I take a break from the forge to work on my runes. If they're to resist the heat of the magma seas, they're going to have to be better than any I've yet made. Or rather, have more potential than any I've yet made. Whether they resist the heat or not is up to the dwarf who composes with them, after all.
On a piece of paper I've made a list of all the scripts in the dictionaries on my bookshelf, along with their themes and form-family:
Upper Balhalgal – A so-called general script. It has a limited vocabulary for the deeper meanings of words, though it is broad. A great many pieces of rusted equipment have been recovered that use this script, though none are thought to have been especially powerful. Each rune is composed of lines branching out from a central line, placing this script in the crystalline family of forms.
Lower Balhalgal – Another general script, though with a deeper vocabulary than Upper Balhalgal. It has runes for many variations on words for blood, and cutting. The author of the dictionary says this bias is not from the script itself but because its sources, mainly weapons. Each rune is composed of lines branching from an opened square, placing this script in the containment family of forms.
Golthog – A script from the jungle caverns of the south. It has runes for many words relating to poison and sharpness. It's closely related to the two below scripts, which are also from the south. The verbiage it has runes for is aggressive in nature. Each rune is composed of lines branching out from a central line, placing this script in the crystalline family of forms, though it is in unorthodox fashion written right to left and left to right on mirrored lines, boustrophedon.
...and so on for forty more scripts. Some have a theme, a particular goal they're orientated towards, but none are as focused on one element as my script of ice was. This makes plenty of sense. The more words you can use a script to write, the more flexibility you'll have with your compositions. That's why the most popular scripts in the underworld are those with extensive vocabularies.
So maybe I should make my next script a more general one. But if I do that I'll be going against my instincts. When I created the powerful rune for salz, cold, it was because I'd focused strongly on cold, and furthermore on certain aspects of it.
Do I go with my instincts or with what's written in the dictionaries?
I pace around the room, but only once. The answer is obvious. The dwarves who wrote these dictionaries were not the Runeforger. They are looking at his work from a hundred thousand years' distance, and only pieces of his work too. Whereas I have forged runes for myself. I know how to make one strong. I focus on one particular element.
Besides, even if that's not what the first Runeforger did, I am the second. It is possible my power works slightly differently.
Except this method poses a problem—the only element down here is magma, and my script is to be one to help its users ward off the heat of magma. Not increase it, or imbue its power into their weapons.
A solution will come. I'm sure of it. One always does when it comes to runic poems, if you think hard enough. I'll have to search for it though, and I'll search for it through reflection on the element itself.
I call on Nazak:
“What is it?” he demands.
“Honored runeknight, thank you for coming so promptly.”
“Answer my question.”
“I need to go back down to the shore.”
“No.”
“It is for my new armor, and the new runes I'm going to create for them.”
“It's too dangerous for now. Forge some different runes.”
“I don't need to go onto the shore. Just to the window.”
“It's too dangerous right now. A particulary nasty salamander has made the shore its hunting grounds. A dozen miners and two lower degree runeknights have already found themselves in its belly.”
“Surely it will not get past the doors. Nor past the guards.”
“It is too great a risk.”
“If I am not allowed down to the shore, then I cannot make the runes I need. Which our Runethane needs.”
“Make some different runes then! Or if you want magma, you have a magma forge.”
“My runes based on magma will be more powerful, and I need to look upon the grandeur of the whole ocean for them. My power comes from magma, you know. Hasn't our Runethane told you that?”
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“I think he has, now that I recall. Fine then! If our Runethane gives permission. And only after the salamander is dealt with.”
“When will that be?”
“After someone slays it! When else? Have some patience for once.”
----------------------------------------
About a long-hour later or so Nazak returns to tell me that Vanerak has dealt with the salamander himself.
“It must have been quite the beast to require our Runethane's personal attention,” I say.
“Not at all. He has just been bored, I think, by a lack of action. Needed to get his pollaxe wet.”
“I see.”
“Get moving. I have my own forging to get back to.”
Guards close around me as Nazak leads me from my quarters. We wind down the black corridors. As always, miners and other runeknights hurry to get out of our way. The heat increases as we descend, and my skin starts to tingle with anticipation. I lick my lips. I'm approaching power, runic power. My power!
We come to the corridor that passes the crowded miners' dormitories. I notice that each of the doors has been opened. And unlike the time I passed through here before, the miners are not asleep, not sprawled on their bunks still in their dirty foilsuits. Instead they stand and stare.
I hear a few whispers:
“They say he used to be a miner...”
“The runeforger returned...”
“A miner...”
“A miner who killed a dragon...”
