my Runethane,” I whisper.

“Begin,” he orders.

I read over the poem, the new runes. I memorize them fast, like they're how the runes of Volot always were, how they should be. Then I brush them away with a sweep of my arm. They clatter on the floor. They are old runes too now.

I draw out a length of wire and ready my fingers to twist. I shut my eyes. For a few moments I feel nothing; fear still has hold of me. Gradually, however, the heat comes around me regardless. My vision turns into shades of red, orange, yellow and white. The presence of the sphere weighs on me, a solid shadow. I go through the runes, and they twist further—but not far enough, not for what Vanerak wants to see. The power isn't strong enough. I'm not drawing on enough of it.

I will more forth. The colors around me lighten. The heat increases. It becomes pain, like I'm in a bath that's too hot and getting hotter. Far away, I feel a groan escape my lips.

The pain is becoming unbearable. The poem! I must warp the runes. I must put this power into them before it tears me apart. I focus on the first rune. It alters beyond recognition.

Far away, my hands move.

Next rune! It warps as well. This time I don't feel my hands move, but they must have. If they hadn't, if I hadn't released some of this power into the world outside my vision, it would have burned me to ash.

The runes start to move faster through the power, or maybe the power moves more quickly through them—the power, for surely it is not my power, but the real molten power of the world's blood, merely being harnessed by me.

The Runeking was wrong and Vanerak is right. This is not internal power, but the power of magma deep below. My vision is reality.

The white magma grows hotter. Someone far away screams. The final runes pass through the magma, altered in some way I cannot tell right now. The power is still there though, and flowing through me fast. It is starting to burn me up—and my ruby is burning too, against my chest.

It is something solid and real. It is where my body is. I imagine myself swimming up to it, away from the boiling rock and metal of the world's core. It is a drop of vital red amid the merciless heat. I envision myself reaching for it—

I fall backwards. My head cracks on the stone. My skin feels as if aflame. The air inside my lungs is hot and choking. My ruby has gone past heat and become cold. Waves of relief wash out from it, cooling me from within.

“Get him some water,” says Vanerak.

Nazak grabs the back of my head and forces a cup to my mouth. I gulp it down, cough and splutter. He pulls me up and slaps me hard on the back.

“Nearly killed yourself there, runeforger,” he laughs.

I stare at my hands. They've gone red as if burned, though the red fades by a shade with each cold wave that washes through my body from the ruby.

“Stand him up,” says Vanerak. “He should see his own craft. He should feel its power for himself. And he must read its runes to me.”

Nazak grabs me under the armpits and pulls me up. He pushes me toward the anvil. I prop myself up against the cool steel and stare blankly at my craft.

I blink a few times.

I've done it again. I've crafted without being aware of what I was crafting, and this time I have gone farther than ever.

Upon the anvil is a completed set of runic ears, its runes grafted with jasperite and its garnets deftly and complexly inscribed.

And the poem's meaning has changed.