Nazak turns furiously to the nearest door. “I hear you whispering!” he shouts. “Miner scum! This is the traitor, not some great hero. He is the lowest of the low, even lower than you. So cease your babbling! The next miner I hear speak will lose his head!”
The doors slam shut. Nazak glares at me.
“I can't help what they say!” I say. “And I'm no miner either.”
“Once a miner, always a miner. Once a traitor, always a traitor.”
“Yes, honored runeknight.”
We move on into the hall before the shore. It's just as busy as I remember it being, filled with dwarves shoveling down food and gulping down ale between trips outside, inspecting foilsuits or suits of armor for tears or cracks, or readying nets, hooked poles, and weapons. At the front dwarves are placing their findings in collection boxes. Scribes, who I didn't notice on my last visit, or maybe whom I just forgot about, are scribbling down who has found what.
There seems to be very little organization—it's every dwarf for himself. I imagine that the more useful your find is, the more you get reimbursed. Probably this does not exactly encourage cooperation.
“Get a move on, traitor miner,” says Nazak. “Over to the window.”
He and the guards march me over to the long strip of quartz. It's stained by black dots. I wonder if they're of salamander blood, or just magma splatter from one of the eruptions that sometimes rumble the stone of my quarters and make my desk quiver as I work.
I press up close to the crystal so they don't disturb my view. I focus. I concentrate on the great magmatic seascape, drinking in what I see. The molten stone ripples slowly, moved by great forces below, shiftings of heat and pressure and toxic fumes. Everything is constant slow movement. I focus harder, and come to understand that there are different types of magma here, mixtures of different stone, as different from each other as oil is to water is to blood is to bile. Some magmas are thin and hot, some cooler—relatively—and thick, some are pregnant with gas bubbles and some are so solid a dwarf could not sink into them no matter how high he dived from.
Until now I've thought of magma as being like liquid fire. This is entirely wrong. Fire and magma may both be the same color, completely destructive, and produce terrible heat, but fire is ephemeral. It burns and is gone. Magma's power is deeper and slower. It bides its time, building in pressure and heat, until it bursts forth with a destructiveness that quick-lived fire could never hope to wield.
Slow, steady heat. That's its main strength, and thus my script will have a hundred different runes for heat. Every word there is for it, and runes for combinations of words too. Such runes are always unwieldy, but they're powerful, and skilled runeknights will be able to make good use of them.
As for deflecting heat—runes also represent the words for grammatical structures. Usually these runes have little power of their own, but they are vital to not just the poetic language but also to the direction of runic flow.
I will build a negative version of each rune also, if I can, and I think I can. Heat will stand opposite not-heat in the dictionary, molten-glow will oppose molten-glow-darkened. I look up at the rippled black cavern ceiling, and the reversed mountains that dip into the ocean below. Magma can be stilled.
When I return to my forge, I will scoop out some of the magma and watch it solidify to understand how magma becomes not-magma better, understand how its heat dies. Understand this, and I'll understand how to build grammatical negatives into each verb and noun of heat.
I open my eyes wider. I listen closely, to try and pick up the sea's bubbling, gurgling, distant roaring. I place my hands against the dark stone to feel the heat better.
Closer! I must get closer! As close at the runeknight beachcombers are, waist-deep in magma casting their nets out far.
After my armor is complete I shall get close. My first script of magma, the one I'm about to make for my first armor, will be a mere lesser version. My second script will be supreme, however, and equal to anything the first Runeforger made.
For a long while I stand pressed to the quartz, feeling the magma through my every sense, though they are dulled by distance.
There is a screeching sound as the doors out open. I bask in the sudden rush of heat and fumes—I realize that my script must describe the latter also. Runes for those words will add great flexibility.
The doors slam down shut. The fumes and heat fade, and my concentration, held for so long, finally falters and is broken. I pull away from the window and breath deep. My muscles are stiff.
“Finished?” Nazak asks.
“Yes. I think so.”
One of the dwarves who just came through meets my eyes through his visor. It's of course Hayhek—I recognize the rubies on his breastplate. I nod in greeting. He raises a hand in reply. The movement is tired; his muscles are weary. His steps, and the steps of the others of his group, are stumbling. And I can smell the sweat and sulfur on them even from two dozen paces away.
They don't seem to have found much in the way of artifacts either. A few clutch small shards, but that's about it. All that exhaustion, and for such little pay.
I am not the only one being worked to the bones by Vanerak. Miners and runeknights of all degrees alike suffer for his will.
Nazak turns abruptly. One of Hayhek's group is striding out towards us. His hands are not at his weapon, but even so there is violence and purpose to his movements.
“Balhu!” Hayhek shouts. “What are you doing?”